This means that in the Greek culture, when sin was talked about they instantly gained a mental picture of missing the mark with an arrow. Really interesting. I have always loved metaphors and parables, because they help you really grasp the full meaning of a teaching and continue to remember it long after it has been spoken. So, hopefully this helps you understand another viewpoint of what "sin" was seen as.

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Well, I pull into my local Wal-Mart and much to my surprise I see one of the local radio station vans with a guy holding a sign saying "Free Hugs" No more had I seen the sign did this lady driving a HUGE black truck in my direction, Stop in the middle of driving… bolt out of her truck (or I should say fall out of her truck) and ran over to give the radio guy a hug. I of course was stopped in my car… watching… sniffling… not from tears though… completely the flu.

I started thinking about the "Free Hugs" idea. It seems kind of silly. The radio guy giving the free hugs was even doing it because he lost a bet on the Super Bowl at the radio station. But if you do a google search on Free Hugs, you will see there is one site impeticular, www.free-hugs.com that has a national campaign for giving away Free Hugs.. Why??? Just because they want to make sure everyone knows they are special. I kind of like that idea.

I think it is easy at times to let life run past us… we somehow miss it while at the same time we think we are getting closer to experiencing it. What does any of this have to do with church software? Well, really not much.. but simple things like letting people know they are meaningful have everything to do with the church community.

We did a survey of our youth a few months back, asking various questions about their life, what they thought of themselves, and so on. The most common answers we got led to the youth feeling at times like they were meaningless. I do not think this is just affecting our youth either, their responses match some more national surveys that have been done. As a Christian, I want to make sure the people around me know that they have meaning and worth. Especially my kids in the youth group and family and friends. Sometimes it can be difficult to know what to say in certain circumstances or know how to relate.

One of the people I admired the most when I was growing up in the youth group was a wonderful lady we called Mrs. Debbie. She was like the youth group Grandma. It didn’t matter who came in our doors or how they appeared, Mrs. Debbie made it her priority to make sure they knew they were special and valuable. Many of the times she would just walk up and give them a hug and start telling them how special they were. Yeah, at times it could have seemed a little akward, but if you ask anyone that has met Mrs. Debbie, they have only good things to say about her and how special she makes people feel. I’m not trying to be cheesy but maybe there are times when a free hug is all that is needed; especially with your family. Maybe it’s not a hug but just some encouragement that is given. Free hugs or not, I think I’m going to try harder to make sure the people around me know they are special and of worth. How about you?

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My fiance’ has this cat, that we so creatively named "lil kitty", who is one of those pretty cats. Everything she does is pretty. She sits pretty, walks pretty, she is even a pretty cat!!!! To mess with her sometimes I will rub her hair toward her head… she doesn’t like that…. why I do it, I don’t know… but it is fun. I would have never considered myself a cat person but lil kitty has made me different. I really like that cat. The only thing that I don’t like is how much she sheds.

I am honestly surprised that lil kitty is not bald based on how much she sheds. We always keep lint rollers around so we can get the hair off of us after we play with lil kitty. Well, this day we did not have any lint rollers. We had used the last one and the replacements were in the car, which was not in town. I usually sit on the couch to work and lil kitty likes to jump up on my lap and work with me on my laptop. I’m usually ok with this because after I’m done I can go grab the handy dandy lint roller to get all the "pretty" cat hair off of me. I couldn’t do that on this day and of all the days lil kitty could pick it was this day that she was overly persistent that she wanted my attention.

She would jump up on me, and I would put her right back down on the floor. It didn’t seem to make sense to her, so she would jump right back up on me again. We went through this routine for a few minutes until it hit me… this was one of those God moments and I was about to miss it. I don’t want to be one of those cat lovers that is talking about their pet like it is their kid but this moment hit me.

Lil kitty wanted my attention desperately. I didn’t want her to get on me because she would shed hair all over me and I didn’t have anything to clean it off… but she still wanted my attention. She didn’t understand why I didn’t want her to sit with me like she always had.. she’s a cat.. she understands mouse toy and food. But this started to make me think about God and me. I know there have been so many times I have shed my junk on him… but he always welcomes me back. He evens tells me to caste my burdens on him…

God knows we shed a lot… but like the prodigal son He waits for us to come to him as we are. The thing I learned from this little cat was persistence. Jesus taught us to knock and keep on knocking, ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking and we will find what we need, the doors will be opened to us. God likes us to be persistent with him… not arrogant… but lovingly persistent in coming to him with our needs… just how we are. Max Lucado I think said it best when he wrote "God loves us exactly how we are but he is unwilling to leave us there." I’m glad that God is not worried about having a lint roller to show his love to me. He took care of all that already, all he wants from me is persistence in coming to him.

