Prayer Post-Its

This picture is more than just a bunch of random post-its.  Everyone of these post-it’s represent a person a soul that our students are praying for.  I took this picture with my iPhone and it was only a portion of the whole wall that was covered with Names.

On Sunday evening all of Creekside gathered to pray for our church, to move us forward as a church, and our students prayed in our student room to pray for their friends and our ministry.  So great to come home and see this.  Big prayers

Back From Cali

I flew in yesterday from California, good trip, kind of a whirlwind of a trip and I still need to digest and debrief it all.  Great time hanging out with some good guys and gals and learning about church and what God has called the church to be.  And some great ideas at creekside.  So interesting.

Dealing with angry people

some more brilliance from Seth Godin – Angry People are Different.

There was a statement that I heard yesterday, “That guy is just angry.”

It’s interested that often we try to placate angry people, we ignore them, or we disregard everything they say.

I’ve dealt with angry parents, and church members.  And often it’s not about me or what I did, I’ve found that anger is often rooted much deeper.

I don’t think I need to solve everyone’s problem, but I do know this, I cannot succumb to other people’s anger.  I know that the solution to one angry person is not two angry people.

Kind of rambley but if that makes you angry then I can’t fix you.

the Reason for God – Review

Tim Keller is a brilliant evangelical mind. With the heart of a pastor he writes a powerful, yet simple apologetic for the Christian faith. The book is divided into two parts. The first part looks at several of the protests against the Christian faith (and faith in general). Keller does a masterful work at look at these arguements, and how their logic falls apart on itself. Keller isn’t trying to make people feel stupid in their atheism, but he also wants to show that it’s not the intellectual end all for smart people.

In the second section, Keller examines the various clues that point to God. Having read some Lewis and Wright I felt like Keller was rehashing stuff that I’ve already read. But I had to remember that this book wasn’t written for me. It was written for people who do not believe in the Gospel of Christ.

Even though I am no the target of this book I was still moved by the power and majesty of God. I was moved by his love and powerfully reminded that the Gospel is bigger than anything that I can ever really comprehend. But Keller does a wonderful job of breaking it down, and taking these big and powerful concepts like the Trinity and showing how it all makes sense.

As a pastor I would recommend other pastors read this work. But also if you want to be able to talk with your friends who are atheists, then this would be a great resource that doesn’t make you want to fight with people, rather to love them, listen to them and dialogue with them. Pass it on to your friends who are far from God.