Pros and Cons of Summer Touring

Pros and Cons of Summer Touring

Oh the joy of festival season. I say this in both a positive and sarcastic tone.  As much as I love the festivals, I also hate them.  For the past few years we have been building a list of the pros and cons of traveling to festivals all summer.

While this is not as serious as the usual stuff we include in the newsletter, it is a fun list. We hope you get a laugh or two out of it.

Pros

• Touring with the One Truth crew (RIP)


• Waking up Shawn from a deep sleep and telling him to hurry and get out of the van and then driving off and leaving him in a remote place on the Cornerstone farm


• Driving past back stage security and showing our fake Stand True passes as they smile and try and figure out who we are as we drive by


• Late night ice cream runs to UDF in Troy, OH


• Introducing people to Stand True


• Seeing babies saved and people's lives changed


• Getting to see some great bands (Ilia, Cool Hand Luke, MWOY, Over the Rhine, Inhale Exhale, Leeland..)


• Telling the backstage security you are in Third Day and then just walk by them as they look confused


• Restocking my t-shirt drawer


• Restocking my CD collection


• Getting to see old friends again


• Watching people look everywhere after you tell them they dropped their pocket


• Getting to do ministry all summer


• Driving the golf cart at C-stone


• Knocking people off the golf cart and watching them roll down the hill


• Passing people who ask for rides on the golf cart and telling them to get a job


• After tour pool party at Shawn's house after Purple Door


• Seeing many parts of the country


• Making fun of cheesy Christian rip-off shirts


• Watching Jodi make a masterpiece salad from organic produce


• Great prayer and devotional time at festivals


• The mountains of New Hampshire


• Going to the movies just to get out of the heat


• Truck stop novelties


• Making fun of Lewistown, PA


• Fireworks


• Emma's tall tales about the amount of girls Sam flirts with in Wisconsin each night


• Great meals at the Williams' house


• Hot Sauce adventures at the Floyd's


• Free stuff


• Going though the drive-thru of Hardees with 17 people in a 15 passenger van at three in the morning after a long day at Cornerstone while local rednecks get out of their cars in the drive-thru line to come and ask what band we are in and flirt with the girls


• Ghetto golf in the middle of Illinois at a scary gas station


• Doing laundry after C-stone at the laundry mat in Macomb, IL.


• Prayer walk in NYC with the protest at MTV


• Sing-along's in the tour van


• The Chinese buffet in Canton, Ohio with the cool coy pond


• Kingdom Bound Festival because it is in a Six Flags


• The hot air balloon at Niagara Falls


• I have lost over 60 pounds so I don't need XXL shirts any more


• The air conditioned dining room at Purple Door


• Rubber band wars in the merch tent


• The beauty and atmosphere at Soul Fest


• Sleeping in church basements and being told to watch out for homeless people trying to get in


• Pulling into Cornerstone at sunrise

Cons

• Being away from my family


• Percentages (bands and vendors know what I mean)


• People who think hippie oils can replace a shower


• Kids who run out of money the second day and try and return a shirt they have obviously worn


• The heat


• Kids who get covered in mud and then touch everything at the booth


• Bands who walk from booth to booth asking for free shirts for themselves, their girlfriends, their aunts and uncles, their cousins, their neighbors, the guy who lives next door to their friends cousin and then charges you full price for a shirt at their booth.


• Kids who ask how much a t-shirt is, telling them they are all $15 and they ask what about that one, and then telling them they are ALL $15 and then they ask what about that one


• Thinking that a meal at subway is gourmet


• Really bad Christian boy bands


• When Sam ditches tour for school


• Lame cheesy Christian rip-off shirts that should be burned


• Christian t-shirt companies who steal other peoples designs


• Christians dressed like hoochies (male and female)


• People that go to festivals just to scam and flirt


• Truck stop food


• Festival food


• Waking up in the middle of the night and piling into the van because we are being rained on and are sleeping outside


• The long overnight drive from Creation to Cornerstone


• The dirt


• The mud


• Youth groups who think it is funny to be as loud as they can at 3:00 AM


• The sudden thunderstorms


• Extremely bad music


• The youth group kids that keep asking for free stuff


• The Free Hugs people


• The loud pounding techno music in the C-stone booth area


• Getting sick on the road


• Kids that steal from the booth


• Being yelled at from "pro-choice Christians" (?)


