Do you sponsor a child through Compassion International or another organization? Do you write to them?
Our family sponsors a beautiful little girl named Yuly from Costa Rica. We have written her a few letters and sent some pictures have received a number of letters and pictures in return.
Do we write enough? Probably not – which is something I’ve been convicted of this week as I read through the blog entries of those bloggers that are currently in India visiting the Compassion Projects there.
Today Anne Jackson, one of those on the trip posted this entry about the importance of your sponsorship and specifically of the letters to these children. She has two videos on her site, one of their visit to the Compassion Offices where they see the piles of letters waiting to be translated and another of a home visit, which I’ve put here that are just wonderful.
There are a number of other amazing stories and videos that are all linked from the Compassion Bloggers page that I strongly encourage you to read.
Mostly though, take a few minutes and write to your sponsored child. I know Allyson and I were just talking about this last night – we will be doing this this weekend. Tell them that you love them and are praying for them. And if you don’t sponsor a child yet you can head over here and start today for just $32 a month.
So, yesterday was “Camp Sunday” at Rittman UMC. It was an opportunity to promote the East Ohio Camps and celebrate how God is using them to transform kids’ lives and transform them through fun, fellowship and God’s Word.
Lisa Winchell, a member of our church and a “camp lifer”, gave the message. It was a very nice testimony about how being a camper\counselor\volunteer has changed her life and camper’s lives and brought her closer to God and allowed God to work through her. She reminded us that it’s important to take some time away and just spend time with God, either at a camp or retreat. She also shared some ways that we can BE the church by praying, volunteering and supporting the camps.
We decided to stay with the “camp theme” and used all contemporary music during the service as this is what the kids would be singing as they went to camp. I also decided that I couldn’t do it alone – so I was really excited to be able to have my son, Taylor, and another youth, Larissa, up there helping me lead worship.
The music consisted of:
Prelude – Indescribable (Laura Story)
Come, Now Is The Time To Worship (Brian Doerskon)
Offering\Special – Love The Lord (Lincoln Brewster)
Doxology
God of Wonders (Marc Byrd\Steve Hindalong)
How Great Is Our God (Chris Tomlin\Jesse Reeves\Ed Cash)
Taylor and I sang the Prelude together and Larissa joined us for the rest of the songs. They did a fabulous job and I couldn’t be more proud of them!! I love getting youth involved in leading worship. Here’s are some snippets of us singing:
This was pretty new for the congregation as they haven’t had all contemporary music at a service (at least for a while). They seemed to respond pretty well to it and I tried to make sure to choose songs that would be more familiar to them. Though – doing the Doxology with the acoustic was probably the “weirdest” moment for all of us!!
The only “hiccup” came at our last song. I have a Boss TU-2 (the TU stands for Tuner) – that I use to both check my tuning and mute my guitar when I set it down and pick it up. As I got up for the closing song I decided to spend a moment talking to tie Lisa’s message in with the last song so the congregation understood why it was selected. I also decided that I wanted to make sure the congregation was familiar with at least the chorus of the song so I taught it to them by singing through the chorus once and then inviting them to sing it with me. Then we sang through the whole song as the body of Christ, lifting our voices to God. I kept the tempo up a bit and was strumming pretty hard – which turned out to be a good thing…
As I was hitting those last few chords I peeked down at my stomp boxes and that’s when I saw it…the little red light on my TU-2 was ON.
You see, I had muted the guitar after doing “God of Wonders”. That little red light – if it’s on that means that the tuner is muting the guitar!! DOH! I had done the whole song with the guitar muted. Thankfully my guitar is pretty full and the sanctuary carries sound really well so according to the sound guy it wasn’t too bad – he could still hear it in the back…he just couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t bring it up any!
All in all, God was glorified and that’s the main thing!
This past Friday a group of bloggers left the comfort and safety of their homes and headed to India to see first-hand what the ministry of Compassion International is all about and to share it with the world through their websites. They will be sharing their stories, photos and videos of the trip on a daily basis through their blogs.
