Freedom and Duty to Give

Where I work there is a high turnover of clients. The population we serve ranges from 2-17 years of age. We serve the children of families that are experiencing a variety of difficulties but more often than not they are related to abuse or neglect. Though there are cases where there has NOT been such, those cases are rare, unfortunately.

We recently took in a 3 and 4 year old. Now where we get those ages it makes it harder for me emotionally because of my own daughter being the same age. I tear up about every night while they are here. Certainly it's unfair to a degree, but I take a show a special interest in what happens with them and where they go from here. Thankfully those above me understand and identify with that so they keep me from overstepping my bounds.

Anyway, the second night the 3 year old girl was here she woke up crying fro mommy 3-4 times. The last time I asked her if she had any stuffed animals or "friends" she could hold and sleep with. She shook her head. I promised she would have one the next night. We have some here at work, but there are just small ones.

Here is the best part. I went home, hugged my family and held my 3.5 year old on my lap and told her about this other little girl. My daughter has a ton (literally) of stuffed animals, many she doesn't even play with. Lately she has offered to give of her stuff to help others. Case in point: not too long ago my wife and I were talking anonymously about another family enduring financial hardship. When we paused, Megs stated in no uncertain tone and with half a smile and big eyes, "Them can have MY money!!"

If you are not smiling right now are are amazed at this purely unselfish offer, you need to either wake-up more and re-read this, OR you need to pray and do a serious heart check.

I was beaming with pride and Steph began to cry...typical happy proud mommy reaction :-) This time after explaining to her that I though she may want to look through those she doesn't play with and may want to share or give to this other little girl. Offering her the opportunity she has shown interest in previously. Without a word, she got down, went to her room and a minute or so later mommy began to cry again. Megs came back in the kitchen with one of her larger baby dolls that she DOES play with.......WOW!!!!!!! When I explained that whatever she gave away, she wouldn't see again or get back, she just replied "I know."

Yet again the simply pure obedience, motives, and faith of a child far surpass that of the rest of us.

Oh, the big doll stayed home for the sole reason that it was only a tad smaller than the girl, LOL. BUT I was able to bring in a kitchen sized bag of other "friends". She should be able to pick a few special ones from that!!

Heart Check/Parental Debate/Porn Hurts-God Heals/Updates

So there has been quite a bit since I have been on here last. Readers know due to word of mouth and facebook that we had our second daughter, pics coming soon. A gorgeous little girl indeed.

 

I have been continueing work on master's studies. Slowly making headway toward the end. Only 2 classes left there. Romans and Song of Solomon. Yikes is right. Glad I have til next January to finish this, but won't need that long.

 

Been going through a rough change in leadership at my church. But I have been VERY encouraged in what I have been hearing from the leadership that should have been doing better are realizing their mistakes and are really stepping up to correct and improve and guide the church to build it up even more and effect revival in Harpursville. Please keep us all in prayer as the transition is delicate as it always is no matter what the circumstances. 

 

Been speaking more to the teens in our youth ministry, planning the monthly activities for the year.

 

Trying to get vehicles sorted out, paperwork in order, things fixed, always an ongoing thing there.

 

Losing sleep and extending my level of patience with family due to new baby and other extended family issues - punk sister...love ya sis LOLOL

 

I think that is about it. But the rest of this entry has no conclusion to it. Comments more than welcome, you all know that already.

 
So here is the background: Last week I was going to speak to the teens and I have been doing a sex and porn series this year (I am scheduled for every 6 weeks or so). Well I was really going to focus on porn last week. I knew that it would be uncomfortable for all of us to talk about but with the way the world is and media is, there is so much of it just plunged and forced in our faces, these teens and we staff need to talk about the obvious "white elephant" and give a Biblical perspective on the whole thing.

 

So during our music time there were 2 of 3 brothers (the oldest was pretty wild, got saved and a noticable change has been seen in him, praise the Lord) were just off the wall, more so than usual and were distracting everyone big time. Well they just escalated, got violent, threatening, made me spill a few drops of my soda on me, throughout the evening, went into crisis and were told (as well as their parents) that they were not allowed back for 1 month.

During this whole thing I got about 1/5 of my planned "lesson" actually done. So I am getting to "redo" it next week. Please be praying, what some of the teens heard and saw interested them and impacted them already. Some tears were starting to flow. Lives were being touched and that is where I want to dive into as it relates to the pain of porn. I am gonna coin the title from one of Doug Fields' series, Life Hurts-God Heals, and call it Porn Hurts, God Heals.

