Brad Giddens

Graduating to WordPress

2006-08-10T11:14:00.000-07:00

I've decided to switch to Wordpress for my blogging excursions. A few more features, etc. My new address is im4geezus.wordpress.com Hope to see you over there. Now, is there a way to transfer all my posts and comments over there from here? I haven't a clue.

Evangelism Dialogue

2006-07-26T06:29:00.000-07:00

There is a great dialogue going on over at www.wadehodges.com about where you start with a person that you want to come to the Lord. Check it out. I really liked what Jeff had to say near the end of the comments.

Easter Bunny From Hell

2006-07-19T15:38:00.000-07:00

This just isn't right on many levels.

Hermeneutic Extreme Make-over

2006-06-19T06:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I preached the second part of a two part mini-series on our handling of the Word of God. My main theme over the past several weeks has been on the idea of deepening our relationship with God instead of having a superficial, surface one (title - Running Deep In Shallow Times). Yeah, I got the idea and title from Lynn Anderson at Tulsa this year. Don't worry , I gave him credit. For this part of the series, my belief is the approach to Scripture we have inherited from our forefathers is flawed in certain areas and has put some barriers in our way in regard to our work and identity as God's people, namely the command, example and necessary inference hermeneutic. It has led to us drawing lines of fellowship that God never drew, making laws that God never made, and nullifying what God actually said (see Mark 7:1-13). Those are some serious missteps that our church, and a few others I can think of, has needed to deal with for a long time. It seems to have been well received for most, a struggle for some, but needed if we are to move on and get serious about kingdom work. Pray for us.

I closed with this quote from Rick Atchley: "We are not responsible for the church handed down to us from our parents. We are responsible for the church we pass on to our children. " Well said.

CENI Blunders

2006-06-16T07:19:00.000-07:00

I found a little article by a guy named Dwaine Dunning, who wrote sometime in the 1970's about the authority of the Bible as gleaned by command, example, and necessary inference (CENI). Here are some of his thoughts on the power (or lack thereof) of "inference".

"For many years, Bible questions have been discussed from the standpoint of a given viewpoint having 'command, example and inference' in support. Such use, listing three types of argument without distinction as to value, has given the impression that all three are equal in value. This is not true! Thomas Campbell, who developed the system, wisely limited it and showed that the third area of 'authority', that of inference, was of such a nature that questions affecting fellowship should never be determined by using inference, or argument by logical process."

"A vast majority of 'unity problems' are in this third area of 'authority'. There is little disagreement among Bible-believing people about what God said. There is some disagreement about what should be made of apostolic practice or precedent. There is a lot of disagreement on non-commanded, non-precedented matters where human reasoning is the factor by which the position of some individual or group is determined. This is precisely what we should expect. If a process of reasoning, a logical procedure, is properly the grounds upon which unity may be extended or withheld, then unity is at the absolute mercy of the weakest intellect and the most uncharitable dispositions in Christendom."

" To say 'direct command, approved precedent, and necessary inference' without distinquishing between them, thus giving the impression that all are of equal strength, is to do violence to the insight of the the man who contrived they system."

So where the Bible is silent, being silent might be a good thing, not speaking where God has not spoken, keeping your beliefs between you and God, and keeping the lines of fellowship open between those who differ with your contrived belief. Peace and unity just might spill out.

Restoration Blunders

2006-06-07T09:25:00.000-07:00

Those of us in the Church of Christ, and others, have roots in the Restoration movement. There was an attempt many years ago to bring people together around the Bible and only the Bible as the sole source of faith and knowledge of the will of God for us for us to be better able to evangelize the world. It is a noble plea and a worthwhile one. There were some great catch-phrases that came out of that era. Speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent. No book but the Bible. No creed but Christ. No name but the Divine Name. In matters of doctrine, unity. In matters of opinion, liberty. In all things, love. Call Bible things by Bible names. These all pointed us in the direction of unity for the cause of Christ.

But it seems, at least in my tribe (cofc), we have woefully abandoned those ideals. Our motto seems to be today, "Where the Bible speaks, we speak. Where the Bible is silent, we speak even louder with more passion and conviction". We have splintered the body of Christ mainly because of our abuses of the word of God and how to understand it. We have a flawed approach not only to Scripture, but to restoration as well. The "command, example and necessary inference" approach comes up terribly short in exploring and understanding the heart of God. I think there is a better way. I'll write more later. Pray as I work through some of this with my people here in Idabel. It needs to be addressed.

