A Promotion!

I've been serving in the children's ministry at our church in some capacity or another for about seven years. My first assignment in the children's ministry all those many moons ago, was writing curriculum for our (then) enormous (at least to me) elementary school age ministry. (We all know how much I like writing!) But then, I was serving as a teacher due to our church losing many of the teachers we had at the time. There was a need, and I stepped up to meet it, thinking in the back of my mind that it was a temporary thing I was "just filling in" for. Most recently, I've served as assistant director of our children's ministry (again, due to need), and now, I've been "promoted" to Children's Ministry Director!

Sometimes when God calls people to a specific assignment, they run screaming in the other direction, and I was certainly no exception! Seriously at first, I really didn't like the idea. I'm definitely not one of those "kid-loving" people by nature (my own children being the exception, of course). At least that's what I keep telling myself!

Yet, God proved Himself yet again the other night when He gave me the opportunity to share the Gospel with a young person. He showed me how I love communicating the truth of God's Word on their level, taking something that can seem complicated and breaking it down so that a child can apply it to their own life.

So that Sunday night, I talked with the little boy, and he made the decision to accept Jesus as his Savior. Even more awesome, was that it was his birthday! How awesome to be born again on the anniversary of your natural birth!

I love the Scripture that says "Delight yourself also in the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). I really believe that sometimes we don't know (or we deny) the true desires of our hearts, but when we do delight ourselves in Him, He gives us the most amazing of gifts. Even if it's something that we didn't expect to find joy in.

Anyway, our children's ministry is small, but growing, and I pray that I (and the rest of the team) can be used to help reach out to all children from birth to sixth grade in our community.

I would so appreciate your prayers as I enter this new season in ministry! 

What exciting ministry opportunities have you had lately?

Goals for 2011 Revisited

I know if I were the truly goal-oriented type, I would check in on my goals more than semi-annually. I'm working on it! Just this morning, I was reviewing my goals from half a year ago in my journal.

I was actually quite pleased at my progress. That's not to say that I've already accomplished what I set out to improve on entirely, but I'm closer than I was at the beginning of the year. Yay!

Here's the original post about my goals to read in it's entirety if you missed it.

(And for those of you who may desire more rapid growth and more accountability for reaching your goals, check out the 3 in 30 Challenge if you haven't already! There's some great encouragement as well as awesome ideas for making improvements in your life!)

Spiritual Goals:

1. Spend moments alone with God (in prayer and Bible reading) everyday. Put Him first before anything including computer time and chores. Well...I've done alright here. I have kind of been hit & miss with my commitment to have my quiet time before computer time and chores. Maybe that's why I've only been averaging about four days a week in the Word. Hmm.
2. Cultivate the fruit of the Spirit- Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. Not really sure how to measure this one. Perhaps this one would be best broken down into mini-goals, kind of like #4. As in working on one area at a time.
3. Make church a priority. Be excellent in my areas of service. Do what God directs me to do regardless of whether or not my work is acknowledged or appreciated. Keep my eyes on Him! I've been much happier in this area so far because of this attitude. There have been a few times when I didn't make it a point to be involved, but overall, I've done a lot better. Last year, I think I technically attended pretty regularly, but wasn't really "there."
4. Make a habit of speaking the language of praise- stop complaining! Tame my tongue! I'm still working on this one! I've been more challenged in this area lately, so it's time to really focus on this!

Marital Goals:

1. Be positive with my husband. Don't criticize, complain or condemn. Criticizing, complaining and condemning was a habit last year. I think I can say it's less of a habit now. :P I've read one really good book that addresses this called The Surrendered Wife (read at your own risk, it is not by a Christian author) and it really helped me to break the cycle on some of this behavior. I even wrote a post about one attitude change of mine.
2. Keep "covenant" in the forefront of my mind- by doing a Scripture study and/or reading books/listening to teachings that promote covenant in marriage. Honestly, I haven't really gone out of my way to do this! This is one I'll need to focus on in the latter part of the year, apparently! :)
3. Be flexible (this one is a biggie for me!)- Let your immediate answer be "yes" or at the very least "I'll think about it". (So often I am immediately opposed to new ideas- this is a habit that I would like to break this coming year to promote peace in my marriage). See #1.

