i am a sinner.

i am an actor. i am a liar. i am lazy. i am a fool. i am a hypocrite. i am a searcher. i am a replacer. i am a taker. i am a receiver. i am a doubter. i worry. i cheat. i speed. i don’t care. i am unsubmissive. i think i know better. i argue. i hate. i don’t learn from my mistakes. i am unwilling to give you certain parts of me. i am a thief. i’m jealous. i’m selfish and crude. i’m rude and unkind to the ones that i love. i am full of myself and i think i’m always right. and i do not know my need for grace.

and i don’t even believe the things i just said!
have mercy on me, GOD of Jacob.
because i sin more than i am good.

http://www.igracemusic.com/hymnbook/hymns/t12.html

red door wallpaper

Enjoy these 2 brand spankin’ new Red Door wallpapers for your desktop background. These will work on any mac or pc, but generally prefer to live in a mac from what I understand! Enjoy.

the church of haiti

“So then, as we have the opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” Galatians 6:10

As the church, we have a very focused responsibility to the church of Haiti. As you consider where to give funds for relief in Haiti I would suggest checking out Churches Helping Churches. James MacDonald and Mark Driscoll teamed up after the earthquake in Haiti to respond to the specific need to care for the churches in Haiti. They want to make sure the church of Haiti, though staggered, finds it’s legs, straightens itself and begins to pour into the physical and spiritual care of their fellow Haitians.

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do something

The problem in Haiti is continuing to grow as supplies are having a hard time finding there way to the people who need them. To make matters worse, the infrastructure in Haiti barely survived when things were “normal” but now that things are in utter chaos it is near impossible to use the old system in any way. Right now there are agencies and churches, governments and neighbors all trying to figure out how they can help the hurting, dying, and broken. But what about us? What about the people like you and me who live in the middle of Nowherenearhaiti? What can we do?

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interns wanted

We are searching for 3 hardworking and creative interns who will help us spend our lives bringing heaven to earth. So if you know someone, or are someone, who wants to bust their rear to expand the Kingdom to kids, students, or through mad graphic design skills then send us an email! Email.

haiti

In reading tonight I came across this article from Scott McKnight and wanted to pass it along…

Last night I read this from Randy Harris, God Work - Confessions of a Standup Theologian:

One of the things we do as Christians is to try to pay attention to what God might be able to do in the world, especially with the broken places in our lives. These aren’t good things. They generally aren’t things God does to us. This Romans passage [chp 8] says God can crawl in the middle of it because he works in all things and nothing can stand in the way of God reconciling all things to himself…

We have to believe and live out the reality that God is taking things somewhere and that nothing can stop it. And our task then is to join God in his reconciling work that that he began before creation. …

So we join God in what he’s trying to do in the world.

I make no claim to know what God is doing in Haiti, but I do know that God’s intent is to reconcile all things to himself and so, in prayer, in giving, and in mobilizing humans to help the suffering of Haiti, we commit ourselves to enter now into the work of binding up the brokenhearted and healing the wounded.

May we crawl, with God, into this rubble and be the presence of God, bring the presence of God, and lead Haiti into the healing presence of God.

A Thought On Haiti (via Jesus Creed)

love covers (the sequel)

I am meeting today with an individual who is looking to help us expand and develop Love Covers in a bigger way in Cincinnati. Pray for us as we discuss ways to partner with knitting groups in the Cincinnati area who can contribute time and yarn to knit scarves we can hand out in Downtown and Greater Cincinnati. We also need to develop collection points where scarves can be dropped off each winter. I am excited to see this expand and look forward to the day when every homeless person in Cincinnati has a handmade scarf reminding them they are loved more than they know!

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a walk through the bible

This month we are talking about missions only really making sense when you understand the story of the Bible as a whole - the story of the rescue of the nations. We usually miss that story when we only know the little stories and not the BIG story. But isn’t some of the problem actually wading through the entire 2557 pages (give or take) of the Bible without forgetting what you read when you picked it up last… uuuummmmm… yeah… where did that Bible go?

But there are some great resources designed to give us the big picture, and one of those resources is a book from Leslie Newbigin. Shortly before he died in February 1998, Newbigin recorded a series of eight 15-minute talks entitled “A Walk Through the Bible” which… “walks through the Bible” as a whole story. These talks were collected and used to form this book by the same name, A Walk Through The Bible. It’s the BIG story in a SMALL book narrating the journey of Scripture from Creation to Revelation.

PS. this isn’t so you can “cheat” and skip out on reading the Bible as a whole, but it is a great first step into the beauty of the BIG Story.

ee-taow!

Once you get past the first few minutes of cheeseball (and the tribute to the glorious 90’s music video) the video is amazing, capturing one of the greatest mission stories of our time.

the world’s unreached

There are still over 1500 unengaged, unreached people groups in the world for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 639 of those people groups have populations over 100,000. Over at finishingthetask.com they have listed these people groups along with statistics of just how unreached they are. Also, check out The Joshua Project which is seeking to bring some clarity and definition to the unfinished task.

www.finishingthetask.com
www.joshuaproject.net