My world as a married man

We have a married man message phorum on Jesus Connect which is in the Battle Plan Ministries Message Group. The men have started a conversation about pornography addiction in this Married Men phorum. I told them that we have specific message phorums for that type of conversation already. I outlined ten categories for them to find something else to talk about.

In an effort to give you a better picture (word) of who I am here are my answers to these categories.

A. our children

Jeremy Moffitt, age 15, lives in Houston Texas with his mom
Kristina Lynn Moffitt, 9, lives with me , home schooled for now
Justin Matthew Moffitt 6, lives with us here, home schooled for now
Jessica Ann Moffitt, would have been 11 on September 11, 2001, with the Lord now


B. our career

LAN Manager for the Public Works Department on the Charleston Naval Weapons Station. I have been here in this job since October of 2001. Before that I was the Network Administrator for the local newspaper in Charleston called The Post and Courier. I have been in the IT industry for about 12 years. I love working with technology. Before that I was in law enforcement in Texas and owned a small mom and pop cleaning company with my wife.

C. our education

I have a high school degree, some college, some hands on training.

D. our church activities as married men

Pulpit ministry
Audio/Video
usher
parking lot attendant when needed
punching bag for the pastor when he needs me to be.

E. our relationship with our wife

Happily married for 12 + years. Very much in love with my wife Katy. She is my best friend and an awesome person to have put up with me all this time. We are like peas and carrots. Not sure who is what though. We have been through some things that would have blown most relationships wide open. Having God in our relationship and a serious committement to the marriage has made us stronger.


F. our hobbies

I love to fish. I go off shore from time to time on the East Coast. I love photography. I love to read, my favorite fiction author is Tom Clancy. I love to read and study God's word. I love to preach and teach God's word. I spend a lot of time online in ministry when I am not doing something at the church. I am learning how to bowl. I just recently got serious and bought a new ball that hooks. My average is 117 on a good day. :( I love astronomy. We got a telescope for Christmas. I love to play spades and a domino game called 42 and chess.

G. our OTHER addictions

FOOD. FOOD. FOOD..... I have an ongoing battle with learning how to change my life habits with regards to eating. We are going to sponsor Weigh Down Workshop at our church so that we can loose weight. I did this before and lost 40 lbs.

H. our FEARS

Going through another divorce
Loosing another child to cancer
Not seeing Jessica again should Christianity turn out to be not true
loosing Katy to illness

I. our DREAMS

To be content in every day living. To become debt free. To loose weight so I can have more energy and feel better. To see more and more people come to the Lord. To be a good dad to my children.

J. our EXPECTATIONS

I hope that my faith in God is for real.
I expect my wife to be faithful to me and to always be by my side
I expect my children to be relatively obedient
I expect my children to be attentive to the lessons that I can teach them about life
I expect to be real with people so that they can see Jesus in me
I expect my friends to be totally honest with me and never lie to me
I expect my relationship with Christ to grow on a daily basis
I expect my relationships to be good ones







James Moffitt
Jesus Connect Ministries
http://www.jesus-connect.net
jcmoffitt@jesus-connect.net

Reality

Real TV seems to be a new found fad on network television. Is LIFE not real enough for us as it is? Yes, I like to watch SOME television shows.
Television is a way of escape and relaxation for me. You can find me eating my dinner in front of the idiot box more times than not. I call the TV an idiot box in a funloving way because I feel that if we allow ourselves to be trapped into a couch potato mentality where we turn our minds off and let the garbage pour in unfiltered that it eventually will turn us into mindless idiots.

As a Christian I find myself compromising my faith with some of the things that I watch on television. Network television has changed dramatically over the years and they are showing things to us on TV that would have NEVER been aired 20 years ago. Nudity, homosexuality,
spouse abuse, child abuse, wanton violence and a host of other things have taken over the television set. No, this is not a rant about how evil the television set is and how I feel that you should exorcise it out of your house because you are in damage of hell fire. Television is a tool.
Most of us use television as a means of escape and to receive information and entertainment in our homes. The television is not what is bad but the content is what causes the damage. If we use this tool correctly it can ADD quality to our lives and if we use it mindlessly and allow everything that is there to overtake us it can change our worldview and it can damage us. More on that in another babble session. Lets get back to Real TV for a moment.

Hollywood has found that shock value sells. How much shock value can you cram into a 60 minute program with 25 minutes of commercials.
I was talking to a co worker the other day about my trying to figure out the purpose and reasoning behind Real TV. Real TV is attempting to bring MORE shock value to the homes of America through our viewing of people subjecting themselves to things that would normally terrify them if they were to experience it. Actors and actresses are getting in front of the camera and showing us their inner most phobias and fears and doing things that most of us would never dream of. Is it the money that they are getting paid or is this all just another act?

I heard someone say that Satan is going to use our technology to deceive us in a big way. I am not talking about polluting our minds and keeping us off balance and away from the things that we should be doing. I watched a movie once about how the earth was destroyed by computer technology (robots and war machines we created) and how the battle raged on and the machines were victorious and humanity lost.
The machines created a false world that humanity was thrust into and no one knew about it because of how it was done. I am wondering if the same thing is happening very subtly to us as a race. I wonder if Real TV is just another step in the chain of events that is being used to lull us further and further away from our own personal realities where we have to make life changing choices about real life issues.

Wars and rumors of war, disease and pestilence are signs of the time when Christ could come back for His church. Every generation has claimed that they were experiencing those things and that Jesus was certainly going to come back during their generation. We have been saying that for 2000 years. The bible says that we will not know the time and day when Jesus will come back for His church but we do know that we are to be watchful and waiting and ready upon His return. Technology seems to be drawing us further and further from the reality of who God is in our lives. Instant success, instant relationships, instant gratification seems to be our desire. We are cloning sheep and someone has probably tried to clone a human being and we have just not heard about it yet. We are trying to become like God. The creation is trying to be like the creator. Why is REAL TV so attractive to us? What need do we have that draws us to it?

Am I paranoid or are we being deceived into thinking that what the network television giants are pumping into our houses really is reality?
Where does our worldview come from? Where do we receive information? What sources of information do we use in order to formulate our worldview? We live in a world of information overload. Thanks to the worldwide web everything that you can imagine is being categorized and turned into a web page. Indexes upon indexes upon indexes have been created where you can research almost anything you want on the world wide web. Our worldview will determine what our choices are and our choices will determine what happens to us and what consequences we will have to live through. Bad choices can cause us to live through a life time of consequences. Instead of us focusing on another reality on our television sets maybe we should be tending to our own realities. Escape is nice but it only lasts so long folks.

I would love to hear your feedback on this and any other article that I post on my web log. Feel free to write to me at jcmoffitt@jcmoffitt.com with any comments or questions that you may have. Blogger Pro is supposed to have the built in ability to allow live feedback and interaction but I do not see that functionality just yet. In the future we might have some surveys to see what everyone else thinks about a particular subject.

James Moffitt
Jesus Connect Ministries
http://www.jesus-connect.net
jcmoffitt@jesus-connect.net

Disjointed Drivel

Today is Thursday and tomorrow will be the day that I fly to Canton Ohio to see my sister. Tanya and I have lost that sibling connection over the years so it will be like visiting with a stranger that I will have to get to know all over again. I doubt that I will have the time to really know who Tanya is but I will just have to make the best of the short weekend that I will spend in Ohio. The forecast for Canton is snow.
Yeeeeeha... I wonder if I can stuff some in my pockets and make it back here to Charleston BEFORE it melts. It has been approximately 9 years since I have seen my sister. So many things have transpired in our lives and we have a lot of catching up to do. I guess that you could say that we had a pretty rough childhood emotionally speaking. Our parents did the best they could with what they had but they went overboard with the discipline. There are times that I look back at how hard they were and I can see how it has helped me during rough times in my life.
There are also times where I can look back and see the damage that they did to me as well.

