Ramblin thoughts

Time for another download of my brain

Housing

For the last 5 weeks I have picked up a Saskatoon Realty guide and have gone to at least one open house per week. Heck my wife and I drove an hour and a half to the south end of Deifenbaker Lake to look at an 8 bedroom, 4 bath house with Lake Deifenbaker as the back yard. We got there and the kids were gone like a shot to the waters edge. Price was beyond us but it sure was fun to dream. I have never owned a house before (one more year come November and I get my first mortgage on a $63, 000 house) I have been searching for the heart of God regaqrding housing. some say that God wills for everything in your life, yet others say that You can do what you want as long as you are honoring God's principles. I am more prone to go with the latter one myself.

The problem is that I have 5 kids and a 4 bedroom house. I am in the slow and painful process of building a fifth room for my second eldest son, but it still appears to be small for us. (never mind Rene hehe) So we are faced with a dilema. We either build an addition which would include a new kitchen, dining room, mud room with a half bath and main floor laundry. Also we would build a new bathroom upstairs. Or we move to a larger house. Still the struggle that I have with that is my kids are making some good freindships with kids in the community. My wife and I are building relationships with our neighbors. I just don't know.

Sun burns

For the first time since I think I was a kid I went outside on Monday without a shirt on. (it was like +32) I was probably outside for two hours and I baked my back. I wasn't trying to tan or anything, I was simply too lazy to walk upstairs to get a shirt. So now I am suffering the consequences. The first two nights I felt like I was sleeping on sand paper. Today I noticed that my back is full of little blisters....that can't be good. I don't understand why anyone in thier right mind would bake themselves for fun. (no offence Care bear and Nin :-) ) I am very content with my farmers tan. Lesson well learned.

Discipline

I have started on a quest to read 25 chapters of the bible each week. I have started with Genesis. The first few weeks were very inspiring and I was extremely eager. the last few weeks have been a lot harder. Last week was two chapters and this week has been zero thus far. It has shown me a pattern that needs to be broken. An idea comes up and I run after it with dedication then it seems to peter out and looses it's excitement once I get into it a few weeks. This is something that I want to break. God is a God of order and desires for us/me to be disciplined to read his word daily and follw his example.

Leading the home

This one is a tough one to figure out. I have learned a lot from a friend that men see things through blue glasses and women see things through pink glasses. With that in mind it is very difficult for me to lead my family spiritually. I always feel that I have to 'do' something to lead and that just doesn't sit with me. I am a firm believer in leading by example. I dont remeber the things my dad ever said, I remember the things that he did, the person that he was, the way he spoke with people, the way he defended me when I was wronged. He taught me a very good work ethic even though I was a sluggard in my younger years. ( I sound like I'm 50) So anyway I am still working through this one. I dont have the answers but desire to do the best that I can at it. If God gave me one of the most important tasks of raising up 5 God fearing children and loving their mother, then I need to trust that he knows what he is doing. And that he will lead me as I lead them.

Finances

I am a stickler when it comes to paying off debt...I hate debt. For the past few months we have been very short financially due to the fact that we have made some very strict and key financial goals for our family. One of them, to be debt free By July 15. In order to do that we need to make some very drastic payments to pay down our dept. Granted we don't have a huge debt load but what we do have, needs to go. I dont personally believe in saving money when I owe money elsewhere. I just doesn't seem right. I just recently recieved a Starbucks Duetto Visa card, which was a part of the plan due to the card we had previously had a $60 annual fee. The visa card doesn't have any fee's plus it has a lower interest rate. The sweet thing about the visa card is that everytime you use it, you get credits on a starbuck card redeemable for use for Coffee beverages...MMMM... that's my kind of card. Now we are going to cancel our other card. It was very cool too because we started looking for ways to save money each month. We looked at out phone and cell phone bill and we were able to cut cost's to the saving's of $150 a month. It's amazing how much we spend on things when it's broken down.

Unconditional Love

At work I have learned a philosophy of life that has grown on me and it has challenged me to live that way in every aspect of life. At work we call it Gentle teaching but in essence it is the Gospel message in action. Unconditional love. I have been wondering what that would look like in the church today. Discipleship, Childrens ministry, Men and Womens ministries....you name it. Gentle teaching teaching four pillars
1. Safe
2. Loved
3. Loving
4. Engaged
It is our role as Christians o show each other and the world around us that they can feel safe and loved by us. Once they know that we can teach them to be loving toward others. Then once they are loving others you can teach them to be engaged in thier relational sphere. Be it Sunday school, the worship team, serving a neighbor...whatever.
There are 4 tool that we need to be using to teach the above things.

1. Eyes

Our eyes are said to be the window to the soul. We can tear down a person or build them up by the way that we look at them.

2. Presence

Our presence can be domineering or soothing depending on our body positioning. If we sit arms crossed and looking non interested, it will portray a message of rejection. We need to be aware of the way that we present our bodies at all times.

3. Words

The bible talks so much about the stregth of the tougue. How it can build up or tear down. We need to always use our words to teach a person that they are safe with us and loved by us. How else will a non christian want to join the family. We need to be deliberate in using postive words to show love and safety to others. For example "It is so good to be with you" or "I am so thankful that we are freinds"

4.Touch

My personal favorite tool. Touch can be any form of physical contact. It can be as simple as a high five or a full out hug. Age and gendre will at times hinder certain forms of touch as well as personal comfort levels. Touch needs to be genuine. It cannot be faked or the other person will see through that. Touch is such a concrete way of showing somebody that they are safe and loved by you. We only need to think about our closest relationships ad I'll bet that hugs or some sort of touch is in that freindship.

Okay I could go on for days on this topic. I think that's enough for now. Besides I think I just wrote my longest post.

Discipleship made easy

I have been contemplating discipleship and it's simplicity. I recently read a book called "Cultivating a life for God" By Neil Cole. It talks about the benefit of having groups of two or three. Based on the scripture, "Where two or three are gathered there I will be also" After the groups grow to four, they split down into two again.

In his book Neil Cole talks about Major bible reading with accountability questions each week. (Confess your sins one to another so that you may be healed) He recommends 25-30 chapters per week. And that each person reads the same amount. He also recommends that no one moves on until everyone has read the required reading. In these groups, they each pick two non Christian friends and they write their names down a a bookmark and they commit to praying for these people each day. The fruit that has come from this is amazing. he recommends that people do these groups with either non Christians, 'fresh Christians', or Christians that are struggling in their walk with God. He bases this on the parable of the sower. Sowing into fertile soil. I want to try this out and test it out for myself. It seems to be so simple. Neil Cole talks about how a brand new Christian can start a new group as you are simply reading the scriptures and meeting every week to ask some very key accountability questions.

This is so cool because it allows God to speak into a seekers life. It allows the spirit of God to move freely to teach a new believer about who he is and what he is about. Neil talks about being bathed in the word, not so much studying it but allowing the spirit of God to penetrate the heart of the reader and teach them.

One of the accountability questions asks if you have testified to the greatness of Jesus Christ in either action or with words. I thought that this was cool because He isn't asking us if we shared the gospel with someone or shared the four spiritual laws. It is simply "did you demonstrate the greatness of Christ" now that is exciting. Wouldn't it be cool if one person decided to do this with one seeker or new Christian, and they in turn started a new group. People would grow so quickly and with such a strong biblical foundation, I think that it would blow our socks off. I for one desire to pursue this and see what the fruit that God produces could possibly look like.