Michael Spencer, the Internet Monk, 1956-2010

Earlier this week the web became a dimmer place as the light of Imonk, Michael Spencer was removed from this world.  Imonk’s blog was the first blog I ever read on a regular basis.  I read his essays first, the blog was an afterthought.  I was googleing depression and found an essay on an overturned boat.   It was about Mike’s Dad, who suffered from profound depression, before medication and acceptance for such an illness was acceptable or available.  I was still mourning the passing of my Dad,  and can still recall the imagery of this powerful writing to mind.

I ended up a faithful reader, and sometimes commenter on his blog.  Many of the blogs I read today, and many of the commenters on this site I met there at the Imonk’s busy web-page.  Some of you have become wonderful friends of mine,  and I owe it to Michael, and thank him for it.   I would like to share some other things I owe to this great word smith.

The “Evangelical Circus”  was a term Mike coined to describe the churches of the bible belt that he was so familiar with, and that caused him so much conflict and distress.  He loved Jesus and all who do the same,  but so much had occurred to muddy the spring of Living Water that he needed to express his frustration.  I had a really hard time grasping a lot of this.  Only after months and months of reading the strange, other worldly experiences of so many believers did I come to realize the damage being done to the Word and the Gospel by many who professed to love it.  The comments shared by so many gave testimony to the hurt inflicted on Seeker, Sinner, and Saint alike by a Bride who overshadowed her Husband,  a church of the name of Christ, but not of His personality.  I really needed this understanding in my ministry.  Thanks,  Michael.

Being a northerner, I had assumed that the Fundamentalist churches I had been exposed to were out of the ordinary, freak aberrations,   inevitable but rare,  unfortunate but ignorable.  The thousands of comments I read over the years convinced me that this myopic legalism was almost the norm for Evangelical churches who embraced a form of legalism that fell far short of the Way of Yeshua the Messiah.   Imonk’s blog helped me  to minister to those escapees of such churches and bring healing to wounds that were very slow to heal.  Thanks,  Imonk.

My acceptance for liturgy also is owed to the Imonk.  Our service at Dayspring is still very informal, but I  check the liturgical calander and have even thought of having an earlier more liturgical service in what I would call, “High Baptist”.  More hymns, doxology, corporate prayer, responsive reading.  We will see how God leads.  Not long ago  I would have never entertained such a thought, as I had be influenced by the “as the Spirit leads”  movement to such a degree that I sold short those expressions of worship that were more formal,  even though I found them beautiful and meaningful personally.  I am richer for the understanding.  Thanks Michael.

Once I emailed Michael apologizing for arguing a bit too forcefully on his site after being drawn out by Surfnetter, and Michael was kind enough to email me in return,  starting a correspondence that showed him to be very kind and understanding.  I was wrong to get so wound up in his house,  but he did not condemn,  but rather understood and helped me deal with difficult debaters by giving me a new perspective.  Thanks , Imonk.

Seeing a chubby preacher who was born in 1956, plays guitar, blogs, and who loves Little Debbie, die of cancer really hits home with me.  It is like looking in a mirror.  Why did I survive my cancer and God chose to take Imonk home?  I learned a while back not to hurt my head trying to figure out the ways of the Lord.   I have smoked, drank, drugged, caroused, and generally sinned far more than the humble Monk,  yet here I am writing about him.  As so many things in life, it just does not seem fair.  I told my kids for years, if you want fair, it comes in once a year on the fair grounds on Rt. 118,  other than that you just need to wait for Jesus. As for me,  I remember that I am mortal.Thanks Michael.

Speaking of not fair,  how do you explain that this man worked for peanuts all his life serving the Savior, and had just “made it” with a book, and magazine interviews after 10 years of faithful blogging and 3 decades of teaching the Word.  You don’t.   How do you explain to the world that  passing from this life to the next can be gain?  You don’t.  He worked for the kingdom, not for the world.  Thanks, Michael.

