2009 Kingdom Day Update

I am blogging over at the PDYM Blog today, but my post is very relevant here as well. I started promoting Kingdom Day HERE and HERE a while back. Purpose Driven has picked up on it and has allowed me to promote the day within our Network and is helping put an engine to the locomotive. I was given the opportunity to promote the day to our state mentors at the Gathering and will have the opportunity to promote it at the PDYM Conference in March with a breakout session. We are calling it PDYM Kingdom Day, but this day is definitely not limited to student ministries who use the PDYM paradigm for their ministries, this day is for every student ministry that uses the Bible for a foundation of what they do. Kingdom Day is about living out the Gospel, I hope we all believe that to be important. Here is an excerpt to what I wrote on the PDYM Blog, I encourage you to go read it in its entirity there!

200.
Currently, that’s the approximate number of churches that will be participating in the 2009 PDYM Kingdom Day on Saturday, April 25, 2009.

Kingdom Day is set to be the single largest Service project in the history of the church, and you have the opportunity to be a part of that history. In a single day, student ministries will unite together despite denomination and regardless of group size to live out the Gospel of love to our communities by serving those who are in need. This is a great opportunity to emphasize the purpose of ministry within your student ministries, as well to promote our individual churches working together united as ONE body to be more effective in reaching our communities, to impact our nation, our country, and our world. READ ENTIRE POST

Another Small Step to Make Huge Impacts

Back in June I posted about an opportunity to help a friend of mine with the adoption of her daughter and/or siblings with your purchase of an everyday item, coffee. You can check that post out HERE. Neely and Josh have recently been informed that they are 27th on the list to get a girl and 10th on the list to get siblings.

Today I come to you with a new opportunity to help them out by purchasing another everyday item. Adopting a baby from a foreign country is expensive, but with everyone taking small steps, we can help make it happen and essentially re-write a baby or potentially two babies life stories, as well as a families. Neely and Josh have had some really cool T-shirts made up to help raise money for the expenses of the adoption. I am sporting mine in the picture at the top of the post. The T-shirt reads “Adoption Rocks” in an Africa logo and comes in black with a white logo or White with a red logo. The T-shirts are $15 each, and you should buy one for yourself and everyone in your family (yes they have children’s sizes)!

Click HERE to go to Neely’s page to order your T-shirt. She has an order form on her right hand sidebar or Email her HERE to place your order.

For Coffee lovers or family and friends of Coffee lovers…Click HERE to place your Coffee order. Remember, you must order through the link for them to get credit for your purchase.

Thanks for Re-writing little children’s life stories!

Bloggers 08 Gathering

I seriously look fat in this picture. Am I this fat? Dang.

I finally got to meet the famous Brad Ruggles. He assembled a Bloggers Meetup for the Catalyst attendees. I think I was the only one there who was not at Catalyst, but when you get this many bloggers from around the country assembled in one city, its a night that you cannot turn down. I’ve attached some thumbnails of random pictures I took throughout the night, click on the picture 2 times to enlarge it to its full size (and I’ll be working on editing some of these pictures with the bad red eyes).

Here are some links to some of the bloggers who were there, I did not get to meet everyone and I still have to find the blogs of the new bloggers I did meet:

Brad RugglesLisa RugglesPete WilsonPat RowlandJenni CatronTerrace CrawfordAarron DininnyNic BurlesonZak White – And others (I can’t find them all right now)

The Ronald Reagan Library

After my airline ticket was purchased for the Gathering my uncle moved from L.A. back to Atlanta, so I got stuck in California for a couple of extra days alone. My friend Tom suggested that I go check out the Reagan Library, so I did. Reagan was my President. He was in office from the time I was born until I was 8 years old, and what a great President he was. I was blown away by this place, it is not ultra exciting as it is a museum of sorts, but the videos, the pictures, the letters, and the audio of Reagan playing throughout the building are awesome! The historical items they have on display are very cool. I got to see the very x-ray taken when Reagan was shot. I walked away thinking to myself three thoughts: #1 Reagan was a great leader, #2 Reagan loved his wife, and #3 Reagan loved this country…even if it was at the expense of losing popularity in the world. If you ever get an opportunity…go see it! Semi Valley is beautiful and when you look out at the land surrounding the library, it helps put into perspective how BIG God is and how small we are.

One final personal note. Neither one of our Presidential candidates could stand toe to toe with Reagan. I know McCain likes to say he is a foot soldier in Reagan’s army, but Reagan would probably disagree. On the other hand, if you are an Obama supporter, Reagan would eat your candidate for lunch and still need dessert. The words of Reagan echoing through this Library are powerful, and I could not help but to think how much trouble we will be in if Obama is elected. I will do a post in the coming days about a great story I heard from one of the videos that I watched at the Library, its powerful. Until then, check out the photos below. They are not the greatest as they are from my cell phone camera (Nicki would not let me take her camera). If you click the photo for a second time it will expand into a larger photo.

The Bowling gods Hate Me

Last night the PDYM State Mentors went to Lucky Strike Lanes for a little dinner and bowling.

My Results:
Game #1 3rd place 114 pts
Game #2 4th place (I didn’t get serious until frame 6) 101 pts

Doug Fields showed all the youth pastors how to do it with the high score of the night at 159 and Jim Clark came in a close second with his strong effort of 139.

I even tried a little meditation…the bowling gods still did not smile on me.

I choked like the Chicago Cubs in the pursuit of a World Series Championship.

Despite facing the anger of the bowling gods, I had more fun than I have had in a long time.

It’s sad I only get to hangout with these youth workers once a year. We’ve had a lot of fun.

Unfortunately it all ends today at 3:00 pm PT.

The after party heads to Hollywood afterwards, so who knows what will happen there!

(This is for Ben Taylor)
Join the Conversation: When’s the last time you had a lot of fun?