This week Fr. John Tomasi and his wife Deborah join Generation Orthodox. Fr. John shares his vision for encouraging a house of industry type of life. This podcast includes practical applications of the Orthodox Christian faith and tips for being more like our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Jacob, Turbo, Matt and Calee join in the conversation

Host: Jacob Lee - existdesigns.com

Participatants:

Marina (out at cornerstone) - deathtotheworld.com

Calee M. Lee - sacredandtheprofane.com

Turbo - http://myspace.com/turboxviii

Matt Cuthbertson - http://chantbootcamp.com

You have heard the podcast now get the t-shirt! Check out our latest sponsor

Music for this Episode Provided By: Confessing Between The Lines© 2004 Justin Mathews (829757638928)Album can be purchased at:http://cdbaby.com/cd/justinmathews

Show Sponors:

existdesigns.com

reliablereconstruction.com

alleghenypacific.com

The Long Awaited Rapture Series is back! Find out about what the Orthodox Church teaches about the rapture.

Fr. Andrew and Jacob start the podcasting again and dig deep into the history of Dispensationalism.

Fr. Andrew brings up the early teachers of the dispensation theology (William Miller 1831, John Nelson Darby 1827, C. I. Scofield 1879 and Lewis Sperry Chaffer 1900) and how it developed into the world wide phenomenon that it has become. Listen in the find out the rest!

Participating:- Fr. Andrew Welzig - www.theologian.org- Jacob Lee - www.eXistdesigns.com

Thank you for listening to The Man in Black, but not Johnny Cash Orthodox Christian Podcast.

We want to hear from you make sure and leave us a comment. _______________________________________________________________________________________You have heard the show now get the t-shirt visit our friends at:Fullness Of The Faith — www.fullnessofthefaith.com

The Music on show is from:The American Analog Set “Born On The Cusp” (mp3)from “Set Free”(Arts & Crafts)
Buy at eMusic More On This Album

Jacob and Marina from the Generation Orthodox talk about what is happening with Death to the World as they setup the tents and prepare for the cornerstone Christian rock fest to kick off.

Marina lets us know that they have just got the merch tent open and promises to send pictures from her camera phone.

 Jacob and Marina from the Generation Orthodox talk about what is happening with Death to the World as they arrive at the evangelical Music festival Called Cornerstone.

 Marina is cooking hot dogs and talks about the first vespers service and where you can find them at Cornerstone.

Jesus Made me Kosher, the Church took me Home

A Review by Calee M. Lee

Fr. Bernstein takes the reader on a journey that is recognizable to all converts to Orthodoxy while at the same time filled with the types of life events that make the evening news. He lived in Israel during the Six Day War. He sat a few feet away from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Queens College. That Cross and Star of David we still see on Jews for Jesus paraphernalia—he made it happen. This backdrop, linked with Fr. Bernstein’s Jewish heritage, elevates the telling beyond the ranks of a typical conversion narrative.

In describing his first visit to an Orthodox church, he weaves in similarities between ancient Christian and Jewish practices.

“Jewish worship was always physical. The Old Testament people of God worshiped with music, with color, with light and candles, with sweet aroma and incense, with art, with rhythmic chant, with feasts and fasts, with cycles of holy days, and with godly order and liturgy. I came to realize these things were neither pagan in origin nor temporal in character. They were fulfilled in Christ and retained.”

While the story of Fr. Bernstein’s conversation to Orthodox Christianity is compelling, I found this book’s true strength to be in its simple yet thorough explanation of the Orthodox Christian faith. He distills the Church’s teaching into manageable segments using copious amounts of scriptural, historical and rabbinical evidence.

“The Orthodox understanding of the Fall focuses on our condition or state, rather than on a broken law or God’s judgmental anger. It centers on Adam and Eve’s state of being, the essence of who they were and how that was changed in their disobedience. By turning away from God, the source of life, they began to die.”

