We often speak of living out our gospel identity in everyday rhythms of life (know the story, listen, bless, celebrate & suffer, eat, rest & work). In fact, much of what we do is not meant to add things to the schedule, but bring intentionality to the things we are already doing. The following lists are a few practical examples of simple things you can begin doing to bring gospel intentionality to your schedule. Hopefully as you are reading
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On this eve of the “National Day of Prayer,” I wrote a little ditty for @LosAltosGrace and compelled folks to actually pray on this day… and even tried to create some white space to help it happen. Then I was scrolling through my email and came across a forward article about our nation from a patriot in our @LosAltosGrace Church family. The title of the email article was “We Are Not Coming Back.” It caught
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Dave Gibbons discusses depending on the Holy Spirit. He says, “A lot of times we think the Holy Spirit is real, but we don’t actually see Him in our context, nor do you expect to meet Him everyday. Like when you woke up this morning, did you get pumped that you could have an encounter with Christ, that you could meet the Spirit of God to see Him living through you in a
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This Week’s CHALLENGE: 1) Ask God this question: What am I afraid of? 2) Write down what comes to mind 3) Then ask yourself: If God is with me, why am I afraid of that?
On this day when we have a memorial for our beloved Erin Vidovich, I remember back to the end of August when she and Pete Anderson did an interview with me for our Los Altos Grace Church family on Sunday morning. It was a powerful time of reality and truth. Below is the write up from that time….and what a beautiful way Erin worships our Jesus now: So that it how I worship Him, by
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“The Bible is basically a story about God. When we turn to the Bible as a self-help book, we end up bored or frustrated with what seems to be a rambling collection of stories. What if the Bible is more about God than it is about us? How thrilling to discover that every element of scripture—the reports of events, the verses of distilled wisdom, the lyrical prophecies—converge in one central saga of one worthy Person.
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Most people instinctively avoid conflict, but as Margaret Heffernan shows us, good disagreement is central to progress. She illustrates (sometimes counterintuitively) how the best partners aren’t echo chambers — and how great research teams, relationships and businesses allow people to deeply disagree. The former CEO of five businesses, Margaret Heffernan explores the all-too-human thought patterns — like conflict avoidance and selective blindness — that lead managers and organizations astray.
A Footwasher to the Footwashers | Christianity Today The first shall be last, and the last, first. by Ken Barnes The mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, respectfully approached Jesus. She had a small request for Jesus. “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom” (Matt. 20:21). It sounds like a typical Jewish mother’s request (“My boys
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The finest book I’ve read thus far this year, is We Are Not the Hero: A Missionary’s Guide to Sharing Christ Not a Culture of Dependency by Jean Johnson. This book, based on a combination of thorough research and personal experience as a seasoned missionary, is another that deals with the chronic issue of western-promoted dependency in missions. Johnson updates this important topic with a clarion call to westerners (agencies, churches, individuals) to rethink how
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[Three men walking along the road…] “It has been a crazy, crazy week in Jerusalem,” the man explained to his other two companions. “Just a week ago there was an impromptu parade. It was an amazing moment. Many of us were gathered along the road and were buzzing with excitement. Riding up into the city on a donkey was a man who certainly was a prophet.” “Over the last several years, his reputation had grown
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On this very day seven years ago, one of my friends and a spiritual giant, stepped into the face-to-face presence of Jesus. Mark Palmer influenced me and many others who had the privilege of walking alongside him. He was the only one of my friends who had a “one-word name.” Like Cher or Bono, he was just Palmer. He was tall physically, and even taller in his love of God. He walked through joy and
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This short video clip helps you “look through the window” into an important place in our world. Iraq is in the news and often talked about, but not very understood. Thanks to Encompass World Partners for this resource! Windows to the World — Iraq from Encompass World Partners on Vimeo.
For several months, Phil Helfer, myself and several others have been dialoguing on the possibility of using English Learning/ESL as a cross-cultural ministry opportunity for Los Altos Grace Brethren Church and more broadly for Long Beach as well. We had an exploratory meeting on March 25 with some folks from Los Altos Grace, Seal Beach Grace, Cecil O’Dell and Kathy from CSULB! I’ve placed some resources from our time together here: Notes I took from
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A great week with some great people! This week of core orientation for Encompass World Partners was really helpful in getting “indoctrinated”:-) We did talk about the stuff of vision, mission and values, and we were inspired by the story of James Gribble and other Encompass missionaries. Their life stories and lessons learned were very pithy! We also got to go to a different ethnic restaurant each day, and pray for that part of the
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“The Gospel is like a seed and you have to sow it. When you sow the seed of the Gospel in Palestine, a plant that can be called Palestinian Christianity grows. When you sow it in Rome, a plant of Roman Christianity grows. You sow the Gospel in Great Britain and you get British Christianity. The seed of the Gospel is later brought to America, and a plant grows of American Christianity. Now, when missionaries
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