Join the Romania team for daily devotions that accompany the DailyWay Bible reading schedule! June 25, 2017 – SUNDAY 2 Ki 9-10; Ecc 11 Jehu is a crazy man. In a good way. List the people he killed (there’s at least 3 in ch. 9 and a bunch in ch. 10): He drives like a crazy man, he speaks like a crazy man, and he kills like a crazy man. This passage is gory, right? But 10:16 sums up Jehu’s passion, pretty much–zealous. He did not do everything right, but the things he did, he did with zeal. Where did
Read more →Join the Romania team for daily devotions that accompany the DailyWay Bible reading schedule! June 24, 2017 – SATURDAY 2 Ki 7-8; Ecc 10 This week, we have read a lot of stories about surrendering to God and watching Him work in our lives. I think with all the amazing things that God does–daily loading us with benefits–we sometimes get to the point where his blessings are not a big deal. People just become… annoyances. Life gets boring. There’s no purpose. There’s no passion or heart. But look at a man like Elisha and you’ll see a man who served God for
Read more →Join the Romania team for daily devotions that accompany the DailyWay Bible reading schedule! June 23, 2017 – FRIDAY 2 Ki 5-6; Ecc 9 Charring 50 soldiers at a time with fire from heaven is remarkable. Slapping a river with a coat and watching it part is incredible. Healing a leper without even going out to see him is intense. God does remarkable miracles. But does he only do remarkable miracles for remarkable people? In 2 Kings 6, a no-name construction worker lost a borrowed axe head in the water. Is he a prophet? Nope. Does he lead an army? No, he’s
Read more →Join the Romania team for daily devotions that accompany the DailyWay Bible reading schedule! June 22, 2017 – THURSDAY 2 Ki 3-4; Ecc. 8 Sometimes surrendering to God looks like plain ol’ hard work. Seeking God’s help, Jehoshaphat was told to pick up a shovel and dig some ditches. He could have complained. “But… I just want God to GIVE me water!” Instead, he obeyed. And God came through! The blessings followed the obedience. And the obedience looked like… work! Serving God is rarely glamorous. Missions trips are glamorous; the day to day ministry is a lot of hard work. We are
Read more →Join the Romania team for daily devotions that accompany the DailyWay Bible reading schedule! June 21, 2017 – WEDNESDAY 2 Ki 1-2; Ecc 7:15-29 Impressive. Absolute respect for the man of God who gets whooshed up to heaven in a chariot of fire. And his successor. Anyone who can follow Elijah is a man’s man. We also have mad respect for modern day spiritual heroes–the men like Bro. Matheny who have given the best years of their adult life to serve God in non-home places around the globe. Impressive. But what we don’t see are the hardships. We gloss over the integrity
Read more →Join the Romania team for daily devotions that accompany the DailyWay Bible reading schedule! June 20, 2017 – TUESDAY Philemon; Ecc 7:1-14 It’s hot in Savannah, Georgia. Really hot in the cotton fields, 10 years before the Civil War. He’s called Onus. No one knows why; no one cares. He is hopeless. He has no family. He sees no end to his slavery. He decides to run from his masters, the wealthy Lemon family. At night, he steals a pocketful of silverware, some bread and a canteen. He sneaks out and heads north, hoping to pose as a freedman. Five months
Read more →Join the Romania team for daily devotions that accompany the DailyWay Bible reading schedule! June 19, 2017 – MONDAY Jonah; Ecc 6 We pick on poor ol’ Jonah all the time. Sorry Jo. But he ran away! Like… the opposite way from what God told him to do! Give him a break. Could it be that he was scared of being martyred? Yep. Going to Nineveh was like going to Pyongyang, North Korea. He ran–how’d that work out for him? Since we were little kids, we’ve heard, “Don’t run from God!” but now that we’re going overseas for a missions trip,
Read more →We’re SUPER excited for Romania next week; we leave Monday with a baker’s dozen of us. Can’t wait. I’m excited about ministering through VBS, testimonies, singing, preaching and outreach. One potential problem with big trips, though, is missing the lessons along the way. That’s why I’m excited about these journals. Each night, rather than simply go to bed, the whole Romania Team will gather for devotions to talk through the day and capture some of the lessons that we learn. Journals help align a group’s thinking. “It was a really good trip!” is not good enough. What made it good? What
Read more →I put these everywhere this week–Twitter, my teens, and my family. Maybe that was a mistake… I like the variety of opinions, though. Covers I thought NO ONE would like turned out to be some of my teens’ favorites (I won’t tell you which ones). My son has a favorite, and my wife has several. I’ve heard back from artists and designers, regular people and, er–irregular people? I’ve heard from all kinds. Now what are your thoughts? I would like your opinion. Let me know by commenting below. UPDATED DESIGNS: Here are my thoughts on some people’s favorites… 17. Mountain. It’s pretty, but
Read more →My in-laws bought me Scrivener, a writing app for my Mac. I’m thankful, but I wasn’t expecting to have to mess with 2 full books’ worth of words! Okay… so I imported 7 years’ worth of notes to my teens, sorted them by category and organized them into two 50k-word chunks (about the length of BIBS). The SECOND CHUNK will be mostly for youth pastors (later). It’s how I promoted things to my teens–camp, new youth staff, sermon series, etc. But the FIRST CHUNK is what I’m excited about right now. It’s the last 7 years of weekly notes we gave to
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