My Heart to Yours

I have a new e-mail friend who found my blog. She recommended this book to me. The Emotionally Healthy Church, by Peter Scazzero. This is how Christianbook.com describes the book:

Something is desperately wrong with most churches today. Many sincere followers of Christ who are passionate for God and his work are unaware of the crucial link between emotional health and spiritual maturity. They present themselves as spiritually mature but are stuck at a level of immaturity that current models of discipleship have not addressed. Discipleship that really transforms a church must integrate emotional health with spiritual maturity. The Emotionally Healthy Church offers a strategy for discipleship that accomplishes healthy living and actually changes lives. Included are hands-on tools, discussion questions, spotlights on key points, and story after story of people whose lives have been changed by the concepts in this book. Open the pages, and find out how your church can turn a new corner on the road to spiritual maturity.

The overall health of any church or ministry depends primarily on the emotional and spiritual health of its leadership. In fact, the key to successful spiritual leadership has much more to do with the leader’s internal life than with the leader’s expertise, gifts, or experience.

The author has a website too with other information.

I think I will pick up this book. It looks like an interesting read.

Any thoughts?

* Watching my son score 12 points in his basketball game.
* Hearing from two old friends in the same day.
* Experiencing God in a church that exudes life.
* Snow
* The giggles and laughter of my children.
* The unconditional love of a dog.
* Studying the Bible with a teenaged friend.

* Rootbeer Popsicles
* Not needing a purse
* Wax Lips you could get at a candy store
* Making Mud pies and cooking them on the grill
* Having school clothes, play clothes and church clothes. The same with shoes and coats.
* My great grandmother painting my fingernails.
* My horse named Buckshot.
* Treasures at the bottom of my toybox.
* The old people that I knew that are all passed away now.
* Having the bathtub seem really big.
* Macaroni and cheese and fish sticks.
* Playing in my playhouse endlessly in the backyard.
* Swimming at the pool while mom soaked up the rays covered in baby oil mixed with iodine. (still haven’t figured that one out yet.)

What about you? What do you miss about being a kid?

This is awesome. This guy definitely knows how to move.

What Are You Saying?

Ever notice what’s on bumperstickers? Seems everybody has something to say - from religion to race fans. But do these decals define us? So - what are you saying?

Go here to watch. Click on What are you saying?

Parents, do your kids IM (instant message)?

If so, check out this article by Vicki Courtney before you let them on the computer again.

I am sure many of you watched the “Superbowl” two nights ago. 140 million people were expected to watch the game here in America and I’ve read that it is watched in many other countries as well. (Another statistic I find interesting is that 14,500 tons of chips and 8 million pounds of dip were consumed. I did my part in contributing to both of those statistics!)

Advertisers paid an average of $2.4 million to show off 30-second spots that were specially produced for the game. These ads are supposed to be the very best and that’s part of the interest for those watching on TV.

One ad showed a series of people facing very difficult situations. But then they pushed an “easy button” and everything was OK. The 30-second commercial, entitled “Easy Button Launch,” depicts a number of challenging tasks that appear to have no easy solution — a child in class who doesn’t know the answer to his teacher’s question; a cowboy wrangling a bucking horse; a father changing his twin infant’s diapers; and a surgeon performing an unusual surgery. In every instance, all hope would be lost if not for the appearance of the “Easy Button.” The spot closes with a voice-over that says, “Wouldn’t it be nice if there was an easy button for life? I have been thinking about this commercial a little since I saw it. Is there an “easy button” in the Christian life? Many of us would say, “That would sure be great if I could find that button.” Many of my clients would love for me to tell them where the “Easy Button” is.

A scripture came to mind as I thought of this commercial. “They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. ‘We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,’ they said” (Acts 14:21,22).

Paul and Barnabas are on their first missionary journey and are returning to some of the cities in which they had earlier established churches. Their message is summed up by the phrase, “strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith” (Acts 14:22a). Luke sums up the essence of their verbal message in a single phrase, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22b).

This portion bears careful attention in an age when the call to follow Christ can easily be presented as “easy.” I wonder how many of you have memorized this verse?

Notice the part “you must go through.” This seems to me to be an acknowledgement that there is no easy button in life. Thankfully during our time of hardship we can “approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

I am sure some of you today are “going through many hardships” (the KJV translates “much tribulation”). You wonder how the particular matter you are facing will ever work out. You sure would like to find that “easy button.”

My friends, let me encourage you today. God is faithful! He will make a way. It may not be the way we would prefer, but we have a promise of entry into the kingdom of God and His promises are absolutely sure. Let this truth encourage you today.