Well today the journey begins.  We start the classes required to be a foster-to-adopt parent.

As my faithful readers know we have adopted one child already.  On top of our three biological children. 

My heart for adoption was set a long time ago, and our previous adoption was really a gift from God.  We didn't plan for it, we certainly weren't ready for it.  Saw God move from early on in the process.

• Was the beginning of a church change.
• Had a connection from many years ago come back to actually provide 100% free legal help.
• Had a family pay every dime of the remaining adoption cost.

There was so much that could have gone wrong, and it didn't.  There was so much that could have gone right, and they did.

Some would look at our family and say we are nuts.  I remember a sweet old lady from our first church who was upset when we had our third!  And for many reasons this doesn't make sense.

• Five children!
• Things are great in our family.
• Five children!!
• Money
• Five children!!!

But there are many reasons why this does make sense.

• It models our faith to our children.
• It models our faith to our family.
• It models our faith to our friends.
• It models our faith to our church.
• This child is likely living through hell right now.

However, most importantly:

IT PLEASES GOD

I have a lot to share about adoption, I think that will be my first post 40 days of focus theme.

I said that my last post would be my last from the weekend, but after the past few hours I just HAVE to post.

At 6PM we went to church to have a meeting recapping the mission trip that my wife and two oldest children went on a few weeks back.

As I sat there and listened to the stories I got emotional about it all.  For such a broken man to have such a wonderful family is beyond my comprehension. Knowing what could have been for my older two had our life not taken the turn it took 11 years ago makes what is my reality that much better.

However what floored me the most about tonight is my wife.  Shy as can be... she was put in a position where she HAD to speak in front of everybody and I was floored.  Like she was born to speak publicly.  Eloquent with words, cracking well timed jokes, and getting her point across.  Was very cool to see.

The mission trip was a great time for the 15 people that got to go and was great to see them bring that impact back home.

Well just a few days ago I posted about how my wife and I have celebrated our 11th anniversary.  Well what brought that on was a religious conversion.  We were non-Christians.  We were living together, we had a six month old son. 

Then the Cincinnati Church of Christ had some members come and invite us to church and then change our life's.  11 Years ago almost to the minute of this post we were baptized (stock photo by the way, not me). Some of the night is fading away from memory, though I still remember Pete calling me by my son's name... which ironically still happens to this day at my current church. 

But 11 years ago our life changed forever, and looking back on it now... I AM SO GLAD IT DID!  I couldn't imagine life without this change.  Well unfortunately I can.

My wife and I wouldn't be together.  I was highly immature and had a serious anger problem.  It would have only been so long until she would have had enough.  So my children would be another part of the statistic of living in a broken home.

I'd be struggling with employment in this non-manufacturing economy.

And worst of all... I'd probably be supporting Obama! THANK YOU JESUS! 

One day I will share the story of this period in my life.  So many God moments involved with it.

Well I stumbled across something on another blog and I'm stealing it.  With permission :-)

It has been called 40 days of focus.  Basically commit to doing things for 40 days.  Now when I saw this I had the idea that inviting some men from my church into the fold to go through this with me would be a great idea, so the invite went out to a few select men and here we are.

In August I will be involved in starting a new small group in Bethel and there are three of us guys (the fourth guy is a maybe for the small group) who for the 40 days leading up to the group launch will focus on our spiritual lives. 

Tom C, Scott W, Matt K, and myself have laid out our own goals and we will be moving forward with them.  I will post personal updates here daily, and on occasion will update you on the status of the other guys.  Plus I will encourage them to make comments on each thread as well.

From July 7th until August 15th we will be in focus.  I am really stoked about what I know God will do during this time.  I am scared about what I know the devil will do during this time.

So what are my goals?

• To read the New Testament.  ALL OF IT.  That equates to 6.5 chapters a day, so on dates that are odd I will read 7 chapters on dates that are even I will read 6. 
• To pray daily AND log my prayers. Sometimes we overlook our answered prayers.
• To wake up at 6 AM.  I am very inconsistent on my wake up time, six am gives me some time to do some of my list.
• To play with my kids when I get home.  Before I do anything else to see if they are clinging for my attention, and give it to them.
• To love my wife more.  She deserves it.

I could add more, but maybe that will happen after this 40 days.  As I could easily see this taking on a life of its own.

However I will also lay out one soft goal.  Things I'm just not sure if I can do it due to time, but we will see.

• Walk the dog (and thus walk myself) every night.

If you are a reader of this blog, are you up for the challenge?  If so grab a friend or two (or you can just do it yourself) and DO IT.

One more note to make, due to the nature of this challenge my blog will be silent of other things unless the other things warrant a double post. 

HT: Josh Young
HT: Aron

I'm going to put this out here for the record.

If I am ever at a church that has issues like this, I will immediately and without delay go to the police FIRST.

Where this church messed up was letting personal feelings get in the way.  This was/is a legal issue first and foremost and should be handled by people that are trained to get through the lies.  Imagine the heartbreak this church would have been saved if the 'politics' of it all could have been skipped at first.

