My Happy Family

Thoughts on Disciple Making

I was really challenged by the statement "Many of us have been discipled to Jesus and . . . church practice, doctrine, expectations, specific teacher or denomination were set beside Jesus to help us understand Him" and now we follow them as much as Him. This point was made during our second session in my Simple Church Revolution class. It really challenged me to look at how I disciple and to see if I do that. From a lot of the reading I've done this week, I've been challenged to see that these new disciples in other cultures just take the Bible and run with it. We, on the other hand, take the Bible and enter name of book here to explain it to us. That challenged me in a good way. It really made me look at if I believe in the sufficiency of God's Word in my life and if I truly trust the Holy Spirit to use it to guide me without any other crutches/resources. I'm not saying other resources are bad or wrong, just that I can be too dependent on them at times. I want my dependence to be more on the Word of God and His Spirit alone.

What comes to your mind when you read that statement? Does it challenge you? Encourage you? What do you think?

2009 Memorial Day Memories

What a fun relaxing day!

I want it!

I would love to win this! Check it out!

Church Planting Movement

Have I told you about my class? No? Well, I am taking an online course entitled "Simple Church Revolution." It found me, really. I had been reading a blog entitled SimpleChurch Journal aka HouseChurchBlog. Through that blog, I downloaded a book, Simple/House Church Revolution. I really enjoyed and was challenged by it. Well, I received this e-mail from a Roger Thoman inviting those of us who had downloaded the book to take this course. It is online and something new he was trying. I am getting a lot out of it and it is really challenging me and my views of the Body of Christ, the priesthood of all believers, etc. I wanted to share with you something I have been mulling on since our last class. Below is a snippet of something we discussed and my response/thoughts on it. I would love to hear yours!

Floyd McClung offered his 3 reasons why we do not see faster reproduction in the Christianized West:

1. Lack of obedience to the word: One example: followers of Jesus don't pursue finding the person of peace, finding one who's oikos is open, then making disciples among them, as Jesus instructed in Luke 10
2. Traditional ways of doing church encourage a "watch the main man on sunday" mentality instead of every believer getting out and making disciples through a lifestyle of obedience.
3. A lack of willingness to suffer and sacrifice. It takes sacrifice to plant churches and Western believers don't believe in sacrifice.

I think that his first point is interesting. I find that people either get so focused on "relationship building" they never/rarely get around to actually sharing the gospel or get so impassioned by the message they neglect to build relationship/look for the person of peace and blast people with the message. You often hear people say they would accept Christ if it wasn't for His people. I think that does relate back to a lack of obedience on our parts. We live one way, say another or pretend that we don't instead of being honest when we fall. People respect honesty, especially if you admit to failing but get up and try again.
The third point definitely rings true. I believe that we all get so immersed in our own lives and doing our own thing that we don't live as living sacrifices. We often sacrifice our spiritual life on the altar of our physical life. We forget that the here and now is but a vapor--that we have this little blip of time to sacrifice the seen for the unseen. When we are with the Lord, there will be no more sacrifice. No more choosing Him over lesser things. If we don't value the Lord over everything else, why will unbelievers see any value in our message?

Thoughts? Comments? Respectful disagreements? I would love to listen and dialogue with you on this!

Happy Birthday, Ralph!

Today is my husband's 37th birthday. I am so thankful for him!

He is a wonderful father to our daughter. She lights up whenever he comes into her view. He always takes time out of his day to play with her. He can make a game out of any activity! He is already reading Scripture with her. Nothing melts my heart faster than my little girl learning about her Heavenly Father from her daddy.

Ralph still gets up with me before work at 4:30 am. He makes me my coffee drink of choice, a breakfast smoothie or breakfast and then drives me to work. He will have already packed my lunch the night before. He cares for Nugget and puts in a full day of work all at the same time. Then he comes to pick me up, drive me home and make dinner for us. Quite often he will have also tried to pick up the house if I didn't get to it on one of my day's off.

Both last summer and this summer, instead of taking a family vacation somewhere new or out West (our favorite!) he has chosen to take us home to MN. It is so special for me to be able to spend extended times at "home" with my family and showing Ralph the beautiful state I grew up in. We are especially excited to share that time with Nugget this year.

