Book Report - Breath - devotions for the youth worker's soul

This isn't really a book that I'm review but a devotional that GROUP put out for us youth workers. I found it very moving and gave me a lot of the things to reflect on and pray about. Breathe - devotions for the youth worker's soul was exactly what I needed to help with the time the LORD gives me to spend one-on-one with Him. I share my prayers in my last two Prayer and Review post (click here and here to read them) that I lifted up to the Lord this past two months that show how this devotional affected me. I would recommend it to any youth worker or parent who is spending regular time with teenagers. One little note: there is a CD that goes with the book which has some great background sounds/music to go with the devotionals. But some of the songs (like track 3) is used a little too much for my taste.

eXchange - a study in the book of Romans

NCBC has started a Romans study for "Big Church" that I' m really excited about. We have a blog for it (click here to see it), a facebook group (click here to see it), and a journal guide for it (don't click here to see it - you have to get it at church).

What's got me excited about it is that we will be exposing the middle schoolers to Romans 6-8 this fall which I believe is a critical part of a young adolescents spiritual walk.

My Historic Retreat

This was a historical retreat for becuase in a book report post on Scot McKnight book Jesus Creed I explained an application from his book I wanted to use. Here is that application (if you would like to read the whole book report pls click here):
The very simple and practical application that I am using is this:

1) I have started reading a chapter a day from the Bible (I started in I Thess.)

2) From that chapter I find at least one verse that stands out to me

3) I then write a short (one sentence to three sentence) explanation of why that verse stood out to me.

4) My goal is to take a ½ day ever 6 mths to look over all of my short explanations and see if I find some kind of common theme(s) in them.

5) I take that common theme(s) to help me plan my next set of books I read, what I study in the Bible, change my person quite times to contemplate this common theme(s) better, etc

6) Grow in my understand of how to love God and love others better.I know this seems simple but for me, who needs things to be simple, I’m very excited about what God might do in my life while using this simple application.

Today was my first ½ day retreat where I wanted to see what I had wrote. WOW!! This has been the best retreat of my life when it comes to looking at God's Word. I found out that I can’t do this only every 6 mths but need to do it monthly. I had 12 pages worth of “short explanations” to read through, categorize, and study. I still have a lot to study but I’m even more excited than ever about this. But God is doing something - Lord use me, PLS!

Devo and running together

I haven't posted a devo in a long time but the one I did today seemed powerful to me. As I changed the way I do my devo time (this post explains what changes I've done) I wanted to share this one.

I'm at East Iowa Bible camp a beutiful place to have our pastor, elder, & deacon meeting. I was reading through Hebrews 3 and looked at this verse:

Heb 3:13 For as long as it's still God's Today, keep each other on your toes so sin doesn't slow down your reflexes.

I really like this idea of "keep each other on your toes" so that "sin doesn't slow down your reflexes." So often I think about the idea that I'm slowing down. Today I tryed to run with a group of guys here at camp and I was only able to stay with them for less than 13 min (most of that was down hill). I'm slowing down because I haven't kept up my running but these guys have. If I had been running with them for a while it would have been cake to run the 45 min or so that they ran - I went for another 17 min running and walking. Nothing like having todays experence focus me on what I must be doing in my Christian run/walk. I need to keep guys around me so that they may be a part of keeping my reflexes up. Lord, I want to be quick off the gun when it is time for me to act for you. Help me surround myself with men/women who will keep me on my toes.