HT: MMI

I was recently listening to a sermon from the Loveland Christian Church about Proverbs 22:6,

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Now one section of this sermon really hit me.  It was about what role the church plays in training a child and Brian Richard, senior minister, shared his story about how his church trained him as a child.

He gave 3 things a church can do.

1. Give Opportunity.  He talks about how his church allowed him to preach at 16!, teach children classes, teach VBS, serve communion, collect offering, and lead worship.

2. Speak into their potential.  THIS ONE hit the hardest for me.  Don't just think that a child is a natural leader... TELL THEM how you see their leadership playing out as they get older.  As adults we know how life skills play out later in life.  So if you see this persons compassion leading them to a counseling ministry, speak that into them. 

3. Live out the life style in front of them.  Well duh :-). 

This good part starts with about 8 minutes left in the sermon.

Well on June 11th I read this article in my daily RSS reading.

'Baptist Churches Renaming Themselves to Avoid "Stigma"'

Now as the beginning of this article states, the source article from the Washington Post is a bit behind the times but the simple fact is that churches ARE changing their names due to some of their (personal and name related) history.  Including my church!

But this has got me thinking, what's next?  What happens when the 'Community Church' and 'Christian Church' moniker is just as messed up as the Baptist and Church of Christ moniker?  What will we do then?  How will we avoid getting in that place?  Is that even possible?

Because the simple fact is, that its JUST a name.  The church is more than a name.  It is the people in it, and unless they are different then we will be in this same place when my children are becoming the leaders of a church.

Well church has been interesting!  If you know me you know that I have been a member of the Batavia Church of Christ for about a year, and have been attending there for about a year and a half.  As of June 1st, 2008 that all changed.  I decided to not attend the Batavia Church of Christ anymore.  Just kidding, we changed our name.  We are now LifeStream Christian Church.  

Was not my first choice by any stretch of the imagination.  But in the end it is just a name and any <insert name> Christian Church name is better than <insert name> Church of Christ.  The Church of Christ name has a well deserved black eye and some of the fruits of that is the dying of using that name.  To many church splits over stupid stuff.  To many 'crazy relatives' that attended them... just really spoiled the name of a great movement.

To say this period in church history has been smooth for LSCC, would be a great misstatement! I may be speaking out of turn here... but here goes!  During this period the bylaws were also being put of for a vote to be replaced.  Bylaws are an interesting thing... not 100% scriptural, but the Bible says that Christians should follow the law and the law says, have bylaws.  So in the end they are very much scriptural.  But we have been operating under some bylaws passed in late 2002 that have a good chunk of archaic information in them.  The proposed bylaws were very much streamlined, but there were a few things in them that made some people question if these were the right things to replace the archaic ones.  Then comes the almighty vote... 65% for, 35% against.  Passed?  Well initially this was the thought, but the thing with bylaws is that once you set them in place you are bound by them and the old bylaws stated a 66.6% majority is needed to pass bylaw changes.  So in the end the right, and ethical, decision was made to count the bylaws as failed.  So at some point in the future we will be voting again on new bylaws.

If you recall on June 1 at 6:45PM I posted a thing about leaders and how it appeared this was going to be a time of learning.  I knew by time I made that post that the leaders of LSCC had a situation on their hands and I knew by their handling of this situation I would learn a lot about them.  I am very proud to say that after a week of great personal heart burn they did the right thing.  I REALLY did not want to face the alternative.  While this was not a fun time I will say that God was glorified in it all.  There is still a long road to travel as LSCC continues to transform but we are certainly making great progress.

Post 1: History of the Restoration Movement and the ICOC
Post 2: History of the Cincinnati church of Christ

Now its time to talk about my time in the Cincinnati Church of Christ.

Highs and lows to be sure.

My ICOC history started in July of 1997.  My girlfriend and our child were living in an apartment complex in Amelia.  We had talked about going to church 'for the child'... but never acted on it.  Then I was on first shift for two short weeks. Three men came knocking on our door and invited us to church, I wasn't home at the time... I had ran up to pay the rent.  When I returned my wife, who had planned on blowing it off, told me about them so I stepped outside and found them and talked to them about church, you know, 'for the child.'

They invited us to a local Bible study in the area and through that process our life was changed forever.  The ICOC didn't mess around with sin, and we were living in sin.  They took us through a study series called 'First Principles' and challenged us to get married. [Side Note: During this time I got to know a bunch of good folks, many of which are still very faithful and living a deeply committed Christian life.]  We dropped off their radar, they thought we just weren't interested in that church stuff.  Called them a few weeks later and let them know that we were married!  Six days later, we were baptized.

The first year or two at the CCoC was a very up and down process.  The small group we were in was GREAT.  Just excellent.  But the discipling partners (basically mentors) we had were bad, just awful.  And really for a lot of our time at the CCoC this process continued.

We'd have great small group experiences, but the discipling partner thing was awful.  The men were apathetic and seem aloof.  The women were just mean and nasty toward my wife, and the ones that weren't were just apathetic like their husband. 

