Elephant and dog: best friends

This is obnoxiously cute.


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A coffee shop in church?

"With the explosion of coffee shops opening up across the country, more and more churches are trying to incorporate the coffee-shop atmosphere into their buildings. They're bringing in espresso machines and setting up lounge-like rooms in an effort to get people — especially young adults — to think of a church as a place they can go to for more than Sunday morning worship and Wednesday night Bible study.

'We're trying to bridge church culture with what you may call pop culture,' said Eric Dixon, manager of Daystar Family Church's coffee shop The Pulpit Cafe. 'We want to be relevant. We want to make church part of daily living, and this offers a community meeting place for people to just come and relax in a safe, family-friendly, Christian environment. … This isn't your typical church coffee with the Styrofoam cup and the percolator after worship.'"

-By Sarah Bruyn Jones Staff writer

Sigh.

I think what is so sad to me about this article is this statement, "People are flocking to coffee houses. And it's those people churches are hoping to attract." So...because there are no miracles, no power in prayer, no sign of prophecy, no healing...Christians have to resort to coffee to bring people into church?

And we wonder why unbelievers don't take us seriously? Instead of performing the greater works that Jesus promised all who would believe would do (John 14:12), we have addictive caffeinated products. Great.

Just to be clear, I do not have a problem with coffee. But the Holy Spirit is what should be attracting people into the house of God.

After all, to quote Graham Cooke; "Jesus did not say, 'I have come that you might have meetings and have them more abundantly.'"

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Referenced scriptures:

*John 14:12 says "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." -kjv

John 10:10 says "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." -kjv

Cheesecake Factory: Raspberry Martini

Tonight was chicken costoletta night at Cheesecake Factory. The raspberry martini's are 11 dollars each, so from now on we will be making our own.

Cheesecake factory raspberry martini recipe:

1 part raspberry Chambord
2 part stoli raspberry vodka
sugar syrup
pineapple juice
cranberry juice
raspberry concoction*

raspberry concoction -can be made with frozen raspberries melting them in microwave, mixing them together, removing seeds through a sieve + sugar