I did not agree with everything this man said.  I still say he was raised in a cult, [ boy, did that get him going!] but I learned to type IMHO near the comment.  [Not that I am humble in all my opinions, especially that one]  One big point of disagreement was the Roman Catholic church.  The evangelical circus has so damaged his wife Denise that she has become a Catholic.  Perhaps because of this Michael though the RC church was growing with discontented Evangelicals.   In my area they are selling and raising Catholic churches by the dozens, and few who call themselves Catholic know much if anything about their faith, the bible or take the whole thing very seriously.   In my neck of the woods there are Uber Catholics in the minority, and the majority of practitioners who in truth are social members.  His comments did make me very aware of a group of people so injured by the Circus, that they sought refuge in another group of believers.  Thanks Michael.

I learned a lot at Internetmonk.com   My kids are buying me Michaels book for father’s day.  The site will stay up, the articles will be re-read, the podcasts will be re-heard, but there will be no fresh Imonk until we meet at the Throne.  If you told me a few  years ago that I would cry for a man I never met, whose work I simply read on a blog,  you would have been met with disbelief, but every day is a learning experience.  Thanks Michael.

There are all Kinds of people who come to Dayspring Bible Chapel where I preach and pastor.  The guy above is quite typical.  He might not be welcome at a lot of churches. It is true that I end up cleaning up a lot of butts,  and I have been told that “good people’  will not stop at our church if they see this type out in the parking lot,  I feel even apes with bad habits need to know the Word of the Lord.  We are working on civilizing these guys, but smoking, as bad as it is, is better than what a lot of them have left behind.   May God help us all to see our bad habits and leave them at the foot of the cross.

The above pictured type church attendee is my personal weak point.  Dealing with bratty females has never been easy for me.
This type comes in all ages,  and usually does not last in the Dayspring fellowship.  The ones who say they are Christian are the hardest to deal with. Those are the ones who feel the Holy Spirit has done His Sanctifying work on their bodies and souls, and are eager to guide others in the process that will make the rest of the church h as perfect as they are themselves.   Give me the apes, please, they know they are not much, and see the need for god in their lives.  the Bratties always feel God’s work in their lives is complete, and love to praise Him for His wonderful creations, themselves.

We now have a couple of these guys,  the Cool Bean Rockers!  They are too young to have messed up too much, but old enough to mess up if they do not focus on God.  They are talented , intelligent, and just the sort Satan would love to Enlist.  Can’t have them ole Slew Foot,  we got them first, and we are filling them with the Word so that they will never be of use to you.   If we work with these guys now perhaps they will never devolve into Apes!

We have had a few of these pass through.  I don’t get them.   They seem to live in a different world,  speak a different language and are genuinely alien to us.  They like the music, or the sermons, or the fellowship,  but usually only 1 or 2 out of 3.  never the whole package.  As they leave we hear.” Beam us up, no intelligent life here.”  Whatever, as long as they leave.  We think they are going to the mother-ship, but we know they don’t want fellowship with the Father and us.

While most people are accepted here, this is one group that is not.  We have many races at Dayspring,  and quite a few guys who are bald-headed, but what really counts is what is under the scalp.  Our Jesus was a Mediterranean  Jew, who would not be allowed in this group.  You just can not worship God if you worship your race.  Pick one.

This is just not allowed!  The holy Spirit is to empower you to do Kingdom work, not to foam at the mouth, or roll around on the floor.  I do not know what spirit makes men bark like dogs or laugh uncontrollably.   What ever spirit it is that makes people act drunken is the spirit that most at Dayspring seek deliverance from.  Sit up nice in church, or go lay on one of the couches, but we praise God that we no longer roll around on the floor, we sobered up.

These guys are rough to get in shape to join the flock.  Quite often they have a sickness on Sunday morning that prevents church attendance.  They call this sickness a “hang-over” but in reality it is residual poisoning.  On Saturday night they have not a problem in the world, and are ready to plunder, fight, mate with women who look attractive through their beer goggles, and ‘ eat drink and be merry for tomorrow they might die’.  We have found that alternative fellowship, true friendship, the type that continues when the wallet is empty, combined with the Wisdom of the Word, can affect even these  denizens of the alcoholic depths.   Real men stay sober in order to serve the Lord.  ”Take a seat, Think, and be Holy, for someday you shall surely die”.