It took a small cat to remind me about pursuing God.

So, what did I do in all this? I picked up lil kitty and we worked on the computer like we always do… except this time I did not have a lint roller. I had hair all over me, but that was ok…. Lint roller… I didn’t need no stinking link roller.

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I wrote a blog entry a while back about finding God hidden stories this Christmas, you can read it here. I have been saving this story for a few weeks now. I wanted to give it to you all on Christmas. This is not my story but another persons story that I have claimed as my own… it was hard not to cry when I heard it. A person in the church community I go to told us this story… it was the Sunday after I wrote the stories of Christmas post. For the sake of her identity I will refer to her as Sue.

Sue got up in front of the church to tell us about what had happened. The pastor had just mentioned how Sue’s story had touched him and he wanted us all to hear it. Sue began to tell us how she was going to Wal-Mart over the weekend to try to finish up her Christmas shopping (Just like every other person in the US) She fought the crowds all the way back to the lay-away section where she was going to pick up some presents that she had been paying on. In front of her was this man who was holding on to a five dollar bill tightly and he was talking to the sales clerk. Sue could not help but over hear the conversation and apparently the man was trying to buy some shoes out of lay-away for his child. Sue heard the sales clerk tell the man, "Sir, I’m sorry but I told you when you first brought these shoes here for lay-away that it was going to cost more than five dollars to get them out… you don’t have enough." Sue could tell the man was having a hard time accepting what the sales clerk was saying. Five dollars was all that he had… and his child really needed these new shoes. Sue silently prayed thanking God for this opportunity that was just given to her. She had the opportunity to help someone in the middle of all this shopping chaos.

Sue spoke up and said, "Sir, I would like to buy those shoes for you if you will let me." The man quickly agreed and was very thankful. Sue handed over the $6 to $10 dollars to pay out the shoes and gave the man his child’s gift and wished him a Merry Christmas. He was of course very thankful and took the shoes and left. Sue paid out her lay-away items and left to go home, thankful that God would let her small amount of money help someone so much.

This is where we thought the story ended…. but it didn’t…

Sue went on to tell us that a few weeks went by and she received a phone call out of nowhere. She answered it and on the other side was a woman’s voice. The woman asked if this was Sue. Sue was wondering what this was all about. The woman proceeded to tell her that she was the sales clerk at the lay-away counter a few weeks ago where Sue had helped the man purchase shoes for his child. She told Sue that she wanted to call her to tell her something. Sue asked what it was and this is what the sales clerk told her. She said: "Sue, no one knew but that day when you helped that man buy those shoes for his child I was planning on taking my life when I clocked out from work. I had already planned the entire thing and was prepared to do it. I had decided that the world was just too bad and I was not happy with life. When you paid for that man’s shoes, it shocked me. It showed me that there were still good people in this world and maybe the world was not as bad as it might have seemed. I decided then that I was not going to end my life but instead was going to keep on and I wanted to call you to tell you myself… Thank you." Sue was speechless.

You see… stories are everywhere… opportunities are everywhere… waiting for us to find them. Sue thought that all she had done was help a man provide his child shoes. She was completely unaware of what God was really doing. Sue had no idea that by being Jesus to someone, EVEN IN THE SMALLEST FASHION, she played a part in showing a third party sales clerk that life was worth living.

So, this Christmas… may you be Jesus…. may you find that even the little things can be so big…. may you see that the true spirit of Christmas is not just on one day… but everyday… may you look past the crowds and chaos… and reach out a hand to help someone… may you find the God hidden stories that wait for you everyday…. and respond… and may you find that God uses shoes of all sizes for more than just walking.

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I woke up this morning and was suddenly hit with the reality that November just passed under my nose… I was left wondering where it went. This made me start thinking about how fast Christmas went by last year. It seems that culture builds up to the idea of Christmas and before we know it, Christmas is over, the presents are done, and it off to the next best thing. I know last year I was left wondering the same thing I was wondering this morning at the end of December. Where did Christmas go?

Now I could do the whole talk about we need to remember what Christmas is all about so we don’t forget it, but I’m not. We have all heard that trumpet and we all know it. I want to enjoy the Christmas time and the time leading up to it. I don’t want to lose it because I was too concerned about getting all the right gifts and just getting to Dec. 25. I want to try to see past that. The December month can be one of the most stressful ever, deadlines are trying to be met, sales goals are trying to be reached, and all familiy is to be fit in. I don’t want to miss the month again… it’s too important… too much fun.

