You can root for Blake for one week, and then you’ll have to say goodbye. The girls have definitely got the pipes. It’s Jordin and Melinda in the finals!

Just gotta vote for Blake-although all of the finalists are very good. We have a few official Blaker girls at Pathways! If you get a chance, ask Colleen Westman or Lisa Hartquist how the parade and concert went in Bothell last week-yep, they were there!!!

Dean, I just know how to remain FAITHFUL, something you, as a pastor should love. Go Jordin! Go UA! Go Suns! Go Diamondbacks! (You ARE still rooting for the Suns and DBacks, aren’t you?)

OK Dean - how this ever became the American Idol board is beyond me :-). First off - I don’t watch it. The only time I watched it was when Bono was on. What a letdown that was. OK - just a tidbit I found out while at iTunes. This Jordin lady has one of those Celebrity Playlists. You’ll get a kick that she list John Wayne Gacy Jr by Sufjan Stevens as one of her favorites along with some John Mayer and Michael W. Smith. For that alone, you should root for her.

Greetings to the Pathways community in the spirit of our gracious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ with blessings to all.

I am not trying to be a stick in the mud, as I also watch a few programs on television, Heroes and Lost are two that completely encapsulate my attention on Mondays and Wednesday evenings. But I see them as entertainment and watch with an understanding of that and have no belief in their reality.

On the other hand I see, as reality TV, a wrong message in American Idol. As I do not watch it, possibly in the later stages there may be a different message derived as from the beginning when the contestants are chosen. From the start one can see that so many are of unstable belief (mentality) in the ability to be The American Idol. Ears short of bleeding and truly broken hearts and spirits come from results of many flan insults, and this as millions of watchers look on and laugh at their inability in singing and staging. Scripture marks a beginning of the end time with mockers of men.

People are called, in scripture, to holiness, and I see little to none in the laughing and mocking of another individuals, especially in their shortfalls of genuine and perplexing self expectations.

I know I am acting like a “stick in the mud” here, but truly believe we as proclaimed Christians are in danger of polluting the genuine meaning of such by our witness. First of all we must proclaim to a less understanding population of God’s truth and spirit a reality of given instructions from which the saving faith is formed. First loving God with our entirety and second unlike the first, a love (which comes from the first), for our fellow man.

I watch it not, but notice that my beloved wife does from time to time, and she tells me a message she has noticed is that when a chosen contestant sings a gospel song they are quickly ousted by the public and judges. This clearly tells of our Christian need of proclaiming as true American Idol and beyond into the repressed world of sin and self to be a life saving Jesus Christ.

I am sorry for this message if you are offended by it, but we as genuine Christians have a most serious endeavor set before us. Scriptures plainly states we are to be in the world but not of the world and in this, setting an example that every soul is viable as Christ died for us all in a sin state.

Scriptures says how will one come to believe but that they hear, and how will they hear but that someone preaches. And now I ask you this…How and what message are we, as preachers of Christianity, providing to a needful, sinful, un-understanding world of those we are so precious to Christ?

Good luck in our journey and may we all have the blessings of the Holy Spirit to guide us into the truths which separate to the morrow of the bone, for the glory of God into the kingdom now and yet to come, forever and ever. Amen.