This will be a fun prop to use at church! A real rickshaw we brought back from Bangladesh in February in parts and Matt assembled with his family in his backyard! Pretty cool!Thursday, March 11, 2010
Bangladeshi Rickshaw
This will be a fun prop to use at church! A real rickshaw we brought back from Bangladesh in February in parts and Matt assembled with his family in his backyard! Pretty cool!
Quotes of the Day
To engage people in culture we must remember that holiness is separation from sin, not separation from sinners. - Ed Stetzer
Romantic, crusader, and consumer representations of the church get in the way of recognizing the church for what it actually is. If we permit - or worse, promote - dreamy or deceptive distortions of the Holy Spirit creation, we interfere with participation in the real thing. The church we want becomes the enemy of the church we have. -- Eugene H. Peterson, Practice Resurrection (Eerdmans, 2010)
Romantic, crusader, and consumer representations of the church get in the way of recognizing the church for what it actually is. If we permit - or worse, promote - dreamy or deceptive distortions of the Holy Spirit creation, we interfere with participation in the real thing. The church we want becomes the enemy of the church we have. -- Eugene H. Peterson, Practice Resurrection (Eerdmans, 2010)
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Attitude IS Everything!
Words can never adequately convey the incredible impact of our attitude toward life. The longer I live the more convinced I become that life is 10 percent what happens to us and 90 percent of how we respond. I believe that the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude. It is more important than my past, my education, my bankroll, my success or failures, fame or pain, what other people think of me, my circumstances, or my position. Attitude keeps me going or cripples my progress. It alone fuels my fire or assaults my hope. When my attitudes are right, there’s no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme, no challenge too great for me.
-Chuck Swindoll (shared by Luke Angell recently as the secret to success in college...and life in general I might add!)
-Chuck Swindoll (shared by Luke Angell recently as the secret to success in college...and life in general I might add!)
Monday, March 8, 2010
Surrendering
“…that is how surrendering to God begins. Not often, but every once in a while, God brings us to a major turning point – a great crossroads in our life. From that point, we either go toward a more and more slow, lazy and useless Christian life OR we become more and more on fire, giving our utmost for His highest – our best for His glory.”
My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers
Sunday, March 7, 2010
February Visit from Sarah
Spent a day at CQH!
Sarah made a gigantic birthday card since I asked her to please not get me any birthday gifts!
Crazy Run Stories
Forgot to report that two days before my 27th birthday (on February 27), I ran with my friend Tim Marshall my "Birthday Run". Starting at 3:45 am we ran 27.4 miles on a Thursday morning from far east Wichita to my house and back. Just for fun. 4 hours and 13 minutes for a total time. Not bad.
Then yesterday, my ultra-running friend Terry Rider and I ran about 40 miles in the Flint Hills on the same course as the Heartland 100. We started in Cassody and made it almost to where the Matfield Green aid station would've been. We would've kept going (I was feeling great the whole day - actually felt stronger and fast around mile 31 than I did all day!) but we had a mishap with our crew person, Terry's poor wife Sherri, getting lost and we were apart for 5 hours (thinking we'd only be a part 2 hours) - of course with no cell phones and only enough water to make it about two hours so we were kinda "up a certain creek without a paddle" (my mom, who regularly edits my blog, decided that it was too distasteful to use the word "screwed")! By the time she actually found us we said "thank you God, now please just take us home!" We stopped at Isabel's house to use the phone (the first and ONLY human and ONLY HOUSE in like 12 miles of running) and finally reconnected with Sherri. Anyway, the Flint Hills are beautiful and awesome and kinda scary if you don't know where you're going...and even if you do!
Then yesterday, my ultra-running friend Terry Rider and I ran about 40 miles in the Flint Hills on the same course as the Heartland 100. We started in Cassody and made it almost to where the Matfield Green aid station would've been. We would've kept going (I was feeling great the whole day - actually felt stronger and fast around mile 31 than I did all day!) but we had a mishap with our crew person, Terry's poor wife Sherri, getting lost and we were apart for 5 hours (thinking we'd only be a part 2 hours) - of course with no cell phones and only enough water to make it about two hours so we were kinda "up a certain creek without a paddle" (my mom, who regularly edits my blog, decided that it was too distasteful to use the word "screwed")! By the time she actually found us we said "thank you God, now please just take us home!" We stopped at Isabel's house to use the phone (the first and ONLY human and ONLY HOUSE in like 12 miles of running) and finally reconnected with Sherri. Anyway, the Flint Hills are beautiful and awesome and kinda scary if you don't know where you're going...and even if you do!
