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God’s Holy Sentence

July 26, 2010 By admin View Comments

God’s Holy Sentence

by Jon Walker

So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. Genesis 45:8 (NIV)

— — —

Today, in the story of your life, you’re in the middle of a sentence, and you may find yourself paused in a painful place.

But today is not the end of your story. You’re paused on what my Jesus-mentor Steve Pettit calls the holy “but God” of a sentence. For example, you’re hanging by the end of your rope, but God extends his hand at precisely the right moment to pull you from peril.

You find this divine “but God” sentence structure throughout the Bible:

•    Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, but God used it to preserve the Jewish race.
•    The Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, but God sent Moses to lead them to the Promised Land.
•    Jesus dies on a cross, but God used that very moment to deliver us all from evil.

Every one of us reaches a point in our lives where we wonder what God is doing, but God then does something unexpected and marvelous. You don’t know what’s behind the “but God.” You can only, in faith, believe it is exactly the best thing God could give to you.

Count the “but God” moments in your life where he provided for you or delivered you from a difficult situation. The apostle Peter tells us to keep telling our God-stories over and over again, to encourage each other.

There’s an old gospel song that says, “I just took a look at the back of the book.” You may not be able to see to the end of the sentence, let alone the end of your life story, but you do know how the story ends: God wins, the demons die, and we spend eternity with our heavenly Father.

There’s no but about that!

Jon Walker is the author of “Growing with Purpose: Connecting with God Every Day.” This article is copyrighted 2010 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.

Filed Under: Devotions Tagged With: Bible, Egypt, God's Holy Sentence, gospel, Growing with Purpose: Connecting with God Every Day, Israelites, Jesus, Jewish, Jon Walker, Moses, Promised Land, Steve Pettit

i am nothing.

July 23, 2010 By admin View Comments

This past weekend i had the pleasure of attending the Waynesburg Bible Chapel in Waynesburg, PA for service. (You can visit their website here.)

For the special song a gentleman named Dave got up to sing a Shane and Shane song. While watching the words on the screen i noticed that all of the words “i” were lowercase and at first i kept saying to myself that someone had made a mistake while typing it in, or they were just in a hurry to get it up there and accidentally didn’t make it capitalized. But then i got to thinking, that maybe there was a reason for the lowercase i’s. Maybe they did it on purpose.

And then i began to realize that we want everything to be about US. And sadly, some of OUR “worship” songs that are supposed to be about God and sung to God, sadly end up being all about US and OUR feelings and what WE want to happen in OUR lives. Since when has anything in the world ever been about US, and WE, and OUR? i think it’s about time we begin to realize who we are. Nothing compared to who He is.

So maybe it was a mistake or an accident, but i think it helped me to realize where my standing is in this world and that it’s not all about me, but all about putting others first.

Filed Under: Random Thoughts Tagged With: God, Shane and Shane, Waynesburg, Waynesburg Bible Chapel, worship

Nanhi Kali: A Girl Story

July 7, 2010 By matt View Comments

There is another nonprofit Nanhi Kali, which seeks to change the lives of impoverished girls, who has launched a campaign where an animated girl, whose life path is determined by the donations the organization received.

You can check out the Girl Story campaign here.

I originally saw this story on a great nonprofit blog called: http://www.nonprofitmarketingblog.com/

Now most of her article, which I agree with is saying that this is a cartoon and that not a lot of people would be able to attach themselves with a “fictional” character when there are many many more out there who are really hurting. And how you can see real tears in their eyes, instead of the fake ones on the cartoon.

Now, I completely agree with that point, but what I do LOVE about this cartoon, is that it’s a great idea and will have tons of people who watch it, and it’s one of the first fundraising videos I’ve ever seen. I’ve honestly never had the thought, “Hey, let’s create a video about a girl and have people donate money in order to see how she ends up.”

This is exactly what social media is all about. It’s about connecting with an audience and allowing them to add to the conversation. Too many nonprofits are shouting all the great things they are doing, which is good to know, but at some point you have to let others speak into what you are talking about.

I think it will be very interesting to see how this will all turn out. I’ll keep an eye on it and try to keep you posted.

Filed Under: Nonprofits Tagged With: animated, cartoon, donations, fictional, impoverished, nanhi kali, nonprofit, organization, social media

To Blog…or not to blog?

July 6, 2010 By matt View Comments

That is the question I’m dealing with today.

As Susan and I were going for our morning walk/run, we began to talk about the importance of a blog on a website and if they really matter anymore. We both know how important “social media” really is and how it can help us to grow our fans and the people who follow us, which is still a little creepy to me, but how important is blogging.

I kept saying that blogging is really important as it adds some SEO to this site which will hopefully help to raise it up on Google’s page ranks for when people are searching for specific words.

What I’m really struggling with is what to blog about…

Currently, I’m reading Donald Miller’s book, “A Thousand Miles in A Thousand Years” and I just read a part about a father who wanted to make a difference in his daughters life, so he went to Google and typed something to the affect of , “orphans needing help in mexico.” And he found this site where for $25,000 he could build a house for the orphans there and give them food for a year. So the story goes on to say that he decided to do it without asking his wife, but later on his wife and daughter both appreciated what he has done and his daughters life does change to the point she wants to go to Mexico to visit them there.

This is the kind of story that I hope Provide Love will get to share at some point down the road. These are the reasons why we have decided to create this nonprofit and hopefully get it off of the ground. We want to show how Christ can change people’s lives and how serving others and putting others before you is what this life is all about. It’s not about us, it’s about them.

So what does this mean about blogging? I’m going to do it. I’ve been really bad about blogging before in the past, but now this time is different. Just want to apologize in advance if some of my blogs are random and out there, but hopefully they’ll all make sense in the end.

Filed Under: Reading Tagged With: blogging, christ, donald miller, Google, mexico, nonprofit, orphans, page rank, provide love, SEO, social media, thousand miles

Score: Business Planning Tools for Nonprofit

June 30, 2010 By matt

Currently reading a great PDF by the guys over at Score.

You can download it here: http://www.score.org/template_gallery.html

Just still trying to learn as much about nonprofits as I can.

Here’s just a simple quote I’ve pulled out so far, as I begin to work on my business plan.

“Note to new and emerging non-profit organizations: The following discussions on strategic and business plans and on feasibility studies may lead to the conclusion that such plans must be long and overly complex. However, this is not true for new and emerging organizations. The value of the planning process is the thoughtful, fact-based analysis that it requires and, the clear direction it provides. A written plan or study for a relatively new organization need not be more than 15 pages long.”

Filed Under: Resources Tagged With: business plan, emerging, non-profit, nonprofits, organizations, Score
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