Memorial Day Thanks
How often have you had to truly worry about a terrorist attack in your neighborhood?
How many times have you gone to sleep afraid that insurgents or enemy soldiers will kick down your door in the middle of the night?
How many times has your town been attacked, houses burned, women raped and kidnapped en masse, men slaughtered, children killed or forced to become child soldiers and property destroyed?
How many car bombs have gone off by shopping malls or bus stops near you?
How many of you find live in a town where the majority of buildings have some bomb, bullet or shrapnel damage?
How many of you have to pass through checkpoints with armed guards every few miles?
How many of you have to hire a security team if you want to venture out of town?
Not many, if any of you, I would imagine.
Yet all around the world today, that is the situation faced by millions of people.
Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, DR Congo, Sudan… the list goes on. There are dozens of active war zones or areas of ongoing hostile activity in the world today yet we often forget the freedom which we have been given.
We grumble and gripe and whine about all the little things, the pot-hole in the road, the taxes we have to pay, the high price of gas etc etc. Yet we completely forget that we in the west are living in a time of unparalleled peace and freedom.
Most of us have never seen war, never experienced it first-hand. The last war in Britain was 65 years ago, the last war on the American mainland was over 165 years ago.
On this day, I want to take the time to thank those who put their lives on the line to give us that freedom from terror, fear and the ravages of war.
You may not agree with war, you may think that those who go to war are criminals, and that is your right, but I know this:
I don’t live in fear that war and terrorism will overtake my neighborhood and I have never had to face the question of what I would do if foreign soldiers invaded my town. I am fairly certain that I don’t fear those things and have never had to face that possibility because there are men and women who are prepared to stand up, take up arms and do whatever their government tells them they need to do to keep us all safe.
To them this day, I say from the bottom of my heart:
THANK YOU!
How to Backup your Wordpress Site
For most people who have used a computer for any length of time, there is nothing in the world quite like that feeling of losing a whole load of data.
That knot which instantly develops in your stomach when the computer won’t turn on or it seems to crash while saving an afternoon’s work is familiar to all of us.
Branch out to start working online, blogging or running a website is exciting but adds a whole new dimension to the fear of losing data.
What if your blog crashes and you lose everything?
What if your website crashes and you lose all of your sales and order histories?
It can all disappear in a puff – unless you’re prepared.
I wrote some time ago about the need to back up regularly and often so today I want to focus on how to backup your data – specifically for self-hosted Wordpress users.
You’ll know if you’re a self hosted Wordpress user because you had to find a host (like NewBlogHosting.com or dreamhost) and you’re using Wordpress. If you’re using blogger or wordpress.com, these instructions do not apply specifically to you but the concepts do, so stick with us.
What Needs Backing Up?
First, let’s gain a very basic understanding of the two distinct parts of your website and then we’ll see how to back each one up.
Your website consists of both files and data.
- FILES are the Wordpress application itself and all of your plugins, themes and images.
- DATA is the content of your site and all the settings associated with it. It’s your preferences, posts, comments and any user information, orders, products and history. The data is all held in a single database (usually).
When you are thinking about backing your website up, you need to have a system in place to back up your files and another to back up your database. Let’s look at how to do that.
I recommend a two-tier approach:
TIER 1 – Automatic Backups
Files
There are several Wordpress Plugins which can automatically backup your images, current theme and plugins.
It doesn’t backup all of the basic Wordpress files but those are easily recovered and we’ll deal with them in Tier 2.
I have installed one handily called “Wordpress Backup” by Blog Traffic Exchange. It’s very simple to use, simply install and activate it then go to its ‘Configuration Page’ and set the options you want.
For most of us, the only options we need to set are how often we want the backup to happen and the email address that we want the backup file emailed to. I must point out though that once the backup files start reaching a certain size, they will be too big to email.
If you use an image in your post every day, you’ll reach that size pretty quickly.
The backup file will still be kept on the server though, even if it can’t be emailed to you.
Data
As with the files, there are several plugins which can back up your database for you.
As an example, I’m using one called WP-DB-Backup by Austin Matzko.
The procedure is the same as for installing the files backup plugin, simply install it, activate it and visit the settings page.
There are two ways to backup your database using this plugin:
- Do an instant backup
- Schedule a regular backup
I suggest you do an instant backup now and then schedule regular backups to be emailed to you from then on.
The plugin allows you to select which tables to back up. Unless you really know what you’re doing it’s best to back them all up. Better safe than sorry!
…and that’s it. You have a backup system in place for both your files and your data – so you can breathe a little easier… except that is, for tier 2.
TIER 2 – Manual Backups
OK, so you’ve got an automatic backup system in place – but do you really trust it?
It’s supposed to regularly backup your files and data but in a few months, will you really be checking that it’s doing its job right?
Will you remember to check for that emailed backup file once a week?
If you do check, do you have any idea to find out if all your data is actually in it?
I didn’t think so.
That’s why you need a manual backup system too, and you need to discipline yourself to use it regularly.
Every web host is different so giving exact instructions on how to do it is difficult to say the least but basically it goes like this:
Files
When you signed up for your web hosting account, you should have been sent an email giving you all the details you need to access your account. In that, you were most likely given your FTP details.
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and it is simply a way to upload files to and download files from your website.
Get yourself an FTP program like the easy-to-use (and free) FileZilla , plug in your ftp details to it and download everything to a folder on your computer – or onto a CD or DVD or wherever. Just put it somewhere safe where you can find it again.
Do this regularly!
Data
Data is more tricky, but hopefully in your web hosting control panel, you have link or icon labelled “phpMyAdmin”.
Click on phpMyAdmin and you’ll see a screen that looks a little like this:
Click on your database name on the left hand side (hint: it’s not the one called “Information_Schema” and then click EXPORT on the menu at the top.
Click on SELECT ALL just in case and then hit GO at the bottom of the screen.
A few moments later, your entire database should be backed up and downloaded to your computer.
File it somewhere safe and sit back, relax and rest easy in the knowledge that hours and hours of writing blog posts will not go down the tube if anything ever happens to your website.
If you need any more help with any of this, please feel free to email me or leave a comment with your question(s).
Giving Glory to God
How often do I fail to give glory to God? No, let me take that back, first, how often do I fail to recognize God’s provision, grace, mercy and love? Then, out of the times I do recognize them, how often do I fail to give Him the glory for them publicly?
I’m not trying to invent some find of theology about there being a requirement to give praise to God publicly or anything but I do think that it is important that if we genuinely love God and are genuinely grateful to Him that we should share with others what He has done.
It’s so beneficial to us and to others to share (check out Everyday Testimonies for more people sharing what God has done) so today I want to just take a moment to publicly give praise to God and share what He has done for us this month.
