Women’s Wednesday–“Come Take a Ride with Me.”

As the helicopter lifted off the ground, the wind immediately began to rock the small transportation vehicle back and forth. All the hustle, rush, and fuss that commenced after the decision to transfer me had momentarily ceased. Now I had about an hour and a half to think, bundled up in a ‘burrito’ in a medical air transport vehicle during a brewing thunderstorm.

An EMT later told me it was one of the bumpiest rides she had ever experienced.

So, to say my time in the helicopter was scary would be an understatement. It shook me to my core and stirred up my mind and heart. I wasn’t thinking about the dirty dishes in the sink (thanks Vickie for taking care of those), the taxes I had just prepared, or the nursery that wasn’t quite finished. But rather, my heart was full of thoughts of my baby, my husband, and my Lord.

After convincing myself that my husband would be okay if anything happened to me (after all, I married an amazing faithful man of God whose strength is astonishing), my mind focused on the Lord. And what I remember thinking about the most during the moments of the turbulence of the helicopter ride was my ultimate goal here on this earth: “living my life & going to heaven and bringing as many people as I can with me”.

I thought about what I had done for God and what I could do better. I tried to think of ways to bring more people to Christ and things I could to do help make my relationship with Him even better. My heart ached at the thought of not being able to share the gospel with anyone ever again. I felt a passion that I hadn’t felt for awhile.

It shouldn’t haven taken a bumpy ride during a medical emergency to completely focus my mind on the ultimate prize. But, sadly, it’s easy to lose focus and zeal when dealing with the mundaneness of everyday life, not faced with the eminence of one’s own mortality.

As I write this, I’m on hospital bed rest for another two weeks. Things have settled down, and danger is hopefully not around the corner. It would be easy to put those thoughts I was thinking in the helicopter on the backburner. But, I’ve got to constantly remind myself of my mortality and of my ultimate goal: getting to heaven and bringing as many people as I can with me.

I don’t want to ever forget the terror I felt, accompanied by a renewed urgency to teach others and draw closer to God.

Will you take some time to think about this today as you go about your “normal life”?

Ask yourself what you’re doing to accomplish your ultimate goal each and every day! Not just on Sundays, or on scary days faced with emergencies – but, every day. Heed Paul’s words in Ephesians 5:16 to redeem your time wisely. For every day is a blessing and is here for us to serve our Lord, for remember He created us for HIS glory! (Isaiah 43:7)

~Martha Howell

(Last week I mentioned that we would look at scheduling, planning, and goal setting in this week’s article. But due to all the excitement in the past week, this article took precedence. Don’t worry, I’ll still give out tips to accomplish your goals soon. Just stay tuned to the ‘Christian Practice’!)

Women’s Wednesday–“Get it Together!” (Part 1)

The weather’s getting warmer and my heavy maternity sweaters are getting to be a little too much. But, knowing that I only have 8 more weeks till baby gets here, I am determined not to spend a lot on maternity spring clothing. So, yesterday I decided to go to a thrift store to do a little bargain shopping.

I walked into the thrift store expecting to see what I had seen in all the other thrift stores I had ever visited -- racks of clothing divided by type (summer, blouses, sweaters, etc.) then further divided by size. But guess what? They were all mixed in together! Even the sizes! This store had racks and racks of ladies clothes, so sorting through a mile of shirts not knowing if the next I would look at would be a small or 3x was enough to discourage me. So, I left – hands empty.

This little experience shopping in the unorganized thrift store left me thinking about how easy it is for our lives – all aspects! – to become disarrayed leaving us discouraged, throwing our hands up in the air and accomplishing little or nothing that we set out to do.

Imagine you were in charge of sorting all of the clothes in that thrift store by type and size. Where would you start? I challenge you to give this question some serious thought as organization principles are similar whether we’re speaking of our homes, our lives, or thrift stores.

1) Identify the “big stuff”. As organizer of the thrift store, perhaps you would identify the most profitable items that were all jumbled in with the small stuff, pulling aside best designer brands, highest quality clothing, and high ticket items such as dresses and coats.

Similarly, ID the “big stuff” in your life. God should be in this list! Perhaps you also have friends, family, and cleaning in your “big stuff”. Know what your most important items are!

