I am all for equal protection under the law, and for the respecting of the rights of all people.  When it comes to the gay marriage issue, I have held my position that civil unions that give legal rights equivilent to marriage for practical purposes is fine, though I believe it is immoral.  However, what judges in California have recently done in making a decision that redifines the meaning of marriage is going too far.  This isn't just because I believe it is wrong, but because it makes my Christian beliefs illegal.  Check out this video of what happened to a family in Massachussetts.  The implications of this are far reaching and will reach into your household.  No matter how this turns out, we need to keep an eternal perspective on all this. 

This is the cover for the audio book I am creating.  It is getting close.  Stay tuned!!  If you want to reserve a copy at a pre-order discount, just send me $25 via PayPal to jim@jimandersononline.com and indicate in the comments that it is for the audio book.  I expect it to be ready in 4 to 6 weeks.  The retail price will be $39.95.

I am working on an audio book about how to get out from under the weight debt is putting on most of us these days.  Even if you don't have any debt, you could learn how the debt of others is affecting your finances.  Using my financial education and my small business experience, and dealing with the closure of that business, I have learned some things that changed my life.  I'd like to share that with you.  Watch for the book, it will soon be available on my website.

One of the big concerns today is how much it cost to gas up our cars.  There is a new technology that is growing through a grass roots effort that will make a major difference in how we fuel our cars in the future.  You can start saving money now by doing a conversion on your current car that will turn your car into a Gas/Water Hybrid.  This works on 99.9% of all cars and could double your gas mileage.  It apparently creates a type of hydrogen on demand and mixes with your gas to run cleaner and more efficiently.  It also does not void your warranty.  The cost to convert is under $200 if you do it yourself.  Here is a link to a website where you can get the instructions.  It is based on the technology of electrolysis, but there are things you can do to increase its efficiency by tweaking.  That is the point of getting the instructions, to join the thousands of others who are experimenting with this, and benefiting from the gas savings in the meantime.  It is a community of experimenters sharing their findings.  The implications are mind boggling.  I'm working on impllementing this myself.  You can see my progress blogged on http://water4gasexperiment.blogspot.com/

One of the reasons I changed my profession was because materialism had taken hold of me.  It wasn't that I made a lot of money, it is that I felt I needed more than I had.  I had to use debt to make more, they call it "leverage."  See what Dave Ramsey says about credit card debt.

Materialism pervades our society today.  I can look at your checkbook and see what is important to you.  Where you spend your money is where your heart is.  Food for thought.

How many of us actually stop and think about why we believe something to be true?  We could be clinging to a faulty idea or philosophy because we haven't taken the time to investigate whether or not it is really true.  Here is a great article about why thinking about our philosophies should be important to us.  Also take a look at the article I've written on this. 

There is a new movie out that you gotta see.  What Would Jesus Buy?  It is funny, entertaining, and convicting.  Here is a little about it.
 

I ran across a new TV show titled "Speechless: Silencing the Christians" which tells the stories of people in our country today that are being discriminated against for their religious beliefs and even jailed for expressing them.  You have to watch this show.  It is available to be viewed over the web at http://www.silencingchristians.com/ Take some time out from watching your regular TV shows and watch these episodes instead, and find out how our freedom to worship in this country is being taken away, little by little.  Then do something about it.

I know that a lot of people are going through tough financial times right now.  I went through it myself in 2001 for a few years.  Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey helped turn things around for me, and helped me and my wife tremendously in communicating about our finances.  So I want to share what I learned.  I am coordinating a Financial Peace University class at Saddleback Church.  Consider coming out to the orientation we are having at 7pm on Thursday May 22.  It will be in room 308.  Call the office at 949-609-8000 for directions to the campus, and to the meeting room on campus when you get here.  It is a large campus, so make sure you have directions to find the room.

What motivated me to start my ministry was the fact that I found myself having been lulled into a lie.  I believed that I needed lots of money to make a difference in this world.  I bought into the language of "leverage" and the holy grail of "ROI."  Accumulating financial wealth was the goal of life.  But, I've been asking some more questions lately.  What else have I swallowed as truth that isn't really true?  I'm finding a lot. 

One thing I discovered was that I was lulled into thinking that my son was getting a good education, but what I found was that our public schools are actually teaching faith in Naturalism.  It is taught as fact.  Naturalism is the faith in the idea that matter has always existed and is self generating, that we are the children of the cosmos, though there is no scientific proof of that.  They say they don't teach religion in our schools, but I'm finding that isn't true.  What passes as science in school isn't really objective observation, but conclusions based on the assumptions of Naturalism and then labeled objective science.  So I've been delving deeper into the subtle things we let by us which are teaching our children that God really isn't necessary.  The truth is, scientists have been trying to prove their assumption, but have inadvertently been proving the opposite.  Harvard Geneticist Richard Lewontin has shown that much of Darwinism is not science but a naturalistic philosophy pretending to be science.  

The commitment to naturalism has spread like a cancer into our ethics, law, education, and postmodern ideas. It has become the philosophy that strongly opposes a Christian worldview.  Yet, there is a boatload of evidence that it is mistaken.  We aren't being intellectually honest with ourselves.

I got into this whole music thing because I realized I had to do what God made me to do.  I had lost my sense of purpose in life when I let myself get sidetracked focusing on getting rich in my own small business.  I realize that most of us do the same.  It is mostly because we are led into it in our materialistic society.  We live like money is everything, even though we might not admit it.  If you are feeling a bit discouraged, or like you are on a treadmill, maybe you need to find your sense of purpose.  I have written this article just for you.  It is about how to make sure you make a difference with your life.