Budget Shortfall
I budget about a month ahead. It’s tough because we can never quite be sure how many hours my wife will work and therefore how much she will be paid, but we do know what bills we have to pay and roughly how much she will bring home. I use Quicken Home and Business to monitor all of my accounts and do my budgeting.
At the beginning of this month (May 2010) I put in all the details of all the bills I knew were coming up and then put in some projected income figures. The outlook was bleak.
On June 1st, when the mortgage payment was automatically taken out of the bank we would be somewhere between $1500 and $2000 overdrawn.
Yeah, we had a MAJOR shortfall heading our way.
I’m of the George Meuller school of thought when it comes to these things and try not to go begging people for money, but rather I take it to God and leave it in his hands.
At least, I say I leave it in his hands but my stress level this month suggests something rather different.
Anyway, I took it to God, knowing that there was no way I could possibly come up with that much money on my own.
Miracles
That’s when the miracles started happening.
- Three new customers I hadn’t been expecting
- A gift of $200 in the mail
- Someone stopping by my house and giving me $100 because they felt like God wanted them to
Plus lots of other things that I have obviously not even noticed… and where are we now?
As of today, May 24th 2010 it’s looking like we will have almost exactly the right amount of money in the bank to cover our bills. Possibly even more than we need.
Praise The Lord!
I can look through the figures and try to work out how it has happened but the truth is, I have no idea how things have turned around so dramatically.
It’s the miraculous hand of God at work – and I want to give Him the praise and Glory for it today!
Of course, next month is next month and how we’re going to pay the bills next month is a whole different question but God tells us not to worry about tomorrow – He’s got that under control.
So I’ll leave that with Him and just praise Him for what He has done today!
What has God done for you this month?
Sunday Thoughts – 23 May 2010
I’m beginning to enjoy baking in a whole new way.
You may remember my post a couple of weeks ago about about misinterpretations where I shared that my Apple Shortbread recipe instructed me to ‘chill’ for ten minutes.
Today I baked a Viennese jam tart (pictured), which I haven’t attempted for a couple of years but is one of my favorites.
For my English readers, it’s a little like a Bakewell tart without the almonds, but for the rest of you, just accept that it’s really very tasty.
I was working my way through the recipe and yes, there it was, an instruction I didn’t understand but followed to the letter:
“Relax in a cool place for 30 minutes…”
Seriously, I’m not making this stuff up.
What’s more, the sentence ends:
“…before rolling.”
Seriously.
If you’d been at my house this afternoon, you may have heard conversations something like this:
“Honey, can you come help me with this for a moment?”
“Sorry baby, I’m in the middle of baking a tart right now.”
“You’ve been doing that for a long time.”
“I know, I’ll be done soon.”
“Why are you in the pantry?”
“Because it’s cool in here. It’s part of the recipe!”
“Ummm…. never mind, honey.”
and then, some time later…
“Honey, why are you rolling around on the floor?”
“The recipe says to.”
“Really? I think it’s probably referring to the dough you made, it probably wants you to roll that out.”
“OH! I see. That makes more sense!…. I still don’t get why I had to sit in the pantry for half an hour though.”
I wonder what delights next week’s recipe will bring?
Creativity astounds me. Constantly.
What’s more, the creativity I see on the internet every day just blows me away.
Every blog and website I visit has it’s own unique design and feel and has an amazing person (or people) behind it filling it with content.
Creativity is just gushing forth on the internet in ways it has never been able to before.
When else in history has there been such a huge, open and instant platform for people to share their creativity, talent and ideas?
Take @Katdish for example.
Katdish took this:
and turned it into this for billycoffey.com:
That’s creativity for you!
She then went on today to get creative with ways to thank people.
I helped her set up her new blog, katdish.net and as a VERY creative way of thanking me, she invited me to write a post on her blog giving reasons for people to host their websites with me (see the post here).
I’m very grateful for the opportunity and the exposure she has given me, but more than that, I am just in awe of what a creative way that was to thank me for the work I did.
The whole world of social media opens up incredible new ways to be creative, to stand out and to do things that you’ve never been able to do before.
YOU can be creative with social media if you just put your mind to it.
Katdish wanted to thank me and came up with the idea of doing it by having me write a post – and you can come up with equally creative ways to achieve whatever you want.
How will YOU be innovative and creative online today?
I am TERRIBLE at accepting compliments. Really, really terrible.
I think the reason for my terribleness is that I don’t ever think I ever achieve anything good.
Never.
I’m trying to learn to be gracious in accepting compliments but it’s a slow process.
Someone once told me that the definition of mercy is not getting what you deserve and the definition of grace is getting what you DON’T deserve.
So being gracious in accepting a compliment surely means to humbly accept the praise even though you don’t deserve it.
That’s pretty tough for me and I’m wrestling with it hard!
It occurs to me though that however difficult it is for me to accept something as small as a compliment I think I don’t deserve, how much harder is it for God to give us grace, to give us what we don’t deserve?
I’m sure that some people will argue that nothing is too difficult for God and I know that’s true, but he is a real person, someone with feelings, someone who we hurt again and again with out rejection of him and our sin.
I think those things hurt him more than we can ever know yet he still finds it within himself to extend grace and mercy to us.
It truly is, Amazing Grace.
This post is part of Bridget Chumbley’s Blog Carnival. Visit her site to see all the other entries.
Sunday Thoughts – May 16th 2010
Preconceptions
A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking to someone on the phone who I had previously only known online.
I’ve gotta tell you, I was SHOCKED!
The gentleman in question is Trey Morgan (Blog | Twitter) and I should have guessed what his accent was like but to be honest, I never made the whole Texas connection and from his picture, he looks like a young, slim, handsome man who I imagined sounded a little like Ralph Fiennes or, at a stretch, Tom Cruise.
The voice I heard on the phone though made me picture Boss Hogg from the Dukes of Hazzard or a fat, balding, hell fire and brimstone preacher.
My preconceptions about what he should sound like and my preconceptions of what someone with his accent should look like were totally and utterly wrong.
It occurred to me today that the same is true for the preconceptions non-Christians have of us as Christians and of our churches.
People very often have very negative preconceptions of how Christians will act and speak and how their church services will be.
Do we meet those negative preconceptions? Are we everything that people fear we will be.
Or do we blow those preconceptions out of the water, in a good way?
What do people see when they see you? Do they see something that they want to be a part of?
Do they ask you for an explanation for the hope that’s within you? (1Peter 3:15)
Do you life a life that’s worthy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? (Philippians 1:27)
Next time you see someone, think about what preconceived ideas they might have and whether you want to match up to those ideas!