2) Put the “big stuff” first. Doesn’t it make sense that the thrift store would feature the most profitable items in a prominent display in the store? Similarly, we should place importance on the “big stuff”

In next week’s article I’m going to go through how to do this step by step, helping you to identify goals and put an action plan in place. Right now, I just want you to remember that if you put the “big stuff” first, the little things will fit in much easier. If you fill your cup with all the little things first and then try to cram in the big stuff, some of your most important things may not fit!

Take a look at this illustration:

In the drawing on the left (above), I placed all of my little items first and then tried to fit the big items. But, look! One of the big ones didn’t completely fit!

In the drawing on the right (above) I placed the big items first and then all of the little items (yes, the same number and size as drawing one) fit with room leftover!

While self-help gurus may think that they came up with this idea of putting the ‘big stuff’ first. They weren’t the first to espouse such ideas! Jesus tells us to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” (that’s putting BIG STUFF first) and then “all these things shall be added to you”. [Matthew 6:33]

3) Sort through what’s left. After pulling aside the most important items in our thrift store, the organizer should then start sorting what’s left – by size, by material, etc. – perhaps even throwing things away!

Take a look at your life and ask yourself if all of the small things in your life fit and if they don’t, take stock and decide to cut back. Oh yes, this means you may have to start saying “no” when something interferes with God, family, or your other “big stuff”!

Still not quite sure how to get it together?

My challenge for you this week is to just contemplate on the idea of ‘big things’ versus ‘little things’ in your life and then next week, I’ll hold your hand as we come up with a game plan for how to help you accomplish everything (or at least most everything) you always wanted to accomplish, as we ‘get it together’!

~Martha Howell

Tech Tip Tuesday–Use Google Reader to Listen to Podcasts!

Links mentioned in the video:

http://listen.googlelabs.com

http://www.theequipnetwork.com

Enjoy!

~Daniel Howell

A Challenge to Pray

“I’m praying for you.”

“I’ll keep you in my prayers!”

“Be sure to pray for…”

We’ve probably all uttered these words many times in our lives (I hope). We meet a friend in the store, or run into someone we know at the Post Office. We take a moment to catch up, and we find out about some difficulty that is happening in their life. Then the phrase, “keep us in your prayers” comes up. It’s followed by our requisite response, “oh, I will.”

Do you?

You see, this statement requires two things to be valid: 1) You already have an active prayer life; 2) You will indeed remember to do so. Granted, only you have any idea what your prayer life is like, but I’d venture to say that most of us fail on at least one of these counts.

Let me be a little “radical” here…

Here’s where the challenge comes in: Pray. When you see that person, and they ask for you to pray, stun them by pulling them aside to some place quiet (don’t make a show of it, Matthew 6:5), and pray.

“9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers,” (Romans 1:9, NKJV)

~Daniel Howell

#3–Learn to Make Good Decisions

For an explanation of this series, click here.

For the previous installment in this series (Humility), click here.

Jenaleigh,

Even though choosing not to be like “everyone else” and being humble about it will help a lot in life, don’t forget to take the time to develop the ability to make good decisions. I’m not the first dad to ever write about, this, so I’ll defer to the words of a much wiser man: Solomon.

2 To know wisdom and instruction, To perceive the words of understanding,

3 To receive the instruction of wisdom, Justice, judgment, and equity;

4 To give prudence to the simple, To the young man knowledge and discretion—

5 A wise man will hear and increase learning, And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel,

6 To understand a proverb and an enigma, The words of the wise and their riddles.

7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, But fools despise wisdom and instruction.

(Proverbs 1:2–7, NKJV)

Hold on to these words. Realize that you don’t have to make your own mistakes just for the sake of learning. Now, you don’t need to be haughty about that (remember, humility…) but you can help others to realize this as well.

You see, your peers are going to cry out at some point to their parents, “Why don’t you let me live my life the way I want! Let me make my own mistakes.” Some parents will oblige. We never will.

We know that life is much better, and it is much wiser, if you can learn to learn not only from your mistakes (and you WILL make them), but to be observant and learn from the mistakes of others! You don’t have to “re-invent the wheel” and go through an endless process of trial and error to find what’s right!

