2011 - Here we come!

So did you get them done! How brave are you? Will you share? As it says in 1 Thessalonians 5:11, "Therefore encourage one another and build one another up . . ." Lets stand beside each other this year. Lets encourage each other to be the men and women God has called us to be!

So what are your resolutions this year? Here's a few of mine:

1. More "on purpose" time with God
2. Through the Bible in a year
3. Be the man God wants me to be as a Husband, Father, Son, Friend . . .
4. Read 6-12 new, impactful books this year
5. Keep up better on relationships, be it Twitter, Facebook, and in person even
6. Keep up on Missionary2Kids.com, and be all God will have me to be in bringing kids
to the arms of Jesus!
7. Keep up with a new blog post 1-2x a month with how God is working in my life

We're His iPod!

Last Sunday, in Sunday School we were teaching on Matthew 16 where Jesus asks his disciples "Who do you say that I am?". How were people describing Jesus? After telling the story out of Scripture, we played a fun game with one sentence descriptions that could be true or false describing Jesus. When they heard the sentence, the kids were to choose either the "True" or "False" side of the room. One of these sentences was, "Jesus liked to listen to music on His iPod®". Almost without thought, one of the little girls in my class says, "No!, We're His iPod!"

That blew me away. I could not continue my class without writing down this wonderful spiritual truth that came out of the mouth of a 1st grade little girl. We ARE His iPod! We are made to worship Him.

Psalm 100, "Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations."

Psalm 150, "Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!"

This little 1st grader's "playlist" for sure is a sweet sound to the ears of Jesus. What does your "playlist" sound like? What does your heart sing to Him who made you, just so He could hear your song!?

For more verses on worship, look at this site - http://encouragingbiblequotes.com/versesworshipa.html

The Bible versus The Cell Phone

My mom sent this to me, and I thought that it was pretty good. I would love to share it with you, something to think about!


Ever wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phone?

What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?

What if we flipped through it several time a day?

What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?

What if we used it to receive messages from the text?

What if we treated it like we couldn't live without it?

What if we gave it to Kids as gifts?

What if we used it when we traveled?

What if we used it in case of emergency?

Jesus has already paid the bill, and there are no dropped calls!

Every Children's Worker Needs To Read This!!!

"The Indomitable Mr. O" by Norman Rohrer, I feel, is a must read for anyone working with kids in Children's Ministry. Indomitable as described in the dictionary means "impossible to subdue or defeat", Mr. O definitely fits the bill! Even if you are not interested in participating with Child Evangelism Fellowship, this book will minister and convict you. J.I. Overholtzer is the Billy Graham of Child Evangelism. This book takes you from beginning to end in the life, ups and downs, and blessings of Mr. O.

I am not much of a "reader" and I could not put this book down. I finished it in a week and a half, which for me is pretty good. You follow Jesse's parents as they escape the effects of the civil war by moving to southern California. Growing up in a Pennsylvania Dutch strick family, trapped by the law, readers of the Word, never missing Sunday School. But as Jesse inquired about his sin and guilt, he is told he was too young to be saved. Just as in Luke 15, the prodigal son, goes through his time rebellion. "I'll just sin if I want to" he would tell himself. We read how God takes him through the fires of refinement and turns him into one of the biggest hearts for child evangelism this world will ever see.

At the end of the book is a section entitled, "Child Evangelism as Taught in the Word of God by J. Irvin Overholtzer" In this section Mr. O expounds on his favorite chapter, Matthew 18. Bringing out such points as in vs. 12 & 13, that the shepherd must go out and find the sheep, just as we must lead a child to Christ, as with the sheep, they will not come back on their own, among other insights on the Scriptures as they relate to children.

The heart of Jesse Irvin Overholtzer will inspire every children's worker, and renew their ministry, and the desire to win every child to the Lord!!!

Catching Up!

It has been a whirlwind few months. As soon as I started teaching again at Crossroads, I started to feel God pulling more and more to get involved. This lead to an opportunity for me to be involved in a TCE (Teaching Children Effectively) Class from CEF (Child Evangelism Fellowship) offered at Crossroads. The rate being offered was $75 to take the class, but free if I was volunteering in Children's Ministry.

Still being new in the CM at Crossroads, I wasn't sure if I would qualify or not, but they graciously offered if I wanted to join the class. How could I pass this up?