I love Christmas! I really enjoy the season and what values it holds; it’s exciting to me. I asked myself yesterday night as I was driving, “What is going to be different about this year?” I heard a really good quote a month ago, “Every organization is perfectly designed to get the results it is getting.” We could substitue our names in there and it would work. We get the results we get because we do what we have always done. I am looking for that special Christmas story that is sitting out there in the month of December… waiting for me to find it… waiting to see if I will change a little to accomplish it. I want to be talking about this Christmas 10 years from now… because I didn’t miss it… I found it somehow and found a hidden story that was valuable and could only have been placed there by God… just to see if I would find it.

May this Christmas be a memorable one to you and may you find the God hidden stories, that are waiting to become your story for this Christmas.

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This day has made me think… what is the value of time.

Now don’t get me wrong… we all have things to do… like work… I enjoy work (my boss is going to be reading this from being at home sick in bed, so I just wanted to throw that in there… hope ya get better Bart)

No… what I’m talking about is what do we spend our time on? I have been trying to teach my kids in youth group that being Christian is more than just Sunday service and doing something halfway good every once in a while. No… it’s a life… and your life should speak louder than words of what kind of Christian you are.

I started by asking my kids, "how much time do you spend thinking about God, reading your Bible, or just talking to God?" The answer… not much. I then asked them about movies, video games, tv, music, blah blah blah… and you could see their face light up and immediately they started talking about the latest and greatest things going on in media world…. I had them right where I wanted them…. ha ha ha (dramatic effect)

So I laid out the question, if Jesus were sitting here now, looking through the past year… week… in a book of your life (maybe a picture book) what would he see. Now, I could keep going with my whole teaching and how I equated all of this with tornado’s and hurricanes… but if you want that part you can contact me. I got to the point of, time is valuable. It is worth a lot… a whole lot.

In economics they teach time as a commodity that work pays for, or you spend on things. I agree to work "x" amount of hours (X in my case is infinite…. just joking) for a certain amount of pay. People trade their time for movies, friends, stuff… we are constantly spending the currency of our time… How much does God get….

It’s something to think about… I’ve been thinking about it… you should too. How do you $pend your time???

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Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:
"Hallelujah!
     For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad
     and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
     and his bride has made herself ready.
Fine linen, bright and clean,
     was given her to wear."

(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)

     Then the angel said to me, "Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’" And he added, "These are the true words of God." Rev 19:6-9 (NIV) 

I can participate in this beautiful image now. Whenever the saints get together, when I love the way I should, when we as a body of Saints are one. Whenever I am producing the righteous fruit of the spirit of God living in me.

God Bless

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God wanted the Israelites to remember who and where they were too. After they had left Egypt, God instructed Moses to tell the people..

You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Ex. 19:4-6 NIV

Like the Israelites we too have been carried on eagles’ wings our of our bondage to sin. Adopted by God. Now as adopted children, we obey and are blessed. He has made us into a holy priesthood and treasured possessions.

We like those before us need to be reminded of the eagles’ wings. They change everything.

- Learn more about Nspire church software by going to www.nspiresoftware.com -

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As an older brother I really struggle with the heart. It is so important to get right. I spend so much of my time trying to do everything right I neglect heart matters. The problem with this is, what ever is in our hearts is what comes out in our lives. Just listen to Jesus.

The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. Luke 6:45 (NIV)

What is stored up in your heart? Work, hobbies, stuff, sin or love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Think about it. Join me as I continuously try to retrain a hard heart.

Isn’t grace great!

Original Post at http://theolderbrother.wordpress.com/2006/10/01/from-the-heart/

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I Wonder….

I posted a blog a while back titled "My Church Group Attendance is Decreasing" where I found an article about a youth pastor who was concerned about his group attendance decreasing. This has stayed on my mind. So often we look at church success as having the most people, the most money, the best programs, and the most resources, but is this really success? What about the church that has 10… 20… 50 people, but they look like Jesus in their community. Their community recognizes Jesus without the "stuff" but in the people. Maybe, church success is different than what it has been believed to be. Maybe, we don’t need the latest and greatest, but in fact we already have it…. but we’re not using it.

What if we Reimagined Church…. Can we catch the dream again?

Do I have all the answers… No, but we can dream. Success and the church are one… because if we are really being the church, then we are being successful. If our communities see Jesus, in us… outside of Sunday then they have seen life to the full… That sounds like a success…

Lets talk…. and lets imagine again….

What do you think?

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