Friday Favorites – May 14, 2010
It’s been a while since I’ve done a Friday Favorites post where I list some of my favorite posts from the week – and I’m not going to quite get back on the horse this week, but I have a few things I’d like to highlight so here goes:
- TreyMorgan.Net – Trey moved to Wordpress this week from blogger and I think it’s going to really help his blogging ministry. If you like the look of his new site (and I think you will), then I helped him design it. If you don’t, then blame Trey.
Check out yesterday’s post, some of the comments are very funny! - Katdish.Net – @katdish has been previously described by me as an internet tornado but she’s also the woman who helps me build beautiful blogs. Check out her new digs – I think they look pretty fantastic!
- Jennie – I have a sister! Did ya know? She’s smarter and funnier than me and is currently directing her brilliance toward bringing Christianity more to the forefront of the public (i.e. political) stage in Britain. Jennie has recently(ish) started blogging and has some really deep stuff to say. Check out yesterday’s post about More, More, More – and while you’re at it, please let her know her little brother sent you there
- Nick the Geek – apart from being a great web designer, who you should all use to build you beautiful new Wordpress blogs, Nick is a very deep guy who is passionate about his work with the youth in his church. Yesterday’s post was fantastic. If you didn’t read it, now’s the time.
- Michael Perkins – Michael writes a great blog which I don’t stop by as often as I should, but yesterday’s post rocked my socks. Check out ‘Step away from the burrito’
Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you enjoyed and learned from all the posts!
You could also Check out Kevin Martineau’s favorite links here there’s some great ones on his list!
Misinterpretations Galore
I baked an Apple Shortbread today. It’s delicious. I’ve eaten three pieces.
BIG pieces.
One of my favorite things about the recipe is that it has some relaxation time prescribed within it.
The recipe tells me to measure out the ingredients, mix them together and then:
Chill for ten minutes
I love that part. I have no idea why this decades old recipe would have some chill time built in but I’m not going to complain.
I generally sit down, kick back, maybe put some music on and just, well, chill for ten minutes.
Actually, I normally end up chilling for longer than ten minutes. I mean, why cut a good thing short?
As I was chilling today, something occurred to me.
Maybe it wasn’t me who was supposed to chill. Maybe I was supposed to put the mixture in the refrigerator or something?
It’s hard to tell.
Freezing
That got me thinking about last winter at the cabin.
We spent some time at a friend’s cabin in the mountains last winter and one day we took the kids out to play in the snow.
It was COLD that day and after a few snowball fights with a rather large amount of snow getting itself into my snow suit, I was FREEZING. Seriously, I thought I was going to turn into a rather overweight Popsicle.
That was when I remembered some advice I had read. I have no idea why those freezer icepack things have advice on what to do in the cold on them, but they do – and so I followed it:
Lay Flat When Freezing
It didn’t specify whether I should lay on my back or my front, so I tried both and neither helped.
It turns out that laying flat does NOT help you warm up when you’re out in the snow.
So why would they write that?
It seems the instruction may have been referring to the icepack it was written on. Apparently it was instructing me to lay the ice pack flat in the freezer, not to lay flat in the snow when I get cold.
Other Misinterpretations
So now I’m wondering what else I’ve misunderstood or misinterpreted in my life.
Gabe Taviano wrote about misinterpretation recently. Specifically, he wrote about how people choose to interpret the bible based on their own particular beliefs or desires.
Really, with a little bit of work, people can convince themselves and others that the bible says absolutely anything they want it to say.
So I wonder where my misinterpretations are, where my bad theology is.
It would be incredibly arrogant of me to suggest that I am the one person on the planet who can read the bible and understand every word absolutely correctly.
What do I misinterpret?
I do my best to study, compare, weigh up and pray about everything I read but I know I get things wrong at times.
It’s that knowledge that keeps me on my toes, helps me stay open to correction and reproof.
How about you?
What do you do to ensure you don’t misinterpret what you read in the bible? Have you ever spent time laying flat in the snow only to find out the instruction meant something else?
Transferring Your Blog to Wordpress
I have had the great honor of helping Trey Morgan (Blog | Twitter) move his blog from the blogger setup he has had for the last three years to a new hosted Wordpress installation.
There are many reasons why someone would want to move and there are many reasons why someone would stick with what they have but, personally, I’m a huge Wordpress fan and would recommend that just about everyone moves over!
What I’d like to do today is take you through how Trey and I designed his new blog to give you some idea of what you are looking at if you decide to make the move.
First Things First
Once you’ve wisely decided to move to WP, you need to find someone to host your blog for you. I explained what hosting is here. There are many great hosting companies out there bu,t of course, I would always recommend newbloghosting.com (because it’s my company )
Themes
Once you’ve found your host, you next need to think about what you want the basis of your new blog design to be. If you’re using a designer (like Nick or Gabe) they’ll walk you through all of this but if you’re going it alone then first you need to pick a basic framework.
Trey told me he wanted to keep his header image (the pictures across the top of the page) and that he liked his blue color scheme so I knew I had to find a way to incorporate those.
That’s where Themes come in. A theme incorporates all of the design elements of how the blog looks to the reader. There are thousands of free themes available to choose from plus a multitude of ‘premium’ themes that you have to pay to use. You can do a Google search for free or premium themes.
I searched for a theme which had a space at the top into which I could fit Trey’s header image and which would look good with a blue background.
I came up with two: Swift (which is free) and Standard Theme (which is not free). I started working with Swift and it quickly became obvious that it would do all we needed to do so we stuck with it and it became the basis of the blog design.
Once you’ve picked a theme, you are NOT stuck with that theme forever. You can install different themes and swap between them whenever you like. It’s one of the things I really love about WP!
Transferring Design Elements
The next phase of designing your new blog is deciding which visual elements to bring across from your current blog. Over time most people add a plethora of buttons and widgets to their blog design and they can become very cluttered and untidy.
One of the hardest things is working out which of those things you really need to incorporate into your new blog and which need to be left behind. This can be a struggle but it can also be refreshing and invigorating to take the time to bring only what is really beneficial to your design and purpose.
Trey listed a few key elements he wanted to keep and I set about incorporating them into the side bar. Each element goes into a separate widget, which can then be moved around to get the order on the page right.
If you want to do something and don’t see how it can be done, there’s probably a plugin for that! Wordpress has thousands of plugins available which extend its functionality and possibilities.
Plugins
Speaking of plugins, there are a few plugins that I always install:
- All In One SEO Pack – which helps with search engine rankings
- Feedburner Feedsmith – for allowing feedburner to control your RSS feeds
- Google Analyticator – so that Google can give you visitor statistics for you blog
- Google XML Sitemaps -helps search engines easily find their way around your site
- WPTouch iPhone Theme – which formats your blog to display nicely on cell phones
Importing Your Old Posts
Once you’ve done all that and your blog is looking shiny and new, Wordpress has an import facility which will bring across all of your posts and comments from your current blog.
