So we had a huge thunderstorm a few nights ago. I would have to say thunderstorms are one of my favorite things. I could sit and watch a thunderstorm for hours. The sound of rain falling on the roof, the claps of thunder that can be heard for miles, the flashes of lightning that design the night sky,the woosh of Little Kitty running through the dark room…

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Well, I’ve been asking for it all year. There have been a few times that I thought we were about to get hit but they were only false alarms. But, now… it’s happening. The snow has finally come.

Now, where I live if we see a snow flake or even feel like one could form, school is canceled and everyone runs to Wal-Mart to stock up on the essentials (toilet paper and milk – I think one may be a little more essential than the other, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide which one that is:)

As the years have gone by it seems like we get fewer and fewer snows. Whenever it happens it makes me start remembering my childhood and how I would anxiously watch the local news station in the morning hoping I would see a glimpse of my schools name under the canceled list. I think this is something we all, as kids, have been through a few times. For that much, I sometimes wish it was the same for work. Pop on the tv to see if work was cancelled or not. Unfortunately that never happens.

It seems like as kids knowing how to anticipate and get excited over the simplest of things came natural. Snow brought excitement because, well first off no school, but also because it meant sledding and snow ball fights, friends and forts, all to end by telling our stories of the day while drinking hot chocolate. These were all things that we just couldn’t do any time we wanted… we had to wait for them. Sometimes it would only happen once a year but when it did we were ready… at least I know I was.

I think a lesson can be learned out of remembering. The snow reminds me to take time to stop and enjoy the change going on around me. Just to take a minute or two to watch green turn to white and the air become thick with flakes. It reminds me to remember… remember stories of times with family and friends of the last snow; because I know eventually the snow will be gone.

The same thing can be seen at work in our spiritual life. God wants us to remember… and take time to stop and watch how things around us are being changed. To remember that He is in control and just because our day may not look sunny that doesn’t mean it still isn’t be beautiful. Things change in our lives, jobs change, hobbies change, tasks change, minds change, things change… it’s what we do when things change that matters. Do we stress out and beat our heads against the wall trying to fix everything or do we take time to watch the snow, and remember… knowing that this change could very well be one of those changes, just like the snow, that may only come every once in a while, providing us with opportunities that we normally would never have.

Technorati Tags: christianity, devotional, teachings

I’ve been listening to a teaching series by Joe Mcgee lately. I learned something really interesting while listening to this series. He was talking about life and migrated over to talking about sin. In Greek terminology, sin was an old archery word. Every archer tried to hit the center of the bulls-eye on the target; or in other words “hit the mark”. The distance from the bulls-eye to where the arrow actually hit was called the “sin”. So, in Greek times this word sin meant you missed the mark by “x” amount or “by this much”.

This means that in the Greek culture, when sin was talked about they instantly gained a mental picture of missing the mark with an arrow. Really interesting. I have always loved metaphors and parables, because they help you really grasp the full meaning of a teaching and continue to remember it long after it has been spoken. So, hopefully this helps you understand another viewpoint of what “sin” was seen as.

I wrote a blog entry a while back about finding God hidden stories this Christmas, you can read it here. I have been saving this story for a few weeks now. I wanted to give it to you all on Christmas. This is not my story but another persons story that I have claimed as my own… it was hard not to cry when I heard it. A person in the church community I go to told us this story… it was the Sunday after I wrote the stories of Christmas post. For the sake of her identity I will refer to her as Sue.

