Hakka Pestle Tea

Sam, Tracy, Sandy and Michael all enjoy a Winter Tea made from old an Hakka Recipe. This restaurant preserves this old custom for its patrons in Meinong, Taiwan. Hilarity ensues.

Erik is a good buddy who was a Senior in Sandy's class two years ago.  Here he is at Chili's getting a taste of his FIRST REAL American Hamburger.  Up to now, all he has had is McDonald's. 

I USED To Love Flying

I remember when I was 18 or 20 years old and I would take trips across country by air. I loved it, I looked forward to every trip. My love of flying started with a trip to Hawaii when I was 5. It was magical. I found every excuse I could from then on to travel by air. A trip to India for college at 21 made my love full. No, really! The feelings and sensation of flight energized me... And they still do. But that love of flying, though still strong, is now hurt and nearly broken by the fooliishness and irrationality that is the air transportation industry. The safety and security culture of the modern airport is nothing more than a C.Y.A. measure that demoralizes passengers, stresses everyone, and delays the entire traveling process. A determined hijacker would laugh at what goes on. The entire prosses is like the patter of a magician on stage trying to distract you: the hijacker has so much to hide behind now that EVERYONE is distracted by the stress and ritual of the security screening. And still we are no safer. And now we are more cowed and afraid. And now we are more exhausted by travel. The goal of terrorism is to disrupt and cause fear as energy is wasted on useless and costly security measures that force a government to control is own citizens as potential criminals... So... The terrorists have won!


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Taiwan Tea Time Podcast Update

This is a very busy time and I am not getting good feedback on the podcast... I also want to take it in a new direction. So it MAY be a while for the next podcast. We will travel to the USA for August and then have house guests for a bit... But I think I can sqeeze in a newfangled Tea Time podcast in there. Keep watch.


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New Blog Tool

I am a Macintosh enthusiest... And now I have a cool new blogging tool from Apple! The iPod Touch and iPhone are now full PDAs and there are blogging tools. I am writing this post from my iTouch now and I can do that anywhere... If I will just write!!!


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Last English Class in YenZhou

I have been teaching the Bible in English at a church in YenZho. Its a little village next to the fishing town of Donggang. It is famous as the poorest village in all of Taiwan. The church there is great and the Pastor, Abraham, is a joy to work with. This year I am ending my classes there after two years teaching. I need to focus on my master's degree and there is a new missionary actually living in that area who will take over the class for me. This year's party at the end of class was extra special because one of the students owned a bakery!

I will miss this gang.  But I am sure I will see them.  Pastor Abraham is one of Sandy's students at college and I promised that I would come visit sometimes next term.
-The Haggard

Taiwan Tea Time Podcast News

Well... not getting too much feedback on the podcast... and as my big trip to the USA is coming - I MAY change the format of the podcast ALL TOGETHER. It may become more about me teaching theological idea that are relevant to Taiwan Evangelism and only occasionally have conversations from Taiwan people. We shall see. The next podcast in the original format IS coming soon.

-Blessings
The Haggard

The Solution is the Problem

"These people were just disrupting society. ... The government will solve their problems."
-Zao Ming, official from The People's Republic of China
Commenting on police removal of grieving parents forcibly
removed from public land for protesting the government's
use of substandard construction materials in schools,
discovered after the death of their children in the 2008
earthquake.

Exactly, how will the government solve the problem of a child dying because of government corruption?
$144 per year per child to each family who lost a child in the earthquake. Parents who lost children have first dips on adoption and may apply with the government to wave the one child per family law on this occasion.

Death toll to date: 69,107

source for above quote, figures, and news - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080603/ap_on_re_as/china_earthquake

Podcast #2 Posted

Taiwan Tea Time number 2 has posted. Go here for the feed to download or subscribe:
feed://ourmedia.org/mediarss/user/153642

This episode of the Tea Time is all about Taiwanese feelings about the Taiwan Government sending aid to China in the wake of the devastating earthquakes.

UPDATE: If you are downloading the file directly rather than subscribing to it, you may find that it came as an MP3... and that will not work! Rename the end to M4A and it will work. -M

Podcast Posted

Taiwan Tea Time Podcast #1 is finished and posted! Not the most gripping conversations but some interesting tidbits of some teachers talking about Obama and the American Elections, some kids talking about school, and some college students talking about laziness.

