Greeting Card Headaches

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Finding the right greeting card can be so frustrating.  

 Like, where is the "I'm sorry you got arrested and will probably spend the rest of your life in prison ... but even though this terribly affected our family and friends forever, I love you anyway and hope you have as merry of a Christmas as you can, under these circumstances" kind of card?

 Oh, the headaches of trying to find the perfect card!
(And, no, I'm not joking.  I mean, yes I am, to a degree.  But in a "if I don't laugh about it, then I'll cry" kind of way.)

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Things My Calvinist Pastor Said #15: No Altar Calls, And Replacing "Believe" With "Repent"

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(This "Things My Calvinist Pastor Said" series is a breakdown on this much longer post:  "We Left Our Church Because of Calvinism,"  which was written last year but updated July 2020.  All memes were created with  imgflip .) 15.    Our pastor never does altar calls and never asks people if they want to ask Jesus in their heart or choose Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  Instead, Calvinists emphasize the need to "repent."             As I mentioned in the last point, w ith Calvinism in general, there are no altar calls, no "Do you want to ask Jesus into your heart, to choose Him as your Lord and Savior?"                They say it's because they don't want people thinking they're saved just because they "walked the aisle" or "prayed a prayer."  But I know it's because they don't want people thinking they have a choice.  Because that would contradict their whol...
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Things My Calvinist Pastor Said #14: Babies Die As Unrepentant Sinners

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(This "Things My Calvinist Pastor Said" series is a breakdown on this much longer post:  "We Left Our Church Because of Calvinism,"  which was written last year but updated July 2020.  All memes were created with  imgflip .) 14.   (And most recently, on Mother's Day, this is what he said, practically word for word ...)  "Christians love to believe that there is an age of accountability.   (My note: This is when someone becomes old enough to understand the difference between right and wrong.  And most Christians believe that children who die before this "age/condition of accountability" and mentally-handicapped people who can't understand the Gospel are covered by God's grace when they die, and so they go to heaven.  They were mentally incapable of being able to make a choice about accepting or rejecting Jesus, so they are not held accountable for being unable to make a choice.)   But  nowhere  in the Bible does it say th...
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A great sermon to start 2026

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I watched  this online Willow Creek sermon  yesterday from a new series called The Jesus Way, about the Sermon on the Mount... and I just gotta share it because I haven't heard a sermon this good in awhile.  In fact, it's one of the best I've heard in a long time.  A great way to start 2026!   Maybe it just said what I needed to hear at this point in my life.  Maybe it won't speak to you the same way.  But, who knows, maybe it will.  Give it a try.  What've you got to lose?  
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List of Calvinist Preachers, Authors, Theologians, Websites, etc.

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I  found a lot more names to add to my list of known Calvinists (found in my various  "How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist"  posts).  But instead of adding this huge list to all those posts, I am going to put it here, and I'll just provide a link on those posts to this one.  [FYI: I added a note at the bottom of this post on May 5, 2021.] So here it is, a "master list" of known Calvinists to help you be careful and discerning about who you listen to and where you get your theology from.  There are plenty more Calvinists out there, but these are just the names that I ran across the most.   These are either definite, self-professed Calvinists or "most likely Calvinist," in my estimation.  (I haven't heard of most of them, but it's good to know their theology before I do.)   After finding these names in various places online, I looked up each person to see if they are Calvinist.  If they did not self-identify ...
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Is Calvinism's TULIP Biblical? (the complete post)

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[This is based on a post I found online:   What's wrong with Five-Point Calvinism?   I was going to send a copy of that post to my relative who is in jail awaiting trial, but I ended up adding so many of my own notes that it became a whole new post.  (But there are still some very similar parts, and I give credit to the author of that post for what he wrote.  Read it.  It's short and good and worth reading.)  My relative (who dabbled in, if not embraced, Calvinism, at least back in the day) shares what I send with the women on her floor, doing their own little Bible study.  And so I figured, "Why not send them my thoughts on Calvinism since I know they will read it?"  And as a bonus, the cops have to read every letter that passes between us, and so they will have to read it too!  A captive audience!  (Ha Ha!  Bad joke.  But if I don't laugh, I'll cry.)  Anyway, this is what I sent to her, a "brief" look into Calvinism's TU...
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Review of "Once an Insider, Now Without A Church Home" - A Look At How Churches Go Wrong

