Church – Page 10 – Nickcarnes.com

November 18, 2008

Are You Killing Your Church?

Rick Warren writes in the Purpose Driven Life…

What happens when one part of your body fails to function? You get sick. The rest of your body suffers. Imagine if your liver decided to start living for itself: “I’m tired! I don’t want to serve the body anymore! I want a year off just to be fed. I’ve got to do what’s best for me! Let some other part take over.” What would happen? Your body would die. Today thousands of local churches are dying because of Christians who are unwilling to serve. They sit on the sidelines as spectators, and the Body suffers.

1 Corinthians 12:7 (NLT) says…

A Spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.

Rick points out in the book that we are do not serve to be saved, rather we are saved to serve. One of the reasons Christ gives us new life is so that we can die to our old selves and live as Christ has called us to live. As Christ Followers we are given gifts and according to 1 Corinthians that gift’s purpose is to help each other.

Join the Conversation: Are you killing your church by sitting on the sideline and not serving? Or are you using your gifts and new life to help your church thrive by helping others, what does that look like in your life?

November 9, 2008

What’s Your Excuse?

Brandon Marshall is an 11 year old boy who is dying of Lukemia…he has one dying wish, to feed the homeless, this is a touching story that is well worth your time. Do you have a blog? Share Brandon’s story there. Vision can be shared from a hospital bed.

This is one more example of how Jesus will use anyone to bring about his plans and his purposes, he’ll even use the sick. If you think you’ve got it all together, you may just be eliminating yourself from being a candidate for Christ to use.

I think Brandon may ask, What’s Your Excuse for Sitting on your Butt?

P.S. You may need a box of kleenex.

Problems watching? http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/11/09/jaffey.wa.last.wish.komo

h/t: CNN

November 9, 2008

Kurt Johnston’s Long Lost Twin

Kurt Johnston is the Middle School Pastor at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. He’s been an inspiration to thousands of youth pastors across the country for years, especially middle school pastors. As a thank you for all Kurt has done for youth pastors, I thought I would do a little PI (Private Investigator) work to find his long lost twin brother…

Luke and his family are from the Portland, Oregon area and have been attending our church for the last few months. When he walked in the door I had to do a double take because he looks just like Kurt, the pictures I provided are close resemblences, but if they were together in person, it would be even closer.

Luke and Kurt are not really long lost twins, just in case you thought I was serious, but they do look a like.

November 8, 2008

Our Cash Envelope System

Nicki and I went to the ReThink Money Workshop today that our church put on with Casey Graham. Casey talked about using one of three plans to pre-designate your monthly funds: 1. A written spending plan 2. A Cash Envelope System or 3. A computer method (Quickbooks, Quicken, Etc.). If we used the cash envelope system, here’s what it would look like right now:

We are not going to use a cash envelope system, because cash is easier to spend, and we don’t have money to spend, period. Hopefully, applying the principles we learned today will help us save money and cut spending where we can, it is not going to help us overcome my need to start a second job for a while, but it will reduce the amount I need to earn in that job. If you hear of a ReThink Money Seminar in your area, I highly recommend you go to it.

Join the Conversation: Do you use a budgeting system or a spending plan, if so what is it?

October 30, 2008

Becoming A Blog Community

I posted a new blog post over at the PDYM Blog today…Go check it out there!
Here’s an excerpt from the article:

There are thousands of youth workers in the virtual world who have a lot to say and a lot to contribute. However the average post on this blog attracts 2 or 3 comments. I personally want to hear from you. We may start a topic, but the point of a blog is to provoke conversation and idea sharing. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE