On the Wednesday after the 2024 election, a number of Long Beach pastors and church leaders gathered electronically to record a time of prayer. The Long Beach Ministers Alliance led by Gregory Sanders organized the time. You can view the recording online.
Category: Links
I’ve been thinking about this prophetic song and passionate rendition quite a lot lately. I deeply appreciate the Ethnos Project music. This particular song resonates with me here in 2024.
The video was recorded in 2021 in Los Angeles by the songwriters Michele Leong and Julia Carbajal with friends from the Ethnos Project Collective.
The lyrics and more details of the artists and recording are available in the description of the video on YouTube.
Praying for the Election
24-7 Prayer USA has a very nice guide to praying for the election.
Understanding the Election Process
Protect Democracy is an organization whose purpose is to protect free and fair elections, defend the rule of law, and safeguard the public square. They have a nice set of slides explaining how long it could take to project a winner of the election on November 5. Bottom line: the election is expected to be very close so don’t expect to know who won on the night of the election. Patience is going to be required.
Tracking the Election Results
Given the likelihood that tons of bad and misleading information that will flood social media, where can we get accurate updates and explanations of what is happening?
I want to recommend that we get the latest updates and explanations regarding the election from the National Task Force on Election Crises. This excellent non partisan resource will help us avoid the inaccurate information that will be flooding social media. The task force will maintain and update a toolkit with accurate information regarding what is happening with vote counting and other important election developments as the votes are counted and results become available.
The Big Picture
Remember, the kingdom of heaven does not depend on the election result. We know already: Jesus has been put in charge! We follow him.
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Matthew 28.18 [niv]
Regarding those CA Propositions
Brian Zahnd wrote a “voter guide” for Christians some 12 years ago. (I’m writing in 2024 so that would be 2012.) It was a breath of fresh air – an encouragement to Jesus people! What he entitled BZ’s Ten Point Christian Voter Guide 12 years ago is quoted below.
1. The political process, while necessary, has little to do with how God is saving the world.
2. The fate of the kingdom of God does not depend upon political contests.
3. Don’t be naïve, political parties are more interested in Christian votes than they are in Christian values.
4. The bottom line for political parties is power. The bottom line for a Christian is love. And therein lies the rub.
5. While in pursuit of the Ring of Power, you are not permitted to abandon the Sermon on the Mount.
6. If your political passion makes it hard for you to love your neighbor as yourself, you need to turn it down a notch.
7. Your task is to bring the salt of Christian civility to an ugly and acrimonious political process.
8. To dismember the body of Christ over politics is a grievous sin.
9. Exercise your liberty to vote your conscience and conviction, while accepting that other Christians will do the same and vote differently than you.
10. It’s more important that your soul be filled with love than it is for your political team to win the game.
A few days ago in his online blog, BZ published his guide once more, and included some, shall we say, supporting texts. It’s quite a good meditation for us who say we intend to follow Jesus. It is called Election Season and Your Soul. I highly recommend it.
Instead of divisive politics and hate, this confession is about Jesus and his ways. Hot off the presses, check out the Evangelical Confession 2024. I signed.
This SpaceX Falcon 9 was launched at 8:48 PM on June 23, 2024, carrying 20 Starlink satellites.
There were clouds on the horizon as the rocket launched. The first portion of the video shows stage 1 streaking up through the clouds – focus was difficult. Then stage 1 stops firing, there is a pause, and stage 2 kicks in with the fan-tail plume. As the fairings that join the two stages and stage 1 itself drop back, there are two lights for the fairings and one for stage 1 behind the fairings in the exhaust plume.
About 48 seconds into the video and again at 56 seconds are what sound like sonic booms (amplified in my audio) – probably from stage 1 dropping back toward earth. I’ve not been able to hear these from Long Beach before!
After a break to walk around a tree (and bumping into my car since my eyes were looking skyward) there’s a bit more close-up video. A bit later, I took a still photo (over my neighbor’s house) of the stage 1 deceleration burn as it slowed preparing to land on a barge off-shore. Susie and I watched the SpaceX broadcast of the impressive landing.
Then I took another still photo of the exhaust plumes in the sky as they dispersed for some time after the launch. The plumes are brightly lit by the sun from below the horizon – pretty ideal circumstances for a good launch show! Notice the different color of the two plumes.
I dreamed of seeing rocket launches as a boy watching Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo launches on TV! And now I’ve seen three in the past couple of weeks from my front garden. Wonders.
You can be informed of launches from Vandenberg by email. Subscribe to this newsletter; it is just the right information without baggage. The email alerting of a launch will have a link to SpaceX’s launch coverage at SpaceX.com or elsewhere for other launches, such as those from Firefly. The link in the newsletter mailing will be specific to the mission, and opens on live coverage most of the time.
The M.O. is to watch the launch coverage to see that the rocket actually launches, and then watch West Nortwest (from Long Beach) for the stage 1 burn to appear rising orange in the sky. (Well, orange for a Falcon 9….) It usually takes about a minute or a bit more for the rocket to rise high enough in the sky to be visible from Long Beach, CA where I live. The best time to watch is for launches just after sunset on a fairly clear night; they can be spectacular! Daylight launches are often invisible from Long Beach.
English
The Lord’s Prayer (It’s Yours) – Matt Maher
Lord’s Prayer at Hyde Park United Church (Creative Common License)
The Lord’s Prayer – Clarion-Goldfield Treble Clef Ensemble (Creative Common License)
The Lord’s Prayer – Toa Payoh Methodist Church (Creative Common License)
The Lord’s Prayer SDA Choir in Sacramento
Spanish
Padre Nuestro de la misa católica
Padre Nuestro – Traditional | Notre Dame Folk Choir
Padre Nuestro (Bethel Music en Español)
Khmer
The Lord’s Prayer Dance, 2001, Church of the Good Shepherd, Arcadia, California
The Lord’s Prayer – Khmer Hymn 187
Syriac (a dialect of Aramaic)
The Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic (Abun d’beschmayo)
ABWOON D’BWASHMAYA (The Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic)