My One Night in the Army

My One Night in the Army

The draft missed me by just three days,
So I went to Preacher School.
Missed out on Basic Training--
Hey, now that's not cool!
So when a Vet from Nam told me
A Chaplain was their need--
I stepped right up to do God's stuff,
For my new company.

I bought camouflaged fatigues,
And sewed on Chaplain's cross.
A major drilled me on technique,
Since he would be my Boss.
I bought a pair of Army boots,
All black and shiny bright--
Then drove on down to King City,
For war games late one night.

My One Night in the Army--
Attention! March! Salute!
My One Night in the Army--
In my Second Lieutenant's suit.
My company disbanded,
And so I couldn't do it.
My One Night in the Army,
Till they gave me the boot.

I was bouncing 'round in my old car,
Among those tanks and jeeps--
With dusty nets and purple lights,
Through those dark ranks I'd creep.
“Have you seen my company?”
But they all shook their heads.
At half past three, I gave up,
And trundled off to bed.

I slept that night with officers,
And with the same I ate--
Paying for the eggs and hash,
They heaped upon my plate.
By then great tanks were rolling in,
I stood knee-deep in dust--
Still trying to find my company,
Not knowing they'd gone bust.

My One Night in the Army--
Attention! March! Salute!
My One Night in the Army--
In my Second Lieutenant's suit.
My company disbanded,
And so I couldn't do it.
My One Night in the Army,
Till they gave me the boot.

They were old soldiers, out of Nam,
And some, Korea, too--
California's mighty SMURFS,
Who'd served red, white, and blue.
But when they learned the sweat they'd burned
Would not turn into cash--
They'd resigned, left me behind,
Pretending I was M.A.S.H.

I spent one night as sole soldier
In all my company--
Stumbling through those war games,
Helping men stay free.
One night I've served my Uncle Sam,
But these old boots I'll keep.
They've not worn out in thirty years
Of marching in my sleep.

My One Night in the Army--
Attention! March! Salute!
My One Night in the Army--
In my Second Lieutenant's suit.
My company disbanded,
And so I couldn't do it.
My One Night in the Army,
Till they gave me the boot.

There are those who've served much longer,
But at least I've served my night.
I heard the call, and gave my all,
And marched right out to fight.
I've been among the honored few:
My nation's fighting men--
Searching for myself out there,
Hell bent on fighting sin.

My One Night in the Army--
Attention! March! Salute!
My One Night in the Army--
In my Second Lieutenant's suit.
My company disbanded,
And so I couldn't do it.
My One Night in the Army,
Till they gave me the boot.
My One Night in the Army,
But hey, I've got my boots!

c2013 by Skip Johnson
All Rights Reserved

Note: This is a true story. Mine. I think God has stirred these memories and given me this lyric at this time in preparation for the Fourth of July Children's Rodeo out at Chesaw, WA, where we are asking God to allow us to plant a church. Chesaw and nearby Pontiac Ridge have been a gathering placer for Veteran's desiring to live “off the grid” since at least the end of the Vietnam conflict.

The area has the reputation for being “The Wildest Place in the West”, and also draws AWOL felons, left-over hard rock miners from the shut down gold mine, drug runners, and various other citizens who are disenfranchised from civilian life and/or society at large. The inhabitants of Pontiac Ridge enforce their own brand of justice, and law enforcement generally know to leave well enough alone, and simply leave them to their own devices. One man was causing trouble, so they burned his house down, if I've got the story right. It was a subtle hint for him to move on. My lead elder from our Oroville congregation, the one with this target group as our church plant, was kidnapped by marijuanna farmers when he stumbled into their patch fifteen years or so ago. He finally escaped, and hiked out in the darkness.

Now I'm asking him, and others of our members, especially Veterans, and those who work well with children, to come back in to see what God will do in granting us a church in this isolated area just south of the border with Canada and to the east of the northern end of our Okanogan River Valley.

In the winter, Chesaw is bound in by heavy snows. In the summer, its population swells, peaking with the Fourth of July Rodeo for Children, which is their biggest festival of the year. In less than a month, we expect to take our first group in to mix and mingle and minister, as God allows us opportunity.

We baptized a woman who lives alone in a trailer out on the far side of Pontiac Ridge in the Tonasket “Let Freedom Ring!” series last year. She's a member of our Oroville congregation, but we don't see her much in the winter, due to the deep snows, and not much any time, due to the cost of gasoline in our spread out ministry territory. We need a weekly Sabbath meeting of worshipers in the Chesaw and Pontiac Ridge area to genuinely serve the spiritual needs that exist within this unique population.

