Dateline: Panama City, FL Greg’s Fishin’ Hole
On an unassuming street, a mile or so as the gull flies from the white sugar sand beaches of Panama City, Florida, is a place where everyone could come to know your name! It is known as The Fishin’ Hole. Greg May, saved Christian, husband, father, grandfather, postman, and well-loved friend of countless souls has taken his garage and made it into a place that is warm and welcoming for Believers and non-believers alike.
One Saturday night, my husband, Henry and I, visited The Fishin’ Hole. The cold cola and world famous nachos were in front of me almost before I could find my stool. The place quickly filled with old and young, men and women, laughter and hugs. I can’t wait to go again! BSP: How did Greg’s Fishin Hole come about? Greg: Jody, the best way I can explain how the Fishin Hole came about is my blog”Crewed Awakening. The Fishin Hole is the manifestation of the rivers of my life coming together. What a revelation in my life to see how God has been working all along! BSP: What is the desire that the Father has planted in your heart about this ministry? New Year 2010 at the Fishin Hole Greg: At first my plan was to create a place of “comfort and safety” for believers (particularly men) to come together and enjoy one another, to fellowship, have bible study, etc. A “Cheers for Believers”, I thought. Although these are good things, God has busted right through this plan and expanded what the Fishin Hole is to become. Luke 15:1-2 comes to mind, Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming close to him to hear him. The Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, “This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them.” (WEB)
I heard a man from the Middle East explain how seriously they take eating together. That for a Middle Easterner to sit at someones table and eat with them meant that they were considered family! No wonder the Pharisees were offended when Jesus ate with unclean sinners. Aren’t we to do what Jesus did? Aren’t we to be Jesus to the world? Besides, what’s the difference between us (Believers) and them (non Believers) besides the grace of God that we have accepted? So,I pray that the Fishin Hole is becoming a non-threating place where people from both sides of “the family” can come and “eat” together like we should. BSP: So what are some of the things that happen at the Fishin Hole? Greg: We do have a regular (weekly) bible study. There has also been a couple of meetings of church groups at the Fishin Hole. We have had a guest speaker from Israel. But more and more the Fishin Hole is becoming an everyone place. There has been party nights with games and football on the big TV. There will be movie nights and food nights and combinations of both. Some friends of my sons had a Hurricane Party and on New Years Day there was a cookout and college football Bowl Games. People from both of my work places, my church, and other churches, believers and non-believers were in attendance. To me, that’s Kingdom stuff! I know we won’t get all of the believers to go to the non-believers and testify, and I know we won’t get all of the non-believers to come to church and hear the Good News, but I do believe we can get some of the believers to meet some of the non-believers at the Fishin Holes. Greg and Company at the Fishin' HoleBSP: What is the atmosphere? Greg: The “theme” of the Fishin Hole is a “man cave” with a fish camp “decor” (term used loosely).
Literally, my garage turned into a pub-like gathering place. Still “under construction”, we have a large “U” shaped bar (formerly a table saw table) that seats 10-12 people, a big TV, a piano, dartboard, etc and seating for about thirty people. We’ve had live music and also play some tunes on our fine sound system! (just kidding) Well, you can hear it OK! The nachos and the root beer floats have already become world famous! (not kidding) BSP: Who is Greg May? Greg: I’m a stinking sinner saved by the grace of God. A stench only washed off by the blood of Jesus. If that sounds super holy or some kind of attempt at big humility, it’s not, it’s just a rather recent revelation of how big this salvation God has provided for me really is and I’m sure I still don’t know the full scope of it yet. BSP:Who has influenced your spiritual life? Greg: Jody for this question please look at the blogs at the Fishin Hole of the Fishin Hole Hall of Famers (Linda and Terri), in particular Linda’s teaching of the Word and living out the love of God and Terri’s living example of discipleship. Also my wife Hannah who lives a Godly life out in front of me. Perry Dalton who always had my back when we were in ministry together or I would have been wounded continually in battle. My current Pastor Alan Ferguson who is a constant encouragement to me. And last but not lesser by any means a group of kids in the 90’s (grown adults now) who lived out faith in front of me and I saw what it was to grow ” in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men”. You know who you are, everyone of you, thank you!
How much time should I put into Bible study if I want to “grow” as a Christian?
This question reminds me of another one. How long should your legs be? Long enough to reach the ground, of course!