But our first small group is likely the reason we are still faithful.  There were some people in that group that still mean a lot to my family.  Then we were moved onto another small group, and this was a lot like the previous one but had a new dynamic to it.  The leader and of this group was basically serving as an Elder of the church.  They were the first people to really treat us like adults and not like the 19/20 year olds we were... we had two children by this time. Their family still means the world to me.  Just a great couple with three great children.  But in this group we had a very apathetic discipling partner. 

Eventually they shook things up again and we were in a new small group.  This one started off really bad.  Didn't much care for most of the people in it!  But the way the CCoC worked is that you are told where you are going to go.  But looking back now, several people in that group are some of my deepest friendships today.  Including one couple that we used to hate (and the feeling was mutual).  Couldn't stand them, and they couldn't stand us.  We fought through a lot of growth issues in this group and in the end things were really great.  But the leaders of this group needed to take a break.

Then we were moved to a group in Milford and this little section of the church had gone through some things over the years (including one of their members committing suicide).  Things were OK there, but there were some unhealthy dynamics in this group of people... however change was a coming.  Many new families (including my family) moved into the area and a place that barely had one group, had issues with the amount of people in the area.  About this time the couple leading this group had some serious church/family issues that led to them leaving the CCoC.  I think another long term couple in the area put it best... they were strangers in their own city and they didn't even move!  At this time the staff member over this part of the city decided to really shake it up. He decided to put a couple in the area as sort of a sector leader, and then put my wife and I over one group and the other couple (that at one point, and even a bit at this point) in charge of the two groups that would be in this area. 

This is when I ended up leading my first small group.  Two 21/22 year olds leading a bunch of 40+ year olds, with a few people near our life situation (married with young children).  This was some growing period for us.  Overall we did a very good job.  Had some bumps, but we formed our small group to a pretty healthy point (after a few adjustments with a few couples that didn't want to be led by a bunch of kids).  But the other group didn't fair so well, the couple in charge there just weren't ready AND some life situations sunk them a bit.  Plus the sector couple started having their own life issues.  So it left my wife and I in charge of much of this group of people.  Most were on board, some weren't.  Then more people moved in and another small group (which is actually still going on) formed.  This was likely the highest point of our membership at the CCoC... then all hell broke loose. 

The ICOC started to crumble and so a big part of our small group, sort of.  Our good friends that had been with us since we first started leading went through a divorce.  And frankly the wife said some pretty blatant lies to others about my wife and us.  Then our best friends at the time relocated to South Bend, Indiana.  We still had some good friends left in our small group... but even with that, it wasn't the same.  Plus the CCoC made a decision that I think cemented the fact that it was time for us to move on.

They wanted to hire a youth minister, and one of their requirements was that the person was a member of a former ICOC church.  It was at that point that I knew they'd always be more like a ICOC church than a 'normal' church.  So we left. Our leaving was honestly received very well.  I have always been an out spoken person, so they knew where I stood and WHY we needed to leave. 

So we left the CCoC for a smaller church in the Milford area.... but I won't go into that ;-).

Overall our time at the CCoC has made us a lot of who we are today.  I got my start in the IT industry by working for a CCoC member.  I became much of who I am today by several of the men I was around in that church.  It was because of the CCoC that my wife and I were married and were converted to Christianity. 

Our time at the CCoC was not all positive, but nothing ever is.  It was exactly where God wanted us to be while we were there.  I will be eternally grateful for our time at this church.

Was reading a blog post the other day and something was said that I couldn't agree with more.

life is too short to be part of a church that you don’t believe in.

Couldn't agree more.

If people aren't happy at your church, let them go.  Encourage them to find a new, doctrinally sound church to plug into.  Having them at your church doesn't help your church. 

Being a person that has left two churches I offer this advise to you, if somebody is leaving your church.

• Listen to the reasons they are leaving, but don't over react to it.  If they are leaving because your a snot nose jerk... don't react to being called a snot nose jerk, just let them leave.  Reacting doesn't help.  They are leaving so they likely don't want to hear spiritual advise from you.  At this point you've likely lost the right to correct them.  Leave it to God and to their new church. 
• Trust God.  The Holy Spirit is alive and well.  For all you know the Holy Spirit wants these people at a new church. 
• Pray for them.  I've said this many times in life.  Leaving a church sucks.  I've done it twice, honestly didn't have the full support of my wife either time.  But as a leader in this house she trusted my decision and in the end both decisions were the right decision to make. But pray for them.  Pray that they get connected.
• Don't talk bad about them.  It gets around.  Chances are they still talk to people in your church and things get heard or said to these friends that will get back to them. I know it has to me.
• Listen to the reasons they are leaving, and react to it! Yes, in contradiction to my first point.  Listen to why they are leaving, there is something to learn from it and adapt to in it.  Its almost never the leavers fault alone.  Both parties probably did many things wrong.  Learn from what they are saying, don't focus on their wrongs... but yours.
• Don't use their actions as justifications for your actions.  If they are snot nosed jerks, it doesn't give you the right to be one as well.  Chances are if they are leaving they are spiritually damaged a little and you shouldn't expect healthy things to come from them.  Rise above it.

Remember the people aren't your churches sheep.  They are God's sheep and God may be leading them to a new pasture to fulfill their purpose in live.