"But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire. And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself."
"If we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way."
More from the book of James: "What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?
So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless."
This week we continue on in James... dealing with the metaphor of God's Word as a mirror revealing not only truth about God, but about ourselves as well. Also, pure religion is
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We're working through the Book of James... with these I want to continue the visual theme of the nature images James uses (in this case waves) as well as suggest the idea of a prayer (like for wisdom) and an answer (the dawning light)... as well as "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."
This week we begin a series of weeks in the book of James. For the 1st week, we'll look at what is, for us, a relatively short passage- verses 1-4
James is filled with images from nature, so I'm going to make use of those. Though he doesn't specifically mention a storm in this passage, it's that famous "Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds."
I wanted an image that captured the storm of trials, the hope of God bringing something out of that, someone facing the trials (with fear? With open arms?)... bonus- I orginally found the background part of this image in searching for "trees in the wind"- James talks about being "mature and complete" and I thought some trees standing in the wind would capture that- I ended up going a different direction, but I think the stand of trees, together, holding one another up, goes well with what we'll be talking about this week...
If I'm not feeling too slammed, I'll try to give some commentary on these slides as I post them...
This week we're talking about the role of theology in our community, about pursuing wisdom and knowledge and how that ultimately rests in the person of Jesus Himself (Col 2:2-3)
I chose an icon of Christ holding a book (presumably Scripture) to try an tie all of that together and as a visual representation of where I hope the discussion ends up...
We had given up all hope...
and then there was CrossOver.
Run any Windows program on your INTEL-BASED (sorry) Mac.
I've installe MediaShout 1, working on 2 and/or 3...
I'll let you know if it works.
Until then, check out CrossOver
Oh how I wish I had known about 36 Parables, a series of amazingly well-produced short films based on the parables of Jesus, when I was preaching through the Gospels over the last couple of years. Man, I hope I don't forget about these before we go through a Gospel again...
Also, I've recommended Sermon Spice to you before, but now let me recommend Worship House Media... Same general idea (browse short media clips, purchase and download online), but...
Prices are generally a lot lower, and to be honest, they seem to have the best of what Sermon Spice has, without a lot or the more amateur stuff I probably wouldn't use anyway. You really should check 'em out...
For a habitual Sunday morning downloader like myself, they're going to be a regular stop, I think... 
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