Welcome Crew
Posted onWow, good morning to you to!! Wouldn’t you like to be greeted at the entrance like this everyday?
Need This
Posted on“All Christians should become experts in their knowledge and use of the gospel [. . .] so we can speak it to ourselves every day and experience its benefits.”
Wow, that caught my ear. This is a quote from an article I just read in WorldWide Challenge magazine. It’s titled “The Gospel for Christians” and is a short adaptation from the book A Gospel Primer by Milton Vincent.
After reading it, my thoughts were “I really need this.” He makes a good point that we (believers) need the core of the gospel as much or more than non believers. It’s yet another reason that Easter has meaning beyond mere tradition. If the gospel is what the gospel says it is, then without it I’m worse off than I dare admit yet by applying the gospel then I’m in so much more of a good position (good standing) with God than I ever realized.
Without a deep soaking of this assurance of justification (good standing) before God, living the Christian life is futile.
Another quote:
“I had always believed I was justified, but I treated my justification as some sort of legal fiction that had little bearing on the mechanics of how God related to me.”
Romans 5:1-2 and Isaiah 53:5-6 unpack these concepts a little bit. I’m glad it’s clear. And I’m glad Jesus chose blatant Christian sinners like me as friends to redeem.
Addison’s Super Eight
Posted onHard to believe, but Addison just turned eight. For her party, she got to invite 7 other girls to come over for a Saturday night sleep over. Ahem, let’s not take “sleep” or “slumber” too literally in the description.
A grand time was had by all. Addison got carried away.
Cake by Shannon. Eight girls in eight sleeping bags. The sleeping bags are twinkies. Marshmellows are pillows. Oh yeah, sugar high!
View the photo album from the birthday party:
Facebook | My Photos – Addison’s Super Eight Birthday (Non) Slumber Party
And even a short VIDEO of the cake cermonies:
Skypleship
Posted onDiscipleship with Skype::
Recently I overheard a new phrase from some of our overseas missionaries: “Skypleship.” Discipleship is happening in amazing, fruitful ever increasing ways through Skype – a software tool which allows people to talk face to face over the internet for free.
Skypleship is most likely happening right now, across many time zone and country boundaries. At a conference called MinistryNet – which our team sponsored several months ago, our staff in Central Asia shared how they have used Skypleship as a filtering strategy as well as a means to interact with disciples.
Several times a month, staff spend a half an hour or so searching for Skype contacts in particular cities (Skype users may choose to be “listed” in a directory of sorts, showing as much or little contact information as they wish – such as location). Like a phone book, once you find another Skype user you want to communicate with, you send a request to that person and, if they accept, you can just push the “CALL” button on Skype and then a chat, voice or video conversation is started. In several locations in Central Asia, staff find that Skype users contacted often will be interested to talk at least for a few minutes once they learn that the person on the other end is actually from his or her region. Staff ask a few questions about the person’s interests, including spiritual interests. According to the staff, a decent percentage of people indicate a desire to talk about God, sometimes even leading to a face to face appointment for coffee or tea.
Once a relationship is established, contacts indicating further interest in Jesus can be invited to join a 5 or 6 week topical discussion group via Skype. This discussion group is a Bible study of sorts.