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Hey OWNit365.com participants!!!  Want a free iPad???  Check out this announcement from Grace Church!

OWNit365.com Stories - Win a Free iPad. We’d love to hear how OWNit365.com has impacted you, your family, or others in your world. Send us your story at stories@graceks.org and we’ll enter your name in the drawing for a free iPad. Mark 2:11 “so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying , ‘We never saw anything like this!’” Please submit your stories by Thursday, August 4.

Don't Be a Loving, MISGUIDED Parent

I think every parent KNOWS they should protect their kids. I think most every parent WANTS to create a healthy, safe environment for their kids.

Jesus was a HUGE advocate for protecting kids. In fact, using pretty graphic imagery. Once Jesus said, "It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, that that he should offend one of these little ones." (Luke 17:2) Ouch. I think all of us can relate to that thought, especially when you hear of a child enduring brutal violence or being sexually molested.

At the same time, I think there's a disconnect in society.

• Dating -- Parents sometimes encourage their kids to date/have a girlfriend/boyfriend WAY, WAY, WAY too early.  (I've heard of parents brainstorming together about their boys and girls starting to date each other as early as 6th grade! Really?)
• TV & Internet -- Parents quite often allow their kids to have UNRESTRICTED access to internet or cable TV. (You wouldn't let a strange man go play with your kids upstairs by themselves, would you? Then why would give your kids head upstairs to have unrestricted access to the explicit images and video of strangers, instead of installing a product like www.SafeEyes.com?)
• Emails & Texts -- Parents, I'm sure out of an honest desire to help their kids, provide email accounts or iTouches or cell phones to allow them to communicate. But these tools often include UNMONITORED emails or text messages. (Someone forwarded me an email a child received from another child. It had a link link to a racy YouTube video with this note [ACTUAL EMAIL], "this a dirty video but i love the song!!!  you will luv it too !!! but ya it is really dirty and made feel WIERD!!! if u know what i mean!!! hehe". If your child wanted email, why wouldn't you provide monitored email when they're at a young age? If your child absolutely HAD to have a cell phone, why wouldn't you limit who they can send/receive texts from?)

We need to close the gap as parents.

I know many of us think to ourselves, "If I just show trust to my kids, they'll come out OK." You're wrong.

We think, "My kids don't have friends who will send them that stuff." You're wrong.

They need you need to protect them and journey with them as they grow.

Join Us Live at 9pm CDT tonight

Tonight's the night.

Join Pastor Ben & I LIVE ONLINE @ 9PM CDT in a round table, talking about "Senior Pastor / Worship Pastor Relationships."

• What's it REALLY like to work on staff in a church?
• What's it REALLY like to navigate leadership/relational challenges in the public eye?
• What's it REALLY like to work with Ben?  (I wanna know!)

Click here for details on how to join us online.

See you at 9p!

I'm Baaaaaaack...

I'm baaaaaaack!

I've been trying to unbury myself since family vacation to give me enough space to catch everyone up and rejoin the blogosphere.  I think I'm there.

The vaca-update will have to wait for the weekend. But I wanted to give everyone a heads up about some big dates on the horizon.

• Fri Aug 13 -- Our middle & high schoolers are having "Re-Entry"...an overnite lock-in as a blow-out to close out the summer. I'll be speaking to the students from John 2 (one of my favorite stories), and recording artist / worship leader Joe Henchsel is flying in from San Diego for the event
• Sat Aug 14 -- I have 2 funerals to attend.  My aunt Tina finally succumbed to cancer after many years of battling it.  She passed away after we returned.  I was with her & my mom as she passed. The other is a former member of grace, Mike Scott, who passed away in a tragic truck accident in Nebraska. Be praying for the whole family, including those still a part of Grace & hurting.
• Sun Aug 15 -- Joe Henschel will be leading worship with us. Pastor Ben will be working the audio. And I'll back in the saddle again.  I CANNOT wait.  You do NOT want to miss THIS Sunday. We're kicking off "The Bottom Line" series with the bottom line "On God." Check out Deuteronomy 6 for a preview. (Did I say you don't want to miss it?)
• Sun Aug 15 -- Grace Movie Night!!! We'll be watching the movie "Up" together at 6 p.m. in the nice cool air conditioning. :-)
• Mon Aug 16 -- Pastor Ben & I will be LIVE on the AllAboutWorship broadcast at 9 p.m. CDT talking about the "Senior Pastor / Worship Pastor Relationship."  (If you didn't know it, sometimes thoese relationships stink & hold back the entire body of Christ). We'll be joined by 2 other nationally known worship leaders, Troy Kennedy & Fred McKinnon. CLICK HERE Monday night at 9 p.m CDT & join us on TalkShoe!
• Tue Aug 17 -- Steve Baker who is leading a team to Spain to do Short Cycle Church Planting (& shared his story at Grace back on July 11th) will be in our office the entire day, sitting in our our weekend service team meeting, staff meeting, pastors meeting, and semi-quarterly planning meeting. A great day to hang with a great leader.
• Wed Aug 18 -- School starts.  Are you kidding?  Where did the summer go?

