Just another post to say that my other blog at misterjoshuaray.wordpress.com is up and running. The screenshot is of the biggest update recently (and so far!). So if you want to hear a bit about SEMINARY then hit the jump :)
I don't know that I'll update this much more-this was big enough news that I wanted it to be here on the old blog too though.
I don't know if this will show up in anyone's RSS feed or if there are any of you that still check blogger for updates. I know that I haven't been here very much over the past nine months or so. But maybe someone somewhere will. So this is for you.
This will (as far as I can tell) be my last update here. I've started a new blog at a different website and the first post is a little bit about the 'why' of it all.
So here's the link for anyone who might stumble upon this. Thanks for reading :)
Seems like I'm continually tinkering with the site layout here. I've reverted to a simpler layout for the time being. It's refreshing to have a fresh start.
I didn't initially intend to say anything more that I just did-same blog, new look, thanks very much. However...as I thought about the idea of being refreshed, a song that I've listened to off and on recently came to mind. It's on the most recent Passion cd and it's called "Come to the Water."
The basic idea of the song? An invitation to come to the God (who offers the water of life) because "We believe You will satisfy / You bring our hearts to life."
I don't know about you, but I need that kind of refreshment every single day. Praise God that it's offered to us!
I came across this short anecdote and couldn't help but share it! It was definitely convicting for me because I'm so often quick to criticize when I probably should address my own shortcomings. Anyways, the story is about the evangelist Dwight L. Moody:
"One day a lady criticized D. L. Moody for his methods of evangelism in attempting to win people to the Lord. Moody's reply was "I agree with you. I don't like the way I do it either. Tell me, how do you do it?" The lady replied, "I don't do it." Moody responded "I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it." Wow. Talk about a truth bomb. God, help me to obey you and your commands first instead of trying to hold others to your standards hypocritically.
It's been a while since I did this kind of update, but I led worship this past week at Navs and thought I could kill two birds with one stone: update the blog and talk about one of my favorite subjects :) That subject is worship music, and specifically NEW worship music. At Navs this week Mikey spoke on generosity, and so I picked songs that talked about God's love for us and our response. That's where generosity needs to start for us. Something I've been chewing on recently is that everything we do should be done out of overflow. We not only love because He first loved us: we have compassion because we were shown compassion, we comfort because we've been comforted, we forgive because we've been forgiven, etc. Being generous is no different. We need to start with how generous God has been towards us. I introduced a new song this week: "Once and For All" from the latest Passion cd. The chorus is a simple statement of our beliefs as Christians. There's something powerful about declaring something in song, together, that people have believed for millennia (from the Nicene and Apostles' creeds and beyond). The chorus says:
We believe our God is Jesus We believe that he is Lord We believe that he has saved us From sin and death Once and for all
So much has changed in the months(!!!) since I updated last! And the crazy exciting part is that it doesn't show any signs of slowing down. There are some big shifts and updates on the horizon and I can't wait to share all about them!
That's part of the reason I'm re-activating this blog: it'll be nice to have a venue other than Facebook to put some stuff out there in the hopes of keeping you up-to-date on all the changes.
I'm kinda just coming up with the idea as I'm typing, but maybe a few posts focusing that each focus on a different aspect of the recent updates would be good. I dunno, we'll see. Expect to hear some more from me here though! (*fingers crossed*)
Soooooo it's been a little while since I've updated the blog. Specifically, it's been since April. I seem to go through cycles like that with my blog, my journal, really any kind of regular writing that I have to do. Don't know why, but it just seems to happen.
But I'm back. I'll be updating the blog semi-regularly, even if it's just to post snippets and have short updates.
There are two resources I'd like to direct you to, though. This blog doesn't quite have the reach that my ministry group on facebook does, so I'm planning on shifting updates relating specifically to Navs at CSULB to that blog and to monthly emails I'll be sending out.
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