Send

SO you may wonder why the video of an orphanage on my blog? Well God has been leading us and prodding us to start an orphanage. The doors are opening wider and wider into that orphanage being in Guatemala. We are continuing to walk down that path for our lives and let God take us where he wants to take us. Right now we made the announcement at church that i will stay on staff through May and after that we will see where and when God is calling us to Guatemala. Paradise Bound is walking with us and opening doors right along with us until a door would come crashing shut.

I just read in John 20:21 that Jesus sends his disciples just as God the father sent Jesus. The question is what is the role of a missionary? IS the role of a missionary to fulfill the needs of the people they come in contact with? is it to use physical needs to teach about Jesus? Do we read in scripture Jesus telling the disciples to leave and go and supply physical needs? In the feeding of the 500 we do. Jesus tells his disciples to go and make disciples, not to go and feed and cloth and use that to make disciples. Could it be that the role of a missionary is to just GO? in going they are making disciples. Have we sometimes put the need in front of the call to go. Have we said there is a need lets fulfill it and make it a call? I believe we all do this at sometimes in our lives. Use a need make disciples.

What if all Christians just went and did what God was putting in front of them. If the believers who God gifted with money gave sacrificially and did so to fulfill God's call on their life? What if the the one gifted in baking just baked and gave the food because it was the call God put on their life? What if the missionary just went because it was the call on their life. What if you paid for groceries for the person in front of you because it was the call God put on you? God is calling all of us to something, are we following the call and not the need only?

To give you a little background on the orphanage, it is a call it has been prayed about and for for the last 4 months every day and once a week by a group of prayer warriors has prayed for the call and to follow the call on our lives. So here we are now Oct 26,2009 saying we will go for you Father we will travel for you and the call you have put on our lives. May the prayer and the journey of this be a way for you to see God's call for your life.

Orphanage video

Here is a video that was shared at the Paradise Bound dinner to give a little idea of the need and vision beyond a possible orphanage.

Thought

So i was at a conference yesterday and today. It was a conference for those thinking of going into missions or in missions or just plain have a heart for missions. After listening to many speakers and hearing stories from Haiti, Guatemala and locally. I have a question.
Is the "American Dream" biblical?

What do Christians do?

So over the last year or so I have been confronted with circumstances that I have had to ask this question. What I mean is when someone says things about you that are false, or what if people hurt you in a physical manner and cause pain on you. What do you do? in the last year i have been apart of situations like this. I have fallen into what he world says and then gone back to scriptures to find out. Guess what it doesn't line up, scriptures are different than the worlds ideas. What have you done lately with the scripture that says take care of widows and orphans? What about loving those who persecute you, do you retaliate or love them with a deeper love. What about giving to those in need? OK so where does the scriptures talk about saving and storing up enough money to retire and not have to work? is there a spot in scriptures that we can point to and say this is why i save and why i store money away to have enough to not have to work. So where do our actions as western world Christians line up with the teachings of Scripture? Are vacations and recreation something of scripture or something of our own desire and not really what scripture teaches?
Just a thought.

Confirming

So what does it mean to say that something is confirmed? I would say that this past summer has been exactly that, confirming. So where have I been this summer? Guatemala with 27 high schoolkids and 6 leaders. South side of Chicago with 27 middle school kids, and on houseboats with 10 college kids. In addition to that was able to get 2 weeks of vacation with the family. All to say this summer confirmed a lot of things. The Guatemala trip was the right trip for the right kids, Our eyes and ears were attentive and listening to God speaking and moving. All the trips were the right trip. It isn't that God showed up and did great things, he did. God is always showing up and doing great things, are we listening and watching and wanting to see him? That is the question. God is always at work in our lives it is just a matter of if we want to see him and claim it as him working. Our vacation times were great. It wasn't until the last vacation about 2 days into it that we realized why it was so good. Then it dawned on us. We were alone as a family, the first time in 5 years we have taken a vacation with just our family, no body else but us. That was confirming that we did the right thing. Confirming things happen all around us, do we see it, Do you choose to see it?

intertwined

I am not much of a hair braider. i must say i am becoming better, now that i have a daughter who asks me to comb and do her hair it has become a necessary thing in my life. how fast we can become entangled with things in our lives. I often watch my son playing with jump rope or any sort of string and before he knows it, it is around his legs arms and he can't do what he used to do, or even what he set out to do. I think sometimes we can be like little kids, without knowing it we can get tangled in life and wonder what do we do? Tangled can take on so many forms, it can be losing a job and not knowing where to look and getting bored at home and frustrated, so you finish that project around the house that has been waiting which costs money. Then you jump to another project to fill time and before you know it you ave spent money you don't have because you are not working. You can get tangled with schedules and forgetting what you have planned for a weekend, or open houses right now. Tangled takes on so many forms. We can get tangled with sin in our lives that it just becomes braided into our day. Over time we don't even see it as something wrong. So what happens when you fin yourself tangled? You may have played the human knot tieing game, where you stand in a circle and grab a persons hand across form you which forms a knot, then you work as a team to untie the knot. Same with tangles in life. They will always be there. There will always be tangles as long as there are humans on the earth. Are you tangled?

Seeing believing

recently i was visiting a friend of mine and she told me about an eagles nest not far from my house. Did i believe her that it was there? Yes, did i want to see it for myself? Yes. How many times has a friend or acquaintance of yours shared something with you that you either believed right away or you didn't believe at all. You have heard the phrase, "seeing is believing" But is that always true in all things in our lives. I like to describe myself as a person who is trying to follow Jesus. Jesus, when he was here on this earth had a saying that said if you have seen me you have seen my father in heaven. Jesus also taught that man and woman had to have faith, he told the sick your faith has made you well. He told the crowds believe and trust. how hard is it to trust and believe in something that you cannot see? I would like to ask the question with Jesus is believing the beginning of seeing? Is he so different from us and our world that the popular phrase is totally backwards? try it out in your life. If you believe Jesus teachings or maybe you don't believe in Jesus teachings. When you come to a point in your life that you trust Jesus to be true does it help you see life and the world in a whole new way, similar to seeing with a new eyeglasses prescription. The blind man that Jesus healed told the people that he didn't know much about Jesus just that once he was blind now he could see. Maybe that is true for us as well. Believe and you will see!!

uncommon

5 loaves, 2 fish, withered hand, leprosy, blindness, 2 small copper coins, impaired speech. What do all these have in common? they were offered by people when they didn't know what else to offer. When they were at their end with all they had. Their hope was in these things as they offered it to God. or did they offer. maybe each one was asked of from God with a choice do I or don't I. After all what good is 5 loaves and 2 fish with 12,000 people standing around hungry. That can't mean much. Or a withered hand that has not be able to be used for some time. leprosy, a disease that puts you in exile, what could that do except change a mans heart to become a thankful man. Or a blind man who is taken out of darkness into the light to see and testify to once blind now seeing and faith that came in his life. A woman who had nothing yet gave 2 small coins as an example to many watching her. A man with impaired speech and said he could not lead, yet became one of the greatest leaders this world has seen, leading thousands of people out of slavery out of bondage through a desert, Receiving 10 laws that still govern much of our law today. A man who parted water, stood toe to toe with a wicked corrupt leader and said,"Let my people go!" What do they have in common? they were given to God at a time when there was no hope to bring hope to those around. A simple thing looked at as not being special or usable by many peoples standards yet God used them. have you ever stopped to think that maybe you might have 5 loaves and 2 fish, insignificant in your eyes yet plentiful in God's. Or maybe a withered hand that can't be used for normal everyday work but can be used to glorify God, Or a disease that separates you and leaves you on the outside looking in. maybe you are wondering where your next meal is coming from or where your next bill is going to be paid or just ready to give up because you don't have the money. Have you thought about giving your money to God as an investment and trust for him to multiply it. Maybe you have a speech problem that God wants you to give him so that you can't use the words you want but God can share the words he wants through your mouth. Maybe you have an uncommon thing that God is asking for and wants from you. have you thought about giving him your withered hand, giving him your self, have you thought about dong something that the Bible teaches in Luke 9:23, Deny yourself and follow him? try it, give the insignificant to him to be used by someone of significance.