More L8R!

5 Things I Think I Think

It's late.  I'll cut to the chase...

• Watching our Wednesday Study Online -- I got this OUTSTANDING story from someone yesterday, after they found they could watch our Wednesday Bible Study live online:  "Making this live stream available is a blessing. We have been trying to get to Bible Study but with the children and my husband working late, it has been difficult (really I think that its the enemy trying to stop our progress). But today I was able to finally watch and get hooked! God bless the ministry! See you Sunday!"
• Best Coffee Shop -- If you're looking for a place to have a great cup of coffee, try Revocup on the NW corner of College & Quivira.  Great coffee.  Great owner.  (We found out we both were in the Loma-Prieta earthquake together back in 1989.)
• Jumpin' to Conclusions -- Found a story which illustrates that we can too easily jump to the WRONG conclusions based on what we see.  Check out John 11:28-32.
• Any Rascals Out There?? -- Does anyone out there have a Rascal Scooter I can borrow at the office from roughly May 20 to June 20?  I want to terrorize tool around the office on it during the month I have to be on crutches.  Lemme know!
• Daddy-Daughter Dance -- Check out the picture from Grandma.  Enough said.  :-)

Nervous Pizza Man

I just saw a list of the "40 Ways to Make the Pizza Man Nervous."  Cracked me up.

Here were my Fave-12...

1. Ask him if they have pizza.

2. Say “Hello” and act as if he just called you.

3. Imitate the voice of whoever's taking the order.

4. Stop speaking every 10 seconds and start playing an instrument.

5. Spell out every ingredient.

6. Explain him that you want to "rent" a pizza.

7. While you are you are making an order, randomly start pressing the numbers on the phone and tell them to stop doing it.

8. Tell a secret code to the guy taking the order and tell him to memorize it for orders you’ll make in the future.

9. Make the order during a car chase on TV. When there are gunshots, yell "Aaarghhh."

10. Avoid using the word “PIZZA” by any means. If the guy taking the order says it, hang up saying "Please, don’t use that word with me."

11. Ask for mushrooms as the first ingredient, then before you hang up, say "and no mushrooms please." Then hang up before he can say anything.

12. Finish the order with: “Remember, this conversation never happened”.

Vaguebooking

Now this post had me laughing OUT LOUD last night.  How many times have I see this??

It's called "vaguebooking"; an intentionally vague Facebook status update that prompts friends to ask what's going on (i.e. "Tim...really shouldn't have done THAT just now!").

Cracked...me...up.  :-)

2009 Wrapup

I've been unplugged the last few days. Instead, I've been hanging with the family & working furiously on home projects. But I've got several thoughts I wanted to post as we close out 2009.

• Op Christmas Child Update -- Not only did our church double our number of gifts from last year, the US collection was at an all time high too, going from 4.88 Million to 5.16 Million. Awesome!  (And way to go, DeDe Schamberger, our champion for this ministry at Grace.)
• Op Christmas Child Story -- Pam Rousch sent in this story of how God was using our Children's Ministry & Operation Christmas Child to change a family's life: "I want to pass along a story of how K/1st graders are making a difference.  Maddie...decided instead of birthday gifts for herself to ask for items to put in a shoebox for Operation Christmas child.  She is thinking of others before herself and is trying to spread the idea of missions and giving to all her friends.  Way to go Maddie!  One person can make a difference and spread the Word of Jesus Christ."
• Video Ministry Studs -- Our video team has improved the video quality of our services, and integrated images from our projector-slides with the live feed.  Way cool.  You can check it here or here.
• Christmas Eve Story -- One member of our weekend service tech team sent me this story about Christmas Eve: "Personally felt like we had a couple of instances where we (the worship team) had to fight to bring this one together. Love when that happens because it generally means we're being effective at reaching people. Thanks for the comments about lives being changed. Lets me know it's worth the effort! Thanks for the opportunity to serve in a minor way."
• Christmas Eve Thanks -- People sent these notes of thanks:
• • From the Macoubrie family -- "We weren't able to make the Christmas Eve service this year. At the last minute we thought of the Live Video Cast.  Although it wasn't quite the same as being there in person, it was still a wonderful experience to listen to the sermon and watch the candle lighting. Thank you for all your hard work and Merry Christmas."
  • From Miriam Maina -- "Loved the service pastor Tim. I just viewed it online.The candle light moment is awesome, and the reflection of the light that Jesus brought forth. I love Christmas Eve coz it's also my birthday!"
  • From Isabelle Schafner (re: Dec 13th Service) -- "Just wanted to thank you and the Grace team for having such incredible technology at Grace. I was sick last Sunday and was very disappointed that I wouldn't hear your sermon. Then I remembered about the live feed video.  It took me a couple of minutes to figure it out (I am over 40, you know :).  Anyway, I was able to follow the whole service and sang out loud at my kitchen table--though I do sound a lot better when Ben is drowning me out! :)"
• New Year's Quote -- I got this quote from Jim Shrader and I thought about how people are reflecting on 2009 & looking forward to 2010: "I thought I'd send you the Ziglar quote...'Failure is an event, not a person.' He uses it in context of goal setting with an example of a pilot flying from one place to another.  A pilot doesn't land and start the journey over if they get blown off course, they make subtle changes in their flightpath so they reach their destination.  Failure isn't a reason to give up or start over, it's just a crosswind keeping you from your destination.  Correct, overcome, and realize it's an event."
• Christmas Videos -- Here are links to the video we used for Christmas Eve, and a funny video Granger Church used.

