Month: January 2010

Wednesday study :: Ephesians 1:3-11

Ephesians 1:3-11:

How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He’s the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.

Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.

It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.

In the comments below:

  • write something theses verses tell us about Jesus/God
  • write something these verses tell us about human nature
  • write down any new discovery you have made reading these verses
  • write down the most exciting verse in your opinion and why
  • write anything you don’t understand or want to ask about
  • write down something these verses say we should do

Remember, when sharing or responding to comments, this is a space of grace. Thanks! Look forward to reading what you share!

!deation conference

After hosting three great idea camps in 2009 (including #icdc & #icpnw) – Charles Lee @charlestlee is planning a new conference event geared specifically towards non-profits and those interested in humanitarian relief.

The initial !deation conference will be held April 5-6 in Long Beach, CA.

The !deation Conference is intentionally formatted to create a rich learning and sharing experience. Each element of the conference facilitates a different mode for engaging the content as well as fellow participants. The hope is that these various experiences will lead to inspiration, encouragement, new explorations, refinement, collaboration, and strategic implementation.

I chatted with Charles a week or so ago for the podcast and he shared some of his vision for !deation.

The conference will be a bit more structured than Idea Camp with key note addresses from folks like Scott Harrison, Eugene Cho, Wade Kawasaki and others.

There will also be smaller workshops to help folks connect with others in their given field.

Should be excellent!

The registration will be capped at 400 attendees – and the early bird special only lasts till Friday – Jan. 15th – so register now!

It’ll be a couple weeks till we publish the full Charles Lee interview on the podcast – but you can hear a snippet of it (dealing with !deation) here:

[audio:http://www.casadeblundell.com/jonathan/wp-content/uploads/ideation-charleslee.mp3|titles=ideation-charleslee]

I truly appreciate Charles’ heart for justice and compassion and wish him the best in all his endeavorers.

Weekly menu (1.10.10)

A day late and it looks like this week will be fairly light on leftovers (which means bring on the sandwiches for lunch). We expect to be getting home later than normal on Tuesday night for sure – thus the quick and easy corn dogs.

Monday Dinner
Tacos (ground beef)

Tuesday Dinner
Corny Dogs

Wednesday Dinner
Pot Roast and Mashed Potatoes

Thursday Dinner
Frozen Pizza
Corn

Friday Dinner
Dinner with friends

Saturday Dinner
Small group

And for those of you who are interested, we’ve found a couple keepers over the last two weeks.

Southwestern Turkey Chili (a lot like Taco Soup)

And

Beefy Cheesy Pasta (similar to the boxed meat and pasta meals without the dry cheese/seasoning package)

So what are you planning to eat this week?

Help end modern day slavery (and five ways you can help)

Today is Human Trafficking Awareness Day…

It’s also the just a few days away from the 146th anniversary of the day our 13th Amendment was introduced to Congress — which set out to abolish slavery in the United States.

Yet today — modern day slavery still exists — in so many forms.

Sex trade, immigrant farmers working in Florida, children mining for coltan, chocolate and coffee farmers around the world — and so much more.

I encourage you to do a 5 things today…

1. Change your Twitter/Facebook/MySpace avatar to support One Voice to End Slavery:

2. Join One Voice to End Slavery

3. Visit the Human Trafficking section on Change.org and read at least 5 articles

4. Share the link to at least one story from Change.org on Facebook or Twitter

5. Watch David Bastone talk about human trafficking at Google:

Then let us know what you learn.

What impacted you the most? What did you learn when doing one (or all) of the steps above?

What other steps have you taken to end modern day slavery?

Dealing with the pain of infertility

pain by trying2

I’ve really been impressed and appreciative of all the things Jason Kovacs does. It’s been great getting to know him and his ministry over the last several months via his blogs and Twitter (@jasonkovacs).

Last week, Jason shared a great post on what he learned from the story of Hannah (1 Samuel 1) and her husband in Scripture…

Hannah taught me that it is natural for a woman to desire to have children. Woman all around the world can relate to her. My wife painfully longed to be a mother. Initially I didn’t know what to do with her emotional response to not being pregnant. To me it seemed so disproportionate to how I felt…. I felt like Hannah’s husband, who said to her: “why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” That approach didn’t work in Hannah’s day and it still doesn’t work today.

I ditto that statement. I will never fully understand the pain and sadness that Laurie feels as we struggle with our infertility. Yes, my heart hurts because we haven’t been able to get pregnant — but my desire is no where near that of Laurie’s.
Continue reading Dealing with the pain of infertility

Love is all you need

On December 7th, 2009 at 1:30pm GMT Starbucks invited musicians from all over the world to sing together at the same time to raise awareness for AIDS in Africa. In that one breathtaking moment, musicians from 156 countries played “All You Need is Love” together. Watch now, as musicians from all around the world come together and share a song.

You can still take part by donating your a video of yourself (or you and your friends) singing the song. Starbucks will donate a nickel to the Global Fund to help fight AIDS in Africa for every video that’s submitted.

Find out more http://starbucksloveproject.com/

My favorite point in the video is the boy belting out “All you need is love!” from Israel, around the mid-point in the song.

What’s your favorite point(s)?

(ht @knightopia)