40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes

Thank You to Marko for this one.

Chimpanzee Riding A Segway

HT: Crowder
Awesome!

Penn Says: A Gift of a Bible

God's Inaudible Voice

It has been a week that has taught me much about the state of my soul. I worry. I have been reading a book by Richard Rohr, Jesus' Plan for a New World, and it has been kicking my butt! He says:

"You can formally be a Christian...and go through all the rites of services. but if the grace of God hasn't moved into the conscious and unconscious levels and really touched you...you can keep the divine formulas in your head and have no real awareness of the divine. That's the malaise of Western Christianity today. People keep up the external observances of reliance upon God; underneath they depend only upon themselves...There is no active trust in the presence of the reality of God, or that God makes any difference."

I am finding out that I have been worrying about my house. So as I am reading this book God has been setting little "tests" in front of me, not for Him to see what I am made of, but to show me what I am made of, and what needs work. I think that is the whole point of crisis in our lives, to stir up areas of our subconscious that are not fully surrendered to Him and then let him teach us and change us through them.

He writes again:
"For Jesus, faith is not opposed to not believing in God, it doesn't mean you go to church, or that you're into religion or that you say "Lord, Lord!" (see Matthew 7:21). Faith for Jesus is the opposite of anxiety. If you're anxious, if you;re trying to control everything, if you are worried about many things, you don't have faith, according to Jesus. You do not trust that God is good and on your side. You're trying to do it all yourself, lift yourself up by your own bootstraps."

Again, I have been trying to control too much, and the end result has been anxiety. Let me give you a rundown of my week:

Day One: Insurance dude rejects the wood stove project, I freak out. have to make some tweaks.

Day Two: high winds hit the house, wood stove chimney fails I freak out. Gary Groom comes to the rescue.

Day Three: Calm.

Day Four: Saturday Service happens: I am taking them through the Prayer of Examen: will it work or totally fall apart? Sermon comes together, prayer works great.

Day Four: High winds hit again, chimney is tested, and passes BUT the Well pump stops working at 9pm, call Rob, call Well service. Be out in the morning. No water.

Day five: Well dude comes out, looks at the well and says, "you're pipes are frozen, turn on the furnace down here and thaw it out, that'll be $80.00." Attempt to turn on furnace, feels more like central air, call furnace guy, furnace guys shows up and says, "you're condensation drain is frozen, he fixes it, that'll be $147.00. In the end the water and furnace are working again. But my "well planned out" budget is tossed out the window.

Each step I see how God worked things out and built up my faith in the process, he also showed me areas that I have weak faith in. I am addressing them. And today as I went through the well and furnace ordeal, I kept reminding myself of how God came through all the other times this week.

I didn't freak out. I could have. I would have had I not been aware of what God was up to in my soul. I have been trying to live more with an awareness of what God is trying to say through circumstances, his inaudible voice: "You are not trusting me here. Let me show you how I can come through for you." This means that I have to go through circumstances where I need God to come through for me, and then not have so much anxiety during the process.

Off to the hardware to buy some heat tape for the water pipes. I will try to be more aware of God's inaudible voice.

Christmas Party

Last night for youth we made up 54 Christmas baskets to give to the needy in our area, then we ate some dinner and did our annual Dollar Store gift exchange. Everyone brought 3 items for our food pantry, and a dollar store gift to put under the tree. First person picks a gift and opens it in front of everyone, then the next person can steal it or pick from the pile. It is always a lot of fun.

Some of the best gifts:
1. a set of franks and beans, fiber pills, and air freshener
2. a gift bag with 4 potatoes in it
3. the rubber chicken
4. a prosthetic grill with bling
5. Hannah Montana note pad
6. Mr. Potato Head
7. A Horse head on a stick
8. The Whoopie Cushion (every year one shows up)

One of the most fun nights of the year.

Black Cab Sessions: Death Cab

Tropfest NY 2008 winner,

Habitat for Humanity Day

 
 
 
 

We went and helped build at the Habitat for Humanity a few weeks ago. It was cold, but lots of fun.

My Family

 

Let It Snow

 

I can't believe that it is snowing in November and December so much.

On thanksgiving vacation we went to visit family and take a break from our crazy schedule. So we decided to make a snow man. We had fun.

