On Sunday evening I attended services at Hillsboro in Nashville to learn about The Truth Project. Hillsboro is hosting the special satellite training session that will occur on September 27, 2008. If you have not heard about this, click on the title above and it should take you to a link for The Truth Project. This series of lessons is from Focus on the Family and it helps Christians develop a world view from a biblical perspective. I am excited about this and cannot wait to attend.
As a bonus, your church could host the video simulcast if no church within a 20 mile radius has already agreed to do so. Janelle's uncle has already conducted 4 small groups through this curriculum and is currently working with a fifth group. His excitement is contagious and after I saw some of the video clips, I can't wait to learn more.
In Him,
David
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Visitor in the night - Part 2
Reading Trey Morgan's original post on visitor in the night reminded me of a story that happened when I was in eighth grade. Our family was building a house out in the country in East Tennessee. The basement was complete and habitable and we moved in. While the upstairs was enclosed it still needed all the work; electrical, plumbing, drywall, etc to be done. The way the lower level was situated the front of the house was underground, where the bedrooms were located, while the back of the house containing the kitchen and living room was at ground level with windows and a sliding glass door looking out on the backyard. With the bedrooms being underground, the rooms were very dark especially when you closed the doors at night (side note: as a teenager these dark, cave like bedrooms were perfect for the guy wanting to sleep until 1 or 2 in the afternoon). Anyhow, on with the story.
One night we are awakened to dad hollering and mom screaming and a lot of banging going on in their room.... it went down like this. In the middle of the night, in their very dark bedroom, my father awoke to feel a hand pressing down on his chest. He smacked it away and it thumped down on his chest again, enhancing he fear. He pushed it away again and the hand smacked him in the face. My mother wakes up wondering what is wrong and dad tells her that someone is in the room with them. Mom starts flailing away, occasionally hitting the "intruder" but mostly landing blows on my father can feel. After a brief period of time with this going on, my father finally gets my mother to quit striking him, regains his composure, arises to turn on the light to find the room empty except for he and my mother, their door securely closed.
As it turns out, my father had been sleeping on one of his arms which went to sleep. When he rolled over the now asleep or "dead" arm flopped over striking him on the chest. He had no feeling in that arm or control over it so when he pushed it off with his good arm it would just flop back on him and in the pitch black of their bedroom he had no idea on what was going on.
I hope you enjoyed this story as much as our family has through the years.
David
One night we are awakened to dad hollering and mom screaming and a lot of banging going on in their room.... it went down like this. In the middle of the night, in their very dark bedroom, my father awoke to feel a hand pressing down on his chest. He smacked it away and it thumped down on his chest again, enhancing he fear. He pushed it away again and the hand smacked him in the face. My mother wakes up wondering what is wrong and dad tells her that someone is in the room with them. Mom starts flailing away, occasionally hitting the "intruder" but mostly landing blows on my father can feel. After a brief period of time with this going on, my father finally gets my mother to quit striking him, regains his composure, arises to turn on the light to find the room empty except for he and my mother, their door securely closed.
As it turns out, my father had been sleeping on one of his arms which went to sleep. When he rolled over the now asleep or "dead" arm flopped over striking him on the chest. He had no feeling in that arm or control over it so when he pushed it off with his good arm it would just flop back on him and in the pitch black of their bedroom he had no idea on what was going on.
I hope you enjoyed this story as much as our family has through the years.
David
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Favor with all men
John Dobbs comments on "Why do the lost seem so far away" got me thinking of lots of random thoughts. Why was the early church so successful in evangelism? Definitely their zeal was a huge factor of it, but the latter part of Acts 2 explains a lot of it as well. "46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." Enjoying favor of all the people. Their kindness, their love, their generosity was appealing to all who witnessed it.
Often time we become focused on agenda evangelism. We set out to convert someone but we have not taken time to show them the love, kindness and generosity it takes to grow in favor with them. I'm not saying that we don't evangelize, for that is our purpose as Christians, what I am saying is that we take the time and build relationships and trust with those we are seeking to engage in biblical discussions. I think of myself as a good person yet I know this is something that I need to work on in my life.
If you click on the title bar to this blog topic it should take you directly to JD's blog
In Him,
David
Often time we become focused on agenda evangelism. We set out to convert someone but we have not taken time to show them the love, kindness and generosity it takes to grow in favor with them. I'm not saying that we don't evangelize, for that is our purpose as Christians, what I am saying is that we take the time and build relationships and trust with those we are seeking to engage in biblical discussions. I think of myself as a good person yet I know this is something that I need to work on in my life.
