Daycare

This is where I went to daycare...

Seeds

These are Mustard seeds. They're about the size of the tip of a ball point pen. It says that if we have faith as big as one of these, we can move mountains. I think our first request sometimes is for more faith, as if when we got it then we would be living life truly as it is supposed to be. The answer to our request for more always seems to be: you have no idea how much you could do if you just realized what you already have. Fast forward a bunch of years, and that once tiny little seed becomes a tree. Not just any tree, but a huge tree that gives shade to everything around it. Makes you wonder doesn't it...

Candy Poll

Due to the fact that Halloween was on Wednesday, a very important question has arisen. I am taking a poll on people's favorite type of candy. Here are the following OPTIONS:

1) Fruity
2) Chocolatey
3) Nutty
4) Fruitychocolateynutty

click on the comment button below and give me your thoughts...AND WHY...

Hebrew

The hebrew word Shekinah (presence) was used by the ancient Hebrews to describe the glory of God living with the people. Whether it was in the old tabernacle (which moved around as the people moved) or the temple (which was a fixed building), it was understood by everyone at the time that God wanted to be close to his people. It was the one and only place where heaven and earth were connected.

Airplane

This picture is amazing...what just happened? Let me know if you have an idea...

Ducks

A duck's quack doesn't echo...no one knows why

Shadow Missions

Today, some of the church staff and I watched a video of part of Willow Creek's (a big church in the Chicago area) 2007 Leadership Summit. The video was of a talk by John Ortberg of Menlo Park Pres (picture), and his take on what a leader's greatest fear is. While failure, humiliation, and loss of interest are definitely up there for most leaders, John says that our real fear should be that we would pursue "Shadow Missions" our whole life rather than our true calling from God. A lot of time Shadow Missions can be disguised in the likeness of our God-given gifts and passions, but they ever so slightly head off in the wrong direction and become about ourselves and our dreams rather than God's call on our lives. He used the story of Esther in the Bible to bring to life what he was talking about. Go read it and it will blow your mind...I couldn't do it justice. Look for the ways in which Esther is put into a position of power to fulfill a mission that God gives her. Look for the ways that God puts people in her life to continually remind her of what her true calling is. It got me thinking about what my personal "shadow missions" were and I can sum up a big one in a sentence: "Do I have something to say, or do I simply want to be heard?" I think a lot of the time I just want to be heard, and so I spend most of my time thinking about my personal image as a communicator and not whether I really have something God-given to say. I think I've been bombarded constantly on how to reach people more effectively with a message and haven't spent much time thinking about the message that I have to say. The truth is that the message can only come from God, cause I don't have much to say that is really worthwile...I wouldn't listen to me if I was you.