• The smell in the van


• Cornerstone port-potties


• 13 year old put on security and thinking they have the power of the FBI


• Paying $10 dollars for a tortilla filled with one small piece of chicken and a pound of lettuce


• Rock star attitudes


• Scary gas station bathrooms


• Fast food


• Festivals that charge extra for showers


• Booths that sell anything they can as long as they slap the name of Jesus on it


• Flat tires


• Falling asleep at the wheel


• People who have to unfold every shirt on the booth


• Wet sweaty money used to pay for stuff


• Kids who walk in the center of the road and won't move to the side when a large van and trailer are trying to get through


• Youth pastors who walk around with all their youth group girls dressed like hoochies


• Parents who let their daughters wear short shorts with writing on the butt


• Bands that use the Christian festivals to make money when they really could care less about Christianity or ministry


• Wondering if the locals who keep circling the restaurant slowly are going to start trouble with us.


• The trailer falling off the hitch on a windy mountain road at midnight with a van carrying my wife and kids behind me.

I know that there are many other pros and cons.  Please feel free to submit some to me - bryankemper@standtrue.com

Tough Questions: Abortion is a Women's Issue, Men Should Stay Out of It

Tough Questions: Abortion is a Women's Issue, Men Should Stay Out of It

I often get e-mails and messages telling me that I should stay out of the 'abortion issue' because I'm a man.  I've been told that I have no business getting involved since I can never get pregnant.  Some even go so far as to tell me that, if men could get pregnant, we would make abortion a sacrament.



The problem with this argument is that it's meant to detract from the key issue of personhood.  Most arguments you will hear from the pro-abortion side are simply rabbit trails meant to steer clear of personhood, the heart of what we are fighting for.



The first mistake is referring to it as the 'abortion issue.'  While abortion is the largest part of the personhood fight, it is still just one part of the culture of death and the destruction of personhood. 

This is not just about women either; it's about everyone involved including the mother, the father and the baby. To think that the mother of the child being killed is the only one who has any right to an opinion is absurd.   Unfortunately, this argument is often used by men who call themselves pro-life.  They say

that, while they are pro-life, they have no business telling a woman not to kill her child.



Imagine if the rest of the world had that same attitude during the Nazi Holocaust.  "We are not German so we have no right telling them not to kill other people."  That is an insane argument, no one could agree with a statement like that.  To know about the killing of innocent human persons and do nothing about it because it was 'none of your business?' How absurd.



Right now it's extremely popular to stand up and be a voice for Darfur.  Should we tell people to mind their own business because we're not from there and therefore have no right to an opinion?  Or should we not be worried about the blatant human rights violations going on in China simply because we are not Chinese?



Edmund Burke said, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."  The evil of killing children has triumphed in America for over 35 years now.  This triumph has been fueled by the apathy and denial of this generation.



Have you noticed how popular superhero movies are right now?  We love to see Spiderman or Batman take out the bad guys as we cheer them on from the sidelines.  We teach our kids that crime doesn't pay and make heroes out of those that fight against evil.  I wonder what kind of lesson we teach them when we ourselves ignore evil because it's 'none of our business?'



We know what is happening in abortion mills and doctors' offices every day.  We know that little baby boys and girls are being destroyed in the name of choice as we turn a blind eye.  Some people are waiting

for the politicians to step up, as if they are going to be like Superman and swoop down to rescue the children right before the doctor's suction machine destroys them.



Well, as a father, I refuse to wait for some superhero or politician to teach my child a lesson about what is right and wrong.  I refuse to tell my kids that they should take a stand against evil and fight for justice while I sit by and ignore the genocide that is killing one fourth of their generation.



As a man, as a father, and as a human I will not stay out of the 'abortion issue.'  As human persons we cannot look at abortion simply as a women's issue. We must see it for what it is: the killing of innocent human persons. We should not get involved because we are men or women, but because we are human and it is our fellow human persons who are facing genocide.

For Christ I Stand,

Bryan Kemper - bryankemper@standtrue.com

Please feel free to repost on your blog, MySpace, newsletter, etc..

Chastity is For Lovers - The Difference Between Chastity and Abstinence

Chastity is For Lovers - The Difference Between Chastity and Abstinence

We are often asked why we use the word chastity over the word abstinence.  Isn't it the same thing?  Why would you tell married people to practice chastity?  Are you saying that sex is bad even if you're married?

Most people think that abstinence and chastity are the same thing. Far from it. Abstinence is simply abstaining from sex, but with some people that definition becomes very fuzzy. Some would say that remaining abstinent means refraining from all sexual activity, while others would say it simply refers to sexual intercourse and nothing else. 

Chastity, on the other hand, is not just about abstaining from sexual behavior; it's a lifestyle that we choose to live.  While chastity does include refraining from sexual activity before marriage, it also encompasses so much more. 

