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Changing Views

September 14, 2011 in Community, Faith, Family, Receptivity of God with 0 Comments

Recently I was able to spend a week at my favorite place on Earth, Camp Calumet.

My time there was at the end of our family vacation and I was able to relax and enjoy the experience completely.

I realized a few things while I was on the trip. First , I need to take a vacation more often. For the first time in my pastoral ministry I was able to take a real vacation. I was away from the church long enough to clear my head and focus on my family and friends.

Second, I love my friends. I have been blessed with so many great friends and they are there to love and nurture me both personally and professionally. During my time away I was able to talk about all the things that I have been thinking about for awhile and I was able to get advice and comfort.

Third, I realized how Camp Calumet has changed for me over the years……

When I was eight…

Calumet was about meeting new friends, it was about camp-wide games, it was about “the dance”, it was about staying up late and sleeping in my sleeping bag.

When I was sixteen….

Calumet was about spending my summers at camp, it was about meeting up with my friends every summer, it was about the Boys Junior end, it was about pranks, it was about girls, it was about the campers, it was about days off, it was about mandatory fun, it was about arts and crafts.

When I was twenty-two……

Calumet was about PUDDLE, it was about double days off, it was about friends, it was about girls, it was about the campers, it was about being on the year round staff, it was about Calumet in the Winter, it was about Campfires on the beach, it was about the quietness of camp, it was about the guests, it was about hanging out with my friends all weekend, it was about the Whitter House, it was about Rosies.

When I was twenty-eight……

Calumet was about the value of all I have experienced, it was about memories and good times, it was about the friendships I developed, it was about the occasional visits with my family, it was about Rosies, it was about visiting North Conway, it was about introducing Calumet to anyone and everyone.

Now that I am thirty-three…..

Calumet is about occasionally being the Chaplain, it is about Indian Food, it is about Summer Finale Week, it is about my kids having fun, it is about Rosies, it is about the Staff House, it is about Lake Ossipee, it is about spending time with my best friends, it is about deeply connecting with a God who is always with me but most present when I am connecting all aspects of Calumet for me.

I have enjoyed all aspects of Calumet for me and I know that as I continue in my Relationship with this wonderful place its meaning will continue to evolve.

God’s Weeds

September 11, 2011 in Faith, Receptivity of God with 0 Comments

“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” – John 15:7

Yes, dandelions are weeds, it is true. People spend so much of their time during dandelion season trying to get rid of these pesky little things. But if you stop and think about it, God made these two. And He loves them for one reason or another.

When you were a kid you had no idea that those yellow flowers were weeds. If you were anything like me, you picked bunches and bunches of them for your mother and told her it was a bouquet of flowers. And then for the next 24 hours she was forced to put them in a glass of cool water and set them at the middle of the dinner table while they quickly drooped over the side of the glass. And then bright and early the next morning, you go out and pick a bunch more and the day starts all over again!

I don’t know how old I was when I learned that dandelions were weeds; but I remember knowing at that time that weeds were considered to be a bad plant. Yet no matter how I tried to manipulate my mind, I couldn’t help but love dandelions. The beautiful sunny yellow in contrast with the bright green of the grass is one of the most beautiful things I can think of! But not nearly as beautiful as when all those dandelions turn from yellow, to a whispery thin white.

I truly believe these weeds are God’s gift to people. Have you ever walked past a white dandelion without thinking of all those wishes you made as a child? Have you ever felt like making one now? These wishing weeds are here on this earth to remind us of our blind trust in whatever invisible force we would wish to as children. When we were little we put our trust in something we thought was a flower! We would make a wish for things such as a pony for Christmas or a night at the amusement park with ice cream to follow!

As much as we put our trust in a flower, imagine what can happen when we put our trust in God! He is the only one that can make our wishes come true. God is all around us, even in those weeds that no one wants littering their perfect lawn. So don’t think of those weeds as pesky, think of them as a chance to wish for something from God. God wants us to be happy, He wants us to trust Him, and He wants us to ask things of Him.

Keep God in your heart, always. Bring His love and joy wherever you go and use it your everyday life. Do this, and your wishes will be given to you. God takes care of those who serve Him and live their lives for Him. So go do it! The next time you find one of these wishing weeds, pick it up, make a wish or send a little prayer to God, and blow those seeds off. By spreading these seeds you are spreading God’s love.

6 Ways to Experience a God Moment

September 1, 2011 in Faith with 1 Comment

Sometimes it is hard to know when we actually experience a God moment in our life. Not only that, but most of the time we are too busy with the day-to-day tasks of living that we don’t fully prepare ourselves to fully immerse ourselves in the greatness of God.

Here are six things that we can do everyday to prepare ourselves for the God Moments which surround us everyday.

1. Begin each day with God.

Sometimes I find it hard to start my day off with God. With two young children I spend most of my morning getting the children up, showered and dressed before I send them downstairs for breakfast.

However, once I get them downstairs I have an opportunity to open myself up to God and what God has planned for me. I do tend to start my day off with God through music, scripture and reflection.

