[CS-FSLUG] Just got hit with a cluestick

[Norbert Bollow]

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As I mentioned before, I've been thinking for some time about starting a
Free Software business.  I know that I can't accomplish God's purposes
for this business alone, but on the other hand I think it'd take quite
a miracle for me to find some brothers with the right skills who'd say
"we're coming right with you into this business venture".

Then today I found this article (see below) which explains how secular
business is today often similar to an orphanage while as Christians we
have been adopted by God which makes us brothers and sisters and this
is the principle of Kingdom-of-God business!  From the practical
perspective, my conclusion is that I'll simply treat my brothers and
sisters as brothers and sisters, and if God really wants that big
vision for that Free Software company to become a reality, He will put
me in touch with the right brothers and sisters and at some stage the
idea to join together in a company will look good from all the
perspectives of the people whom God is calling to this.  In other
words, I now believe that I don't need to worry about trying to find
the right people to start this business with:  In a family business,
the head of the family will select the family members who are asked to
work in the family business.  In our case, the head of the family is
Jesus.  "The family business" is a kind of "holding" company
consisting of all genuine Christian businesses (that Christian Free
Software Business which in my opinion needs to be started will
hopefully soon be among them).  Of course there are also family
members (brothers and sisters) who are not working in "the family
business" but in some other company (secular employment) and they are
of couse still just as much brothers and sisters.  Of course everyone
knows this, but I just understood what it means.  Wow!  It's a
powerful concept.

I'll keep you all posted how the Free Software Business side works out
for me.

Blessings,
Norbert.

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The Spirit of Abortion
by Doug Perry

I've been praying for a single coherent nugget to explain the problem
and God showed it to me a few days ago.

It is the VERY ESSENCE and CORE of what God did for us!  He sent Jesus
to shepherd us and be an example and then God ADOPTED us as joint
heirs with Jesus. It is the supreme and ULTIMATE example and pure
essence of love to take someone that you KNOW has problems and special
needs and sinfulness, that you KNOW will require effort and cost -
even the awful sacrifice of your own blood Son - and then elevate this
stranger to the status equal to the Son of your womb.  Equal to the
Morning Star in inheritance and love. Ok, yeah, we all know that, but
do you REALLY GET IT?!

One of the things that many of us have been praying for is that a
Spirit of Adoption would sweep over the church and the world. God
finally just put all the pieces together in my head. This is why we're
adopting a kid from China, this is why God had me build a company that
brings in people and THEN asks them what they'd like to do here and
loves them and refuses to lay them off.  That's why I'm mad at the
Church Growth Movement and mega churches that don't seem to care.

Do you get it? A Christian company that lays off people that are
supposed to be part of the family is ABORTING them!  They're expensive
or inconvenient or not playing along with our plan. Do you really
think Jesus is going to be proud of a Christian business that is
INDISTINGUISHABLE from a secular one?  If not THIS to differentiate us
- - then what?

Churches that urge you out because they don't like dealing with you
are ABORTING YOU!  For all our talk about being against abortion,
that's just physical.  Those babies are NOT in spiritual, eternal
danger.  But when we "urge" someone out of our churches, we're
potentially aborting their souls!  Do you honestly think Jesus is going
to say, "Well, you aborted this person out of your church and they
grew to hate religion and never prayed to me again, but I understand,
it's OK.  You know, they WERE kind of weird and smelly and didn't
really fit with the rest of us up here."  Maybe they asked hard
questions, maybe they didn't tithe like we thought they should, maybe
they never even got in the door because we made it clear we were
better than them.  How can you call it anything BUT the Spirit of
Abortion?

I think businesses that do family-friendly programs just to improve
retention or improve profitability aren't Families anymore, they're
ORPHANAGES.  They're just warehousing people and trying to keep them
efficient and not revolt!

Churches that warehouse as many people as possible to get the subsidy
per person that comes, are ORPHANAGES!  Of course, they still SAY
they're a family and love everyone, but people can sense that at a
certain point it changed and now it's really about numbers.  Somewhere
off in a remote corner they have a Dying Room where they just let the
troubled ones anguish and wither.  A church that feeds the children
pablum to keep them under-nourished and not growing is suppressing
them because toddlers are much easier to warehouse than rebellious
teenagers! How much love does that show?  How much Spirit of Adoption
is that?

It's like Xin Guang, the little girl with special needs that we are
going to pick up in China (God willing) around Easter (go figure) and
for whom God has told us we're to be her "Forever Family."  It's like
if we just decided she was so cute at three years old that we'd like
to keep her like that, so we reduce her meal portions and then get her
hooked on coffee and cigarettes to stunt her growth so she'll stay
just that size forever.  Because we hear teenage girls are too much
trouble. What kind of love would that show?!  And what of our
bio-daughter and the lessons she learns from that?  Don't you think
Health and Human Services would come and snatch them BOTH away and
throw us in jail?!  Well, that's what's about to happen to the churches
acting that way!  And Christian businesses are not going to be exempt
either.

That's why house churches work - if they can keep their focus. They're
small enough and intimate enough to maintain that Spirit.  That's why
MILLIONS of us have left the church entirely, because we sense that
that Spirit of Adoption is GONE and we don't know where to find it
except in communion with God directly!  By it's nature it's
TREMENDOUSLY difficult for a large autocratic organism to maintain a
personal intimate Spirit of Adoption.  This sweet, wonderful Spirit of
Unconditional Love is the ultimate enemy of Satan, because he was
offered it by God and rejected it and hates anyone who accepts it or
encourages it or models it!  Get it?  That's IT!  That's the core of it
all!

Thanks be for the Word of the Lord and for His willingness to come
show us what true LOVE means!!  Thanks be to God for being the Spirit
of Adoption without which we would be lost forever!!  Praise God!!
Thanks be to God for giving us a chance to be living examples of His
love for us.

Test your hearts.  Test your family.  Test your church.  Test your
business.  Is the Spirit of Adoption foremost?  It is UNDENIABLY the
ROOT of LOVE and your best chance to manifestly express through your
lives that you ARE Christian and you DO understand your
responsibilities as Adopted Children of God.  The ultimate sign to
Satan that you are DANGEROUS to his cause is the evidence in your life
of this Spirit of Adoption and a willingness to sacrifice ANYTHING for
those entrusted to your family.  I want to be at the very top of
Satan's hit list.  Praise God!  What about you?

Hold on tight, folks.  When people really GET this, it's all going to
start moving FAST!  A New Song is coming!


Copyright Doug Perry 2004. Use freely - but without charge and without
changes. Link to: www.whwd.org
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