Its not bad to be passive

I remember reading “Wealth Without Risk” by Charles J. Givens when I was 12 or so. Also, read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kuyasaki a little later. They both touted the importance of investing. Both of them spoke of the importance of investing as early as you could so you would have more years to compound the interest. I remember seeing the graphs showing the dramatic difference in an investment account projected at age 60 when you start at 18 versus starting when you are 28.

Worship Arts Pastor Mike Cosper on the danger of triumphalism in Advent worship planning, and how to properly use this season of the Christian Year to plan meaningful, biblical worship time at church and in the home:

An Advent Challenge: Disappoint People

In The Deliberate Church, Pastor Mark Dever warns us to avoid triumphalism in our worship sets. While I don’t ascribe to all of Dever’s prescriptions for worship, I think that this one is very good - especially during Advent.

In our Journey Group we are going through a book by John Piper titled, “Suffering and the Soverignty of God”.

We recently read through this portion, written by John and one other pastor, in thinking through how to approach an unquestionably challenging time that meets nearly every single person on earth at some point, either directly or with a friend or family.

We all leave this earth and die in that sense. Its a question of when and how. Piper hits head on how to approach it when you realize it could be coming soon…

Long, but good - take 15 minutes to read it.

[Editor’s Note: Our friend, David Powlison, of the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation, who also was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, has added some helpful expansions to John Piper’s ten points. Indented paragraphs beginning with “DP:” are written by David Powlison.]

The season of giving!

I wanted to share with you guys a few practical outlets of giving that match up with different people’s sweet spots as we approach the Christmas season.

Here’s a challenge - for every $1 you allocate to a Christmas gift for someone you know personally, choose an amount to invest toward the redemption of the world in some form. Choose 10 cents, 25 cents, or even match it $1 for dollar…

Compassion for Children - Compassion International at www.compassion.com - “Rescuing children from poverty in Jesus’ name”.

Feeding People - Heifer International at www.heifer.org - “Ending Hunger, Caring for the World”

Healing the Body - Malaria No More at www.malarianomore.com - “Every day 3,000 children die from malaria. Their lives could be saved with a $10 mosquito net”

Spread the Gospel - African Leadership at www.africanleadership.com -

So Tony Gettig (@gettig on Twitter) got me thinking this morning. His Twitter post was, “broken hearted by the impoverished kids at school. wish I could fix it.” This simple post opened up a whole flood of emotions, that honestly, I did not know I had. This was like getting punched in the nose. What am I doing about the impoverished kids in my city.

I don’t follow this writer, but this was an interesting take on Jesus as “personal Savior”…

Without a doubt, the decision to follow Christ should be made on a deeply personal level.

But when you limit contemplation to those times when you’re completely alone, you turn your faith into something that is completely vertical — just a single beam between you and Heaven, and the rest of the world be damned. When you start throwing around terms like “personal savior,” you lose touch with the idea of sharing that savior’s impact with the people around you.

Note also how she compares how we read the Bible today to how the early Christians read the Scriptures…

Click here to read the entire article - I’m interested in other people’s thoughts about it… http://www.theporpoisedivinglife.com/porpoise-diving-life.asp?pageID=460

On Thursday, April 3, 2008, while in surgical recovery, I had an experience that will forever change my life. An intimate moment with my Savior! However, before I tell what happened on this most amazing day, perhaps I should back up a bit. Please bear with me as I try to explain how I came to this awesome moment.