Is Worship Over?

In some reading last week I was reminded again that worship starts to really take place after we leave church on Sunday.  It may be the end of our corporate worship for the week but our true worship takes place every day as we go about life with our family, friends, and work.  

Worship is a lifestyle.....an offering.....not an event.  

Here's what the Message version says in Romans 12:1-2:

"So, here's what I want you to do.  God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life--your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking around life--and place it before God as an offering.  Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.  Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.  Instead, fix your attention on God.  You'll be changed from the inside out.  Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.  Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you".

Two things I really like in the previous passage and the Message translation: 

1) "Readily recognize what he wants from you and respond to it".  

      --How many times do we know what we should do and don't respond?  How many opportunities do we 

         miss to reach out to someone or stand up for the cause of Christ?  

2)  We need to let God bring out the best in us.  Our culture wants to drag us down but God will bring out 

      the best in us.  First step?  We have to give him our everyday, ordinary life.  He'll then make something    

      great out of it for His glory. 

Did worship end when we left the church? I hope not. Our world needs it not to be.  

  

Redeemed

This song has just been on my mind for the last week and I've listened to it a lot.  I'm anxious to sit down and learn this and sing it because of the message for myself.  It's part of why I love to be involved in worship and why I think we do it.  We get to share personal worship, speak what's on our heart, and invite others to join us. I Hope "Redeemed" by Big Daddy Weave speaks to you.  I'll get out of the way let it speak for itself.

Be Blessed!

Valentine's Day

With this being the week of Valentine's Day I guess I'll write a bit (300+ words or so) about it....or at least the love my life part of it.

 As many know, or as you may have read in previous posts I've moved around a bit.  You don’t dare do something like this without a woman who believes in you and will go with you.  Actually, Deb said a couple of moves ago that if I moved again I was going by myself but I’m sure glad she changed her mind on that one.  J

I believe that God brought Deb into my life as my wife because for some reason He decided I should have someone to share life with me who would go with me from Walnut, to Lisbon, to Manning, to Norfolk, to Harlan, to Treynor, and to Carlisle.  OK, wait, maybe that says a lot more about the kind of Godly woman she is and nothing about me.  It just confirms that I am the recipient of that blessing. 

She usually previews everything I write.  She has edited Player Handbooks, Parent Handbooks, Coaching Handbooks, Letters, Resume’s, and now Blogs, but she won’t preview this one so that’s why there will probably be a lack of commas or an over abundance. 

She has listened to me during the good times, the bad times, the times I’ve wanted to quit but didn’t, the times I needed a voice of reason before making a rushed decision, and the times I needed the confirmation that a decision was the right one. 

She did all this while getting our children carted to 20 years of basketball games and only missing 2-3 during my head basketball coaching career, and those were due to someone being sick. 

I’m thankful that last year, in my last coaching gig, when we were fortunate to finish as State Runner-Up at the Boy's State Golf Tournament, she was there and shared it with me the final day. She was there three years before too when we did  it the first time, but this was extra special  because of it being my last event as a coach.  

We’re enjoying this phase of life now and enjoy our time alone eating out, going to college games, theatre and music events, or even a drive to do some shopping.  Point is, after coming up on 30 years (in December) of being together I thank God for the blessing of marriage and the love of this one woman. 

I hope if you're reading this you are, or will be, blessed with love and happiness not only on Valentine's Day, but every day.  If not, please remember that God has His plan and His timing.  Seek it, Trust it, and Live in it. 

“For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord.  “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”. (Jeremiah 29:11)  I thank God for His plan and I’m thankful He blessed me with the woman who is a wonderful mother, grandmother, and wife.  

7 Things I've Learned

7 Things I’ve Learned in 7 Months

(In no particular order)

7.   Change can be hard, but change can be good.  One of the biggest adjustments to this new job has been not having day to day, hour by hour contact with students.  This is the first time in 26 years of public school education that I haven’t been in a classroom at all.  When the students first got to school this year it was very difficult, but I've started to develop some relationships with students and those will only continue to develop.  This change made me go about forming those relationships a little differently, but it’s been good for me to step out of the comfort zone of having those opportunities handed to me just by having them in a class.  I’m excited to see how God continues to develop some of the ideas in my head to help me create more meaningful relationships as a full time administrator.  To me, it's still about relationships. 

6.  4 Months is a long time.  For the first 4 months we lived apart during the week and just saw each other on weekends.  It wasn’t ideal but the work situations made it that way.  Made me appreciate the day to day conversations we have and how much I enjoy sharing my job with Deb. 

5.  The next 3 months was better, make that much better.  We got back together as a family in our new house in late October.  We've enjoyed getting things for the house and making it our home.  p.s. Deb is fantastic at this. 

4.  I’m proud of my family.   I miss our older kids Brett and Nicole, and of course grandson Jonathan, but am really proud of what they’re doing in Salt Lake City.  I learned that SLC is a beautiful place when we got to visit them in early November.  I could also feel the need for why they are doing what they are doing with their campus ministry at the University of Utah.  Son A.J. is in his senior year and made a transition to coaching gracefully and with class after the disappointment of not being able to play his senior season.  He’s got a great future ahead of him.  Daughter Abby continues to be a great mother to our 16 month old grandson Parker and has started classes at Mercy College in Des Moines.  We’re blessed and grateful for them all. 

3.  Deb works for a great company.   TS Bank in Treynor has allowed Deb to continue to work for them remotely from our home.  There’s a reason they were voted the #1 small business to work for in Iowa.  They are fantastic people with a fantastic philosophy.  We really appreciate TS Bank, and I appreciate Deb and the work that she does for them and for our family.  As they say…..”I out kicked my coverage on that one”.

2.  I enjoy doing this full time.   I feel blessed to be able to be a full time Activities Director.  My days always go by quickly.  The nights are busy, but it makes me appreciate the time I do have off and am able to spend relaxing with family and friends.

1.   God has a plan.  “For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord.  “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”. (Jeremiah 29:11)  I still have to be about discovering HIS plan for my life every day and make that a focus.  I look forward to what He’s going to reveal to me next as He reveals His plan.  I pray I will be still enough to recognize and brave enough to follow. 

Commit

 

I’m committing to getting better.  January 28^th completed my 7^thmonth on the job in Carlisle.  At timesit can be overwhelming and make you feel like you’re spinning your wheelsgetting anywhere but we need to step back at times,  look at what we’ve done and be encouraged byprogress.  

We’ve started some projects, are doing some thingsdifferently than in the past, have other projects on the radar and have avision for what the future might look like. Part of building a vision is hoping to see progress toward it which canbe frustrating at times but I’ve always believed that success is a journey,  not a destination and believe that we have tobe about trying to get better every day even if it’s in small steps. 

One of the ways I’m going to try and get better is to communicatesome thoughts and share a blog more frequently. My goal is to have this be a larger version of Twitter to help me be moreconsistent which will keep it more manageable at around 2+ tweets length at 300or so characters, but it will probably more like 300 words since Twitter countsevery character and space to reach 140. 

I got a book a couple of weeks ago by Jon Gordon (norelation) “One Word that Will Change Your Life”.  Highly recommended.  Reads in about 30-40 minutes.  My word for the year is COMMIT.  I’m going to commit to being better in everyarea of my life.  Husband, Father,Grandfather, Job, healthy choices…you get the picture.  Every area.  Even as a blogger.  So, I’ll try to share a few thoughts once aweek on Monday morning.  I’ll COMMIT to gettingbetter.  How about you? Let’s get on thejourney together.