Conformed or Transformed?

I took a Missions Trip to Mexico back in 1990 and David Roller was the missionary there. Since then, he has changed positions a few times and is now one of the Bishops of the Free Methodist Church. He has posted an interesting concept he came up with on his blog and I wanted to share it with you.... I had a cool idea recently while studying Acts 15. As a part of their ruling on the Gentile Christians, the Council of Jerusalem said, "we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God." And I thought, "what a great principle!" I know that it's a time-honored tradition to make it difficult for people to decide to follow Jesus (and He sometimes did too, like the rich young ruler). But Jesus usually made it easy, made it attractive to follow Him (free fish, free healings, free kingdom of God). I thought about our traditional altar calls ("every head bowed, every eye closed...") and how they made it hard to come to Jesus. Then it came...

This is the song of my heart today.

Life has been very hectic with the start of school this year. Andrew is in high school and just finished his driver's education. A lot of changes for us. I am finally finished with classes and tomorrow is my ordination ceremony down in Fremont, MI. It feels good to have reached that goal. I started this week with Pastor's Prayer and Fast Retreat down at camp. It was a good time to meet with other Pastors and get to know some of them, as well as the time of meeting with God. Betweeen the retreat and my ordination and my wedding anniversary this month, I have been in evaluation mode. I am evaluating each relationship I have: my marriage....both to Brian and to God, my relationship with my children and also my relationship in ministry. I have been overwhelmed this week by the deep responsibility I carry in each relationship. So, I am evaluating, setting goals and praying for each one. Here are some of the questions I am asking myself: 1. How much time do I spend on thi...

I have been watching some of the speeches this week from the Republican Convention. I was really impressed with Sarah Palin. She's got such personality! You could feel the people being drawn in by her speech and by the end, you could tell that they loved her! The commentators at the end of the speech were saying what an incredible job she did and then it immediately went to a clip about a lawsuit she is currently fighting in Alaska. I was really disappointed. It seemed they took her great moment and tried to squelch it. Every decision she has ever made, her family life, her job, everything is under scrutiny. It got me thinking, what if my life "went public" tomorrow? What if others evaluated my every decision? If they scrutized how I raised our family and spend my money, how would I hold up? Would they have a lot of "dirt" to proclaim to the press or would they see a life of integrity? 1 Peter 2:12 says to live such good lives among the pagans that, ...