I've found a website called Technorati that is a collection of blogs and other whatnot organized by "tags." I'm going to submit my blog to them under some tags like "religious." religious …
Cell Phones
I just bit the bullet and bought a cell phone. For many years I have been boycotting the whole notion of being in "constant contact." I remember back when I was in high school and many of my friends were getting hooked on pagers and the idea that they could be contacted anywhere they were at any …
025-06 — Your Turning Point
Mark 8:22-9:1 This is the message for our ReCOMMITMENT Sunday and the sixth week of our study through the gospel of Mark. We regularly face turning points in our lives. The key is to make the decisions needed to draw us closer to Jesus with each turning point. Listen to Pastor Jeff's message on …
Recommitment / Spiritual Progress
In the church I pastor, ReCOMMITMENT is something we do once a year in terms of church services, but it certainly shouldn't be so in terms of our spiritual lives. The Bible is clear that the spiritual life is not one that can be lived on the basis of one commitment made many years in the past. Of …
What Are You Afraid Of?
If you like to talk to tomatoes. If a squash can make you smile. If you like to waltz with potatoes up and down the produce aisle, then you need to talk to my son. He knows just what you need. Charlie loves Veggie Tales, a series of videos made for children. Each video has various talking fruits …
Great Fonts
I've found some great fonts online that I use on this blog site. If you have Mac OS X on your computer, you already see the right fonts, but if you are using some flavor of Windows or Linux, you may seriously benefit from downloading the OS X font set from Iceman's Emulation Page. Click here …
Intro to Life Worth Living
ARE YOU LOOKING FOR SOMETHING? I remember the week I lost my sunglasses. I was on the verge of panic. You see, these weren't just any sunglasses. They were outlandishly expensive Oakley(c) sunglasses, and my mom had given them to me as a Christmas present. I wore them every day of my life for over …
Following Jesus
Download: MSWord File When I taught my first ReNEW class, I realized that I couldn't assume everyone was on the same page spiritually, so I also created this smaller class session that specifically focused on what it means to begin a journey with Jesus. I still like this material, but it …
ReNEW Class Materials
Download: MS Word & Powerpoint Files Back in 2001, I developed a concept for an annually recurring class that I would teach in my church every January as a refresher course in church membership to prepare for our "Recommitment Sunday" in the first week of February. The class I taught in …
LWL 101: Living a Life of Worship
Downloads: MS Word format | Student Edition PDF | Teacher's Edition PDF (note: MS Word documents contain macros that do not need to be enabled) Explanation: According to Jesus, the greatest command in all the Bible is this: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and …
025-05 — What’s Holding You Back?
Mark 6:14-7:37 All of us have a step of spiritual growth to take. In fact, none of us can encounter Jesus without becoming more aware of our need to grow. Are you growing? In this message, Pastor Jeff encourages us to deal with what's holding us back from our own spiritual growth. Download …
Life Worth Living
The spiritual growth curriculum that I've been developing for the past four years is a series of classes called "Life Worth Living." The classes are based on the four core commitments of the spiritual life arranged in logical order: <li>Worship: God is number one in my …
Win XP Autodial problem fixed
I've been frustrated for a few weeks now about a "feature" of Windows XP. It automatically dials a network connection whenever it thinks I want it. I have DSL at home and a motorola router, but I also have a VPN connection set up on my home computer so that I can dial in to my office computer from …
People use my materials!?
Today, I got a note from a fellow pastor in Canada who is using some of my materials in his church's membership process. He's using a class I developed called ReNEW which is a comprehensive class to introduce baby Christians and reorient believers to the realities of God's will for life in the local …
Seven Minutes with God
Would you like to boost your spiritual growth? Would you like to get into a regular habit of Bible reading and prayer? Well, of course you do, but you probably are thinking that you don't have enough time to do any of that. Here's a little solution for you. For some time now, I've been familiar …
Close to God
I've just been re-energized in my spiritual life! Only a couple of weeks ago, I was feeling depressed and really down in many ways, but that all changed when I went to the Midwest Baptist Conference's Leadership Retreat in Champaign, Illinois. The first night there, I was challenged by a message by …