If you haven’t read this book yet, trust me, it is worth the few days it would take you. It’s not long, since I know that somewhere in the midst of the negotiating lives we live, that is an instinctive question running through many a mind. It’s a quick read (170 pages).
Chan has such a knack for making the Gospel so simple and attainable, butnot any simpler than it needs to be. What you will feel in this book is your Love called out for what it truly is, or what you may find, for what itisnot. You either Love Him (Christ) or you don’t, and many of us say we do. Christianity is more renowned for hypocrisy than for Christ’s life,death and resurrection. Somehow Christians flimsy, fingerpointing lives have drowned out the reason their story even exists…to share Christ’s story. This book, if taken to heart, shoves you right off of the comfortable fencepost that much of Christianity resides on or behind…comfort and compromise.
This past Wedneday I attended a most God-thrilling conference up at Bethel Church in Redding, Ca. The conference was entitled Pastoring Kids in Revival. Ihadreadandheardfrom others how God shows up at this church! God has given a special anointing to Bethel and his leaders there in that they impart healing miracles left and right, curing cancers and ailments just like much of Jesus’ ministry. They even have healing rooms that people travel to from all over, even internationally, to come and be healed by God in.
What I did not anticipate so incredibly was the level of humilityand trust so many people up there have in their hearts for God. Those leading the children’s ministry get this half-nauseous, half-anger look every time someone talks about pastoring children in anything remotely resembling the tones of day-care!
Bethel kids are treated with a very seriousLove. Not the cute little, albeit unconditional Love we are used to seeing little kids get doted on with…but a seriousJoy. They endear the children as though they were little Stargates, constantlyandsimplyabletotap into God’s presence, power and playfulness. They view them as glimpses into God, which, given how complicated we make tapping into God’s presence in our lives and hearing from Him…they view them as little teachers.
I can’t begin to say how thankful I was to attend this conference and how equipped they sent us all on our way to do His bidding in our own appointed worlds. One of those many things I took away from this conference circled around gathering others. Luke 10:2 tells us that,
The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.
I feel remissed for having been absent again from my blog for over a month. I read other people´s blogs, and, often knowing a bit of the chaos and responsibility they are negotiating on their end, still find myself wishing they could find the time to at least sneak something, anything up for me to read.
So, since I know I myself have felt righteously and selfishly frustrated at not being able to read something more current than lastmonth on people´s blogs, I apologize for becoming what I hoped to avoid.
That said, God be praised in His working through Remnant Church! Yes, our little church plant out here did launch, as I mentioned in my last blog entry. Our first service saw over 100 people in attendance, 20+ kids, and, God Almighty…16 salvations! Praise God for 16 new vantages of Life from God´s window…Flung open high and wide!
I almost can´t believe it´s been over a month since I last blogged. Even in my recent, busy past of playing hopscotch across the country and negotiating pressing on with my Master´s degree in usually the opposite end of everywhere else I was needed…I still always managed to find time to spill on to paper.
Staying off the radar and being consumed like this reminds me of when I was back in High School. My closest friends would attest that there was this portion of my Senior year where I basically vanished. I didn´t abandon them and be that guy, but I did vanish from all those extra times I normally spent with all the people God had placed in my life.
As you can guess, the reason for the vanish was a girl. I found myself smitten with a cowgirl. This was something new and refreshing to me. She was genuinely fun to spend time with. And best of all, she was an escape from everything that was already convincingly uninspiring and fake about High School.
It began by sneaking out beneath an early morning in backwater Kentucky. We were chased out of town by their skies´ notorious peaches and blues that still managed to tatter a Winter-touched above… Kentucky´s up was only equalled by its below…a chilly land, ridden with a slue of surprisingly bright grays and browns. The Bible-belt´s bluegrass boy waved us on our way´til we vanished as far from them as they did from us…out of sight.
Next came the politically charged sprawl of Illinois´landscape. Everywhere you could see, smokey swirls, both tidy and unruly, stretched their long necks into the sky, at the behest of the busy fires from within toasty homes. Broken, unfinished and survivingrang through the stories that hung in the air. A hodgepodge collection of half-finished, and half-destroyed brick buildings line the major streets of the town, testifying to a city that has planned to live for quite sometime now, but struggled little more than survive… The tale for so many. Grandiose Beautiful props its prowess up from within the crowd of weather-stained brick, as sporadically the cities broken sense of family is accentuated further as healthy church spires peer down at all the gang tagged, lost and hurt people´s pastimes below.
As soon as you would start to really listen to Illinois´ story, St. Louis jumps out from behind Read the rest of this entry »
I have been accused of being an over-thinker at times, but also praised for thinking through things so thoroughly. So, somewhere in the midst of all that I sometimes get caught up in the seriousness of life, which is both good and bad.
It´s Good because there simply are certain things, very important things, that demand our sincerity and our serious side…but it´s BAD because this world is fallen, and quite simply runs much to the beat of anything but God, making tragedy like clockwork…there is always gonna be something to cringe about, become serious for and not fight it with often times the most serious thing of all: laughter. I think a great place for someone to find themself is warring wonderfully in a way that you have a serious Joy about you.
