So turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

Today’s post is hard to write. It’s been coming to me over the last month, and the delay in sitting down and hammering it out is that I want you to know my heart in these things, to comfort the disturbed, and to disturb the comfortable…. and all of it with a heart of love and passion. No small mission, if I may say so myself.

Since as long as I can remember, I’ve been playing video games. Somewhere along the way (also as long as I can remember), it became an addiction. Something I woke up to, something I went to sleep to, thinking and dreaming about. The nearly-only source of entertainment day and night was some form of gaming. It interfered with work, school, relationships, and worst of all – my spiritual life. This wasn’t clear in the midst of it, though.

Sometime about 4 months ago, the Lord called me to fast from gaming… something I had tried several times before with varying degrees of success. But this time, it is giving birth to freedom, to new life, to a new Eric. It’s been amazing! Freedom in prayer and hearing from the Lord! A new spiritual depth and endurance I have never known before.

And that freedom is what I want to communicate to you. You see, I would wager a large number of you reading this have something in your life like video gaming – it may not be an addiction, but it’s the default activity that fills your life when nothing else does. It could be TV, reading, exercise, sports, writing, Facebook, texting, or any of 100 other things. None of these things are bad – unless they are keeping you from knowing the Lord more fully!

I can recall countless times in my life that the Lord would call me to prayer or to read the Word and I would say to myself, “I’ll just game for alittle while, then prayer after that.”… but that’s not how it works. The desire fades, and I would never do it.

But what’s been amazing, is that now the gaming is out of the way, when I respond to those nudges, THE LORD ALWAYS SHOWS UP. EVERY SINGLE TIME. It’s never a waste. I’ve received amazing guidance for the course of my life in small and large things, seen visions that encouraged individuals and the Body of Christ itself, seen my wife grow in maturity and discernment and the prophetic. We know the Lord better.

So where does this end? Two encouragements:

It’s worth it, every time. – Whatever hard thing the Lord is calling you to or from, it’s always worth it. You know that stuff about the mind of Christ, and the peace that surpasses understanding? It’s true. Love abounding more and more? True. Deep calling to deep? True.

Don’t give up! – The Lord’s heart is to bind up the brokenhearted, the down-trodden, the depressed. He’s for you, not against you. Trust him in the crappy, horrible, dirty times! It will get better!

I’d love to discuss these things further. Shoot me an email or find me on Facebook! http://www.facebook.com/erichenderson

God has been bringing to mind the relational ways that we are sanctified, that is made holy. The two most common of these are marriage and child-rearing. Both require an enormous amount of sacrifice to another person at the expense of yourself. And when the believer does either of these two things well, we die to ourselves and become more Christ-like.

Today, I’d like to discuss a third type of relationship that can sanctify and bear fruit – when Christian brethren dwell together in the same home, or at least very proximal to one another. When they share cooking, shopping, cleaning, space, time, discipline of children (!), and much more.

If one of my housemates pisses me off, there’s no going back to my home and complaining about it to my wife in private (as was the case if the “offense” [term used very lightly] happened during Sunday School)… it will be dealt with quickly, as its going to cause friction in every interaction every day until resolved. I’ve been angered and angered enough people to guarantee that that will happen if a home is to function.

Ultimately for every person that’s added to a house, that’s one more set of concerns, quirks, desires, and pet peeves that the entire rest of the house must be aware of and think of when making decisions. To make it work, all of the members must be willing to submit to one another in many many small things. Suddenly my decision to:

-stay up late,
-get a new job,
-get a new car,
-stop eating certain types of foods,
-have people over to our home,
-believe a certain thing,
-not be able to stand a certain thing

all effect more people than just myself, my wife, and my children. They effect everyone I live with and may live with in our community.

That’s not to say its always hard and its all about dying to yourself and sacrifice. Much like marriage and children, when it’s good, its really good. I’ve grown closer to people that I have lived with/am living with than I could have ever expected to if we hadn’t lived together. We’ve laughed till we’ve cried, gotten the most amazing hugs from their children, and made some of the best home movies ever. We gather to pray in good times and bad, and we cook and clean for one another. It’s such a blessing.