The Fourth of July is a perfect day to begin a work for spirit-wounded heroes, the Veterans in one of the most forgotten corners of America. That is exactly what, with God's help, we intend to do.

Keep us in your prayers.

~Skip Johnson
Omak, WA
6/7/2013

Who are the greatest lovers?

Thursday during my "Guitar and Life 101" class with the guys and girls down at the Nespelem Tribal Jail, I sang a couple of love songs, and told them the story of meeting the longest-married couple I had ever encountered. They were an Adventist doctor and his wife, in their mid-90's.

I visited them in the Senior Care Center, where she'd been placed after her mind began to wander to the point where she was unable to recall the names of immediate family members (though the section of her mind filled with many familiar hymns she still loved to sing seemed entirely unimpaired). When I stopped by for a pastoral visit, he was sitting beside her wheelchair, holding her hand quietly.

In the course of the conversation, I asked her, "When did you and your husband first meet?" She looked through me for a long minute, her faded eyes searching over space and time. Then she focused on me again. "I'm sorry," she said slowly, "I don't remember when we met."

I went home that evening, and told my wife, "I want to be married to you for so long, you've forgotten when we met."

"Seven out of ten songs written are love songs," I told the young adults in my guitar class, "and there still aren't enough love songs in the world. If you want to know what it takes to find love and keep it burning over a lifetime, don't ask the Young Lovers, like Romeo and Juliet. Instead, go ask the Old Lovers you know, those who have been married 40, 50, 60, 70 years, or more. They are the deep wells for this sort of life wisdom, which in our day, when a seven year relationship is considered 'long term', is something that ought to be bottled and passed out on street corners for free!"

It takes a new crop of Young Lovers, or there will never be any Old Lovers, of course. But those just starting out do have a place to turn for life coaching on the essential skills required for a love that lasts a lifetime. A great many of these are found in Christian Churches, sitting quietly together in pews, or holding hands in forgotten nursing home rooms.

Adventists, the Seventh-day Sabbath of the Bible, and "The Battle for Creation"

All competent Hebrew scholars, both rabbis and Christians, agree that Moses in writing Genesis, the Bible's first book, meant to convey the idea that Creation occurred over six twenty-four hour days, as that is the Hebrew word he employs of the six days, and of the seventh, which followed them. What Moses meant to say is clear and unmistakable: That is beyond question.

What is at stake is whether those who look to the Bible will accept what it clearly says, or instead simply disagree with Moses and the Bible from its very first page in favor of an alternate world view's contrary ideas instead--specifically materialistic evolution, which posits a many millions and even billions of years of time span needed for life to evolve from a chance and unreproducible alleged beginning through various states of increasing complexity by random mutations and natural selection to its present state.

These two world views--Biblical Theism with its Creator, who speaks and things spring into existence--and Materialism--which says the world has always been pretty much as we know it now, with variation, or evolved from simple, chance beginnings, through random chemical processes to its current state--are diametrically opposed to each other.

Though this is the case, there are those who would attempt to meld these alternate takes on reality together through teachings that would bend the Bible to accommodate the needs of the opposing world view, suggesting that God created over long periods of time, ranging from a thousand to many millions of years. This approach has been employed in Catholic education since the 1950's. It was also largely adopted by the Christian Churches in America as a whole after Darwin's ideas swept through society.

I read a book many years ago in the Santa Cruz Public Library on a day off titled "The Battle for Creation". In it, evolutionists lamented the fact that their favored world view, which once seemed so triumphant, was now being successfully challenged in public forum by Christian churches once intimidated into silence in the public arena on the subject. These same once-cowed and placid entities were now bringing repeated challenges for public school education on teachings on origins.

The author noted that after Darwin, every voice of opposition from the religious world fell silent, with a single exception: Ellen G. White. After her, the Seventh-day Adventist professor Dr. George McGreedy Price of Pacific Union College began employing scientific evidences in favor of the Creation model of origins. Others began doing the same. And now, sadly, (for the evolutionist's view of matters) many Christian churches had picked up that once flickering torch, and were scorching evolutionists with it at every turn. They were losing public debates and also public support for the promotion of their teaching, a thing they had long simply assumed.