But frequently when I hear this question — and I do hear it quite often — I hear a subtext that is asking “How little Bible study time can I get by with and still grow spiritually?” If that’s your question, then let me just say that spiritual growth is not something that happens on a schedule, and as long as you’re looking for minimums you’re going to find that growth is very difficult. You might ask instead how much of your life you must surrender to Jesus. Now it might take a long time for your life to be 100% surrendered, but complete surrender is always the goal.
A better question might be just how can Bible study help with my spiritual growth? How should I go about making scripture a positive part of my spiritual life?
Many people are actually hindering their own spiritual life by trying to study precisely as someone else does, or for a particular amount of time that isn’t tailored to their spiritual and intellectual needs. And before someone reminds me that it’s all about God, we do have spiritual needs, and we need to fulfill them. For example, I can tell a substantial difference in how the rest of my day will go if I cut short or skip my morning devotional time, even if the remainder of my day is occupied studying scripture or theology.
So I’m going to guess that if you’re asking this question you are concerned about your spiritual growth, and you think that more time with God’s word will help. You need to ask not only how long to spend, but what to do with the time you set aside.
Let me suggest three things that may have brought your Bible study to a halt or made it into a task rather than a joy.
First, you may be studying for the facts or for simple intellectual satisfaction. If you are inclined to intellectual curiosity, you may even be enjoying your Bible study, but still feel that your spiritual life is dying at the same time as you learn more and more. If this is your problem, the prescription is not more time spent in study, but rather a focus on applying scripture in your spiritual life. This can involve increasing your time spent in prayer, in service to others, or in meditation as opposed to working harder on details of knowledge.
Second, you may be following the Holy Spirit — or you may think you are — but not studying the word systematically enough to let it correct you. In this case you are probably more experiential than intellectual and analytical. Following the Holy Spirit is both possible and very important in Bible study, but often people who think they are following the Holy Spirit are really just following their own inclinations. The result is that they go over the same passages again and again, passages that tend to support what they already believe and do. In this case you may need to spend more time looking at the facts of scripture and reading systematically through larger portions of scripture.
Third, you may be excessively influenced by your surrounding culture. This is very similar to my second point, but instead of assuming that you’re following the Holy Spirit you spend your time looking for specific texts to support or oppose things in the culture. In other words, your study is issue oriented, and you believe that if you find the correct answers to such questions as homosexuality, abortion, women in ministry, modesty in dress, or any of a number of other issues, you have done the proper sort of Bible study. It is quite possible to have all the right answers to those questions and yet not be a disciple. In this case you need to look both for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, combining your Bible study with prayer, and also making it more systematic.
The key is to seek God’s guidance through scripture in all aspects of your life. To do so you will need to combine listening to God’s voice speaking to you, looking at all aspects of scripture, and finding those places where God wants to correct you.
Once you have the diagnosis of your need, the answer to the question of how much time will come to you easily.
with Iris Lloyd Black asphalt, solid yellow lines, and dashes of white—a road for all practical purposes but metaphorically-speaking, the picture described represents Life. This column explores prophetic intercession, from its foundations to its application into today’s world and your part in God’s plan in this Kingdom ministry. Iris Lloyd (middle)
Prophetic Intercession. Two words that most people may not fully comprehend when they are used alone, so bringing them together generally does not bring about widespread understanding or acceptance. The more familiar term of the two, intercession, means “prayer, petition, or entreaty in favor of another.” A further study of the word intercede means “to intervene between parties with a view to reconciling differences, or to mediate.”
Prophecy, or anything prophetic, has long since been a word that sends panic into most believers. Visions of locust-eating, long-haired, loud-mouthed flakes come to mind as the word rolls off a speaker’s tongue. Well, according to His word, there WERE men and women like that who were used mightily by God for His purposes. That does not, however, mean that everyone is called to engage in that type of prophecy. A book definition is not being considered in the explanation of the word prophetic. This description comes strictly from experience. Prophetic means symbolic and representative of something. Joined together, these words mean performing intercession that is representative of acts that need to occur in the natural to allow an unlocking of the spiritual realm. And, yes, there are times when that may get a little flaky–but not TOO often!
Using Joshua 24:27 as inspiration because it illustrates the importance of events and where they happened. There is a pattern in the Old Testament to remember places of worship and how God worked. We remember that sin defiles just as obedience can bless. Joshua 24 is a passage that reveals this principle in God’s directions to Joshua to use a rock as a witness and becoming, for this author anyway, the foundation for the prophetic intercession that He has led me to perform.
