Short Skits: Thanksgiving Mouse

Thanksgiving Mouse

Cast:  1 person—adult or youth—who does not mind scurrying around on the stage.

Equipment:  Wireless microphone.  Costume optional

Hello,  It’s me again.  Your friendly neighborhood church mouse.  Looks like most of the crowd has wandered out.  You wouldn’t believe what people say in these pews when they don’t know I’m listening.

I don’t know what health insurance is, but I am glad I don’t have any.  I mean, what are they going to do if my leg get’s caught in a trap?  Send for an ambulance?  I think that costs extra any way.  In any case, people sure do complain a lot about it.  I don’t have it.  I don’t complain.  I am glad just to live indoors.

Wow!   [Scurries to a spot on the stage].  O Boy, O boy, O boy.  One of the kids dropped a piece of candy.  [Puts into mouth].  Mmmmm.  Peanut butter cups, my favorite.

And the election.  Boy that was something.  You would think that the end of the world was coming.  Can you believe it?  People get to vote for who they want to lead and they complain about the choices.  I can’t vote and I don’t complain about it. I’m just glad to get out of the cold.

Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!  [Moves to another spot on the stage].  Goldfish.  I love Goldfish, especially the colored ones.  Yum, yum, yum.

And the weather, really, these people complain about the weather.  It’s too hot or too cold.  The wind blows too much or too little or out of the wrong direction or the rain comes at the wrong time or the snow drifted in front of the doorway.  Man, I am just glad to be alive to enjoy whatever the weather is.  This is a pretty good life, hot or cold.

OMG!  Can it be?  [Moves carefully to another spot on the stage].  PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSING FLOW…   Yes, it’s a piece of a cheese cracker.  It’s a little dry but when you are a mouse, any cheese is good cheese—well except when they put it in the middle of a sticky trap.  At least with the old style lever traps it was over in an instant, but not with these new sticky jobs.  It’s rodent crucifixion, that’s what it is.  But you won’t catch me complaining.  I am too wise for that sort of temptation.  I am thankful for what is provided—crackers, crumbs, or candy—I am thankful to have it.

You should have heard the people complaining about property taxes a few minutes ago.  I can’t imagine owning my own house.  I just find places to hide in them.  It seems like paying taxes because you own a whole big house would be something exciting.

Now what is that over there?  Oh, it’s money.  I don’t think I can use this, except to chew it up and insulate my nest for the winter.  I think I will drop it into the offering plate.  I think these people need it more than I do.  I mean, they are always complaining about not having enough of it.

Complain, complain, complain.  I guess that is what human life is all about.

What’s that you ask?

Oh, today’s message, it was about thanksgiving.  Good stuff, you know.  I think it must rank right up there somewhere behind complaining.

I know that I am thankful.  Thanksgiving means big meals and lots of food dropped on the floor.  I am not just a church mouse.  I am a thankful mouse.

[Exit stage singing]

Give thanks with a grateful heart, give thanks to the holy one, gives thanks because he’s given Jesus Christ his Son…

--The End.

Paradoxymoron

We know the term oxymoron.  We know the term paradox, but could there be such a thing as a paradoxymoron.  I say yes, and hereby present the term for public usage.

A paradoxymoron is a truth revealed in an oxymoron.  Here is the example that led me to coin the term:  Living Sacrifice.  The Apostle Paul used the term in an extended pericope about discipleship.  At first, it seems like a simple oxymoron.  Other than the scapegoat, Old Testament sacrifices did not get to live.  So how can you be a living sacrifice?

Here is the paradox.  Only in giving your life fully to God can we realize the Abundant Life that Jesus talked about in John’s gospel.  Only by sacrificing all that we are can we become all that we were made to be.

Are we ready to turn back to God?

God Bless America

JESUSAVES

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14

Who is ready for this?

Are we ready to turn back to God?

JESUSAVES

God Bless America

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14

Who is ready for this?

Tom Spence to sign books on Alumni Weekend

Western Oklahoma author and 1974 Mangum High School graduate Tom Spence will be signing his books at El Charro on Friday, 27 May 2016 from noon to 2:00 p.m. 

His newest release is Acceptance of Authority.  This is the book that will change America.   This is the book that will reduce prison populations and increase graduation rates.  This is the book that America has been begging to be written.

