Potpourri for you: Armstrong and Miller, Days of Noah, The Seventies

This is a good article. It begins this way

Noah’s Neighbors & the Moral Barometer
By Dean T. Olson

One of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded struck Japan in March 2011. It was so powerful that it moved the entire planet by shifting its axis over 6 inches and shoving Honshu, the main island of Japan, 13 feet to the east. The tremor was so violent that it actually sped up the rotation of the planet and shortened the length of that day. As one of the most powerful ever recorded, the Tohoku earthquake devastated the region and demolished the Fukushima nuclear plant leading to a deadly release of radioactivity. 18,000 people died or are missing. Fears of a meltdown of Japan’s nuclear power plants wrought by the damage from the quake spiked sales of iodine pills in America. At the same time, bloodshed and violence escalated in Libya and Syria and threatened to rend the shabby dictatorships across the Middle East. Meanwhile bees are mysteriously disappearing and frogs are mutating accompanied by massive die-offs of birds and fish at widely dispersed locations around the world. Mysterious sounds emanating from the heavens and the earth are reported worldwide. And the sale of doomsday bunkers continues to surge. What is going on?

I don’t know any more than you do. But I have some suspicions. To understand what is transpiring we may need to pull our Bibles from those dusty boxes in the attic. I don’t say that lightly because suggesting that we may be witnessing Biblical prophecy unfolding is to risk the sideways glances of friends and neighbors who assume that early onset dementia has blunted one’s faculties. Such prejudices are not without merit based on the folly of misguided date-setters and millenarians who perennially, and incorrectly, predict the end of world.

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I liked this one too--

Prudent people will examine their faith
By Mike Gendron

Whenever I meet Roman Catholics, I ask them if they were born into the religion or if they choose it. Almost always they say they were born a Catholic.

I then ask, "Have you ever examined your faith with the Bible to see if it is true saving faith?" Almost always the answer is, "No." coupled with various responses suggesting "the Catholic Church is the one true church" or "how can one billion Catholics be wrong?" These responses are very troubling when we consider that people can be wrong about a lot of things in this life and still survive, but if they are wrong about their eternal destiny, they will pay for that irreversible mistake forever and ever! The Lord Jesus said the gate to heaven is narrow and very few find it (Mat. 7:14). This is due in part because very few look for it. Instead they follow the masses on the broad road to destruction.

God's Word says, "The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps" (Proverbs 14:15). People who are lost in religion blindly accept what man says without testing their words with God's Word.

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How about a few thoughts on Music Worship?

Hey Church Musician, You’re Leading Worship Too!
by Stephen Miller

There are few things more confusing to me than watching a worship team standing on the platform, and seeing the face of a worship leader who has all of his being in engaged in worship of God. But then as I survey the rest of the team, I see a bass player with a too-cool-for-school scowl on his face or a guitar player with a sheepishly bewildered or bored look on his face. Or a keys player whose face is completely expressionless, glued to a sheet of music.

They are all worshiping the same God, right?

As believers, we are all leaders of worship. Whether standing on the platform or in the congregation, we are all collectively encouraging one another to enter into the kind of full heart, mind, soul and strength demonstration of adoration that our God desires.

This is magnified from the platform. As the privilege of influence increases, so does the responsibility of leadership. That is not confined to vocalists.

The “worship leader” is not the only one leading worship. Bass players… Keys players… Drummers… Guitarists… You’re leading worship too.

Here is a wonderful photo from the National Archives, series called "National Archives: Searching for the Seventies"

Caption: "Gasoline stations abandoned during the fuel crisis in winter of 1973–74 were sometimes used for other purposes. This station at Potlatch, Washington, west of Olympia, was turned into a religious meeting hall. Signs painted on the gas pumps proclaim ‘Fill up with the Holy Ghost . . . and Salvation.' Potlatch, Washington, April 1974. (David Falconer/National Archives/Records of the Environmental Protection Agency"

Look at more photos from the 70s here.

Saw this on Challies. Armstrong & Miller is a satirical comedy sketch show on BBC One.