Random Finds and Thoughts On Any Given Day

Friday, May 6, 2011

8 ALTERNATIVES TO COLLEGE - http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/01/8-alternatives-to-college/

10:40 AM Kevin Brown's first book is due out later this month. Its title is Rite of Passage in the Home and Church: Raising Christ-Centered Young Adults. Today I finished writing writing the foreword.
I am often asked for advice from young pastors and seminarians about how to implement New Testament truth into the life of a local church. I usually refer them to members of their own generation. There are a handful of younger adults who seem to understand the church, our culture, and how to apply biblical truth to both. Writers like Eric Carpenter, Alan Knox, Arthur Sido, and Kevin Brown are people who will help the Christian community find its way forward. These men are precious gifts from God, and their contributions to the church are greatly appreciated by their blog readers. They are engaged, informed, and ready and able to offer well-reasoned and biblical responses to the issues churches face today.
How often are we wrong about our suppositions! Mary supposed Jesus was the gardener. The disciples in the boat thought He was a ghost. Joseph and Mary assumed He was traveling with them when actually He was back in Jerusalem. And how many times do we in the church assume His presence in our programs when He is nowhere to be found.
God has provided instruction on how we should raise our children. If we are to love Him with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind, then there is a right way by which to honor Him. The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, and so we must always go back to the Scriptures if we are to understand His ways correctly. Today we draw up our blueprints for "youth ministry" and seek divine endorsement instead of seeking first the divine Word. We do not inquire, as we should, "Lord, what do you want me to do?" It is high time we reported to His headquarters for our marching orders.
The last invitation of the Bible says, "Let the one who is thirsty come" (Rev. 22:17). My friend Kevin Brown is a pastor who hungers and thirsts desperately after God. He is conscious, deeply conscious, that there is only one source of Truth when it comes to our youth. If we drink of this Truth and receive it by faith, we will overflow to the glory of God and the blessing of others.
What a blessed pattern for youth is set forth in Scripture! Our greatest delight as parents should be to see our children living for Christ. There is indeed a biblical pattern to parenting, but there are many impediments, not least our enslavement to tradition. Our Lord was careful to stress that children were important to Him. It is a mistaken notion that youth require entertainment and games. There is no adult Holy Spirit and teenage Holy Spirit. There's just the Holy Spirit, and all who possess Christ are to love and serve Him. Paul makes this clear in 1 Corinthians 12. It is of first importance that the church stop marginalizing its youth. How ridiculous to act as though the Gospel could not transform our teenagers' lives!
You will observe that this book does not claim to be the answer to every question you might have about parenting or youth ministry. Raising responsible teenagers is a work of God. Only He can transform our lives. Except the Lord build the house we labor in vain who build it. Kevin Brown says the time for flimsy alibis is over. It will take rugged tenacity and inspired stubbornness to see it through. But the pay-off comes when the world is obliged to acknowledge that the work was performed by the Lord.
Yes, says brother Kevin, Christian young men and women can be "strong" (1 John 2:14). The tragedy of today is that our sights are too low. Have you ever considered what the Scriptures have to say about the matter? If not, I urge you to make a start of it now, by reading this excellent book. Our Father would be pleased to give us so much more if we only had the faith to ask for it.
Look for an announcement shortly from Energion Publications about the book's exact release date.

- http://www.churchtaskforce.org/blog/2010/11/20/discipleship-speaking-about-christians-versus-speaking-to-christians/ – “In the book of Acts, Luke is speaking about Christians as he continues to “set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us” to Theophilus. The chart below identifies the most frequently used words that refer to Christians. These are the words that the Holy Spirit chose to describe Christians to others.”

“While we have each other as living examples, we are together disciples of Jesus Christ. So, maybe it is not so much “who are you discipling” as it is “who is your brother with whom you are laboring alongside?””

Learning to Live in the Broader Traditional Church Culture - http://eric-carpenter.blogspot.com/2011/05/learning-to-live-in-broader-traditional.html

“This is a learning process. I'm still trying to figure out how to embrace the people but not the institutional structure. That can be tricky. One thing I'm trying to do is almost immediately look past the traditions to their hearts. I want to discuss things like fellowship, service, and sharing Christ with others. If they see these things through institutional structures, then I may have to listen to those things but focus on them as people.”

RAISING CHRIST CENTERED YOUNG ADULTS - http://dkevinbrown.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/raising-christ-centered-children/

WHAT CAREER ADVICE WILL YOU GIVE YOUR CHILDREN? - http://parentables.howstuffworks.com/family-matters/what-career-advice-will-you-give-your-children.html

PHOTO SCANNING SERVICE - http://photoscanning.ca/whatwedo

HOMEMADE FRUIT AND VEGETABLE WASH - http://networkedblogs.com/hoGJs

FOREGIVENESS IS A CHOICE - http://www.graceisforsinners.com/life/tell-their-story/

NINE THINGS SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE DO DIFFERENTLY - http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/02/nine_things_successful_people.html