The most basic principle of prophetic intercession taught to me by Mrs. Annette Dotson Curtis, a wonderful Godly woman and cherished mentor, is that as we walk we have the authority as believers to invite or usher in the presence of the Holy Spirit by simply speaking “I welcome you here to this place, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” It’s as simple as that–even in a breathy whisper the power that He gains from this simple admission allows things to begin to happen of which we could never dream. Our words represent a relationship that can bridge a gap which allows a reconciliation to begin in the spiritual–THIS is prophetic intercession. Rockwell Mural at the UN Building – Photo courtesy of Iris Lloyd
In closing, I would like to share my first-ever road trip. It was the fall of 2006 and my daughter and I decided to spend Thanksgiving in NYC. As we visited the United Nations building and the General Assembly room, I was suddenly aware of Annette’s frequent bidding to “loose the Holy Spirit” wherever we went. I simply prayed, in little more than a whisper, “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I welcome you into this place and give you permission in the name of Jesus to come in to this place and have your way.” That was it. That simple prayer was repeated at Ground Zero, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the NBC studios, Rockefeller Plaza, Wall Street and many more locations as well as throughout the streets of Manhattan as miles of sidewalks and subway rails were used to usher in His presence as He directed. That was just the first trip, there have been several more with more in-depth initiatives completed–but this was the first and most necessary step that God used to begin a ministry that has spanned countless miles and numerous cities and cemented Him into my heart and life forever as a force that can move mountains while revealing His love to me in and through the process.
However, the most important work begins closer to home. You can practice the same principles, beginning in your own home and throughout your own town. By releasing His presence in your own sphere of influence, you can witness His mighty hand at work in a very personal way. Seeing Him move like this builds an unparallelled intimacy into your relationship with Him. I challenge you THIS MONTH to step out in faith at least once, release His power through your words, and watch Him begin to use prophetic intercession in your world–that’s where THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD. Iris S. Lloyd, Executive Director, Founder, LP Executive Services LLC
Overall, Megabelt has some good qualities. However, it is my opinion that the author missed his chance at writing a book that would have great impact on the church. I wish this book could be re-written with more grace, less sarcasm, and no crudity. If a revision was done well, then I think churched people of the South might be willing to read it and think about the important issues it raises.
In a letter to Megabelt author Nick May, posted on Megabelt.info, Anne Dalton suggests that the book might be used in a young adult class with an appropriate study guide.
Would you use a work of fiction in a Sunday School class? Would you require that such a work be explicitly Christian? What ideas might you have for effectively using such literature in Sunday School?
I was probably a bit too ambitious with the comment contest, considering this is a test site with limited content at this point. Had there been even one comment I would have felt obligated to give the prize to that commenter, but since there aren’t I’m changing the rules and will keep doing so until I give the prize away.
From now on any relevant comment is eligible for the free copy of Preserving Democracy, and on October 1 I will choose a winner with the assistance of a few others. If there is no eligible comment by October 1, the prize will go to the first eligible comment after that time.
Future contests will, I hope, be run closer to the rules, but in general, I like to give the prizes away!
“Write about the National Health Service” was the request. OK, I thought – I’m a child of the NHS, having been born 5 years after it’s inception in 1948; it’s something I know well from experience of many parts of it’s operation as a patient and as a relative of patients. “For American readers” was the stinger in the tail; I don’t know how the US health care system works in practice, my family having had the good fortune never to be ill in the States.
But then it occurred to me that the US system is based on insurance, and I have had invitations to pay for health insurance dropping through my letterbox, in newspapers and on TV ever since I started paying any attention to these media. I’ve never felt inclined to take up any of these offers, except when going on holiday to somewhere else, and the “why” of that should give some insight.
The NHS was a socialist concept brought in by the Labour Party, part of the larger “welfare state” concept which was originally a child of the Liberal Party. The welfare state aims to eliminate want (i.e. poverty), disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness (i.e. unemployment); it’s basic funding was by a system of compulsory insurance payments (“National Insurance”) payable by those who earn proportionate to their earnings, but topped up from general taxation to provide for those who didn’t have enough national insurance contributions. The NHS could have worked on the same principle, but has been funded from start from general taxation, with the objective of providing “health care for all free at the point of need”.