Well, that’s the end of the post! Mostly.

(Theological footnotes: These are the benefits of communal living [partially], but not why we do it. We do it because we feel this is what God has called us to. We don’t believe Christians living communally is a command of the Bible generally for all everywhere, but that some of the language used to describe the church gathering in Acts 2 can be mimicked by living communally. To become a part of our church, there’s no requirement or expectation that you will live communally, and no condemnation if you don’t.)

When I use the word “church” in title, I’m referring to the the following things – the name, the structure, the doctrinal statement, your building (or your house!), sermons, traditions, the organization. Even crazies like us at our church have these things.

So what does God care about? He cares about people. He cares about his glory. He cares about people repenting and turning toward him. He cares about what he’s called his people to, whatever that may be. He cares about his Word.

So the next time you’re at church, look around. Are the things you do pushing you closer to God, or just taking up time/causing division/distracting you from the Lord himself? If they aren’t drawing you closer to God, why keep doing them? Aren’t these things just going to burn when it’s all said and done? I’m writing this just as much to myself as I am to you.

The reason we’re so ga-ga for our particular way of life and church is that it spurs each person individually and corporately to seek the Lord and to worship him. It pushes us to be dependent on him showing up for it to work. We believe, both scripturally and experientially, that this is what God is calling us to and what God desires for our church body.

We believe the Lord has spent the last two years tempering our church and dealing with some deep things in us personally and relationally. He’s taught us how to rely on him, he’s taught us how to rely on one another, he’s raised up leaders from the quiet and meek. He’s drawn the wayward toward repentance. He’s led us through times of prayer and fasting. He’s teaching us how to exercise our spiritual gifts.

And recently we’ve begun to sense him turning to change our focus. It has been a time to gather stones, but he’s turning us toward scattering stones, turning our focus outward. Part of that is people seeking us out because God is leading them. Part of that is discipling and mentoring, which we’re just on the front edge of. Part of it is outreach. Part of it might be you. One of the values we hold dear to is hospitality – so I offer you an open invitation – we’d love for you to come visit us. From wherever, whenever you like, with you and as many friends as you’d like. We don’t even need very long notice – just give me a call on my cell phone: 770-309-8213

So at the end of the day, what am I saying? Am I saying your church is un-biblical? Am I saying we’re the best and you should quit your church and join ours? No. I don’t know your church and I certainly don’t think we’re the best.

What I am saying is that I want you and your church body to be in the center of God’s will as both revealed in scripture and revealed to you personally by his Spirit. If you’re there, then by all means don’t change what you’re doing at ALL! But if you’re not, don’t just assume that that’s how it has to be. Sometimes the answer is to take it before God. Sometimes the answer is to bring it before the leadership of the church. Bottom line – God knows what he wants for you. Ask him, if you have his Spirit within you, you can hear from him. Ask him!

I’ll close out with a quote from one of those brothers I mentioned above. Britt said it best in his excellent Weekend at Bernies Christianity post:

At some point when I discuss these things, I get the usual statement from some: “Well, everyone is different. There’s no right way.” That sounds all nice and inclusive, but it can only go so far. I’ll give an example.

To be healthy you need to eat right, exercise, and sleep well. Lack in these areas cause problems, even serious problems unto death. There is plenty of freedom within these principles of health (what healthy foods you eat, when or how you exercise, etc). But to use that freedom to then justify eating junk food, complete inactivity, and insomnia is dangerous. There are some really creative arguments in the Church today as if living in an abusive way is healthy. And they love the one example they can find of the lady who lived in complete gluttony and self abuse and grew to be a hundred and eighty. Never mind the overwhelming majority of other people who have seen fruit from healthy living or died young from cancer or something from the lack of it.

The Bible says God has “ways.” Christ named Himself “the Way”. One of the names of the early believers had to do with their following the Way. There are ways, right ways, to do things, that are of Christ and not of you. And they produce fruit if you will follow those ways and try your best not to mix His ways with your own, or anyone else’s, really.

I have little to lose by calling dead things dead. I have everything, eternally, however, to gain by calling that which is of life, Life. Those that very creatively prop up Bernie can do what they do, but I’d rather tell the party-goers he’s dead and deal with whatever consequences occur. Better in the long run.