A few of the guys at Dayspring have worn this fashionable attire.  The matching bracelets have secured many of our writs.  Quite a few of us have an allergy to alcohol,  when we drink we break out…in handcuffs.    I love working with people like this.  They understand guilt.  They know of a Judge.   They can admit their sin.  These are the people who worship a God who had new mercy every morning.   Humility goes well with an orange jump suit.

Well it is time to prepare to meet the church on Sunday.  Hopefully I will have smiling faces of repentant people before me, eager to hear the Word of the Lord, and eager to humbly serve the Kingdom.  Or maybe this guy…

Whosoever will may come.

Change global climate, in the name of Jesus!

LONDON — Several prominent Anglican British bishops are urging Christians to keep their carbon consumption in check this Lent.

The 40-day period of penitence before Easter typically sees observant Catholics, Anglicans, and Orthodox Christians give up meat, alcohol or chocolates.

But this year’s initiative aims to convince those observing Lent to try a day without an iPod or mobile phone in a bid to reduce the use of electricity — and thus trim the amount of carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere.

Bishop of London Rev. Richard Chartres said that the poorest people in developing countries were the hardest hit by man-made climate change.

He said Tuesday that the “Carbon Fast” was “an opportunity to demonstrate the love of God in a practical way.”

There are times that try my good will, and some things that drive me not up, but through the wall of polite concern.  This press release has upped my blood pressure and caused me to think bad thoughts.

First of all,  even the UN is getting off the “Climate Change” bus.  Even Al Gore has been quiet lately.[  Thank you, God].  With all that is going on in the U.K., as far as the influx of Islam, alcoholism,  their economy, church closings, and a host of other really scary, absolutely negative social trends, this group of clerics has decided that their best effort could best be directed toward a problem that does not even exist.  Help me Lord to not say, “Rocha!”.

Now to the measurable science of it all.  A charger for an Ipod or cell phone consumes less than 500 mA.   Five hundred Milliamperes.  The impact of shutting off all the cell phone and Ipod chargers in the UK would be nill!  Most people charge these devices at night, past peak power usage times.  Perhaps these Anglicans think there is someone at the generation station reading a dial that will say, “Smith-Jones turned off his Ipod,  crank her down, mate.”Preposterous!  Of all the energy reduction consumption programs in the world, this is the least effective.

This is not a ‘practical way to show God’s love’ , this is a politically correct way to jump on a band wagon that has been proven to have no wheels.  God’s love an be shown best by sharing the Gospel in a country where Christians are an endangered specie.  Studies show that in Canada the Anglicans will be extinct in one more generation, cell phones and Ipods or not.

I applaud the idea of going without electronic companionship for a day, even a week, or for all of Lent.  Everyone is so plugged in, turned on, and tuned in, that the voice of God, the still, small, voice, is often lost in the air waves.  What a fine and noble Lenten message it would be to say,

“Listen to those around you this Lent!”

“Unplug your devices and pray quietly this Lent!”

“Turn your radio on, and listen to the music in the air, turn your radio on, get in touch with God”   [anybody remember that one?]

“Power down, to be empowered from on High!”

This Lenten message makes the Church look petty and ineffective, filled with politics and false beliefs.  Well, if it quacks like a duck….   God forgive me for my anger.

It has been much more difficult to communicate with the Gnastic  Christians.  These are the people who just seem gnasty.  They have gnasty comments,  gnasty  actions and while they claim to use the Bible as a study guide, I have long suspected that another volume of “wisdom” of some kind takes precedence over the Blessed Scripture.

Certain modern bible scholars have used an inductive method to come to a conclusion that there was a pre-gospel book called “Q”,  the “source” for Matthew, Mark and Luke.  The claim is that there is so much commonality that a written form MUST have been in existence that the writers used as a template for their letters.  As an uneducated man, I always supposed the commonality to Christ.

Using this accepted scholarly technique, I propose that there is a source book for the Gnastics.   It is obvious from their large number and  homogenous nature, the uniformity and ubiquity of this branch of Christians , that there is some guiding text book on which their behavior is based. I will call it “The Gospel of Gnast, Guide book for the Gnasty Christian.”

