Honor.

God, help me to remember that I put You first over everything. No matter my struggles in life, I seek You first, praise You first and honor You first, whether it by the actions of my hands, the words of my mouth of the first of my storehouse.

When I feel under appreciated at work, You are there. When there is tension in my marriage, You are there. When I stress through my spirituality, You are there. And when I feel very undeserving of Your grace, You give it.

It's coming...

Celebration Generosity, part 2, comes to CCC this weekend. You don't want to miss it. Really, you don't. Be a part of a weekend of change (as opposed to a Tuesday in November of change). In coming up with this post, I wanted to find a cool pic that talked of generosity - I found 3. And I can't decide which I like best. So check them out:



Also, while hunting for pics, I found a blog called The Generosity Path. Seemed ok, so I added it to the blog roll on the right side. I'll keep looking at it to see what it says. It's not straight spiritual, but I liked a couple of the posts I read.

New look.

Kinda got tied of the old template, so I moved to this one. It's ok, but don't be surprised if I change it again. I'm fickle like that.

Talk at you tomorrow - I promise.

The Jesus mission - applied

Did you catch the NBC news this past Friday? If you didn't, here is what you missed: a church that takes everything that is placed in the donation bag and gives it to a person in need. The church is Waterfront Community Church in Schaumburg, IL, and I am proud to personally know some of the people that launched that church out of the NewThing network.

(Now, when I went to view that, I had to sit through a commercial for some "personal" medication - I hope you don't get the same. Talk about your bad placements!)

Anyway - you can view the second behind the scenes video here.

Still wondering why?

I have couples small group on Thursdays, and if there was ever a reason this does not end with us, here it is:

"Thank you for this weekend. I was going to take my life, and now I'm not."

That was written on a card by a student after attending Blast the previous weekend, and shared with us in small group. God so moved in the life of that student that they decided whatever it was that drove them to think death was the solution, they now realized the real solution is the unconditional love of Jesus. The time given by adult volunteers, plus the contributions of the attenders made the change in that student's life possible. How many other students might be thinking that very thing? How many adults? How many need us to be the church so they don't get forgotten or left behind?

Please - let us not let it end with us.

Why?

CCC's Generosity Conference was this past Saturday - I'll talk more about it in a couple days, but I wanted to touch on something. If you attended, during lunch they were showing videos. I hope you got a chance to watch them. Now, I don't know if my mug showed up there (as I wasn't in there watching the whole time), but I did catch the short version of this:



...which, I think, is a great and powerful video. I could be any one of those touching tales. In there, the stories I like best are JJ's at 1:15 (she did another video you can view here) and the woman Ellen at 5:11 (edit: thanks Lisa!). Those two really hit me deep. See, it's stories like those that I need to keep in my heart and mind to remember why I am blessed to give. A while back, someone gave for me. Now I am celebrating the life that God gave me and knowing that Jesus died for me - I cannot forget this doesn't stop with me.

I think back to Dave Ferguson's story of the new kid on the block that invited Dave's father Earl to church, changing not just the lives of the Ferguson family, but hundreds and thousands of others. Because of that boy, I found my way back to God. He started, others followed, others gave of their time and their treasures, and now I am found.

It can't stop with me. It can't stop with any of us.

The time has come.

I will be back here very, very soon. I promise this time.

I thought you were dead....

Hey all....well, whomever of y'all are left. Sorry it's been too long since I have been here, so let me catch you up with what has kept me away from posting.

The 10 for 10 challenge is done, and hope many took part. My wife and I did our very best to keep in line with the challenge (talk about the perfect word), and I can't say we were 100% successful at it. We missed a couple givings to God during the 10 weeks. I have this huge sense of failure. I should have done more. I should have been more free and had more faith that we would be ok. The desire to stay in line was definitely there - just the cash didn't exist. And yes, that is a trust issue....let me come back to that. But the cash was just not in the bank to cover the bills that needed to be paid, as well as showing God just how much we love Him. Not to beat on a dead horse, but pretty much the entire blame is on my dog. Just kidding....the blame in on poor planning.

I can't stress budgeting enough. Even a friend who I have a lot of trust and respect with informed me at Shorewood yesterday that they are now a budgeted family. I know his business skills and talents, so I'm pretty confident his salary is deservedly more than mine. But if they are doing it, we all should. Now, how did our budget fail? Our budget failed to take in account the summer months that Kath does not work. Drop 35-40% of you income (maybe more) and see how you survive when savings are non-existent. You won't, and we didn't. We did make it to now, and the honor for that goes to the family members and friends that helped out.