So I’ve stopped trying. Anytime I would otherwise have sought to persuade you of, I now take to God and intercede on your behalf. If it’s even worth discussing, He’s the only one who will be able to make you able to hear it. I could link a bunch of examples of the type of stuff I’m talking about, but that seems counter to the point of this post.

Either you’ve already set your heart against it and there’s no point arguing, or you don’t care and there’s no point trying to make you care. The beauty of being led by the Lord is that he is fully capable of leading me to the people who aren’t against it and do care – and He does. You may have your own ideas of what “it” is, but trust me, I have no one specific “it” in mind. This applies to any spiritual concept, even salvation itself.

The challenge seems to be in doing more than one thing well – here’s some examples of pairs of things that hard to do both well in one day:

work vs. family
time with friends vs. time with family
strategy/tactics vs. putting fires out/dealing with emergencies

Are you able to consistently accomplish two opposite tasks per day? More than two?

The recommendation was to consider taking Ambrotose, the headline product made by a company called Mannatech as a potential way to alleviate some of the issues Heather’s been having. His wife had had similar issues and had noticed a difference when taking Ambrotose.

A little background info – Over the past few years, I’ve had a decent number of friends (7-10) purchase Mannatech products and said that they had see a difference in their life. During the time that I first heard of Mannatech and heard a sales pitch for it, I did what I do for most things I don’t know much about – I researched it. This process tends to be a bit more detailed when said thing desires money from me =). This was in 2006/2007.

Before I get in to what my research “found”, a brief aside – I am a cynic by nature, and my primary means of researching topics tends to be through the Internet. I realize these two traits means that I could pretty much disprove any idea or theory anyone ever had, by finding some whacko writing about how it’s untrue on some no-name blog. As such please bear with me and keep that in mind, and I’ll do my part to try and be impartial and present the truth – if that’s possibe.

So anyway, at the time of my first hearing of Mannatech, my research was generally inconclusive. The company was not well-known, and there was not a large amount of information on non-Mannatech websites. I’ll freely admit that I was skeptical from the beginning. Furthermore, Heather and I were in generally decent physical health, and didn’t really have the money to put forth $50 to $100 every-other-month for something we didn’t truly need.

Since that time, out of curiosity, I’ll google a few words related to the topic every couple months – specifically, Mannatech, glyconutrients, etc. I’ll check the wikipedia articles, and find forums where the topics are discussed back and forth, by supporters and detractors.

Given that the below points get kind of wordy, I’ll go ahead and summarize as succinctly as I can:

Though I have reasons to be completely in doubt of Mannatech and the glyconutrients they market, I cannot say for sure that their products are fraudulent. The anecdotal evidence provided by my friends would indicate that they can have a positive effect, but points #2 and #3 listed below makes it difficult for me to support a company with a growing history of deception and use of multi-level marketing to sell it’s products.

That said, here’s the things that I’ve found over the past three years that support what I’ve just said above. Read on if you care, stop now if you don’t =).

1. There is a disconnect in the science presented by Mannatech. This first and foremost reason tends to be the purpose of me googling terms about Mannatech. A study that decisively proves that taking glyconutrients would raise energy levels, or cure a disease, or anything would go a very long way to silencing my concerns. Something that I could use, that would make my life better. Sure, that’s a very consumeristic viewpoint, but they’re marketing a product for me to buy, and it’s not cheap.

To date, I’ve not seen such a study , so I can only conclude 1 of 3 things:

a. Studies were done, but proved little to nothing, and were not promoted.
b. Studies were not done and will not be done, and Mannatech has no desire to make their product have definitive proof behind it. This is either because they don’t care about people like me, they’re satisfied with their word-of-mouth endorsements, or they know nothing would be proven. As I don’t buy any products from them, the “why” of this doesn’t matter to much to me either way.
c. Studies are in progress, and take a long time. Hence I continue to search the internet, in case c is the answer.

I know this may seem sarcastic, but I’d love to be proven wrong on this point. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t keep trying to find a study that proves such things.