I should comment at this point that although the labels “socialist” and “liberal” appear here, there has been no mainstream political party here since it’s inception which has openly proposed abolishing either the NHS or the Welfare State; conventional wisdom is that it would be political suicide to do so, and even proposing limiting spending on either is politically dangerous, though Conservative and even Labour governments have done so. Neither “socialist” nor “liberal” has the same kind of negative impact which it seems to in the States.
Now, what exactly would I get for my money if I bought some health insurance? Frankly, not much I’m concerned with. Single hospital room if I’m hospitalised, better food, smaller hospital, better decorations – all of those are pretty inessential from my point of view. No, the main thing which might attract me is not having to wait as long for an operation or other significant treatment; the NHS does have waiting lists, and sometimes it can take a while, first to be seen by an appropriate consultant and then to get whatever treatment is prescribed (unless it’s drugs only). That said, they’ve been making strenuous attempts to reduce waiting lists, and there seems to have been a fair amount of success there. The private sector can cut those times very significantly, for some operations or treatments. Not all – some of the more complex or advanced surgeries aren’t yet available in the private sector, who seem to like to stick to well-practised procedures which are clear money-spinners. Granted, some even more complex or advanced surgeries aren’t yet commonly available from the NHS either; however the chances of needing one of these are minute.
However, it’s only a matter of “jumping the queue”, and you jump the queue anyhow in the NHS if your condition is life-threatening, so I can live with that unless something very cheap is available – and health insurance isn’t “very cheap”.
The one exception which I’ve experienced is mental health issues. I have had issues there, and have paid for private treatment rather than wait perhaps years rather than months, not being remotely an “acute” case, as the budgets for mental health tend to be more cash-limited than most. This, it turns out, would have been facilitated by most available health insurance, up to a rather modest limit. Even so, with 20/20 hindsight I might actually have made a profit, assuming that the underwriters had approved the treatment. That’s a big assumption, as we’ll go on to see.
Where I have always thought health insurance valuable is as part of a travel insurance package. Even in Europe (where there’s socialised health-care everywhere I might go, with reciprocal arrangements), things like emergency flights home are useful to have cover for, and there are sometimes unexpected limitations of cover. Better to be safe. Outside Europe – well, that’s a dangerous place! Either it’s really expensive, or the provision isn’t nearly as good unless you pay through the nose. Cover is essential.
There, though, I have a horror story. No, two horror stories, both involving trips to Canada, one for my wife, one for my daughter on different occasions. Both times we had cover for medical expenses as part of the travel insurance. On both occasions, to cut a long story short, the insurers found a reason to wriggle out of paying, and we were left with bills paid but unrecoverable, and in my wife’s case that was a lot of money. In the case of my wife, the excuse was a “pre-existing condition”, despite the fact that the condition wasn’t diagnosed until it got looked at in Canada, and that my wife had gone to the trouble of getting clearance from her doctor here that the problem she had experienced had ostensibly been cured and had notified the insurers of this (it wasn’t a condition which could sensibly have been diagnosed at the earlier stage, either). This was compounded by us agreeing to the treatment on a verbal assurance from the insurers which they then withdrew after the event. My daughter’s claim just died in a welter of paperwork, with extra queries at every stage, and we eventually gave up, as it wasn’t actually a colossal bill.
So, would I now take out health insurance? Not on your life, except for travel – I can have no confidence that an insurer would actually pay out for anything really significant, and have every confidence that they’d make my life a misery trying to avoid payment by any means possible. Add to that the fact that such insurances are usually not open-ended; there’s a limit to what they’ll pay out, and once you get to that point you can be left without treatment, sometimes in the middle of a course. Would I support our government changing the system to an insurance-based one rather than one funded out of general taxation? Absolutely not, for exactly the same reason.
Indeed, I am not at all certain that I want to travel anywhere outside Europe, particularly as I get older and, presumably, more likely to have some medical emergency. I don’t feel I can trust the insurers. I’m left marvelling that the States doesn’t have a system like ours, and that Americans don’t overwhelmingly want to establish one.
Controversy continues to grow over Obama’s proposed revamping of the health care system. Much of it centers on the proposed “government option” and the fears that it will lead either by design or by accident to a single payer system. As with most political controversies, there are a lot of charges and counter charges, and often more heat than light. Still at its core, the controversy is not simply about competing options, but one of fundamental direction. For decades, Liberals have been pushing for a single payer health care system. Obama and many others have supported it, though often they have said it would take an incremental process in reaching it. Still single payer has been the ultimate goal.
