This upcoming Sunday, July 12th, 2009, Overflow Church in Appleton, Wisconsin will be officially licensing me as a children’s pastor.

The service will begin promptly at 10am. Seating is limited. As of this moment (Friday July 3rd, 2009 9:02am) there are only 69 seats left for the service.

You are invited! Everyone I know is invited however … since we have limited seating if you plan on attending the service you must RSVP ASAP!! You can RSVP by visiting http://twitlik.com/ordination or by clicking here!

After the service we will be having a huge party/fellowship at my parents home (click here for more info). The party will start around 12:30 and will go until the last person decides to leave.

Everyone is asked to bring a dish to pass and a lawn chair to the party.

Hope to see you there!

This past week has been awesome. God has really been speaking to me about being yielded. Being yielded not just at church but 24/7. It’s something that most of us refuse to do subconsciously. We hear God speak or feel that God has prodded us to do something but because we choose to not be yielded and because we choose to listen to our flesh sometimes more than God, we don’t do what God has requested. Just being real folks.

Have you ever been in a hospital and felt led to pray for someone but didn’t do it because you were afraid of what people might think or say? If so, you yielded to your flesh not to God.

Romans 6:13 says “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”

We have to be yielded at all times, even when we feel that we are not where we need to be emotionally and spiritually.

Yielding to God not only affects our lives but it also affects the lives of the people around us. You want to know why you church is growing as fast as you think it should be? It’s because people aren’t yielding. You want to know why you services (including children’s and youth services) have been dry? It’s because people aren’t yielding.

We have to stay yielded to God. Romans 12:1-2 says “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

That scripture says so much. Not only does it say be yielded to God but it also tells you how!! It’s by the renewing of your mind. You have to decide who you are truly in love with. God or your flesh? If you love God more than you love your flesh then you should have no problem being yielded to God. Real disciples love their leader more than they love themselves and they don’t care what other “people” think. To many times we hear God say something but we don’t do what he says because our flesh get’s in the way. We have to crucify the flesh.

If you are yield yourself to God something will always happen that will change and bless your life.

We need to stop going to church to be entertained. Going to church to be blessed or to get something from the service. Instead we need to go yielded. We need to go giving God everything we have. In total surrenderance … with our hands up saying “Here I am Jesus”. I can’t help but think that if we do this, we will leave more blessed then ever before.

God desires to be in a passionate relationship with us and I don’t know about you but when I am in a relationship with someone it’s not always about me. It’s not always about what I am going to get from it. So why do we go to church or live our lives just for ourselves and not for Him. If I was God, I would have broken up with myself a long time ago, but God loves me and you more than we can imagine.

It’s time for change. Real revival in our country will come from yielded people. People giving God everything and people who have laid down their flesh.

I never realized the tone that I kept. I am not saying that my tone was always negative but I think sometimes the negative tone was heard more than the positive tone (at least in my head).

Twitter is a great tool to use while trying to find out your tone. If you have a Twitter account and use it often, go to your twitter profile page and just read the last week or so of tweets. What’s your tone? Do you have a positive tone or a negative tone?

1 Timothy 4:12 says “Let no man look down on your youthfulness but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, show yourself – an example of those who believe”.

We have to be an example? We are leaders. People are watching us and are seeing how we deal with issues. I am not saying be fake. That’s not what I am saying at all … what I am saying to do is to look for the positive side in everything. Serious … last week … I had an early morning meeting with a few local pastors and then I had to get to work. On my way to my meeting the car broke down … but PRAISE GOD, another vehicle was waiting for me to use. Seriously there is a positive thing for every negative thing so why do we focus on the negative?

Let me say it again … WE HAVE TO BE THE EXAMPLE. The word example means to be “Imitated”. The Greek word means “to mimic, “ to behave in such a way that another can copy it exactly. Do you like being around negative people all the time? Then be the example of a positive person. Be the one that people chose to imitate! That’s what Paul told his disciples (1 Cor 4:16; 11:1)

Anyways … just something I am working on in my own personal life. I want to be an example. I want to be an example of good Godly leadership. I want to be that person who is always thankful and full of joy. Don’t you?

I always want to be a man of integrity and if I say I am going to do something for someone then I am going to do it. Unfortunately, that creates a list of stuff that needs to be completed and sometimes there just isn’t enough time in a day to do it all. I gotta get caught up and will over the next couple days even if it requires long nights and less fun.

Over the last few weeks I have been talking about being prepared, disciplined and alert. This is just one of those areas in which I need discipline. This is an issue that I need to quickly address.

Today I nailed down a bunch of things I need to get done for our upcoming Father’s Day Family Picnic event and also prepared myself for the next 13 weeks of teaching “Super Church” so today so far has been very successful. Now I just gotta wipe out the other items that have been waiting patiently.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by a list of stuff you committed to but don’t seem to have the time to complete? What did you do?