Sue got up in front of the church to tell us about what had happened. The pastor had just mentioned how Sue’s story had touched him and he wanted us all to hear it. Sue began to tell us how she was going to Wal-Mart over the weekend to try to finish up her Christmas shopping (Just like every other person in the US) She fought the crowds all the way back to the lay-away section where she was going to pick up some presents that she had been paying on. In front of her was this man who was holding on to a five dollar bill tightly and he was talking to the sales clerk. Sue could not help but over hear the conversation and apparently the man was trying to buy some shoes out of lay-away for his child. Sue heard the sales clerk tell the man, “Sir, I’m sorry but I told you when you first brought these shoes here for lay-away that it was going to cost more than five dollars to get them out… you don’t have enough.” Sue could tell the man was having a hard time accepting what the sales clerk was saying. Five dollars was all that he had… and his child really needed these new shoes. Sue silently prayed thanking God for this opportunity that was just given to her. She had the opportunity to help someone in the middle of all this shopping chaos.

Sue spoke up and said, “Sir, I would like to buy those shoes for you if you will let me.” The man quickly agreed and was very thankful. Sue handed over the $6 to $10 dollars to pay out the shoes and gave the man his child’s gift and wished him a Merry Christmas. He was of course very thankful and took the shoes and left. Sue paid out her lay-away items and left to go home, thankful that God would let her small amount of money help someone so much.

This is where we thought the story ended…. but it didn’t…

Sue went on to tell us that a few weeks went by and she received a phone call out of nowhere. She answered it and on the other side was a woman’s voice. The woman asked if this was Sue. Sue was wondering what this was all about. The woman proceeded to tell her that she was the sales clerk at the lay-away counter a few weeks ago where Sue had helped the man purchase shoes for his child. She told Sue that she wanted to call her to tell her something. Sue asked what it was and this is what the sales clerk told her. She said: “Sue, no one knew but that day when you helped that man buy those shoes for his child I was planning on taking my life when I clocked out from work. I had already planned the entire thing and was prepared to do it. I had decided that the world was just too bad and I was not happy with life. When you paid for that man’s shoes, it shocked me. It showed me that there were still good people in this world and maybe the world was not as bad as it might have seemed. I decided then that I was not going to end my life but instead was going to keep on and I wanted to call you to tell you myself… Thank you.” Sue was speechless.

You see… stories are everywhere… opportunities are everywhere… waiting for us to find them. Sue thought that all she had done was help a man provide his child shoes. She was completely unaware of what God was really doing. Sue had no idea that by being Jesus to someone, EVEN IN THE SMALLEST FASHION, she played a part in showing a third party sales clerk that life was worth living.

So, this Christmas… may you be Jesus…. may you find that even the little things can be so big…. may you see that the true spirit of Christmas is not just on one day… but everyday… may you look past the crowds and chaos… and reach out a hand to help someone… may you find the God hidden stories that wait for you everyday…. and respond… and may you find that God uses shoes of all sizes for more than just walking.

Here is a cool website I heard about from Trasition Pete’s Blog . www.howmanyofme.com has made a little program that will show you how many people have your name in the U.S.A. I have listed my results below. There are a lot more "Gross" people than I expected… hmmm. Click on the "How many have your name" link to try it out.

I ran across another great article from www.churchrelevance.com, which is another one of my favorite blogs. The post I am referring to listed stats that compared the cultural knowledge of pastors vs. churchgoers. It was interesting and can be found here. I am a firm believer that the church needs to know the state of the culture. Now I am talking about more than football games and politics. I’m referring to what makes people tick… what do people respond to… and is the church presenting herself in a way that they will respond. Does that mean we degrade our morals to meet people where they are? No, I believe it means we show Jesus for who He is and that is a God who is attractive. If people see the real Jesus they will be attracted to Him, it might take some time for them to react to the attraction but it will happen.

Jesus new the culture when he was here on earth. He talked about what was going on, he answered the questions that others were wondering (to their surprise many times he answered with a question, which was customary), he was familiar with what made people tick. Paul even spoke about becoming all things to all men that he might win a few. I think Paul was talking about be aware of culture. He became a Jew the the Jews and a Gentile to the Gentiles. He tried to understand where they were and met them there. Maybe there is something we could all learn from that. Just a thought… what are your thoughts?