Listen to or Subscribe to this podcast at feed://ourmedia.org/mediarss/user/153642

The PodCast is in ACC audio, so iTunes and most media players will play it... if you have trouble, try a PodCast program (search for podcast at http://download.com for Windows or at http://macupdate.com for Mac)

Taiwan Tea Time Podcast

I am starting a new podcast that can be found here:

The Ugly Truth of Forgiveness

Forgiveness COSTS. It costs big. It is quite expensive and, in fact, few can afford it. Truly, there is no such thing as forgiveness without cost.
For a perfect God who must keep all his own laws and promises, there is only atonement, then forgiveness. The atonement is paying the price, then the issue is forgotten and expunged from the record... you have paid your debt, done your time.

With man, this is also true. When the benificent uncle who loaned you $50 or $50,000 says “your debt is forgiven,” you may think that there is an example of absolute free forgiveness. Your uncle paid. He paid big. The criminal thief may be forgiven his crime by the victim but the victim pays... even with the return of goods stolen! There is loss of time, effort, security, and trust. Over time the loss can be cumulative if it happens often and cynicism creates scar tissue of the soul. He indeed pays for the criminal’s sin.

My sin is forgiven only due to the death of Jesus on the cross. He is the example of forgiveness. No greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for another.

If I am to forgive others... I must pay... and the perfect payment is death.

I died to sin so sin no longer has its hold on me. We often think in self-centered ways about that verse. That I, myself, will not be tempted to sin... or that sin’s payment is not applied to me (forgetting all the while that Jesus’ death did that, not my own “work” at dying). But there is also a social aspect to that verse. The sins of others have no affect on a dead man. If I am to forgive as Christ forgives, then I have to be willing to pay the price for other’s sins in a local, social, temporal sense. If someone sins against me, the only way to forgive is when I die to myself in atonement for their sin against me. Indeed, I cannot die FOR him as Christ does. But I can die for his benefit, and mine, in a social and corporate sense. Without this ugly truth, that I must die to ALL sin, even another’s, there is no forgiveness. AS you forgive, so you shall be forgiven. AS you die to sin, so sin shall die to you.

Without the self-death and the personal resurrection of Jesus within us, not only is there little ability to forgive others, but there is little ability to live under a “go forth and sin no more” lifestyle as Jesus instructs. Surely I am not literally dead and truly I am not in a literal “sin no more” life... these states of being are from Grace as I live under the obedience to Christ. His death is sufficient to assure my death. His resurrection is powerful enough for me to be assured of my resurrection. His forgiveness is complete enough to cover my inability to forgive. I am not perfect. But I am being perfected in Him, I move in that direction as it were. If I am to be under grace then I give my failures to him... and again, it costs me (in submission to Him) and I must die to the self.

There is no forgiveness without personal cost.

Go forth and sin no more, dead man.

-The Haggard

My "Life Cannon"

Aaron Stoller had a great idea on his blog: list off ten texts that make up your personal canon at the moment.  Go here to see the rules and then post your own and tell me, or Aaron... or Tripp Fuller at http://trippfuller.com/?p=143 (where I first saw this idea).
“each one of us operates with our own canon. In other words, acknowledged or not, each of us operates with a set of guiding texts (or pieces within texts) which influence our paradigm and our lives moment-to-moment. And of course these text change as we pass through periods of our lives”

So here is my own Life Cannon, according to the rules:
1 - The Boxed Set DVDs of FIREFLY
2 - The Special Edition DVD of SERENITY
3 - The novel DUNE
4 - The Movie “Stop Making Sense” by The Talking Heads
5 - “The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer” (in one book)
6 - The Homebrewed Christianity Podcast
7 - The original Japanese TV seres “Mobile Suit Gundam”
8 - The Japanese TV seres “Gundam Seed” and “Gundam Seed Destiny”
9 - “Christian Apologetics” by Cornelius Van Til (because it hurts my brain)
10 - “The Problem of Pain” by C.S. Lewis (because it soothes my brain)

