Gary Thomas notes

We deserve to go to hell, and if we believe that... That anything better
than hell we should be thankful for. We say Lord, bless me more, increase
this more and then I will be thankful. When a day we see a sunset, or hear
our children laugh is an incredible blessing from God in itself.
So quickly we take for granted the little blessings that God gives us, that
we never have to wonder whether we will have food on our table but what
kind of food we will have on our table.
We becom spiritually sick when we tolerate God's blessings rather than be
thankful for them.
Why are we not weak at the knees at the blessings that God has given us?

Grey's Anatomy

Last night we watched Grey's Anatomy and I have decided I am pretty much
addicted to the show. We bought seasons 1 & 2 on DVD so we could watch
them. Andrew has to pull me away from watching them, but it is such a good
show! I just cannot believe Derek, I am like 6 episodes into the 2nd
season. Has anyone watching this also? There is only 1 other show that I am
like this with and that is LOST. I am waiting for 3rd season to be finish
before I watch either of those shows. I prefer to watch them on DVD because
of commercials, I hate commercials!!!

Upcoming photo jobs

So, this Friday is my wedding photo job coming up. I am going to be
practicing some techniques this week to try and get more familiar with my
flash. I am very excited and yet still very nervous as I want them to turn
out creative and good and everything the couple wanted. I charged a minimal
price for the job because I am still learning, but yikes!!!! I may possibly
have another wedding job on Dec 30th depending on some circumstances. So I
am HOPING it works out.
Also, I have 2 portrait sessions set up for Christmas photos. This will be
coming up in the next 3 weeks or so to get the photos out in time for
Christmas. I am going to check out some websites to host my pictures for my
clients but I am having a hard time finding one that isn't too expensive. I
checked out Pictage but they want too much money, and also collage.net but
I didn't like the layout. Anyone have any suggestions?

Final Session

Matthew Mauer as worship this morning. The theme of the convention was
"Reveal", so as a final activity there were mirrors placed all over the
arena with sharpie markers and what they told us to do was go to the mirror
and write a word that sums up what you have been taught at this convention.
And as you write the word, look at yourself in the reflection and decide if
this is what you will carry with you everyday. I wrote Humility...
Something that God has ever so confirmed to both Andrew and I that we will
live a humble life. Does that mean giving up a dream of owning our own
home? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. What it does mean for me... To make
sure everything we buy is not for ourselves. Allowing God to use us in
ways we never though possible, by maybe staying in an RV so we can reach
those in our own trailer park. It's not ideal, but when was Jesus ever
given an ideal situation? We need to be like him more.

Speaker and President Mark Oeistreicher
Jesus touches the untouchables... We are the untouchables.
We are in CONSTANT need of a Savior.
Humility- the acknowledgement of our true selves

Steps to humility:
Reverence for God
Doing God's will
Obedience to Others
Enduring Affliction
Confession
Contentment

Family

Thoughts from Talia's bible study last night:

What does family mean to you?

This is a hard for me because I am close with my Dad and Mom, but as far as
siblings. I don't even know what it is like to have siblings that I am
close with... I have never had a close relationship with my siblings. The
closest thing I have to a close sibling is my cousin Nicole. I grew up in
what feels like a jacked up lifestyle, even though I never really it had it
that bad. I spent 1 week at my Dad's and 1 week at my Mom's and had a lot
of emotional trauma from them getting divorced. When I was growing up, I
was a very angry child, I was stressed at the age of 10. I spent years of
my life crying because I wanted my parents to get back together so I could
be a normal kid. I spent years of my life wondering who I am. When I got to
high school, I was searching for someone to understand me but no one ever
did. Being married to Andrew, he has taught me so much about family and
caring. My life is an open book... I never keep anything hidden from anyone
and I would never rightly hide an answer from someone who asked me a
question. Andrew has taught me that there should never be a part of your
life that you hide from people...

Is it hard for me to define what a family is? It is very hard for me... So
I guess I would define family as someone not purposely trying to hurt you,
caring for each other, looking out for each other, being honest.

I can't wait to have my own family, because I think then I will truly
understand what it is like to be a family and have that connection that I
missed growing up.

Anyway just my own thoughts, don't arrest me if your opinion differs!

Final thoughts on Session # 5

Shane Claiborne

Shouldn't we shutter at the name of Christ just like Lion
King.....Mufasa...oooooh say it again!
Jesus.... Ooooh say it again, Jesus!