Chastity is not just for non-married people, it's something for everyone to embrace and practice.  As a married man I must live a chaste life in my marriage and remain chaste to my wife.  That does not mean that I abstain from sex with my wife, it means that I abstain from outside sexual behavior.  A married couple enters into a bond and covenant with God to remain faithful to each other and to keep their marriage bed sacred.

Outside of the marriage covenant, sexual behavior is simply an act of lust.  Why many may say that they love each other and that it's entered into in love, it really cannot be defined as love.  God is the creator of sex and He make us sexual beings.  However, He did set guidelines for sex and created it for a purpose. 

Sex is not simply about physical pleasure, as today's society may teach.  If you were to look at what the media, educational system, Planned Parenthood, MTV and most of popular culture push onto the youth, you would think that humans were simply wild animals with no self-control. 

Sex is so much more than just physical pleasure. It was created for two main purposes: reproduction and unity between man and wife.  We, of course, know that there is physical pleasure involved, but that does not mean it's good for all occasions. 

There is a popular saying: "If it feels good, it must be OK."  We know that it would be ridiculous to apply that to everything in life.  I know that drugs feel good, but does that make them OK?  When someone commits a crime they may get a rush of adrenaline that feels good, but does that make it OK?  There are many things in life that are fun and give us pleasure. That does not necessarily make them right. 

Many also teach that sex is a taboo or dirty thing.  While outside of the marriage covenant sex is forbidden by God, it's not in and of itself dirty or taboo.  Sex is a beautiful act that God created for man and wife to enjoy and to bring them closer together as one.  Sex brings a unity and bond to a man and a woman that God intended for us to share in a loving relationship. 

The word love is so misused in today's society; it has almost no meaning in most instances.  God created love and gave us the ability to love.  Lust, which is what takes place when we abuse sex and ignore its purpose, can very often be mistaken for love.

When people enter into a sexual relationship outside of the bonds of marriage it is simply to fulfill their own selfish desires for physical pleasure.  When a man pressures a woman into sex and tells her, "You would if you loved me," he is simply coercing her for his own selfish desire.  Lust becomes the driving factor, not love.

When young people start to date and become physically involved certain things happen inside their bodies. It's how we are created.  Physical activity will trigger our bodies to react in ways that God intended, but He intended those reactions for marriage. 

So, where do we draw the line?  What is appropriate behavior for a man and woman who are not married?  The question should not be, "How far can we go before it's a sin?"  The question should be, "Are we acting in lust or in love?"

It seems so often that we just want to fulfill our own desires instead of wanting to honor God and our bodies in the way God intended.  We look at sex and physical pleasure as simply that, pleasure.

Many groups teach that it's unhealthy to restrain ourselves and deny the sexual desires that we have for each other.  This comes from the mind set that we should indulge in what feels good and live our lives for ourselves.  This is contrary to all that God teaches us about life.  The scripture teaches us in Galatians 2:20  " I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

We must live our lives for Christ and not for ourselves or for our selfish desires.  Many of us forget this principle when it comes to our physical relationships, but truly unhealthy behavior is living our lives for ourselves, including engaging in sexual activity outside of the covenant of marriage.  We all know that there are so many pitfalls to promiscuous sexual behavior such as STD's, unwed pregnancies, heartbreak and brokenness.  The world seems to try so hard to come up with false hope and protection from these dangers, but the answer is simple. 

If we truly act in love and treat sex as it was intended, then we can avoid these dangers along with a need for false safety nets.  If we truly act in love we can experience sex in the way God intended it, which is the most beautiful expression of our love to each other.

If we are acting in lust, not love, then we are robbing ourselves of the true purpose of an amazing gift God gave to us.  If we are acting in love, than we are honoring God and each other.  If we are acting in love we are living a chaste life both before and in our marriage. 

Chastity is for lovers.

For Christ I Stand,

Bryan Kemper - bryankemper@standtrue.com

20 Pro-life Activities To Do This Summer

20 Pro-life Activities To Do This Summer

One of the questions I am being asked most right now is, "what can I do to get involved with pro-life this summer?" We wanted to give you a list of pro-life activities that you can get involved with over the summer. The list is in no particular order and there are lots of different activities for what ever commitment level you can make.

1. Volunteer at your local Pregnancy Help Center. Just open your phone book to "abortion alternatives" to find a center in your area.

2. Get your friends together and visit your local senior citizens home. Be sure to call ahead to make arrangements and find out if any local churches coordinate visits.

3. Join Stand True on our summer mission trip, there are just a couple of spots left open. Go to www.standtrue.com for more info.

