Disappointing

[Gizmo]

I am disappointed in the editorial direction of this board.  Y'all have a right to do what you want, and I have a right to not participate.  I may drop by later, but until then, peace out!
Giz

[jabcat]

God works all according to the counsel of His will. 

[hopeful]

It is our choice...  :HeartThrob:
There are so many different boards out there that we can join. 
But I know it can be hard when a social group we're a part of changes.
I want to bless Gary and give Him the benefit of the doubt that he's doing what he feels is best.  And we can do what we feel is best, too.

:girlheart:   

[martincisneros]

It's a UR site, so the boards are being kept UR.  As far as a lack of diversity within that, that's really been 'cause there haven't been very many people logging in and posting since they sorta passed the baton to me.  There's only been two topics, that I'm aware of, that got shut down 'cause they couldn't remotely serve any good purpose except for getting another food fight started.  One topic that was in a bit of a gray area as far as "off topic" that I didn't particularly agree with that was posted by Peacetroll got left on the boards.

Basically, we've just gotten things back to the Bible.  That's been the extent of it.  We've simply told folks that if they don't believe in the Bible, then go be a deist or join some eastern religion and while we'll pray for them fervently, they should at least be honest if they just honestly blow off the Bible and aren't a Christian.  In which case, they're free to browse and post relevant questions or simply to go and join a different board that agrees with their stance against the Bible's description of the work of Christ.

There's no official stance on which of the historic views of the cross is the most Biblically accurate, as far as Christus Victor or any of the other views.  And there hasn't been a siding with one brand of Christian Universalism against all of the others.  People that believe that God will temporarily burn someone alive until He teaches them or refines them are welcomed to and encouraged to post.  People that believe in absolutely no afterlife punishments are welcomed to and encouraged to post.  And people who believe that folks are essentially non-existant until the resurrection when all things will be made right with them either immediately or after further punishments are welcomed to and encouraged to post.

I'm personally leaning towards no afterlife punishments, but that's not the official doctrine of the boards or anything like that.  My opinions are not necessarily the opinions of Gary and Michelle Amirault, and Gary even has reservations about some of my theology.  But I'm in charge anyway because if there's one thing that Gary knows about me, even if he doesn't agree with me on all points of doctrine, is that with me in charge a greater respect for the Scriptures will be encouraged and focused on.  And I'm more tolerant, patient, and less easy to offend than a lot of other folks.

I welcome people to take full advantage of this Member's Lounge, the Christian Life General Board, and the Sanctuary to post a diversity of topics, provided that respect for the Scriptures is maintained, that it's not a topic that'll turn into a witch hunt, and that possible views of other Universalists at these boards aren't targeted in such a way as to call anyone stupid, deceived, brainwashed by orthodoxy, etc.  And a sensitivity to newbies to UR should always be maintained, where a lot of extraneous things aren't added to the package as though views of Christian economics or issues with the rapture were necessarily an essential component of what it means to believe in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the whole world, when they're not.  Those are personal opinions.  And people don't have to feel compelled by any of us to break all ties with former affiliations in order to embrace the truth of the Universal Restoration.

The focus here is simply the Universal Restoration, loving one another as much as the Father loves Jesus (John 17), prayer, and working people through their questions and objections to the Universal Restoration while assuring them that as Bible believing Christians we had to work through many of these same issues before we could embrace this as the final outcome of the entire work of Christ at the Cross and at the right hand of God.

A couple of the things that we have to keep in mind, as far as regulars not having logged in very much over the last week or so is that it was a pretty bad food fight that sorta got us to where we're at right now.  So, some have started new forums and others are simply taking a break right now, either from the net, from forums in general, or just from this one.  That doesn't mean they won't be back.  Another thing is that we're teetering on the time period when many people are facing vacation decisions, the soaring prices of gasoline, etc.  Where a car's about $4 a gallon to fill up in the U.S. right now, a jet's about twice that for jet fuel.  Perhaps more.  It was running $6 or $7 before this fuel crisis.  They may be looking at $10 per gallon to fill up an airplane in the U.S.  Europe's paying about $7 to $9 per gallon for their cars, so the U.S. isn't being singled out for persecution or anything like that.  The fear mongers are talking about the U.S. having to pay about $6 per gallon by the end of the summer for their cars, trucks, SUVs, etc.