Dr King said should we be"Extremists" for Love... Love people so much that
someone would call us an extremist. That we would stand out above all and
truly truly show Christ's love even to the least of these. To the homeless,
the dying, the poor. Let's be "Extremists" for Christ's Love.

General Session #5

Vicky Beeching did the worship this morning, Jars of Clay was the entertainment band this morning, song Dead Man is awesome live.

The speaker this morning brought me to tears, and I was overwhelmed. His name was Shane Claiborne, really funky guy who has dreads and was pretty funny. He was so awesome, he grew up in the back woods of Tennessee and thought one day there has to more to Christianity that this. He ended up the hardest parts of Philadelphia and lived like the homeless. You see, Jesus didn't have a home, nowhere to lay his head. He has shared everything that he has been given. He brings families in and gives them a hope for the future.

Shane also went to Calcutta, India and worked as an intern under Mother Theresa before she had passed away. He saw some of the most amazing sights, these Nuns were awesome in taking care of the dying. Mother Theresa never took the best of anything, when shoes came in she always picked the worst pair so that other would have better than her. So because of this, her feet were deformed.
Shane came this morning to speak, and with the money that he would have been paid for coming there to speak he received in all $1 bills. He literally wrote "LOVE" on each bill and had prayed over the money. What he did, blows me away!!! He took those $1 bills and had them spread all over the alter in front of where he was speaking. He asked everyone to come down and take $1 bill and promise that if you take it that you are making a commitment to serve and to help those that are in need. I am amazed at this man, he only receives money to take care of his daily needs which is $150 a month.
What really got me this morning was the video of a Nun in Calcutta who has caring for a boy who was dying and in this video she is stroking him to try and help him feel better and as I am crying and overwhelmed by the need in the world for our help. We are gluttons! Over 300,000 people this year have died, and these deaths all could have been prevented in they didn't over consume. I was sitting there crying overwhelmed by how much we have and so little others do. So what does it mean to live a humble life to you? What does it mean... when other countries suffer from starvation and AIDS when we sit in our comfy homes and watch TV? This message was over powering, and to see a man like this... WOW! Christ does do miracles, and he is waiting for us to REVEAL Him so that he can do His work.

We went through the One Life Experience, where you do a walk through of what it is like to live in a country in Africa, after the speech and going through the One Life Experience... We sponsored a little girl from Tanzania named Rehema Seif Omary. For only $32 a month through Compassion International. I know it's not much but I hope that it helps! I encourage anyone if you have enough to buy Starbucks more than a couple of times a month, than you can afford this also. We don't have much, but what God has given us we always try and use for others. Could we buy a house with that $32 a month, maybe... but how much more would it mean that we are helping someone else who does not have hardly anything at all. Think about it, and if you want to sponsor a child, please visit: www.Compassion.com.

General Session #4

Last night was pretty awesome once again, I Love David Crowder Band they really rock the house. They even did some old hymnals but with a rock tune so I was loving it. At one point he had all of us in the audience put our arms around each other and jump to the beat of the hymnal, I looked out on the audience and we were all moving together literally like the ocean. Everyone was very grateful for David Crowder Band to be there, on a side note I really LOVE his violinist. They will not be here today for the worship portion because they took a red eye last night to make it back to their home church for worship Sunday morning. Gotta love their dedication to their own church. I have added a few pictures I was able to take with my camera of David Crowder Band and Shaun Groves which by the way I love also. He has a real heart for people in ministry, also if you notice he actually left a comment on one of my previous blogs. Jars of Clay will be here for the rest of the weekend, pretty cool!

The speaker last night was Mike Pilavachi, he was pretty awesome. He was speaking at Spirit West Coast this last year. He is a British speaker, and had a lot to say. He was talking about he came to SWC last year thinking he was somebody because they had asked him to come and there would be 30, 000 people there. When he got up there, he choked and people left in huge herds... It was then he realize that he was nothing not even a little bit of something. How many of us, have someone give us compliments and we take it to our heads and think that we are something? He also talked about, how someone had told him you need to only speak at engagements that had 1000 people or more. But after SWC, he realized that Jesus never went to the thousands of people... in most of his stories he tried to stay away from the crowds and went out the save the "one". The one lost sheep that has gone astray, He wants to save the one. Like the woman at the well, or the man in the cemetery and called himself "legion".

Day 4

We woke up at 9:30am this morning, got ready and went to the General Session #3, did some more worship with David Crowder Band (and by the way sounds the same in person and on the Cd, so he must be an awesome artist) also had a speaker named Matthew Barnett..