As a side note, I was throughly impressed by this book’s use of language appropriate to its audience. Fr. Bernstein’s book offers an outstanding narrative that I intend to share with family members and friends who are not formally inquiring into Orthodoxy, but would like an explanation of the faith.

It is exciting to take this new step and link with this well
respected, multi-jurisdictional organization. We know this partnership
will only enhance the belief of Icon New Media Network “that Orthodox
Christianity is the future of American spirituality”.

More Details to be coming soon!

Jacob Lee

The following activities are tried and true and my children get a real kick out of them. They love story time (especially when Ma and Pa make a real effort to ‘act’ out the stories) and messy art is always great. So, have fun and God bless you on this Feast day!

Greeting the Day: Getting all the family out the door on time for church can be quite an ordeal. After two years, my husband and I have finally found a solution that works for our family and gets everyone out the door on time and in good attitudes (very important!). My husband readies himself first in the morning while I get the kids dressed. Then he takes all the kids out of the house on a walk or to a park while I ready myself and pack the activity bags. I meet them at the park and we continue on together. Although this solution might not work for every family, I do think it is a good idea for every couple to have a Sunday Morning Action Plan. For this particular Sunday, include in the morning activities a story time. Read stories about Saints Peter and Paul to your children. Talk to your children about how these two saints will be celebrated at the liturgy for their contributions to the early church.

Afternoon Fun: For a fun summer activity, make some sidewalk paint and go out with your children and paint the sidewalks with stories of Peter and Paul serving as the basis.

Around the Dinner Table: Now, it is a Ukrainian custom to eat Mandryky (meaning ‘to wander’)on this feast day due to a legend that Peter and Paul were sustained by these rolls while traveling for missions. If you are energetic, you can make them. If you’re lazy (like me!), go ahead and buy some yummy rolls that resemble Mandryky (as much as is possible) and feast on them with supper.

Memory Verse: Matthew 16: 18-19 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Marina and John are packing up and heading to Cornerstone Protestant Christian Rock Fest to share the Orthodox Faith.  Turbo just got back from an Ancient Christianity Conference in Oklahoma.  Jacob and Calee just got back from vacation.

Host: Jacob Lee - existdesigns.com

Participatants:

Marina - deathtotheworld.com

John -  deathtotheworld.com

Calee M. Lee - sacredandtheprofane.com

Turbo - http://myspace.com/turboxviii

You have heard the podcast now get the t-shirt! Check out our latest sponsor

Music for this Episode Provided By: Confessing Between The Lines© 2004 Justin Mathews (829757638928)Album can be purchased at:http://cdbaby.com/cd/justinmathews

Show Sponsors:

existdesigns.com

reliablereconstruction.com

alleghenypacific.com

Greeting the Day: As the feast is on a Sunday and getting out the door on time for church is hard enough with children without the addition of extra activities, let us just try to get to church on time. (o:

Afternoon fun: Have your children help decorate for the party and bake a birthday cake. Great party decorations could include rose petals scattered across the table and home to symbolize the tongues of flame, a wooden or paper cut out dove hanging from the ceiling, candlelight and lots and lots of green! Wear green, bring in plants, hang green streamers! For the Orthodox, green is the color of life and the color for the Holy Spirit.

Around the Dinner Table: On feast days, I think it appropriate to read the day’s scripture readings prior to the meal and to sing the hymn of the day (or a Western hymn appropriate for the feast). The readings for Pentecost are Acts 2:1-11; John 7:37-52, 8:12. Now after dinner, there must be cake and there must be presents (after all, it is a birthday party!). But these presents have a special twist. Give your children tiny gifts to symbolize the fruits of the Holy Spirit. I would suggest picking one fruit (or two) each year to focus on. For example, you might pick ‘Generosity’ and give your children little packets with things to give to a homeless person (like a hygiene kit). Or you might, for older children, choose self-control. Give them a favorite candy and if they can manage not to eat it for a week, then tell them they will get another candy. The gifts can be more light-hearted and fun too! You might give your child a gift and explain that it is for a kindness they performed earlier in the week, or for their patience during a certain event. Regardless, use this as an opportunity to explain some of the virtues/fruits of the Holy Spirit.

