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Give It Away!
PROBLEM: When I first got in children’s ministry as a paid staff member at a church I ran into a challenge that I didn’t anticipate going in regarding how I handle my ministry responsibilities. I held a posture of ownership and thought that if I didn’t do ALL of the work then it would either not get done right and/or my leadership would think I was just trying to pawn it off on others. I needed to have control over everything! I attended every meeting (during and after normal hours), I assigned myself responsibility for all kinds of things whether I had the time or not and I placed expectations…
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The Power of the Dad!
My wife and I recently started working on a new marriage ministry at our church and we have begun a 16 week study with several other married couples in our church. In our second week, we started sharing our stories about our parent’s marriage and how their marriage has had an effect on our own marriage. One thing really struck me about each individual’s story that really convicted me and made me look at myself as a father of 4. Never underestimate the power of the Dad! As I heard each person’s story of their parents, it was the dad’s role in the marriage that seemed to negatively affect them…
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Observations of Kids Camp 2014
Kids Camp 2014 has come and gone! Kids went crazy, counselors endured, fun was had by all and most of all – lives were changed. Here are some of my observations of kid’s camp 2014: – Food was still pretty good – Love the bacon! – Boys cabin was more third world country that I would prefer– Yes, we got “that cabin”! – Boys stink & Girls were moody – Both are messy! – Our Kids and our Counselors were the wildest in the camp – I hope we can go back! – We always have 1-2 kids that just seem to wonder in oblivion – Destination Unknown! – We…
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Don’t Load Your Horse to Heavy!
A few Sunday’s ago our church’s custodian Jose and I were chatting about life and he told me that often we tend to live our lives in state of imbalance. He shared with me a story regarding travel in his country. Jose is from a small third-world village in South America, where some roads are not driven on by cars but instead traveled on only by horseback. He mentioned a particular hill close to his home that requires a horse to get over and that people will load their horse with many bags that hang off the sides of the horse. He said that often people will load their horse…
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God is Bigger Than Your Problem!
We’ve all heard that statement or one like it. We’ve even heard statements like “God won’t give you anything you can’t handle” or the opposite “God will give you things you can’t handle so that you will rely on Him to get you through.” We’ve even heard Bob, Larry and Jr. Asparagus tell us that God is bigger than the boogie man, He’s bigger than Godzilla and the Monsters on TV” – if you don’t know what I’m talking about then click here and soak in the greatness of Veggie Tales. If you think about it God really is bigger than the boogie men that scare and intimidate us and…
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5 Sure-Fire Ways to Save Your Marriage!
It’s come to my attention that there are a bunch of married couples out there that are barely married and they are contemplating ending their marriage. You know who you are! You’re the ones who put on a good face for your friends, family and neighbors or at least attempt to. You’re the ones who look at their spouse with frustration, anger and disgust. You are the ones whose children are acting out at school, church and everywhere else for that matter. Now I don’t know all of the reasons why your marriage is a mess and I don’t know all of the pieces to the puzzle that has made…
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Be Where You Are!
A couple of months ago I was at a conference and one of the leaders of the conference was encouraging the crowd to “be present where you are”. She was ultimately requesting for us to focus on the right here and right now and eliminate the other stuff in our mind. I have to admit, that I had to stop my brain, quit steering my thoughts elsewhere and focus on what she was saying. I had to be present in the moment…and it was hard! Since then I’ve been evaluating how present I am in the most important things in my life. Things like – my family, my work, my…
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The Top 5 Greatest Threats to the Family!
Ok…I’m not really a great authority on this and I don’t have statistics to back up anything mainly because I don’t have the time to research them but from experience and talking to a great number of families in the past 14+ years of ministry, I see the following as the 5 greatest threats to the family: – The Messed Up Marriage –The messed up marriage is in short the marriage where the priorities of the marriage center on everything but the most important things (see Target Practice blog here for list of most important things). Work, money, hobbies are just a few of those family threatening priorities. – …
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Boom – Goes the Marriage!
There is a war on Marriage! It was waged thousands of years of ago by Satan in the Garden of Eden and he hasn’t stopped since. Genesis 3 tells us that the Satan used deception, lies and pride to set up the fall of man and ruin the perfect marriage. What’s amazing is that Satan still uses the same three “marriage bombs” to ruin marriage today. Let’s break that down: Bomb #1) Deception – here Satan uses a host of false and negative illusions to enter into the minds and hearts of the married couple. This bomb will cause the most damage when there is a lot of stress, lack…
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30 Feet!
Last Saturday I loaded up my posse and headed for the amazing wonderland of oversized and bulk packaged domestic goods otherwise known as Sam’s Club. Actually I prefer Costco but that’s not really the point of the story!!! While we were at Sam’s we loaded up on all of the free samples, maneuvered our cart like a New York cabbie though the sea of other “club members” and my wife fought off the score of unruly potato chip hoarders that seemed to multiply as she entered that aisle; each purchasing oversized bags of chips that could each feed a small country. We leave Sam’s and something struck me that first…