When Tanya left home she had a rebellious spirit and chose to enjoy her new found freedoms. All of that is a long story and a bit too personal to share perhaps. I will say that Tanya has gotten trapped into a downward spiraling madness called life. I am praying that Tanya will come out of that tailspin before it is too late. Tanya has made some personal life choices that I will respect but can not embrace. I know that we had a rough upbringing and I can see how that has caused Tanya some problems in adult life but it is time to move past that. It has been 22 years since childhood and now it is time to be an adult and make some solid choices that will have a positive impact instead of a negative one.
I am hoping to lovingly encourage Tanya to take a look at some of the choices that she has ahead of her from here on out. I will pray that God will give me the wisdom as to what to say and when and how. I will pray that God would touch her heart in such a way that she will be free from some of the garbage in her life and find a new found purpose that only God can give.

We have all made some bad choices in our lives and as we walk through the consequences of those decisions we hopefully become better and stronger people. Sometimes the consequences damage us and we are never the same because of the choices we make. We all know of folks in our families and our inner circle of people that we come into contact with that are suffering from bad choices. We would all like to just make those things right again and take away the consequences. We would like to think that while we are unable to fix everything in other people's lives that perhaps God would magically take away all the pain and suffering and we could just start over again.

The reality of living is that we are changing and being molded into the people we are becoming. Life, learning and the pursuit of happiness never stops. Going from this life into the life beyond will be affected by the choices we make in the here and now. When we have left this world and our family is left behind here for a time what kind of legacy we leave behind is up to us. My hope is that I leave behind a legacy that reflects of a person who is real and who desires to get the lessons of life learned and took the time to share those lessons with other people. That is one of the reasons that I am doing this web log. I want to share my life experiences in the hopes that it will benefit someone else. In the grand scheme of things I am but one person. In the opinion of a lot of people I may be insignificant but I know that the creator of this universe has a purpose for my life and He gives me that desire to be the best that I can be and to share it with others. What good is a legacy if you do not share it along the way while you are still here?

Introducing my wife

Hi honey, I am home...... Errrrr , ok, maybe it IS still ONLY 6:46 am and I am in my cage here at the office. Nevertheless I do feel at home in cyberspace so I guess that statement was not too far fetched. I invited Katy to our blog as a team member because WE are ONE. Katy and I are like peas and carrots. One of our favorite movies in the whole wide world was where Tom Hanks stated that " Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get. " We can relate to that statement aye ? Katy is not as blabbery as I can be BUT when she does have something to say you ought to read every word and hang on every sylabble. :)

I am GLAD that Blogger FINALLY got the Team Invite function fixed again. How long have I been inviting you here?? Katy has a degree from the University of Texas at Austin in Psychology and Child development. Katy has extensive experience in teaching children of all ages and putting up with me. :) Katy loves her new found hobby called scrapping, genealogy and being an all around house mom. Whatcha going to write about hon??

ok, nuff said....

hey i finally got in~

Setting up my message archive for YOU

Ok, I am setting up my Message Archive so if the web page template gets all mangled looking on the left hand side of the page where it is SUPPOSED to say Archive, I am working on it. :)

Windows XP Professional and Office XP update

Alrighty then. Can we say HAVING FUN at the OK Coral ? I thought that I would update my travels down XP udate lane for those of you that might be interested.

I took the time to submit my blog to MANY MANY search engines to widen my drivel horizons in cyberspace. Right now I believe I have approximately 3 people that read this. We MUST increase our readership. I think......

The Office XP install went just fine EXCEPT for file location and load errors in Outlook 2002 (aka version 10). When Outlook came up it had about 4 different .dll files it was thinking it was supposed to load and never found them. Therefore it regurgitated while I hit the enter key 5 times.
After much fuss I finally figured out that the only way I was going to get rid of the software configuration nightmare was to log in as administrator on the local box and flush my user profile. I did that AFTER uninstalling the application suite and cleaning out the registry for each file that was mentioned during the error process. That did no good. I even tried to wipe the application suite from my C drive and reinstall in D drive. Office XP would NOT install to D drive no matter what I did.

Problem solved. The only ugly part to this is that I lost all of my favorites and my Outlook Express e-mail. Since I have all of it on my home network it is NO BIG DEAL. The important thing is that everything is working correctly without errors. :)