If you click on the title bar to this blog topic it should take you directly to JD's blog
In Him,
David
Monday, April 21, 2008
Plans and reality
I had planned on planting a garden this weekend to help us save on the food costs. Yes, I am the same guy who as a teenager swore I would never have a garden once I grew up after toiling many a hot summer's day in "my father's" garden. Yet here I am planning on purpose to plant a garden of my own. Sad thing is, the more I think about it, the bigger it gets in my mind.
Anyhow that was the plan. Reality is that on Thursday I guess the pollen got the best of me and I ended up sick Friday on throughout the weekend. I still don't have much of a voice but am able to return to work.
As a young man I planned on getting married around 26-30, starting a family, having lots of money and no worries. Reality is that I was over 40 when I married, have two wonderful children, not so much money and worry more than I should.
In my plans my kids would get to spend lots of time with their grandparents, get spoiled by them, etc. Reality is that my father died 13 years before I married. Only one of his grandchildren (my brother's oldest daughter) got to spend any time with him and by that time his body was robbed of it vitality by both chemo and the effects of a brain tumor.
I can plan for the future, my retirement, kid's college, etc. but that does not mean that any of it will come to pass (but is wise to prepare as if it will). I can live for today and be a good husband, father, example and enjoy all that God has blessed me with and choose to be happy.
In Him,
David
Anyhow that was the plan. Reality is that on Thursday I guess the pollen got the best of me and I ended up sick Friday on throughout the weekend. I still don't have much of a voice but am able to return to work.
As a young man I planned on getting married around 26-30, starting a family, having lots of money and no worries. Reality is that I was over 40 when I married, have two wonderful children, not so much money and worry more than I should.
In my plans my kids would get to spend lots of time with their grandparents, get spoiled by them, etc. Reality is that my father died 13 years before I married. Only one of his grandchildren (my brother's oldest daughter) got to spend any time with him and by that time his body was robbed of it vitality by both chemo and the effects of a brain tumor.
I can plan for the future, my retirement, kid's college, etc. but that does not mean that any of it will come to pass (but is wise to prepare as if it will). I can live for today and be a good husband, father, example and enjoy all that God has blessed me with and choose to be happy.
In Him,
David
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
All things to all men
A few blogs back I discussed fellowship and this kind of follows that line of thinking but in a different tact. Paul wrote the following to the church in Corinth "19 Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21T o those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings." - I Cor. 9
Paul did whatever he could to bring others to Christ yet in so many churches across our country we are seeing the opposite. There are members everywhere who want everyone to become Pauls in the sense that they want everyone to transform into what they want or expect them to be. If the minister does not preach the right kind of sermons, if they sing the wrong kind of songs, these people take their Bibles and head somewhere else or even worse they cause so much discord that they split the church into two warring factions. It is their "right" to have their opinions and they want everyone to conform to them. Total opposite of what Paul said.
Stick with me here, one of the problems that we may have in America is that we have too many choices in religion. Instead of learning to get along and become more Christ like in our attitudes towards fellow believers, if we don't like what they are doing where we attend we move on to someplace else. And heaven forbid that a brother is caught in error, they are not confronted in love, they are just confronted. I have expressed similar thoughts in other blogs but will rephrase it this way, our rights as Americans does not extend to the church. We are part of a kingdom and are to submit our will to God's will, something I need to constantly remind myself of....especially when I get upset and want to take my toys and play somewhere else.
In Him,
David
Paul did whatever he could to bring others to Christ yet in so many churches across our country we are seeing the opposite. There are members everywhere who want everyone to become Pauls in the sense that they want everyone to transform into what they want or expect them to be. If the minister does not preach the right kind of sermons, if they sing the wrong kind of songs, these people take their Bibles and head somewhere else or even worse they cause so much discord that they split the church into two warring factions. It is their "right" to have their opinions and they want everyone to conform to them. Total opposite of what Paul said.