They should all import, pictures and all and look as if they’ve always been there.
Go Live
Finally (and the process to this point can take many weeks) you’re ready to go live. I always recommend writing a post saying your blog is moving tomorrow (as Trey did) and then you can make the big move.
There’s a lot involved in the big move, redirecting rss feeds, changing the DNS on domain names etc etc. Maybe some time I’ll write a post about that process but it’s not all that hard, there’s just some things that need to be done to make sure you have a smooth transition.
Trey and I have brought his blog to this point and today his new blog has gone live. Check it out here: www.TreyMorgan.net and compare it to his old blog to see how we’ve brought across the elements he wanted to keep but also made the design fresh and new.
Happy Mother’s Day
Just a quick post today to say:
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!
I’d love to write some deep and inspiring post about how awesome mothers are and how special my Mum is and how great a mother my wife is to my children but….
I don’t have the words to express how vitally important and what an awesome gift from God mothers are so instead I’ll just say THANK YOU! To my mother, my wife and all the other amazing women out there.
Dump Day 2010
*************************BIG UPDATE!!!!************************
Bread For A Hungry World (http://www.givebread.org) has offered to match up to $25,000 for the Dump Fund. At the time of writing this, they’re at $19,000.
Every penny you can give will be doubled!
Imagine what they could do with $50,000!!! Instead of just feeding people at the dump, they can actually start getting them OUT of the dump into new lives.
******************************************
Today is Dump Day over on Trey Morgan’s blog.
I can’t believe that it’s been a year already since he held the first annual Dump Day. Time flies.
At least it does here.
It probably doesn’t fly so fast over there.
You see, Dump Day is the day when Trey does all he can to raise money for Mark and Terri Tindall’s ministry at a dump in Honduras.
To you and I, a dump may seem a very strange place to try to minister to people but you have to understand something about this dump. This is no dump like you and I know them. No, this is a huge dump the size of a small mountain and its home to hundreds, yes, hundreds of people ranging from small children to old women.
When I say ‘home’ I mean it’s their home. They live there, literally ON the dump. In cardboard boxes or under any shelter they can find.
Daily they fight with the buzzards for space to trawl through the freshly delivered refuse to collect bottles and cans to sell just so they can buy something to eat.
Here in my comfortable house in America, I can tell you that I would do something, anything rather than take my family to live and scavenge on a dump but that’s kind of the point… I cannot fathom what it must be like to literally have no other option but to take your children and have them work with you all day every day just to be able to buy food to eat.
It’s beyond my understanding but I ask you PLEASE, if you have even a dollar to spare, will you go to Trey’s site by clicking here and donate it so that they can bring hope to these people who surely must feel hopeless.
Please.
If you’d like to know more, I thoroughly recommend that you watch the video on Trey’s post from yesterday. It’s eye opening – and sickening. Click here to watch it.
Have We Found The Right Balance?
How much do you read your bible? I hope it’s more than me, because I need your help with a question I have…
How often does the bible talk about worship (specifically worship of the singing variety)?
Actually, what I’m particularly interested in is how often does the bible tells us about how often and how much we should worship with singing?
If you can tell me that, can you then tell me how many times the bible tells us to help the poor and those in need? How about the widows and the sick and the orphans?
Then, in the new testament, how many times are people instructed to go out and preach the good news, to GO to the people?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. I don’t have a gift for study. I’m terrible at it actually, but what I do know is that I don’t get the feeling that we’ve quite found the right balance in what we do.
How much time, energy and money does the Church plug into creating wonderful worship services and events? How much of our focus and our resources are dedicated to creating the best possible worship environment?
Likewise, how much of our time, energy and money do we plug into helping the poor, the widows, the orphans, the sick and all those in need?
If we look at how much the bible, and particularly Jesus, focussed on the need for bringing love and compassion to the world in a tangible way, and the amount that the bible and Jesus himself focussed on the need for corporate worship, can we truly say that we have the balance right in terms of how we use our resources?
It seems to me that we, here in the 21st Century, put disproportionately too much emphasis on our Sunday services.
I was talking to someone a few weeks ago and she said something that cut me to the heart and has rattled around within me ever since. It was simply this:
The Church seems to be totally focussed on looking after the members of the Church. If you’re ‘in’ then the Church will do all it can to help you and care for you but if you’re ‘out’ of the Church, then it seems not to care about you at all.
The Church “seems not to care”.
I felt ashamed.
What are your thoughts?
Has the Church found the right balance?
Is it even possible to find the right balance?
What Are You Waiting For?
I’ve waffled on about writer’s conferences many times before but the topic, for me at least, never gets old.
My favorite conference is coming up in a couple of weeks and I’m very sad that I’m not able to go.
Whether you’re a seasoned writer, newly published, looking for representation, working on a manuscript or just starting out, conferences are an invaluable way to learn, network, get ideas and inspiration and be encouraged by other people who are in the same boat as you.
Before I went to my first conference, I felt rather indifferent about them. I didn’t see what real value they could be to me and, to be honest, it just seemed like it would be money down the drain.
I don’t think that if I had donned a big dress and declared myself to be Queen Victoria I could have been more wrong.
Even if I were to spend a week trying to list all of the benefits of writer’s conferences, I still couldn’t encapsulate the truth of how beneficial they are so I’ll simply say this:
If you’re a writer or want to be one, you’d be stupid not to go to a writer’s conference. It’s as simple as that.
So… What are you waiting for?
If you live in Southern California, or live within 400 miles of an airport, I completely recommend the AV Writer’s Conference as a great place to start.
I have been completely blanking on the whole subject of blog topics recently. I’ve just had no inspiration whatsoever. So for today’s Tech Tuesday post I decided to ask people what they’d like me to write on.
I had a few responses and I’m going to try to deal with the first three of them in this post.
1. Facebook Share Button
The first question I was asked was how to add a facebook share button to a website (like this one: )
The answer is fairly easy.
- Visit the Facebook Share Button page here: http://www.facebook.com/facebook-widgets/share.php
- Use the controls on the page to customize the button to look the way you want it
- Select and copy the code that it creates for you.
- Decide where on your page you want the button displayed and paste the code into the correct place in the correct file.
OR
If you’re smart and use Wordpress, then simply:
- Go to your admin area and click on Plugins then Add New
- On the page that comes up, search for Facebook Share Button
- Select the one you like the look of most from the list and click on ‘Install‘ to the right of the screen.
- When prompted, activate the new plugin and then configure its settings to make it look the way you want it to. (It will probably appear in the Settings menu in your WP admin area)
I installed the Simple Facebook Share Button plugin and it seems to work like a charm!
