Author Archives: Caleb Coy

2013 Church Directory, Abridged

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The Abridged 2013 Church of Christ Directory:

Barbed Gate Church of Christ

Welcome, is this your first time?  Would you like to be added to the church?  Just sign up for our six-month course and then we’ll have you fill out our ten-page doctrinal questionnare before we get you in the water just to make sure you’re being baptized for all the right reasons.

Billy Peebles Church of Christ

Brother Billy Peebles has been preaching for our congregation for thirty years.  Come and enjoy preaching by Billy Peebles.  If you have a question about our beliefs, just go ask Billy Peebles.  Visiting the sick, conducting Bible studies, representing our church—Billy Peebles does it all!  We hang on every word Billy Peebles says.  Billy Peebles is the place to be.

Bitter Springs (House) Church of Christ

We used to go to _________ Church of Christ, but they rubbed us the wrong way after years of faithful attendance.  We now meet at brother Manning’s house, and we’re still trying to figure out how to accomodate to every member’s perfect ideal image of what a church should be.

Box Springs Church of Christ

With the most prime location, Box Springs Church of Christ maketh you to lie down in your own private green pasture.  Close your eyes in prayer, and remain until the service ends.  After all, the day after the Sabbath is a day of rest, too.
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Why I Have a Baseball Bat By My Bed

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Am I unarmed?  Well, I keep a baseball bat by my bed at home.

If someone comes into my house, I will confront them verbally.  If they come at me with threat, I will try to defend my wife and child while also keeping that person alive.  They are created in the image of God, after all.  If they are after my property, I would most certainly rather them live and take it than die and me keep it.  If they are after my wife and child, I will do what I can to stop them.  And if I end up taking their life, I will pray and mourn, because no man’s death is something to celebrate to me, no matter his intentions, especially if that death occurs while he is likely lost from the way of God, for then I have sent him to a most unfortunate judgement.
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Swords into Ploughshares: Voluntary Disarmament in the Kingdom

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So I think now is the time to talk about guns.  Now that all the fuss has died down.

I get it: Letting a flooded market of guns just saturate our culture so that people will be too afraid to shoot each other instead of anxious to shoot each other  is naive.

I get it: Trying to ban all guns will just take guns away from law-abiding citizens and keep them in the hands of law-breakers and a sporadically tyrannical government, which makes it also naive.
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10 (New Year’s) Resolutions for Responding to Violent Tragedy

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After a tragedy, sometimes people ask “where was God in this?”  Sometimes I want to ask “where is God in your response?” and, more importantly, “what kind of God is in your response?”

Can we agree to a verbal armistice? Let’s pretend that bad memes and misuse of statistics are like using nerve gas and Agent Orange.  Be the bigger one and stop using it, demonstrating that not-using-it-ness to those who disagree with you.  Come on, I know you can do it.
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_The Fault in Our Stars_ Book Review

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“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars
but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
-Cassius, in Julius Caesar

This was my first cancer book.  The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green, came out a year ago.  Hazel Grace is a 16-year-old cancer patient who comes to terms with her terminal illness in a unique way when she meets fellow cancer patient and amputee Augustus Waters.  This is neither a cancer book or a romance or a comedy.  But it will behave like all of those.  Green’s novel gives us tragicomedy in a way only greats like Shakespeare knew how.
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On Fear of the World Ending

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Hey, remember when people talked about the world ending in 2012?

A lot of disasters seem to have happened recently.  Shootings.  North Korea testing nuclear missiles.  Earthquakes.  Hurricanes.  Celebrity marriages breaking up.  Sports teams losing.  Economies crashing.  Twinkies dropping off the face of the earth.
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We Should Be Ashamed of Ourselves, O Friends of Job

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“I have heard all this before.
What miserable comforters you are!
Won’t you ever stop blowing hot air?
What makes you keep on talking?
I could say the same things if you were in my place.
I could spout off criticism and shake my head at you.
But if it were me, I would encourage you.
I would try to take away your grief.” (Job 16:2-5 | NLT)

Job

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Part the only of my review of _Hobbit: Unexpected Journey_

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“All the good stories deserve embellishment,” says Gandalf.  In Jackson’s case, embellishment means lots of CGI and plot tangents not in the core source material, but a great story is still told.  If you go see The Hobbit: A Fun Expected Journey, I cannot promise that you will come back fully happy.  But if you do, you will not be the same.
HAUJ_Bus_Dwarves_DOM

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