It was all the Seventh-day Adventist's fault! If that flickering wick of an Adventist Sabbath-keeping prophet, and those who looked to her teaching, had been only extinguished, atheistic (or at least the fish/fowl hybrid of "theistic evolution") would have held entire, permanent sway over the minds of the masses. Now, sadly, that was not so...and was getting more not so all the time.

I must say, that bit of information from the camp of the opponents of the Biblical view of origin made me proud to be a Creator-worshiping Seventh day Adventist! There is an organic and unbreakable link between keeping the seventh-day Saturday Sabbath of the Bible's teaching out of reverence for our Creator, in keeping with the repeated teachings of the Bible that declares His truth on matters of origin, and the example of Jesus and the apostles, and the ability to stand up against opposing world views that would deny, by clear implication, all of these things. If you are not willing to obey the teaching of the Bible in this matter, or any other, you will quickly find yourself in a position to no longer know clearly what you believe either. That was the case with the Christian world as a whole only a few generations ago on the matter of origins. It remains a practical truth today, as well. Do it, and you'll know it. Don't do it, and you may, or may not, be able to argue in its favor, with any conviction, or success.

As for the author of "The Battle for Creation", he states that it was Seventh-day Adventists in particular, with their Sabbath observance and insistence on hanging on to the Biblical view of origins tenaciously, when it had been abandoned by all other religious groups, who proved to be the beginning of the undoing of Darwin's theory in the minds of men. We are their most effective, most persistent, and most harmful opposition.

Hey, thanks for the compliment! Glad you noticed.

Bible-Based Theological Training Available to All

No-Tuition Fees for World Class Bible-Based Theological Training Available to All (Enroll Now for Free!)

Many here on Facebook and elsewhere contact me, seeking my financial assistance in obtaining training for Christian ministry. I help them as I can to achieve this worthy goal. But I know that such formal training is beyond the reach of a great many who might do excellent service for God in winning men to His kingdom. I also know that there is a far better education that lies within the reach of nearly all, and at nearly no cost--a world-class, even universal-class education. That is the hand-copying of the Bible, after the instructions given to the ancient Hebrew kings in Deuteronomy 17:18-20.

I have had the benefit of seven years of specific ministry training on the college and post graduate levels, as well as the practical experience of working under seven lead pastors in ministry formation before being ordained as a Seventh-day Adventist pastor in my own right by the authority of our world church organization. Yet, if I had to choose between those formal educational opportunities, or the value I received from obeying God's instructions, and hand-copying the Bible cover to cover...well, there is no contest at all. The hand-copying of the Bible is the gold, and every other educational opportunity God afforded to me is silver, copper, brass, stone and wood by comparison. It is of value, but not of highest value.

So I urge all who read this, and who seek educational opportunities to fit themselves for God's ministry to do as He Himself directs you and all: Get yourself a binder of blank paper to write on, your own Bible you will be ministering from, and some black ink pens. I would suggest you begin with Matthew's gospel, and copy through to the book of Revelation first. Then go back and begin in Genesis with the 4/5ths of the Bible we call the Old Testament after that.

If you do this, you will have a world class education on all levels, and need never bow your head in any company anywhere on our planet because of what you may perceived to be a lack in your educational advantages. You will have been trained by God Himself, entered into, and completed His assigned course of study to prepare you for ministering accurately, completely, and under the Spirit's authority and power in His name. If you settle only for such instruction as you may obtain even from the finest of theological instructors and mentors, there will ever remain gaps in your education that will manifest themselves in your character, your teaching, and your leadership.

The Bible contains three things of greatest importance, and in their fullest measure:

1. The Message we are to preach.

2. The Methods by which this message is to be delivered.

3. The Mandate that authorizes us to preach that message anywhere, any place and any time, as God directs.

If you are a Gospel Worker already in service, or especially if you are a young worker just beginning your life's work, read Deuteronomy 17:18-20 carefully and prayerfully. Then if you are willing to take up this God-assigned duty, and hand-copy God's Word, so that you may down load the "software" of Scripture in its entirety into the "hardware" of your brain's computer, let me know. We are establishing a mutually-supporting online "Scripture Copying Seminary" that will encourage this form of preparation for entire ministry, and which will recognize the achievements of those who take up the work of intellectual, spiritual, and practical education directly from the Word of God itself.

We would like a suitable name for this venture, and are open for suggestions as we are in the initial stages of our online Scripture-copying Seminary, whose purpose is to fit world-class leaders for service among God's people by means of the very educational process He Himself enjoins on them in His Word.