So, what’s in your cannon?
-Blesssings
The Haggard

Interesting Music at the Vegi Buffet

Today I heard Jesus being declared in a Buddhist Vegetarian Restaurant. I eat there because the food is good, the price is great, and I get to be a Jesus Guy around a group of non-hostile non-believers. Who knows where that relationship will lead? I was amazed at the music; “He Carried Me” and “He was my Sacrifice” and “Everlasting Arms” and “People need the Lord” and “I Need Thee Every Hour” sang through the store. I asked the waitress if I could see the CD case for the music... she popped out the disk from the player and it was a home made DVD of MP3s. I was there two hours studying and never heard a song repeated and I never heard a song that was not instantly recognizable as Christian. I saw Buddhist monks tapping their toe to “Jesus is the Only Way” and patrons hearing about “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.” Alas, it was ALL in English and most people there had no idea what they were hearing. I asked the waitress if she knew what kind of music this was. She didn’t. Nor did her co-workers. I told them it was Christian Music. They looked a little frightened and I thought I may have poisoned the well, that they would remove the songs. They looked at me with soulful eyes and asked “Doe Ke Yi?” (is that okay with you?) I smiled and said YES! So they popped the DVD back in the player and continued. I asked if they were Christians and they said no. They just like the sound of the music. I have come across that a great deal in Taiwan. People who will not become Jesus people for whatever reason, still seem to appreciate the Jesus Music. There is nothing like it here. There are NO songs in praise to Buddha or Matzu or to the Tao. The shear joy and peace that some hear in singing to Jesus, live or on tape, draws them. It is so cool. Yet, how can they believe unless someone goes to them?

More Vacation Photos

Here are a few more vacation photos. (Really, I am trying out some new Blogging software) View the entire photo by saving the image to your own computer. -M

Here is a Marble Canyon at Toroko


And here is a Pavilion and covered bridge at Toroko


And here is my new friend from Heualien’s Ocean Park... for a few more dollars I could have swam with him, but it was too cold... You KNOW I am going back!

The Holidays are Over

We had a grand time during Lunar New year. The nation takes a week off, the schools take two weeks off, the colleges take 4 weeks off. Sandy and I used the opportunity to drive around the entire coastline of the island. Here we are at Toroko Canyon. But now it is back to work... and there is so much going on. Watch here for more!

-Michael

Where are the Answers?

I present this article without comment. I think it speaks volumes on the current state of spiritualism in the world, Christianity as well. Read, take what you can. -The Haggard

Buddhist priests hit the bars to reach out to skeptical youth
By Justin McCurry
THE GUARDIAN, TOKYO
Monday, Jan 14, 2008, Page 9

Dressed in dark cotton robes, a bracelet of prayer beads hanging from his wrist, Gugan Taguchi certainly looks the part. But as he kneels to chant a sutra before an altar in the corner of the room, the people around him continue to chat, and his rhythmic prayers can only just be heard above a Blue Note jazz track.

Minutes later Taguchi is back in his seat, glass in hand. A bottle of rum sits on the bar in front of him, next to a half-filled ashtray as his tobacco smoke mingles with the aroma of incense. Some of his peers may disapprove of his methods, but amid a dramatic decline in interest in Buddhism among young Japanese, Taguchi is prepared to go almost anywhere to reach out to the skeptics, including the Bozu ("monks") bar in Tokyo.

"I can understand why younger people aren't attracted to Buddhism," says Taguchi, 46, a former office worker from Hokkaido, who turned to the priesthood after his sight became impaired in his late 20s. "Most priests are getting on, and I'm not sure young people want their advice. I'm happy to come here and listen to people talk about anything they like. It's up to them if they decide whether to heed my advice."

In the days ahead, millions of Japanese will visit Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples to mark the arrival of the Year of the Rat. For many, this will be the only contact they have with their spiritual roots for the entire year. More than 1,200 years after its arrival in Japan from mainland Asia, Buddhism is in crisis. About 75 percent of Japan's 127 million people describe themselves as Buddhists, but new year apart, many see the inside of a temple only when a local head priest is asked to arrange a traditional (and expensive) funeral for a dead relative.

As a result, public donations are drying up and many of the country's 75,000 temples are in financial trouble. Applications to Buddhist universities have fallen so dramatically that several schools have dropped the religious association from their titles.

Bozu's owner, Yoshinobu Fujioka, a Buddhist priest who can also mix a decent cocktail for those in search of a quicker path to nirvana, says that Japan's mainstream sects must shed their conservative image to broaden their appeal.

"There was a time when people would go to their local temple for advice on all sorts of problems, not just spiritual matters," said Fujioka, 31, who belongs to the Jodo Shinshu (True Pure Land) sect. "This bar is just the same, a place where people can come and talk freely about their problems."