John Piper and the Prosperity Gospel

Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Pastors

My Year Without Television: Part Three

I have some friends, Gary and Charity, and they have a great strong family of three kids and they have taken in Uncle Spencer as well. They have a television. They LOVE Monday night football. They are still a great and strong family. With this series of posts, I am not trying to throw a guilt trip on people who watch TV. That is not the goal of this post. I am trying to wake up people who use television to fill a void of story within their own life.

Gary and Charity use television in their home to spark conversations, and even the spontaneous wrestling match. They get to take sides on who they want to see win and banter back and forth as a family. When they are watching television, they are not disconnected with each other. Television can be a BAD thing when everyone in the house has one in their room and everyone is separate watching their own shows and not interacting.

There is the BIG difference between a family like Gary and Charity, that uses television for interaction and family time, and a family that uses television for distraction and scattering out. So take a look at what television is inspiring you to do. Does it draw together the family and spark conversation and interaction? Or does it cause scattering, fighting, bickering, or disconnection.

What I guess my challenge to any reader I have, is to look at your time spent in front of the television and ask
1. is it used to build and sustain relationships with my family?
2. how much is used to inspire me to live out God's adventure for my family?
3. is my family comfortable with silence once in a while?
4. can I turn off the television without going into withdrawal?

Quote of the Day

"Let people feel the weight of who you are, and let them deal with it."
-John Eldredge

Everything's Amazing, and Nobody's Happy

Great Stuff!
HT MMI

Andrew Peterson - Family Man

A Real Bail Out

Click Here to see the CNN story of a "foreclosure angel"

My Year Without Television: Part Two

Putting the television in the garage has caused a change in how we run our family. We were not avid TV watchers before this. The boys watched PBS in the morning, and Kara and I watched 24 one night, and PBS’s cooking shows Saturday morning.

So what do we do to fill the time that we used to use television for? I get asked the question much when people hear that we have no television, “Well, what do you do then?”

I have found that the people who ask a question like this are the ones who should probably look into an addict program. If you have no idea what to do with yourself without something, it is usually called an addiction. Dictionary.com defines addiction as: the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming.

If you are lost and confused and go into withdrawal symptoms without the stimuli of something, that something is an addiction. Father Rolheiser says in his book Holy Longing, “We are entertaining ourselves to death.” It is true. When I hear a statistic like: 20% of an average American’s life is spent in front of the television, that scares me. There is too much to do, too many people who need connection and community, and too much work for the kingdom of God to accomplish to simply sit and stare at a box and be entertained for one fifth of your life.

Father Rolheiser also says in the same book, that we are the first culture who does not have to ask the tough questions in life, because we have enough to entertain us and occupy us until we die. That scares me too. The truth behind this statement is that we are shaping a culture with no depth.

I am NOT saying that all people with a television are hollow shallow people. What I am saying is that people who are addicted to television have the same INTERNAL issues as someone addicted to other forms of stimuli. We use it as an escape, a comfort, and a crutch. We get to pretend that we are not the bored, lonely, workaholic people that we are. We get to live out vicariously through our favorite television show what we wish was true in our own life.

What I am saying with this is that some movies and television shows can really inspire us to be better, that is the power of a story. But when we refuse to take the inspiration of that story and deposit what we have received into some adventure that God has for us, and we just redeposit it back into another show or movie, we get caught into an addiction cycle. This is where many people of our day get caught.

TV is good for communicating story and inspiring us to do something with our life. That is the power of story. God uses story to inspire us. But we have to do something with that. We have to give that inspiration a direction other than back into another story to entertain and occupy us.

Jimmy Doyle on the election

Here is a great statement by Jimmy Doyle. He really puts the results of the election in perspective.

1. For all the "losers" who are followers of Jesus: Remember that the Scripture tells us to pray for our leaders and seek their welfare. Don't let your anger, frustration, or whatever over this election remove you from your obligation to love others (including politicians). Remember that it is only four years, only 1460 days. Despite the statements of many emails and outspoken "conservative" leaders, our country is founded upon a system built to ensure that one man can't do unmanageable damage. In light of that, relax and be glad that you have that system. it should also be said that a lot of angry, ignorant, fear-mongered, and religiously intolerant things have been said during this campaign season. If you are guilty or responsible for any of this, it also may be good if you apologized to someone or at least admitted that you have behaved in a manner that did not increase Christ's honor in the eyes of others.