Conspiracy Theories

2006-06-06T06:08:00.000-07:00

Someone came by my office the other day and dropped off several DVD's they wanted me to look at. My secretary was here, I wasn't, so I have no idea who this person was. The first one had to do with 911 and how every event that happened that day was not the result of terrorists but our own government. The plane that flew into the Pentagon was not a plane at all but a missle. The fires that raged in the WTC towers were not the result of jet fuel, but of some other mysterious explosive. The plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was not flight 93, but another mysterious plane caught on radar in the same area at the same time. I read the other day where this meteorologist from Idaho or somewhere thinks all the contrails in the sky from airplanes are really marking points for a weather weapon that is being used by the Japanese mafia to wrought destruction on the U.S. They used this weapon to stir up and steer all the hurricanes that hit us this past year. I just finished a book by Dan Brown, author of the DaVinci Code called Deception Point. (*Disclaimer here...... If you want to read this book, stop reading this post or I will ruin it for you) ...............................................It is the story of how a certain government official orchestrates this elaborate hoax of finding proof of life on other planets in order to save NASA and help a struggling President of the United States get re-elected. Sounds weird, but it is a great read of fiction, as are other Dan Brown books, but still, c'mon.

What's the deal with people these days? Have we been watching too much TV or something? Nothing is as it seems. Everybody is evil. There is a grand, wicked plot behind everything. Conspiracy theorists must be the most miserable people in the world, thinking that deception hides around every corner.

Lord, please deliver people from cynicism.

Well, I better go. I heard a noise in the other room. I think it might be an NSA operative planting a bug in my phone.

"I'm back in the saddle again....." bum chica bum chica bum chica bum

2006-06-05T07:17:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I made a difficult decision to go part-time, half-salary at my church and work during the week in town to make ends meet for our family. Well, that was probably not the best decision I have ever made. The contracting work became more and more consuming, requiring more and more to make things work, and it was taking me more and more away from the ministry work that the church here needs done and away from my family, and I was not happy with any of that. So, I asked for a do-over, and my elders have graciously allowed me back. It was announced yesterday what their intentions were and I was warmly and lovingly embraced again as their "full-time" preaching minister. I love these people. We are going to make some deep cuts, selling the house, some other things to make it work here. I've heard that a minister's best and most productive years with a church don't really start until the 5th or 6th year. This is our 5th. I don't want to ruin it. We see bright days ahead for this church and the kingdom work it can do. Please pray for us.

Once Upon A Post....

2006-04-11T20:01:00.000-07:00

Wow, it has been quite a while since I posted last. Just some random thoughts on stuff for now.

The CofC sure has been hammered the last few weeks in the news. Not a good PR time for us, though that is really nothing new.

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Tulsa Workshop was great!!! The unity thing was long overdue. I am looking forward to seeking opportunities to work with fellow believers.

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Haven't played golf in about 8 months. I am playing in a tournament next weekend. I'd better start hitting some balls or something. I don't think watching the Masters from my living room couch will help just a whole lot. Way to go Phil Mickelson.

Tooth Fairy

2006-02-28T20:29:00.000-08:00

What is the going rate for a 5 year old's first tooth to come out? She seemed to think $2 or $100 would be appropriate.

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Wade Hodges has some great discussion going on over at his blog on the ICC and CofC. The Tulsa International Soul Winning Workshop should be great this year. I am looking forward to it.

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Lord, please help the violence in Iraq to stop.

I Love the Olympics

2006-02-14T19:33:00.000-08:00

One of the highlights of the Olympics came last night when one of the Chinese figure skating pairs took the ice. A few minutes into their program, the guy threw the girl in the air for a quad something or other. He slipped in the throw, she went spinning and fell a nasty fall, bending her leg in a way that it is not supposed to be bent. She got up but couldn't put any weight on her leg. The guy helped her off to the side. After about thirty seconds, she said she wanted to continue, and they proceeded to skate a perfect rest of the program earning them silver. I love when people rise above adversity on such a huge stage and show the triumph of the human spirit. I love the Olympics.

Slight Change of Plans

2006-01-17T11:20:00.000-08:00

One of my elders got up this past Sunday to announce a slight change in plans for me and my family concerning our work here in Idabel. It became very evident the past couple of years that we were going to have to do something in order for our family of six to make ends meet. We don't have a lot of debt, no credit card debt, we aren't extravagant spenders. It's just costing more and more to raise 4 kids, especially with one starting to drive several months ago and another one about to in a couple of years, college on the way, etc. My wife got a job, not a well paying job, but a job, and it is almost killing us. I don't know how some families do it, with both parents working. The stress, the lack of family time together, the obligations of everyone having to be at different places at different times, I greatly respect those who can pull it off and still be a family.