I just ran across an interesting article over at www.churchrelevance.com about some recent stats that came out pointing to the decline of the "MTV cool Youth Ministry" genre. You can read the article yourself by going here. I have served in youth ministry nearing 8 years now. During this time I have seen all kinds of things done to draw kids in and keep them. We have done everything from throwing the biggest parties in the town to taking the kids halfway across the country on trips.

What have I learned through all this?

Coolness will not keep the kids but relationships and sustanence will. I was reading one of Josh McDowell’s books about a year ago that had a really good point in it. He said that youth ministry can be looked at like a scale. If you put all your weight on coolness, games, and atmosphere and relationships… withouth any weight on sound Bible teaching, then it will not keep the kids and the scale will tip. On the other hand if you put all your weight on strict Bible teaching with no relationship then you will not keep the kids and the scale will tip. It’s a 50 – 50 scale. Youth groups need to have sound biblical teaching, Barna stats have shown this is an area youth ministry has been failing in. On the other side youth groups need to have a relationship level with games and atmosphere that will encourage them to talk with one another and, well just enjoy themselves.

If you have both sides of the scale working, then you will have a youth ministry that is growing spiritually. Think about it this way… how do you learn?? How did you learn when you were young?? What were your favorite teachers that you learned the most from?? The best teachers were the ones who were able to make their lesson come to life and usually they had good relationships and atmosphere in their classrooms. Youth ministry doesn’t need more coolness to be effective, just more life and balance. We need to re-evaluate how we teach and become better so we can be more effective. No one likes to be hammered with Bible for hours where the teacher resembles a Scrooge more than Jesus. Jesus brought life to his teaching with parables and stories. Jesus also was good at relationships since he could be found many times eating with people and laughing. Jesus taught more depth than anyone ever and he also put focus on relationships. Not so much on coolness.

What are your thoughts???

So I thought I was going to get a PS3… boy was I mistaken! I had the whole game plan layed out, nothing could go wrong… until I found out that I was not as much of a ubergeek as I thought. I was going to head out of work early yesterday morning and go wait in line at my local Wally World to get the anticipated "PS3 of Antioch". I have a friend that has connections to the store manager of Walmart, so I had him give his friend a call to find out how many people were already there. His conversation went something like this, "Hey "walmart friend manager guy" I have a ubergeek friend who would like to get a PS3 how many people are there in line?" This is when Walmart guy started to laugh…  Not a good sign…

You see, apparently there is a whole new level of ubergeek that I did not know existed. Maybe it existed once a long time ago. You know, the time where if you could make a fire out of rocks you were this kind of ubergeek. But now this ubergeek only exists in the shadows of their closet listening to the hummmm of processors. LED’s, and 10 Terabyte RAID 10,000 RPM hard drives. Well, all I have to say is they are real and they can be seen only one time a year…. Game console release day, day, day, day.. (echo for effect).

I call them Superdooperubergeeks…

You see, a Superdooperubergeek is about as rare as they come. They have crossed the vast lands of cyberspace and are adventurers of their own kind. Superdooperubergeeks are bigger than web 2.0… they are more like web 7.2 1/2. They are the guys and girls that laugh at the speed of an Intel Extreme dual Core processor… because they made one that fast 10 years ago… They are the ones that intimidate Bill Gates … They exist… you just have to look hard enough.

Back to the story,

Walmart guy informed my friend that Superdooperubergeeks had already been lining up days before the release. Days! I guess by now we have all seen the lines of drenched Superdooperubergeeks, waiting in line at their local Best Buy or Walmart.. cold… tired… smelly (just joking) ready get their hands on what they had been waiting for… a brand new PS3.

Well, its unfortunate but our Walmart already had more people waiting in line than stock of PS3′s they had to sell… Surprise!!!. Oh well… I was going to sell mine anyway.

So, for you few Superdooperubergeeks out there that were able to get you hands on a brand new PS3… I salute you… you set a standard that few ubergeeks ever attain and even fewer know exist…