Monday Funday! Love in the Air
This week’s Monday Funday is dedicated to “the news we want”. Enjoy!!
Praying your week is full of laughter and great news!
Conversation Fuel - Why All the Humor?
I’m really grateful for all of you who take a peek at the JC’s Village blog now and again and see what we’ve been talking about. The blog posts generally run parallel to our conversations during our Wednesday night discussions or themes that we’re working to learn as we grow.
The Monday Funday posts are a little different though. I post things I genuinely find funny because laughter - is just such a great great gift and I’m so grateful that God gave us humor. Imagine His sense of humor!!
When trouble rolls my way I pray, and ask Jesus what to do. If it’s a real hum-dinger, I might even journal a bit, meditate, go for a walk, call a friend (or two or three) … but humor often helps too.
Wanna know something? I text funnies to the members of JC’s on Fridays - the students get “Friday Funday” and on Mondays I text them encouragements - usually in the form of Scriptures that I’ve recently read through in my own quiet times and found to be uplifting, reaffirming and all-around encouraging. That means that the students get two “Fundays” per week.
Wanna know something else? I look at funnies every day. Yep. I give myself a Funday every day. I spend time with Jesus Every. Single. Day. Praying, meditating, reading scripture, and more. First meal of the day usually. But nearly every day I end with a laugh. I don’t “have to”. I just like to. I love to laugh. I love to picture Jesus laughing before crawling into bed.
Conversation Fuel - Is Discipleship Synonymous with Evangelism?
The best model for what discipleship looks like is the Biblical model we see portrayed in the Gospels. Discipleship isn’t anything but how Jesus took His followers - a wildly diverse bunch of people - and taught them how to see God and His kingdom the way Jesus did.
If that process took Jesus Himself three years to really communicate what it meant to be one of His disciples, and even then one of them didn’t seem to get it so much, did he? And of course, Jesus’ disciples didn’t quit growing after Jesus’ ascension. They kept right on growing the rest of their lives. I think it’s particularly telling that none of them wrote the books we associate with them for the first Easter Sunday service. What did get recorded came after they’d matured with a lifetime of ministry experience.
Personally, I think it’s because they wrote and ministered and evangelized with increasing maturity that they and their work still ministers to and matures Jesus’ followers today.
If looking at the first disciples’ lives teaches us anything, it has to be that discipleship is NOT for the faint of heart. The world has not grown simpler but never fear. The world will never be “too much” for God to reach.
So - what was it that they did to keep growing their understanding of just what it means to follow Jesus year after year, long after Jesus was no longer leaving literal sandal prints across Judea for them to follow in?
Well - they told us, but it’s easy to miss. They continued spreading the good news, and they engaged in raising up the next generation of disciples. They continued to grow their walk deeper and encourage those who follow Jesus to grow their walks deeper too. They continued to love God as much as they could, and love His people as much as they could, and love those who had not yet heard and believed as much as they could.
That same formula: Love God, Love the Church, and Love Others still produces stunning growth today.. It’s a daunting challenge though, and once you start to pursue growth through it, the ease with which you can write that formula out belies the complexity of living it out. We just CANNOT do it without leaning on Jesus heavily. But, the reward of diving in and submitting ourselves to Jesus’ formula is THE WAY to enjoy a life of purpose, connection with God, growth in wisdom.
Following Jesus will challenge us constantly to put our egos down and walk in more and more humility. Living by Jesus’ formula for spiritual maturity is how we experience the “easy yoke” and “light burden” He mentions in Matthew 11:28-30, the fruits of the spirit and the abundant life and the rest of Jesus’ promises.. It’s a peace-filled, heart-expanding, and mind-blowing adventure. It’s a tremendous gift that He invites us into such an existence with Him.
So - to answer that question, clearly evangelism and discipleship are related. You can think of evangelism as disciple-birthing, and the rest of our lives as the baby-hood, childhood, teen-years, and on and on through all the stages of life - but for our spirits. Or at least this is available if we will engage it.
Here’s praying that you can follow Jesus to wonderful wisened maturity, full of ministry-gifts, obedience, peace, grace and love!
Monday Funday! Love in the Air
This week’s Monday Funday is dedicated to “the news we want”. Enjoy!!
Praying your week is full of laughter and great news!
Monday Funday!
Found some Bible funnies for this week - grab your flannel-graph and gold-fish crackers!
Praying your week is full of laughter!
Conversation Fuel - More of the Good Stuff
How do you see grace?
