- Coffee w/my awesome wife!!! (@ Starbucks) http://t.co/e0BVX5yk
- I just became the mayor of Dr Dawson Dover Chiropractic on @foursquare! http://t.co/18mpGAWj
- It shouldn't be illegal to invest $100 in a startup! Tell Congress to act! Sign #crowdfunding petition at http://t.co/cDSPESGA via @Wefunder
- Beef! Need I say more (@ McKinnon's Market & Super Butcher Shop) http://t.co/TEYlhRmt
- 1947 FL Knucklehead Harley http://t.co/z6lWtLXl
Archive for January 2009
January 27, 2009 | 
Author Over the last several weeks I’ve been reading books and learning about Christian Leadership, volunteers, and team building. Though many of these books cover some of the same topics they offered some great advice to newly appointed leaders, like myself; how I got into this leadership role is for another post… Some of the key points I took out of books were:
|
 |
| Although many of the topics in this book were relevant to my learning, these three were ones that stood out the most. When I started helping my church with tech stuff I realized that I cant do this alone. Technology is much bigger than just one person and well, I do have a family, full time job, hobbies, friends, and many other interests so there is NO WAY I could or would be able to handle this alone… Which brings me to the second chapter about creativity.. something that I’m not very good at. So I sought out some help from a few past volunteers who just happen to have lots of creativity skills which I’ll explain in more detail later in another post. God worked in my heart by moving me toward this ministry, I began to learn that there is more to worship than singing. I could use these gifts as a tool to worship God in a tangible way as defined in Rom 12:1Rom 12:1 English: World English Bible - WEB 12 1 Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. WP-Bible plugin.. use your bodies as a spiritual act of worship.. |
|
 |
|
|
The typical ROI for most companies is about how much bang for the buck and are we getting our monies worth. This chapter talks about the Relationships with others, the Outcome of situations and the Improvements we can make within ourselves. These areas are some that I can always have room for growth. I work hard at observing every situation as an opportunity to grow in my relationship with those involved; to build lasting bonds with people as the desired outcome. Taking an interest in the members of your team will help us in achieving common goals. By having an understanding of their desires and incorporating them into our ministry team efforts we can all succeed in growing God’s kingdom. There are still many areas of growth for me .. what areas in your life are you working on? Where can you be stretched? |
|
Posted in 
Over the last couple of weeks our Small Group has been doing a manuscript study of Colossians; this week’s verses left us with the title “Don’t Stray for I AM with you”… the which struck me to think about the names of God/Jesus… and “I AM” continued to reveal itself to me…
When God commanded Moses to lead Israel out of slavery in Egypt into the promised land , God had declared, “I AM the God who was worshiped by your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” Exod 3:1-6Exod 3:1-6
English: World English Bible - WEB
3
1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to God’s mountain, to Horeb.
2 The angel of Yahweh appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
3 Moses said, “I will turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.”
4 When Yahweh saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the midst of the bush, and said, “Moses! Moses!”
He said, “Here I am.”
5 He said, “Don’t come close. Take off your sandals from off your feet, for the place you are standing on is holy ground.”
6 Moreover he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look at God.
WP-Bible plugin. When Moses asked what God’s name was, God replied, “tell them that the LORD, whose name is ‘I AM‘ has sent you Exod 3:13-15Exod 3:13-15
English: World English Bible - WEB
13 Moses said to God, “Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you;’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ What should I tell them?”
14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: “I AM has sent me to you.”
15 God said moreover to Moses, “You shall tell the children of Israel this, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations.
WP-Bible plugin.”
The Hebrew name Yahweh is related to the Hebrew verb “to be” and so may mean “I AM the one who is” or “I AM the one who causes to be.” These possible meanings of the sacred name show that Yahweh is the God who is, will be, and causes to be.
When I left the status update on my facebook “There are 2 ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it..which are you…?” I didn’t expect any comments… though one was left… from David.. “I AM the candle.”… yet again Jesus reveling himself as who he is and what he’s called us to be..
There are many references to how God uses “I AM” as his name
Jesus identifies himself as the one who supplies all needs “I AM the bread that gives life,” John 6:35John 6:35
English: World English Bible - WEB
35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not be hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
WP-Bible plugin and who brings the knowledge about God to people “I AM the light of the world,” John 8:12John 8:12
English: World English Bible - WEB
12 Again, therefore, Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”
WP-Bible plugin.
