Well said. I agree. The Message boils my blood as well. I may be a little bit bias because I am a Christian Studies major, though I by no means will ever call myself a Bible scholar. Though, NLT, NIV and ESV aren't mere interpretations, they are literal translations based on Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek words and phrases from original manuscripts.

Random: went onto Amazon to buy the "Stuff Christians Like" book and found this?:

33 new from $7.47 6 used from $7.91

How does that even happen?! lol

I am praying for guidance and direction concerning church fellowship and serving Him. Thanks

I'll definitely be praying for you. I have a friend and her boyfriend going through the exact same thing right now. It's really taking a toll on her household and relationship with them!

Haha, I just noticed that! :D lol

I know this is random, but if you do like to write and want to be given a "prompt," if you will; there's this awesome blog helper site that gives you a prompt everyday and you can connect it to your blog page. It's also cool because you can read other random peoples' posts and it can turn into an awesome web ministry, as I have recently found :)

Plinky.com

My pastor goes through series and he usually doesn't deviate from them, even in the middle of holidays. For example we're going through John, if you miss today, you get the Podcast, otherwise, you won't know what's going on in service next week...lol

SOOO true. What do you think it would be like if Weird Al did a song talking about apologetics? haha

I think that is my favorite quote in this whole post: "Get the accordion, it's go time." lol

My pastor brought a snake once, none of us got to see it, though. He was talking about faith and told us that there was a snake in his backpack that he had on, called up a couple of people he knew had a phobia of snakes to hold the bag, but no one ever saw it. He asked us if we believe him, about 60% of us did. Then he asked why the other 40% came to a church where they thought the pastor was a liar...lol

True true! II was a teenage girl once.... Okay, it hasn't been that long, but I think since it is still fresh in my mind, I can safely say that Lock Ins + Sardines = TROUBLE