Archive - May, 2008

The heart

May 7, 2008 in Family Ministry, Lead 0

Sometimes I look at my blog and think to myself… “Self why are you writing, it just doesn’t seem like I’m helping anyone” And most of the time I just wish I had some wisdom to actually give people so that they won’t feel like this blog leaves them empty. Which unfortunately it does sometimes. I wish that I have inside of me somewhere this wise old man that gives advice that most 85 year old people who have lived a fantastic life would give. But I don’t.

 

I was reading the Word today and realized that God is interested in me as an individual. He spoke to me through 1 Samuel 16. God was about to pick David as king. Samuel saw someone that he thought for sure God was going to pick as the next king. 

God told him:

 1 Sam. 16:7

 

but it is also interesting to note this verse:

1 Samuel 9:1-2

 

It almost seems like a contradiction doesn’t it. But remember that the people wanted a king more so than they wanted God to rule their lives. Samuel knew that when he chose Saul, the main characteristics that he recognized were of his appearance. He should have known better than to judge based on that. Not to say that attractive people can’t do the work of God but instead that God’s priority is the heart.

 

God gave them their king: Saul and after their plan failed miserably, He provided His king David.

 

Do we refuse to allow God to rule in an area of our life and cry out that He doesn’t know what He is doing and we should do it a certain way instead? Do we judge ourselves by our heart or by our outward appearance? God help us to give our hearts to you. Mold them and change them more and more in your image, the image of Christ. We pray that our plans would be secondary to Your plans. 

 

I pray that this helps someone out there who needs it.
 

 

Special Needs Party

May 6, 2008 in Family Ministry 0

So there is this wedding coming up that is pretty important to me on Saturday. I am in it and by the end of the day I will have a new wife. 

 

So I get a phone call last night from my ‘rents telling me that my uncle is planning on coming from AL to see my marriage ceremony. He wanted to provide the old fashioned precursor statement, “Well, we have Nicholas and I don’t want people to get upset.”

 

My cousin Nicholas has special needs, along with my future brother-in-law, and the pastor’s son. So needless to say there will be a party up in here. It will be incredible. I am so psyched to see the interaction. Its like when you put you and your friends baby together and watch everything happen. 

 

It will be awesome. If you have a problem with this, then I would rather you just not come to the wedding… I’ll send you the video and a thank you card.  This is probably one of my more rude and honest posts but this is how I really feel. I cannot fathom why people would get upset at special needs children for being a little loud. Anyway, just wanted to let you know about the party on Saturday, you’re all invited.

WordPress just got cooler

May 6, 2008 in Tech 3

In case you don’t read the announcements that WordPress has, they have announced that they will be adding a feature termed lateral navigation. It’s sort of like the related videos section that Youtube has. 

 

It’s a cool feature that will probably increase traffic for a lot of people and will probably connect people more and more. It will be awesome to see how this thing works, but i thought that I should relay the message to you.

I don’t know whether I should worry or be happy…

May 5, 2008 in Life 0

About 12 people came and visited my blog today by searching for Kristen Barfield in a search engine. Anyway in 5 days they won’t be able to find her because her name will be Kristen Thompson…

 

This is also funny because no one has ever searched for my name to get to my blog… kinda humbling haha

Reflection

May 5, 2008 in Family Ministry, Lead 0

Now that I’m living in an apartment there are so many people around to observe. That makes me extremely excited because its fun and insightful when you observe. I’ll give you an example of something I observed this weekend at the pool at my apartment. 

 

There were three little girls from the community. They played together all day long. It was funny to watch the exploration and adventure of the girls as they experienced the pool together as a group. I sometimes wish I could go back to my exploring days or at least have a little bit of that innocent and curious spirit like I once had. With kids, you often see the grace and love of God paired with the doctrine of original sin all in one, haha. You see the community that God’s people should have when the girls hold hands as they jump in the pool and help one another out of the pool and synchronized swimming meets, it was just fun.

 

But then you also see the fringes of the flesh rising from the innocence of a child. Their food that they once shared are no longer community property but instead selfishly stored for the individual. Or when the girls are leaving the lack of community to wait for one another on the way out. Or the mean things said. Or the unbelievably shocking conversation of weight that three 8 or 9 year old girls had. It was shocking.

 

If you don’t think that we should be using our resources to reach kids now before their teens or even their adult years… take some time to observe, you’ll see.

Orange Observations 2

May 1, 2008 in Family Ministry 0

What a great conference!

 

There were so many amazing speakers: From Chan to Stanley to Giglio. It was absolutely amazing. The worship was phenomenal! I will give you some highlights of things that I learned:

 

  • “God gave you a unique role as a father and husband, many people can pastor a church… maybe even better than you. But there is only one father to your children and one husband to your wife.”
  • Cultural Relevance may become the golden calf of the church.
  • Influence is not the same as leadership

I learned so much and will probably go into depth in the future about certain people and what they said. I was incredibly blessed by the conference and certainly have a lot to chew on. 

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