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Encouragement

Growing Service in Your Kids at Christmas

By Children, Church, Culture, Encouragement, Family, God, Parenting

Tim Elmore is an incredible leader. He has one of the best understandings of how to reach the next generation of anyone one I know. I recently had dinner with Tim and can attest to this man’s incredible heart for people. I’m blessed to have Tim share his thoughts with us here today as a guest post.

In our recent work with students, Growing Leaders has drawn some interesting conclusions. We have seen a shift take place among the young people in Generation Y. (The kids born in the 80s are different than the kids born since then.) The research is in a new book called: Generation iY: Our Last Chance to Save Their Future.

One of the shifts we’ve uncovered is that kids have moved from “activists” (who want to change the world) to “slack-tivists.” They still want to change the world — but sort of. They often don’t really want to work hard or make sacrifices. They’d rather sign a petition on a website, get a wristband and then return to a video game or YouTube. They’re more self-absorbed than their earlier counterparts. So, how do we grow a heart for service in our kids today?

Try this.

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December 9, 2010
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The Downward Spiral of a Man’s Heart

By Culture, Encouragement, Family

I’m sick of Satan’s dirty little tricks. Criticize me all you want for the strictness of this post but I’m not taking a chance in this area if my life and I want to use this post to encourage men to do likewise. If I’ve learned anything about being a man it’s that I am weak in this area. I’m tired of sitting with couples whose marriage is rocked because of an affair. If a man without proper discipline in his life tells you he’s not tempted sexually he’s most likely lying or impotent.

In nearly every situation I encounter (all but one or two that I can remember), the affair didn’t start in an instant; it started over a series of time and moments of indiscretion by the man (or woman). I can’t intelligently speak to this issue from a woman’s perspective, but here is the progression of the sin of adultery in a man’s life:

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December 7, 2010
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Handling Calls from Obnoxious Church Members

By Encouragement, Funny

Yesterday our small groups pastor, Ben Reed, had a “fun” voicemail from church member Estavon Williams demanding he be allowed to lead a small group. You can read about that phone message here. Ben, of course, dropped everything to get him signed up to lead.

Today I got the call. Listen to Estavon’s complaint against me by clicking HERE.

How would you respond? Now keep in mind, I’m not as nice as Mr. Reed and prefer the direct response. I plan to go running soon, with my shorts (that are not that short BTW) and don’t want to feel intimidated into recognizing everyone who happens to honk. Normally, I get lots of honkers.

What would you do?

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December 2, 2010
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Week of Thanksgiving: Who Helped You Grow Spiritually?

By Church, Encouragement, Faith, God

We are sharing a week of Thanksgivings; celebrating people who have made a difference in our life. Read the previous two days HERE and HERE.

Today, let’s talk spiritual talk.

Who is the person who helped you most to grow spiritually?

Obviously, as with the other days, you could answer God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit, and of course those answers would be correct, but thankfully God uses other people in our life to make a difference. He shapes our life through the influence of people. So, in terms of your spiritual growth, who is the person who helped you or is helping you the most.

As I’ve done the previous days, I’ll go first.

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November 24, 2010
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The Wheels On the Bus Go Round and Round

By Culture, Encouragement, Family, Life Plan

I saw this plaque in a store window in Michigan recently. I snapped a quick picture. I didn’t need the plaque, but I love the statement.

I dont’ know where the saying originated, but the most memorable time I heard it was when Jack Nicholson said it in the movie “Bucket List”. It’s a powerful and true statement about life.

It has a similar thought process to one of my favorite verses from Scripture. Ecclesiastes 11:3: “If clouds are full of water, they pour rain on the earth. Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there it will lie.”

It reminds me that

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November 24, 2010
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A Week of Thanksgiving – People Who Helped You Professionally

By Call to Ministry, Church, Church Planting, Encouragement, Leadership

Thanksgiving should be more than a day.

In the United States, we set aside one day a year to ceremonially show our appreciation for all we have been given. No one would disagree that this practice shouldn’t be limited to just once day. With that in mind, I thought I’d use part of my blog this week to share a little gratitude. Throughout this week I’ll be sharing some things and people I’m thankful for in my life.

Today I want to talk about people who have had a huge impact on me professionally. I’m a pastor now. I haven’t always been one. I was in the business world for many years before God called me into ministry. When I think of the process God used to prepare me for ministry, three men immediately come to mind. There are many people along the way who have helped me, but these three made significant investments in my spiritual maturity and preparation for ministry.

Here are three people who helped me be where I am today professionally:

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November 22, 2010
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The Day My Blog Was Hijacked and How to Protect Yours

By Culture, Encouragement

One day this week, I was sitting at my desk and clicked on my blog home page. What I saw was the screenshot in this post, combined with a eerie instrumental tune. I had been hacked by so-called “Turkish Hackers”. I panicked and instantly called the one who maintains my blog (Thank you Tony!) He tells me the hackers replaced my index page with their own. To fix it, he downloaded the latest version from wordpress.org and uploaded the default index.php file to replace the hacked one. (I don’t understand how to do that, but that’s what he said he did.) My Twitter feed then went wild with people asking me what I did or what they could do to protect their blog.

One of our resident tech gurus (Thanks Jim) at Grace Community Church offers these suggestions to protect yourself from being hacked:

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November 20, 2010
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