Break

I'm up at the office working through my seminar (see previous post) and needed a quick break...

It's New Years Eve, and on most New Year's I try to get some extended time with the Lord to reflect on the previous year and pray for hte coming year. It seems like that will be hard to do this weekend though, with preparing for the conference, and Tere being in town. I may try tomorrow morning though, it's been a very interesting year, and I definitly would like some time to discuss it with the Lord.

Alright. Back to work...

Skeek '06

We leave sunday night for the ski conference, which I'm pretty pumped about. I'm looking forward to a lot of time with Lord, some beautiful scenery and fun on the slopes, and being with my family and friends worshipping and fellowshipping. I'm teaching one of the seminars, on church planting... it's difficult to do, because I wasn't too sure what to talk about, but here's the preliminary notes:


Observations on church planting: (outside of the basics)

1. The importance of gifting in the body
- a tendency with church planting to emphasize apostolic gifting and cause orientation... must be avoided for the body to function properly

2. Expectiations can kill a plant
- you must do a good job managing the individual team members expectations

3. You have to look out for the health of the team
- easy tendency to push for growth and outreach, but people have to stay fresh in their relationship with the Lord and each other to see a succesful plant

Part 2: Qualities of a church planter

Skills:
- can lead someone to the Lord
- can effectively disciple and train a young believer
- can start something from scratch (bible study, small group)

Character:
- handles obstacles and setbacks with joy
- works well with other people
- accepts direction and is very teachable
- doesn't complain and grumble

Spirituality:
- prays often publicly and privately
- shares the word openly with believers and unbelievers

anyway, it's a rough outline, but I'm fleshing it out...

Merit's Christmas

First Post

So, though I post on the SYBS blog page (www.hopefc.org/sybs) I decided to start my own blog spot as well.... for the most part my posts on hopefc have something to do with homegroup and church things, and I was wanting to do something where I can just randomly post thoughts or feelings unrelated to Hope. I guess what that means if you are reading is that you will probably sift through posts about running a business, painting and construction, marriage and family, music, thoughts from the Word, and anything ministry related. Hopefully also as things get closer to church planting I can put out some useful info for the team.

My other hope with starting a blog is that I will use my internet time creatively rather than consumeristically (if that's a word). I find that I can often waste a good 20 or 30 minutes surfing news sights, or pitchfork or other music sights, when I really could be doing something else that exercises my mind and is an outlet for thoughts and the like...

With that said, I'm excited about my blog.