2. For all the "winners" who are followers of Jesus: Remember that only Obama is just a man and a politician. He is not going to bring about the change that only people by taking action in their own lives can bring. He's not going to put food on your table. He's not going to make you healthy. He's not going to make you happy or bring peace to the world. He may accomplish a few good things, but probably not most of what he talked about during his campaign The reality is that if you want change, you will have to act on the kind of change you want to see. My friend Mark Riddle expresses this pretty clearly here. As I reminded those in point #1, you also should remember that our country was not built to run on the desires or influence of one man. Be a pragmatist not an idealist is probably a safe call. And don't forget, as I posted on earlier this year , the more that someone tells you that they are "not the politician" this should only confirm that they are.

My Year Without Television: Part One

After Kara and I moved into our house in October of 2007, we decided to move most of our stuff into the garage and slowly move everything into the house. First we moved in all of the essentials, Kitchen appliances, furniture, toys for the kids etc…, then we would move in the non-essentials slowly.

As time moved on, the television was not moved in, and we noticed that we didn’t notice it so much, and we really didn’t miss it much either, so we thought we would leave the television in the garage. It is still there after a year, and it is still not missed, by Kara, myself, or the boys.

What this year of television is NOT
Many Christians who get rid of their television get all self-righteous about it and talk about how the peons who still have a television are unintelligent couch potatoes, but I find that this is not true of many television watchers. So us ridding ourselves of our TV is not an attempt to raise our intelligence level or holiness status above any other person.

Many Christians who rid themselves of their television do so out of fear of culture and out of wanting to bubble themselves into their homes and stay far away from the negative effects of media. While I agree that there is a lot of junk on the television, this is not our attempt to hide from evil or culture.

We are not on a television “fast” either. If we are at someone’s house and the TV is on, we don’t run and hide, or anything like that.

We simply wanted more simplicity and silence as a family, and this is our choice on how to do so. And it has certainly worked. We love life after TV, and we have no plans to go back any time soon. We love the simplicity and silence that it brings to our home.

Quote of the Day:

I only have so much energy. And, I want it to go to my family, my church, my community, and those who need Jesus. So, stick to your boycotts, your silly battles that feed your identity, and majoring in ineffectiveness.

Don’t waste my time. It is a precious commodity and I am not letting you rob me any longer.

God, please bring unity to your church. Remind us what matters. Give us energy and purpose and vision and creativity and resources to incite change. Make us lovers. And, for those who want to stall the process of being Jesus to a world that needs hope—please shut them up and move them out of the way. If WE ever are that people, shut us up and move us out of the way. Then, break us and rebuild us and set us right again.

-John Voelz, Worship Pastor Westwinds Community Church

What if Starbucks Marketed Like a Church? A Parable.

Terry Tate: Get Out The Vote

Great Quote

The greatest opposition to what God is doing today comes from those who were on the cutting edge of what God was doing yesterday.

HT: Bed R

Advent Conspiracy Promo Video

Like_youknow

nice.
HT: Marko

Fishers of Men

What defines success in ministry? I have been thinking about success and what it usually means:

1. rise in attendance

2. rise in giving

3. rise in baptisms

4. rise in program participation

5. rise in building funds.

Pastors and elders can butt heads on issues of what success means in a church, and usually do. People working outside of a church setting are expected to perform in their jobs by bringing in a rise in numbers, be it sales, orders, customers... that is how their performance is judged.

Then you come into this thing called the church and you have another element that is a bit harder to gage. The spiritual realm. How do you gage success in a church? You certainly can't go by numbers alone. On the other hand, you certainly can't let a church decline into nothing and call it faithfulness. Where is a balance? How can you gage success in a church?

At Shiloh we are gaging success in one word: Movement. We have a process that we want each believer to walk through. Come | Grow | Serve. 

Come is seen with weekends at Shiloh, the worship services. We believe that when Jesus is lifted up, He will draw people to himself. We We want people to COME to Jesus, and our main vehicle is our Weekend worship service.

Grow is seen in our teaching venues. We offer "classes" or short term Bible studies that get people to look at where they are in their faith and take another step. We have a class going on now about the spiritual disciplines and how to practically use them in your life to make space for God to fill.

Serve is seen in Ministry teams that you can get involved in. Kids ministry, youth ministry, Audio Visual, Worship Service etc... We want our people to serve Jesus by serving others.