In other words, wisdom will teach you that you don’t always have to conduct the experiment in life. You just need to be observant! Seek understanding!

Notice what a wise man once wrote:

30 I went by the field of the lazy man, And by the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding;

31 And there it was, all overgrown with thorns; Its surface was covered with nettles; Its stone wall was broken down.

32 When I saw it, I considered it well; I looked on it and received instruction:

(Proverbs 24:30–32, NKJV)

This man didn’t have to be lazy himself to understand the consequences! He didn’t have to damage his livelihood to know the value of hard work! He could look at the mistakes of others, and learn this valuable lesson. The same principle of gaining understanding applies to every aspect of life.

Why do I go to great lengths to say this? Well, sometimes the mistakes that your peers will make will have lifelong consequences. I saw kids my age have car accidents that affect their lives for years to come, damage their bodies with drugs to the point that they are no longer the person they were, and, at the very least, complicate their lives because of bad decisions boys and girls made together. I decided that I didn’t need to do what they did just to figure out whether it was a good idea or not. Seek wisdom.

Be assured, the same principle certainly works in adulthood.

By the way, this isn’t anything novel, or new. Your daddy wasn’t born this way. I decided to be this way. I’m not any smarter than anyone else. I just learned that making good decisions starts with the Bible. After all, where else can I go to find the words of eternal life (John 6:68)? Jesus compared obeying his words to being a wise man (Matthew 7:24-27). Think about it: When it comes to getting to heaven, there’s no way to experiment! We just have to take God’s word for what it says, and do it (Hebrews 11:6ff.)!

8 He who gets wisdom loves his own soul; He who keeps understanding will find good.

(Proverbs 19:8, NKJV)

Tech Tip Tuesday–Getting Started with Google Reader

To listen to the Ministry Geek This Week Podcasts about RSS feeds and Google Reader, click the links below:

“RSS – WHAT IS IT? HOW DO I USE IT AND WHY SHOULD I CARE?”

“RSS – NOW THAT I KNOW WHAT IT IS, WHAT DO I DO?”

Even the Pinky Toe…

Take just a moment to look at your foot. No, not with your shoes on – a la natural – you see that stubby little member on the outside? I call him the pinky toe. Others (likely more correctly) call him the little toe.

So what’s the deal with this little guy? He seems to not be all that useful. After all, he’s so small. Some people have one that even hides underneath their other toes. A few others don’t even have a nail on that toe. Many scientists claims that he is a vestigial organ, that his day has passed. In other words, they look at him and don’t see what he is, but what he might have once been.

You know, if he’s not all that useful, why don’t we just remove him? After all, that’s why we have all the other toes! We can live without him, right?

In an article on National Geographic’s website, Jeffrey Laitman, director of anatomy and functional morphology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine said the following about removing vestigial organs:

“History is littered with body parts that were called "useless" simply because medical science had yet to understand them.

People say, You can remove it and still live. But you have to be careful with that logic. You could remove your left leg and still live. But whenever a body part is moved or changed, there's a price to pay."

Let’s just say that you took a hatchet and lopped that little toe off. Would you live? Yes. Would you be able to carry on about your day with “business as usual?” Of course not. Despite the harm to the rest of your foot, it would at least permanently change the way that you walk. Your balance would never be quite what it was. The whole body would be affected!

When it comes to another body, the body of Christ, Paul expresses the same sentiment. In 1 Corinthians 12 he begins writing about how the church is composed up of individual members, but yet these individual members (people) all make up the entire body (verse 14). In fact, he goes to great lengths to show how God has a purpose for every part of the body, whether it be our physical bodies or his design for the church (cf. Colossians 1:18):

1 Corinthians 12:17–19 (NKJV)

¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? ¹⁸ But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. ¹⁹ And if they were all one member, where would the body be?

He goes on to write this:

1 Corinthians 12:21–22 (NKJV)

²¹ And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” ²² No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary.

Sometimes it’s easy to lament being one of the “faithful few.” While it’s true that there’s often a “core group” that seems to “do everything” within a congregation, this perspective sometimes breeds an attitude of contempt for the lesser parts. That’s the I can do it without you attitude.