 

Most of our teens in our Wednesday night youth ministry are totally unchurched teens. Meaning that the only connection they have to any church is through their 2 hours with us a week on Wednesday nights. Only some of our "churched" teens come out to Teen Scene and there are some familes that will not allow their youngins to come to the youth ministry partly because of problems like we had last week, but also because of the "bad influences they will be around". I have a great problem with this. Yet I found myself thinking the same exact thing. The youth pastor and I are also on the deacon board and were in a meeting recently (actually I am just an "associate" deacon, sort of a "junior" deacon, not full deacon) where this came up as we talked about wanting to do something specifically for our "church kids" to reach out to them and minister to them.

That all being said, here is what I emailed to the youth pastor that night of the meeting. It was a heart check because I was not feeling right about what I had said/confessed to these guys that all have kids of their own and have thought about this over the years.

 

I got to tell you that I was somewhat troubled about a part of our deacon's meeting, the part about not wanting our own kids involved in our youth ministry. That is partly true, but at the same time it could be some of the best real world training/experience they get. So much has to factor into that thinking bro, our desired and needed heavy involvement and knowledge in and of our kids lives, knowing them and training them up in the way they should go. I kept thinking about some Christian kids I used to know back in the day, that they were stronger in their faith because it was tested almost daily in their school and with their peers, public school.....whereas mine was not tested nearly as much being in a Christian school and growing up in the church and Christian home basically.

I find myself thinking about this more and more with Megs growing up and the time to make those types of decisions is getting nearer. Every parent struggles with this question...

how much of the world and the lost people do I let me kids connect with and at what level? The fear of will they choose poorly and go downhill, or will they step up and allow the Holy Spirit to use them mightily. We want the latter so badly and would be so proud of them, yet will WE give them the chance or hold them back til they are all grown and out from our roof? 

 

Yeah, the great debate continues. Hmmmm. 

 

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<' (((   ><

Satan the firefighter??

There are several thoughts here, missed a few days of meds so not as neat as usual :-)

Has the church, especially here in America, morphed from a New Testament church, to just a Christian or members only club?

Look at how the people in the church carry themselves. Do they go out of their way to welcome visitors, get their names, etc? OR Do they only speak or at least acknowledge the presence of those people they know already, leaving the strangers to the Pastor since he is the one getting paid for such things?

When there was a church event in years past it used to be a community event and there would be people attending said event that never entered the church building. And it was fun and fellowship for all.

There has been a decline in the outreach of the church (in general) that coincides with the political attacks made against her. She has been beaten and beaten by the devil and sin ruled people so hard that she has backed into a corner and just kept quiet…..FOR TOO LONG!!!!

There has been so much garbage going on in our world that we as the church, the bride of Christ, simply cannot allow this beating any longer. Thankfully over the recent few years, there has been a re-emergence of the church. She has regained her strength from the love and care of the Christ and the Holy Spirit. A sleeping giant has been awakened and she is not happy with what has taken place in her absence.

Much like the Israelites, when Moses left them to go up the mountain when he was given the 10 Commandments written with the very finger of God, and they lost themselves in revelry and sin, so have we as a “nation under God” lost ourselves in our sin and “freedom thinking”.

Because of the decline in the world and our society, and because we as Christians are getting outraged at the sin around us and that which we ourselves commit, we have misused the church as a place of Christian solace. A place where we can fellowship with other believers a couple times a week for a few minutes and feel safe, as if everything is ok; a place where people treat each other as they should all the time, everywhere. And because we have done this, we have forgotten about the outside world and those that so desperately want what we have. A safe place.

It is also because of this that many church leaders have been encouraging their congregations to remember where they came from. Remember the lost and dying. Remember that once we were as they are. Therefore, there has been another shift in the church lately. That of the involvement in outreach to the community, to the lost and dying, and involvement in every area of life.

What is the church? It is not just a building. It is not just the universal body of believers in the life, death, burial, and bodily resurrection of our Lord and Savior, the Son of the One and Only Living God, Christ Jesus. It is also every single believer. One of the purposes of the church is to spread the news of Jesus Christ to everyone. Another purpose of the church is to educate all people in the sound doctrines of the Word of God and to help the people learn how to apply the truths found therein to their lives. Not just a single part of their lives…..to their entire life….every area of their life…church life, home life, kid life, school life, college life, party life, marriage life, sex life, parenting life, job life, political life, social life, etc.

