Living life with steps of faith

I must confess my area of pride or arrogance is in my desire and need to be self-sufficient. I want to be independent and be able to show that I can do it on my own and it is hard for me to accept provisionary help from others. For the longest time, I hadn't realized that this was a pride issue area for me, because I don't mind asking people for help when it comes to gifts and talents and other resources, but when it comes to money and finances, I like to take care of myself and feel as though I am pretty good at it. I can live on a tight budget and survive. So to say that this is an area of weakness feels odd. Because it is an area where I don't want to admit weakness because it is an area where I feel proud. I don't even need to wonder how much this pride has gotten in the way in ministry. I know. It is still hard to admit. I can remember the times that my father has also modeled this type of pride and expected it from me. I can hear his voice saying, "It d...

Noah and the Flood Main Idea: (Please read in prep for lesson) God was saddened by the wickedness of the people He created and so He decided to destroy them and start over. Noah was a righteous man who God decided to honor and use to preserve the human race. In a time when rain was unknown, God asked Noah to build Him an ark and to prepare for a flood. God sent animals to Noah to be put on the ark. A representative of everything that has the breathe of life in it was saved through the protection of the ark. After the floods came, the water eventually subsided and those in the ark were released to walk again on the earth. Noah and his family remembered God’s faithfulness and honored and worshiped God through a sacrifice. God promised to never again curse the ground and destroy all living creatures. God also promised that he would never again cut off all life by the waters of a flood or use a flood to destroy the earth. Pupil’s Problem: (Please read in prep for lesson) Sometime...

Okay, as a Communication major I was thrilled when I came across a social map of New Testament relationships. If you are at all interested in the social networking of Biblical characters and communication theory, you've got to check out this site: ESV and mapping NT Social Networks . You might also want to check into Biblical name weights and frequency and dispersion of Biblical name weights . Of if you are interested to find out who the top 50 most important people are in the Bible (based upon the frequency by which they appear) or even the 50 most significant women in the Bible, check out Logos Bible Software Blog . So, for those less interested in the Communication and Social-Relationship Theory aspect of this blog, you might want to check out who Zeruiah is, she seems to be pretty important based upon this research!

I feel so refreshed! I have just spent the last 20 minutes slowly reading through and pondering the Order of Worship services included at the beginning of the Disciples of Christ book "Chalice Worship." In my reading, I was reminded of how much I miss worshiping with a Disciples congregation. I love the way that when Disciples congregations gather in worship they gather as a community. No one person is in charge or responsible for all of the elements of worship, but rather the whole community comes together to share in the Lord's supper and to put into action their words of faith. As I was reading through the outlines for worship services, I was reminded of the time of sharing incorporated into many services, in which members take time to hear from each other their praises and prayer requests as well as updates about important events and dates in members of the congregation's lives and ministries of the church. It is so sad, that this is often sacrificed for shortenin...

Tonight my mother and I figured out one reason I have avoided having significant conversations with her most recently. As she already knows, I get quite bothered when after my finishing a story she responds with "You know what you should do...." or "You know what you could do..." Prior to tonight, I have blamed my discomfort with these statements on my having had a lot of people make such statements to me in the ministry in which I lead and then give me a laundry list of to-do's for which the person giving the list was far more qualified and networked to act upon. But tonight, I made the realization that the reason it really bugs me, is that I expect her to respond in the feminine manner of recognizing the feelings shared in the story with comments such as "oh, I know how that feels" or "that really has to stink" rather than in the stereotyped masculine manner of solving the problem with "well, you could..." And this I think is the ...

A friend and I were recently at Barnes and Noble enjoying each other's company, talking about faith, and discussing the intersection between faith and pop culture. Shortly after a brief discussion about some up-and-coming emo Christian bands, an aggravated young woman came up and reproached us in regard to our willingness to associate Christianity with emo -culture. She argued that emo -culture leads to the untimely deaths of young people and that the word " emo " should not even be a part of a Christian's vocabulary. She argued that as a crisis-worker who has seen things that no one would ever want to see, it is because of conversations like our own that she has distaste toward Christians. As she walked away, my friend and I sat there in wonder. We weren't quite sure how to respond. Had this young woman known that the two of us worked with at-risk and hurting youth in the community, would she still have confronted us in this manner? None-the-less, as she walked...

“The time is coming when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, and that time is here already. You see, the Father too is actively seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:23-24 Yesterday, as I was driving to church to complete a few last minutes work items, I started to thank God for things that I haven’t yet received. It seemed like such an odd concept to thank him for prayers that hadn’t yet appeared to be answered, yet isn’t that a part of faith? Hebrews 11:1-2 “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” At a recent Women of Faith Conference I attended in Des Moines, one of the speakers, Thelma Wells, mentioned how her family was reminded this past year that after a time of prayer and fasting, they were to start celebrating and thanking God for answering their requests, even if they had not yet se...