One (young) person can make a difference

I've been impressed with the curriculum our Youth Pastor has been using recently from Youth For Christ USA Three Stories. "I was so impressed I bought the company" NOT - but i did subscribe to their youth evotional. Today's highlights a young person who is making a difference in their community and much further afield. Here's a snippet

"Nine months later, the No Cussing Club has a Web site, claims 10,000 members and boasts chapters in several states and countries. Hatch considers his greatest
achievement, though, to be getting his hometown of 25,000 to become a cuss-free
zone. "

Check out the whole evotional here

Seeing and Answering

I like the challenge that John Johnson heard N.T. Wright make recently:-

N.T. Wright reminded us to come to the biblical text with 1st century eyes and
21st century questions, rather than 19th century eyes and 16th century
questions. Most do not want to do the hard work of exegesis (that pulls us into
the 1st century), while others are too out of touch with present culture to know
the questions they must ask. Wright notes that there is a crisis in Western
democracy. These are dangerous times—threats of terror, an ecological crisis
that should have the attention of every believer, and a wave of books by Dawkins
and others intent on attacking the credibility of Christianity. There must be
cultural critique, but it must not be in the form of bashing, but rather be
about Spirit led discernment. Reasoned discourse is what will win the battle.
And Wright models this. It was clear in each of his talks that he has spent
considerable time seeking to discern the flow of the biblical books, the world
of the authors, while discerning the times in which we presently live. A good
model for all of us.

I think we need to ask God to open our ears and eyes as well as ask God for revelation

To hear the questions people are asking today. To see the Word speak from when it happened into today. The Answerer is the same yesterday, today and for ever.

What does that look like to you ?

What if ...

At our small group last night we were discussing loving together. And said the challenge was that we don't know each other that well. We asked what it would take to get to know each other better. So ..
What if we met with our small group more regularly even every other day. Maybe these times would be prayer times, sharing communion together, annointing of oil, laying hands on each other, speaking blessings over each other and of course singing God's praises. The kids would be there of course.
Billy Ritchie over in England has thoughts on these lines too.
What does it take to make this "What if... " a reality ? Choosing to make it a priority and finding like-minded people. Anything else ? ... WHat do you think ?

It broke Dad ! Can you fix it ?

I'm not a poetry kind of guy, but every once in a while a poem will really grab me. Ratna, one of our amazingly hard working and caring office staff here at First Alliance Church shared this poem with me last night.

First I was reminded of my son who had just yesterday morning asked me to help him build a Lego project, but then immediately after I start to help him pushes me out of the way so he can build it. A few minutes later he comes and grabs me again and syas he really, really really needs my help this time, because it seems to be broken and not working out right.

Next my mind goes to Moses and his grasping God's calling on His life to save his people in Egypt. He starts off by killing two Egyptians who abusing his fellow Jews, which he seemd to think fitted into the plan. However that only made him have to wait another forty years to nove into his calling!

Anyway I'll let you read the poem ...

Broken Dreams

As children bring their broken toys

with tears for us to mend,

I brought my broken dreams to God

because He was my friend.

But then, instead of leaving Him

in peace to work alone,

I hung around and tried to help

with ways that were my own.

At last, I snatched them back and cried,

"how can you be so slow?"

"My child," He said,

"what could I do?

You never did let go."

Author unknown

Family Ministry

I didn't realise there were quite a few ways of doing family ministry. Jon Erwin presents us with a great working table of Family ministry models. There are many options. There are several organisations individuals promoting literature and methods for family ministry as well. Two that that we've taken ideas and resources from are

Mark Holmen's "Faith begins at Home" - great book - we were able to distribute this to our parents last year. This year the book has expanded into Church wide package, which we're looking into here at FAC. Mark Holmen is coming to GTA in May and we're taking a group of our parents to hear him.

Orange is all about family ministry. I went to the Orange Conference last year in Atlanta. It reinforced my changing philosophy of ministering just to children. Since at Church we have the children most Sundays for 1 hour and the parents have between 80 and 100 hours - unstructured time with their children each week we need to find a way to help parents make better use of some of that time for things of God. This is especially important when we look at Deuteronomy 6 - charging the parents with sharing God's words with their children throughout the day.

So this year we've added a monthly FamJam to our family ministry schedule where the whole family come together. This is on top of Families Eating And Sharing Together (FEAST) which we started last year.

