Passionately Following Jesus
This is an event hosted by The 410 Bridge. You need to be there!
Its going to be awesome!!!
Click HERE or the button above to order your tickets.
Lanny Donoho asked me personally via Twitter (ok maybe I wasn’t the only one he asked) to post this, you can see his blog HERE and his Twitter HERE.
See you there!
Nick
I was contacted a couple of months ago by Samantha, an editor, writer, and representative for Bluefish TV, about contributing to their new website, The Small Group Exchange. I was really blown away & honored that they would be asking me (a nobody) to write something for such a well known ministry resource company.
My article, Sharing Life Through Difficult Times, went live today. The article focuses on how huge of an impact our small groups had during the devistation caused by Hurrican Katrina. The other day, after Hurricane Ike, I posted a little bit about my former churches involvement surrounding Hurricane Katrina and posted two videos to show a little bit of what we did and what we saw. You can check those videos and that post out HERE.
Go read my new article on the Small Group Exchange and come back here and let me know what you think.
Join the Conversation: How have small groups impacted your life or your church?
With Hurrican Ike leering on the coast of Texas I am reminded of Hurricane Katrina. I wrote in another post how Katrina not only changed the people’s lives who were effected by the hurricane, but it changed my life as well. Here is video footage from 2 of our 4 Relief Trips that our church took in the days and weeks after Katrina. Please note, this first video is 18 minutes long, but was used as a sermon filler to show the church members what people in that area was facing and how we needed resources and assistance as our church was going to adopt a neighborhood called Eagle Pointe. There is a lot of footage of the damage to homes and property as well as some personal interviews by some of the residents of the community we adopted. It has some rough spots that are very shaky, but I had to use the video available to me. This was the first video I had ever edited and made into a movie, so bear with it, it is worth the watch.
Our church was one of the first relief assistance teams on the scene. A couple of days after Katrina hit Biloxi, MS we loaded an RV up with water and as much food as possible, and 6 of us went to offer whatever help we could offer, this is what we saw and what we heard from some of the people…
Update: You may have to hit play and then pause to let it load some, the file is big.
Can’t see the video? CLICK HERE
This video footage is from trip #2 of our adoption of the Eagle Point Community. We were larger than the Red Cross; we had over 40 volunteers, two half-ton trucks, a semi-truck, two RV’s and a 15 passenger van full of volunteers and supplies for the people of Biloxi. We provided them with basic necessities and a hot meal. The first video literally took me all night to create. The next morning several local news agencies used it for their local news stories, one used it to partner with us with a program called, “A Time to Care” along with the US Army. A service rep with Purpose Driven, who happened to be in Rick Warren’s small group got the first video in his hands, he showed it to his executive leadership team, and they donated our remaining Purpose Driven Life Books to the relief effort, and credited our account for the entire balance (very cool!). We handed the books out to everyone as well as Bibles. With no power it is a perfect opportunity for people to read, and as the church lived out the Gospel, many people were interested in what God had to say to them through His Word. I never knew that video would make it so far around the nation. Video 2 was made possible because of video 1.
Can’t see the video? CLICK HERE
This was truly living out the Gospel.
You probably only hear the word, vetted, every 4 years. Wikipedia’s definition is this: Broadly, vetting is a process of examination and evaluation. Specifically, vetting often refers to performing a background check on someone before offering them employment. In addition, in intelligence gathering, assets are vetted to determine their usefulness.
On Saturday, as soon as Barak Obama chose his running mate, Joe Biden for the coming election, the pundits
immediately started sharing their opinion’s about his choice. Some were praising the choice, while others started questioning whether or not Barak properly vetted Joe Bidden. Why all of the questions? Well, Joe Bidden has a history of saying things that are not so popular or proper. He made what could be considered as racist remarks about Obama, saying he was the first ‘clean’ ‘articulate’ African American in contention for the democratic parties nomination, he said that ‘you have to have a little Indian accent to go into a Seven-Eleven convenient store…I’m not kidding,’ as well, he point blankly said that his now running mate was lacking the experience needed to be President and that the office of President was not the place for ‘on the job training.’ Biden later blasted Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience and comments he made concerning Pakistan and Iran. The fear for democrats who support the election of Barak Obama is that something will come out about Biden or that he will say something that could potentially ruin Barak’s chances of being elected.
What if, John Edwards was the chosen running mate for Barak Obama, and Obama chose to select Edwards as his running mate 1 month ago? The experts this weekend were saying that some candidates are not vetted as much as others because they have already been vetted as Presidential candidates, therefore they feel that Biden may have had less vetting than someone who did not run for President this year, but what if the same process had been taken with Edwards? The recent news about Edwards’ affair would have sunk Obama’s ship, as would any issues with Biden if they were to come about.
As I was running the other night, I could not help but to think, have I been vetted? Have I vetted myself? Is
there anything in my life that if it were discovered would potentially embarrass my God, my family, my church, or my employer? You are probably familiar with the situation with Michael Guglielmucci, who was made famous quickly with his song Healer and the story that went a long with it. However as Michael quickly stepped into the spotlight he started getting vetted, and it was found that Michael had something in his life that did not match up with the character of the Lord he sang about. Brad had a great post HERE concerning the story, and this post is not to cast criticism on Michael because we all have sin in our lives and we have all failed, though our failures at times fall on different levels. This post is to point out that when we don’t vet ourselves and allow Christ to vet us by examining our inner most secret areas, someone will, and in the end Christ will take a hit, our families will take a hit, our churches will take a hit, our friends will take a hit, Christianity will take a hit, and we will lose all credibility and trust we have ever gained.
Join the Conversation: Have you vetted yourself lately? Most importantly, have you allowed Christ to vet you lately?
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” Romans 5:1-5 (NIV)
I was reading in Romans 5 this morning, and this portion of Chapter 3 stood out to me…”we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” – Over the last three to four years it seems that I have faced more individual sufferings, trials, and tests than I ever have in my life. The question that popped into my head as I read this was, “Have those issues I have dealt with produced perserverance, character, and hope?” – “Four years and now on the other side of some of these things, have I increased in these areas?”
In my eyes I may say no! Because I live with my imperfections everyday, but my hope is that in the eyes of Christ I have and in the eyes of others, they will see that the Lord has grown me, stretched me, and matured me in perserverance, character, and hope!
Join the Conversation: Are you seeing perserverance, character, and hope being formed in your life? Care to share how God is doing that?