I had a conversation with a friend the other day and wanted to share a way to think about just how huge and amazing grace is.
Justice is - say if you intentionally smash into your friend’s car with your own car and the law protects your friend and requires you to repair or replace your friend’s car.
Mercy is - say if you intentionally smash into your friend’s car with your car, but your friend tells the law, “I’m going to let it go.” even though the law would require you to repair/replace your friend’s car.
Grace is something different altogether though.
Grace is, say if you intentionally smash into your friend’s car with your car, but not only does your friend say to the law, “I’m going to let it go”, but they also declare, “I’m going to replace the offender’s smashed-up car. But I don’t want to just repair the damaged car, I’m going to replace the damaged vehicle with a brand new one - a good one, a nice one. 100% at my own cost.”
whoa.
I think we don’t let that reality - the HUGENESS of grace sink in often enough.
If our sin-problem, which separated us from God were easy enough to be solved with more justice or more mercy, Christ would not have needed to die. But justice and mercy - in all the years before Jesus were never enough. So Jesus came and offered us not only His grace but the power of Grace to “walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4)
A person who demands justice - we usually think of as reasonable. Someone who offers mercy - we might admire them, but all too often we call them “soft”.
But what could we call a person who offers grace the way God offers it to sinners - that is to us? “Maniac” maybe.
It’s one thing if our friend forgives us - they’re our friend. Scripture says we were actually hostile to Him (Romans 5:10). And yet, despite that, Jesus suffered and died on the cross for you and me - without any sort of prior guarantee that we would follow Him, or try to follow Him well. Yet His incredible gift is already given - waiting only to be accepted.
Incredible.
Monday Funday!
Well, this has been a pretty strange year already, but in the spirit of “life goes on” and “there’s always trying to get fit by summer to look forward to in January” - here’s some funnies for you, wherever you may be on the fitness spectrum. Take what inspiration you can!
Welp ya’ll. That’s the funnies for this week! Stay well. Stay not completely nuts. :D
Monday Funday!
Well, it may not be January 1st, but seems like there’s still time for a meme or two about 2021. Enjoy!
Hang in there everyone! Keep your chin up and know that God is WAAAAYYYYYY bigger than all the stuff in the news!
Monday Funday!
Can we have too much humor? No particular theme this week, just thought I’d share the stuff I ran across this weekend that made me chuckle.
All right! folks! That’s it for this week. Thanks for stopping by. More funnies and chill Monday relaxation to come next week. Take it easy and hang in there everyone!
Prayer for Our Healthcare Workers - today - 12/01/20 at Noon
Today is the day - today at noon - sooo many of us now in our community are getting together to pause wherever we are and pray for our health care professionals - that God would strengthen, comfort, and protect them and for all the rest of us that we would be wise and stay safe, and stay well, and that our community can heal. There are multiple congregations praying today at noon - across multiple states - even multiple countries. Thank you for joining us - but even more, thank you so much for praying!
You're Invited - We're Praying for our Healthcare Professionals: December 1st @ Noon
La Crosse is a healthcare town. We have not one but two great hospitals. We have not one - but THREE institutions of higher education that offer a variety of healthcare programs. We are so fortunate!
But at this particular moment - our healthcare professionals are not as fortunate as we’d like them to be. They are seriously overwhelmed with caring for so many sick – with watching patients die. One doctor told me over the weekend that the level of sickness and death is traumatizing. Even those who aren’t normally involved in patient care are being pressed into service because the whole system is so taxed right now.
10 days ago I started hearing from students, alumni, and friends about how hard this situation is. Wednesday evening I spoke with the students during our normal Wednesday evening meeting and we’d all be hearing of how hard things are. We decided we want to do something about it.
So - here’s what we’re going to do - we’re going to get together - wherever we may be - and pray for our health care professionals. Let’s lift them up in prayer. Let’s ask for God to strengthen, comfort, and protect them. And - let’s give them the gift this season of staying safe and well and not add to their burden.
And - we’d like to ask you to not only participate, but pass this along to your prayer partners, your congregation’s prayer team.
So – let’s have a day of prayer, 12/01/2020. Let’s pray together – wherever you may be - at noon.
Thank you!
Conversation Fuel - May I give your cup a warm-up?
Continuing on from last week’s conversation kick-off - here’s a little more fuel …
The lessons God’s taught you - what purpose did they serve? Sometimes we make a distinction between “positive lessons” and seasons of trial or some such. Seems unlikely though that God defines His lessons this way.