Friday, March 5, 2010
Quotes of the Day
"Planning is an unnatural process, it's much more fun to get on with it. The real benefit of not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise and is not preceded by months of worry."
-Sir John Harvey-Jones, late host of the BBC television show, Troubleshooter, in which he advised struggling businesses.
"Have you ever asked God for something and didn't expect to get it? That's why you didn't get it. God works in our lives according to faith. So many times we say, "God, please guide me!' and we walk away not even waiting for guidance. We just immediately start to work. We say, "God, I want you to give me wisdom, help me make the right decision.' But we don't really expect Him to do that. We think it all depends on us."
- Rick Warren
-Sir John Harvey-Jones, late host of the BBC television show, Troubleshooter, in which he advised struggling businesses.
"Have you ever asked God for something and didn't expect to get it? That's why you didn't get it. God works in our lives according to faith. So many times we say, "God, please guide me!' and we walk away not even waiting for guidance. We just immediately start to work. We say, "God, I want you to give me wisdom, help me make the right decision.' But we don't really expect Him to do that. We think it all depends on us."
- Rick Warren
You Don't Know How Many People
"You don't know how many people have been strengthened because you asked God to encourage them; how many people have been healed because you prayed for their bodies; how many spiritual runaways have come home because you prayed for their souls. None of us may ever know the true effects of our prayers this side of death. But we do know this: History belongs to the intercessors."
-John Ortberg, "The Life You've Always Wanted"
-John Ortberg, "The Life You've Always Wanted"
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Tying The Clouds Together
Catalyst Leadership magazine
January/February 2010
My assumption is that God can be found in all of the interesting things buzzing around us all the time. So we can take something from here and something from there and bring them together. A friend of mine calls it "tying the clouds together." p10 - Rob Bell
When I prepare to teach a text, there are a few questions I always ask. First, "What's the thing behind the thing?" And, "What's the truth behind the truth?" So if we're talking about tithing, we're really talking about generosity and participation. And if we're talking about generosity and participation, then we're really talking about whether you view world as a scarcity or as a world governed by a Trinitarian God. Is the universe at its core a sliced-up pie where you grab your slice and then protect and defend it? Or do you believe at the core there is an endlessly self-giving, loving community of God we are invited to step into?
So you can talk about tithing-giving your 10 percent. Of you can wrestle with a scarcity versus a Trinitarian view of the universe, with tithing perhaps being an implication at the end of the message. p10-11 -Rob Bell
Go into any church office and ask the leaders, "is this sustainable? Are you more passionate, more expectant, more rested and ready to go than you were a year ago, or is this gradually killing you?" p12 -Rob Bell
January/February 2010
My assumption is that God can be found in all of the interesting things buzzing around us all the time. So we can take something from here and something from there and bring them together. A friend of mine calls it "tying the clouds together." p10 - Rob Bell
When I prepare to teach a text, there are a few questions I always ask. First, "What's the thing behind the thing?" And, "What's the truth behind the truth?" So if we're talking about tithing, we're really talking about generosity and participation. And if we're talking about generosity and participation, then we're really talking about whether you view world as a scarcity or as a world governed by a Trinitarian God. Is the universe at its core a sliced-up pie where you grab your slice and then protect and defend it? Or do you believe at the core there is an endlessly self-giving, loving community of God we are invited to step into?
So you can talk about tithing-giving your 10 percent. Of you can wrestle with a scarcity versus a Trinitarian view of the universe, with tithing perhaps being an implication at the end of the message. p10-11 -Rob Bell
Go into any church office and ask the leaders, "is this sustainable? Are you more passionate, more expectant, more rested and ready to go than you were a year ago, or is this gradually killing you?" p12 -Rob Bell
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