Anyways, she wrote this post about a week ago and I keep thinking back to it. I asked her last night if I could repost it here on my blog so that more people could read it and she said that would be fine so … without any further jabber … here is “Pick a god — any god will do“.

I was shocked to recently discover that according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life 52% of all Christians and 47% of all Evangelical Christians believe that some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life. I expect those kinds of statistics in the population in general, but NOT Evangelical Christians.

The very definition of evangelical Christianity is believing the essence of the Gospel lies in the doctrine of salvation by faith in the death of Christ, which atoned for man’s sins, and his resurrection from the dead. Evangelicalism insists on the importance of the individual’s personal relationship with Jesus Christ. They denounce that neither good works or the sacraments can bring these same results, but put particular emphasis that it is faith in Christ alone that secures our salvation.

So what in the world is being preached in our evangelical churches today? I just don’t get it. If there are many roads to heaven, then everything we do as Christians is a farce, Jesus is a lie and a joke, and as the Apostle Paul says, “we are the most miserable people in the world” (1 Corinthians 15:19).This departure from truth can only happen as #1) the doctrinal truths are not being adequately preached from our pulpits, and #2 that Christians are sitting home drinking in the Doctrine of Oprah and placing it above what the Bible says.

So what does this mean to us as children’s ministers and parents? Well, if we don’t want to see our kids worshipping before a statue of Buddah someday, we need to take the time to deliberately explain the gospel thoroughly. By that I don’t just mean teaching them to ask Jesus to forgive their sins so they can go to heaven when they die. They actually need to know why Jesus is the only way to heaven. It’s not a matter of cramming it into them by saying, “Because that’s just the way we believe it and you have to believe it too!” But we must actually explain the amazing, intricate, marvelous understanding of God’s enormous and beautiful plan of salvation.

Do you yourself understand why it is important to believe that Jesus was equally God and man? Do you yourself understand why it was necessary for Jesus as God to come to the earth in the form of a human being? Do you yourself understand why it is critical to believe that Jesus lived a totally sinless life on earth? Do you yourself understand the signficance of the sinless blood of Christ in regards to the salvation to man? Do you yourself understand why Jesus Christ is the one and only way, the truth, and the life?

If you cannot adequately answer all of these questions, then you cannot explain it to the children you minister to. If you cannot explain this to the children you minister then they are sitting ducks to buy into any feel-good belief system that comes along and are helpless to stand up against those who demand equal rights in the salvation category.

This is the reason we write the curriculums we do. One children’s minister told us, “You have taken theology for kids to a new level.” Others have said our curriculums are like “apologetics for kids.” If you cannot answer the above questions or have never taught them to your kids, then I highly recommend you purchase two of our best selling curriculums—”Our Amazing God” which pits our God against all other gods in the world explaining in detail why our God is the greatest, and the Blood of Jesus. If you don’t understand the significance of the Blood of Jesus, then you don’t understand your own salvation. I’m firmly conviced you need to repeat these curriculums every 2 or 3 years to your kids. Once is not enough in todays religious climate.

More than ever before the lines are being drawn in the sand between the truths of the Bible and all other religions. Let’s make sure we know the Truth.

You can read Becky’s blog by clicking here.

There are only two things that keep me from blogging it seems. (very similar to my good friend David Wakerley)

1. Either I am not growing. Getting stale.

or

2. I am too busy with other stuff.

Lately it’s been #2. I am growing like a weed right now which is super stellar but I am finding that I waste a lot of time doing “nothing” or other things that I don’t need to do. I have been slacking in the area of time management and that is stopping today.

I have tons of stuff I want to share via my blog that I believe God has shared with me either directly or through other people. Some stuff that could possible change your life as much as it has changed mine.

I am excited and I hope you are too!

Also, awhile back, I told you I was going to be posting guest posts or noting other bloggers on my blog. This is going to become a regular practice OFFICIALLY now. There are many more people on the net that are writing some awesome posts out there that need some attention and need to be read. Starting today I will be sharing those posts with the world!

I also want to open up an opportunity for you to blog and share your thoughts. If you have something you would like to share with my readers … let me know. I would be more than happy to review your post and maybe post it here on the site.

So … here we go … moving forward.

#1 Tip for avoiding the Swine Flu …. Don’t Do This!!

Thanks once again to Shawna for the tip

Within the last 12 hours I have had more than 500 unique visitors from 23 countries around the world including The United States, The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, The Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, India, The Czech Republic, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Ireland, The Philippines, Poland, Portugal, The Asia/pacific Region, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Taiwan, Spain and even Finland.

I am so awe stuck and humbled by this!! Thank you all for visiting and reading my random stuff! I appreciate it!!!

And we all know who gave it to him …

Thanks to Shawna for the tip