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

Foxnews recently posted an article about how conservatives are happier than liberals.  And the reason given for it is that conservatives can 'rationalize social and economic inequalities'.

If you read into the article it basically says that conservatives are OK with it because they know that if a person works hard in life, they will make something of themselves.

I am living proof of that.  I didn't grow up with things handed to me, but I got a job, went to school and here I am today.  Living pretty well. 

I've never seen a person that works really hard and does what they need to do fail over and over again.  They may have some hard times, but we all do. 

Sometimes we think we are just so smart.

A family had a son who died of some kidney issues.  Then had a second child born with significant kidney issues (and currently has just one).  Then there was a third pregnancy.  They did some initial test and determined that this child was going to have kidney issues, so they decided to have an abortion.

The abortion failed!  So at 19 weeks they decided to keep the child.  Even then the test showed significant kidney issues.

Then the child was born.  With minor kidney issues and is expected to lead a normal life.

So much for our 'early test'.

HT: Foxnews.com

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.

Being a leader is easy. 

When things are going well.  The true measure of a leader are when things suck.

Over the years I've known many leaders.  Some good, some bad.  Some great, some horrible.  From work to church I've seen the full run of them.  I've seen some 'great leaders' get exposed with things went south.  I've seen some great leaders rise up when things went south.  I've seen some leaders show why they are where they are when things went south.

I find that times of trouble are very good for you in the long run.  Because it is times like this that give you credibility in your role.  Give you things to build upon when bad things happen in the future. And more importantly it hopefully helps you to prevent things from going south in the future.

I think its time for more learning.

The Bible is very clear.  Men should lead the way in the church (and in life really).

I've been very encouraged in my church as the men's ministry, called the Trailblazer's, has stepped forward and started fulfilling that role.

Over the past month we have been blessed to see four men give their life's to Christ.  If you recall from my previous post my church recently had a men's retreat.  Going into that the leaders actually had a specific goal for two young men.  They are key parts to the men's ministry, but we also knew that they hadn't taken that next step.

A week or two after the retreat these two men gave their life to Christ.  I'd be silly to say that the credit belongs to the men's ministry.  But I am glad that the men's ministry did have a role in this process.

Then the next week another man, who also has been a very big part of the men's ministry came forward and unknown (suspected, but not confirmed) to me hadn't yet taken that next step and gotten baptized.  Last week that was taken care of.  I actually know this guy pretty well and I've seen him grow over the last year as a man.  Both in the church and in his family.

Then this week a young man I first met on the men's retreat, came forward and gave his life to Christ.  Before the retreat I did not know this guy existed.  He was fully in the youth ministry (he turned 18 the first day of the retreat).  He has since become a great part of our men's ministry.  It has been a great pleasure of mine to get to know him as a fellow brother.  He is actually going to Cincinnati Christian University to become a minister!  He and his family have been through some hell over the past few years and the fact that this guy is as mature and put together that he is, is a testament to God's grace and his mom's perseverance in loving her children.  I had planned on having a conversation with this guy about his conversion, due to some conversations we had.  But it seems like things were pricking his heart and he made the right decision on his own.  Again just a testament to the kind of guy this young man is.

Its been great to see the men of my church step forward and lead the way.  In a day and age when men are disappearing from the church, it is something special to sit back and watch the men of my church do what they are doing.  Just glad to be along for the ride.

So I just got a call from one of the two other co-leaders of the men's ministry at my church.   Said he spoke with Joe Kearns. For those that don't know, Joe is a man that has been in the ministry for 58 years.  Married for 61.  A man's man.  Somebody whose life I've always respected since I met him just over a year ago.

What did Joe say to my co-leader?  "Best retreat I've ever attended."

This is a man with 58 years of ministry under his belt.  Has likely been to more retreats then I am years old.  You can't ask for better words of praise.

Bad part of it all?  Now we have to live up to it again next year!! 

Look at these numbers from a recent Barna Research Study.  It does at least show that born again republican evangelical (people like me) have divorce rates slightly lower then others... however its kind of like being the tallest midget.  Or the winner in the race to the bottom :-/