For example, meditate on a hymn, music is a way that I strongly connect with God. I love to sing, play piano or guitar and just let myself go and connect with God.

Another way is through reading scripture. I read the Bible a lot. I read it to prepare myself for Bible studies, my sermon or other church related tasks. It is easy for me to let my personal devotions take a backseat. But every time I do spend some time immersing myself in God’s Word I feel an immediate connection with God.

2. Pray.

I love talking with God. Since God knows me inside and out I feel like I don’t have anything to hide. As I read scripture, sing a song and reflect on what I am reading I am constantly in conversation with God.

An easy pattern to follow is to first Confess any known sin and pray for your needs and the needs of others. Don’t be afraid to ask God questions, any question on your heart.

God has promised that He will never leave us nor forsake us. Therefore tell Him your innermost thoughts. Ask Him for help in every difficulty. Nothing is too small to matter; nothing is too great.

4. Have a mindset of being thankful

Walking around with a negative attitude will not enable us to open our heart to God. Instead try to focus on the blessings God has put before us in our lives. Learn to thank God in every situation. I believe that being thankful produces joy and that joy will lead to the ability to experience a God Moment.

5. End the Day in meditation

Most of us experience so much during the day. Most of us start our days early in the morning and don’t end until we crash in our bed 10-12 hours later. Sometimes we are so busy we don’t see the God Moment right in front of us. As we end our day it is helpful to start to process all that we experienced and to thank God for all that He has blessed us with throughout the day.

God and Water

August 14, 2011 in Blog Series, Faith, Receptivity of God with 1 Comment

‘“Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.”

So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed Him.’ – Luke 5:10-11

There are two areas, or situations, where I feel closer to God than normal. One is during thunder storms. The ferocity of the wind and the over powering sound of the thunder mixed with the pounding of the rain on my windows is better than any music I listen to. To me, God’s beauty, and His strength, is amplified during storms.

The second place I feel closer to God than usual is near the water. Rain, seas, streams, and lakes all hold an incredible sense of God’s majesty for me. In this picture, the waves rolling in, bringing the smoothly tumbled stones to the shoreline, remind me of God’s tender love for his people. He pulls us out into his ocean, or lake, of love and peace and washes away our sins until our souls are smooth. Then He deposits us back to our lives to help smooth the way to His love for others.

When I got home from the lake and started searching for a verse for this picture, Luke 5:10-11 seemed to fit perfectly with the thoughts I was having while taking the picture. Jesus’ disciples abandoned everything they had to follow Jesus, not knowing what was going to come of it and they put all their trust in Him and did not question it.

That is what God wants all of us to do now. He wants us to put all our trust in Him, without knowing what the future holds, and abandon our current lives for the smooth ones that He can create for us through the waters of His love. The Lord is our own personal body of water and we are the little stones along the shoreline. God wants us to come to be washed smooth and clean and then return to the shore. The stones on the shore are beautiful and make people look at them, wondering how they became so smooth. We need to live our lives in beautiful ways that make people stop and look, and wonder how we became so happy.

And what will we tell them? God. God made me this way.

Fast Approaching Fall {Tuesday Thoughts}

August 9, 2011 in Blog Series, Faith with 0 Comments

{This is a part of a series called Tuesday Thoughts}

God Moments

I am getting SO excited for the fall and the ministry opportunities at the church. People are really stepping up and doing some great planning for the upcoming church year.
The kids are attending another church’s VBS this week. They seem to be enjoying it and learning some great stuff. I love to watch my kids grow in their faith.
For me the anticipation of Fall is too real. I have this feeling that fall is closer than we think, even if it is between 80-90 degrees most days. Perhaps that is also wishful thinking.
I have the best dog in the world.
I have a new contributor to the blog. I am very excited about this, I think she will start posting this upcoming Sunday!

Life Connections

About a week and a half and I will be on vacation! I don’t think I have been on a real vacation since August of last year (I did have a stay-cation back in May).
I think I am excited about the fall because I want my routine back!
I am very excited to go camping with some friends this weekend. I will be good to get out and have some fun.
I haven’t been sleeping well recently — I think part of it is trying to get everything done before I leave for Vacation — So much to do, so little time.
We have survived not having cable this summer. There are some things that I miss but overall I am happy with our decision. I am not sure what kind of deal we can work out with Direct TV but I hope we can cut the cable cord forever!

What is happening in your life the past couple of weeks? Are you looking forward to the fast approaching fall?

When the Waves Come Crashing Down

August 3, 2011 in Bibledude.net, Faith with 1 Comment

Read: Matthew 14:22-33

In have a lot of memories from playing football in high school. I was a pretty good lineman (both defense and offense) and I loved playing the game. One of my memories was a drill where guys would line up in two rows about five yards apart. Each player would have these padded football shields. We would take turns running through the gauntlet to the end where our coach was holding on to a 48″ football dummy bag. Our goal was the run through t gauntlet until we got to the coach and then we would hit him as hard as we could driving him back five to ten yards. The trick was as we were running through the gauntlet our teammates would be hitting us with these dummy shields as hard as they could, trying to knock us down. So we would run entering the gauntlet and make it twenty-five yards to freedom. After a few times doing this drill I found if I absorbed the hits and focused on my coach, I could make it to the other side with very few problems.

