It's been a few days since I've posted anything on my blog and I have been doing a lot of thinking and preparing mentally for some change in my life and in the life of the people around me. Do you ever look at your life and everything that you have and feel guilty? I do . . . I mean I have so much that I am very thankful for and the things that I don't have that I want are so minor in the grand scheme of things.
Over the past several months I have been making an effort to change some things in my life, including what I eat, how I shop, and trying my best to be a little more "green." There has been another thought in my mind that I have been wrestling with over the last couple months. If you know me well, you know that I have a fetish for shoes. I have about 90 pairs of shoes in my closet right now. This shoe thing has controlled my shopping habits (literally, like today I was at target and I went straight to the shoes, which were on sale, but I resisted :) and a lot of my life.
Ok, so now you know about how much I love shoes and wearing different shoes and having lots of shoes. Well, the thing that I've been wrestling with over the last couple of months is giving away most of my shoes. This is a big struggle for me as a person, because I love my shoes!!! So here is what conclusion I have come to and what I plan to do. I am going to keep my flip flops and only a couple pairs of my shoes that I need, and I am giving the rest away. This is something that is very difficult for me and something that I don't necessarily want to do, but know that I need to. So that's what I'm going to do . . .
Now to the challenge part. I want each person who reads this to think about their "stuff" and find out what you have a hold on like I did with my shoes. Then I want you to give it up, to give it away to make a difference in the world. There is so much stuff going on out there that you may think that my shoes might not make a difference, but I assure you that my shoes and whatever you have will make a difference. It's the little things that we do that make a difference. So find what you are holding on to and give it away!!!
Friday, January 30, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Winter Retreat thoughts part II
Since my last post, I have been doing some thinking about Winter Retreat and what happened there. Yes the music was amazing and yes the messages were great and Saturday night was amazing. There was freedom in the room on Saturday night and believe me I don’t discount that one bit. In fact, I had the most amazing time being in the presence of God that night!!
The thing that I have been thinking about most since we got back is how to take what happened at Winter Retreat and incorporate it into my everyday life and for you out there how you can incorporate it into your everyday life. Therefore I was thinking about the church and what it really means for us to be the church.
For you students out there, it is time for you to stop going to the church and start becoming the church. I don’t mean stop going to your worship service all together, I mean stop looking at the church as a place you go and start looking at it as a place for transformation of your life so that you can go out into your world and make a difference.
It’s time for us to start living our lives outside of the church walls, making a difference in our communities. What does that look like? That is volunteering at a local charity or the food bank, or habitat for humanity. It means getting involved in the One organization and maybe the effort in Darfur and maybe volunteering on your local board for Nothing But Nets.
It is time for this generation to stand up and say no more. Saying no more to surface Christianity that does nothing but make people think we are a bunch of kooks. It’s time to say no more to staying in the church and having an event just to get together and say “yay we had an event.” It’s time to say no more to the violence in our schools, to the injustice in the world.
It is time for our generation to stand up and make a difference, and if you think that you can not do that, then you need to start realizing that you can. There are so many little things that you can do in your community, you just have to look out for them. At the end of this post, I will give some websites for you to check out with little things you can do to make a difference.
So, coming back from retreat what are you going to do? Are you going to continue to sit there in your church doing nothing and remaining stagnant? Or are you going to start doing something to be the example for your generation? At retreat you got rid of and free from some secrets that have been stopping you from being the difference. Now you have the opportunity to do something different. Something that will make this world look at you.
What will you choose?
Websites to visit:
www.tomsshoes.com
www.twloha.com
www.nothingbutnets.net
www.one.org
www.savedarfur.org
www.cvfb.org
www.habitat.org
The thing that I have been thinking about most since we got back is how to take what happened at Winter Retreat and incorporate it into my everyday life and for you out there how you can incorporate it into your everyday life. Therefore I was thinking about the church and what it really means for us to be the church.
For you students out there, it is time for you to stop going to the church and start becoming the church. I don’t mean stop going to your worship service all together, I mean stop looking at the church as a place you go and start looking at it as a place for transformation of your life so that you can go out into your world and make a difference.
It’s time for us to start living our lives outside of the church walls, making a difference in our communities. What does that look like? That is volunteering at a local charity or the food bank, or habitat for humanity. It means getting involved in the One organization and maybe the effort in Darfur and maybe volunteering on your local board for Nothing But Nets.
It is time for this generation to stand up and say no more. Saying no more to surface Christianity that does nothing but make people think we are a bunch of kooks. It’s time to say no more to staying in the church and having an event just to get together and say “yay we had an event.” It’s time to say no more to the violence in our schools, to the injustice in the world.
It is time for our generation to stand up and make a difference, and if you think that you can not do that, then you need to start realizing that you can. There are so many little things that you can do in your community, you just have to look out for them. At the end of this post, I will give some websites for you to check out with little things you can do to make a difference.
So, coming back from retreat what are you going to do? Are you going to continue to sit there in your church doing nothing and remaining stagnant? Or are you going to start doing something to be the example for your generation? At retreat you got rid of and free from some secrets that have been stopping you from being the difference. Now you have the opportunity to do something different. Something that will make this world look at you.
What will you choose?