Anyway, I have given up half my salary and will be contracting to build homes during the week to be able to make enough to support my family. The elders here have been very understanding and cooperative and want to make this work. I will still be able to preach, teach, counsel, visit the sick, etc., all those things that are expected of preachers. I will office out of the house, where I will be doing all my studying. I just won't be in the office during the week. Being self-employed will help me be able to get free in order to take care of any church business that might come up during the week. Our office will still be covered by our seniors minister, youth minister and secretary. It seems to me like a workable situation.

I ask for your prayers for me, my family, our church and the kingdom work that needs to be done in this community.

2006-01-09T06:18:00.000-08:00

Here are some pics my son Tim did for his youth group and for us on a Sunday night devo. One is marker. One is spray paint. He is very gifted in drawing and wants to somehow use that gift to glorify God. I'm proud of him and his desire to honor the Father.

Greatest Sermon Ever

2005-12-19T07:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I preached on hell. I don't do that too often. In fact, I can't remember when I last preached on it. But I was doing a series on "unseen places", different places mentioned in Scripture that are of the unseen realm, the spiritual realm. (Heaven, hell, hades, third heaven, tartarus, etc.)

Anyway, it was a very average sermon. Very average. I was not happy at all with it. I was distracted and tired. Getting out late for Bible class, I was stopped by about 14 people wanting something from me. Of all things a fireworks company called me at church in the middle of all that asking about our Kiwanis fireworks sale (I am the president of our local club). Another guy wanted to talk to me for about 5 or 10 minutes. (That is all we had between class and the assembly). You know how it goes. 8 different things were going through my mind.

Well, I got up, said my piece, again very average. The only thing I did a little different than I normally do is I offered a real invitation. At the end, I quoted a Dr. Maurice Rawlings, an emergency room doctor in Tennessee who studied patients who had near death experiences and witnessed scenes of torment, anguish and pain in their glance at the afterlife. His quote was this, "Just listening to these patients has changed my life. There is a life after death, and if I don't know where I am going, it is not safe to die." I talked about faith and baptism and making Jesus Lord.

When church was over, several of our members (older) came to me and said that was the greatest sermon I have preached since I have been here. I finally had preached a real "gospel sermon", with baptism and everything! (Of course I have preached on baptism before, mentioned it before, even did a whole series on it before) I was the hero of the day!!! (ugh)

Note to preachers: Next time you find yourself in the middle of preaching a very average sermon, say the word "baptism" somewhere in it and you might get a raise and a Christmas bonus.

Note to everyone: The vast majority of this church does not want "gospel sermons". They want meat. They want to grow, mature and learn. Gospel sermons are for the unsaved, which we don't have too many of in our assemblies. I am proud of my church and their faith.

Doughnuts and Basketball

2005-12-13T07:52:00.000-08:00

Is it OK to be eating a doughnut on your way to go play basketball?

Does a diet Coke help when you eat a bacon cheeseburger?

I need to know.

Divorce in the church

2005-12-12T06:58:00.000-08:00

Mike Cope was blogging this morning about the high rate of divorce among believers. You can read his post here. Here are some thoughts I responded with.

- Preachers and elders, for the most part, are not equipped with the right tools for marriage crisis counseling. Too many times all elders or preachers know to do is go visit, pray with them, and that's about it. We have not educated ourselves with the right tools to help people survive in marriage. I am guilty of that and am trying to do better.

- Many preachers and elders, mainly elders in my experience, are not committed enough to their flock to go and get their hands dirty and help couples work through their problems. It is hard, frustrating, time-consuming work that many don't care enough to get involved in, for whatever reason, mainly too busy.

- We in the church have modeled a complete disregard for committment in relationships by church-hopping. We don't like something, we leave. Maybe that's why church goers possibly divorce more, they have that scene played over and over again right in their face. The churches I have worked with have been "severely" affected by divorce in their past.

What to do?
1. Better training for leaders, elders included, is a good start.
2. Modeling committment in the leadership. Leaders being committed to God, to each other but mainly to the sheep, showing they are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure spiritual wholeness in the flock.
3. A commitment to the teaching and practice of grace, in its various forms. People are motivated to do better and try harder when they are shown grace, instead of being shown rules and regulations and threats and hell. In my limited experience, the people who have had the most problem with divorce struggle with the concept and acceptance and promoting of grace. Anybody else found that?

