Proof is in the pudding

Ya, my blogging skills and consistency are incredibly lacking, but today I felt like blogging once more.

Last night I was faced with a tough or maybe easy decision.

We were doing Ony 10 and I had one of my new Off Tanks in there that I had been running with on instances on my shammie. He got himself to be crit capped and I thought sure, he can off tank Ony 10 with me, it is a simple enough fight.

Our first attempt I had him on the adds and well, the aoe threat was not there in his gear to compensate for the threat of the heals, etc. So I had him take over doing the single add.

We downed Ony and then the decision time came. The tanking Judgement Helm dropped. I will still sporting my T 8.5 helm, but my other tank had the crafted i200 epix tanking helm. Being that this was his first raid with us, he only had 2150 EP, so I easily out rank him on the priority list for loot.

So, eating my own message and doing the right thing, I gave him the helm. Then I promptly cut him a meta gem and epix gem to socket into the helm.

It was the right thing to do.

Life is a journey

So today I am going to be all over the place in my blog.

We discovered recently that our Kitchen floor was rotting out from underneath us. We had a contractor over that is a good Christian man that has done work for some of our relatives to find out the damage is gong to cost us the entire kitchen floor and dining area. the only thing keeping thing up at this point is the slate tile floor.

So our next battle is with our insurance to see if they will cover any of it and ask your prayers in this matter, cause otherwise we have no idea how to pay for it.

So life is a journey of ups and downs. A testing of ones character. Just when you think all is good, these things happen.

So I am attempting to stay positive and up beat for my wife, but it is going to be interesting for sure.

So lets move to in game news.

Recently, my Guild Eternity Matters has downed some new content for the first time. From ToC 25 man. Tonight we are going to attempt to finish off the Valkery Twins and Anuberak.

My Shammie got to go heal Nax 10 for the first time this weekend in an alt run and she came away with her Tier 7 helm! I almost have her fully epixed out in item 200s or higher. I still need an off hand and trinket replaced, but that will come with time.

Last bit of musing from me today during my lunch is back on the topic of ministry and criticism.

I find it very easy to criticize others for trying to do the right thing and then not doing it according to my standard. I recall growing up this phrase or question, "Why is that Christians only put on their armor to beat on other Christians rather than the true enemy?"

I had all but given up on ministry of any type this weekend because of the guild drama. My recent blog posts shows my shift in my thinking in that my guild was not a ministry. Well, God bless my wife and she challenged me on that. I had re-written the What is Eternity Matters section numerous times and finally we came up with one that we could both agree on.

This jist of it was Eternity Matters is not a church and it will never be one. It is not a street preaching ministry virtually in the game.

It is an organization of Christians that play world of warcraft to succeed in end game content. But being that we are comprised of Christians, it is a place of ministry among those Christians. God can still use us, despite ourselves.

I look at it this way, you get a bunch of believers together and you get 1 of 2 things.
If they are in tune with God, you get ministry because it is a natural part of their life. They just bless people by encouraging them, etc.
OR you get fighting, because everyone is entitled to their opinion and their is no harmony.

The problem I was facing was trying to overtly be a ministry and raid, and we could not do both, because of the perception of being uncaring that raiding guilds bring.

The question then became, Does God care that we play this game? That we raid? That we succeed at raiding?

I have been told that he doesn't care one way or another.

I happen to disagree. If God cares enough to keep track of the hair on my head, he cares enough about what I do with my time and how I spend it.

So I guess I am saying, that yes, you can Raid for God's Glory. That attitude is one of self sacrifice and not being one after the loot. And yes, Eternity Matters can still be a place of ministry, even with the changes it has had.

Thanks for Reading!

A better understanding

I meant to blog at lunch today, but ended up reading a good book.

That aside, I just wanted to follow up from my previous blog.

Me and my former guildie has come to an understanding and I hope can still be friends.

We don't see eye to eye, but that is ok, diversity is part of God's creation.

That all being said, I think we have both moved on, both made some mistakes, and are both better for it.

For one thing, God has been working in my heart and mind about the concept of what ministry is.

For many, minisitry is what the church does, what a mission group does, etc. For a while, I thought my guild in a way was a ministry.

I have come to understand that is not the case. Ministry is not an organization. Ministry is what God has called us to do. That includes the simple things such as taking care of someone needs to the more blatent telling people that Jesus loves them. It is supposed to be our way of life, the way we give back to God.

So what is the Church? The Church is the place God uses to energize and equip his people for ministry. This is going to be my topic on next weeks Ventrillo Guild message for my guildies that are interested.

So my guild in all senses is just a group of like minded people, but we have the opportunity as individuals to do ministry, but its purpose is not ministry, but an organization for a game.

Now there are some legit ministry organizations out there, but they are not ministry, what they do again is similiar to the church, the equip the individual to do ministry.

Anyway, I will go more into that this up coming Tuesday, in my Vent Study on God's gifts to the church, how some minister.

As to fun game news, my main just got a new shield and tanking ring.

Therigwin is looking pretty good!

Have a great night!

Drama Queens

I have always tried to be real with people, both online and in real life. What you see is what you get.

I am blogging today to sort out what just happened in the past day.

Recently I announced that I was going to change things in the guild to better accommodate things for me cause I was starting to burn out.

Now let me state this first, we have had little to no guild drama in the past few months. It has been really nice.

Ok, the major change I announced was I was no longer going to be doing the in game devotionals in say chat on Sunday. The primary reason for this is we started a Tuesday Prayer and Bible Study in Ventrillo where I feel I could do more. On top of that, the last Sunday Bible time we did in game, only 1 person showed up, while the Ventrillo meeting was getting a good following of people. But I believed both were sufferring in that I did not feel I had the time to spend on both. Now the Sunday Devotional used to be covered by 3 people taking turns. Jon and Chris cofounders of the guild helped out and they were the ones that suggested it. Well, they have left the game and left it entirely to me. When no one was coming any more, I felt it was time to stop.

Most people were encouraging to me. One person was not. They posted a nice long response basically accusing the guild of not caring about people anymore. It went to private PMs between my wife and him until it came down to a he said, she said. At that time, I had enough. This person was someone we had kicked from the guild once before because he was a problem and he was becoming a problem again. So with the agreement of our officers, we suspended his web account and put him in Time Out rank.

He then used his facebook page to post a picture of my avatar with a Hitler head and called my wife a female dog (b word). This was reported by one of our retired officers. At that point, the rest of the officers, even those that had met him in real life and liked him, called for him to be kicked from the guild.

We kicked him and in his spite, he continues to attack us.

It makes me sad.

All I ever really wanted to do was play the game and be a Christian at the same time. People have different ideas on what that means and I guess to them I am a hypocrite.

I got an email from him asking that I remove all his artwork from the guild website. So I have decided to do a full website purge, cause in honesty, the guild has changed, the members have changed, and he was one of the few remaining members that caused drama. He is now gone and I find it time to start over, move forward and not look back. The EM website will be a blank slate that the current membership can make their own, rather than having the negativity of the past cloud it.

To the member I kicked and his clan of supporters, I do wish you best. I do forgive you for the hurtful things you have done constantly and the misguided lies you believe to be truth. I respectfully ask that you leave us alone.