He's a Senior Pastor in his later 20's at a church, LA Dream Center, from the inner-city of LA. He is taking inner-city LA by storm, he is a white- boy from Scottsdale, AZ that was asked by his Father, after 10 candidates had turned down this position, to be a Senior Pastor. Matthew took the position, moved from everything he knew to LA, his congregation went from 80 to a congregation on 2 in a matter of 6 months. One day, while weeping in his apartment in LA, prayed to the Lord... How can I be successful? The Lord spoke to him and told him to go to Echo Park, at midnight, no less... he thought sheesh God must be punishing me for wanting to be successful so he's sending me there to my death. Anyone familiar with how dangerous Echo Park is?

God spoke to him that night in the middle of Echo park and told him, I want you to throw away any desires you have of wanting to be successful. I want you to look around you, understand that this is your mission field. The gang's, the pimps, the prostitutes, and the drug dealers. When he set aside all of his desires to be successful, at the age of 22 now, his congregation grew from 2 to 700 in 6 months. He's converted gangsters, pimps and and prostitutes. They would go out to areas of LA that no one would want to touch, and give prostitutes a place to be able to run away. LA dream center had purchased 16 homes, and drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes could come here, live, and it would give them an option to be able to turn their life around.

He once brought this girl in from prostitution, grew up in foster homes her whole life. They had a van, smuggled her in there, meanwhile her pimp is chasing them down the street. Who is waiting at the church, but the gangster's, drug dealers, and pimps who had been converted waiting at the gates to scare off the pimp chasing after that girl. When Matthew had a chance to talk to her, she told him her story. She had been prostituting and she got pregnant and everyone told her that she could not keep it and continue in this business. She decided to keep the baby because she thought that this baby would somehow bring her dignity and that it would motivate her to want to change her life. Her pimp came in one day and told her to get to work, and she told him No. While holding her baby the pimp had shot her baby with a gun killing it, and then used a curling iron to ensure that she would never be able to have children again. LA Dream Center brought her in, changed her and now she is going out to those places she once worked to convert pimps and prostitutes. To even further this she had been talking to these 3 pimps in a donut shop for some time, so they told her because she had been so persistent that they would go to church with her just once. And in the back of the church stood 6 or 7 pimps she had brought in, that day all of them had confessed Jesus as Lord.

Another story, Matthew came into the church one day and noticed that a young gang boy had been killed just outside his church. And Matthew said, we've got to do something. The ex-gang members told him, that's not how it works out here... you need to just leave it alone. Matthew continued and said, I am going to do something about this. So they got together $28 to give to the young boy's family. We went across the street to the apartment of the family and knocked on the door, opening the door was the biggest, most tatooed gang member he had ever seen. He asked him what he wanted, well we got together $28 to try and help with the loss of the young boy and to pray for the mother. So he gave them the money and tried getting out of there as soon as possible. And as he walks away, he felt an arm grab him and said can you come in a pray for our whole family? Matthew went in, and had several gang members and the mother. So, he started praying, but nothing so he continued praying bolder and nothing. He prayed even bolder, and he felt the gang members hands tighten with him and he prayed bolder and he felt their arms raise above his head and when he had opened his eyes they were all crying. So, he ministered to them and was able to bring them all to Christ that night. Had he done nothing because of fear, these people may never have come to Christ.

This may be an extreme case, but how many times have we been to scared to do anything or go somewhere out of fear? I admire Matthew Barnett, not because he's saving lives... but because he's not afraid to go out into the scariest place and try and reach people. We will be purchasing the DVD of his speaking from today because it empowered us so much that if this white boy can go to the inner city of LA, then maybe there is somewhere that God has called us to be that we could have been scared of. Too often we stay in our comfort zone. We will be doing a Bible study with our kids on this speaker, He is very powerful and you know what He's under 30... so crazy.

**On a side note, today was my sister's baby shower. She is having a boy, naming him James. My grandma still has suspicions that it will be a girl, my grandma had guessed all of us grand-children's genders before we were born. My mom one times had even bet her house that she was going to have a boy, but just like my grandma had guessed it was a girl. My grandma let us keep the house! That was lots of fun, I can't wait til I will be able to have a baby shower and get all sorts of clothes and stuff. Maybe someday in the future :)

These things still amaze me...

Okay, now I got this email from Apple about the new Ipod Shuffle, and this sooooo awesome! I never thought that this would amaze me, but it still does.