A great way to gain prespective on where you´re possibly at with your serious playful balance is the following question…I think a great question to ask someone is… who is Jesus? The way they answer will often tell you a lot about where they´re at, where they´ve been and more importantly, exactly what they think about the most intimate and important thing to them.
I for instance do not always picture Jesus braving the night and wading through the early mornings in Holy laughter with our God. Perfect example…I focus so much on how monumentous Jesus´task was. Good thing it His task was not appointed to me. He did not accomplish His feat because He engaged in Holy misdirection, or Divine distraction…He instead met in head on with a Spirit of Joy and a faithfulness tothat Joy that I think would show our Jesus to have been snickering and grinning much more than we sometimes think Him to be…at least more than I do anyway.
And so, I submit to you a video that is exactly what this world needs more of…something to remind us not to not take ourselves or our lives more serious than we often do.
I´ll try and keep this short, because that´s exactly how it happened in real time, just a few days ago. I was sitting in the hospital having come to visit my Tata who, yet again, was resigned to her unfortunately incessant treck from the emergency room to a hospital bed for a good few days to re-coop from her latest medical mishap. An Italian doctor, doctor Benninni, (very fun to say), was my Tata´s first doctor upon her arrival to the E.R. here in Napa Valley.
Just to catch you up…My Tata is 88 years young and recently underwent the infamous whipple surgery to treat her diagnosed pancreatic cancer. After that surgery, which was a success, she developed softball- sized pockets of fluid collection that normally would pass right on through her body. The pockets are the bodies way of trapping and at least containing an infection ifthe body is not doing its normal day-to-day job of getting rid of such fluids. It´s pretty neat when you think about…the body is so ingeniously designed…it acts in our best interest often times without us even being aware there was even a threat to address. Anyway, this fluid led to isolated infection in and around the still healing mid-section of my Tata.
Long description short, these pockets were all but taken care of weeks ago when doctors in San Francisco surgically transfixed a constant drain on my Tata´s side in order to drain these crazy softball pockets. Sounds good, seemed to work, in fact she was thought to not have had any more fluid collection at all. But, fast forward to the last three days…my Tata complained of stomach pain, and upon having to be taken to the Italian E.R., she was shown her own brand new, that-evening x-ray…showing a huge remnant of the third, thought-to-be-dead-and-drained, pocket. It had become an “extrabigsoftball” in Benninni´s own words…which I think was code for pumpkin, or mandolin-sizedballofbad. It was rather sweet how he tried to not freak my Tata out. Read the rest of this entry »
If you haven’t read this book yet, trust me, it is worth the few days it would take you. It’s not long, since I know that somewhere in the midst of the negotiating lives we live, that is an instinctive question running through many a mind. It’s a quick read (170 pages).
Posted by justingunter 
This past Wedneday I attended a most God-thrilling conference up at Bethel Church in Redding, Ca. The conference was entitled Pastoring Kids in Revival. I had read and heard from others how God shows up at this church! God has given a special anointing to Bethel and his leaders there in that they impart healing miracles left and right, curing cancers and ailments just like much of Jesus’ ministry. They even have healing rooms that people travel to from all over, even internationally, to come and be healed by God in. 
Posted by justingunter 
I feel remissed for having been absent again from my blog for over a month. I read other people´s blogs, and, often knowing a bit of the chaos and responsibility they are negotiating on their end, still find myself wishing they could find the time to at least sneak something, anything up for me to read.
Posted by justingunter 
I almost can´t believe it´s been over a month since I last blogged. Even in my recent, busy past of playing hopscotch across the country and negotiating pressing on with my Master´s degree in usually the opposite end of everywhere else I was needed…I still always managed to find time to spill on to paper.
It began by sneaking out beneath an early morning in backwater Kentucky. We were chased out of town by their skies´ notorious peaches and blues that still managed to tatter a Winter-touched above… Kentucky´s up was only equalled by its below…a chilly land, ridden with a slue of surprisingly bright grays and browns. The Bible-belt´s bluegrass boy waved us on our way´til we vanished as far from them as they did from us…out of sight. 
Next came the politically charged sprawl of Illinois´landscape. Everywhere you could see, smokey swirls, both tidy and unruly, stretched their long necks into the sky, at the behest of the busy fires from within toasty homes. Broken, unfinished and survivingrang through the stories that hung in the air. A hodgepodge collection of half-finished, and half-destroyed brick buildings line the major streets of the town, testifying to a city that has planned to live for quite sometime now, but struggled little more than survive… The tale for so many. Grandiose Beautiful props its prowess up from within the crowd of weather-stained brick, as sporadically the cities broken sense of family is accentuated further as healthy church spires peer down at all the gang tagged, lost and hurt people´s pastimes below. 
As soon as you would start to really listen to Illinois´ story, St. Louis jumps out from behind 