The people of the church are shifting from this “members only” mentality to a “members and NOT YET members welcome” mentality. Communities have been changed already because of this shift. The one in which I volunteer as one of the church youth ministry leaders has actually asked our church (the largest in the community, but hey, it’s a small town, a farm town) to be very involved in the largest community celebration times next month. What an honor and testament to the work and power and effect of the correct application and ability of the truths of God’s Word and God Himself. Hallelujah!!

Other much larger examples of the uprising and involvement of the church is Saddleback Church and Pastor Rick Warren, crossing the supposed lines of church and state when he had the Saddleback Civil Forum involving our current President Obama and Senator McCain. Many other exist and are growing.

Youth ministries have been doing this all along, reaching out to hurting kids to show them the RIGHT and life changing love of Christ. I have joked with my Pastor when talking about the frustrations of ministry to people....teens can be so frustrating sometimes, but you have to deal with the adults, YIKES!!! A very respected professor of mine back in college quoted someone saying, “The church would be a great place, if it weren’t for one thing…..the people.” :-) Yet like last week when one of our teens accepted Christ as his Savior, everyone agrees heartily, if he is the only one that ever gets saved during our time doing all this work (though we hope, pray, and strive to help more see the truth of Christ)….that one life is all worth it.

Yes, the church has been making a comeback lately and this leads to revival. It starts with one person and like a wild fire, it spreads. Only this time it’s the devil and his demons that are the firefighters…..there is a deep thought!!

Brand Power - Jesus

Ever notice how the "Christian" God is the only god whose name is EVER used in both reverance AND disgust and cussing? He is the only God that is regularly the butt of vulgar jokes and skits and cartoons.

It's simply amazing to me how much power the name of Jesus holds. What's even more amazing is how the "unbelievers" acknowledge this fact every day. In the movie Ace Ventura Pet Detective 2 - the one where he is in Africa, one of the tribes has such reverance for their "god" the stupid huge ugly white bat, that even the voicing of the name of the bat brings them to their knees for a second. Now why don't we show that kind of outward example of our faith in Christ when His name is uttered from human lips?? So let's do it. After all, the Bible says in Philippians that "He has been given the name above all names...at the name of Jesus, EVERY KNEE WILL BOW..."

Now please don't bow the knee if you are physically unable to do so, but if you are, lets show the world the correct response to even the mentioning of our God's name. What a truly wonderful and powerful name it is.....JESUS.

One more note of interest...

One more thing that you all may want to know....about the ads that you see on this site, I purposefully have put them there and are contracted with all of them. This means that if anyone makes a purchase through one of the links from my site, we will get a percentage or a commission from said sale. So please explore. From the vast pool made available I have tried to choose those that would be of most interest to my readers, such as photo printing and postage. We actually have used all of the photo printing sites that I have on here and will do so hopefully in the near future.

Some site that I would have liked to have on here declined my application for various reasons, my suspicions are the following, the content is not the same as their company (understandable), not enough traffic (understandable), or it is God centered and they want no part of "supporting a particular religion". So for those that are on here, if you are in the market, please check my links out. AND ONLY USE THEM IF YOU WERE GOING TO USE THEM ANYWAY. DO NOT UNWISELY SPEND MORE MONEY THAN YOU NEED TO JUST TO HAVE A FEW CENTS OF IT GO TO US....NOTICE THE UNWISELY EMPHASIS!!!

Will be back, I promise, and thank you!!!

Thank you to those that read this blog.
As you know I have been pursuing a post-graduate degree. This is the main reason that I haven't been posted as often as when I started out. It's sort of crunch time as the birth of our third child draws nigh, I am attempting to get as much of this done as I can. At the same time, I also want to get as much as I can from each class, lecture, and study. I have 3 classes left to complete. So for those of you who bet against me making it by the first couple weeks of June (when our baby is SUPPOSED to arrive), I can tell you right now that you have made a very realistic choice and you may collect if allowed!!

HOWEVER, I am also taking some time to work out some additional thoughts to be posted very soon. I have been writing them in a notebook to go back to later when I have the time to do so.

I also have realized how selfish I have been with this site. While I am quietly wanting more readers and more comments....I am not taking the time to thank those of you who have already done so and have your own FANTASTIC sites going on. Therefore, another area to strive to improve in is taking a few minutes to read your works and briefly comment....YES I SAID BRIEFLY lol...I really can to that.

So fret not fellow stinker thinkers, thoughts from a madman will continue on!! Laugh on my friends....laugh on.