Welcome!

Thanks for stopping by…my home for my rants, raves, shameless plugs, and most anything else I guess I’d like to talk about I guess…I invite you to comment or e-mail me directly.

Thank you to Chad Wright &  Carl Thomas, a couple of my twitter friends,  for giving me some ideas here and the want to, to go ahead and do this and for the categories tip(Carl).  That being said, if you are looking for something specific, look at my categories to save you from wading through my mess of thoughts on so many various subjects.

As you’ll notice by the categories, I have  a wide variety of interests and jobs.  Let me know you’re out there please and follow me on twitter.

Finally finished – Dating, Friendships, & Sex

Over the past 3 weeks I have been doing a series on Dating, Friendships, & Sex – in that order, so tonight we finished up with an in depth discussion on sex.

This final service was pretty interesting to me.  First of all, let me say this, I’m pretty comfortable talking about this to teenagers – that doesn’t bother me much, keep in mind we tried to hit all the issues; everything from those who have already lost their virginity to those who haven’t, setting up boundaries, where do you draw the line, what about oral sex, touching, tonguing, you name it we covered it – yes, including masturbation.

Is your youth group teaching this stuff?  If not, you should be, do it!  I promise the world is teaching them, if you’re not, that’s the same as saying that the world is right or you just don’t care.

Anyway a friend of ours who runs a crisis pregnancy center called my wife this afternoon, unbenounced to me and then shows up at church…that’s cool, figuring she’ll go to Bible study with the adults…NOT!  She asks me if she can sing a special tonight!?? Huh?  Yea, ok, I guess so.  I asked her if she knew what I was preaching about…she didn’t.  Anyway, what a God-Send…I couldn’t have planned how our whole sex talk went any better than God worked it out…that’s a duh moment huh?

God wants us out of our comfort zone – he moved me there…I was cool teaching in front of our youth group…not other adults who are not normally in there…God knows what he’s doing, even when I think I’ve got it…um, no!

BTW…the resources I used were from Jeanne Mayo called Uncensored.  The book is primarily where I got my notes – I read the entire book, obviously it would have taken longer to read the book to them.  I took notes out of it, and did more or less and interactive sermon on the material.  There are also dvds that go with this as well.

Want to really get a look into your youth group?  We did this, the first time I’ve ever asked our kids to do anything like this, but we surveyed them anonomysly.  We gave them all the same colored pens and had them answer questions on a questionaire that we gave them with such questions as:

1. Male or Female
2. Age (in order to keep in anonomys we put age ranges 11-13, 14-16, 16-18, 19 and up)
3. Are you still a virgin?
4. Are you sexually active?
5. Do you have standards?
6. Have you ever been sexually violated or abused?
7. Do you have a problem with pornography?
8. If you do have a problem with porn, where or how do you have access to it?  At home, At a friends, Internet, Magazine, Videos

The answers you get back may surprise you…it did me.  The number of my kids that have been sexually violated or abused astounded me…it’s not teenagers or sex that we’re fighting here…we are fighting a battle with satan…he wants my kids…he wants your kids…he wants them as bad as we do, but he don’t love them, he hates them and wants them to go the wrong direction.

Anyway, there we have it, my Wed. night thoughts…feel free to post your thoughts…

Is your youth service BORING?

I read this blog post (Re-Posted below) from Seth Godin, the author of several books – the latest of his that I read was Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable.

Once I read this post I realized how much more than the marketplace this goes…our church/youth group (made me think), our business, our personal life…

So I have to think what changes need to happen in my personal, Christian, & business life to be extraordinary?  I want church to be phenomenal, not just another church service, but an encounter with God.  How does one go about creating this?

I believe we have to be open to letting God make us extraordinary…to get out of our comfort zone, to CHANGE us before we can change a youth group or a congregation.  So I have put together some questions for myself and am open to some comments from others as far as what would separate my church (or yours) from the ordinary.

1. Who is your church catering to?  Is it “the churched” people, or are the unsaved welcomed into your church?

2. I know this is not a competition, all of our churches SHOULD be working together, but, who are the other churches NOT reaching?

3. Are you outside the church trying to bring people in…this kinda hurt…or are you still in your comfort zone,um, office?

4.Bottom-Line – how is your church remarkable?

If your church is remarkable, if it truly is extraordinary…what are you doing that makes it that way?

Day 30 – 2 Timothy 4

I was doing my devotion this morning in 2 Timothy 4

Before I get on with my notes from my study this morning, let me say this…the reason I include on here Day whatever is because, that is the number of days since Pastor Jimmy has started holding me accountable…accountability is AWESOME and the way we’ve started doing this has changed my life.  Prior to this blog I was typing out my notes from my devotion and e-mailing it to him.  This tells him two things right off the bat; one, I did do my devotion and quiet time/prayer with God, and two, what I got out of it, did I miss anything or have questions.

See, I used to read, but I wasn’t held accountable and didn’t HAVE TO get anything out of it…when you have to write something down that you got out of your study time, you’d better get something out of it.

So this morning I sat down to type up my notes to him and received an e-mail from him about my devotions, I didn’t send him my notes yesterday.  That’s SUPER AWESOME to me!  That he’s checking…it’s not super awesome that I didn’t send them to him yesterday…it’s because I didn’t get to have a personal devotion time – I have an excuse, but not a good one so I won’t bore you with the details….so on to today’s devotion notes…

In Paul’s letter to Timothy he charged him or gave him the task of preaching God’s word…he told him to be instant in season and out of season.  What does this mean?  The message says Don’t ever quit.  Always be preaching, always be ready to preach.