The arguments for single payer range from providing universal coverage, a simpler system leading to saving through reduced administrative costs and unified billing process, improved health care for patients, reduced cost for employers, and equality of access, just to name a few. These all sound wonderful. After all who wouldn’t want better health care at a cheaper cost?
In fact, supporters are often so sure of their case that they see some sort of devious reasons behind the lack of its immediate and overwhelming acceptance. As one supporter put it, “The obvious conclusion is that our government does not serve the people who elected them. Rather, our elected government officials serve the special interests of the health insurance industry and other corporations who make massive campaign contributions.”
What does not seem to occur to such supporters is that, rather than the corruption of special interests it is doubts about their claims that have led to lack of support for single payer. That is certainly what is behind my opposition.
The problem with so many of the arguments for single payer is that they contrast the best assumptions and hopes for single payer with the worst realities of the current system. Therein lies the first of their major problems, for they commit the fallacy of False Choice, as there are more than just two options here. It is not the current system or single payer. Even if we do conclude the current system is flawed and needs replacing, the question simply becomes what should we put in its place? I would certainly agree that the current system is badly in need of reform. But the reform I advocate would be in a completely different direction than single payer.
This takes me to my second and in many respects more serious problem with single payer. I simply do not believe that the underlying assumptions supporters make are true. In fact I believe history is pretty clear that they are not.
When people talk of a single payer, they really mean the government. Single payer health care is government run health care. True, some supporters claim that single payer is merely “a health care financing mechanism,” but such claims are hard to take seriously. What government pays for, the government will control. In addition, the claim that it is merely a financing system is contradicted when the very same supporters then claim “The strongest economic argument for single payer is that it can control costs in a coordinated fashion because of the centralized nature of its administration.”
So while supporters claim that this is its “strongest economic argument,” I would argue that this is its biggest flaw. Most of the claims in favor go back to this general belief, the efficiencies that come from centralized administration, and thus centralized planning and control. Such arguments are not new. In fact, many of the political battles of the last 150 years have been fought between those who have argued for such centralized planning and control and those who have argued for more market based approaches that stress choice and competition.
At first glance, there is a sort of logic to centralized planning and control, but it is a siren song that has led many astray and caused untold suffering. Supporters often contrast such planning with what they portray as the chaos of the market. Thus for the payment of claims, “a fractured payment system, preserving the chaos of multiple claims data bases, would subvert quality improvement efforts.” Having one source would be so much simpler and therefore better.
As I layout in detail in chapter three of my book Preserving Democracy, there are at least two fatal flaws in such thinking. The first is the simple fact that the larger the enterprise the harder it is to control and manage. Something like single payer health care for a country as large as the United State would be so large as to be completely unmanageable in such a top down approach.
Again this is not merely theory, but has been demonstrated time and time again. Government is simply not a good manager. Claims of supposed improvements in efficiency consistently turn out to be false. After all, if government could effectively manage a national Health Care system, why is Medicare going broke, even though many doctors must limit the number of Medicare patients they see, for Medicare simply does not pay enough. Yet supporters of single payer ask us to believe that a government that is failing at providing health care for a portion of the public should be given control of the entire system.
The second fatal flaw behind such centralized planning and control is its disconnection between those who pay for the services, and those who receive them. Whenever this happens costs rise until some sort of costs control places limitations on service. Thus the when one looks at the government systems around the world they find either extremely high costs or some form of rationing of service. Often it is a combination of the two.
The real solution to current problems of our health care system are not to be found in centralized planning and control, but rather in increasing choice and competition, an approach that has repeatedly been demonstrated to work in many areas.
Let me be clear about this, the current system is NOT based on choice and competition as both are severely restricted. Even though there are over 1300 companies providing health insurance in the U.S., for those who have health insurance, their choices, if they have any at all, are limited to the few offered by their employer. In addition there is already significant government involvement in health care, through Medicare and other programs and regulations which are negatively impacting the system and driving up costs.
Real positive reform would increase choice and competition. It is simply a matter of numbers and freedom. If 1300+ companies are actively seeking better ways to provide health care, and customers are free to choose those who do the best job, than we are much more likely to see better health care at a lower cost, than waiting for one entity, the government, with a proven track record of inefficiency and mismanagement, to come up with an improved system.
After all, with choice and competition if you don’t like your current provider you can change to some else. With single payer, if you don’t like your current provider, well there is a reason it is called single payer…