Of course, if all that seems a little beyond you, just ask and someone will be more than happy to help!
2. Pandora
The second suggestion I was given was to talk about the incredible internet radio site Pandora.com
Pandora needs very little introduction, visiting the site instantly shows you everything you need to know but basically:
Pandora.com generates a custom music playlist for you based on what you feel like listening to at that moment.
For example. Let’s say you want to listen to some rock music, you simply give it the name of your favorite artist (let’s say it’s QUEEN) and Pandora will create a ‘radio station’ which exclusively plays songs by Queen and other artists whose musical sound and style is similar.
Or maybe you want some romantic songs to play in the background while you share an evening in with your spouse. Simply give Pandora the name of your favorite crooner or love song and it will happily sit and serenade the two of you all night, if you so desire.
What’s more, when you register for a free Pandora.com account, you can create these playlists or ’stations’, save them and access them anywhere you have an internet connection. At home, at work, through your phone – anywhere.
Try it out, they have a HUGE selection of musical styles, genres and artists and probably have something for EVERY taste!
Visit Pandora.com here.
3. Screen Saver
Finally, I was asked “How do I keep blog post from hanging in the “save draft” mode and not hit the screen with a mallet.”
There’s an easy solution to this, which I learned through many years as a computer technician:
- Before sitting down to do anything on your computer, remove all mallets, axes, shoes, guns, hammers, flails, and loose bricks from your house, thus removing the possibility of hitting your screen with any such destructive objects.
Or maybe just buy a Mac, I hear that the level of domestic violence against Macs is lower than that against PC’s by a factor of around a billion.
Don’t take my word for it, I’ve never used one, I’ve only heard.
_________________________________
If you have a techy question you’d like answered or have a suggestion for a Tech Tuesday topic, please feel free to tell me about it in the comments section below.
Also, if buying a Mac saved your sanity, please (briefly) tell us your story so I can use it to try to convince my wife to let me buy a MacBook Pro!
Stepping out without looking
Let’s be honest. You and I spend a lot of time thinking things through. In fact, we probably spend too much time thinking things through sometimes, don’t we?
A constant refrain coming from my mouth whenever my children are around is, “What were you thinking? Why would you do that?”
Then I get frustrated when the answer is, as it invariably is, “I don’t know!”
I spend a lot of time trying to teach my children to think about their actions and the possible outcomes of what they are going to do.
We all do, don’t we? We want to make sure that they don’t step out without looking, without thinking and get mown down, either physically or figuratively.
It’s wise to think things through, to not act rashly but to ensure that you know exactly where you’re going and how safe it is before you go anywhere.
Right?
Unfortunately, this attitude all too often keeps us from reaching our true potential – and from realizing our goals and our callings.
Sometimes you have to set aside everything you’ve learned about forward planning, risk assessments and cost analysis’ and throw caution to the wind and just step out, in faith.
One of my hero’s George Mueller lived a life which exemplified this faith-filled, logic defying paradigm, I thoroughly recommend that you read his autobiography
Of course, I’m not suggesting here that you jump at any flights of fancy your daydreaming mind might conjure up but rather I’m suggesting that we need to listen to God more often and be bold enough to do what he tells us.
We’re stepping out and doing what God has told us in our latest project (read about it here) and, frankly, it’s scary. It’s pushing us way beyond our normal limits, way out of our comfort zone – and promises to continue doing so.
What I realized though was that I’d much rather step outside of my comfort zone than tell the creator or the universe “No” or “That’ll never work” or “Sure… just give me a couple of years to prepare myself, you’ve come at a bit of a bad time”.
I want to encourage you today to be bold, be courageous, actually trust God and step out and do what He’s calling you to do despite how ‘logical’ or ‘wise’ your human mind might think it is.
A good way to start might be to prayerfully take the Faith Barista’s ‘What if’ challenge.
Then let me know what awesome things God is doing in your newly unrestrained walk with him!
What Does Your Community Need?
Yesterday, I asked you for prayer about the visit we were due to have from a local newspaper reporter.
The reporter came and the visit (I think) went extremely well.
We are starting a new project where we aim to find out what our community sees as its greatest needs.
What can the Church do for our community?
The newspaper have agreed to help us find out by asking local residents to write in and tell us what they would like to see done in their communities.
Read about it on my latest post at NothingToGive.Com
Could you please continue to pray that:
- The reporter (Victoria) writes a great article
- Her Editor likes the article and doesn’t change his/her mind about running it
- We get a lot of responses and know how to deal with them and respond.
We’re hoping that we’ll be so inundated with responses that we’ll have to call on other local churches to help us respond and meet the needs that are shared with us – and that they’ll respond by just loving our city and joining with us in showing God’s love by action!
This whole thing is quite scary for us, we could be overwhelmed with requests, ideas and suggestions but we believe that this is what God is calling us to do, so we’re doing it – no matter where it may lead!
Prayer Request
Hi Y’all,
Today (Monday) we are having another visit from the very nice reporter from our local newspaper who wrote an article about our Hot Dogs for Haiti fundraiser.
Victoria, the reporter in question, is coming to interview us about our next project, one which I feel could be a game changer, a city changer if everything goes right.
I’ve already explained a lot about it in my email to Victoria and my email made her want to come out to see us so that seems to be a positive thing but I’d like to ask for prayer for three things:
- That we will know exactly what to say to Victoria and exactly how to answer her questions.
- That Victoria (and the newspaper) will be excited about the project and willing to help. We really need their help to make it a success.
- That my wife (Debbie) gets home in time for the interview. She’s at a training course all day, which isn’t scheduled to finish until after the interview is over, but we hear they often get out early so if you can pray that she gets out on time to get home to be there with me, that would be wonderful!
This is the second time Victoria has interviewed us about things we’re doing in our community in less than a month – and also the second time we’ve ever been interviewed or potentially made it into the paper.
That’s a little scary for us and we’re not sure where God is taking us.
Actually, maybe we do have a fair idea and where we think we’re going scares us even more than not knowing
We’re going to walk forward, following God though and whatever he asks, we’ll do. Scary though it may be!
Thanks, guys and gals!
Sunday Thoughts – April 11, 2010
Now is The Time
The tragic plane crash yesterday involving many of Poland’s top government officials reminded me of how short life is – and how fragile.
Not only is life short and fragile but along with that, so are our plans.
The Polish president along with the leaders of all branches of the Polish military and many other influential and important Polish leaders were all killed simultaneously in the terrible accident – and along with them went their plans and dreams.
Everything they were working for and pushing toward could change now. New people will be appointed to their positions, people with their own plans and dreams and quite possibly everything that those 80-something passengers were working toward could go by the way side.