Often, when first staring in the face of challenges my joy over what God had prepared for the road ahead was … well, not abundant. A change of perception usually comes after I parked my attitude, my ego, and my pride and knuckled down. On the other side these less welcome lessons frequently “magically” morph into treasured growth points.
Can you relate? You probably can. We may come from all over - but we have the same Heavenly Father and He is eager to teach us how to see Him, hear Him, experience Him - the real Him, in truth, every day.
And why is this? Because just like you might go out of your way to shout out to someone about to get into their car and drive off with their freshly purchased latte still parked on the roof - God is not eager to see us careen off without His full truth on the situations we’re about to walk through.
When God brings something to our attention though - usually much more than some deliciously decadent latte is at stake.
If you’ve endeavored much to grow wiser, stronger in your faith - you already know these things.
But I want to talk about these things because today I want to remind myself that perhaps - hidden in some of the discomforts I feel nowadays is not only the blessing of the Lord’s correction - but the blessing of seeing God’s goodness - His gracious parenting - His wonderful training at work in my life again. I don’t say this because I have a clue in the world how to solve the world’s troubles right now - or even my own - but because if He has taught me anything it is that painful circumstances perceived and then put into His hand precede a bit more of His wisdom learned, more of His love felt, more fellowship with others of His family who are walking the same path.
And - I don’t know about you, but experience also teaches me that a discomfort invariably also stems from my not quite practicing all His disciplines as He intended, and rather over-practicing one of my, ahem, favorite weaknesses … see where others could improve their practice of His disciplines. Sigh.
And this seems as good a time as any to sit down and do a gut-check and make sure that I’m living as fully obediently as possible. We are not encouraged in Scripture to practice some of God’s ways. They are not buffet items - but rather critical components of a cure - a sin cure. The whole thing together is God’s formula for humbly experiencing His grace and life-abundant. It’s a beautiful and powerful way to walk before Him, full of opportunities to serve Him and bring honor to His Kingdom. It is His salvation we experience in this life before we go onto the next and experience His Salvation in full.
It is good to come to Him already cognizant of the reality that the problem isn’t “them” - it’s me and my need for more of Him. So let’s check our car-roof for a forgotten latte, or as Scripture calls it - a log in my eye. There’s always one there. That’s what’s so humbling. If we can’t see it though - He is merciful and will help us.
Monday Funday!
In honor of Thanksgiving coming up - let’s enjoy some Turkey-Facts this week!.
Female turkeys purr, but they don’t gobble
Turkey’s used to be raised mostly for their feathers
Turkey’s almost went extinct TWICE!
2,000 or so years ago the ancient Brits walked their turkeys to market wearing boots.
Turkey’s can run 12 miles per hour. Wild turkeys can fly. They also can see better than us - and hear certain sounds better than we do. Teddy Roosevelt thought they were pretty cunning prey.
The dangly bit on a turkey’s forehead is called a snood. The bit below its chin is called the wattle. Both can change color to reflect a turkey’s mood.
All right! folks! That’s it for this week. Thanks for stopping by. More funnies and chill Monday relaxation to come next week. Take it easy and hang in there everyone!
Conversation Fuel - Kick Off
I don’t know about you but I am plenty ready for a different conversation than the ones that have been floating about the “meme-O-sphere” online lately. There’s probably a need for quite a few different conversations than what we’ve had lately - but being a campus minister for a long enough time to have a plethora of embarrassing anecdotes that make me sound “old-timey” (*sigh*), I can’t think of anything better to talk about than how to grow our walk with God deeper and stronger than ever before.
Frankly, I can’t think of a better aspect of our lives to work on right now. There’s plenty of stress to go around for all of us in all of our lives … in all likelihood for several life-times.
I don’t know the answers to all the things that cause stress, or doubt, or just seems always right there - ready to suck the life out of us - but I do know that God has something to offer us that’s better than a multivitamin for all of that.
There’s a lot of theology that I take on good faith and I haven’t personally rummaged through back all the way to the beginning of all time, but one area of faith I’m really good at - is leaning on God in the day-to-day battle. I’m not boasting, there’s no boast at all in that. I got that way through some really difficult situations. Some of you know some of those situations.
Leaning on God didn’t take all those situations and “win” them. There are some situations where that is what happened, but mostly it got better because God used those situations to change me. Those changes were often significant and at significant cost to some supposedly treasured aspect of my ego, esteem, or public persona - and while that sometimes didn’t feel too good, God used all of that to heal me from wounds and problems I had no idea how to see or deal with, and those were the real problem for me spiritually. Those problems and sins that were invisible to me were obvious to God and He mercifully determined to free me from them.