Ask yourself the following:

Question #1: Is the congregation where you worship and work hobbling along?

Question #2: Have you taken the time to get to know what your “lesser members” can do? After all, God says that they are necessary.

Question #3: Have you taken the time to express to them their importance, and what opportunities they have to do things, even if they aren’t “high visibility” works? Maybe you need to take time to understand what they can do to serve, as well has helping them understand what they can do. Don’t just write them off, or lop them off the body of Christ because they aren’t like you!

Don’t forget about the little toes!

~Daniel Howell

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090730-spleen-vestigial-organs_2.html

Women’s Wednesday | “I Didn’t Even Know!”

Thirty-one year old Jennifer West was trying to enjoy a peaceful family vacation when she started to experience extreme pain. The pain was so bad that her husband finally convinced her to seek medical help at the local hospital. After checking into the emergency room and describing her pain, which was like “the worst period of [her] life”, she was given an ultrasound.

Did you guess what’s going on? The ultrasound showed that she pregnant! And further exam revealed that she was eight centimeters dilated. Within hours she had her healthy baby boy in her arms and proclaimed, “I didn’t even know I was pregnant!” (To read more of her story, click here)

But how could she not know? As a woman currently in week 30 of my pregnancy I find this impossible to believe. But it seems as though Jennifer was an expert at rationalizing and explaining away the signs. Looking back on it, she admits that she did have many of the “symptoms” of pregnancy:

- Missed periods. (She had always been irregular.)

- Morning sickness. (She thought it was the flu!)

- Heartburn and stomach pain. (She thought she had “aggravated her ulcer”.)

- Weight gain of nearly 20 pounds in her midsection. (She was sure it was just her body changing since she’d just recently turned thirty.)

While I think most of us ladies would not explain away all of these symptoms that point to pregnancy, are we ignoring the signs and symptoms of a more serious condition – one that will effect our souls?

One spring morning, Ted opened the door to find the preacher from the local congregation standing there looking a little nervous.

Opening the door slowly, Ted said, “Hi brother! It’s good to see you!”

The preacher replied, “It’s great to see you, Ted. But I’m afraid I’m here on a grave assignment. I want to find out why you’ve fallen away from the church, the body of Christ.”

“What?!” Ted, said. As it slowly sunk in, he added, “I didn’t even know I had fallen away.”

You may be wondering how anyone could not know. But Ted, like the unknowingly pregnant Jennifer, had become an expert at rationalizing away the “signs” and “symptoms” of being an erring member! Much like Jennifer’s reaction to the ER nurse, Ted was initially taken aback by the preacher’s bold statement. But, then Ted realized he was right – he had fallen away. And the symptoms were all there:

- He stopped attending worship services. He missed just a few at first, but then it just became easier to stay at home. He hadn’t been back in two years.

- He didn’t fellowship with any of the saints. After all, the members of the church that were his age all had families. He had nothing in common with them. It was much easier to hang out with his free spirited single pals.

- He had compromised many of his once dearly held Bible beliefs. It started out as one beer at home. No one would know, right? It led to nights out at the bar and weekend “clubbing” excursions. He also found himself not speaking up when someone would question him on his views of abortion or homosexual marriage.

- He never opened the Word of God anymore. His life was so busy. Plus, he never knew what to study or what it meant.

- His attitude toward God, His Son, and the Church had changed. He once loved God, but there have been so many bad things that had happened to him, he’s just not sure where God fits into the picture.

There are many reasons one may fall away. Perhaps you’ve just “drifted away” as the writer of Hebrews warns against in Hebrews 2:1. Or maybe you weren’t grounded in the truth to begin with (Luke 8:13). Or have you allowed yourself to err because of your surroundings, letting the “cares, riches, and pleasures of life” sweep you away from the Lord (Luke 8:14)?

Whatever the reason, know the warning signs and “catch it” before it’s too late!

Jennifer went through her whole pregnancy without nurturing her child with essential pre-natal care. Her baby could have had serious birth defects, but luckily he didn’t. Unfortunately, a person who goes through life without nurturing their spiritual self will not catch the same break that Jennifer did. They will give an account of their life to God (Romans 14:12) and every work will be judged – even those “secret things” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

Will you be left pleading with God, saying, “But, I didn’t know I had fallen away?!” Recognize the signs and symptoms before it’s too late.