I bet you are thinking "Ok Jeff. What's your plan?" I am glad you asked that. Step one - 2nd checking account for bills ONLY. Into this account will go my paycheck. Out of this account will be bills and bills only. No home budget like groceries, entertainment, etc (not yet). The idea is to get the budget and my family working by seeing how we can pull off life with one paycheck. As bills get paid off (those non re-occuring like medical and such), more expenses can be moved to the bill account. Step two - savings. Those lean months can be survived if just some of the other paycheck is stored. So just do it, ya nut. Third - control. Getting to an "envelope system" (literally or figuratively) to reign in out of control money output. With all that, budget works. When budget works, honoring God works. When honoring God works, money loses it's control on my life.

So back to the trust thing. Why did I not trust God during those lean pay weeks? Did you ever have a gut feeling? We all do. I have this gut feeling that God really wants to bless me and my family in an amazing way. I just don't think God plans to open up a vault of cash for my family. If you knew the story of my family, cash isn't really something we need. And it's never really been anything we want. Heck - if I one Lotto, I would more than likely give everything away, paying people's mortgages and giving tons of food to people in need. But grace and miracles - we really could stand for that inside my home, and I think that is God's plan.

So we got back on track with tithing this week. Next date of giving in the 19th, with a double thanks to God. As much as I have confidence in being blessed, I still have a while to go with some of my trust issues. This journey is not close to being done...

Where have I been?

I have been shirking my "duties" here for a little bit, and I apologize. A lot has been going on, with a vacation, work and other stuff, that I have either been non-bloggerish, or just haven't had the time. Give me just a couple more days - I promise I will have something up here for you to gnaw on, laugh at or shake your head. Maybe all three.

And yeah - I said I had an idea too. I really, REALLY want to make that idea a reality, but again...I point to no time or a poor mood. But that I about to end. Thanks for hanging in, and I promise I will write here by the weekend.

This weekend.
In September.
2008.

"Ate it" is tithe spelled backwards

Do you read all the posts from other people on the 10-for-10 challenge? If you haven't, head over on this link and check them out. Here's one that I posted this past week:

*****
Allow me a story. When I was a wee lil' boy (oh, I was at one time), baseball was my thing. The spring melt was the time of the year I lived for. Pulling out the mitt from storage, otherwise known as buried in the closet, getting out the cap and getting into shape. I lived in a house with a design that put some of the roofing tiles on the front, and that was my backstop. In fact, here's a pic of that very house - granted, the roof was black at the time. For hours I threw a rubber ball off the house, knowing every location on it and where I could get a line drive, pop-up, one hopper - you name it.

When the bushes in front ate the ball (I see they have since been removed in that picture, but trust me - they were some evil bushes), I would bike to the Certified with a couple quarters to get a replacement. Then the call from the coach after Little League draft, biking to practices with my glove over the handle bars, uniform top, pants and stirrups (real ballplayers wear the pants bloused with just the right amount of sock showing)...what a summer! Season ending didn't stop the throwing off the house. Baseball was life for me. It was what defined me through my young years.

I hit 15, and I hit the bench. That was the first time I had ever watched a game from the dugout (unless you count the 3 innings I missed after I tore up my knee stealing home). Baseball....was boring. It just didn't thrill me anymore. When I did get off the bench, I would make one dumb, boneheaded play after the next. I doubt hit more than .200 that season, dropping from almost .500. It wasn't fun anymore, so I stopped playing, moved to soccer and grew up. I came back to my love of baseball about 15 years ago. I look at those two decades without basball and think of what I missed - the joys, thrills, agonies, and heartbreaks.

So you are reading this and thinking "Ok Magellan - guide this ship in and tell me what baseball has to do with tithing." My point is this - without baseball, I lost a part of myself. At the time, I didn't realize what I had turned from. Soccer isn't Satan, per se (unless you are Man United). It's just that with baseball so much of who I was, when I finally saw it gone, I felt empty and incomplete.

67. That's the number Dave, Tim and Jon have told us. 67% do not know Jesus. How many of those 67% don't have joy or thrills or agonies or heartbreaks? Jesus never said it would be easy. He just said to follow Him and he won't abandon us. So I have heartbreak - Jesus will carry me through. I experience joy - thank you Jesus for loving me, even when I forgot to love You. I even think 67% might be low. I wonder how many of the other 33% work towards a full and complete relationship with Jesus. I tithe not just to thank an Awesome God and show how He is my love. I tithe so someone else can have the chance to listen, and move, when a gentle whisper tells them their life can be so much more.