Stick with me here, one of the problems that we may have in America is that we have too many choices in religion. Instead of learning to get along and become more Christ like in our attitudes towards fellow believers, if we don't like what they are doing where we attend we move on to someplace else. And heaven forbid that a brother is caught in error, they are not confronted in love, they are just confronted. I have expressed similar thoughts in other blogs but will rephrase it this way, our rights as Americans does not extend to the church. We are part of a kingdom and are to submit our will to God's will, something I need to constantly remind myself of....especially when I get upset and want to take my toys and play somewhere else.
In Him,
David
Monday, April 14, 2008
Fear and Fun
This past weekend we had camping reservations with three other families and rains of biblical proportion. After the storms passed through Friday, we loaded up and headed off for the campground. I had smartly chosen to take the 4 man tent rather than the 10 man tent. My reasoning was it would be easier to keep the smaller tent warm; what I did not know was that it was also going to be easier to keep the smaller tent upright and on the ground.
With the wind whipping so hard, Janelle had to help me get our tent up (I usually can accomplish this on my own. When it came time to put the rain fly on, I tied it off to stakes outside of the tent pad which proved to be the right decision as the ground was firmer there and there was no problem of these stakes pulling out.
Our friends Mark and Heather had the large 10 person tent. This tent wanted to fly. We ended up tying off the tent poles on the windward side to two trees to keep the poles from collapsing and tying two of the stake loops to rope and staking the ropedown outside of the tent pad. Once we loaded their tent with two air mattresses, a pack n play and 4 sleeping bags, it was grounded.
Now the fear part. We are camped along the Cumberland river which is roaring with all the heavy rain that fell during the latter half of the work week. On two different occasions Christopher disappeared from sight and my mind immediately went to the river. PURE PANIC! Both times he had headed off for the play ground on his own. So many emotions upon finding him safe.
The wind was relentless all weekend and then the weather forecast changed on Saturday for a 60% chance of showers after midnight, so discretion being the better part of valor....we all packed up, went out for dinner and headed home. It was fun, trying, windy and a weekend of building memories.
If you need rain, invite our family and friends to come camping. It is guaranteed to raise the water table of any location!
David
With the wind whipping so hard, Janelle had to help me get our tent up (I usually can accomplish this on my own. When it came time to put the rain fly on, I tied it off to stakes outside of the tent pad which proved to be the right decision as the ground was firmer there and there was no problem of these stakes pulling out.
Our friends Mark and Heather had the large 10 person tent. This tent wanted to fly. We ended up tying off the tent poles on the windward side to two trees to keep the poles from collapsing and tying two of the stake loops to rope and staking the ropedown outside of the tent pad. Once we loaded their tent with two air mattresses, a pack n play and 4 sleeping bags, it was grounded.
Now the fear part. We are camped along the Cumberland river which is roaring with all the heavy rain that fell during the latter half of the work week. On two different occasions Christopher disappeared from sight and my mind immediately went to the river. PURE PANIC! Both times he had headed off for the play ground on his own. So many emotions upon finding him safe.
The wind was relentless all weekend and then the weather forecast changed on Saturday for a 60% chance of showers after midnight, so discretion being the better part of valor....we all packed up, went out for dinner and headed home. It was fun, trying, windy and a weekend of building memories.
If you need rain, invite our family and friends to come camping. It is guaranteed to raise the water table of any location!
David
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Most Important
It's weird to know before 7 A.M. that you have already accomplished the most important thing you will do all day. Early this morning our 3 year old woke up and I could hear him crying "I want daddy, I want daddy". Janelle carried him to our bed and he snuggled close to me with one arm around my neck and one hand holding onto my arm. Laying there listening to his breathing relax, feeling him relax as he pulled himself closer to daddy, I knew I had already done the most important thing that I would do all day. Laying there listening to him breath and sleep, that was contentment for me.
I think I now have a better understanding of what Jesus meant as he wept over Jerusalem. Like a parent, he longed to pull them close and feel them relax and rest in his arms. He still feels that way about us. Pretty cool.
In Him,
David
I think I now have a better understanding of what Jesus meant as he wept over Jerusalem. Like a parent, he longed to pull them close and feel them relax and rest in his arms. He still feels that way about us. Pretty cool.
