In this sermon, John Herbes challenges us to examine our relationships with each other and most importantly, God. Do you need to forgive someone to make a relationship right? Do you need to be forgiven by God so you can have a right relationship with Him?

Click here to listen to this sermon.

This sermon was preached by Jon Schultz, a student at Crown College who is majoring in Youth Ministry.

Click here to listen.

If you would like a copy of this sermon on CD please visit my contact page and send me an email.

You research your options and find that Google has a custom search engine that can be placed on your website. However, you find that the ads do not appeal to you or your website users. And furthermore, you do not have the funds to upgrade to the enterprise edition.

What other options are there?

I’m pleased to recommend Fluid Dynamics Search Engine:

“FDSE is an easy-to-install search engine for local and remote sites. It returns fast, accurate results from a template-driven architecture.” This means that you have full control over this search engine. You can customize many of its functions and even the design of the search results page.

Is it free?

Yes! If you are building a website for your church other non-profit organization, you are eligible to receive a free registration key. Click here to find out more.

I’ve been meaning to post this sermon that was preached by John Herbes in July of 2008.

John Herbes – Acts 26

John Herbes is an accredited pastor with the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He is also involved with MasterVisions. He lives in Maple Grove, MN with his wife Jane and his children John, Justine, and Jack.

You can visit John Herbes on the web at www.choicesmatter.net

When I first started working at MasterVisions Etched Glass Home Decor in July of 2008, the operating system on the company’s main computer had been utterly hijacked and destroyed due to a virus. The computer actually had to be taken to a professional to fix the problem.

When we got the computer back up and running, the first thing I did, was install an anti-virus program called AVG. If an anti-virus program had been installed prior to the virus attack, the aforementioned situation would have never happened.

An anti-virus program is helpful to identify and remove computer viruses or malware such as worms, rootkits, and trojans. If your computer is connected to the internet, this is protection you cannot afford to go without.

Some of the main features of the free version of AVG include:

-Anti-Virus & Anti-Spyware
Protection against viruses, spyware, adware and trojans

-LinkScanner Active Surf-Shield
Protects in real time against poisoned web pages while you’re surfing

-LinkScanner Search-Shield
Real-time safety ratings for all search results in Google, Yahoo and MSN/Live search

You may download the free version of AVG Anti-virus here.

As with all free software, sometimes you may run into technical problems because of limited features and support. Occasionally, you may receive an error that says, “Invalid Update Control CTF File”. You can remedy that with AVG Mechanic which may be downloaded here.

Don’t wait. Get protected.

In any case, you should not be lazy in protecting your computer!

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say:

A firewall is a dedicated appliance, or software running on another computer, which inspects network traffic passing through it, and denies or permits passage based on a set of rules.

A firewall’s basic task is to regulate some of the flow of traffic between computer networks of different trust levels. Typical examples are the Internet which is a zone with no trust and an internal network which is a zone of higher trust. A zone with an intermediate trust level, situated between the Internet and a trusted internal network, is often referred to as a “perimeter network” or Demilitarized zone (DMZ).

A firewall’s function within a network is similar to physical firewalls with fire doors in building construction. In the former case, it is used to prevent network intrusion to the private network. In the latter case, it is intended to contain and delay structural fire from spreading to adjacent structures.

Without proper configuration, a firewall can often become worthless. Standard security practices dictate a “default-deny” firewall ruleset, in which the only network connections which are allowed are the ones that have been explicitly allowed. Unfortunately, such a configuration requires detailed understanding of the network applications and endpoints required for the organization’s day-to-day operation. Many businesses lack such understanding, and therefore implement a “default-allow” ruleset, in which all traffic is allowed unless it has been specifically blocked. This configuration makes inadvertent network connections and system compromise much more likely.

Keep an eye out for future posts where I’ll be giving reccomendations for antivirus, antispyware, and firewall software solutions that I personally use.

One of the most important things you can do to protect your investment is to have antivirus, antispyware/antimalware, and firewall software installed on your computer.

Why do I need all 3 types of software? Good question.

There are many types of threats out there — especially if you use the internet. I made this little chart to show why it is important for you to have BOTH an antivirus program and an antispyware program installed on your computer (in future posts, I’ll talk about what a firewall does for your computer and give you reccomendations for software based on what I personally use):

Do yourself a favor and protect your investment!

When I was in the sound booth, I paid particular attention to the lighting of the sanctuary. “Why would you pay attention to something so insignificant?” you ask.

John Weygandt, visual director at Willow Creek Community Church, writes about the three objectives that he keeps in mind when he plans a lighting system. He says, “First and foremost, light enables us to see. If a lighting system achieves nothing else, it must be visibility.” Secondly, he says, “Composition is the use of light and dark to focus attention.” The final objective that he mentions is variety. He explains that we don’t use variety for its own sake but rather it should be supportive and subservient to what is being communicated through the worship and the Word. That is, light and all other technical aspects are an indirect form of communication whereas preaching, worship, etc. are a direct form of communication.

Lighting and other technical aspects of a worship service are not so insignificant when we understand their role as supportive and subservient. If we do not understand their role as such, we can make these technical aspects more important. From this distorted view of things stem complaints about the technicalities in a worship service and in this process of complaining, we lose sight of what we really came to church for in the first place.

Has that ever been you?

Ronald Allen and Gordon Borror write in their book Worship: Rediscovering the Missing Jewel, “When the heart is set upon God, true worship will not depend upon outward stimulus, it will be in constant progress.” They continue, “Heart worship does not defy art worship, for heart worship will give rise to new levels of art which will have tremendous significance. […] Beautiful aesthetic surroundings will not generate God-centered worship, but the worshipping heart can take wings in a beautiful setting.”

What is the driving desire behind our worship life? Is our worship dependent on the factors around us or is it dependent on what God has done in our inmost being?

“Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise–the fruit of lips that confess his name” (Hebrews 13:15).