Archive for January, 2007

List of Names

Published
by
carl
on January 31, 2007
in Christianity
. 0 Comments

I took this straight from Mark

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Popularity: 11% [?]

Tweaking the Site - Bear With Me

Published
by
carl
on January 26, 2007
in Christianity and Wordpress
. 1 Comment

I got a new host. I went with SLhost.com and their level II VPS. I can’t say enough how happy I have been with them so far. I am shocked at how little you can get a virtual private server for these days. I looked at other options but I have a pretty massive site (obviously not this one) and no one could tell me that I would not have problems.

I pay bi-anually and get something like 40G of space and 300G of bw 358MB of guaranteed RAM burstable to 1.5G. In addition I have CPanel/WHM and Fantastico, fully managed, full root access (not just shell - that’s the cool thing about VPS) and daily full root backups for less than $400 a year!

I am also doing some template testing so forgive me if it looks funky for a little bit.

Random bolding in honor of Mark Batterson.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Contending for Healing

Published
by
carl
on January 24, 2007
in Christianity, Doctrine, Healing, Holy Spirit and Revival
. 3 Comments

Last Sunday my wife and I decided to drive a couple hours up the coast to see Gary Oates at Our Fathers House Satellite Beach. My grandmother lives near there so it was a “twofer.”

It has been a while since I was in a service where both the attendees were over 18 and were worshiping freely. If you are not into charasmatic worship then I would suggest you avoid this place at all costs! There were people both young and (mostly) old dancing, crying, rejoicing and singing to the Lord. There were flags, streamers and bells. There were dancers (but not the skin tight body suit with breast implant type that I have seen and tried not to look at at other “river” churches. If you have not encountered this, thank the Lord and don’t look for it.).

If you have ever been in this type of church and then come back after a long time it is funny how foreign it looks to you. I was watching all the liberty in the worship and remembering when that was me running and dancing as if at any moment the Lord Himself would reach down from heaven and touch me. I have gotten quite off track here but I had to laugh when I was startled by the sudden burst of a handful of shofars. It really has been a while.

Anyway. . .

This was the last day of a healing conference. I went because I am contending for a healing anointing and we like a change of pace every now and then. I pray for people and they get healed here and there. Most feel God’s presence. Some feel better. Some get healed. I want all healed.

After the service I prayed for a young lady who was having mental issues. She had significant breakthrough but other than that I do not remember experiencing much.

After spending some time with my Grandmother we began the drive home.

Half way back we got a call from one of my best friend’s wife. My friend had been admitted to the hospital and was possibly facing surgery. I told the wife that I would drop off my family and head straight to the hospital.

Now hear this: I was on my way from a healing conference when I got a call that one of my best friends was sick.

About two hours later I arrived at the hospital with a ministry friend ready to see some action. We prayed and declared healing in the name of the Lord. It felt like heaven had descended in that hospital room. The anointing was so thick I could barely stand. My friend immediately was free from pain. As we were finishing, the doctor showed up and we left the room.

There was a guy the hall who was in serious pain. I prayed for him. The next morning (Monday) my friend told me that not only was he was able to sleep through the night for the first time in days, the man in the hall was relieved of his pain. My friend is always looking to gather souls for Jesus so he spent their time together witnessing to him.

That morning the doctor came in and said that the tests showed that he had gallstones and an inflamed gallbladder. His wife was expecting that later in the day, further tests would show that he was healed and that surgery would not be needed.

The next day (Tuesday) my friend’s wife was here at the house dropping off the children before heading to the hospital when he called. The doctor came in and said that he was going into surgery to have his gallbladder removed that afternoon.

AGGHHH!!!

Sure enough, at 3 p.m. my friend had surgery for an extremely inflamed gallbladder that had 4 gallstones.

This is the part of healing ministry you don’t hear reported as often. Some don’t get healed. I do not know why. I may never know this side of Glory but I will continue to hold onto

Matthew 10:8 (Listen)

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay.

Just trying to be honest.  I think it was Wimber who originally said that faith is spelled R I S K.  One day, things won’t be like this.

Hosanna!

Popularity: 18% [?]

Tech Stuff - Hosting

Published
by
carl
on January 12, 2007
in Christianity
. 3 Comments

While the Revival Blog is read only by a handful of windmill chargers, I have a couple other websites that get considerably more traffic. The busiest one gets about 750,000 hits a month and uses about 175GB of bandwidth. I had a shared hosting account, then a reseller account and now have a VPS.