Tom will also have a variety of his books published by Tate Publishing.  Two of the most hard-hitting books, especially for those in western Oklahoma, are Throw Away Kids and PoMo Poverty.  In these companion selections, Tom goes beyond identifying society’s problems; he brings us to solutions that don’t wait on the government to fix or ignore the problems.

Tom is an ordained minister in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the pastor of the congregation in Burns Flat, Oklahoma. 

As a pastor, he returned last summer from his second trip to Africa to train pastors and church leaders in Kenya and Uganda.  He has served as moderator of the Red River Presbytery but perhaps is best known as the guy who gives out wristbands that read:  GOD LOVES YOU – LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

He is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer that served in all four Marine Divisions, including a tour training reservists.  He has served in Iraq and Kuwait, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, aboard Marine bases on the east and west coasts of the United States, and has a substantial amount of service afloat.  His final tour was as a program manager in charge of maintenance and modifications of Marine Corps ground training systems and simulators around the globe.

Tom served as both student and instructor at the Marine Corps Base, Quantico, Virginia—the Crossroads of the Corps, and proudly boasts that he successfully avoided a tour in the Pentagon for his entire career.  Tom wrote two books specifically about the Marine Corps.  The first was a first person collection of observations and anecdotes titled Sea Stories.  The other was Christianity for Marines.

Tom will also have with him, two unique books with fast moving dialogue where two men—The Conversation—and two women—Going Up—drop their defense mechanisms and actually talk about important things.

Please join Tom on Friday, 27 May 2016, buy a few books, get something to eat, and enjoy your alumni weekend.

Check out this review  and interview conducted by Serious Reading for Tom’s novel set against an end times background—Even the Elect.

Book Signing by Tom Spence

El Charro

 1101 N. Louis Tittle, Mangum, Oklahoma

27 May 2016

12:00 – 2:00 p.m.

Cool Beans

OK, so I read the short piece on the Baseball Glove and it got me thinking.

Good.  Thinking is good.

Good.

What were you thinking?

How do I respond to my salvation?  How do I respond to this wonderful gift?

That is asking, what must I do to be a disciple of Jesus?

Yes!  Exactly!  What must I do to follow Jesus?

Realizing that you can’t earn your salvation:  It is 100% a gift from God.

Yes, but wanting with all of my heart to love him back.

That, my friend, is discipleship.  Our very lives constitute our reply of, “Thank you, Lord!”

This is what is meant by work out your salvation…

With fear and trembling.

It is the most important that we do after receiving this fantastic gift of God’s love that we call salvation.

Yes!

But fear and trembling?

Let’s try giving it the consideration of the most important thing you will do today.

So everything that I do with my life from this point forward is important.

It is your response, your thank you, your I love you back to God.

Discipleship?

Yes, discipleship!

Now that’s just, well, cool beans.

Cool beans?  OK, I can see that.  We get a lot of latitude in responding to God’s love that we know in Jesus.   Then cool beans it is.

Cool beans it is.

I have decided to follow Jesus.

That’s cool beans.

Want more like this?  Try The Conversation.

A word in favor of religious extremism

Today if you want to be considered a bona fide American, you must condemn religious extremism.  I say let’s embrace it; especially in the case of Christians.

The Muslims that are bombing innocents are not extremists, not radicals, and not really doing anything on God’s behalf.  They are criminals.  They are outlaws.  They are cowards hiding their cowardice behind religious mantra.

Cowards!

I don’t like cowards.  I don’t keep company with cowards.  If they want to try their cowardice in this part of the country they will be introduced to a quasi-religious sect known as rednecks.  If you are dressed in black with a hood and sporting an AK-47 in these parts, you are likely to end up shot and nailed to a fence post.

Enough about cowards.  This is about religious extremism and why I am for it.  The last command that Jesus gave his disciples before he went to Gethsemane and the cross was to love one another.

In fact he told his disciples that they were to love one another as much as he loved them, and he loved them with his very life—giving it to us all as an atoning sacrifice for our sin.

The old command was to love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.  This new command raised the bar even higher.  We were to love as much as Christ loved us.

That’s a tall order.  That takes commitment.  If we loved one another that much, the world would label us extremists. 

I could live with that label.

If you were accused of following Jesus, would there be enough evidence to convict you?