Ralph is such a creative, caring man! I feel very blessed to be his wife. He hangs in there when my memory flees me, when I'm too tired to see straight and when I'm just plain crazy! Join with me in wishing my wonderful man a very happy birthday!

Laughter is an abs workout, right?

Amanda and I have been getting together for a while now in the afternoons to walk the dogs. Well, recently we decided to add some strength training for ourselves. We've only done a couple days and we're using the book, Fashionally Buff. The author, Sue Fleming, also put together the book Buff Brides that helped me get in the best shape of my life for my wedding. I remembered the work outs as challenging but doable.

W-e-l-l, let me tell you about the ab work out Amanda and I tried to accomplish yesterday. We tried, I promise we did! I'm just not sure these were doable for two normal, not super athletic girls! The first one was called "Fitness Ball Ab Pull/Push-up Combination Move". You can see trouble brewing can't you! We had to get in plank position with our feet and ankles up on the fitness ball. We were then told to pull the ball in toward our chest then push it back out--like it was that simple. Forget about maintaining balance, the ball rolling from side to side and back away from you. You know, things like that. THEN we were supposed to do a push-up. While. On. The. Ball. See about 2 sentances back for how that went. There was much falling and much laughing. Laughing is good, works the abs. Working the abs is our goal for the day. We are right on track.

We thought, ok, one bad one. We can do the rest of these. Then we turned the page. (Right now I'm sure you're thinking, "You didn't look at these before you started! Are you crazy?!" I think you have your answer.) The next one is entitled "Ball Pike." Picture a downward dog pose from yoga but instead of your feet on the floor they're up on the ball! Ahhhh! Again, much falling, much laughing. We ended up modifying a bit and used a chair instead of the ball.

But back to my point: laughter is an abs workout right? Therefore, we declared "mission accomplished!"


Our sentiments exactly!

First Food

Here is our first attempt at food. There are, of course, two obvious mistakes: 1. no bib and 2. she was very tired. The faces she made were totally worth it! We started with avocado after learning there is some research to suggest babies don't produce the enzymes needed to break down grains until their teeth erupt. Enjoy!

Vehicle to Freedom

I hadn't realized how much I used my laptop until it became unreliable. It is my outlet to connecting with friends and family. It is my research center--I spend so much time researching ideas, products, etc. I journal my Bible studies in here. My grocery lists are created in OneNote. I communicate with Ralph via Google Messenger and e-mail (while in the same house). I organize my photos in here. I am taking an on-line class that I use my laptop for. Most of my recipes are organized in OneNote and I am constantly looking for new recipes on food blogs, Recipezaar, etc. It seems that I do not do much without it. In some ways it has been a freeing break, in other ways an isolating one. Either way, I am thrilled with my new one. It's beautiful, fast and reliable! Here's some memories from opening it up (forgive my hair--I had an AM and PM workout scheduled and doing my hair in between seemed silly).

A "New" House

Okay, so I have my new laptop and my technology hiatus can be over!! The freedom I now feel is amazing! Hee, hee. I am so behind on blogs I may never catch up! For you, my friends, forgive me if I ask about things you may have blogged about but I think I am going to clear my Google Reader and start fresh.

My mom came out in March to help me with Nugget while Ralph was in IA on a missions trip with our HC. The day Ralph was to come home Mom and I decided the house needed some refreshing and we completely flipped the living room and dining room. It was so much fun! Some of my best childhood memories are of the house in complete uproar because of "remodeling"/changing everyone's rooms around. Sometimes even paint was too much money and we needed a change but rearranging furniture was free! Just like the best things in life. :) I must say I love my "new" house! Here are the before and after shots of our "remodel."

Living Room before









Now the dining room









Dining room before









Now the living room

April

So I've had technical difficulties for something like a month now. They are soon to be resolved as my husband has insisted on providing me with a new laptop. This is a huge relief as this computer becomes more and more unreliable every day. On the upside, I've read a lot more books than blogs lately--which means I'm woefully behind on all of yours! LOL! Here are some pics of April so you can see how Nugget has grown and what we've been up to.

Nugget and her best friend!












Her new favorite place to be!













A new friend














Her Easter basket











Family pic from Easter