Being served sake by a priest is just one of the novel ways in which sceptical Japanese are being encouraged to get in touch with their spiritual roots. Baijozan Komyoji temple in Tokyo has opened an outdoor cafe in front of its main hall and, in Kyoto, Zendoji temple operates a beauty salon. At Club Chippie, a jazz lounge in Tokyo, the saxophone makes way for Sanskrit once a month as three shaven-headed monks wearing robes chant sutras and encourage bemused customers to join in.

And recently, dozens of Buddhist monks and nuns took to the catwalk in colorful silk robes as part of a public relations exercise at Tsukiji Honganji temple in Tokyo.

The event, called Tokyo Bouz Collection, opened with the recital of a Buddhist prayer to a hip-hop beat and ended in a blur of confetti shaped like lotus petals.

"Many priests share the sense of crisis and the need to do something to reach out to people," said Kosuke Kikkawa, a 37-year-old priest who helped organize the event.

"We won't change Buddha's teachings, but perhaps we need to present things differently so that they touch the feelings of people today," Kikkawa said.

Taguchi believes that the pressures of modern life mean Buddhism's message is as relevant as it ever was.

"These days there is constant pressure to appear happy, and to keep fulfilling your desires to stay that way," he said.

"You could easily get the impression that people don't need advice from priests, but that's not the case. Everyone experiences times when they're not at their best, when things don't go according to plan," Taguchi said.

Jack's Big Day

This has been a GREAT week. We have seen five people come to call on the Name of Jesus and take the Lord into their heart! Five people have chosen, publicly, to be called "Christian" and to follow the Lord. More and more people are asking us about the Good News and more and more Bible Studies are getting started. The Holy Spirit is active, I pray that I am obedient to His call.

I have written about Jack for a long time. I have prayed about Jack for a long time. I don't have to worry about Jack anymore. Something has happened... something wonderful.

I met Jack the very first time I came to Taiwan back in 2002. He was not interested in Jesus at all. But he loves music and wanted to hear the Christians singing their songs. He seemed a very pleasant man, quiet and with a constant smile. I lost track of him after that. I did not see him on the two subsequent visits that I made to Taiwan the following summers.

Then, after I moved to Taiwan, I was sitting at a 7-11 having a morning tea before class when Jack showed up and reintroduced himself. We have meet weekly ever since. Jack is a music teacher, holds a masters in music, studied under the father of Yo Yo Ma, and owns a Bed and Breakfast in Meinung. He is an avid mountain hiker and the two of us climb a mountain every week. When the weather is bad, we go swimming at a local sports pool.

I have shared the gospel with Jack on numerous occasions and he has translated my English into Hakka, Taiwanese and Mandarin as I witnessed to others on many more occasions. Yet, he has never chosen to accept Jesus. One day he toyed with it... he and his wife asked Jesus to live in them, but the next morning they did not feel any different so they assumed they were still Buddhists. Oh, the door he opened that day! Some people worry about if they are or are not within God's Will... once you ask Him in, I dare you to TRY and get out of it!

Jack was never happy with Buddhism. All his life he has searched. The writings of the Tao and of Buddha never gave him comfort. He tells me that they are not able to answer the really important questions of sin, forgiveness and mercy. They play at them, demand them, but offer no cure that is lasting. He sees no hope in Taiwan's temple worship culture as it is so self-centered on luck, money, health and personal glory. He is hungry for a faith that not only saves, but reaches out to the world and heals it... not in works that fall short, but in a healing balm that is universally curative.

Christianity seemed different and attractive... but he was never sure. Catholic priests, Mormon missionaries, Baptist evangelists, and various campus ministries all touched his life through High School and College but somehow they fell short of answering his questions. The work of Wes Thrush, Dana Smith and myself came the closest to helping him understand Christ than any other, but still something nagged at him and kept him from obeying Christ as Lord.

Last week, after some sessions of intense Bible studies that our Friend Rolland had started with the help of Dana Smith... Jack was faced with the dead end, the cross road; now is the time to choose, there is nothing else to know or learn. Still, he could not. he said, "I would be a liar to say I could follow Jesus as Lord."

Two things happened the next day that changed him.

He had a dream in which his family were facing judgement, lost without hope, and with no answers. He woke to hear that this day was the day in which they had to exhume his mother's body from the grave. In Taiwan, bodies can only be buried a short time and then they must be exhumed and cremated. The dream, the exhumation of his mother, seeing his family's lostness in all of this... changed him.