Toyota
Toyota have experienced the fragility of our plans in the last year too. After finally becoming the worlds largest car manufacturer, the car maker suffered the financial loss and public image nightmare of having to do a world-wide recall on many of its models to fix faults that had been found.
Apart from just costing the company millions, if not billions of dollars, Toyota’s image as the producer of the most reliable vehicles has been tarnished, possibly permanently. In one fell swoop, seventy years of working hard to produce the most reliable vehicles in the world takes a significant setback.
All those plans, all that hard work, ruined by an accelerator and a floor mat.
Do Not Miss Your Chance
The song “Lose Yourself” by Eminem has been going around and around in my head, particularly the line:
“You only get one shot, do not miss your chance.”
The truth of that statement was really brought home to me by the deaths yesterday.
You never know when your time here on Earth will end, you never know when your one shot will be over, when your last chance to make a difference will come. Those Polish government officials didn’t know that their one shot was going to be over yesterday and now, sadly, they’ll never get another chance. Toyota didn’t know that everything they had worked so hard for could be damaged so quickly and easily and who knows, they might never fully recover from this.
My One Shot
So I’m not going to miss this opportunity, I may never type another word, only God knows whether I will or not, so I’m going to take this one shot and not miss my chance:
I’m not going to try to give an argument for the existence of God or for the truth of what Jesus did for us on the cross at Calvary. I’ll leave that up to the Holy Spirit right now.
You either believe it or you don’t.
What I want to exhort you to do though is to take the truth you know seriously.
Too many people walk around ‘believing’ what the bible says, knowing it to be true but holding back, they don’t want to give themselves over to it’s truth just yet, thinking there will always be another day.
Another day is here. Another time, another opportunity… it’s right here, right now. You may not get another chance, you may not get another opportunity.
Don’t miss your chance.
If you know that Jesus Christ died to save you, if you know that you have sinned in your life and that those sins will keep you from an eternity in paradise, I implore you, TAKE THIS CHANCE.
God can hear you right where you are, he’s listening to your heart, just admit your sin, accept his forgiveness and start living your life anew.
It’s not too late right now… just don’t wait until it is.
This is my entry into the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival, hosted by the wonderful Bridget Chumbley. Check out the other entries here: Gentleness.
Gentleness
Gentleness is a Fruit of the Spirit, according to the biblical book of Galatians.
The simplest way I can come up with to describe what the ‘Fruit of the Spirit’ means is the way your life changes by being a Christian and having the Holy Spirit walking with you and helping you grow to be more like Christ.
So, are Christians known for their gentleness?
I suspect that generally, to people outside of the Church, they’re not.
Many of us in the Church may think differently and I can personally testify that I know a lot of people who display gentleness – but too many of us display it at all the wrong times.
Where is the gentleness in the way that we people who commit our favorite ‘worst sins’?
I don’t see the Church out there in the world gently loving people but rather I see it attacking and protesting.
Jesus demonstrated to us how to be firm and uncompromising yet loving and gentle with people (see the woman at the well, for example) and when it’s appropriate to be less gentle and soft (for example, when he called the pharisees a ‘brood of vipers‘).
Somehow though, we just don’t seem to know how to exercise the right gentleness at the right time. When a Christian leader falls into sin (and out of favor) we are all to quick to jump on them and tear them apart ignoring the gentleness of spirit which should temper our reactions. Then at other times, for example when someone feels convicted about their walk with Christ (see my post from yesterday and the telling comments by Vanity of Vanities) we are often too gentle and try to sugar-coat the situation. Instead of helping them explore what they are feeling and hearing, we gently coddle them back down into apathy with the rest of us.
We should be known as gentle people. It should be easy to spot the Christians in any workplace, group or community because of the fruit of the Spirit in their lives but, sadly, that’s often not the case.
Today I want to implore you (and me) to learn to use gentleness more, and in the right ways.
It’s not optional.
Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.
My entire Church was away yesterday (Easter Sunday). Everyone except me and my 1 year old daughter.
I had options but I elected to stay at home and worship with my daughter and with the use of youtube videos.
After my daughter went down for a nap, I sat down and searched for some of my favorite Easter hymns – Christ the Lord is Risen Today, Up From the Grave He Arose etc and had the strangest problem:
As soon as I started watching videos of these wonderful songs, the tears welled up and I started choking and my voice cracked up whenever I tried to sing along.
This has never happened to me before with such potency so I stopped to work out why I was crying.
The answer? A mixture of grief and joy.
Joy
I don’t have to explain the joy of Easter day, it’s obvious. Jesus has overcome, he’s alive for ever more. Death has lost it’s sting and we are now children of the promise, heirs of the kingdom of God. Easter day is quite possibly the most wonderful day of the year for all Christians.
But why was I grieving?
Robin Hood
It may seem strange for me to grieve on such a joyful day. The day of grieving, if there is one, should surely be ‘good’ Friday. But my grief was not for Jesus or what we did to him but rather for my reaction to what he did for me and what I’m continuing to do to him.
The character Azeem from Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves came to mind. Azeem, played by Morgan Freeman is a Moor, an enemy of the English, yet Robin Hood frees him from jail, thus saving his life.
What is Azeem’s reaction?
Instead of thanking his savior and disappearing into the night, he vows to stay with Robin, following him wherever he may go, until his debt is repaid by saving Robin’s life.
He just dropped everything and went with him, wherever the path took him he went there, never pausing to raise a family or go to work to earn money for food and shelter for his loved ones, he just followed.
Why? because he knew that there is no greater gift than the gift of life and there is no way to repay it except to reciprocate.
My Grief
As I thought about what Azeem did, the example he showed, I realized that I was grieving because I have been in the same position as Azeem and have not been faithful in repaying the debt.
You see, I was saved once too. I was heading for absolutely certain death and my Savior stepped in and gave me the gift of life.
My savior’s name is Jesus – and I have done little to repay him apart from pay lip-service to his greatness.
There is, of course, no way that I can ever fully repay the gift. I cannot save him from death, but that should not stop me from doing as Azeem did and giving every moment of my life to work toward repaying it.
It’s almost like I know I can’t ever repay it so I don’t even bother trying.
In many ways, I’m like one of the nine lepers who got healed by Jesus but didn’t come back to thank him.
That’s not how I want to be. I want to be like Azeem. I no longer wish to grieve over my apathy but rather to truly give my life to my savior.
How about you? Does your life reflect the incalculable value of the gift you have been given?
——————————————————————–
Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
Happy Easter!!! (or Happy Resurrection Day, if you prefer to call it that).
He is RISEN!