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I was recently asked to review this book – Once an Insider, Now Without A Church Home: One Couple’s Faith Crisis Due to the Infiltration and Spread of Authoritarianism, Calvinism, Complementarianism, and Covenants in the Am Evangelical Church, written by Amanda Farmer.   (Click here to go to the author’s website or click here to order her book on Amazon .) I am not getting paid or reimbursed in any way for this review.   But after reading it, I am happy to do it because I think it’s a message that needs to get out there as much as possible. For me, I will focus particularly on the “Calvinism” part of it, seeing as how it’s also recently taking over the church my family has attended for almost 20 years. I found this review of the book online by another blog-owner.   And since that blog owner did a great job of giving a thorough synopsis of the book, I will focus more on giving my impressions of it, how it affected me, and what it made me think. For starters,...
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Anyone Else Worn Out?

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(Reposted from a year ago, but still so fitting.  Updated.) Can anyone else relate to the idea of being exhausted from the energy it takes to just keep breathing (the song  Worn , linked below)?   I've been there, too.  For a long time now.   [It dawned on me last night - after talking with one of my sons about anxiety issues - just how many big things we've been hit with in the last 5-10 years (most of them in the last 5 years): - getting out of a moldy rental that made us sick and buying this house that we thought was such a great answer to prayer - finding one big house problem after the next - depression over an abandoned, moldy, neighbor's garage which is 10 feet from our yard and blows all over us  (they've only just now - the fall of 2019 - started cleaning it up, after about 5 years of me being severely depressed over it) - several years ago, my only close friend at the time stopped calling me and it crushed me - I went into a long and deep depressi...
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Things My Calvinist Pastor Said #1: We Can't Choose

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(This "Things My Calvinist Pastor Said" series is a breakdown on this much longer post:  "We Left Our Church Because of Calvinism,"  which was written in 2019 but updated July 2020 and again in late 2025.  All memes were created with  imgflip .) The inevitable has finally happened, the day we hoped would never come: The day we officially resigned from our church because of our pastor's dogmatic Calvinist preaching (May 20, 2019).   (From now on, I will try to call him our "ex-pastor."  And for the record, it was an Evangelical Free Church, which are being  taken over by Calvinism  all over the place.  So be wary and educated.) It's been a long road.  He came on board about 6 years ago, and began introducing his Calvinist views here and there.  Just a little bit at a time, never really exposing the ugly parts of Calvinism.  Just subtle points that didn't really alarm us.  (If I had known then what I know now, I would'v...
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What's the best way to take over a church with Calvinism?

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By manipulating people to agree with you, and by shaming, mocking, and silencing those who disagree, of course! (This post was called "What's the best way to make people agree with your Calvinist views?", but I update it because the new title fits better.) Allow me to daydream here, to tell you a little story, a "hypothetical" situation... Pretend you are part of a great church, where the pastor doesn't make a huge issue (or any issue) out of Calvinism.  He keeps it middle of the road, on the parts of doctrine we can all agree on.  And it's a great place to be, a place you love inviting people to.  You've been there for many years, and have no intention of ever leaving. And then, after that pastor retires, you get a new one.  At first, he seems just fine.  Lots of enthusiasm, powerful speaker, very intelligent.  But you notice something just a little ... off ... and you can't quite put your finger on it. O ne of the first things that caught your ...
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The Most Terrifying Book in the Bible: Jeremiah

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A Warning for the rebellious people of today (a repost): Okay, there are other terrifying parts of the Bible, particularly when hell is talked about - being separated from God forever, eternal fire, weeping and gnashing of teeth.   But Jeremiah has got to be one of the most terrifying books there is.   Because it blows our Western idea of God’s unending love and patience out of the water.   Of course, we all know that God is love and that His love is unending.   And we know that He is incredibly patient, pursuing sinners over lifetimes and history so that He can draw as many people as possible to Him.   But we – especially in America – seem completely unaware of God’s justness.   We are all about His grace and mercy, yet we forget His wrath and discipline.  
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