This is going to be milked for as long as people are willing to pay it.  Much of the world's population could bring the oil companies to their knees and bring it back down to less than $2 a gallon if we'd universally boycott buying any more of their product.  But it couldn't just be a drop in sales.  It would have to be an actual standstill of everyone on using it to make the people in the middle east and elsewhere scream uncle over nobody buying their oil.

That's not likely to happen, because this is a very convenience driven society, but really, if all of the world could agree on refusing to use it indefinitely we could have fifty cent a gallon prices again that would even make an atheist scream THANK YOU JESUS!!

All of this is influencing how people are going to be spending their time, whether they've got the money for a new computer if their current computer is dying, and whether or not they're going a few hundred miles for their vacation or nervously just trying to catch a movie in town and perhaps eat out two or three times this summer and consider it their vacation.

This has gotten so ridiculous that one of the cities by where I live have had a gripe on their hands because ambulence companies aren't wanting to take people to the hospital any more unless they get their payment upfront.  I pitty the poor schnook in their city with the busted open head that doesn't have a thousand or so dollars on them 'cause apart from Jesus intervening, they're going to die during the argument with the ambulence driver suddenly deciding he's an expensive cab.

The economic crunch is responsible for far more heart ache and emotional issues right now, and people feeling trapped, than a lot of us have any idea.  What's the answer to all of this?  What it's always been!  1Timothy 2 -- pray for all men everywhere 'cause Jesus Christ is the ransom for their lives in every area of their lives that they've needed a ransom.

A lot of people want a food fight and probably feel like I've come in as gestapo to stop the beginnings of a food fight in mid-sentence, but I promise that with my own websites; my prayer, evangelistic, and other works that I've genuinely got more things to do with my time than to stand over the boards with a giant fly swatter.  All of the moderators can probably say the same or similar things regarding their time.  I promise that genuine Restoration discussion is encouraged here.  I promise that genuine love is encouraged and promoted here.

It's not either/or.  You can participate in other boards to get other things off of your chest and then come back here to love, support, encourage, and from time to time defend the message of the Universal Restoration against misunderstandings, accusations of perversion of Scripture, or fears of flesh flair ups from a belief in the Everlasting Gospel.  SeekerSA has a new forum that I want to encourage everyone to join that wants to be able to talk about the kinds of things that are no longer covered here.  All of the boards that aren't here at this discussion forum any more ARE over at SeekerSA's forum.  This is the link http://fatherslove.freeforums.org/index.php if I remember correctly.  If not, I'm sure that Bernie can post the right link to this thread.  Basically, any post that Bernie has on this forum (username SeekerSA), he's got a link to the forum in his signature at the bottom of his posts.

         
Almost made it without a significant typo

[reFORMer]

This was in an email to me from a friend:

    This was sent by a retired Coca Cola executive.  It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton.  If you are tired of the gas prices going up AND they will continue to rise this summer, take time to read this please.
   
    Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea.
    This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day"  campaign that was going around.
    It's worth your consideration.  Join the resistance!!!!

    The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas!  And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves.
   
    How?  Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas.
   
    But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.
   
    Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $2.00 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN.
   
    If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices.   
    If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.
   
    But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers.  It's really simple to do!  Now, don't wimp out on me at this point...keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

    I am sending this note to 30 people.  If each of us send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) ...  and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers.
    If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!
   
    If it goes one level further, you guessed it.....  THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!
   
    Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people.  That's all!
   
    (If you don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people....  Well, let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician.  But I am .  so trust me on this one.
   
    How long would all that take?  If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days !!!
   
    I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you!
    Acting together we can make a difference.
   
    If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on.  I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $2.00 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN.  THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

[sparrow]

I am disappointed in the editorial direction of this board. 

Unfortunately I have to say..."ditto".  :sigh:

[martincisneros]

 :sorry: :sigh:

If it's a matter of the lack of diversity of topics, that decision was made "higher up."

If it's a matter of shutting certain topics down after they've gotten started, that were sure to either start a food fight, teetered too much on disrespect for Scripture, or simply weren't what the boards were supposed to be about, that can't be helped because of the intent of the boards.

If it's a matter of my recent posts, I've had to post more than I've wanted to from the temporary reality that otherwise things would go unaddressed, or there'd be a tendency to jump on the bandwaggon against what I've outlined a few different times about heightened respect for Scripture, and maintaining a UR focus, and fervent love for one another.