For years he assumed that he could not escape the culture of being Chinese, of being Hakka. He assumed that he could not have Christ and give up these things. He assumed, as many of us do, that when we gain Christ, we give up too much. And he is right. We do give up too much! We give up our life!

Jack saw that his life was already lost. Giving it to Jesus and losing it fully was the only way to gain life abundantly.

He called Dana, Rolland, myself and others and said, "I want to be baptized now."

On Saturday, November 17, 2007, Jack and another man, James, both were publicly baptized in the Meinung Municipal Swimming Pool with their families and friends in attendance. Both men offered their own confession of why they wanted this. They asked their families to consider the Good News.

This week Jack gave me his own lesson that he had learned from all this. With a joy I have NEVER seen on his face, he told me how he can now see how God was at work in his life. All the Catholic priests, Mormon missionaries, Baptist evangelists, and college ministries all worked together to bring him to the growth and fruition that allowed him to be affected by Christ "at this time." He praised God for His faithfulness and tenacity in loving His children and calling them to His kingdom.

Jack has a lot of new questions, but I don't have to worry about him anymore.

I Am a Cheap Plastic Doraemon Bookbag

I love an aspect of Taiwan that many other foreigners can't seem to get past. There is a pop-culture mindset here that plasters cute cartoon figures on everything. You can see a big muscular Taiwan guy with a $50 haircut and $100 sunglasses step out of a store in his new muscle shirt and leather jacket only to sit upon a pink motorcycle with the "Hello Kitty" logo on the side... and he looks cool doing it.

This aspect of Taiwan culture is nowhere more evident than it is in bags, purses, backpacks and briefcases. I have seen teachers come to class with all of their tests, lecture notes and text books in a cheap, falling apart, Pokemon vinyl bag. I see business men and women going to work and their briefcase is nothing more than a Snoopy & Woodstock bookbag from a 7-11 give-away years ago. I have seen guys carry valuable art work to exhibitions held in nothing more than a plastic bag printed with Doraemon's face all over it. I have even seen people carrying their precious laptops in old, cheap plastic and vinyl bags with nothing more than a weak strap and an open top... but they like it because it has Gundam or Doraemon or Pokemon all over it.

My buddy Jack goes mountain hiking with me... and he carries a valuable ceramic tea set in his old army surplus back pack with no padding and with straps broken off. He ties them down with old shoe strings. It works.

You would be wrong to judge the value of the contents of a bag in Taiwan by only noting the outward appearance.

Great treasures are being housed in those cheesy bags. It is a matter of practicalities. These bags are given away for free in many places, they are very cheaply had in stores, and by golly, they are just so cute.

We Westerners would never transport our laptop computer in such a bag! We need the executive, double-platinum, mega bag with wheels and doohickies that cost almost as much as the laptop itself. Then we feel we have come into the world, we are of means!

The Taiwanese just want to carry their stuff from one place to the other. The look of the bag has nothing to do with the value of what is inside.

Jesus told a story about a man in Matthew 13. This man found a treasure that was buried in a field. The man wanted that treasure but it was not his field... he could not claim that treasure. So he went and bought the whole field to obtain that treasure. The field was nothing to him, and clearly not so big a deal to the original owner. But what the field held inside was of value.

You would be wrong to judge the worth of a treasure by looking at the dirt it was buried in.

Jesus wanted those people who would love and trust him... but in order to do that, he had to buy the entire human population with his own blood. He got them all... but frankly, he is after only those who would love and trust him. Oddly, we can never judge just how much of that field is dirt and how much is treasure. We don't have the eyes to see past the dirt.

So much of the world today rejects the message of Jesus because it is delivered to them by slimy, offensive, failure-in-life, nerdy, pushy (the list goes on) Bible Thumpers. They look at the Church and rightfully judge that the Church is full of hypocrites who can't live up to the standard of perfection that the law of a just God would give. So they won't look at the message of Jesus because they see his messengers and find them to be cheap plastic copies of something that is valuable.

They are wrong to judge the value of the message based upon their opinion of the worth of the messenger.

