Asiel's Musings

Yesterday was one of those sad days working in community. A young man who has already spent over a year in a juvenile remand centre, who used to carry a gun, who has been on the run from the police in the past, now desperatley trying to walk the legal pathway, find himself a job came to me in a very bitter mood. He had been walking around town trying to find a job in a supermarket. One enterprise asked him to bring in a resume (the poor youth had never even heard the word before), then they asked him to bring in a recommendation. I assisted him with getting both. Then they asked him to come for an interview and take with him a signed photogrpah by a notary public. This he got and went. He was practically interrogated and then summariuly dismissed simply on the basis of his home address. This after he literally begged and pleaded with the boss to give him the job. Just because of where he lives he was sent home still jobless. He was fuming, he was so disappointed, I could see him fighti...

It has been said that the church is so unlike the armies of the wolrd in that we kill or ignore the wounded. We often get puffed up when someone falls into a sin. We so often kill the fallen brother, especially with sins of a sexual nature, as if they have gone beyond the grip of grace. How easy it is for us to sit in judgment against the fallen brother forgetting that we are just as fallible. Just a prone to wander and leave the God we love... The fallen brother needs the community at that time more than any other. Rather than finding love and acceptance, he finds rejection and scorn as if he has become a leper. I find that we are so eager to have grace meted out to us yet so stingy with grace. It betrays a false understanidng or no understanding of grace itself to withhold it from one who needs it... One of the modern classics for me has to be Phillip Yancey's "What's So Amazing About Grace?" I highly recommed it. There we are taken into the belly of Grace, be prepa...

From the prison to the pulpit... this was the topic of the message shared at our street meeting held in Vietnam, Grants Pen last Sunday evening. The speaker was Pastor David Chang, former leader of the Ants Gang, of Montego Bay in the 70's. A gunman from before 11, this pastor now pastoring in Majesty Gardens, is a living testimony that this Gospel that we proclain is the 'Power of God unto salvation." Only the power of Christ can transfrom a man convicted in prison of multiple charges into a dynamic, anointed preacher with a powerful testimony that touches the lives of young men, especially those in the inner city. In a place where young men often find it impossibe it impossible to live after the gun, they wonder how can they survive if they put down the gun. Yes it is possible with God!

Shalom! This is another of those time when I think it necessary to copy a section of text before my own thoughts are recorded. Copy follows: June 14, 2007 Please help us get this information into the hands of as many people as possible by forwarding it to your entire email list of family and friends. A bill in Congress makes it a crime for pastors and churches to speak against homosexuality Message to pastors and other Christians: Just keep your mouth shut Dear Sonia, If pastors and other Christians don’t aggressively oppose a bill now in Congress, in the near future they will be subject to huge fines and prison terms if they say anything negative about homosexuality. The proposed law would make it a crime to preach on Romans Chapter 1 or I Corinthians Chapter 6. Or even to discuss them in a Sunday School class. If churches and individuals want to keep the government from telling them what they can and cannot preach and teach about homosexuality, they better get invo...

"I have been crucified with Christ..." Really now, were you there when they crucified my Lord? Of course not! What does Paul mean by that bold statement. It is interesting to note that excruciating means literally out of the cross. Here our English language has been impacted by the cross. The cross is a reality, the cross of Jesus Christ is central to Christianity. One of my friends preached a sermon once entitled, "That Bloody Gospel" and you only needed to have view Mel Gobson's "The Passion of The Christ" to know exactly what I mean. Some found it repulsive, yet not even Mel's computer graphics workers could quite picture the original scene... It is clear from Scripture that life is in the blood, and that there can be no remission of sin without the shedding of Blood. An animal had to be killed to cover the shame that Adam and Eve felt for the first time when they sinned. It began there, rather it began before the foundation of the world, for ...

18The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon Me, because He has anointed Me [the Anointed One, the Messiah] to preach the good news (the Gospel) to the poor; He has sent Me to announce release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed [who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity], 19To proclaim the accepted and acceptable year of the Lord [the day [b]when salvation and the free favors of God profusely abound.(B) - Amplified Bible This past week has been awesome at Shalom Missionary. We have been having a week of believers meetings, Pastor Napolean Black, my dear friend and brother has been sharing with us. What an anointing upon the man, he has opened himself to the move of the Spirit. He has availed himself to the Lord so much, and God has been using him mightily. Last night, we had to engage the power of darkness in a direct way. Just as Jesus taught us, we do not play around with demons, we deal with ...

Guns, gangs and violence, G3 - This was the topic of a conference put on USAID and FLAVACA held at Hilton Kingston June 12-13 , which I was privileged to attend. It was time well spent, I learned a whole lot. The conference was well organized, and the organizers sought to bring presenters from a wide range of perspectives on the G3. There was the 'grassroots' perspective, the youth perspective, the police perspective, the media/business perspective... In the Grassroots perspective I learned new slangs that are being used by gang members along with some of the harsh realities of the inner city gang life and their gun related activities.