Memory Verse for the week: But the Holy Spirit will come and help you, because the Father will send the Spirit to take my place. The Spirit will teach you everything and will remind you of what I said while I was with you. John 14:26

***Matt Cuthbertson suggested in a comment on a previous post that I gather various pictures of icon corners in your homes to post and use as examples. I really like that idea and would like to include them in a series on prayer in the home sometime in the near future. Since I am not quite sure how to obtain those pictures via email without possibly inviting spam, if you are interested in having pictures from your home used in the series, please post a comment providing a link to an online public gallery with the pictures from your home. Thank you and happy feast day!

Tags: It\'s, party, time!, Pentecost, style,, The, feast, of, Pentecost,, Pentecost,

This Thursday, June 5th, marks the feast of Holy Ascension. As stated so beautifully in the Apolytikion, it is a feast of joy. Our risen Lord spent 40 days on earth with his disciples and left them with the great promise of preparing a place for us and of the coming Holy Spirit.

O Christ our God, You ascended in Glory and gladdened Your disciples by the promise of the Holy Spirit. Your blessing assured them that You are the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world.

I am sure all our family schedules vary considerably. Some of us work, some of us are full time homemakers. To answer the varying flexiblities of each family, I will try to offer a variety of activites for you to choose from or to jumpstart your own creativity. The activities I suggest will fall under 3 categories to loosely correspond with morning, afternoon and evening prayers: greeting the day, afternoon fun, and around the dinner table. The idea is to build these activites around a daily ritual of prayer. Afterall, spiritual education and outreach are most valuable when accompanied by prayer!

Greeting the Day: It is a popular custom to take a hike up hills or mountains on Ascension Day to commemorate Christ and the Disciples climbing up Mt. Olives. The Swedes have a tradition of getting up very early in the morning and going to a forest glen to hear birds singing at sunrise. Dependent on when the sun rises in your city, you might want to try some variation of this. Maybe start a morning hike at sunrise and end on top of a hill with a picnic breakfast. Or if time is short, awake your family early and say morning prayers somewhere outside where you can watch the sun rise and hear the birds greet the day with you. If you can’t take a hike in the morning, take one later in the day.

Afternoon fun: Most of the afternoon fun activities will be more craft oriented. I have borrowed the following idea from a British Catholic custom. In the Catholic Church, there is recorded an English custom of a processional involving a banner bearing a lion at the head and a dragon at the rear to symbolize Christ’s triumph in his ascension over the evil one. So, the project for Ascension Day is to make a Banner of Triumph. Here are two links for paper plate lion and dragon crafts. After your children have completed the craft (with or without your help depending on their ages), go ahead and attach them to a banner with the words “Christ is the Victor!” or something of that sort written on it. Then, at the end of the day before extinguishing the Paschal candle, make a processional around the house during prayer time singing the hymn “Christ is Risen from the dead” one last time. Then, hang the banner on the wall until Pentecost and extinguish the Paschal candle together before bedtime.

Around the Dinner Table: One fun tradition is to eat a bird for dinner in memory of how Christ ‘flew’ to heaven. If you were able to make the Lion and the Dragon crafts with your children, continue to follow the plan outlined above. If you were unable to make the banner, go ahead and make the final Paschal procession without one. Before extinguishing the candle, though, go ahead and read the readings for this feast day together as a family. The readings for the feast come from Luke 24:36-53 and Acts 1:1-12. If your children are small, use a children’s bible so that the story is more understandable. Discuss with your children what Christ’s promise was to his disciples and what he commanded his disciples to do.

A good verse to memorize together as a family this week is:

MARK 16:15 & 19 NIV
He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. … ” After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God.

Have a wonderful feast day!