I suspect that’s how Peter felt as he started his journey walking on the water towards Jesus. He kept his eyes focused on Jesus, taking one step at a time and he let all other distracts fall by the wayside. This worked for awhile but soon the hits became too much and he started to fall, he took his eyes off of Jesus and started to sink into the abyss.

I don’t know how long Peter took his eyes off of Jesus, my guess is a second or two. But during those few seconds Peter lost his focus and he started to fall into the water!!! Now, I am sure he was terrified, I am sure his life started to flash before his eyes, I am sure he thought he was going to die but suddenly Jesus came into the picture and Jesus pulled Peter out of the water. Thanks be to God!

We can totally relate to Peter! Because we too have our battles to face, they might not be football players trying to knock us down or enormous waves come crashing around us.

To read the rest of this blog post please visit www.bibledude.net

Sowing Seeds of Faith

July 6, 2011 in Bibledude.net, Faith, Receptivity of God with 0 Comments

Read: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

We use to sing a lot at Bible camp. I was a counselor at a camp for about 10 summers. This past week I took a bunch of my kids from the church where I am a pastor to camp for our yearly confirmation retreat. It brought back a lot of good memories from summers past. After reading this upcoming week’s Gospel lesson I thought of an amazing song someone use to sing at camp way back when.

The words are:

Lord, let my heart be good soil,
open to the seed of your word.
Lord, let my heart be good soil,
where love can grow and peace is understood.
When my heart is hard, break the stone away.
When my heart is cold, warm it with the day.
When my heart is lost, lead me on your way.
Lord, let my heart, Lord, let my heart, Lord, let my heart be good soil.

When I sing this I am brought to the foot of the cross of Jesus and I am praying for God to be with me in my times of trouble. I am praying that the word of God is planted in my heart and that I can plant the seed of God’s word in other people’s hearts.

Integrity

June 1, 2011 in Community, Faith with 0 Comments

I have been thinking about the word integrity lately. Do you consider yourself a person with integrity?

The other day I was at Home Depot to buy some materials to build a sandbox (pictures to come later). Part of the purchase was some rebarb and the woman at the checkout did not know how much they were, so she asked me. I told her what I thought price was and she said “okay.” Then she asked me how many bags of sand I had and I said six and instead of double checking she said “okay.” Finally I bought 12 pieces of wood and she checked me out and told me to go get what I needed.

Now I could of told her that the price of the rebarb was lower than what it was listed for, I could of told her that I bought four bags of sand instead of six and I could of taken as much wood as I wanted. But I would not of felt good about that because I have integrity.

For me someone with integrity bases their actions on a consistent framework of principles. To have integrity is to have some set of core values. Now we need to remember, not everyone’s core values is going to be the same, also an individuals values will change over time. But as long as the values are consistant and they are in line with the person’s actions then you can say that person has integrity.

Throughout history, every great philosopher and religious leader has tried to teach us the same lesson – the principle that integrity, or wholeness, which they have claimed is the natural order of things. In spite of the fact that we live in separate bodies, houses, and nations, the bottom line is that we strive for unity. We are constantly looking for someone with integrity to bring us together for a unified purpose. The trouble is that we don’t always agree on that purpose.

We see this lived out throughout time starting in the Bible. Psalm 78 is the story of God’s people from their captivity in Egypt until the time of King David. It tells us that God was good to His people, but like us, often they found themselves not listening to God. They wanted to have a leader to bring them together so they demanded to have a king, a military leader and eventually God blessed them with King David. Now David was not always perfect but as we read in this Psalm (verse 72) that he led his people with integrity. This is a consistent characteristic of David throughout 1st and 2nd Samuel. Throughout his whole life David was able to stand up for truth, justice and the rights for his people and he did not back down when faced with hardships.

Perhaps we can learn from David and others who have lived their lives with integrity. Because when we have integrity, we align ourselves with all the saints that have gone before us. When we lives our lives with integrity we align ourselves with God. And when we live with integrity, we become very powerful indeed.

The Fireworks of God

May 30, 2011 in Bibledude.net, Faith with 0 Comments

“In the beginning…” starts John’s Gospel, “was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” (John 1: 1-3) John tells us that God was there in the beginning with the word. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The rest of the gospel details the evidence of that glory and, more surprisingly, our participation in it.

God’s glory in John is experiencing Jesus first hand. It is like being in the heart of a fireworks show rather than watching it on TV. To be there in person means that you see first hand the light, you feel the thunder of the explosions, you find yourself breathless by the amazing colors and designs, you are caught up in the majesty and power and wonder and extraordinary transcendence of it all. Not only are the sights amazing but looking around and seeing the reactions on other people’s faces, hearing the oooo’s and the ahhhh’s from the assembly gathered is what makes the entire experience special. Everyone’s eyes are filled with wonder, and for a moment we are all connected with one another…….

I am blogging over at Bibledude.net. If you would like to read the rest of this post — head over there and check it out!