Blogged recently on my Family ministry blog about Keeping hope alive!
On Sunday our parent group (FEAST) discussion was around chapter 5 of Dr Tim Kimmel's Grace-based Parenting. It's focus is for us to lay a foundation of hope in our kids lives.
Childhood is a time we should move our children from dependence on us todependence on God. And knowing there will face challenges they can’t handlebutGod can.
Tim goes on to give us two things that are needed to raise hope-filled kids
A) They need to see/watch parents who place confidence in the only trueGod. When they see parents who say the right words but without much joy, with much fear and lack of love for not yet Christians they get a mixed message.
B) They need to be raised by parents who treat them the way Jesus treats us. With grace.
The importance of this really struck home when I read about 17 young adults in a Welsh town hanging themselves and 3 youth in Northern Ireland
As Jesse Jackson says we need to "Keep hope alive!"
Dr Kimmel goes on to say that childhood is a time we should move our children from dependence on us to dependence on God. And knowing there will face challenges they can’t handle but God can.
He also talks about parents being there for their kids so the kids know that there is someone bigger than there problems. This helps them understand as they get older that God is bigger than any of our problems.

It just takes a spark to light a fire

It just takes a spark to light a fire. We do not even know the "fires" we have started. Some good, some not so good I'm sure!
Take this guy over here at the Fermi Project (check it out here). He's choosing to serve his community for an hour a week and somebody has copied his efforts.
At my church we're going through Forty days of Community and part of the small group actvitiy is to find a way the small group can show love. My group hasn't decided yet what we're going to do. I'm excited to see what we do, especially now that I'm thinking that our spark might just start a fire. Maybe with others or maybe even with the individuals in our group, maybe even me :)

Cup O' Joe with Bill: For Thinkers Only: Strategy and Execution

Over on a Cup O' Joe Bill asks the question
What's more important:The great execution of a flawed strategy..or a flawed execution of a great strategy?

It's like one of those survey questions where you're given two options and you suppossed to choose one over the other. And of course neither are true or both are equally valid.

If his purpose is to get you to think Bill certainly does that. My thoughts are that it doesn't really matter for a number of reasons:-

If you've been called by God to do something and you're being obedient to that call, what looks flawed maybe achieving exactly the desired effect from God's perspective.

If you're working on a team, flaws are often a catalyst for strengthening relationships, which in the end are more important than any strategy or execution.

On the other hand if you're a person that is able to learn from mistakes then both are important, because both are learning opportunities.
Thanks Bill the answer is Yes :) !

Cup O' Joe with Bill: For Thinkers Only: Strategy and Execution

As a child I remember being taught that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey that there was a large crowd that welcomed him. That was Palm Sunday. I was also taught that by the end of the week the whole crowd has turned against him. I've often wondered about that.
I've just been listening to a Bruxey Cavey podcast where he talks about the place Pontius Pilate offered to release Jesus, where the "crowd called for Barabbas to be set free and Jesus to be crucified. He explained that as far as he could make out the court where this took place held at best a maximum of 200 people. The Sanhedrin had arrested Jesus the night before and brought Jesus in the morning. He goes on to say that there were probably more than 3 or 400 in the Sanhedrin and thousands of staff at the Temple who would probably follow the "company" line. So it could have been that the "crowd" was a crowd of mostly the Sanhedrin. So maybe the crowd that welcomed and loved him on the Palm Sunday still loved him and hadn't turned 180 degrees.
Makes sense to me !

What do you think ?

Where to find joy ? Me! Me! Me!

Mark Driscoll - Helps us look for joy in the right way. Along the way he does a critique of the most popular preacher in the US. What a timely reminder for this day and age. Thanks Paul Dazet for finding that.

Spiritual Esteem

On my other blog I picked on some inspiring thoughts of Craig Groeschel around the issue of self -esteem. He points out that self-esteem is not Spiritual esteem. When working with kids in our north american culture I think it's really important to think in terms of what he call Spiritual-esteem. It's easy to slip into trying to raise a child's false esteem.

Offering video

These days most organisations let you know where any money they receive will go. In church I think sometimes we just assume everybody knows how the money will be spent or perhaps they check once a year in the annual report. So the concept behind this well made an put together video is refreshing. Offering plate video

What do you think ?

Location Location Location!