My VPS was supposed to have 256Meg of Ram but if you look at the info below you can clearly see that it does not. I am getting more failures than I can stand.

Version: 2.5
uid resource held maxheld barrier limit failcnt
139: kmemsize 10325866 10344255 268435456 268435456 0
lockedpages 0 0 256 256 0
privvmpages 114813 114852 196608 196608 10663
shmpages 859 859 21504 21504 0
dummy 0 0 0 0 0
numproc 111 111 240 240 704942
physpages 56605 56609 0 2147483647 0
vmguarpages 0 0 65536 2147483647 0
oomguarpages 56605 56609 65536 2147483647 0
numtcpsock 32 37 360 360 0
numflock 11 11 188 206 0
numpty 1 1 16 16 0
numsiginfo 0 1 256 256 0
tcpsndbuf 253568 354888 1720320 2703360 2228
tcprcvbuf 212992 217464 1720320 2703360 79
othersockbuf 30860 33796 1126080 2097152 0
dgramrcvbuf 0 0 268435456 268435456 0
numothersock 27 29 360 360 0
dcachesize 2077041 2089999 3409920 3624960 0
numfile 3707 3720 9312 9312 0
dummy 0 0 0 0 0
dummy 0 0 0 0 0
dummy 0 0 0 0 0
numiptent 89 89 2147483647 2147483647 0

Especially look at the numproc and privvmpages. This is with Virpus. Really nice people, though less than stellar service. When I discovered this I put in a service ticket. That was three days ago and no matter how many times I inquire I get no response.

I am now looking at the level II VPS from SLhost. Anyone have any feedback? Does anyone else recommend a managed VPS? I would love a dedicated server but it is way out of my budget.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Religion in the South

Published
by
carl
on January 9, 2007
in Carl's Writings
. 1 Comment

First this

Then this:

I have to admit, I stayed up and watched the game. I taught my kids all the Florida cheers during supper. I rooted a little too loudly. I read all the post game articles including the Washington post which had this quip I liked,

And the Big Ten? What a sorry finish for that conference. First, Michigan has its clock cleaned by USC in the Rose Bowl. Now Ohio State is taken to the woodshed in less than two quarters by an underdog from the Southeastern Conference. The Wolverines and Buckeyes deserve a rematch, all right — to see who is No. 4.

When I was going to UF I was amazed at how Florida Football is a religion in the south. I met people who owned homes in Gainesville and only used them on football weekends. After a loss you could feel a funk fall over the town. I imagine it was similar to the day when Baal did not show up for the prophets (before they were killed of course. That must have felt much worse). The loss would almost always be part of the message the next day in church (something I absolutely could not stand).
Conversely, after a big win it was like something else. Picture a frat party that encompasses several square miles converging on mardi gras in the middle of Gomorrah. You get the picture.
Anyway. We all know these schools make a ton of money off of these programs which leads me to the question,

Can I get a break on my student loans?

Popularity: 14% [?]

A Little Here, A Little There

Published
by
carl
on January 7, 2007
in Christianity, Holy Spirit, Prophesy, Revival, Tongues, Youth Ministry, ministry and visions
. 10 Comments

Bear with me on this one . . .

Back in May I had a meeting with some youth. The Holy Ghost fell in the room and one of the youth I have been chasing after got impacted. I blogged about it in the post “God Loves the Youth.” Here is an excerpt,

There was a kid that I had been harassing to come to my group because I felt God was drawing him but he was avoiding me. Finally he could not avoid it and came. When the Holy Ghost descended he began to bawl. He wound up on the ground coughing up devils and got off the floor praying in tongues and running around the room. He said that when I told everyone to repent of their sins he saw a black cloud in the room and that as I began to pray it escaped through the cracks in the doors and windows. Wish that happened to me at 13!

So this kid had some stuff to walk out. He was the youngest of three brothers. He was very concerned how he was going to live after this. He was supposed to be at a part the next day that was going to have drugs. His other brothers were the leaders of a gang.

They had an affinity for two girls in our church so they would come high to the youth service from time to time. They were trouble makers and over 18 but for some reason we let them hang around.

This young man became faithful to my small group and I began to disciple him. At the end of every meeting he would conclude with a prayer request for the salvation of his brothers. Six months earlier I prophesied over his oldest brother right in the middle of a service that God said, “Peek-a-boo! I see you! You are running from me but the earth is round.” (He later told me that he was so mad at me that he wanted to have me jumped)

Two months after the boy got saved I preached the most anointed evangelistic message I ever preached. The whole rotten crew was there. Conviction began to stir in their hearts. The next week they went to youth camp and got saved. But they had a problem. The older brothers were two thirds of a rap group that were about to be signed but they did not want to do hard core rap any longer. They turned down the offers and went back to the lab.

