Day 17 – Thankful for Awana and Sunday School

This is part of a series called 24 Days of Thankfulness. These posts are in RANDOM order, NOT priority order. Each is something I am thankful for leading up to Thanksgiving. DAY #17 : Awana and Sunday School I was just serving at an Awana last night in Colorado Springs. I was reminded as I watched these clubbers of the impact of Awana in my own spiritual journey as I realized how blessed these kids are – and they don’t even realize it yet. For them, it’s just something fun their parents have enrolled them in. Yet they are having a spiritual foundation laid that is going to serve them for the rest of their life. Some will come to Christ at club, others will memorize hundreds of Bible verses which will become the building blocks of spiritual thought that will form a biblical world view which will become the super structure upon which will be built a life of critical thinking. And I’m not over-stating it. Objective studies by outside researchers have found that most kids trained in Awana continue to faithfully follow Jesus as adults. (source) Awana is also where I got my beginning as a children’s ministry…

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Day 16 – Thankful for Da Cloud

This is part of a series called 24 Days of Thankfulness. These posts are in RANDOM order, NOT priority order. Each is something I am thankful for leading up to Thanksgiving. DAY #16: Da Cloud I might lose some people on this one, but I am incredibly thankful for cloud technology, and while I’m enjoying watching a lot of my friends starting to use it, I’ve been using it, and dependent on it, for years. Michael Chanley and I did a workshop together on Cloud Technology: What is It? at CPC last year and you can listen, watch and get the handout at the link above. In a nutshell, what this means is that all my files are no longer stored on my computer. Because the days of having only one computer (or device) have been long gone for me for several years, I needed to be able to access any file at any time from any device, update it and have that updated file be on the other devices, AND (this is key) NOT be online when I needed it. While MobileMe got a lot of flake (even from Steve Jobs) I used MobileMe to the max even puzzling…

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Day 15 – Thankful for Science

This is part of a series called 24 Days of Thankfulness. These posts are in RANDOM order, NOT priority order. Each is something I am thankful for leading up to Thanksgiving. DAY #15: Science Today I had a really bad headache. My mom suffered from migraines too. However, I can get relief from them faster than my mom due to medications that were not available to her – because of the advance of science. In 2009 I felt a heart attack coming on – I hurried to an emergency room. I avoided a heart attack and got a stent put in instead. I was told not so long ago, I would have died a 40 year old, but advances in science have given me a re-enforced heart and a new lease on life. Much forgotten by atheists and evolutionists, it was Christians who opened the doors to science since Christians were the ones unafraid to study the body and wanted to learn more about the universe they believed God had made – but I won’t go there in detail here. Science continues to substantiate the details of the Bible in archeology, history and in several other areas. For example, many…

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Day 14 – Thankful for My Bookkeeper Patti

This is part of a series called 24 Days of Thankfulness. These posts are in RANDOM order, NOT priority order. Each is something I am thankful for leading up to Thanksgiving. DAY #14: Patti the Bookkeeper I often joke that I’d be in jail if it weren’t for my bookkeeper, Patti. There are so many legal and government requirements to running a business it is dizzying! You start a ministry because God gives you a calling in life… then you discover there are a zillion quarterly and annual things to file, fill out and fees to pay and a minutia of government loop-holes that if you don’t tap-dance just right… WHAM-O, fees with interest or you lose your tax exempt status or trade mark or they come ringing your door bell. Seriously! Patti was one of the first employees I hired and as soon as cloning is figured out, I’m taking her in to be cloned. Everyone should have an employee like Patti. She is loyal and trustworthy and puts up with me through think and thin – and believe me, there has been “thin” and when we’ve in the “thick” of it, she hangs in there. She’s also the…

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Day 13 – Thankful for My Wife Sara

This is part of a series called 24 Days of Thankfulness. These posts are in RANDOM order, NOT priority order. Each is something I am thankful for leading up to Thanksgiving. DAY #13: Sara Well, after being Thankful for My Son Luke yesterday, I’d be in the doghouse if I didn’t immediately post how thankful I am for my beautiful wife, Sara. He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD. – Proverbs 18:22 My mom had me start praying for my future wife when I was just a little boy. Perhaps she knew that the woman who had to live with me would have a tough assignment! Hyper-creativity, late hours, boundless energy and a dizzying number of hobbies and interests! A man who will starve to death if someone doesn’t remind him to eat or work all night if no one tells him to STOP and go to bed. A man who comes up with Big Ideas eight times a day – and needs someone to say, “that’s a good one…. no.” And who understands that the confidence he protects is much more fragile than it appears. Life with Sara (and Luke) is…

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