By clicking on the image above you can find all of the blogs. You may be familiar with some of these bloggers through previous posts I’ve made here. Pete Wilson is the Pastor at Crosspoint Church in Nashville – I’ve been following his blog for a while now. Anne Jackson also works at Crosspoint and recently released the book Mad Church Disease. Finally, one of the leaders of the trip is Shaun Groves who I had the chance to meet when I arranged for him to come to Wadsworth for a free concert last year. There are six others on this trip as well and you can follow them all here or from the above photo.
Even if you don’t visit the blogs I would ask that you remember them in your prayers as they travel to a place that is not friendly to Christians and the message that they bring. Pray for safety, good health and that the hope of Jesus Christ is shared with those they see.
If you are interested in sponsoring a child through Compassion you can find more information here or by clicking the banner on the right-hand side of my page.
So, I’ve got a lot to blog about this week – Brooke’s Brithday Party was Saturday, Camp Sunday was today and Taylor sang with me, this Sunday we have our DORMS Day event in Rittman and God continues to be the headline!!
But – for now, I’m exhausted and going to bed. I’ll post tomorrow with some videos and other thoughts.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen. 1:1 NIV)
Tonight the kids and I went to see Disney’s new movie “Earth”. This movie is from Disneynature and was released on Earth Day. It “tells the story” of three families – polar bears, elephants and humpback whales – and the Earth over the course of a year. None of the animals talk, the only voice you hear is that of the narrator – James Earl Jones. It follows the trials and triumphs that these creatures face as they fight for survival. Taylor and Allyson loved it, Brooke – got a little bored and scared. You see, when I said trials – I meant it. The meaning of “the circle of life” is shown in a couple different scenarios. It can be a little rough on the little ones (though there was very little blood shown – most shots were cut away at just the right moment).
From the opening image of the movie (which is what you see in the picture above) the thing that just took my breath away was the beauty of the planet we live on. The photographers did an absolutely breath-taking job of capturing the world we live on and the animals that we share it with. From the image of a polar bear cub poking it’s head out of the snow for the first time, to a very strange little bird’s mating dance (which is absolutely hilarious) we see the wonder and beauty of God’s creations. We see the grace of seasons changing through time-lapse photography and the beauty of a flower rising up from the ground after the spring thaw. There is a large “supporting cast” of animals as well from new-born ducks, to penguins, to monkeys.
There are images of thousands of birds in flight together and migrating caribou. The photographers were able to get some amazing shots of things that we rarely ever get to see and used slow motion photography to great effect with things like a great white shark breaching the water as it hunts.
One of the images that lingers in my head is a shot that took you down a river that ran through a gorge as it dropped over the edge of a cliff that was just massive and the camera pans out to look at the valley far below and then spins around to see the waterfall and then continues to zoom out to see the whole picture. It was absolutely stunning!
It’s just a wonder to me that our Creator God – took the time to make so many unique landscapes – from the cold white artic to the dry dusty desert to the lush green forest. Not only that but to make the amazing variety of creatures that inhabit this planet. That takes my breath away!
If you haven’t been able to tell – I would recommend the movie. You will laugh a little, you may cry and you may cringe in your seat at times. There are no special effects or explosions to wow you (every shot is 100% real) but through it all you can’t help but continue to come back to think what an amazing God we serve that he would create all of this and then allow us to share a part of it.
Here’s the trailer for the movie – be sure and click the HD in the bottom corner for a better quality video.
The beautiful thing is – I’m sitting at my desk in my office at my day job while on my lunch break. You see, it’s an on-line “webinar”. Oh, and the cost? $0, Zilch, Free.
This is the third such webinar I’ve attended. They have always been very good and very informative. They have had guest speakers and Dan has led a number of them. Each one uses polls to get an idea of who is involved in the calls so they can tailor them as they go and all of them have always has a time of Q&A at the end as well so it’s not completely a one-way conversation. I can honestly say that they have been as good as, or better than, some of the sessions I’ve been to at major training events.