Right now, I'm just trying to preserve a direction and to seed further discussion since sooooo many boards and threads got taken off of the boards before things got passed to me.  I don't view these boards as "my pulpit."  I do have more things to do with my time.  And I'm not saying that others don't.  As more and more new people start coming, I'll [hopefully] be able to post a little less or with greater brevity.  My :2c:

[martincisneros]

If the boards were genuinely more active, my preference would be to be haunting the book of Revelation board 'cause God's really got me in a season of either decoding a specific meaning out of it, or perhaps at some point making it a more relevant book for more Christians.  I've got a supernatural love right now for the book of Revelation that can't be accounted for in either anything I've thus far heard preached from it, or anything that I'd consider my rudimentary discoveries about it so far.  And I really want to pursue that a bit more.

Yeah, I can pursue that even while things aren't the busiest with the boards.  And I am.  I just don't have anything that my Father doesn't give me.  Just listening to the book right now, mainly.  I've never been one to study types and shadows.  I've taken people's word for it before that certain things meant certain things, and have been greatly edified by some of the insights.  But I've always been more of a faith technician than an art critic with sage advise about what these colors or those numbers mean.  Right now I'm waiting for insight on the specific colors mentioned in the book of Revelation, particularly the explosion of color in the last two chapters of Revelation.

[SeekerSA]

Thanks for the plug Martin.

Question:

reFORMer, did you mean to post that post about the gas prices?  Sure looks like it has nothing to do with the OP or is their a hidden message?

Blessings

click the link below which has the correct url for FLF

[martincisneros]

Question:

reFORMer, did you mean to post that post about the gas prices?  Sure looks like it has nothing to do with the OP or is their a hidden message?

It was a response to my post where I'd said that a lot of people have a lot more going on than these boards, so that's a contributing factor to a lot of the melancholy that people are coming to the boards with.  It's the furthest thing from a primary reason why people aren't happy with the current state of the union regarding Tentmaker, but people are going through a lot right now and some of the recent emotional turmoil is because of what people are going through offline. 

I'd mentioned gas prices being through the ceiling and that if we weren't soooooo dependent upon our automobiles, then we should boycott the gas companies.  ReFORMer came with an idea that would be much more practical and effective, if people are abundantly clear about which of the generic brands aren't coming from the same companies with the "name brands" that are taking in insane profits while too many people are struggling.  Some companies good cop/bad cop the public and make "generics" to be sold elsewhere so that they take profits from their "name brands" and from the generics.  A local news story to where I live indicated that that may also be the case with gasoline a lot of times.  The aim of their story was to tell people that absolutely refuse to put "cheap gas" into their car that they're not putting a bunch of water into their tank here locally because of local regulations, but that often it's the "name brand" stuff under a different name.  So, I wonder about how practical ReFORMer's idea is, unless gas stations are in any way either morally or civilly bound to tell the public about the source of their gas.

[reFORMer]

Thanx Martin.  I feel terrible about the real lack of leadership in our nation. Some recent outstanding actions by politicians would seem they may not be just inept but intentionally corrupt.  There have been very real answers to energy independence for a long time.  Most interesting may be why they have done nothing but suppress these.  I really believe God is ultimately behind it.  Nothing can prevent God's blessing nor His sure judgments.

I hesitate to remark about what is not mine.  I'm still learning what is meant by a legitimate Divine injunction, "Tend to your own knitting."  I believe it is not about numbers of participants in tentmaker forums but what happens to those who come to this site.  I believe God has raised up tentmaker for a purpose and that He gave the gift to the right man of His preparation to carry it on.  Even though I lost almost half of whatever I'd posted here I don't feel bad about that in any way unless it is that those we interacted with might not consider themselves personally rejected but rather be reassured of the good will that is so truly and abundantly here for them.  Change is the first thing Jesus preached.  It seems a right and good move to focus on what tentmaker represents and is known for.  Those of divergent opinions are still represented and expressing their positions here.  I think it is a great place with some truly amazing and wonderful people, many with whom I may disagree yet am honoring as fellow travelers into the light.

I've recently seen the same vision a couple times.  I saw what could be called a path, though it looked almost like a tunnel, from where I am straight into God.  It's an unobstructed path directly into complete Overcoming (Rev 2 &3.)  The entrance into full victory over all things is made known.  Each next step is in the light.  Surrounding it are myriads of colorful items that may be distractions or things made available for use as we go along.  The way was darkening and diminishing the farther from me and the closer into God it was.  The only way God can get you to where He wants you to be is from where you are.  He is with you to bring you ever increasingly into the experience and expression of Himself.