Monday, November 30, 2009

Join the 30 day Negativity Fast

Starting Tuesday, December 1st we are asking everybody to fast from negative words for 30 days. This is a campaign that will change your life. The tongue possesses power according to Proverbs 18:21 "Death and life are in the power of the tongue..." It is your choice rather you use your tongue to build up or tear down..speak life or speak death..encourage or discourage..utter doubt or utter faith.

Fifteen reasons to join us and fast from negative words:
  1. People are spending too much of their life focusing on self criticism, critisizing others, and being pessemistic.
  2. Too many people are living below the level God has designed for them because they are confessing, meditating, and thinking about negative things.
  3. Your relationships with God, spouse, children, coworkers, family, friends, and generally everyone you come in contact with will get better. Your worklife, home life, and church life will all improve.
  4. People around you will begin to eat the fruit of life from your lips and flourish more because of your positive encouragement.
  5. You will be taking the axe to the root of negative words and uprooting them so that they can be replaced with postive, faith filled words that are based on the true promises of God.
  6. It will force you to think of better ways to communicate your desires.
  7. It will help you to stop believing lies about your self and become the person God made you to be.
  8. It will aid you in changing your perspective on even problematic situations.
  9. It doesn't ignore problems but helps you deal with them in the right way.
  10. You will train your self to be solution focuses rather than problem focused
  11. Guarding your speech means you are gaurding your heart, which means you are changing your beliefs, which means the core of who you are is being afforded the opportunity to be transformed.
  12. Things that used to be fearful obstacles will turn into opportunities as you anchor your heart and confessions in God's word that will give you courage and strength to overcome.
  13. You will become "other-minded" versus "self-centered".
  14. It will ignite your faith in God, service toward man, and love for all.
  15. You will be certain despite circumstances that God is faithful and you won't allow situations to easily alter your moods and attitudes.

Will you join us? If so comment on my blog or facebook, or twitter (use the hash tag #negativity fast). If you are a blogger please write during the month of December on the subject send me the link or tweet the link with the hastag #negativityfast.

LET's DO THIS!!

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Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Ten Things I am Thankful for

Randomly things I am thankful for.
1) For God always being the rock in my life. Keeping me with a sound mind. Leading and guiding me through tough decisions. For displaying his Glory and grace to a person that doesn't deserve it. By the grace of God I am what I am!
2) For a gorgeous wife that creates a serene home life for our family and is my number one fan.
3) For six children that are growing in love for God and each other
4) For a church family that I can truly call friends.
5) For my relatives on both sides of the family that have mass love and support.
6) For getting three of our parents through major health issues this year. Also for bringing my parents to live withing 7 minutes of us and making my brother my new next door neighbor!
7) For opening doors for our church to meet in another churches facilities
8) For providing financially for my family in a slow engineering year
9) For our marriage ministry and Homeschool Coop family which help create a flourishing environment to raise my family.
10)For all of my old and new friends that I have been united with through social networking.

"In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus Concerning you." I Thes. 5:18

Monday, November 23, 2009

Coaching-A Tool for Teaching Character

Nothing pulls the character out of a person more than playing competitive sports. I have seen the most calm, cool, and collected person turn into a wild, flagrant, tyrant on the basketball court. For training young boys to be Godly men, a round orange ball, or an oval brown ball, or a little white ball can be used as tools to chisel out and refine young people with discipline and Godly Character. I love to have the team near muscle exhaustion, huffing and puffing then tell them the true story of Christ and his perseverance. There was one instance where a young boy just lost his temper and hit another player. I was glad it happened. It was my opportunity at that moment to share about the dangers of uncontrolled anger and how Jesus was the man's man when it came to temperance (self control). Coaching is full of opportunities to teach life lessons to the team and give them biblical applications.

I encourage parents to not try and get their child on the "best" team when they are young. Get them under a coach that will reinforce your Godly values and teach sound fundamentals. Skill and ability will develop over the years with consistent practice. Likewise, Character is also developed over the same years. If you choose a coach that is all about the sport and not your child's character, you could have a coach that is undoing all that you are trying to instill. One time we had our sons in a flag football league where the coaches and the referees were coming to blows in the middle of the game in front of the youth. In another instance a coach used cursing and intimidation to make his point. He really belittled the boys to their face all the time. That wild, yelling, cursing, coach model may work for older players (even though I don't endorse it), but not in the formative years of a child's life say 13 and under.

What is my point...I love coaching. Never thought I would be the one with the whistle in my mouth shouting "on the line!". When you follow your children's interest you begin to open up all types of new chapters in your life. I coached basketball at the YMCA for two years and now I am coaching for the Oklahoma City Storm. I am truly no authority on the sport just a dad that loves to train fearless followers of Christ. By any means necessary! A father on the court first then a coach.

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Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Thirty Days of Prayer-Day 30

I am back in blog world. Yes! By the way we made it to day 30 on our 3o day prayer journey. I haven't posted since Day 23, but that we finished off with a bang. Jeans with holes in the knees is a good sign when it comes from prayer. I have so much that I want to share but don't have the time to write it all down. The last 30 days were transformational for me personally. Ten quick things I learned were:

  1. Regular routine group prayer shakes heaven
  2. The people you pray with become your best friends

  3. It will spark revival in your church.

  4. You begin to help others out of the over flow vs. a depleted spiritual tank

  5. Your heart stays in a repentant humble state which makes hearing from God clearer.

  6. Age old strongholds people have on their lives begin to lose their grip

  7. Your faith increases to believe on things that you had previously given up on.

  8. It is contagious...it spilled over to my marriage, to my children, to my friends,....prayer is contagious

  9. It was effective...there were over 100 prayer request during those 30 days...and I am positive there were 100 answers

  10. God was glorified...we were humbled..Nuf said!

We decided to raise the bar and start fasting once a week also. Plus intensifying our closet prayer time along with group prayer. Prayer does change things. I would advice anyone to get with a group of guys or gals and start praying it will revolutionize your life.

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