Come | Grow | Serve. Obviously Weekends are not the ONLY place that someone could Come to Jesus, it is just where we are going to funnel our resources for that purpose. Grow can happen outside of a Bible study, but the studies are going to be our main channel for that purpose. Serve can happen outside of a ministry team, and we hope it does, but our main focus is going to be those three channels.

So how do we define success at Shiloh? Movement. Let me show you how it works:

  Weekend attendance 550

   Study Attendance 3

+Serve Participation 0

_________________=

Shiloh Failing as a church

there is no movement in getting people to deepen their relationship with Christ. they just show up for the service and leave. I did my God thing for the week.

  Weekend Attendance 550

   Study Attendance 45

+Serve Participation 35

___________________=

Shiloh is getting more successful in moving people toward maturity in their faith.

So now, everything that we do as a church has to point to or enhance this movement process.

So, someone wants to start a polka dance training seminar held in our gym. We will ask, them a question, how does this enhance or promote our vision of getting people to Come to Christ, Grow in Christ, and Serve Christ at Shiloh? If it is not an entry point to our venues or a stepping stone in between our venues, it cannot work at Shiloh. 

Does that mean that Polka Dance Seminars are bad... Yes, but that is because it is Polka. When we turn down a ministry, or ask a ministry to change it is not because it is inherently bad, it is just sucking resources from the Main Vision at Shiloh.

This is all part of the transition that our church is in the middle of. I am very excited to see where god takes us in the next few years with our leadership and vision of the church.

Little Helpers

we are al getting into the home project.

Nolan

Some kids have teddy bears...

Porch Construction

With rising Propane costs, Kara and I prayed that god would provide an alternative source of heat this year, and he did. God provided a sweet wood stove for us for free. A couple in our church decided to buy this wood stove for us. It is a $1200 wood stove that a guy was selling for $500 and heard we were in search and charged us $300. The couple decided to pay the $300 for us and picked it up and delivered it to our house at no cost. What a blessing.

We had to figure out where to put it though, so we decided to finish the back porch and make it a part of the house and place the wood stove there. Here is a before and after picture of construction so far.

We have had to:
1. Demo the porch to the framing
2. Move and re frame a window
3. Move and re frame a door
4. Insulate and drywall the exterior wall
5. Level the porch floor
6. Install a sub-floor
7. Install ceramic tile
8. Frame, insulate, and drywall the ceiling
9. Install electrical for an outdoor light, an indoor outlet, and two sconces.

We still have to:
1. Install the stove and piping out the roof
2. Install laminate flooring
3. Final coat of mud
4. Prime and paint the walls
5. Mortar rocks into the back splash of the wall
6. Finish Drywalling, mudding, priming, painting the ceiling after the pipe goes through it
7. Install sconces
8. Install shelving unit in side wall.

I really don't have much experience in construction, so a lot of what we are doing is the first time we have ever done it. It's been fun though. I will post a finished product in a few weeks.

I got this today

Christian youth and Family Night
There will be no smoking or alcohol in the bowling center during this event
Come Bowl...while listening to today's Christian Rock and Praise and Worship!

As we all know, Jesus said, "Go and be the light of the world by secluding yourself and withdrawing yourself from society. Do not listen to their music, do not wear their clothes, do not hang out with such people, and most certainly, NEVER NEVER NEVER be around a non-christian while they are drinking or smoking."

I know whoever is putting this on means well, but I think we may be missing the point on church events like this. Why should we kick all the "non-Christians" out of a bowling alley so we can "have fun without them spoiling it all with their dirty language and habits." I think this attitude is a wee bit condescending and self-righteous.

Just my thoughts. Do what you want with it.

Guatemala Preview 08: going home

After five days of adventure in the mountains and villages of Guatemala, we boarded our place for Huston, Texas (with the help of this very proffessional sign the Guatemalan airport made for us out of drywall and paint.)

I have a great knowledge of what a team can do onthis trip,and what our team can do when we get there in July. This trip was so very valuable. It did many things:

1. It gave me the opportunity to preview the missions trip and speak about it first hand from experience, and not from, "well I heard that we may..."

2. It gave me the opportunity to do a mini missions trip with 5 guys without being the leader of the trip, constantly leading, and preparing. I had a chance to participate as a part of the team without the worries of leading a large team. Priceless.