Websites to visit:
www.tomsshoes.com
www.twloha.com
www.nothingbutnets.net
www.one.org
www.savedarfur.org
www.cvfb.org
www.habitat.org
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Winter Retreat Thoughts
It's amazing to me how you can be in the middle of one of the hardest most tiring days and weeks you have ever had, yet still be blown away by the power of God. Tonight was the main service, the big daddy of services for Winter Retreat '09 and it was totally tubular. Why do I say totally tubular? Because it was 80's night.
Here's the skinny on what happened. Three words: God showed up! I am sitting here at the hotel after the service and it is almost 2am and I have only had like 16 hours of sleep in the last 5 days, but that really didn't matter tonight. God showed up!
I have not felt so free to really praise God like we did tonight in a long time. I haven't felt as free to pray for students in the way that I feel God wants me to in a long time, but tonight I had that opportunity. The prayer time one on one with students was probably the single highlight for me for this entire retreat.
I want students to go back to their cities and schools and church buildings and start being the church. I hope that students will go back and not just go back to normalcy because we had another retreat, but go back to a changed heart. I pray that these students left their heart on the altars and left with God's heart. That is the heart that they need, if they are going to change the world. The calling is not to just change their lives or have a program at a church, the goal is to go and make a difference in the world. In the next couple of days I will post more about how we as the church need to be making a difference in the world and our cities and schools. We have too many issues in our culture to just go back and be the same. We need to make a difference . . .
Be looking for my next post . . .
Here's the skinny on what happened. Three words: God showed up! I am sitting here at the hotel after the service and it is almost 2am and I have only had like 16 hours of sleep in the last 5 days, but that really didn't matter tonight. God showed up!
I have not felt so free to really praise God like we did tonight in a long time. I haven't felt as free to pray for students in the way that I feel God wants me to in a long time, but tonight I had that opportunity. The prayer time one on one with students was probably the single highlight for me for this entire retreat.
I want students to go back to their cities and schools and church buildings and start being the church. I hope that students will go back and not just go back to normalcy because we had another retreat, but go back to a changed heart. I pray that these students left their heart on the altars and left with God's heart. That is the heart that they need, if they are going to change the world. The calling is not to just change their lives or have a program at a church, the goal is to go and make a difference in the world. In the next couple of days I will post more about how we as the church need to be making a difference in the world and our cities and schools. We have too many issues in our culture to just go back and be the same. We need to make a difference . . .
Be looking for my next post . . .
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Winter Retreat prep: Day 2
So we have now been in Harrisonburg for a whole day and got a lot done. The greatest thing about this trip so far has been the opportunity to stop and just talk with people. We have met some new friends from Maine and it has been wonderful to hear their story. The wild thing about it is that sitting with these guys since last night and sharing stories of life, etc. has truly made me realize how close we are as the family of God. We may have just met yesterday, but it feels like we have known each other forever. My hope is that these friendships will continue as strong as they have begun and even grow stronger as we leave Sunday and go our separate ways. It will be difficult to leave these new friends, knowing they live so far away, but I know that the time we shared together will be valuable to us in the future.
Now onto what is going on with winter retreat. We have unloaded the box truck and await the trailer that is coming in tomorrow. In the morning we will be arriving at the church to set up all the equipment that right now looks like just a big pile of a lot of stuff. It is a little bittersweet having retreat be here, as this is the last one we are putting together for the district. This is great, because next year we can just come and enjoy the time to minister to students, but at the same time kinda sucks because we have so much fun this week, as much as we complain and as little sleep as we get.
I will try to update everyone again . . . and look forward to seeing everyone on Friday night! It's going to be awesome!!!
Now onto what is going on with winter retreat. We have unloaded the box truck and await the trailer that is coming in tomorrow. In the morning we will be arriving at the church to set up all the equipment that right now looks like just a big pile of a lot of stuff. It is a little bittersweet having retreat be here, as this is the last one we are putting together for the district. This is great, because next year we can just come and enjoy the time to minister to students, but at the same time kinda sucks because we have so much fun this week, as much as we complain and as little sleep as we get.
I will try to update everyone again . . . and look forward to seeing everyone on Friday night! It's going to be awesome!!!
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Confession . . .
Hi my name is Adam Short and I'm a Facebook junkie. I'm not sure how it started, but I know that it is a problem. Maybe it was that first comment someone left me on my status that made me think "hey, this telling everyone what I'm doing at all times could never be annoying to anyone."
I can say that for some reason I enjoy having everyone know what I'm doing, but at the same time can see the reason why some people have a problem with that.
I sense no problem with this and maybe making this confession is a good first step on the road to recovery. But then again, I have no problem with it. There are so many people out there that need to know what we are doing throughout the day, we can not let them down.
For now, we must fight to keep the updates coming, while still being able to admit that there is a problem. I say update often . . . and often update. This my friends will be what brings us to wholeness in our Facebook lives.
I can say that for some reason I enjoy having everyone know what I'm doing, but at the same time can see the reason why some people have a problem with that.
I sense no problem with this and maybe making this confession is a good first step on the road to recovery. But then again, I have no problem with it. There are so many people out there that need to know what we are doing throughout the day, we can not let them down.
For now, we must fight to keep the updates coming, while still being able to admit that there is a problem. I say update often . . . and often update. This my friends will be what brings us to wholeness in our Facebook lives.
My favorite commercial
ok . . . so I'm not really one to put a bunch of videos on my blog, but here is another one of my favorites, it's actually my newest favorite commercial. So here it is . . .
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Stop It
I came across this video on the advice of a friend. It is a great training video for those of us who do any type of counseling with people. You will laugh . . .
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