4. Organize a diaper drive with your friends and donate the diapers to your local Pregnancy Help Center.

5. Hold a car wash with your friends. You can donate the money to Stand True, your local Pregnancy Help Center or any pro-life organization you want to.

6. Ask your church or youth group to bring in a pro-life speaker. You can always bring in some one from Stand True or find someone through a local pro-life organization.

7. Become an internet street team member and promote events like the Pro-life Day of Silent Solidarity. Contact bryankemper@standtrue.com for more info. Get people to change their homepage to www.prolifeinternet.com and use our search engine.

8. Start pro-life discussions on internet message boards. Remember to always react in love and not talk down to people when having discussions.

9. Pray at your local abortion mill. This is something that should be done with more that one person. I am not talking about protesting but simply going and praying for the women going in and offering them the hope of Christ.

10. Find out if there is any organization having a pro-life booth at your local country fair and volunteer. If no one is having a booth find out what it would take to get a booth and set one up. We can help you find literature for a booth.

11. Educate yourself on pro-life issues. It is important for you to be well educated on pro-life issues when you are talking to people. You can find some great info at www.standtrue.com, www.abort73.com and many other pro-life sites.

12. Pray and fast. Get some friends together once a week to fast from a meal and spend that time in prayer. Pray not only for the women and babies, but also the doctors and the rest of the abortion industry. Pray for Stand True and all the other pro-life organizations that are fighting so hard to bring an end to abortion.

13. Volunteer at a Stand True booth at one of the many Christian Festivals we will be attending this summer. We will have a full list of festivals on our web site in a couple of weeks.

14. Volunteer at your local food bank or soup kitchen. Pro-life is more than just being against abortion. Feeding the homeless is a great pro-life activity.

15. Collect spare change this summer. Get your friends and their parents to collect their change and at the end of the summer cash it in to donate to Stand True, your local Pregnancy Resource Center or a local pro-life organization.

16. Write letters to your local politicians encouraging them to take a solid pro-life stance.

17. Wear pro-life t-shirts where ever you go this summer. Pro-life t-shirts are always great conversation starters. If you can't afford to buy one just make one yourself from an old t-shirt. You can also get one from our store at www.prolifeworld.com

18. Do you have a birthday this summer? Ask your relatives to make a donation to Stand True, your local Pregnancy Resource Center or a local pro-life organization in your name. We all have those aunts, uncles or grandparents who just send a check every year, ask them to make a donation instead.

19. Pass out pro-life literature. Take pro-life literature where ever you go this summer and look for opportunities to talk to people and share the pro-life message. You can order pro-life literature from www.prolifeworld.com or www.hh76.com. If you can't afford to order any then contact us and we can try and get some free literature for you.

20. Help promote Stand True and the work we are doing to save babies. Get your friends to sign up for our e-mail news letter, MySpace or Facebook groups. Tell them about some of the events we do, like the Pro-life Day of Silent Solidarity or Summer Mission Trip.

Stand True - My Space - http://www.myspace.com/standxtrue

Pro-life Day of Silent Solidarity - My Space -


http://www.myspace.com/silenced12273

Stand True Facebook Group - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2217606076

Pro-life Day of Silent Solidarity Facebook Group - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2248662014

Bryan Kemper's My Space - http://www.myspace.com/bryankemper

Bryan Kemper's BlogSpot - http://rainlovedown.blogspot.com/

Bryan Kemper's Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=501983555

Be creative and come up with your own ideas for what you can do this summer to get the pro-life message out. Be sure and share your ideas with us so we can let people know what others are doing.

For Christ I Stand,

Bryan Kemper - bryankemper@standtrue.com

Feel free to repost this - Please give credit to www.myspace.com/standxtrue

Video Makes Joke Out of Violence Against Women and Abortion

Video Makes Joke Out of Violence Against Women and Abortion

"Abortion Man" a video "comedy" sketch from Damon Wayons is causing a lot of controversy lately. I really don't understand the humor behind violence against women and baby killing, but apparently some people do.

Last week we told you about a student at Yale claiming to have had self induced abortions as part of an art project. It seems that you can do almost anything these days and pass it off as "art". Yesterday marked the release of the newest Grand Theft Auto video game where violence, prostitution, and lawlessness are celebrated as entertainment. These are just more testimonies to the culture of death we are living in today.

See video here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKF8E9n1qkA

The video is obviously offensive to the pro-life community but should be equally offensive to the feminist movement and women in general. It's simply not funny to see a women beaten as her boyfriend thanks the man who did it.

Let us know what you think of this.

For Christ I Stand,

Bryan Kemper - bryankemper@standtrue.com