I have always loved the Christmas season. Lots of anticipation, fun, excitment, and time with family and friends. As I have grown older I have discovered many people who have a different take on Christmas for a variety of reasons. One thing I have learned, as a believer, is that there are really two Christmases out there. 1) The retail, consumer driven, santa claus clad version and 2) A remembering of our Saviour's birth. I have found much joy and peace in remembering and celebrating the 2nd, not so much the 1st.

As Christmas approaches what are your thoughts about Christmas or a favorite story or tradition your family has regarding Christmas? We always act out the Christmas story and I have video taped them all. Some are pretty hilarious. One day I going to make a DVD of all our Christmas reenactments over the years.

I was just texting a friend in the UK whom I met online in a chat session of an online game I enjoy playing, Company of Heroes. We were discussing all the problems in the world and what to do about them. My friend thought we needed another world war to bring people together. I thought what the world needed was a spiritual awakening. What is missions about anyway? I think it is to bring about a spiritual awakening in the world. Introduce Jesus to those who don't know Him and establish ministries and churches to help new believes to grow in their faith. As you think about missions, what aspect have you felt God laying on your heart: praying, giving, going, or mobilizing and why?

How much stuff do we really need? As I have gotten older I have developed a longing for more simplicity in my life. So many things "clutter up life" and make living a chore vs. a joy. The simpler one's life the easier it is to see God, to hear Him, and to notice others and their needs. Also the more we have, the more time it takes to possess our possesions. Crazy isn't it? So this week I would like you to share a way you have found to simplify your life or how you have given something of your wealth to others in order to bless them.

Years ago I violated one of the boundries I felt I should keep as a campus minister. I gave a student money. I just figured giving students money was not wise for a variety of reasons. Anyway one day I was giving a student a ride home and she asked me if I could loan her $ 50 so she could pay her rent. Normally I would not do that but I felt the Spirit prompt me to go ahead. So against my better judgement I gave her $ 50 and told her not to worry about paying it back. Then over the years I forgot about it. Well just a few weeks ago this former student called up and wanted to come by our house. We had only seen her two or three times since her college days several years previously. Well to make a long story short she gave us $ 750. She had never forgotten the $ 50 I gave her and how it had blessed her and now that she was able she wanted to bless us in return. I was amazed.

My mentor once said that there are two things in the Christian life that are hard to develop consistency in and easy to lose consistency in once developed. They are prayer and service. I think he is right. Both are largely an act of giving and surrendering, neither of which we tend to do quickly or with much ease.

I'd like to know your thoughts on service; either a time you were served and it meant a great deal to you, or when you served and it was a meaningful experience. I remember a trip I made to India to work at an orphanage and when we arrived the children stood in two lines like an honor guard for us to enter into their compound. We had been delayed and they had been waiting for us for several hours. It was truly a moving and humbling experience and we had yet to lift a finger in service.

Worship. Wow, what a huge topic! This week I would like you to share a time where you really experienced God in worship. For me it was a conference on spiritual warfare. God met me both at the conference and during one of my quiet times that week. At the conference after the speaker had finished the lead pastor got up and said basically three words, "Come Holy Spirit." A feeling of a rushing wind swept through the place and people began to weep, confess sin, get right with others, etc... I wanted to just get flat on my face before God. It was fearful yet wonderful to sense the Lord's presence in that place. I'll save the other stories.

Wow! This challenging to pull off in our fast paced, media driven, crazy lives. So this week let us in on where and how you find silence and solitude in your busy, crazy life. I must say I don't do so well here. I find it very hard to find those times on a day to day basis. I do get away for an extended time each year and that is powerful. I go to a Catholic retreat center where they have silent retreats. Three things I really enjoy there are the walks in the woods, especially at night, looking at the art work around the place, and praying alone in the chapel.

This week the topic is balance or even better rhythm. How do we live our lives in such a way that they are in balance or in a way that we follow or fit into the rhythms God has created. Just tonight I was working late and missed eating supper with my family. I felt a loss at not being there, connecting, relating, laughing, learning, appreciating etc... How much do we miss in life because we are driven by our schedules or the commitments we have signed on for? Certainly we need to be responsible and follow through with our commitments but sometimes I think we take on too much for the wrong reasons and end up sacrificing real life for them. So what are some examples of when you have chosen wrongly or rightly in terms of decisions you have made that impacted your life and affected your ability to live in balance or according to God's rhythms?

This week our topic is the Word of God. Recently, well actually the last 3-4 years, we have encountered a lot of tough, challenging things in life. Family members and loved ones dying or having tough health issues, discouraging times in ministry, etc... and I find myself drawn back to the Word of God. Isa 50:10-11 says: "Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of his servant? Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you shall receive from my hand: You will lie down in torment." As I have walked through times of darkness I have noticed God's presence. There have been times when a passage of scripture has spoken deeply to my heart and encouraged and comforted me.

Just this morning I was reading in Matthew 25, in the Message para-phase Bible. In the parable of the talents a wealth man entrusted money to three of his servants. The first two invested the money they received and it earned them interest. The third just buried his money so it would not get lost nor lose value if his investment went bad. He just played it safe. When his master returned he became furious and said, "That's a terrible way to live! It's criminal to live cautiously like that! If you knew I was after the best, why did you do less than the least?" Boy, how often have I played it safe? Failing to risk and trust God? I believe God desires us to live by faith. Not live to play it safe.

So what scripture has God used to speak to you? What did He say? What are you to do in response to what He said?

This week we are talking about faith. What a huge topic! Anyway I want to focus on stories of faith. Some time when you had to trust God by faith. I remember when I felt God leading us to Michigan to do college ministry. In a lot of ways it was a step into the unknown. Larry Woods, the Christian Challenge director up at MSU, is a good friend and asked me to pray about coming to Michigan to do college ministry. Larry was the only person I knew in Michigan and I was not familiar with the ministry setting. So he invited me up to speak at their fall retreat and then afterward to drive over to Ann Arbor and check out the University of Michigan campus (I did not know Eastern Michigan University was right next door). So I went up to Bambi Lake Conference Center, to the retreat, and God spoke to me. I felt He wanted me to move my family there and that I needed to trust Him with taking care of us (we would have to raise all our support for our salary and for the ministry budget). What made this particularly interesting is that I had not yet seen Ann Arbor or the campus. So I called up Emily, my wife, and told her I thought God wanted us to come to Ann Arbor to do college ministry. Her response was, "I'll start packing the bags." So we began to trust God to provide for our moving expenses, living expenses and ministry expenses. Wow, that was scary! Yet I knew that if this was God's will He would provide for us. Now 18 years later I can truly say God is faithful! He has taken care of us and provide for us, above and beyond all that we could ask for.

This week our topic is prayer. What I would like you to do this week is so share a prayer you remember being answered.

I will never forget the year we decided to take 9 guys to India for 5 weeks. The ministry was fairly small so this was a huge deal. I started off thinking it would be a stretch if 3 of us went because we are talking about $ 3,000.00 a guy or $ 9,000.00! But then an interesting thing began to happen. Different guys approached me feeling led to go on this trip and the only reason I could give them not to go was a lack of funds. As I thought and prayed about this I felt the Lord tell me not to limit the trip due to funds, that he would provide. So before it was all said and done there were 9 of us signed up to go. So we prayed and shared the need with people. I went ahead and bought the plane tickets on faith and with my credit card, and felt if worst came to worst I would be paying off my credit card the rest of my life. Well by the time it came to go we had raised over $ 30,000.00 and were able to bless the orphange we visited with not just our presence but several thousand dollars! This was truly a miracle.