Category: Churches of Christ

Shall We Dance? Part I

dancing.jpgA short survey early on this frosty morning:

If you grew up in the Church of Christ, or some other conservative evangelical denomination, were you allowed to dance?

If not, did you dance anyway?

And lastly, if you have children of dancing age, do you allow them to get out on the floor and shake their little boo-tays?

I’m just asking. And yeah, you can bet I’m heading somewhere with this.

Shall we dance? In Part II, we shall see that some Church of Christ kids already have.… Read the rest

O Say, Can You Sing?*

american-flag-thumb.gifThanks to Jenny V for sending me this video of the crowd at Rhodes Memorial Field House singing the Star Spangled Banner (A Cappella, of course) prior to the Harding v. Henderson State game this past Saturday.

If anyone knows of another athletic venue in the country where the entire crowd sings the U.S. National Anthem in four-part harmony, please let me know.

O say, can you sing? If you’re a member of the Church of Christ, you bet your Bible Belt bottom you can.

*This post is dedicated to those very special Harding alumni who break into hives and apoplectic fits at the site of the Stars and Stripes and/or the singing of the National Anthem and recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance anywhere on, or near, the grounds of the Harding Campus.… Read the rest

I’ve Been Hooked

To all you Bama and Texas Longhorn fans who stopped by yesterday (and who are still showing up today) scouring for scuttlebutt on Mike Shula’s replacement–thank you very much.

Not since the Nancy Grace/Church of Christ fiasco last March has my sitemeter sang such soaring soprano; 348 unique visitors, 597 page loads–an all-time Ocular Fusion record.

It seems that my post on Shula’s firing was hooked, so to speak, to a Texas message board mainly due to my passing on the rumor about Paul Bryant Jr.’s jet sighting in Austin and speculation over whether or not some university representative was there to pitch the Alabama job to Texas HC Mack Brown.… Read the rest

I Am Not a Prude. Am I?

churchlady1.jpgI am not a prude. Nor am I a teetotaler. Not even close. I believe God made the body– “and it was good.” I would have made a horrible Gnostic.

Still, some of this made me blush (be sure to watch the video clips and Joe Beam’s interview with MSNBC’s Lester Holt–who, by the way, attends the Manhattan Church of Christ).

A necessary and overdue corrective to the church’s longstanding “bury thy head in the sand” approach to human sexuality or just a little too much information, thank you very much?

Like a lot of things, I guess, it depends on who you talk to.… Read the rest

Tank Update

tank2.jpgA while back, I posted on Torrance “Tank” Daniels, a Harding University grad who was attempting to make the final roster with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Despite having played well in preseason games and practices, Tank didn’t quite make the final cut, but he was signed to the Eagles practice squad. This means he practices with the team each week and doesn’t dress out for games, but he still retains his free agent status and could be signed by the Eagles or some other team at a later date. He’ll receive a salary of $64,000 per season (pretty decent money for a guy straight out of undergrad), and the miminum NFL rookie salary of $225,000 per season if he’s picked up and signed to a regular roster.… Read the rest

Name…That…Shooooe!

After coming clean on my shoe addiction, I’m ripping off a page from everybody’s favorite Catfish Queen reject Nancy French and having my first contest at Ocular Fusion.

(Cue the audience to shout) Name…That…Shooooe! (cue wild, audience applause and generic game show music)

That’s right, the first person to correctly ID the following shoe will receive, courtesy of yours truly, a signed copy of Doug Mendenhall’s new book, How Jesus Ended Up in the Food Court: Seventy-Seven Devotional Thoughts You Never Thought About Before.

Here’s the picture. Remember, I’m looking for the exact name of this Nike classic:

nikeoregonwaffle-01 2.jpg

It’s really not that hard; there are sufficient clues scattered here and there that should lead you toward the correct answer.… Read the rest

Buy, Take Up and Read

According to Augustine, the key point in his conversion came when he heard the sing-song voice of a little girl telling him to “tolle lege” or “take up and read.” The book she was referring to was The Bible, and when Augustine obeyed, his eyes fell upon Romans 13 and the rest is, as they say, history.