I had not really heard too much about CEF up to this point. I had a friend that I served with on a youth staff about 13 years ago that left to train with CEF and become a missionary with them, but that was about it. So after Google-ing the class and finding out it was offered by CEF, I checked out their site as well. I found them to be a pretty cool ministry to children. I was excited to get started. And so began every Monday night for two months, training on the proper technique of leading a child to Christ, Preparing Lessons, Scripture Memorization, The Wordless Book, and so on. Did I mention I was the only guy in a class of about 25 women? Where are all the men in Children's Ministry!? (That's a subject for another time.)


The longer I was in the class, the more anxious I was to get out there and put these new skills to practice. So much so that the last few classes were so exciting, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning, waiting in anticipation, tapping my foot with excitement. I could really feel God telling me, "Brent, THIS is what I have called you to do!"
At the conclusion of the class, I spoke to one of our instructors in regards to getting more information about being involved with CEF. To my amazement, she responded with, "They have an opening for a missionary right here in Denver." Well one thing led to another, and I am now currently in the process of becoming a missionary with CEF, more specifically, to be the Director of the Denver chapter. Please be praying for me through this process, and after, that I may be used of God in a mighty way to reach the children of Denver for Him!

In the meantime I have enjoyed helping in various Good News Clubs, and with Frank & Connie Porter as or missionaries of the month for April at Crossroads CM.

We presented "Mission Possible" to tell others about Jesus. Over 2 Sundays, 5 Services we saw over 20 kids come to Jesus! HOW AWESOME IS THAT!!!

It has truly been an amazing last couple of months, and I look forward to the next few years!

Wow! How Crazy Has it Been!?!?!?

I know, I Know! I said I was going to blog every month if not more. It has been so crazy, I forgot what was going on. But I promise to get caught up in the next couple of days. I have so much to share!

Good to be back!

I'm Baaaacckk!!!

It felt so good to be getting back into Children's Ministry this morning. I have kind of been on a little break doing some praying and thinking about where God wanted me to go, and what He wanted me to do.

Today I started back in CM at Crossroads Church in Thornton, CO. I look forward to getting more involved, and the possibility of working into a possible intern type position if God sees fit.

I am still open to His calling, if He sees fit to lead me elsewhere, but know I will enjoy learning more from a great group of Children's workers until He does.

I'll keep ya posted!

Just Hanging out with God!

Just the other day I was sitting in bed reading a book, Yes, me, reading. I know what you're thinking, is this a fictional story? Brent Doesn’t read books. Ok I admit, I am not the most well read person you may know, but that is one of my resolutions this year to read at least one book a month, and so far, I am off to a good start. I just need to FOCUS!!! Speaking of focus . . .  So I was reading a book, and my wife, Krystal, was getting ready to head up to give our daughter a bath, and take a shower herself. In doing so, she was leaving our three boys to play just outside our bedroom. As she did, she gave instruction to the two oldest to play with and keep an eye on their younger brother.

As we all did when we were put in charge of a younger sibling to “babysit”, they gave their little groan, but then began to “play” with Cayden. It started out at first with both of them practically throwing things in his lap. “Here Cayden do this.” “Cayden watch!” All the while, Cayden was just interested in hanging out. He was content with gnawing on his little plastic hotdog. Not playing with the rubber blocks that Brodie was now stacking by himself, or the My Little Pony (just to clear things up, some of Chailey’s toys were out too) that Zayne was contently brushing the hair. Cayden just wanted to hang out with his two big brothers, not be bombarded with what they wanted him to do.

Watching this reminded me of us as Christians. Although, not the older siblings, or the ones “in charge”,  we want to be around God, and Him to be around us. We start out all gung ho trying to get God’s attention. Serving in church, helping others, reading our Bible, on and on, but before long, we feel we are not getting the results we expect or wanted, and we start to just do things on our own, for ourselves. Sometimes we forget God is even there.

It reminds me of the verse in Psalms 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God; . . .” Sometimes God just wants to hang out with us. We don’t have to have anything to do, we just need to be in each other’s presence. It reminds me of when we are all first engaged to the person we are going to marry. Krystal and I didn’t always have to go do something, sometimes we just hung out. We would sit and talk to each other for hours. Just being with each other.

Are you tired of “playing by yourself?” Maybe you need to just hang out with God for a while!

My Blogger Resolution for 2010

So along with the plans to lose weight, read more, work out regularly, etc., I have also decided that I want to Blog more this year as well. I will be attempting to do at least 2 Blogs a month, unless something else takes my fancy as well. In that case you might just hear more from the inner-workings of that slab of goo between my ears I call my noggin.

Shortly you will see my first Blog of the year. It have had it done for a few days, but have failed to post it until now.

Maybe one of those resolutions should have been to work on my procrastination . . . naw, maybe I'll work on that next year.  ;-)