Vs 3-4 is HUGE to me…it’s all around us, it says:  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

My notes say that this has been true throughout history, that some have refused to love or accept sound doctrine, but it will grow worse as the end draws near.  These quote came out of my notes, but they are so real…

• Many will profess to be Christians, gather at churches, appear to reverence God, but will not tolerate the original N.T. apostolic faith or the Biblical demand to separate from unrighteousness.
• These professing believers will not seek pastors according to the standards of God’s s Word but will seek those who conform to their own self-seeking and worldly desires.  They will choose preachers with gift of oratory, the ability to entertain, and a message that reassures them that they can remain a Christian while living according the the flesh.

It’s so cool to me that Paul is in prison and so sure of God, so sure of his salvation that he doesn’t waiver or cry out that God has forsaken him…how much can we learn from this!?  When we have a bad day or just a blip in our day when something goes wrong and we get mad and lose our witness for Christ…MAN! Paul is awesome, I can’t wait to talk to him in Heaven!  (Maybe I’m the only one that has ever lost my witness in a small fit of anger or rage…)

So Paul is sitting in prison writing to Timothy to come see him SOON….Demas has forsaken him (vs 10) having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.

This is sure to offend or at least make people think…
I read that in Vs 10, above, and said out loud, “Who is Demas?“  In Collosians 4:14 it makes reference to Paul’s friend, Demas and my Dake’s Bible references Demas being once a minister and a fellow laborer with Paul.  The rest of the notes here are interesting too.  It says that Demas by this time had grown cold in his experience with Christ and had gone back into the world again.  Here it is clear to what extent he was backslidden.  He loved this present world.  According to 1 John 2:15-17 anyone who loves the world does not have the love of God in him.  If the love of God is not in him, he cannot possibly be saved.  Is it conceivable that God will take people to heaven who do not love Him?  If this man did love God at one time, which is clear from Philemon 1:24 then how did he become separated from the love of God?  Was God responsible for him loving the present world and forsaking Paul?  If not, who was?  This proves free moral agency after conversion.  If we have free choice powers, then we alone can choose to backslide and fail God.  We thus choose our own destiny after salvation as we do before salvation.  Not one scripture ever suggests that God forces any man to serve Him.

Paul goes on to say that when no one stood with him, God did, and God preserved him.

What an AWESOME chapter…Paul is an AWESOME man of God!  We need to take notes from this man!

QuickBooks

This blog category will be home to my QuickBooks thoughts, training, how-to, and answering questions that readers would like to ask…until then, here’s a little about my business.

I am an Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor and have been a QuickBooks ProAdvisor since 2002.  My business, Barons’, Inc. revolves around QuickBooks…we do QuickBooks training & consulting in all areas of QuickBooks.  We will do initial setup, cleanup, recomend add-on software, help with reporting, general training, seminars, etc.

We also run an agent office for Innovative Merchant Services (IMS) also known as QuickBooks Merchant Service.  If you are setting up a new business and need to process credit cards, give us a shot…we also give away FREE, the lastest edition of QuickBooks Pro.  We offer competive pricing, seamless integration into QuickBooks, a virtual terminal.  Not to mention customer support, if you can’t get in touch with me then customer service is available 24/7/365, they answer within 3 rings within the United States.  We run our merchant service company a little different than most, this industry is a cut-throat industry, we’re not like that…we’re up front about everything.

If you have a question about QuickBooks, QuickBooks as it relates to technology, or merchant services…please feel free to leave a post…

What Are Your Thoughts

I am the Youth Pastor at our church, Deerwood Assembly of God.  I am interested in hearing what you have to say about anything that I happen to post here…I am interested in knowing what you have done on different topics, for instance tomorrow evening I am going to touch on dating, relationships, pornography, sex and either start or finish with an anonomys survey to find out a variety of things regarding these subjects about my kids…it’s an easy way to find the truth without singling them out.  This is ‘the opening’ of a series I’m going to do on this whole subject and delve into this subject matter because if they don’t hear it from us, the world will be happy to teach them their version of these subjects which are twisted and perverted.

Have you preached about this?  If so, how’d it go?  Would you share your notes with me?

One video I’m sure I’ll include is Madea…do you watch Madea?

Day 2 – Hosea

I continued in Hosea with the 2^nd chapter…after reading it and studying the accompanying notes…Gomer, Hosea’s wife was a symbol for Israel…and I get how he set obstacles in her path KJV says thorns, they may hurt…so as she’s away from God, he’s trying to protect her, even sometimes painful…in the end He brings her back around to Him.  While I got the gist of the chapter, the first verse threw me.

Who is Ammi & Ruhamah? OH! WAIT!  I get it…her kids – they just forgot to put Lo-… in front of it…duh!

So, I did get my prayer and Bible reading in this morning…

Day 1 – Hosea

I’ve never really studied Hosea before there are/were something I didn’t understand even after reading the notes & commentary in my Bible.

Why would God tell Hosea to “Go take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredomes: for the land hath committed great whoredom.”???  That would be like God telling me to go find a sinful wife because America is such a sinful country.  Hosea was a prophet, right…it doesn’t make any sense.

The notes say this an illustration of Israel’s spiritual infidelity to God…it goes on to say this could be a fictitious allegory and some argue that it is true and this really happened and accept it as literal, just as it reads….you have a clue?

2. She, Gomer, Hosea’s wife bore 3 kids(below)…are these 3 kids located or mentioned anywhere else in scripture?  I haven’t looked it up yet, but  If they are, wouldn’t this definitely have to have been a literal passage?

Jezreel – means “God-Scatters”
Lo-ruhamah – means “Not-Pitied”
Lo-ammi – means “Not My People”

Final thoughts:  Very hectic morning, but I feel good, I did get some prayer time and Bible study time so that’s a good thing.  Why did I start in Hosea, I have NO idea…it’s a book I’m not very familiar with…I’m considering looking for a book/study guide to go through but I just don’t know…any suggestions?