prickers

So who made prickers? This question was posed to me yesterday by my son. As we were in our yard with round up spraying the prickers. he said, dad did God make prickers? Well, here in lies a very interesting theological question. Are prickers bad? I am not a plant expert, so I cannot answer the question of what purpose they may play in the whole grand scheme of things in creation. But I know for sure that on a beautiful sunny summer day walking in the yard barefoot and stepping on a pricker does not bring pleasure to my foot or mind or day. So where did they come from. I would go to a verse in the Bible that says, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree I commanded you, you must not eat of it, cursed is the ground because of you...it will produce thorns and thistles for you." That comes from Genesis 3:18. I would like to suggest to you that sin is a prick something not quite right, something that causes pain and may be pleasant for a moment but the pleasure soon wears off. So could it be that God just happened to allow the ground to produce thorns and prickers and things that hurt when you step on them to remind us. remind us of sin, remind us of pain that sin afflicts on people. Pain that helps us understand a little bit of what sin caused Jesus to go through. One final thought what kind of crown was Jesus wearing on the cross?
So are prickers a good thing or a bad?

Church

To some this word makes you cringe, you have been turned off from being in a church or turned off from someone who goes to church that has treated you badly. To some however the word gets them excited and energized. to others it is just another word and you don't care at all about the word or the meaning or the purpose. This past week there was an article published that said the church in America is declining. they are obviously talking about the number of people that attend church and the number of people that are involved and committed to church. When numbers decline there is a reason. The auto industry is declining, there is a reason. The manufacturing industry is declining, there is a reason. Sales at stores are declining, there is a reason. the church is declining, there is a reason. Each person has their own ideas and thoughts as to why things might be declining. Each person has their own ideas about why they don't want to purchase something and is causing sales to decline. Yes each person has their own idea on church and why they do or don't want to be apart of it. So as an employee of a church, just like any employee of any company struggling. WHY? is the question. It begs the question from me, What is the purpose of the church? Where is the church suppose to be? just as industries are going through revamping and beginning to change how things have been done. Is it time for the church to do the same? Is it time for Church to be different than it has always been? I don't know and i am asking myself questions this week. So what is our role as church today?

I am back

Well it has been a long time since i last put anything up here. For me this has been a good outlet for my thoughts on Spirituality and my just random thoughts as i read and think and all that. So today my thoughts have to do with serving. I read of a dammed up lake that cannot take on more water without flowing over the banks. there are different ways to view a waterway. The quiet peaceful river running through the woods and the rest that it offers as you just can hear the gentle trickle of water flowing. The calm that it brings in life. Walking through the woods you hear just a faint trickle and for some reason you are caught, you want to pursue the trickle and the gentle water, in fact you have to. You cannot keep going without finding the source and when you do you sit, you rest, you drink, and if you are with anybody you talk. Ahhhhh what a sweet feeling you have made it. But where is the water going? it has to flow somewhere, something has to receive it or maybe something has let this out. I live near a dam, the spring time is a great time to go and watch the dam, there are times when the water is flowing so hard you cannot hear the person next to you talk. The water is flowing into the dammed area so fast it has to be let out. The roar and rush of running whitewater just has excitement about it that you want to jump in you want to experience the rush that it can give. Is not serving very similar to the rush of an over flowing dammed up body of water? The excitement that serving brings draws people in, serving cannot happen without being filled up and flowing out with love and mercy for other people.