~Martha Howell

Tech Tip Tuesday–I Love Technology?

Today’s T3 is to serve as a kind of “grounding” for all of us techno-geeks out there. With so much going on right now in the land of tech (iPhone on Verizon, iPad2, just to name a couple) it’s easy to lose sight of what these things should actually be used for.

All of this comes after my birthday (yesterday) and a stroll around a few stores, trying find a way to spend “birthday money.” You would think that there would be some electronic gadget or piece of software that’s on my list to purchase next. Surprisingly, there isn’t.

I love technology, but I also realize there are limits.

Now let me throw a couple things out there for you to think about:

• I love my Kindle. I actually just finished reading a book that I’ve been working on for a couple days, and was able to finish so quickly because I could read it across so many platforms (Kindle, PC, and Android). I made all kinds of highlights in it, but there’s one thing that scares me about it all: How long will I have it? File formats change over time, new standards are enacted, and items become obsolete. Even though the Kindle is great, I haven’t stopped buying paper books.


• I’m deathly afraid of malfunctioning equipment. I know it happens. I’ve crashed my share of PCs and (collective gasp) MACs. I’ve frozen my Kindle, Android Phone, and iPod. Things happen. For this reason, I’ve decided not to take them into the pulpit. My preaching is about my relationship with God in worship to Him, and conveying His truth to the audience. If it’s helpful in conveying the message (i.e., PowerPoint) it’s in. If it’s a toy, it has no business being there, now matter how “cool”. There have been times that I’ve just shut down the malfunctioning PowerPoint and gone without it instead of trying to fix it. I’ve worked to develop my speaking skills so that my voice carries, even if the microphone dies. I can’t be dependent upon technology for worship. It’s my goal for technology to aid my ministry where it can, but not define it, and certainly not detract from it.


• I still send hand-written notes to visitors and members. While I could type a letter about four times faster than I could write one by hand, there’s something to be said for a “personal touch” (Galatians 6:11). Facebook, Twitter, cellphones, and eMail can all aid in keeping in touch with people, but there’s no substitute for “face time.”

It’s my prayer that as preachers (if you are a preacher reading this) that you will take advantage of technology where you can. It can help your ministry in ways that preachers of the past never imagined. For that matter, who’s to say they wouldn’t use these same methods to reach out to the world. After all, it was bygone generations that pioneered the use of television and radio for evangelism and ministry (I know quite a few “golden agers” who were converted because of preachers on the radio). Don’t be too proud to use Facebook, read a book on a Kindle, or own a “smartphone.”  The key is, don’t let them own you.

~Daniel Howell

Just ‘Cause It’s On Sale…

Recently my wife has taken on “extreme couponing” as a hobby. Truthfully, I’m thrilled that she has decided to devote some of her time to saving us money. She’s always had an affinity for Excel spreadsheets, so the math of it all is exciting to her.

As she was perusing various websites looking for deals, she came across this picture that someone else had taken:

Now granted it’s only a six cent difference, but if a person didn’t take the time to read everything written, in purchasing this “deal” they would have lost something (had the cash register actually charged this price).

By the way, when it comes to these sales, and companies’ coupons, someone might ask, “If they run all of these sales and deals, how do they stay in business?” Keep in mind that businesses are in the business of making money. Just because it’s “on sale” doesn’t mean that they aren’t getting money from you somewhere else!

It got me to thinking: I know that Satan is a liar (John 8:44). I also know that he’s in the business of deception (1 John 3:6-8). Adding to that, I know that Satan can make something bad look good (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).

Have you ever thought of this: Satan wants people to think they are saved – even if they aren’t. If he can make someone think they are saved (see 2 Timothy 4:3-4), he has them. Just because someone thinks and feels that everything is alright in their relationship with God doesn’t mean that Satan is going out of business!

How can we know if we are getting a good deal? We have to do some reading (Acts 17:11)! Just because its on sale, doesn’t mean it’s a good deal!

-Daniel Howell