Great blog post by my buddy and fellow-youth pastor Brian Berry! Enjoy and be inspired as I was.
“My kids are sponges. Maybe all kids are. But I’m acutely aware of my own.
They soak up everything around them and everything I do. They watch me on my phone. They watch me drive. They watch me …” Read the full article here.
“Creating Space to Dance”
by Henri J.M. Nouwen
When we feel lonely we keep looking for a person or persons who can take our loneliness away. Our lonely hearts cry out, “Please hold me, touch me, speak to me, pay attention to me.” But soon we discover that the person we expect to take our loneliness away cannot give us what we ask for. Often that person feels oppressed by our demands and runs away, leaving us in despair. As long as we approach another person from our loneliness, no mature human relationship can develop. Clinging to one another in loneliness is suffocating and eventually becomes destructive. For love to be possible we need the courage to create space between us and to trust that this space allows us to dance together.
Just finished reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan. It was an easy read, and I felt like I was listening to Chan give a teaching live. I have read very broadly so there was nothing about it that blew me away personally, but it was a good read (and included cool media leads to check out online as you were going through it) and did more than entertain the mind. He really tried to get us into a deeper contemplation of the enormity of God’s love for us (to get us to “feel” it, if you will), and challenged us to live in that love in relationship to others. The book could be utilized in a wide variety of ways. I would highly recommend it as as a book for seekers, nominal Christians, or people who are just wondering if we are missing it as Christians. It would also make a good book for small groups to work through together. Enjoy!
My wife and I are currently watching the Love & Respect Marriage Seminar on DVD and doing the workbooks together. It’s a great resource if you have a couples small group. I would also suggest it as a great curriculum if you are working with couples in a pre-marriage or pre-covenant class. You can also purchase the book by the same title.
Just finished my first book of 2011, The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns, president of World Vision. It’s a little lengthy but is a great challenge to the American church to wake up and start living out the teachings of Jesus, specifically in relation to caring for poor, in very real, practical ways.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” Speech & His prophetic last words the day before he was assissinated.
REVKEVJR.COM 