Those working most closely with me on our growing ministry team here in the beautiful mountain river valleys of north central Washington State are being encouraged to enroll in our new seminary. Perhaps in time we will even have a location where people can come and live as they engage in this process of education, along with other helpful and practical additions of training. This is the core curriculum for a life time of fruitful ministry, and holds first place among all the other instruction that follows.

Pray God will give us a suitable, beautiful, and appropriate location for a seminary after the order of those who kept the knowledge of the Word of God in their language alive by this and similar means during the 1,260 years of the Church in the Wilderness (See Revelation 12 for details.) Our region here, with its green, clear-flowing river valleys, its pine, fir, and spruce covered steeps, its rocky crags and waterfalls, and mountains rising up to the glaciers that remain even in the summer's heat is a perfect setting for the return to such methods as God Himself has appointed for those who would serve His people and seek to win others in Jesus' name.

Crabernathy Jones

Crabbernathy Jones is a mean old man,
He beats his wife with a frying pan.
He whips his kids till they can't stand.
Crabbernathy Jones is a mean old man.

Crabbernathy Jones kicks his cat and dog,
He plucks live chickens and starves his hog.
He's the meanest thing since Gog and Magog.
Crabbernathy Jones kicks his cat and dog.

Oh, he is a bad one, old Crabbernathy Jones!
He ought to be marked with a skull and bones.
I hope he leaves me quite alone.
Oh, he's a bad one, old Crabbernathy Jones!

Crabbernathy Jones crushes butterflies, too.
He snarls, “They'll wish they never flew!”
He plucks bright wings of yellow and blue.
Crabbernathy Jones crushes butterflies, too.

Crabbernathy Jones is as mean as sin,
If you want him out, then he'll come in.
He'll break your mirror with his twisted grin.
Crabbernathy Jones is as mean as sin.

Oh, he is a bad one, old Crabbernathy Jones!
He ought to be marked with a skull and bones.
I hope he leaves me quite alone.
Oh, he's a bad one, old Crabbernathy Jones!

Crabbernathy Jones curses God and man,
And every blessed thing he can't understand.
But one glad day he was born again--
Then Abernathy Jones' new life began.

Oh, how the angels danced for joy--
As Satan raged, and cursed, and spat!
Come see the change our God has wrought.
“Meow!” and “Purrr!” said Abernathy's cat.

Abernathy Jones is a kind old man.
He loves his wife and he holds her hand.
He brings her daisies since love began.
Abernathy Jones is a kind old man.

Abernathy Jones was changed that day,
Crabbernathy left, and Abernathy stayed.
God changed his heart and changed his name.
Abernathy Jones was changed that day.

Oh, how his chickens danced for glee,
As the butterflies swirl, so happy and free!
His fat hog grunts snout-deep in feed,
And his kids climb down from the apple tree.

Crabbernathy Jones was a mean old man,
He beat his wife with a frying pan.
But now he's gone, and Abernathy stands.
Crabbernathy Jones was a mean old man.
Crabbernathy Jones was a mean old man.
But Crabbernathy's gone, he won't come again.

c2013 by Skip Johnson
All Rights Reserved

“But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Ephesians 4:20-24 King James Version

Coming Soon! God's Universal Tour

Have you ever wished you could go on a cruise ship, or travel to another country and see exotic sights, or even take a voyage to another planet and view the galaxy? There's a far greater trip waiting, and you can sign up for your passage today, if you have not done so already!

The greatest voyage ever, God's Universal Tour is the theme of a new series that seven of us of our Advance Team are banding together to bring to pass here in the Okanogan River Valley of north central Washington State. This unique approach to conveying the reality of future events as understood by the Bible through a participatory advanced tour for those who must decide whether they will make the soon to come actual voyage will be based on the ancient teachings of the Bible, whose prophecies depict events that lie just ahead, and will involve the entire human race.