I want to get away from this “master of our fate”, toxic-positivity, Christianity as a faith in which the most meaningful practices are outward and numerical. I’m craving conversations on those aspects of our walk with God too. So very much. I can’t hardly tell you how much I want to have those conversations. I want to talk about why in the world there seem like there are more people than ever before who are so incredibly hungry for something - anything - spiritually. And yet so many have written off having those conversations with Christians. And yet I know for a fact that being a Christian and falling in love with Jesus more and more so that now I crave time with Him - and connection more than ever before - and my life is more full of joy and peace and love and happiness. Jesus’ words of “my yoke is easy and my burden is light” means as much to me as “In my father’s house are many rooms”. But this is no glamorous existence, it’s humble, dependent, and prayerful.
And yet - I’m certain that I only have a bit of “fuel” for this conversation. You have some. And so do some others - and I think that’s pretty beautiful and encouraging too.
I don’t know when the next post will happen - hopefully sooner than later. This is a strange semester on campus … a strange semester everywhere actually. Pray for me - and I’ll get it out as soon as God makes it clear.
Monday Funday!
Found some sports inspiration for your entertainment this week. Starched shirts have never been so exciting!
That’s it for this week! As always GOBS more funnies on the JC’s Village funny board over at Pinterest - you can get there via this link. I’m looking forward to hearing all about how exciting and challenging you’ve made your boring ol’ house chores!
Monday Funday!
Found some more Halloween themed funnies for this week.
That’s it for this week! As always GOBS more funnies on the JC’s Village funny board over at Pinterest - you can get there via this link. See you next week - I’ve got something really special for us to laugh at!
Monday Funday!
Howdy there! How about a little fall humor? Grab yourself something pumpkin-spiced and enjoy!
That’s it for this week! As always GOBS more funnies on the JC’s Village funny board over at Pinterest - you can get there via this link. Stay cool and see you again next week!
Monday Funday!
A little summer humor ya!
That’s it for this week! As always GOBS more funnies on the JC’s Village funny board over at Pinterest - you can get there via this link. Stay cool and see you again next week!
Monday Funday!
Back by popular demand - Monday Fun-day! Because according to Roger Rabbit only cartoons can die from laughing too much! (And who couldn’t use a few more laughs?)
harsh language warning
2020 has been challenging enough - spring for the good stuff!
The best part of every camping trip! Especially if it’s soggy!
Praying you all have a great week! If you’re ready for some more laughs - head on over to the JC’s Village Pinterest board “Blessed Are The Funny”
JC's Village Banana Bread
What follows - is simultaneously - instructions to make JC’s banana bread - and why I won’t be invited to compete on the Great British Bake Off! So - if you’re a “real” baker - you’ve been warned. For the rest of you - I’m not saying that any of what follows is what should happen - just that this is what does happen when it comes time to make another loaf of banana bread!
Turn the oven on to 350 and grab 3-4 brown and yeller splotchy bananas. If they’re puny bananas you might need 5. Chuck yer ‘nanners into your food processor, along with a couple of eggs, sugar, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and a splash (or a glug) of homemade vanilla. This situation could look something like this:
Pulse your food processor a few times so everything blends up nice and smooth. Then go ahead and add 1 1/4 sticks of butter. I usually slice the butter into pats and put them in one at a time while the food processor is running.
The last thing to add is 1 1/2 cups of flour. I usually pulse the flour in 1/2 cup at a time. All told - the food processor runs less than 5 minutes.
Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and toss it into the oven. Set the time for 57 minutes and get a couple of toothpicks out. If the bananas are particularly large or ripe or both - then it’ll need an extra minute or two. If not - then a little less.
Once the banana bread has baked - pull it out, let it cool 15 minutes or so and then remove from the pan and let cool more on a rack before cutting and serving.
This loaf is going to Danika, so instead of slicing into it - here it is all wrapped up and ready for delivery. The whole recipe is listed below.
Pre-heat oven to 350
3-4 ripe bananas
2 eggs
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
splash of homemade vanilla
a “pfoof” of cinnamon from your big ol’ can of Watkins cinnamon (some folks call this a “dog fart” of cinnamon - gotta love those dog lovers!)
1 1/4 sticks of room temperature butter
1 1/2 cups of flour
pour into into loaf pan and bake for 57 minutes
Makes almost enough.
Enjoy!!