Jesus also uses this I am language to identify himself as the way for people to find God and become God’s people “I AM the way, the truth, and the life,” John 14:6John 14:6
English: World English Bible - WEB
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.
WP-Bible plugin.
I found this site that had offered the following slide show:
Can’t attend the NH.rb User group meeting because it’s too far to drive…to cold to get out of your house… well you can attend the meeting virtually through our live video blog…. while still in your bunny slippers @home
Just visit http://www.nhruby.org/live to join in the chat/blog…@ 6:50PM EST
from their site…
Pleased to announce the NHRuby January meeting, which will take place on Thursday, January 15th at RMC Research in Portsmouth (directions). Jonathan Linowes of Parkerhill Technology Group will be coming down from the mountains of Lyman, NH to speak to us about a tantalizing trinity of interesting topics:
- A demo of his pet project, ReviewRamp, presently in Beta. ReviewRamp is a SAAS (software as a service) application for collecting and reviewing on-line submissions such as business plans, conference paper proposals, and grant applications. Users create projects in ReviewRamp which have their own custom submission forms, review scoresheets, and summary reports. Implemented in Ruby on Rails.
- A review of how Jon is using Cucumber plain text stories for development and integration testing. Jon started using rSpec Story Runner over a year ago and recently migrated to the newer Cucumber implementation. Real examples from the ReviewRamp project.
- A presentation of DynamicRecord, a database engine Jon is developing for ReviewRamp. DynamicRecord extends the Ruby on Rails’ ActiveRecord (AR) object-relational mapping (ORM) module, enabling creation of dynamic attributes that look and behave like standard AR ones without the need to add tables or columns to the database.
In my daily work @ RMC Research I have the privilege to work alongside some of the greatest minds in educational research, evaluation, training and technical consulting. My job exposes me to many aspects of education and it got me thinking today as I’ve been reviewing various Learning management systems…It’s amazing how much cross over between education and church there is….So the questions of:
- Does your church offer classes? (outside of Sunday school for kids)
- Are they held in a traditional manner, on a Sunday morning during one of your services, or maybe one night during the week?
- Are they well constructed and offer a deep teaching/understanding of the topic?
- Are the topics your traditional “Learn about our church, your gifts, etc..” or are they deeper…How about a class titles like:
- “What was Jesus thinking when he was destroying the temple?
- “What’s this ‘speaking in tongues’ all about?
- Jesus can forgive why can’t I
As Christians… we are always striving to “reach one more Christ” but once we’ve reached them are we striving to “teach one more about Christ”.. and growing them…
Please share what your church is doing to Teach one more about Christ…
we had a leaders meeting @ our church tonight to talk about how our body is doing… an I thought it was a great way to learn from the body.. but sometimes hiring an expert in the field may also prove beneficial…funny how God can keep putting things in our path that is relevant to what’s going on…. When I returned home from the leaders meeting there was a new post in my feed from Anthony Coppedge about the similar subject..
Although it’s great for churches to preform these self assessments; I agree that sometimes an outside prospective is very helpful…moreover; it’s just awesome how God continues to reveal to me his plan piece by piece;. God continues to put things like Anthony’s blog post today and Jim Walton’s post this past weekend in front of me showing me his plan for me a little at a time… he is in everything…What a great God we have…
Isn’t it amazing how God can use others to help us…
In a recent post over at Jim Walton’s site; Jim talked about having a heart for volunteers and an idea of how team can grow.
As the volunteer tech team leader for our newly created tech team ministry @ dec I continue to resist God’s plan for me in this ministry. I know that he has more in-store for me and the tech team ministry.. I’ve been praying/agonizing for God’s guidance over the last several weeks about where I fit into his plan and then Jim’s post comes along… Funny how God can do that 
The largest challenge we face is recruiting and retaining volunteers; we’ve had some response and even had a large turnout for our Tech Work day back in Nov. However, there is still something lacking from our ministry… more people… other than me…you really can’t have a team of 1… So, I’ve been reading blogs, purchasing books an seeking God’s guidance in prayer about how we can grow our team and serve God and our community, and he continues to answer by providing me with more reading, more searching, and more praying for his guidance. Jim’s idea of having a video chat room full of techy leaders discussing the topic of volunteers.. was yet another way God continues to reveal to me that he wants me in this teams plan… what that looks like exactly only he knows… but I can tell you is that I will continue to pray, read and seek his guidance… thanks Jim for fanning the flames a bit more..