Upcoming Attractions

Some of the dozen featured scenes and stops on God's Universal Tour include:

*Jesus' Second Coming and the Resurrection of the Righteous Dead

*The Journey Through Space from Earth to the Stones of Fire Galaxy at the Heart of the Universe

*Entry Into the New Jerusalem, the Nerve Center Capital of God's Universal Dominions

*A Tour of the Golden City, Attendance at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, and Summons for Universal Jury Duty

*The Second Journey Through Space from Heaven to Earth in the Biggest Mothership Ever Constructed

*The Bright New Jerusalem's Touch Down on Dark Planet Earth and the Day the Living Dead

*The Spectacle of the Last Battle of Armegedon, With the Great White Throne Judgment, and The Voyage of Ark II Through the Flood of Fire

*The Glorious Finale: We Witness the Creation of the New Heavens and the New Earth


The Purpose for the Tour

While we expect to trace surely and vividly the details of the tour, so that all may make choices that will enable them to participate, those engaged in this process are staggered at the magnitude of the sacred task of accurately describing the bare outlines of the coming grand voyage through time and space adequately. The Bible, the only actually functional Time Machine in existence, with the proven ability to see into the distant future and past, says:

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him."
I Corinthians 2:9


What You Can Do to Help

We ask the prayers of all as our Advanced Team of seven explorers goes on ahead in charting the outlines of God's Universal Tour, the grandest voyage of all time, and preparing the way for others who will be invited to follow. Already we have identified a dozen stops on the tour, and the information we uncover we plan to present in twelves fifteen-minute segments that will combine the Bible bones of ancient prophecies foretelling that which now lies just ahead for Earth' inhabitants. Our group of Bible-anchored imagineers seek to convey the information that may be known of these things in a series of creative presentations through word, song, visual aids, and other interactive teaching methods.


The Grand Opening

At present, the God's Universal Tour project is still in the imagineering stage, and will be under ongoing construction here in the Okanogan River Valley over coming months with the ready assistance of our local Seventh-day Adventist congregations. We have an eye to its completion sometime early next year, after which it will be ready for viewing by the general public at our Grand Opening, and at which time advanced ticket sales for the actual tour for the general public would go online.

While we expect God's Universal Tour to be an engaging and sound exposition of the Bible's true teaching concerning what lies just ahead for Earth's inhabitants, we of the Advance Team recognize that our utmost efforts to truly pierce the glory, the gloom, the flames and the splendor that are a part of the actual space voyage are beyond the limits of mankind's imagination. Because of this, we covet the prayers of one and all as the project proceeds. Periodic reports and press releases on the progress of the project may be expected from time to time, and those interested in viewing the work still under construction will have opportunity to do so as it unfolds in our Omak, Tonasket, and Oroville Seventh-day Adventist Churches in the weeks and months just ahead.


Signing Off For Now, But Keep Your Eyes Open For Future Press Releases!

On behalf of our local Management Team of God's Universal Tour, this is Public Relations Spokesman, Skip Johnson, hoping you'll join us as a part of an adventure so stupendous that it lies beyond the ken of mankind's collective imagination.

Keep looking up!

Omak, WA
4/29/2013

Rich Preachers???

I sometimes wish I were in the position to walk away from money entirely. I'd rather go get my rice bowl and be begging with Ghandi, and maybe free up a few countries from their oppressors along the way, or better yet, hang out with Jesus and His disciples. Unfortunately, I was born 2,000 years too late for that particular gig, and I currently have four mostly disabled people living under my roof, dependent on a single pastor's salary. No complaints, here! There is a warmth when you've got one fire to cook on that isn't there when there's enough wood for everybody to stoke their own off in separate corners.

Fortunately, I have a wife who is our financial manager, which leaves my energies free to devote to ministry pursuits that don't involve $$$ signs. Those who post such things as this do make a point about the problem of a church that matches too nearly the values of its surrounding culture, rather than the gifting of the Spirit, in its man-made, church-style corporate ladders.

Some pastors worship golden calves still. Others are lucky to have a car at all, and currently have the same retirement plan as God provided for Moses and Aaron. I have a pastor friend in Africa who has 21 congregations, whom he often sees every week, by riding to them on his motor cycle. He's home two days a week with his new wife (his former wife died a few years back), and children.

I believe here in America we will have to learn and consciously adopt the ministry techniques of our fellow pastors in third world countries before we will be able to finish God's work here, too. Anybody interested in knowing more of how to actually achieve this, check the Facebook page "African and American Adventist Alliance", which the pastor I mentioned and I have been working to establish.

The basic idea is to link up pastors and districts from Africa with pastors and sister districts in America, and also principles and schools in Africa with pastors and sister schools in America, for the purpose of mutual prayer for each others work, the sharing of ministry ideas, cultural exchange, and such tangible assistance as either group can render to the other, as mediated through the pastor or principle involved.