2nd Corinthians 4:7 tells us that Jesus hides his treasure, or rather trusts his message to be delivered by, nasty clay jugs. This is to show that the excellency of the message is independent from the vessel that delivers it. He puts his message in fallen, sinful, imperfect people who will break your trust and hurt your feelings... to show that his message is better than the ones who carry it and receive it.

WHY?

Because his very message is that the vessel is only made valuable BY the value of what is put into it by the owner. We broken, fallen humans are not made valuable by covering our clay jar exteriors with bling-bling and paint and color. We are made valuable to God by what HE PUTS IN US. It is the grace of God, his gift to us, so that no one can boast of their own works of perfection.

That cheap plastic Doraemon bag at the lady's feet at on the bus... is not a cheap plastic bag to her... it is a store house for her valuables. It is worthy to her because what is inside is worthy. She judges the cheap bag as worthy because it at least is able to carry the things she does find worthy. In that act, the bag gains value-added worth. To her, the collective "IT" that is the bag and its contents is precious to her. She would never leave the bag behind as long as it holds her precious things... and by that the bag itself becomes valuable.

I am a fallen man, a cheap plastic copy of the Maker who made me. I have lost all objective worth because by image is cheap, my seams are weak, by handles are falling off and my material is thin. But into me, God places the Spirit of himself. When I trust and obey him for the first time, he judges me as useful to carry his valuables. He puts himself into me. In so doing, I become his valuable vessel no matter what I look like on the outside.

You would be a fool to judge the value of Jesus and his message based upon me.

Though you could see some wonderful things about God by watching me, it is only because of how he holds me close and how that affects my life! It is not because I am special or perfect. I can tell the cheap vinyl Hello Kitty bag is valuable to the man at the 7-11 check out desk because of the way he holds it, the way he keeps an eye on it, and the way he protects it from others. Its look alone is of no second glance, but the man's claim on it marks it as valuable. I am not worthy of your second glance. But watch how the Lord claims me, holds me, protects me, and lifts me up. You will see that the cheap plastic Doraemon bag holds something dear inside it.

Don't judge the message by the worth of the messenger... you will miss the most important thing of value in your life if you do.

Here's Your Card

Sure... it has been a while since I last bogged. Summer is over, time to get back to work.

Cards. I am sick of cards. It seems like that every store in Taiwan requires you to have a card.


From left to right starting at the top: Office supply store, art & office store, home DIY store, computer store, McCafe' club, book store, second computer store, hobby store, arts & crafts store, pharmacy. These are just half of the cards I have to carry to shop. It is getting maddening. These are not cardboard cut outs, these are credit card style I.D. cards that ONLY give you a membership to their discount services. Hey! Just give the discount and save the money from making these dang cards. My right hip is killing me from sitting on a wallet that is four inches thick.

I FULLY expect to get pulled over by a Taiwan Police man, to hear him say, "May I see your card?" Then, after giving him my Drivers License, hearing him then say, "No, your Driver's Club Card." After explaining that I do not have such a thing, he will say, "Oh, that's too bad. Now I will have to enter your information into the system by hand and you will not be eligible for the Traffic Ticket Discount until your next violation."

Lord, save us from plastic and databases.

Sandy and I were in a town near us called ChouJou (say Chow-Joe) and were buying drinking water when a man stopped to talk to us. His English was pretty good and he wanted to ask some foreigners some questions. In the course of the conversation we of course told him we were Christians and wanted to talk about Jesus. He said he was a Christian and suddenly took on a very serious facial expression. "What church do you go to?" he asked. When I said that I was not bound to a building or a denomination, and that I only wanted to talk about the Bible and about Jesus he became even more serious. He pressed the issue. No answer I gave satisfied for the longest time.

He was asking to see my card.

Taiwan culture is very big on labeling people. People fall into groups. School children even have their level of accomplishment embroidered on their school uniform so everyone can look and see if a child is smart or stupid... no kidding. This man wanted to label us, thus the label "Christian" was not enough. We were not going to get his "premium serivce" of listening and valuing our words until we showed him our membership and repeated relationship with a particular "Flavor" of Church.

When we share Christ we must strive to never share "Christianity." We are not to tell people about how "our" church does it... we are to tell the world what Jesus said and did - and then let them respond to Him in their manner. We use the Bible to teach, we use the Church to fellowship. Cutting people off because they do not carry the card of our own flavor of Church is to deny the most ardent prayer Jesus ever spoke, the one that caused him to sweat blood, "keep them united in love."

-The Haggard