Last Pic

2005-12-08T06:21:00.000-08:00

Here's my beautiful wife of 21 years. No, we didn't get married when she was 10.

The Giddens Posse

2005-12-08T06:09:00.000-08:00

Might as well show you the whole crew, sans wife. From left to right, Tim (16), Erin (5), Abby (10), and Megan (13).

2005-12-07T13:24:00.000-08:00

Here is a girl who luvs her dad. Thank you, God.

Qualifications to Preach

2005-12-07T06:29:00.000-08:00

I was just reading Wade Hodges' blog about Brian McClaren not having a seminary degree and how it is probably to his benefit, and it got me to thinking about preaching. I am pro-education. Continually studying, growing , learning all help make a better preacher. I just wonder if all the weight we put in a formalized education really is warranted? Usually, no degree means no job, at least in churches of any size. In a resume and interview, questions are pointed towards education, background, etc. It seems, at least in my experience, that very little is said about how in touch the candidate is with the One for whom the person is going to be speaking for the next 5, 10 or 20 years. A guy with a degree in Bacteriology is seen as more qualified than a guy with no degree or even with a preaching school degree. I wish formalized education was about 6th or 7th on the list and a guy's relationship with God and how well God lives, works and speaks through him was at the top. I'll take the Spirit-led guy everytime, I don't care how many letters someone has after their name.

Living Like There's No Tomorrow

2005-12-05T09:31:00.000-08:00

Check out the words to Tim McGraw’s Live Like You Were Dying.

He said, I was in my early 40's
With a lot of life before me
When a moment came
That stopped me on a dime
I spent most of the next days
Lookin' at the x-rays
Talkin' 'bout the options
And talkin' bout sweet time
I asked him when it sank in
That this might really be the real end
How's it hit you
When you get that kinda news,
Man whatd’ya do?

He said, I went skydivin'
I went rocky mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named FooManChu
And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denyin'
And he said someday
I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dyin’.

He said I was finally the husband
Most the time I wasn’t
And I became the friend
A friend would like to have
All of a sudden goin’ fishin'
Wasn’t such an imposition
I went three times that year I lost my dad
Well I finally read the good book
And I took a good hard look at what I’d do
If I could do it all again, and then
I went sky divin'…….

I'm just thinking that if we could all live like eternity was just around the corner, how many of our problems would immediately be solved.

Still Here

2005-11-18T06:21:00.000-08:00

I haven't died or anything. Just real busy and needing a break. I'll post again soon.

2005-11-03T06:39:00.000-08:00

If you want to read something funny, check out Wade Hodges' post this morning here.

That is hilarious!! Sounds like the time I was driving home after doing some carpentry work. I looked down and saw smoke coming out of my pants leg at the knee. I thought,"What the heck!!" I slapped my knee to put it out and only got more smoke. I frantically starting beating my pants leg to put the fire out, all the while trying to keep the car on the road. It took about 15 seconds for it to come to me that the "smoke" was only dust from the carpentry work I had done and that I had started this "fire" when my hand brushed my pants leg while trying to change the radio station.

Stupid people of the world, UNITE!!!!

2005-11-02T06:50:00.000-08:00

My Mavs won in double overtime against the Suns last night. Lord, please let this be the year. I wonder if Amare would have made a difference? That guy is awesome.

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Our seniors group, the Autumn Leaves, left this morning to go into the mountains and look at the fall colors. Question - Are they standing around and staring at each other?

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A lady shared with me this morning about a sermon she heard about from a neighboring c of c. The preacher was saying if you support denominations in any way, you are going to hell. The Methodist Church here has a pumpkin patch that most of the kids in town get their pumpkins from. The preacher was quoted as saying if you buy a pumpkin from them, you are supporting denominations and therefore doomed to hell.
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Side note: My four year old bought a pumpkin from the Methodist Church pumpkin patch. Ooops!

Let My Lifesong Sing To You

2005-10-30T06:02:00.000-08:00

As you can tell, I'm on a Casting Crowns binge at the moment. Here's the title track to their latest album, Lifesong.

Empty hands held high
Such small sacrifice
If not joined with my life
I sing in vain tonight
May the words I say
And the things I do
Make my lifesong sing
Bring a smile to You

Let my lifesong sing to you
Let my lifesong sing to you
I want to sign your name
To the end of this day
Knowing that my heart was true
Let my lifesong sing to you

Lord I give my life
A living sacrifice
To reach a world in need
To be Your hands and feet
So may the words I say
And the things I do
Make my lifesong sing
Bring a smile to You

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Let my lifesong sing to you