Praying for Haiti

By now we are all aware of the horrible wreckage done by the earthquakes in Haiti on Tuesday, Jan 12th. This is horrific and breaks my heart personally, so I do not mean for the following to sound insensitive or belittling to the hugeness of the tragedy.

Last summer July 13 - 18 2009 during our Adventure Week aka LegoLand we challenged are kids & families to collect shoe boxes for kids and fill them with toilet tree stuff, books, toys, etc. We ended up collecting over 400 boxes. We worked through an Orlando based ministry called New Missions, check em out @ http://www.newmissions.org/ The goal was to deliver them for Christmas. But God always has the big picture in mind. Through unforeseen circumstances a team of missionaries headed over to Haiti to deliver our shoe boxes along with 9,600 others this past weekend and yes they are still there (pray for a safe return for them). So a total of 10,000 shoe boxes just arrived just outside Port au Prince just before the earthquakes. How God is that! No one is able to get in or out for aid but God is using our measly old shoe boxes to let Haitian families know they are not alone nor forgotten. I'm not dumb or being insensitive. I realize that a shoe box is a shoe box and it's not going to fix everything in Haiti. But I couldn't help but praise God when I found out that our little notes of love, prayers, and encouragement are hitting the people of Haiti during a time they need it most. Please continue to pray for the victims and families in Haiti and find ways to help by going to New Missions site @ http://www.newmissions.org/

Ski Trip

Lift Ski Trip

I spent last week in West Virginia with 4 youth groups as they came together for their Winter Retreat Ski Trip. I was there as their retreat speaker and had a blast getting to know them and all God is doing in thier lives and communities. Here was the video they collected and showed for day 1 of the trip.

Bring on the New Year!

Toward the end of last year I decided to take a brief leave from the blog for various reasons with the biggest reason being a lack of time. I spent some time praying and processing what this blog will look like in 2010 and what purpose it will serve. Here is what this site will strive to look like in 2010. I initially started a blog to communicate with my family through pictures, videos, and stories. However I am making a switch where the site will have very little personal family updates and will be mostly focused on 3 areas of ministry. 1) To collaborate and communicate with other Children Pastors (aka CM) from around the web. 2) To share with parents & leaders what is happening in & through FOkids. 3) To share personal insight on my own spiritual journey. I've decided to keep family updates to a minimum due to their safety. Might sound weird but I'm just trying to be careful of who is watching my family while anyone can access our website. If this sounds weird to you it's because you don't have the most adorable daughters in the world :) I look forward to moving forward with site. Happy New Year!

Taking a break

As you may have noiticed I am taking a break from the blog to realign the blogs purpose and direction. Will start back up in the new year. Thanks, keep praying God continues to move in my family, my ministry, and in my own life.

Leadership 101; a new era has begun!

A couple of weeks ago we embarked on a new program at FOkids that I am really excited about. It's simply called Leadership 101. The thought behind it was that I saw a trend with 5th graders. 1) I noticed that too many 5th graders were checking out of FOkids around the middle of their 5th grade year, that's a problem. 2) 5th graders have the most influence they have ever had and they have no clue what to do with it. Thus came Leadership 101: which is us simply teaching the basics of what it means to be a leader. All leadership teachings and principals come directly from the main man himself Jesus, the greatest leader to ever live. The format: we'll have 4-5 off site field trips for 5th graders only for us to have fun, connect with each other in unique settings, teach team building/leadership exercises, and end with a creative environmental leadership teaching from scripture. For example for our inaugural trip we went to a place called "Rebounderz". Rebounderz is an indoor trampoline warehouse. Their are trampolines on the floors and walls. Kids loved it. After that we did a variety of leadership exercises then I taught from Exodus 2:17, which says this, "So Moses jumped up and rescued the girls from the shepherds.” So right after jumping like monkeys for an hour we talked about how we need to be like Moses and jump up and rescues people. People all around us need to be rescued from loneliness, gossip, hate, etc. We taught the kids instead of being a coward, "Jump up and rescue people." Jump up and invite the lonely kid to sit with you. Jump up and defend your friend that people are gossiping about. Jump up and love someone needs to be love. At the end of the day the kids had a blast, connected with each other, and for most of them were taught leadership skills for the first time of their life. Great stuff and we couldn't have done it without the great leadership team that helped pull this off. Thanks Kevin Wendling, Stacey Simmons, and Suzi Barr. You guys ROCK!

Phenom Book!!!

I'm going to go on and say it, "the best book outside the Bible that has helped me grow in my faith is this book called 'Devotional Classics' by Richard Foster. Richard is the author of another great book called 'Celebration of Discipline'. The book isn't written by Foster but it is written by some of the greatest men and women of our faith all throughout history. By Christian greats such as C.S. Lewis, Dallas Willard, St. Augustine, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Martin Luther, Thomas a Kempis, John Wesley, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fancis of Assisi, and Soren Kierkegaard are just some of the authors. Richard takes a similar theme to his 'Celebration of Discipline' book by making this piece all about a variety of disciplines that helps us all draw closer to Christ and reflect Him more accurately. I must worn you though that in the introduction it does accurately say that this book and principals are not for everyone. They are by our 21st century standards foreign, difficult, and maybe even weird. However if you can hang with it this book has the power through Christ to continue to transform you more into His image.