How do you fix this situation? Thirty six guys on the front bumper?

I'm not using a PC anymore. Which means I feel a lot better about the announcement from Microsoft that there's a huge security hole in Internet Explorer running on computers using Windows XP (like my just decommissioned laptop). They don't have a patch for that hole but hope to sometime in the near future.

Tomorrow is the the only time this century that the clock will read 04:05:06, 07-08-09. I'm trying to think where I can get a picture to show that time & date.

I spent most of the morning transferring music we use at Pathway from my PC to the new Mac. Most of it had to be burned to a CD, ripped to iTunes, and then manually labeled with title and artist. Then I created a log of what songs were used on what mornings.
It was one of those jobs that seemed like busywork while I was doing it but will save me hours of time over the next few months. It's a corollary to the "You can pay me now or you can pay me later" axiom.

I've done a lot of funerals over the years. Some were for believers, some for unbelievers. Some were individuals I knew, many were for the family of people in my church. Sometimes there was an "open mic" time for people to come share their thoughts on the dearly departed. Those are the times a preacher holds his breath; you never know what's going to get said, and the potential for a really awkward moment hangs in the air.

All of that to say I've heard some unfortunate things said at funerals. Here's a selection. See if you've heard any of them recently. Maybe on TV today.

• "We needed him (her) here but God must have needed him (her) more." As harsh as it sounds, this approaches blasphemy. God doesn't need anything or anyone. This theory also implies that God was doing OK until something came up he couldn't handle without the deceased person, so he killed them. To be fair this kind of statement is motivated by a desire to elevate the deceased to someone so special God couldn't do without them. But what it says about God outweighs whatever positive implications it says for the dead person. Let's agree to never say this, OK?
  
• "He/she is looking down on us now." This is too often said about someone who, if there's any looking to be done, would be looking up. There's no Scriptural support for the idea that the deceased can see what's going on here. In Luke 16:19ff Christ tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus (not the same guy who was dead for three days and was then raised by Christ). In that story the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his brothers about what awaits them if they don't repent. He seems aware of their unbelief but not of their current actions. Frankly, when I die I don't want to look down. I'll know too much, and would be too disturbed by what I saw.
• "They died too young/before their time." David said that God ordains all our days before even one of them has yet to be (Ps. 139:16). And in Hebrews we read that it is appointed unto man to die once and after that the judgment (9:27). The hour of my death is appointed by God, not determined by some random and perhaps cosmically screwed up set of circumstances. Whenever I die it will be right on time. Not a moment early nor a moment late. (I hate being late.)

If you're ever in a position to speak at a funeral or memorial service shoot for accuracy alongside graciousness. You can do both. Those who say wrong things in an effort to be nice perpetuate errors that have the potential for leading others away from biblical truth, however difficult that truth may be to hear.

I remember the first funeral I did as pastor. I was scared to death (OK, maybe an inappropriate metaphor at this point). I called my mom who has played the piano or organ for more funerals than there are people in many American towns. I figured she could coach me through an order of service and save me from making a real mess of things. I have never forgotten one of the things she told me in that phone conversation.
"Don't preach him into heaven."
Pastors, also subject to the strong desire to say nice things about the deceased, have been known to say things at a funeral or memorial service that give the impression the dead person is in heaven, absent any evidence in either their testimony or their life.

Some people think the only thing that matters at a funeral is that the family and loved ones go away feeling better in the midst of a tough time. That's a noble objective but there's a higher priority, namely, that we send them away with a better understanding of the issues at stake, given that they, too, will one day die.

"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (I Cor. 15:3).

No goal, regardless of its motives, compares to communicating the truth of the gospel.