Another great thing about them (in addition to being free) is that they make the webinars available for free download after it’s over if you’ve signed up for it even if you weren’t able to attend.
The Institute also offers a major course of study called “Essentials” that you can be done as individual seminars or as a “for university credit” course. They aren’t free and I haven’t taken advantage of any of these yet so I can’t speak personally to how good they are.
If you’re interested go to their site and click on “Free Resources” on the left side to sign-up for their free newsletter. You’ll get information on the Institute and be notified when the next Free webinar is coming up.
There, I’ve said it – it’s out there and it’s true. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love other people, I care about them. I love doing things for other people, I love to serve other people, I love to sit there and listen to other people. I could walk up to someone I haven’t met and sit and listen to them talk about what’s going on for hours.
Unfortunately, I sometimes miss the boat on sitting and listening to the people closest to me. They could be standing right beside me - shouting out their heart’s fears and desires – looking for me to just listen, to just provide some feedback, to give my opinion, to show that I care. And I can completely miss the boat. I am so wrapped up in what is going on with ME and the things that I’m dealing with, my lists, my problems, my job - that I miss what’s happening to those closest to me.
I’ve done that recently to the most important person in my life and was called on it…and rightly so. Now, I’m not looking for ANY sympathy…I really don’t deserve any in this case. I screwed up and have no problem admitting it and now it’s time for me to deal with it and correct my mistake.
So, here’s what I hope you get out of reading this. What are you missing? Who are you missing? Is there someone so close to you that needs you that you’ve looked right past them? Take a few minutes in prayer right now and ask God to show you who needs your time and attention…who needs YOU?
Britain’s Got Talent has just started their 3rd season this past Saturday night. We all know Simon Cowell from American Idol – he’s one of the three judges on this show as well. The below video is of one of the contests – 47 year old Susan Boyle as she auditioned for the judges.
Luke 6:37 NIV, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged.” What an amazing reminder of this! It will be interesting to keep track of what happens to Susan as the competition goes on.
As we look back at the Easter morning experience we can celebrate the fact that Jesus IS alive. Not that he was alive – he IS alive. You see, the story didn’t end at Mark 16:6,
“”Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.”
It didn’t end after verse 19,
“After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God.”
It continued in verse 20,
“Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.”
Do you see what happened? The disciples went out, they preached, they helped poor, the widows, the sick and the lame. We can read in the book of Acts that they were filled with the Holy Spirit just as Jesus had told them it would and the church was started. But still, they didn’t just sit around and talk – they went out into the world and did the work of Christ. They DID church.
So – when we look at our churches are we doing church or are we just going to church? As I look at my new role and some of the tasks before me I am putting this type of a filter on most of what I’m doing. At the end of the day, when I’ve designed a new service, selected the music, scheduled the small groups, put together all the teams, rehearsed the band and finished my first service on a Sunday evening will I have just gone to church – or will I have done church? Will I have taken the time to get to know the people I am serving with? What about the people I am serving? Will anything I have done made a difference in my community? Will we have helped the Holy Spirit ignite a fire of servant-hood within someone in the congregation? Will I have taken the time to get to know the needs of those I am serving so that I can walk beside them as they come to know Christ as their Lord and Savior?
I hope when I look at these questions in a few months I can answer with a resounding YES!
The United Methodist denomination is about to kick off a major campaign called “Rethink Church“. The idea is to think of church as a verb. It’s a God thing that as I came onboard in Rittman as the Director of Outreach Ministries this was something that was on my heart and a week later the pastor came to me with some literature from the United Methodist Communication group about this. I’ve got to say that I’m excited to see how God uses this to futher his kingdom.
So, how do YOU think we can rethink church? How can we BE the church? Let me know?
Oh – and for some other great thoughts about what the church is check out my amazing wife’s latest blog entry called “What Is Church?“
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