Chris Folmsbee speaker

Chris Folmsbee -notes
An new kind of youth ministry: Incorporating new ideas and practices for
making disciples

Reculturing Evangelism
Proclaiming is with just our mouths, declaring involves every part of our
lives. The way I talk, what I do, and how I love.
Go from "I must obey".... To "I love..."
The Bible isn't easy and explainable but msyerious and complex, and it
should be.
Reculturing Education
Fill the education to meet the needs of the students, not our own
preferences
Never stay static, always evolve
Concentrate on the depth not the breadth
Interactive/Experiential education
People learn better in groups.
Stop worrying about the end product, concentrate on the process of their
own evolution instead of a cookie cutter end product

*** Never be content with where you are in your walk, constantly look for
God and seek after God's voice, Stay humble- never be to cocky to say that
you've messed up, never stop loving, read God's Word.

Recultering Mission
We shouldn't just support missions, but be a missionary everyday
Don't separate the sacred and the secular, realize that God is working in
every area of my life
Mission trips don't mean we have to go far away, missions can be right in
our own city!
Everyone is called to be a missionary, whether in town or overseas
Every has been given gifts and skills to be a missionary, given unique
gifts and skills

Day 2 Session #1

David Crowder and Kendall Payne were entertainment for the worship and had
a speaker Kenda Creasy Dean talked about have we been spiritually deaf to
being able to hear God's voice in his leading in our life.

Also, for fun you should download the song "I hate supermodels" by Kendall
Payne, we were laughing our heads off and she has a really pure sounding
voice.

Day 2 Morning

Day 2, completing the second part of the Critical Concerns course of
Techknowledgy. After we complete the course, we are going to go grocery
shopping and buy food rather than buy fast food all week. Man, they did
not provide any food at all...After that we have a General Session with the
David Crowder band and speaker coming up after that.

Reveal

After lunch today we started the critical concerns course, reaching kids
through today's techknowledgy. The speakers were Jay Delp (who does all the
videography for the convention) and Joel Lusz (Youth pastor for over 20
years). They went through a lot of video editing programs and what
different ways we could be able to use them. It was awesome to be able to
talk with others who are ministry like us and how they are using media for
their kids.
After the session we went into the arena and we ran into the speakers, and
we were able to talk with them about ministry and encouraged us that it
doesn't matter about the numbers. Also talked about having babies, and he
says you need to have them and especially a girl. You will love having a
girl! We said, I know but what happens when they get to 18... He says you
start when they're young.

Tomorrow from 8:30-11:30am they will be continuing the course and talking
about use of Myspace and Xanga blogs for ministry to reach the kids in your
youth group. This will be a very great convention.

The Core

Woke up this morning, went to a free breakfast at the hotel, finished
getting ready and then headed over to the convention center to register. We
got a free backpack that has our whole schedule of events for the next few
days and some cool promo stuff. We looked around in the bookstore, and I am
pretty sure we are going to purchase the whole set of Nooma videos. If you
have never heard of Nooma, the set is awesome. They are inspirational DVD's
for ministry that have incredible messages behind them. They are so cool!
Right now we are just waiting around until 1pm for our Critical Concerns
course to begin, we sat and decided which seminars we wanted to go to,
looking forward to all of this! Tonight from 5pm- 7pm they are having a
madness sale on their bookstore, 30% off all their items. We are waiting
til then to purchase the Nooma series. More to come soon!

Children of men

Saw a preview of this movie yesterday, it looks so intence. I hope to be
able to see it when it comes out. Hopefully, it won't be too violent.

A futuristic society faces extinction when no children are born and the
human race has lost the ability to reproduce. England has descended into
chaos, until an iron-handed warden is brought in to institute martial law.
The warden's ability to keep order is threatened when a woman finds that
she is pregnant with what would be the first child born in 27 years.

Man of the Year movie

This might be becoming a tradition for Halloween, we yet again went to see
a movie on Halloween because we did it last year and the theaters were
empty, so we decided to see Man of the Year with Robin Williams. There were
some questionable parts, and a couple of words. They were few and far
between, we really enjoyed the movie and Robin Williams kept us laughing
almost the whole movie.

A site that you all might enjoy would be the Focus on the Family "Plugged
in", they do reviews on movies, music, video games. It tells you how many
cuss words in each movie, sexual content, etc. Pretty good, and we almost
always check every movie we see on this site. Check it out!