I know this book is existent!  It must be.  There is such an amazing base of evidence . Based on quotes so often heard from people who follow this philosophy I believe it is possible to reconstruct segments of the Gnast, even to find verses, based upon the behavior and speech of the Gnastic Christians. While my scholarship is poor, my experience with the Gnastics predates my conversion to Christ my Lord, and in fact may have delayed it.  Were it not for the supremacy of God and the relentless power of the Holy Spirit,  I believe the doctrine of the Gnatics would have kept me from the  Grace in which I live.  Based on these years of  [horrible] experience I will interpolate what their Gospel must contain.

Verily, The Lord seeith the heart through rose-colored glasses.                               The appearance of religion is what is desired of you by your God.                           Cruelty is to be honored if it is ye who are cruel,  honesty directed at thee is      cruel and mean Spirited.                                                                                                             Your salvation is a badge of honor to you, and is to be used to make the  unsaved feel like the miserable wretches they are.                                                         Those preachers whose message is an ointment to your ears are truly blessed,   those with whom you do not agree are hell-bound sinners.                                     The way you were when you first became a believer is the way thou shalt stay, and those doctrines you first embraced are never to be questioned.                     Suffer the little children to be scolded and criticized, whereby ye can feel good about thyself and thy mighty status as “true believer”.                                                 Those who would criticize thee by holding scripture to thy face as a mirror  are of Satan.                                                                                                                                       Blessed art the sour,  for they shall ensure the pews have much open space.      For God so loved some of the world,  That He sent His only Son, that ye and thy little clique might feel superior to all.                                                                           Thou shalt support the church and thy Pastor as long as ye are having thy needs met.

There is a great body of Gnastic teachings that I have yet to compile. These teachings run deep in the    Body of Christ.  Have you experienced them?  Do you  have some Gnastic Verse to share?  How have Gnastics affected your life, your ministry?

Or is it just me.

Growing in Christ, for service.

What a joy it is to see those you have ministered to begin to minister to others!  I count it a privilege to minister to people.  It is a job I do not deserve,  a duty that is a gift.  I am starting to experience an even deeper joy.  The people I have ministered to in the name of the Risen Savior are ministering to others in the name of Christ.

Our little church has a lot of ministers.  There are people reaching out and loving others, sharing the love of Jesus, and having a faith that is alive with works.

I visited Marie in the hospital during her dark times.  She now visits the hospital, loving the infirm with a depth impossible before her own trials.

Jeff came to Dayspring seeking what Dan had, and now brings others to share what he found.

Bob had a grudge against preachers, [ understandable] and now is every Pastor’s dream, an elder who can teach, preach and pray.

Melinda was a youth in Praise team, now leads a praise team and ministers to youth.

Mike was an agnostic alcoholic, and now shares the Truth with the struggling as only someone who has been there could do.

Young Michael, who at one time had no communion with the Lord, now prepares His Table in true worshipful service.

Little Jessica, [2 years old] , the one for whose life we prayed, now hands out bulletins .  [You should see this, she takes her job seriously!]

G and P ,who once received economic help from the church, now bless the church with what God has given.

The Holy Spirit is working on us all to make us usable for the Kingdom. can anyone ask more?

Slices of...poison?

The new year started of with a new challenge at stately Willohroots manor.  My beautiful wife began 2010 with hives, and an itchy rash.   Using a food journal, we found out that bread was causing a reaction.  Doing research we learned that not only bread but all wheat products contain a protein called Gluten.  Gluten is the lovely Dawn’s kryptonite!

This has been a learning process.  Early into our adventure I poisoned her with soy sauce,  since then every ingredient is checked out for this vile substance!  We found “bread” she can eat, “bread made out of…..rice.  Same with noodles.  All wheat products are forbidden.

Live and learn.  Now we are praying, “Give us this day protection from bread”.

The good news is we figured it out and Dawn is doing much better, in fact many “mystery ailments are fading or gone completely.  Who would have thought pasta would be intolerable to my Italian woman!

Thank God for His guidance,and finding the source of misery quickly!   Perhaps we will both lose some weight, as eating out at a restaurant is out,  and I am learning a new way to cook for her.

Anybody have an Idea for communion?  Matzo bread is out!

Last year’s Praise band, is this a good thing, or something like it, to put on the Dayspring web site?

Honesty is more valued than politeness.   Thank you.