Have a Happy New Year!

Web Bonus - Wrestling with God

Our topic yesterday was "Wrestling with God" from Jonah 4.

When someone is "Wrestling with God," they are going through the process of resolving the tension between THEIR desires and what GOD'S will appear to be.

When we find ourselves "Wrestling with God," we're about as successful as this young man in the red shorts.  :-)

Some "thots" on yesterday:

• Several Profession of Christ -- There were several people (10+ or so?) in all 3 services that recognized that they received Christ as their Savior yesterday!
• A Crash Course on Anger -- I said yesterday that one of the symptoms that appear when someone is wrestling with God is "handling anger inappropriately."  It's not a sin to be angry...that's a big myth among Christians...the thought that it's wrong to be angry.   However, we need to know how to handle our anger appropriately (Eph 4:26).  But what does that mean?  We need to:
• 1. Slow ourselves down -- We need to slow down our emotions and our mouth.  A person who doesn't have control over their emotions is defenseless (Pro 25:28).  A person who doesn't have control over their mouth can't control the rest of their body (Jas 3:2).  A person who is quick to anger is a FOOL (Eccl 7:9).
  2. Find out the facts first -- It's amazing how often we see a fact or two, misinterpret what they mean, then get mad about our own misunderstanding & misinterpretation!  We need to avoid judging things by their initial appearance (John 7:24).  We need to make sure we focus on listening before we allow ourselves to get angry (Jas 1:19).  We need to get the full story before we get angry (Pro 18:17).  To do this, we have to place a healthy MIS-trust in our OWN first impression.
  3. Resolve our anger today -- If we let anger stay inside us, without resolving it, we are just ASKING for problems.  Unresolved anger is like a cancer waiting to spring up and affect everyone around you (Heb 12:14-15).  Unresolved anger is like inviting the devil into your home & life...he lives & works in the space provided by unresolved anger (Eph 4:26-27).
• The Jonah Movie -- Guess what I found online this week.  The entire Jonah movie on YouTube.  It's found here.

FYI, this Wednesday night, we're taking a break from our Numbers study for our Ignite Worship Night (7-8 pm).  Make sure you bring some supplies for Hillcrest Transitional Housing (like Hamburger Helper, Chicken Helper, Tuna Helper, boxed cereal, mac & cheese, canned chicken, & laundry detergent).

Next Sunday, we'll close out our "Beyond" series talking about "Choosing your God" from Nahum 1.  Nahum was written about Ninevah some 70-100 years after the story of Jonah.  It's "the rest of the story..."

E-vites!

I'm up at the office now.

I limped in on my day off (Friday) b/c my house is empty.  Cathy, Jacob, & Karina are all up at Grace's Elementary Camp this week.  And from the looks of things, they are having a blast

Why did I "limp" in?  Because of this crazy marathon training program my friend Kevin has me on (he, of Endurance Planet).  We are supposed to put in an 18-mile training run this weekend...for a marathon in mid-October!

Anyway, the reason I wanted to write today is that our Grace web team is flat out "UH-MAZE-ING."  Their attention to our website & its design is awesome.  (Here's a special "shout out" to Steve & Jeremiah who we can all thank for it!)

They recently added the ability for us to "E-vite" our friends to upcoming weekend series.  So check out the new Grace E-vite link here & try it out on your friends for God.  :-)