2. There are indications of deception in the leadership of Mannatech. Two main indicators here:

a. Sam Caster, the founder of Mannatech, has had two business ventures before Mannatech declared as hoaxes and not providing the benefits as advertised by the Texas Attorney General’s office. link. This point by itself is not enough to make a huge difference, but doesn’t lend credence to Mannatech’s credibility.

b. Mannatech paid $6 million settlement in a lawsuit stating that Mannatech launched “an unlawful marketing scheme” that over-promised what the effects of their products would be, including potentially curing Downs Syndrome, cystic fibrosis, and cancer. link. Speaks for itself. I recall in the sales pitch I saw seeing a picture of a girl with Downs Syndrome, and then another picture of the same girl that did not appear to have DS any longer (as far as physical appearance goes). The implication was that glyconutrients was responsible for this change.

There was a seperate lawsuit, that Mannatech settled for 11.25 million, that was the result of similar claims being made. As it was settled out of court, Mannatech admitted no wrongdoing (unless $11.25 million out of your pocket means your wrong). link.
3. Mannatech is sold only through network marketing / multi-level marketing (MLM).

This one is more of a personal issue for me, and doesn’t necessarily say anything about the products efficacy. MLM raises two large red flags in my mind:

a. The inspiration that selling Mannatech will allow a person to reach “financial freedom” as mentioned on their Opportunity website. In MLM-speak, “financial freedom” is a euphemism for millions of dollars for little work. It’s laced with greed, which is ironic because….

b. Very few sellers in MLM networks break even, and even less of them make large amounts of money. The very nature of a business that requires exponentially more people for any one person to make money requires that the last people, the people at the bottom of these downlines, to completely lose out.

I’ll grant Mannatech that their marketing focuses more on the product than the opportunity to sell the product, but the point remains.

That’s all I have to say on this topic, for now. As always, your comments, emails, etc. are welcome.

- I run a custom firmware (Tomato) on my household’s router, and specifically purchased the model of router I did (Linksys WRT54GL) so that said firmware would work on it.

- I am in the process of setting up a home server with RAID’d disks, Terminal Services, and a custom DNS A record from the domain this blog is hosted on. We’re not quite there yet, but some of the components are ready to roll.

- My wife runs Ubuntu as the primary OS on her laptop. I think of all my nerd friends, I am the only one with this particular claim. She’s used it for about two years, and gets upset at me if I consider changing her away from it. She’s on 8.04 – Hardy Heron – right now. (seed of doubt – maybe it’s Heather that is the one true leet haxxor in our relationship, and I’m just the figurehead? hard to say. I tried to run Ubuntu on my work laptop for about a week, but some required compatibilities with IE that didn’t work in Wine, forced me back to Winders.)

- About half the time, I see a viral video somewhere between a short (8 hrs) and long time (2 weeks) before it “blows up.”

That’s off the top of my head. Feel free to add any or dispute any of the above claims as you see fit.

Today’s Category – My 3 favorite covers of gangsta rap and/or hip-hop by whities. Keep in mind that given the topic, the language in these is at best questionable, at worst crude.

1. Jenny Owens – Hot in Herre, as made famous by Nelly

This one is an easy first place. Custom-made music video involving igloo’s and very catchy cover.
Plus I love the original song.

2. Dynamite Hack – Boyz In Da Hood, as made famous by Easy E

Another custom video for the cover. This one with the band as a bunch of preps who play golf and wear sweater vests.

3. Alanis Morissette – My Humps, as made famous by the Black Eyed Peas

Alanis has skillz. She turns a mindless, agitating, horrible song into a, uh, masterpiece. Even if you didn’t like the original song, I recommend this one. Seems that the most effort was put into the music on this cover of the 3.

Honorable Mentions
The Day’s – In This Club, as performed by Usher – so white.
The Gourds – Gin and Juice, as performed by Snoop Dogg – Folksy cover with banjo. Awesome.
Ben Folds Five – Bitches Ain’t Shit, as performed by Dr Dre – probably the worst lyrics of any song on here, but mentioned for the contrast of the lyrics with Ben Folds typical dreary tone.
Nina Gordon – Straight Outa Compton, as performed by N.W.A.

OM NOM NOM NOM.