Just back from out light the night outreach at Church. We invested in a bounce castle. It was a hit with all the kids that came by. We gave out a bunch of goodies to those that came by. The bounce castle afforded us the opportunity of conversation with the kids parents. They expressed gratitude for a break from their trick or treat trekking.
Our location was dictated by the strong prevailing wind. We were situated away from the residential area nearest the church. I saw a lot of families and kids walking down a nearby street.
They seldom changed direction to walk our way. Our location let us down.
That got me to thinking too. Perhaps our invest might have been better used in another location altogether. Perhaps a parent or small group with families would have been able to reach out to their neighbours with the bounce castle and goodies. Something to chew on for next year !
What have you tried at Halloween to connecting with your community ?

Discipleship - go with the program - NOT !

Discipleship programs and curriculums sem to be a good thing - they bring structure to an otherwise messy process. But what happens when you remove them, or the DVD breaks down, or you have to move away from where the program is ?

Bill Allison has a good look at this here
(http://cupojoewithbill.blogspot.com/2007/10/escalator-or-stairway-part-2.html).
How's your walk/escalator with God ?For me - it's so easy to get carried along and not take my own steps in my walk. One step at a time is ok!

Change, growth and maybe, even discipleship !

As you can see our Church's vision prayer focus is asking God to change us.

"Oh God, make us a body of people so transformed and empowered by
Your Spirit that our community, nation, and world will see and know
Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life"

I think we need to keep growing otherwise we go stale, stagnate and get bored. so where do we go from here ... John Johnson helps us think about this ...

Walter Brueggemann was asked—“If you came into a room of ten of the brightest, committed, determined to change the world kind of pastors, and had one word of advice, what would it be?” Without any hesitation, he responded—“Discover how it is people change, and build your ministry accordingly.” I hear him saying—find what it is that more than inspires—find what transforms people, what transforms all of their
being, and give your best ministry to that. This seems to be what Thomas has devoted himself to doing in his latest book—and where the church needs to get
its focus.

Short cuts and other efforts at being efficient :)

I don't know about you but I'm always trying to do more with less - trying to be efficiant with everything God has given me. But when I stop and think about it - I don't think that's the way God operates. For instance wouldn't it have been more efficient for Jesus to go and heal Lazarus then raise him from the dead after he had died! Steven Furtick has a great observation on another Biblical short cut -

As God led the children of Israel out of Egyptian slavery, the Bible
records that:
God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea.
Exodus 13:17-18

God knows me much better than I know myself. And sometimes He takes me the long way because He knows that if He took me straight to my destination, I wouldn’t be ready.

Are you single and wishing God would hurry up and bring you a man?
Maybe God’s taking you the long way for a reason…to cultivate and prepare
and stabilize you.

Do you feel like God has got you in a place of obscurity and monotony in this season of your life?
Maybe God is sharpening your skills, perfecting your gift, and fortifying your character.

Are you praying a prayer that seems to be met with silence from heaven?
God is infinitely wise, and He knows what you need, when you need it, and He’s
navigating your route according to His limitless knowledge.

Sometimes God takes us around by the desert…the long way…
Because He knows what battles are ahead, and when we’re ready to fight.

History of Religion

This is interesting map shopwing spread of different religions.

It's all about who ?

Joel Osteen has been on News TV a lot this last week. I guess he was promoting his new book. A better You I think it's called. That might be good for You but is it the gospel or the whole gospel. I like what Paul Dazet has been writing. It's not about me. It's about God as the greatest commandment reminds us. The "me" only comes in the second greatest commandment and then only as standard for loving others.
thanks Paul for redirecting our thoughts in the right direction.

Grace first !

Grace is never far from my thoughts - it's something I need more of, I ask God to work into me, to give me a double portion of my grandfather's spirit (like Elijah/Elisha). As I look around there are a few pastors who stand out for me when it comes to grace. My senior pastor is pretty near the top. He exudes grace. In fact the tougher the challenge, the more he exudes it.
I had the opportunity to visit another church last weekend. The pastor, Brendan Witton, was spelling what they were about too - their DNA and he said they had to be grace-based.
In the gospels Jesus is full of grace and truth. Obviously we need both perhaps it is no accident that grace proceeds truth when Jesus is described in John 1

Church stepping out in faith !

Wow! Would you or your church have enough faith to do this ! Not something every church treasurer would go for ... but in God's economy ...