Book Review: Take Your Best Shot

Take Your Best Shot Do Something Bigger Than Yourself By Austin Gutwein with Todd Hillard Published by Thomas Nelson

Take Your Best Shot is an inspiring book that I wish had been around when I was younger. 

It is a simple  read that challenges you to go for your dreams and not to shy away from them because of your age.

Hearing the story of how a child has made such a great impact by purusing his dream reminds us that God can and will use us.  We can’t wait for the opportunity to land in our lap but we must have courage and step out in faith and trust that God will move in and through us.

This is definetly a read for both young and old.

Hey All—What do you want to hear about?

Trying to get myself back into my blogging routine. What things do you want to hear about? What issues or questions do you want to discuss? Let me know your thoughts. Going to resurrect a topic of Love is… that I never got going. Other things I’m thinking on will be accountability and being the Body….. Give me some ideas. Thanks!

~Tfkr

New Start

Well alot has been going on lately.  I just finished seminary in the last weeks and people keep asking me what am I doing next……  My honest and truthful answer.  As of right now…… What I’m doing right now……  I have no current plans to change anything.  While I have now obtained my Masters of Art in Religion with a Church Ministries emphasis, I have no current plans to pursue full time ministry. As many places are requiring more experience than I currently have I plan to try to find opportunities to expand my experience. We are currently happy where we are and want to stay here so that also greatly limits what the possibilities are.  

I do have some immediate plans and desires.  Most of these come out of my experiences of being a full time student, and also as a result of my current mens group.

1.  A more consistent and devoted time to my Lord.

2. More loving husband and father.

3.  More time reading books that of interest to me and my growth. 

4.  Blogging more.

Thats just a start but I believe that God has allowed me to finish my education and get more experience in life before stepping out to serve Him in full time ministry. 

~tfkr

What we need, What I need

“What a man needs is a brother to draw close, minister to him, and help him mature. He needs somebody to demonstrate to him another way to live, modeling a godly marriage, biblical parenthood, and the love of Christ.”

-Steve Sonderman, Effective Men’s Ministry-

We all have things in our lives that aren’t perfect. We are all impacted by the things in our past. These things are the things that make us who we are. Though at times they may be shameful or things that we don’t want everyone else to know. We need that one person in our life who knows us and can speak truth into our lives. Who can ask us the hard questions, Who can encourage us, and build us up to be the Men that God created us to be.

Its hard to find quality people who we can trust to speak into our lives and accept our brokeness. Some people have more brokeness than others, but most importantly we are all children of God. If you have people around you that you know need to have truth spoken to them in love, please step up to the plate. If you need someone to speak truth to you Pray, and seek out a Godly person near you.

It is important that we seek to grow as the men God has called us to be. We need to understand the love of Christ in our lives and through our friendship. God does speak to us through those around us and for people who have self esteem issues or struggles that seem hopeless it is important that they experience Christ through those around them.

~tfkr

The Expected Arrival

Yes, as Lacey noted, we are expecting. We started sharing this happy news with family last week and this week with friends. We are do in the end of September around the 24th. We can’t wait to have our first bundle of Joy!!!!!

~tfkr

Spring: Time for New Creations?

Spring time is a time for changes, new growth, freshness after a long winter.

My mind has been racked and twisted with ideas. Things that strike deep with my passion for community and relationship within the body of Christ. Doesn’t help when I read books that push me to desire it more and more like “Preaching Re-imagined” by Doug Pagitt. He talks about the preisthood of ALL believers. Not just those who are ordained and educated.

So ok, what does this have to do with Spring and new growth and stuff. Well for some time i have been kicking around the idea of (with my wife’s permission) opening our house up once a month or so to have friends over for a time of fellowship, breaking of bread, games, fun, conversation and whatever else it may turn into. I don’t want it to be a group of just select friends who all know each other but a chance for us to open the doors to our friends who are single, married, young, old, families with kids to a time of Christian fellowship. Maybe there will be times where some of us get into discussions related to our faith and our walk with Christ and each other. A no pressure time of just relaxing and being ourselves with each other. Opening ourselves up to what God has to say through each other.

Since college its been hard to interact with others in such a communal way. I see it as something beyond a small group, but a living, breathing organism. A time where people can bring friends with them. A place where we can have fun and laughs, but also when hurt and pain occur in our lives where we can share those feelings, those tears.

I desire for my life to be a living expression of the song We are the body which states that we are the hands and feet of God and we are the ones that should be reaching out to each other…… Oh well thats my musing……

I pray for God’s direction and wisdom into this….

–tfkr

The Battle (Storm) Rages On

Its been really interesting recently, well I am not sure interesting is the right word, but oh well. I/We have been realizing that as we have been dealing with the temptations/struggles in life that Satan had been using to pull us down, he is starting to find new areas to use to try to keep us from growing closer to God and each other.

Its both frustrating and encouraging to know that the devil is trying to find ways to keep us from growing. I’m not into pain, struggles and stuff, but to know spiritually that we are doing something that pisses off God’s/Our enemy is a good thing. If we weren’t walking and growing closer to God the devil wouldn’t even bother to waste his time with us. But as Children of the Light, the stronger and brighter out light gets the more of a threat we are to Satan, so he feels the need to try to make our light burn out, stop shinning and to disgrace God’s workmanship in us.

So what is there to learn from this? Well I know that in the church we often don’t talk much about the reality of spiritual warfare, the battle of light and darkness. We as light need to seek to know God more and more so that we shine brighter and brighter and upset the Devil. The more he trys to “take us down” the harder we need to fight. We have God on our side, don’t let the devil drag you down, its hard to fight him, but know that our God is much stronger and is faithful. Hang on in the times of battle as they prepare you for the future, and make you stronger and wiser….
—tfkr

Anger, Hurt, Confusion, and Relationship in the Body

Ok so this is somethign that I still don’t have an answer for. If a friend wrongs you and you forgive them for what they say, how do you get over the anger, hurt, confusion…… and where do you go.