I watched the movie “The Invention of Lying” last night. It’s a really great movie with lots we can learn from it, except for one major fault – it claims that the existence of God is a complete myth, a lie and for one five minute period it mocks him terribly.
Without God
However, there is something that the movie admits and that is that without God there is no hope, nothing to look forward to, no reason for existing other than to die and be turned to dust.
The premise of the movie is to explore what happens when lies are introduced into a society that can only tell the truth, a society that has no concept of lying, that doesn’t even have words for truth, fiction and lying because those concepts don’t exist. If someone says something then everyone else accepts it as absolute truth.
For example, the central character (after learning how to lie) walks into the bank and asks to withdraw $800. The teller tells him that the computer says he only has $300 in his account and then instantly decides that the computer must be wrong, because a person can’t say anything but the absolute truth.
In this society it is ‘known’ as absolute truth that there is nothing after death. They have no concept of God because they ‘know’ he doesn’t exist.
When faced with imminent death, the main character’s mother tells him that she is afraid to die. With his heart breaking for his poor mother, he makes up the ‘lie’ that there is an afterlife, that everyone she knows and loves will be there and that she will be happy forever.
That news quickly spreads around the world and everyone wants to know more.
Hope for the Future
Suddenly they have hope.
Where previously there was just empty nothingness, now there is hope, something to look forward to, something to give life meaning. People clamor to find out more, to know if there are rules, to solidify their hope.
Although the movie treats it as if this reality is a lie (which I am convinced it is not), it simply cannot escape the fact that life is meaningless and hopeless without God.
Without God there is no hope for the future, no assurance, no peace for the sick and dying.
Without God there is just… nothing.
We Have a Certainty – a Blessed Assurance
I found it particularly poignant to watch this movie on the eve of Resurrection day the day when hope became set in stone, the day when hope turned from just ‘hope’ into certainty.
I understand why we use the word ‘hope’ but I don’t have hope, I have certainty.
I have that wonderful assurance. There is no doubt in my mind, no question, no ‘hoping’.
One day I will be with my savior in paradise. Death has lots its sting. The victory is won, the promise given.
I AM saved.
I hope and pray that you have that certainty this Easter day, that you are not just hoping with your fingers crossed that everything will turn out OK in the end. My hope is that you know the assurance that comes from being a child of the Most High God.
If you don’t – ask one of us how you can find that assurance today. There’s no better time than right now!
“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
1 Corinthians 15:54-58
Read the whole bible, not just the parts you like.
This book review has been a long time coming. I received this book from Thomas Nelson as part of their book review program quite a few months ago and had a very hard time reading it because of how convicting it is.
Today, Good Friday, seemed like the perfect day to review the book and share my thoughts on it.
Richard Stearns, president of World Vision USA doesn’t hold back in his assessment of the state of large portions of the Christian Church and, likewise, doesn’t hold back in his frank and penetrating discussion of his own struggles against God and against the gospel.
If he hadn’t been so revealing about how he fought against God when God was sending him to World Vision and how his first few month there were so eye-opening to him in terms of coming to understand what he had been ignoring for so many years, this book could be passed off as the rantings of an obsessed man who just wanted to guilt people into giving money to his organization. His openness and honesty in baring his soul to the reader changes that though. His words reveal a man who has lived ‘the American dream’, a man who was comfortable in his pew-filling, tithe giving Christianity but was given a rather rude awakening by God and can now see with startling clarity what his previous Christian walk was missing.
In short, Mr Stearns has been given the gift of being able to clearly see the hole in our gospel, and subsequently the hole in our lives.
How is it that we gloss over or even ignore Jesus’ call for us to help the poor and sick and needy? Why is it that in a day and age where we in the developed world are more prosperous and more wealthy than at any time in history, vast numbers of people around the world can live in such absolute poverty and yet we do virtually nothing about it?
How did we get to the point where something that was such an integral part of Jesus’ teaching (love your neighbor AS YOURSELF) is so completely ignored. Sure, we make token gestures, a few dollars here and there but how many of us allow ourselves to love our neighbors enough to truly make sacrifices, financial and otherwise, to help them?
In The Hole in Our Gospel, Mr Stearns spells out just how great the need is and just how much we can do to help - and why we should.
On this ‘Good Friday’, a day when we remember how our creator God gave it all up to save us, the very people who had rejected and crucified him, I implore you to take a real and honest look at the gospel that Jesus taught us and the example he lived to give us and ask yourself, is there something missing from my faith walk? Is there truly a similarity between how I live and how Jesus taught us to live? Is there a hole in my gospel? – and read this book to help you find the solution.
Wordpress ROCKS!
OK, I admit it, I have become a HUGE fan of the Wordpress blog/website platform over the past year and am dedicating today’s Tech Tuesday post to talking about it.
Wordpress is much more than a good application for making your own blog, it’s also a platform for developing and publishing fantastic websites that no-one would ever guess were made using ‘blogging software’.
Check out Emmanuel Church London’s website, for example.
It’s pretty, easy to navigate, content rich and yet is built on something that many people think is ‘just for blogs’.
I’m currently rebuilding one of my websites, day3.co.uk, using Wordpress although there is only one small section that actually uses any form of blogging features. The rest uses the wonderful ‘pages’ feature in Wordpress which allows me to create a website which has consistent design and navigation and still incorporate all of the blogging-style functions I require.
Designers
I know quite a few designers who are working almost exclusively in Wordpress these days, and have raved about a couple of the before, like Gabe Taviano for instance (check out this site he designed – yes, it’s made using Wordpress) but today I want to introduce you, if you don’t already know him, to Nick the Geek.
Nick is one of my favorite tweeting youth pastors and has been really impressing me with his blog design work in Wordpress.
If you are looking to refresh the design of your blog, move over to the Wordpress platform or even start a new blog/website then I thoroughly recommend that you get in touch with Nick and see what he can do to help you. Find him on Twitter or at his blog.
Hosting
Finally today, I want to do a little promotion on a new website we just launched.
I’m not usually big on people hawking their own products and businesses on their blogs but we’re doing a fundraiser as part of this new arm to our business and so I want to let as many people know about it as possible.
For seven years now, we have run a small web hosting business, which we originally aimed at churches, charities and small businesses. We sold our hosting mainly to customers in the UK from two sites, HeavenlyHosts.co.uk and StoneageHosting.co.uk.
The thing with hosting a website is that once you have the server space, you can host pretty much any kind of website and over the past year I’ve heard (and read) a lot of people saying that they want a ‘new blog’. They’re tired of the constraints of the blog they currently have and want to upgrade.
Our servers are perfect for hosting blogs so it is a natural progression for us to add blog hosting to the portfolio of services that we offer.
What name could we use for a website selling hosting to people who want new blogs?
Well… NewBlogHosting.com of course!
