Dominik’s Journey ;-)

Ok, I’m officially annoyed. I got more than 20 spam comments for cell phones in the last 48 hours. What the heck ? Gotta find some way to make posting comments a little harder. Sorry folks, but I’m just not in the mood of moderating all that crap…

Update:

Just installed Spam Karma.
Looks like a very capable piece of spam catcher for blogs. Let’s hope it works well.

Update 2:

I now also installed Aksimet, in addition to Spam Karma. There is a neat little plug-in that lets you combine both. Read about it here.

Update 3:

7 days later: 275 spam caught, none slipped through. Spam Karma2 with Aksimet works great.

In midst of all the devastation and tragedy, the question came up pretty quick if Katrina was sent by God. Is Katrina part of the end-times catastrophes sent to judge the earth dwellers for all their wickedness. Quickly, two main positions formed among the Christian community: a) Katrina was foremost a natural disaster. God is love and seeks to show himself as a loving God in midst of the tragedy. God would [b]not[/b] send judgment like this. b) Katrina is God’s wrath poured out on the earth. Fire and brimstone will follow. Me personally, I’m bothered by both positions, because [b]both[/b] fail to see that God has indeed two sides to his character. God is not only love, he is also just. A loving God without justice would be just a grandfather figure. A just God without love would just vengeful. In my opinion, the key to understanding why things like this happen is to see how God interacts with us humans. Foremost, his desire is to love us and have a relationship with us. ALL that he does is motivated by love. Unfortunately, we people are stubborn, sinful, wretched and evil. All of us, not only the non-Christians. So in order to help us out of out own wretched state of sin, God offers help. HE offers warnings. He offers warning shots. And we often still don’t listen. Throughout history, the people of God AND the gentiles have a reputation to [b]not[/b] following and obeying God’s word. And God waited until an appointed time to allow something to happen that would get their attention. (On a side note, in my opinion, it is mostly semantics if we ask whether God merely allowed it or if God actually [i]did[/i] it.) The warnings are plenty: the book of Revelation gives us a good idea. But there is more. God still speaks today. Rick Joyner writes that God revealed hurricane Katrina to them as early as 1998. But even more impressive is a prophetic word given by Chuck Pierce.

[b]The WIND and WATER will rise in the midst of New Orleans.[/b] Many from the south will come north for refuge. Prepare. Prepare now for [b]winds and water that will surprise you[/b]. I will renew the pattern not fully seen before. Worship will be here, and birthed in a new way from here. Prepare! Prepare! Prepare! Shift! Saul will be no more. David will arise from this day forward. The wind from the south will begin to blow. Watch for the effects. This will purify the land and bring great change.

The clarity of this word speaks for itself. But what is even more amazing is the date this word was given: [b]August 29, 2004![/b] To the very day exactly one year before Katrina hit New Orleans. This is a remarkable demonstration of the prophetic today.

In case you are a doubting Thomas like me, who expects someone to make up words like this after the fact, check out the Google cache. The snapshot was taken Feb 7, 2005 05:02:07 GMT. Up until yesterday, the WaybackMachine had a snapshot dated Oct 13, 2004. Now it shows a "Path Index Error." only. :-/ 09/07/05 WaybackMachine snapshot is live again.

Chuck Pierce’s word went further on:

This south wind would be [b]a purifying wind[/b], cause corruption to be blown on and cause corruption to shake and initiate a righteous move starting with the children, then moving to the youth. We were to watch the government and the Catholic Church shake, and watch New Orleans change.

The hurricane was named Katrina. Coincidence ? Katrina is a variant short form of Katherine (Greek), which means "[b][i]pure[/b][/i]". There is no doubt God has something in mind with this, despite of the tragedy and human misery that it involves. As Christians today, we have to be very careful not to be mocking God speaking to us. Yes, to talk about Katrina as being a judgment sent by God is by far not the most popular thing us Christians could talk about today. And I agree, first and foremost, we have to pray and help. [b]BUT:[/b] We should be very careful to not deny it, belittle it or apologize for it. There is a good chance that the end-times prophecies of Revelation are happening in front of our eyes. We would do well to seek God and ask what his plan for each one of [b]us[/b] is in this day of age.

Addendum

09/08/2005 - A very helpful opinion was released today by Rick Joyner (MorningStar Ministries). The Lessons of Hurricane Katrina (Part II).

Ran across an old blog post from Andrew on the clash between the emerging church culture and the mega church culture.

In short, he writes:

“We feel manipulated […], insulted […], dumb [… and] like we haven’t been to church”.

Some good food for thought.
When thinking of the Saddleback-mania and Willow Crrek-itis, I can’t help but recognizing that it indeed seems to be effective. Yet, the key to this effectiveness lies in the culture these churches are operating in. It just doesn’t work to export the values, concept and programming if the prevalent culture in the target location is completely different and / or opposing to the culture where Saddleback or Willow Creek became successful. E.g., you just won’t find many Baby Boomers in the inner cities or on student campuses.

Along these lines (or not), Brian McLaren writes in his book “Fast Forward: New Maps for a New World” the following (as quoted here, p. 24):

So one of the biggest questions on my screen these days is, How does the Spirit of Jesus Christ incarnate in a postmodern world? This question very likely terrifies or infuriates some Christians because they see the traumatic implications of what I am saying. And maybe they are right: Maybe there is no way ahead. [b]Maybe the faithful thing to do these days is to become intellectually Amish and create communities that live in the past.[/b]

So, the though is out there: Will visiting Willow Creek in 50 years be like visiting an Amish village today ? We’ll see…