J.M. (Trey) Owens III

Pastor of River Community Church in Prairieville, LA. Author at Gras du Grâce. Mostly an amplifier of people smarter than me.

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

I wanted to let my myriad of followers know that I've started writing over at Substack. I'll mostly be revising materials from sermons, seminars, articles, and Sunday schools that I've done in the past to get myself started.
https://t.co/kRJVOsjxp0

[Dr. Arthur Brooks @arthurbrooks]

Half of your baseline mood is genetic. And if yours runs low, you got lucky.

The people born with naturally cheerful brains coast through life. Their default setting is good enough, so they never have to develop the habits that make happiness a craft. So when real adversity hits — and it always does — they are completely unequipped to handle it.

The rest of us have to train. We learn to manage sleep, exercise, attention, relationships. We get good at moving negative emotion from the limbic system into the prefrontal cortex. We build the practices because we have to. To us, happiness is a sport.

By age forty, the trained-up gloomy person is an elite happiness athlete. The naturally cheerful one is an amateur with luck.
I'm not saying this just from research. I come from very gloomy stock. I've worked my whole life on these habits because I had to. Without them, I'd be sad and sick; with them, I'm doing better at sixty than I did at thirty.

This is the same principle as alcoholic genetics. Half your tendency toward addiction is inherited. People with the worst genetic risk who never drink are not addicts. People with no genetic risk who drink hard can still wreck their lives. Knowing the genetic tilt means you can pay attention to the habit. And paying attention is how you win.

The gloomy who don't train end up sad. The gloomy who train end up better than the cheerful who don't. If joy doesn't come easily, discipline will — and discipline is something the lucky never had to build.

So if you're naturally gloomy, congratulations. It's harder for you. That means you'll be better at it.

Happiness is a sport. And you'll be one of its best athletes.

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

@HansFiene Just nail something to it.

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

@The_Kyle_Mann @jwsherrod Still a better movie than any prequel or sequel!

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

@The_Kyle_Mann You're terrible...

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

@Fozzybear_Lives While that would be wonderful, the best work of the church is often done slowly and deliberately.

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

@HeathTaws You're just asking for trouble!

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

Psalm 67 also makes a great call to worship. It just doesn't fit with the flow of service for me this week.

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

So this Sunday is June 7th. That's 6/7. You can embrace it or resist it.

I choose to use Proverbs 6:16-19 for the confession of sin this week.

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

@TomHicks2LCF Great article!

[George Sayour @GeorgeSayour]

A little thorn may cause much suffering.

A little cloud may hide the sun.

Little foxes spoil the vines;

and little sins do mischief to the tender heart.

These little sins burrow in the soul, and make it so full of that which is hateful to Christ, that he will hold no comfortable fellowship and communion with us.

A great sin cannot destroy a Christian, but a little sin can make him miserable.

Spurgeon, M/E

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

@DBryanRhodes Highly unlikely. He has to appeal, get his case in order, and then the SJC has to review and make any administrative requests/recommendations all prior to the SJC fully reviewing the case. Any complaint from a third party will not be entertained if the appeal is underway.

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

@eric_mabbott I believe most archaeologists have a license to kill nazis.

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

@jeretics @_BenRatliff @brothernelson I'm seriously considering automatically downvoting any overture pulled out of the omnibus.

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

@DBryanRhodes A lot of "don't do this"; not a lot of "here's the joy God has in store".

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

@DBryanRhodes I will say, there was a culture of shame pushed during that era. It wasn't just Christian sexual ethics, but an emotional layer of "you're ruined forever and nobody will want you." Long on law, short on gospel.

Further, they did not establish a happy vision of married sexuality.

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

@DBryanRhodes @hicasamadim Agreed

[Matt Smethurst @MattSmethurst]

Goodness. What a prophetic quote from 44 years ago.

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

@elonmusk Who is in Heaven for you to thank, @elonmusk?

[J.M. (Trey) Owens III @Trojack31]

@presbyterianpew @JoshuaTorrey Yeah, I'm okay with a required knowledge of polity as written, but not a body of SJC cases that require a memory of rulings.

As you say, the layperson will almost always need the assistance of some elder with a knowledge of the BCO to navigate procedure and submit items.