Maternal Goals:

1. Actively direct P & C to the Lord by sharing Scriptures with them, weaving Biblical lessons into the everyday- don't be afraid to show them my need for the Savior when I mess up, too! Keep them in prayer on a daily basis! I've been fairly diligent to my little ones in prayer (when I have my prayer time!), also, I've been trying to communicate to my son "We treat others they way we want to be treated" especially during those times when he's "less than nice" to his sister. It's been relatively easy to confess my faults to them (when it has something to do with them, of course). I just read this post the other day that gave me some ideas on how to share Scripture with them.
2. Focus on spending quality time with them in instruction, creative play, and just for fun (with no agenda)! Get out of the house on a weekly basis (in addition to church- i.e. to the library, park or elsewhere). Institute regular TV turn-off weeks/days. We did our "Screen-Free Week" but I haven't done much in the way of limiting television other than that. Maybe I will schedule another one for the second part of the year...maybe in the fall. I've also started having "floor time" with them, which is essentially just that. I sit on the floor, and they get to come up with what to do. Sometimes it's reading books, other times it's climbing on top of me. Lol! Getting out of the house has proven more challenging lately since my husband returned to work. He's been gone for most of the day six days a week, and he works too far away for me to drop him off. Hopefully that will change soon! (Though I am thankful he has a job!)
3. Work toward having "real food" be the basis for their diet (and ours too of course)...phase out store bought/processed foods like chicken nuggets. I was really excited when I realized my progress here. I don't remember the last time I bought chicken nuggets! We have had a few times of fast food or tacos from the local Mexican restaurant, but for the most part, they eat real food. I've even been able to phase out the snack-y foods like crackers and such and even cereal to some extent.

Domestic Goals:

1. Cultivate order and beauty in our home. Make it a place of tranquility and hospitality. Go the extra mile to make things "pretty". Fail! Lol! Actually, not really. :) I've been better about keeping things in order, and teaching the children to help out with clean up time. This has been more or less a daily thing, so that's good. I don't know that our home has become any "prettier" since last year. (Unless you count crayon and highlighter scribbles on the wall) :P Just keepin' it real!
2. Find and use one new recipe each month. I have not been purposeful about this. Though I would imagine that I probably do come close this without even thinking about it.
3. Pare down our possessions by doing "27 Fling Boogies" or something similar on a regular basis. Keep stuff I/we love and use, but sell, donate or dispose of other stuff. I have done probably all of 2 "27 Fling Boogies" so far this year. But that's okay! That means we now have 54 fewer unneeded or unwanted items in our home!

Personal Goals:

1. Continue to develop friendships with other women...pray for and be on the look out for a Titus 2- type mentor. I think I've done okay with the first part of this one. As far as a mentor is concerned, I still have not really become "connected" with someone like I need to be. My Pastor's wife is an awesome choice, and I actually have had a couple of meetings with her this year, but I know it would benefit me to meet with her more regularly.
2. Continue to blog regularly- make a schedule of posts every month (you know, so I don't sit around wondering what to blog about every day!). Gain 60 new blog followers in 2011. Well, I don't know if I've blogged as regularly as I set out to, but I've posted usually at least once (sometimes twice) a week. And actually, I think I've come at least close to half way on my goal to gain followers! So that's exciting. (Not sure of the exact number, as I did not record my number of followers at the beginning of the year).
3. Read! Commit to two books per month for a total of 24 in 2011! (And, try to read one book at a time! :D) I've been reading...just not sure how much! I have joined the adult reading program at the library, so that has helped motivate me (I so want to win a reusable bag full of goodies! ;-) It can just be so stinkin' hard to stay committed to a book. Mostly because right now, I'm not reading frequently enough that I guess I get bored with whatever I happen to be reading. And I definitely have not stuck to one book at a time!
4. Contribute $400 per month to our family's income (with the purpose of covering "non-essential" expenses like gifts and other nice-but-not-necessary things) through my Pampered Chef business. The closest I've come to reaching this goal is about half way! I need to really get busy on this, at least for now, as it's not really "fun money" at this point. I have a couple other ideas to contribute monetarily (you know, without getting a "regular job" hee hee) so we'll see how those ideas pan out.

How have you done on your goals for 2011 so far? Remember, it's not too late to create some goals if you missed the "resolution making" of the New Year!

A Couple of Great New Blogs! ;-)

Just a quick post to promote a couple of really important blogs (at least I think they are)!

My husband started Christian Music Discovery, a blog where, as the name would imply, you can discover great Christian Music. He highlights all types of Christian music (and if you just said to yourself, "there are different types?" then you really need to click over and check it out). Now, he is a worship leader, and he's been playing music since he was about 5 years old, not only that, he loves listening to music (as you might guess) and I'm always surprised by what he finds. (He really spends a lot of time listening to music). All that to say, there is something there for everyone, so you're bound to find something you like.

He also has another new blog, Psalm 133, a blog that's devoted to promoting unity in the American Church. He feels very strongly about unifying the Body of Christ so that we can grow in power to reach the lost, and more!

Even though these don't exactly fit in with the theme of my blog, I thought they might still be of interest to you. So let me know what you think! I'm really excited that he has joined me in the blogosphere...writing about topics he's passionate about!