National Youth Worker's Convention 2006

Starting Thursday Nov 2nd through Nov 6th, Andrew and I will be attending
the National Youth Worker's Convention in Anaheim by Youth Specialties. We
signed up for a Critical Concerns course labeled "Reaching kids through
today Tech-Knowledgy", it will be discussing using media to reach your
youth group. We are very excited about this course. There were a lot of
other courses, like marriage and ministry, helping hurting kids,etc. But
they all cost extra money to go to those so we just chose the one for both
of us.

Also, on Saturday night from 10pm- 11pm they will be having a course called
"Using your Mac for Youth Ministry", so we are ecstatic about this one too
since we only use Mac's.
We're wondering how much this will be able to show us, since we really use
almost everything on our laptops for ministry. Andrew especially is
interested to see what they can show him, since he thinks he is the Mac
guru, which to his credit a lot of our friends have purchased Mac's because
of Andrew and his skillful salesmanship!
Awesome speakers coming every day and night, and also some of the coolest
bands: Shaun Groves, Jars of Clay, Kutless, Hawk Nelson, David Crowder
band, and also Kendall Payne for entertainment. David Crowder band will be
leading worship every night, which I am so excited for!! This convention, I
think, will helps us a lot in our ministry and show us some new things :)

We reserved a hotel for the time we are out there because of the times of
the convention, we didn't want to have to wake up at 4am to make it out to
Anaheim. A Queen Suite with free wireless internet, what else could you ask
for? Ha ha. We are so blessed to have a church that will be sending us to
this convention, yipee!
Keep watching the blogs because the next few days I will be blogging a lot
with all the events going on.

Bill O'Reilly

Tonight we went over to Andrew's parents house in Cherry Valley... Holy cow
that fire was close coming off the freeway.

Anyway, while we were there she was watching a Oprah when she had Bill
O'Reilly on and I normally would not like him because I have heard some
things from him before but this time almost all of the subjects he had an
opinion on I agreed on like the war in Iraq, government, etc. I thought he
was an ultra liberalist but he's pretty conservative on his thinking. He
said in the show when debating with an audience member "You probably pulled
that off the internet..." she interrupted and said "No I read it in the
newspaper and I have all the clippings." Bill says, you've regurgitated
that from someone else. He says, "The news shows are jokes" they sit in
make up for 4 hours and read the teleprompter... Ooooooohhh.
I agree, that most people do not know where they truly stand on issues,
they read an article that makes a lot of sense and try to call it there
own.
Most people will agree that soldiers being killed in Iraq is bad, but who
am I to say that their life was not valuable that their purpose was not
valiant? It's one thing to not agree with the reasons for the war, but
don't ever stop supporting our troops!!! They went into the military some
before they knew they were going there, and some because they wanted to go
there and fight. Their reasons may be different, but who are we to say that
their purpose should have been different?
I guess, I feel so passionate about our soldiers because my Grandpa
served, my Father served, and my Brother is serving now. My Dad has told me
stories of when He returned from Vietnam and being yelled at "Baby
killer"... where was the welcome party then? Do you even have a clue how
much morale soldiers lose when their own country does not support them?
Imagine being one of those soldiers, another reason why I am so passionate
about supporting our troops is because so many other don't. I see
protestors wanting to be-head Bush, and I am so stinkin sick of it...
People want someone to blame and he just seems to be the easiest target.
God puts in place all authorities, so why I do I back Bush and support out
troops because "In God we trust"

Mission Mandate

Mission mandate Acts 1: 1-11, Matthew 28:16-20 by Pastor Cor Pool
* Sermon notes

Evangelism- not everyone is gifted with evangelism but we all do have the
responsibility to be a witness for Christ.

"And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth."

Jerusalum- start with the people closest to you
Judea and Samaria- beyond the comfort zone, people that are different than
you.
End of the earth- go everywhere, Global Mission

- Finish the missions that Jesus has started, there is no "Plan B" in the
missions of Jesus Christ.
- Americans are more interested in spiritual things now than they were 10
years ago. 65 million people do not belong to a church. 34 million people
said that they would go to a church if someone invited them.
- 2 Peter 3:9
- Our mission here on earth has eternal consequences, sometimes that means
stepping out and taking a risk.
- We know the path to salavtion, why would we not want to share that with
other?
- We are called to be bridges to people not walls, we need to reach other
that may be different than us.
- Reach out to the homeless, the loveless in their plight.
- Are you fishing for men, if not, everyone deserves to hear The Word of
Christ.
- Is anyone going to be in heaven because of you? Is anyone going to say
Thank You for sharing your faith with me?