Now comes another otherworldly voice offering a good piece of advice– “Buy, take up and read.”
dougs book.jpg

This time the book is entitled How Jesus Ended Up in the Food Court: Seventy-Seven Devotional Thoughts You Never Thought About Before by my good friend Doug Mendenhall.… Read the rest

Correction–It’s the Doughboy!

Thanks to Scott Freeman, we now have some new information to mull over this morning regarding the Burger King-Antichrist connection.

In the comments section of yesterday’s post, Scott chimed in with this pearl:

“You know the founder of Burger King was COC right?”

I replied:

“Get out of here! Really? No, I wasn’t aware of this, but that does thicken the plot considerably.

Well, now that you’ve piqued our curiosity, we’re waiting with bated breath to hear more. Do you happen to know if he was premillenial or amillenial?”

Then he shot back:

“I may be wrong. But during my first youth ministry gig I worked with a former missionary to Brazil.

… Read the rest

Monday Morning Musins’

The weekend has come and gone, and things are, well, different, than they were just a few days ago. For one thing, we are back on daylight savings time and although I awoke at my usual “rise and shine” 5:30AM the clock says it is actually 6:30AM, and therefore I don’t have my usual amount of time to write and post. So, in the interest of time and our short 21st century attention spans, I’ll go about this in bulleted fashion. If you sat through an Hour of PowerPoint at church yesterday, please accept my apologies beforehand.

  • Nancy Grace has given up on her Church of Christ cult hunt (not enough “traction” apparently) and has turned her keen journalistic eye and prosecutorial Death Ray from the Winkler case to the Duke Lacrosse Team
… Read the rest

Dr. Eyeguy, Culture Warrior

When I woke up yesterday morning, I was just regular “Mike the Eyeguy.” But then I went and wrote a post on Nancy Grace and the Church of Christ, grabbed my cuppa morning Joe, and settled into my usual rut and routine, expecting just another typical day.

Soon massive internet search engines kicked in, sorting through the roiling blogosphere for terms such as “Winkler,” “Nancy Grace and the Church of Christ,” “Church of Christ cult,” and “Rube Shelly, psychology.” By the dozens, they treked to my humble “basketball and life blog” which on a good day receives around 50 “hits,” just enough to maintain a modicum of respectability and convince me that I’m not completely wasting my time.… Read the rest

Nancy Dear, I Have One Word For You

The Church of Christ blogosphere has been abuzz the past week since one of its own ministers, Matthew Winkler, was tragically shotgunned in the back by his wife in Selmer, Tennessee. She has confessed to the crime and a motive, but so far only authorities close to the case know what she said and to date they haven’t shared that information with the rest of the world.

Of course, that doesn’t prevent folks from speculating on the “why” (after all, these things must make sense, right?) and everyone from the greeter at Wal-Mart to such paragons of journalistic excellence and integrity as Nancy Grace has their own theory.… Read the rest

You Are Entering a No Prayer Zone

If anyone showed up at my church last night thinking that there might be a little “praying and praising” going inside, they received a rude awakening when they were greeted by this sign. Who needs a funny church sign generator when you have the real thing right there in front of you?

OK, by way of explanation, “Praise and Prayer” is the name of our upbeat Wednesday night “Peak of the Week” style devotional designed to recharge our spiritual batteries so that we can run (not walk or crawl) past “Hump Day” and on through the rest of the work week.… Read the rest

Manly Sweat

Bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things. I Timothy 4:8

As you can see from the update at the bottom of my previous post, Lipscomb came up short in their game against UTEP in the first round of the NIT in El Paso last night. Nothing to be ashamed of there, though, as the Bisons still had a great year and their first invitation to a D-I post-season tournament. I’m wondering how many of those visiting teams who had to make long road trips to play in the first round won their games last night? Chances are, few if any.… Read the rest