3. I had a chance to get away and experience adventure with a bunch of guys I did not know, in a place where I was not familiar, with a people who I cannot communicate with by words, but by actions. I loved every second of this trip and would relive any part of it in a heartbeat, no questions asked.

4. I got to witness a barfight.

uatemala Preview 08: Cables X-Tremos!

On our way out of Panajachel, we stopped at a nature reserve to do some zip lining. They hook you up with harnesses and give you two guides who walk you up a mountain, across rope bridges and through the jungle.

When you get to the top one guide hooks up and zips 1,000 feet across tothe other side, and the other helps you hook up and sends you across the ravine. You do this eight times. Youo start far above the jungle floor and then go through the jungle canopy, and finally end up ziplining back in to where you started.

It is a beautiful way to see the jungle up close, and it was a whole lot of fun.

Guatemala Preview 08: Panajachel

Our first day in Panajachel was pretty cool. There is a lot of night life. We came out onto the main strip and caught a ride on a Tuc-Tuc, a three wheeled covered motorcycle. We took it to a place called the Circus Bar for dinner. The Circus Bar is a pizza place. We ate some really good pizza and witnessed a bar fight.

then we walked the shops. I didn't buy anything, I had what I wanted, but it was cool to walk the street and see the shops. We saw the largest wasp nest I have ever seen in my life hanging above the entrance to a travel company.

We then got coffee and went home to play cards til 1am.

In the morning we all got great views of the lake and volcanos and then we went to grab breakfast before heading to the zipline. (Extremos Cabalos!)

Guatemala Preview 08: lodging in Pana

We arrived at the Central American Missions Retreat Center in Panajachel and saw that our lodging was pretty fancy. We were not expecting such a nice place to stay in.

Guatemala Preview 08: trip to Pana

We went to Panajachel for an overnight stay. The drive there was long and trecherous. We drove through the mountains and through small villages with no street signs trying to figure out which way to turn and which road to take. We stopped half way for a rest at an unusually empty dirt spot off the road.

We saw an amazing view, but were not sure what to think of the buzzards. We looked over the edge of the cliff and saw a garbage dump! The cliff went straight down hundreds of feet with no guard rails, and trash was everywhere! We quickly hurried back into the mini bus and closed the door... someone left the door open. There were 30 or so flies flying around the bus! And then we looked up in horror to see the ceiling was covered in flies!

We started to drive and put the windows down and grabbed anything we could to bat away at the flies and to shoo them out the window. We eventually got them all out, and laughed really hard in the process.

Guatemala Preview 08: Banta House

One of my favorite parts of this trip was hanging out with the Banta family. We would gather there in the evenings for a fabulous meal. We got to meet and hang out with their kids, who were so amazing.

We got a run down of basic Guatemalan Culture differences.
1. Don't wave: it is the equivalent of the American middle finger
2. Don't point: it shows that you are a barbaric gringo, Guatemalans point with their lips.
3. If you walk into the room, greet everyone and say goodbye to everyone: even at the bank.
4. Don't lean on a wall: Guatemalans pee in public, and do so on walls.
5. Don't blow your nose in public: that's just gross. (and #4 isn't!?)
6. When you order at Burger King, don't order "I'll take one uno."
7. Don't drink the water, or even brush your teeth with the water: you will poo for 3 months straight.
8. Don't buy food from vendors: I refer you to #7's consequences
9. If you buy a drink, it will come in a glass bottle: The seller will want the bottle back, before you leave the establishment. You can take your drink in a sandwich bag and a straw.
10. If you can't speak Spanish, speaking English louder and slower will not help them understand, even if you use hand gestures (I refer you to #1 & #2).
11. If you run out of gas on a busy street, you can borrow a gas can from the gas station: but you will have to provide your own funnel, possibly made from a Global Soccer Ministries Banner.
12. If don't like suspense, close your eyes when you are being driven to anywhere.
13. Don't take pictures of strangers: they will wave at you. (refer you to #1)
14. Don't make finger guns at the security guards with shotguns in a shooter McGavin type posture. (refer you to #2)
15. Don't wave and take a picture of a swat team member with a really large gun. It's dangerous.

Guatemala Preview 08: Possible lodging

If we brought a group down on over 15, we would have to stay at this seminary instead of the liberty house. It was a really nice place. We took some pictures for future reference.