In Him,
David
Monday, April 7, 2008
Fellowship
In class yesterday we were discussing the topic of fellowship and our responsibility to one another. For so long in our tribe fellowship has been deemed as eating together or hanging out together and sadly we have lost the true meaning of fellowship. Part of what was discussed under the "Brother in Need" blog topic is incorporated into this fellowship. The term we call fellowship comes from the Greek word Koinonia. (NOTE: I am not a Greek scholar)
It was in the study notes that koinonia comes from a word meaning spouse or business partner. Quoting from Wikipedia ""Koinonos" in classical Greek means a companion, a partner or a joint-owner." This companion can be the same as a spouse. This got me thinking that I need to reshape how I approach fellowship. From that vantage, I need to treat my brothers and sisters as I would my own spouse. They are my partners, not a part of some loosely associated fraternal organization. If I would begin to look at them as a partner rather than an acquaintance then maybe I can finally get to what the church is supposed to be.
Again from Wikipedia: "To create a bond between comrades is the meaning of koinonia when people are recognized, share their joy and pains together, and are united because of their common experiences, interests and goals. Fellowship creates a mutual bond which overrides each individual’s pride, vanity, and individualism, fulfilling the human yearning with fraternity, belonging, and companionship. This meaning of koinonia accounts for the ease by which sharing and generosity flow. When combined with the spiritual implications of koinonia, fellowship provides a joint participation in God’s graces and denotes that common possession of spiritual values."
I wonder how much more has been lost in translation. It makes me ashamed of how little I truly know and how much I am missing out on in what the church should be. Is it possible to have the Church as Christ intended in the 21st Century?
In Him,
David
It was in the study notes that koinonia comes from a word meaning spouse or business partner. Quoting from Wikipedia ""Koinonos" in classical Greek means a companion, a partner or a joint-owner." This companion can be the same as a spouse. This got me thinking that I need to reshape how I approach fellowship. From that vantage, I need to treat my brothers and sisters as I would my own spouse. They are my partners, not a part of some loosely associated fraternal organization. If I would begin to look at them as a partner rather than an acquaintance then maybe I can finally get to what the church is supposed to be.
Again from Wikipedia: "To create a bond between comrades is the meaning of koinonia when people are recognized, share their joy and pains together, and are united because of their common experiences, interests and goals. Fellowship creates a mutual bond which overrides each individual’s pride, vanity, and individualism, fulfilling the human yearning with fraternity, belonging, and companionship. This meaning of koinonia accounts for the ease by which sharing and generosity flow. When combined with the spiritual implications of koinonia, fellowship provides a joint participation in God’s graces and denotes that common possession of spiritual values."
I wonder how much more has been lost in translation. It makes me ashamed of how little I truly know and how much I am missing out on in what the church should be. Is it possible to have the Church as Christ intended in the 21st Century?
In Him,
David
Whirlwind
It has been a week since the last post and life has been a whirlwind for us. I met Janelle last Monday after I got off to take the boys to the park to play while she went to the tax office to work. Just after we had traded vehicles she received a call that her grandmother had just passed away which start the whirlwind of activity. There were phone calls to be made to family spread out across the U.S. plus her parents in China; her uncle had to make arrangements to have the funeral here while coordinating with his brothers and sister. We had to cancel Christopher's birthday party as with family traveling from overseas, the funeral would have to be at the end of the week. As it ended up, the funeral was on Friday on a very rainy day.
With all the family in town, we had a family birthday for Christopher on Saturday. His grandparents from China were there, his grandmother from East Tennessee, 2 great aunts, 2 great uncles and all his aunts, uncles and cousins on his mother's side. It was quite a party and an uplifting way to end what had been a sad week. Janelle made him a Thomas the Tank Engine cake that was excellent and he was quite happy to be the center of attention.
Sunday as always was a day of worship and time spent with family. Not once since Thursday have the boys gotten to bed on time since we were always down in Murfreesboro at bedtime. The good news was there were many games of Settlers of Cataan that week. Oh well, maybe more of a routine this week. Have a great week!
In Him,
David
With all the family in town, we had a family birthday for Christopher on Saturday. His grandparents from China were there, his grandmother from East Tennessee, 2 great aunts, 2 great uncles and all his aunts, uncles and cousins on his mother's side. It was quite a party and an uplifting way to end what had been a sad week. Janelle made him a Thomas the Tank Engine cake that was excellent and he was quite happy to be the center of attention.
Sunday as always was a day of worship and time spent with family. Not once since Thursday have the boys gotten to bed on time since we were always down in Murfreesboro at bedtime. The good news was there were many games of Settlers of Cataan that week. Oh well, maybe more of a routine this week. Have a great week!
In Him,
David
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