Change something

I have been doing a good amount of creative thought as well as a decent amout of writing. I have been in a creative rut brought on by a busyness, deadlines, and the cares of life.

How I get out of creative ruts.

Change location – get out of the office. Go somewhere different, perhaps a local coffee shop, a park, maybe a healing tree (vailed Michael Jackson referance)

Disconnect – Unplug all your stuff and sit think and pray old school. This one is the most difficult one for me.

Engage – talk to someone who has a different perspective or viewpoint than you. I always love seeing a problem or situation from another perspective.

True Fasting

True Fasting

One of my favorite writers is a man by the name of Brennan Manning. He has a powerful testimony but what I appreciate most about him is his ability to tap into the Nature of God our Father. He has a devotional that I enjoy immensely entitled “Refections For Ragamuffins”. The following is a devotion entitled “True Fasting”.

For the full article click here.

What a win looks like.

One of our amazing volunteer is Kim Maxwell. She is amazing she is so talented in so many ways. She has a passion for helping first time guests find their way around the building and have a great experience. We are so blessed that she is apart of Uptown.

A mother came to our check in counter and was checking her daughter into Uptown for the first time. After checking her daughter in Kim offered to show mom and daughter where the 4 and 5’s class was. Kim let the mom know that she could stay until her daughter felt welcome. Her daughter was fine in just a couple of minutes. As Kim and mom were walking back toward the sanctuary the mom explained that she used to attend church and was thinking about going somewhere.

After the service the mom came to get her daughter. Her daughter was all smiles she said “mommy I love it here.” The mom eyes were almost to the brink of tears told Kim that the adult service was amazing and that this was the most amazing experience she had ever had at a church and that she was definitely coming back.

Yea God and Yea Team.

Prayer and Fasting.

We are starting our annual time of prayer and fasting. I am very excited to see what God is going to do in me personally as well as in our church. Fasting for me is always bittersweet. I love taking time to slow down and focus on God do not like not drinking coffee. Food for me pales in comparison to the drinking of coffee. “Hi my name is Sam, and I am addicted to coffee.”

What I am praying for this year.

Wisdom
Favor
Guidance
Provision
Passion
Consistency

The Transformation

Excerpt form my daily devotional from a couple of days ago. I thought it was excellent.

“The incarnation of the Father’s freedom calls us beyond admiration to transformation. A recent convert to Jesus was approached by an unbelieving friend: “So you have been converted to Christ?”
“Yes.”
“Then you must know a great deal about him. Tell me, what country was he born in?”
“I don’t know.”
“What was his age when he died?”
“I don’t know.”
“You certainly know very little for a man who claims to be converted to Christ.””You are right. I am ashamed at how little I know about him. But this much I know: Three years ago I was a drunkard. I was in debt. My family was falling to pieces; they dreaded the sight of me. But now I have given up drink We are out of debt. Ours is a happy home. My children eagerly await my return home each evening. All this Christ has done for me. This much I know of Christ!”

“To know is to be transformed by what one knows.”

And the winner is………..

Before I get to that let me explain how I picked the winner. We now live in the 21st century I am a fairly computer savvy person. So I decided I would download a simple computer program that would allow me to enter names than randomly highlight or select one of them.

To my shock no mac user must have come across this problem. At least every program written for this purpose was written for “the devil” (pc’s). Most of them were secret Santa programs. I guess they must have better christmas parties at microsoft.

If anyone know of a mac program that does this let me know.
Anyway don’t get me going on pc’s. I couldn’t find a new school way of selecting the winner of my Robin Hood marketing contest so I had to go old school.

Congratulations Jonathan Greene! Enjoy the book.