I don’t know where to go. After being hurt by a friend and some words that have gone back and forth, I don’t know how to look at the person’s actions towards me……. I have done as they asked and kep the distance between us and not approached them. However recently they approached me and I had no idea what to, what to say, how to react. Their comments in the recent past really hurt me and questioned why I was vulnerable to them, why I had seeked their friendship, and it is causing me to question alot how as a Christian I am to heal from this hurt, express God’s love, and allow God to move and restore the friendship (if its possible, and if so to what extent can it ever go?).

So What do I do? Yeah I’m the one who caused the initial crack that allowed this rift and conflict to start. I’m working on the things in my life that were the pieces that caused the issues. I want this friend to be able to show me the love of Christ and allow us to deal with what happened, but I also in my heart find it hard to love this person as Christ loves me. I find it hard to accept this person back because of the hurtful and damaging comments. As I have learned lately in other relationships we aren’t supposed to keep score, well at least not in marriage. But I find that I need to learn to apply this principal to other relationships as well. But how do I know when and how to start accepting this friendship again. How do I address the fact that I was so deeply hurt. I don’t know how to allow this friend back into my life even as an aquinatnce. Not that I have gone out of my way to aovid them, but I have made little choices to do my best to not have to be near them. I don’t like finding myself volunteering at church and seeing the person form afar and when they look my way wanting to duck.

My quesiton is what happened to Biblicial principles like:
Galatians 6:1 “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritaul should restore him gently….”
II Timothy 3:16-17 ” All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

We have forgotten to help our brothers and sisters in their struggles, we aren’t using the Word and relying on God’s wisdom. I know that I wasn’t the best person in my situations and that I was severly in the wrong. But why are we so quick to release the one in sin, when we ourselves haven’t been doing our part to challenge, support, and lovingly confront the sinner……

I don’t know when I will understand how to redeem and allow this friendship to continue on and allow the issue to heal…….

I’m waiting for God’s hand and direction…..

–tfkr

Around the Table

The dinner table plays a vital role in the development of families and community. I believe that we have lost this important item in our American Christian culture. It is hard to gather others around a table to spend time breaking bread together and caring for each other. In my recent readings I have been reading Mudhouse Sabbath, this book which is looking at some of the Jewish rituals is causing me to again see the importance of the table in the development of Christian community.

My father-in-law yesterday was talking about a group of his co-workers who he has been getting to know around the break room table at work. He made the comment that these men that he has been chatting with are often more open and honest than those he has encountered in the church he currently is in. This is not necessarily a surprising comment to me. I have realized that there are things in the church that causes community to not grow. Often people don’t want to spend the time to get to know others and invest in their lives. People also aren’t really living the Christian life that they are proclaiming they live and are afraid to have others see them for who they really are. Our culture makes us believe that no one has the right to tell us how we should live and as a result we don’t want to even open the door to have another person speak truth into our lives.

Being part of a large church it is hard to thrive and push for community development as it is easy to be part of the crowd. I find it hard to find others who are like minded and desire to be part of something more. To share time at a dinner table and to be part of each others lives. To help each other out with projects, and whatever life may bring. Christ and the disciples lived life together. They broke bread together and spent time together. Poeple in the early church valued the importance of involvement in each others lives. With how our culture and technology has spread families apart it has caused seperation and distance.

I desire to see couples, singles, and famalies involved in each others lives. Sharing meals and spending time doing things together. Having small gatherings of people to watch movies, play games, and just spend time together……….. To start to develop the church in a more practical way…

—tfkr

The Table/The Coffee Shop

Sitting around a table with others can sometimes be the most meaningful thing in the world. As our pastor is preaching a new series on this the idea of the table popped into my head.

The table can be such a warm and welcoming place, but then again at other times it can be lonely, empty and sad.

Right now I feel like I do when I’m sitting in a coffee shop all alone or at a resturant surrounder by gropus of people. That lonliness, the fear, the isolation. I know that I’m not truly alone, but I feel alone, and my loneliness even makes me think: “Why would anyone want to read/hear my comments or thoughts, the ugliness of who I am should cause them to run.” I know that I’m not ugly on the outside but inside its not the same. The uggliness of my last 24 years of life are there. The hurt, the struggles, the loneliness, the fears, the insecurities, everything. Its hard to even look at myself.

Its hard right now as the friends i do have I have meaningful converstaions with but its here and there and rarely seems to be any connection outside those moments. And when the evil gets to me it makes me wonder why I even bother seeking others out and attempting to speak insight and wisdom to them as all the evil in me allows me to see is the sin, the struggles, the things in my life that don’t please God.

I feel like I’m at a table in a coffee shop longing for a friend to come in and desire to speak to me and discuss my passions, my thoughts, my feelings. But no one comes. the time comes and goes. The coffee shop closes and I walk out alone. There are people around me who want to conduct business, but who is there that truly wants to get beyond a book, and dig into the meat that is the existence of me…. Who? Where? How?

I know that there are some out there who will ready this, that know me. They will wonder if I have forgotten about them and the role they play in my life. No I haven’t but I can’t get past my feelings and that right now. I’m a work, I’m a pot that is broken…. I can’t find the pieces…. I know that God is by my side but I guess I just haven’t figured out how to puruse that further, how to find the wholeness, the companion in the chair at the coffee shop.

To do: realize that God is my fulfillment, my companion sitting in that coffee shop. There He is, sometimes he’s silent, but he’s always there, waiting for me……… You may not be able to see him but He is there. I know it, but i just need to realize that He’s there waiting for me…… I need to be there for our appointment……

~tfkr