I DARE you to Pray this!

A little lesson from Francis Chan

Religion in the US

Came across these two map resources…..must see’s for those questioning the deminishing trends in Christianity and why I believe in church planting. If you’re thinking about church planting this is a must see in determining where to go!

1st–Percentage of population attending a Christian Church (click map for a larger version)

2nd–Want to know where the various religions are dominant in the US? Click on a link below to see a map.

• Religious Adherents
• Church Bodies
• Catholic
• Muslim
• Baptist
• Methodist
• Amish
• Unitarian
• Lutheran
• Lutheran Groups
  • ELCA
  • LCMS
  • WELS
• Jewish
• Pentecostal
• Latter-Day Saints (Mormon)
• Christian
• Presbyterian
• Episcopal
• United Church of Christ
• Eastern Orthodox
• Church of the Nazarene
• Reformed
• Mennonite
• Congregational
• Friends (Quaker)

Taken…A Must See

Over my vacation week I got to watch Taken! WOW, great film from storyline to camera shots it was impactful. A summer in Thailand opened my eyes to this industry and the desperate need for God’s people to intervene. Here’s a quick look into the current trafficking trends in our world.

• There are an estimated 27 million slaves in the world today…more than at any other time in history.
• Slaves generate approximately 13.6 billion dollars for slave holders per year.
• Child soldiers are being used in more than 30 countries around the world.
• In India 60-75% of all prisoners are still awaiting trial.
• In North Korea, an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people are believed to be held in remote detention camps. Their government continues to deny the existence of such camps.
• Approximately 80% of the people trafficked across international borders each year are women and girls, up to 50% are minors.
• One million new children become victims of trafficking each year.
• In South Africa 40% of women would characterize their first experience of intercourse as “forced”.

What can we do to help the organization fighting this problem?

Unplugged

Last week was a vacation week for me. My first family vacation since having Cadence. My first week off since, well….that’s interesting I can’t remember. We didn’t go anywhere to special, just up the lake to retreat (We’re church planters and it was cheap). Here’s one big thing I learned. I have a really hard time unplugging and relaxing. My mind constantly races, add to the mix an influx of friends and family over the week and well, I didn’t unplug! Better luck next time! I’m going to have to begin to infuse specific things into our vacations to make sure this doesn’t happen again. As well as finding mornings or afternoons each month to do the same. We must practice sabbath, the rhythm of life demands it!

The Furious Longing of God

Continuing this week–Thoughts from Brennan Manning

How Small is your God?

Continuing the life and teachings of Brennan Manning and his forging of my faith.

Forging my faith

One of the great men who helped shape my spiritual life is Brennan Manning. This week is dedicate to his life. His story has impacted my life and given me hope of living a ragamuffin faith. His thoughts have forced my faith forward…

“For love of you I left my Father’s side. I came to you who ran from me, who fled me, who did not want to hear my name. For love of you I was covered with spit, punched and beaten, and fixed to the wood of the cross.”

“Once you come to know the love of Jesus Christ, nothing else in the world will seem as beautiful or desireable.” 

My hope is you would at least one of his books listed here and be challenged!

Above All

Abba’s Child

A Glimpse of Jesus: Stranger to Self Hatred

Journey of the Prodigal

The Wisdom of Tenderness

Ruthless Trust: The Way of the Ragamuffin

The Boy Who Cried Abba: A Parable of Trust and Acceptance

Lion and Lamb: The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus

Signature of Jesus

The Ragamuffin Gospel

Reflections for Ragamuffins: A Daily Devotional

Posers, Fakers and Wannabes

The Rabbi’s Heartbeat

The Importance of Being Foolish

How’s Your Sight?

Having touched on the ear the other day, I thought I would add today’s thoughts about our sight!

Cadence has a unique feature in her left eye–a single brown streak that goes from her cornea to the bottom of the eye. It makes for a distinguishable feature in her precious blue eyes. Early on we took her to the doctor and questioned about whether it would effect her vision. The doctor was very optimistic about it and said it was not an abnormality, but an inherited trait.

You see Cadence has her father’s eyes–I have a single blue triangle in my right eye that goes into the black portion of the cornea. My prayer is that she sees not just through my lenses, but her heavenly father’s. I want more than anything for my eyes and my daughter’s to see the world as God sees it–a rebellious people in need of rescue and redemption!

Whose eyes do you have?

Bible Resources

Here are some great resources to help aid your daily walking/studying–use the comment function and tell me what others are out there you might be using!

YouVersion: an on-line community collaboration on passages (can be accessed with your mobile device as well)

crosswalk.com: great resources from a variety of approaches including commentaries and historical works interfaced with scripture. I primary use bible.crosswalk.com for short easy answers also love it’s searchable function

biblegateway.com: easier to use than the above for scripture searching/reading. The site also offers a wealth of other Bible study resources such as an audio Bible, commentaries, e-books, dictionaries and study tools.

greekbible.com: easliy search the meaning of words from your favorite passages (a little greek goes a long way, clickable interface–just click on words till you find the one your looking for)

Hebrew Bible Online: Not as helpful as greekbible.com because you have to actually know some Hebrew for this to work, but a great site and helpful for us academic types.

International Bible Society: Absolutly the best place to purchase bibles online. Every time I buy bulk orders I get them from here!

Wikipedia: not authoratative but a great collaboration–very useful for insights into biographies and historical locations

Bloglines: I know it’s not a direct Bible resource, but I learn a lot from others. With this you sign up for a single webpane for all the blogs you read via RSS feeds, streamlines you time so you don’t have to go to individual sites

Hurtn’ & Quotn’

Over the past few weeks I’ve had multiple interactions with people who have been deeply hurt in some form. Healing is hard! Here are some great quotes I’ve come across in the past few weeks that center on the the topic of pain and past hurts.

“to encourage healing I have to do what I can to offer hope to a world that thinks that God is distant or at least if He’s here, He’s hidden behind the façade of religious complexity and tradition.” –David Foster

“I really felt led today to teach on getting past your past…reality is that if you don’t let your past die…it won’t let you live.”–Perry Noble

“Here is the principle: People do not change until the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change…”–Ed Stetzer

“sometimes you have to forget how you feel and remember what you deserve”–Henri Nouwen

 “When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope”–unknown