In the meantime the oldest brother replaced the youngest in mentorship. I really began to pour into him and he started to bring people to my meetings. Three weeks ago I thought it was just going to be he and I in my meeting so I put together a lesson plan on deliverance ministry. By the end of worship there were eight kids that came. Half of which were away from God.

The Glory of God fell in that room and every kid that was away from God got saved and baptized in the Holy Ghost. This has happened to almost the entire crew they used to hang with. They are on fire! The oldest one said to me,

I want to preach. But when I preach, I don’t just want to preach with words.

I said, Amen! And I am sure he will.

Anyway, there is lots more to the story but I will end there. They just gave me a copy of some of the songs they have made since getting right with God. Listen and enjoy.

Popularity: 32% [?]

Blogs I Read

Published
by
carl
on January 4, 2007
in Christianity
. 2 Comments

I imagine that there a lot of great blogs out there. Though I haven’t found many of them. I am sure they are out there somewhere. I generally find good blogs by links from other blogs I read. What’s a great blog? For me there are a couple characteristics of a blog that appeals to me.

  • Be saved.
  • Blog like you are saved.
  • Post more often than you clean your car. After a couple weeks I delete you from the feedreader.
  • Blog about YOU. I really don’t care what your systematic theology professor taught you. Tell me what you think and why.
  • Think. I like to talk to thinkers and most of the blogs that I read are people who think.

I don’t agree with all that these people write, but I read them none the less. So in no particular order, here are a handful of the blogs that I read and suggest you check out:

Revival Journal: Perfect example of my kind of blog. David Copeland is an itinerant preacher. I think it is really cool that he preaches to so many congregations that only have a few people (not sure how he feels about it). He blogs some of his beliefs and some of his adventures. I love to read about what people are seeing God doing. recommended post: Wal-Mart Ministry

Made To Praise Him: I mainly read Mark’s blog because I like the guy. We have similar ministry interests and like David, Mark has become a friend. Mark leads a church but is real about the issues he is dealing with in his fledging congregation. Recommended post: Who am I?

Inside the Mind of Tadd Grandstaff: I have a heart for church plants and Tadd is going to launch his church in September of this year. Tadd posts alot of short posts and is preparing for the launch. It’s fun to follow along. Reommended post: To do prior to launch

The Batterson Blog: Mark Batterson leads Nation Community Church in D.C. He blogs alot. Lots of good insights form a successful church planter. This guy posts alot. I have no idea how he gets anything done. Recommended posts: Staff Evaluations

Ridgestone Backstage: Again, lots of good info for church leaders. Recommended posts: Protecting your wife

I read several others but this is a couple that I check all the time.  If you have a blog, how about posting a short list of blogs you read with a link back here so I can see it (you don’t have to include me :) ).

Popularity: 11% [?]

Always Learning, Never Coming to the Knowledge of the Truth

Published
by
carl
on January 3, 2007
in Christianity, Doctrine and Holy Spirit
. 3 Comments

I have a couple quick posts I wanted to make before returning to my “Distractions from the Gospel” series.

The other night my wife was reading part of a book from the most famous female preacher in America as part of her devotion when something came flying out of my mouth. I remarked that those books don’t seem to be that good because women seemed to have to constantly read an ever increasing amount of books from the author on the same subjects. My wife said, “Wow.”

Early in my walk I read “Good Morning Holy Spirit” by Benny Hinn. It really rocked my world. Sometime later I came upon another of his books. I didn’t even read the whole thing because I got the message from the first.

I began to wonder why women continually buy an ever increasing amount of books and pack auditoriums seeking to hear the message that did not change them when they read it in previous books or when they heard it on tv. This is quite the marketing phenomena.

I decided that if I ever had a women’s conference I would title it, “Be more confident, Take control of your thoughts, and The key to pleasing everyone.” I surely would pack every arena in America.

Know why? This is what women deal with.

For men, it is lust and pride. Women, its this “I am not good enough, every other women has it together but I don’t” thing. I hate to be brutal but accept the fact and get your eyes on Jesus. It’s the only thing that combats pride. It’s the only thing that combats lust. It’s the only thing that will work for you. Stop looking at yourself. It will not help.

Popularity: 10% [?]