My family has been trying to find ways of giving our own money to pay for a well somewhere in Africa (check out nothingtogive.com – which is built on Wordpress, of course). One way we’ve come up with to be able to do that is for us to give $15 to our ‘well fund’ for every new hosting package that we sell between now and the end of June 2010.
We’re hoping that NewBlogHosting.com will be inundated with new business so that we can get a long way toward our target of $2600.
If you know anyone who needs hosting either for their website or their blog, we’d be very grateful if you’d point them our way. They’ll get personal service from me, what we think is an excellent, cost-effective solution to their hosting needs and we’ll get to donate $15 more to a very worthy cause.
Oh, and if I haven’t been clear in this post, I REALLY think you should consider using Wordpress for your blog/website!
Lessons from T-Ball
PLAY BALL!
I’ve been to Fourth of July celebrations a few times now but apart from that I have never attended an event as uniquely American as the opening ceremony of our kids’ little league baseball season.
The teams in their uniforms, cheering parents, the color guard, the anthem sung by a brave volunteer, the ceremonial first pitch (by the fire chief to his 5 year old granddaughter – she caught it!), the hot dogs (and nacho’s) the helmets and bats hanging from the fences, the pure excitement and fervor of the young players and their over-the-hill fathers were all eye-openers for me.
Looking at the calendar for the next few months, I see two games and a practice each week plus the opening ceremony, closing ceremony and five or six weekend fundraisers – and we all paid for the privilege.
I know plenty of good Christian folk who get involved in this every year, plus the regular dance/gymnastics/karate classes and then move on to basketball, swimming and any other sports they can find.
I don’t have any problem with that, none at all… I just wonder what the world would be like if we put as much passion, time and commitment into our faith as we do our kids’ sports?
Time
The parents who were at the ballpark this Saturday have committed themselves to three nights a week plus almost every Saturday and have been all too willing to fork out around a hundred dollars of their own money to do it.
How many of us are willing to give three nights a week plus our Saturdays to the work of the Church – and then give money out of our own pockets to fund it (apart from the tithe that our pastors convince us we’re supposed to give)?
Could you find the time to give three nights a week to do outreach or feed the homeless or visit the sick and housebound or do any of the myriad other things that God might call us to do?
I don’t know many people who can.
Yet I know a whole bunch of people who can find the time when it has to do with their children’s sports and leisure activities.
Faith vs Family
There are several dichotomies in the bible and one of them is the differing ideas of having a responsibility to your family and yet being willing to give everything up for God.
The Apostle Paul tells us that a leader in the Church should demonstrate his/her ability to lead by leading their own family well. Yet Jesus called the disciples telling them to leave their nets and follow him (some of these men we know were married). He then took them out away from their families, often for days at a time and led them into a faith that would result in them being imprisoned, persecuted and even put to death.
Finding a balance between being there for our families and doing what God calls us to do can be very hard – especially in a culture which clearly defines what a ‘good’ upbringing entails.
There is immense pressure to give our children the right clothes, toys, electronics, bikes, extra-curricular activities and wonderful childhood memories.
How can we ever do all of those things and still have time to give to God?
No Easy Answer
I wish there was an easy answer to all this.
I wish that we could give all of those experiences to our children and still have equal amounts of time (and equal amounts of fervor) to put into our work for God.
There are no easy, all-encompassing answers though because we are all created uniquely, gifted uniquely and called uniquely.
What we have to remember to do is to put God FIRST. To talk with him and listen to him about what he wants us to do.
We have to be willing to both give up things like little-league to do what he is calling us to do and equally we have to be prepared to enroll our kids in little league, if that’s how God directs us.
Whatever he calls us to do, we must never forget that we are his ambassadors 24/7 and whether we are serving dinner to the homeless or yelling at the referees over the biased calls they just made, we are representing Christ and the Kingdom of heaven.
Watching a bunch of four and five year olds hitting everything but the ball on the t-ball stand we have every bit as much opportunity to be witnesses for the hope that is within us as we have when we’re visiting the sick or imprisoned.
How do you find a balance between Church and Family?
How do you manage to witness for Christ in your every day life?
Palm Sunday Thoughts – March 28 2010
How often do you get mad at God?
How many times have you expected God to do something and then been disappointed when he didn’t do exactly what you wanted?
It’s very easy for us to fall into the trap of praying for something that is not what God knows is best for us and then getting disillusioned, confused, frustrated and even angry at him for not pandering to your every whim and desire.
Palm Sunday always reminds me of the way that I get angry with God for not doing what I want.
The people were excited as they saw Jesus riding into Jerusalem and they shouted ‘Hosannah’ which means save us now.
The people wanted Jesus to save them and were excited because they were sure he was going to.
These people were living in an occupied land. The Romans had taken over their country and were oppressing them. Most of them probably hoped that Jesus would save them from the Romans and set them free from oppression.
But Jesus was coming to save them in a whole different way. Jesus was coming to set them free not from the Romans but from the curse which oppresses all of mankind.
It took less than a week for those same people to become disillusioned with Jesus – and angry that he wasn’t setting them free like they expected him to.
Those joyous shouts of hosannah quickly turned to shouts of ‘crucify him’.
As I think about Palm Sunday and remember the way I get disillusioned and angry with God, it’s a reality check for me.
If I had been there in Jerusalem 2000-ish years ago, I would have been there shouting “Hosannah” and I would have been there a few days later shouting “Crucify Him”.
I’m a fool if I think I wouldn’t have. The way I get angry with him proves it.
I need to work on how I react when I don’t get what I want from God – do you?
A Blog You Should Read
I haven’t been talking much on this blog lately about my journey to rediscover the Church. Come to think of it, I haven’t been talking much about anything on this blog lately.
The direction my life has been taking recently has led me away from focusing so much on the church. Our Nothing To Give project involves non-Christians as much as it does Christians.
However, there are some wonderful members of the Church that I have had the privilege of getting to know over the past year or so that maybe I haven’t said much about so I want to start introducing you to some of them.
This week’s focus is on Gail Hyatt (Blog | Twitter). Some of you may already know her or read her blog and if you do, I’m sure you’ll understand why I am writing about her.
Gail is a wonderful writer, encourager and child of God. Her insight and understanding of spiritual principles and her ability to convey through her blog what God is teaching her are second to none.
In fact, I’m tempted to say that she is my favorite blogger from her family – and that’s saying something because her husband and daughters are pretty great writers themselves.
I absolutely recommend that you stop by her blog and check out her latest offerings – and return often to bathe in her amazing words of wisdom and encouragement.
You can find Gail’s blog, which is called ‘Treasure Hunt’ here: http://gailbhyatt.wordpress.com/
Enjoy!