Ministry Opportunities For 59 Year Olds

What a great way to start this day…

*Well, it’s not really the “start” of my day. The start of my day was (per usual) wrangling two small children, bundling them in layers and layers of winter clothes, and driving them up to daycare (while singing our ABC’s at the top of our voices).

But once that was all sorted, I settled in in front of my laptop, opened my web stats site (I use GetClicky.com because it shows real time stats) and saw that I someone found Kingdom Strategist by searching Google for:

“ministry opportunities for 59 year olds”

Planning the Next Phase of Haitian Relief

The devastation of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake on January 12, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (and the 49 magnitude 4.5 or greater aftershocks) is heart-wrenching. The pictures of the damage… of the hurt and suffering experienced by the people there… of the chaos of a massive world effort to provide the basics: emergency care and medicine, food, shelter, security… are haunting. (Click the following links to see pictures from January 13th , January 18th, January 22nd, and February 1st. WARNING: the images are graphic.)

According to a ...

Living With Diabetes

… is hard.

For those of you who don’t know, I am a Type 1 Diabetic. Typically, people with Type 1 diabetes develop it while they are children (hence it sometimes being called “Juvenile Diabetes”); however, I developed it in 2004 when I was 26 years old.

Diabetes is a disease where the body either:

• (for Type 1 diabetics) does not produce insulin; or,
• (for Type 2 diabetics) does not respond to insulin.

As a Type 1, I do not produce insulin. Insulin is produced by the pancreas and facilitates the absorption of glucose into the body’s cells. At some point in 2004 my pancreas stopped working, probably because my immune system got confused and sent my white blood cells to attack it. Stupid immune system. (more…)...

A Personal Prayer

I wrote this in my journal on January 24, 2009. At the time I had been self-employed for about two months, expecting my second child in less than two month, and scared. Reflecting on the time that has passed between then and now, all I can say is that the year got away from us. Being self-employed, having two children under the age of two, both my wife and I having to deal with major medical issues… it all felt like a dark, dark storm that was disheartening and disorienting.

15 Reasons “Church Online” Should Be Debated

Jesus Christ is on Facebook

I personally am a huge proponent of Christians leveraging the power of the Internet to advance the Kingdom and to give glory to God. I recognize that the web is changing the way people live their lives, I see it in my own family. My nigh-two year old is already comfortable with video calls and would rather look at pictures of her mother and brother on the computer than look at them in person. It is apparent to me that Internet will be a integral aspect of the lives of future generations of Christians.

A Six Year Old’s Sense of Injustice and the Power of an Online Community

Holy crap. Jon Acuff and the Stuff Christians Like blog community totally hijacked my day. Here’s the recap:

• Jon Acuff of StuffChristiansLike.net is inspired by his 6 year old daughter’s sense of injustice that there are hungry children around the world;
• Jon, still reeling from how many people have come to enjoy and support SCL gets an idea: leverage the power of the community to do something big for a charity;
• Jon reaches out to the community for inspiration as to what charity to work with;
• Jon settles on Samaritan’s Purse and works with them to coordinate the building of a kindergarten in rural Vietnam… all Jon needs is to raise $30,000.

Which brings us to today. This morning ...

Blog Action Day 2009 | Climate Change

I’m proud to participate in Blog Action Day, an annual event where bloggers from around the world focus the power of their medium to address a global issue in the hopes of inspiring change. I got involved in Blog Action Day last year when the topic was something I’m passionate about: poverty. You can read my post from last year here.

The topic for this year (climate change) is not something I’m passionate about – BUT – that does not mean it is not an important issue. In fact, environmentalism is part of our Christian calling and every Kingdom strategist needs to consider how their work as part of redeeming creation, impacts creation.

Do you have enemies?

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. –Winston Churchill

In an article in The New York Times Magazine from August, 2007 William Safire discusses how title “Strategist” is replacing “Adviser”  in American politics and the nuance behind the shift. What says it reveals a desire to differentiate oneself from the overused “campaign manager” and “political adviser” and while implying high status within the ranks of a staff.

Have you ever seen a broken heart?

In life, in missions, in business it’s important to be reminded why it is that you do what you do. I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to work out of my house and it’s a wonderful motivator to be able to spend time during the day with my amazing family. When I was leading strategic research projects for Fortune 500 companies, the highlight of the engagement was always to see the client face to face and to provide new insight into their business challenges. As an Elder of my church it is an honor to sit and tearfully bring praise and pleading before the Lord with the men and women I worship with.

As the body of Christ we are Christ’s envoys to the world today. His rescue mission is our rescue mission. Tonight I got a first hand look at a broken, shriveled, and hardened heart. The kind of heart that only the pure and perfect love of Jesus can heal.

We are powerful beyond measure

Quote from Nelson Mandala’s Inaugural Speech, 1994

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? YOU ARE A CHILD OF GOD. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

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