Starving Jesus?

Been thinking about a book to challenge your thinking? How about Starving Jesus? Written by Craig Gross and JR Mahon, founders of XXXChurch.com

“starvingjesus defined: christian’s inability to get things done”

From the website:

“Where is the love?”

“Why are we stuck in the pews?”

“Why is Sunday the only time we see Christians?”

“Are you Born Again lazy? ”

“Are you doing everything short of sin to show people Jesus?”

On rare occasions there are those willing to commit a form of spiritual suicide in the Christian subculture. Men and women who will yell from the rooftops, “Church sucks!” Although they are heard, their voices are quickly dismissed and rarely see the light of day. They are labeled fanatics and troublemakers and are asked not to come back. Christ yelled the same type of thing once. It got him killed. This conversation is on the tips of all sorts of tongues: your fellow churchgoers, your neighbors, your spouse, your kids your friends. And the most important part of this conversation is what you will say. Welcome to the conversation.

Are you Starving Jesus?

Craig Gross and JR Mahon are on a mission to inspire the people to get out of the pews. Too often Christians spend their time praying, talking, and being “spiritual” but not getting their hands dirty. The book of James says, “Faith without works is dead.” There are too many meetings, too much political posturing, too much condemnation, and too much inaction. Starving Jesus will challenge you to less talking and more doing. Craig Gross and JR Mahon run the day-to-day operations of XXXchurch.com and both live in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

To read the first chapter click here

Beach, Berries and Tow Trucks, Oh My!

Ah, the perfect day for the beach yesterday. Sunny, with a few clouds, and around 80ishd degrees. We packed the kids up, and headed out to Thumb Lake. We laid out the blanket, the kids hit the water, I hit the shade with my chair and book, and we took it all in with joy.

Little did I know how my day was going to end.

After a couple hours we decided it was time to hit the berry picking scene. Carrina wanted to get some blackberries before dinner so I could be back in time to meet up with an old friend, Billy. We figured a couple hours would work, since where we had to walk to get to our favorite pickin spot took some time. Once we got there we though maybe if we drove a little we could find a short cut and give us some more time to pick. Little did we know how fatal that short cut would be.

Well, it certainly was a shorter walk, but it was more up hill, through the woods and brush walking than we expected, or planned for, seeings how we were in sandles and swimming suits, but I had Alaina on my shoulders, and we had a fun time – we saw a couple deer, too!

The berries were no where near as ripe as they will be in a week or two, but there was enough to nab a big popcorn bowl full between us. Calling it a day, we trunged back through the woods to our van which was parked in the nice soft sand along side the road, dangerous close to the ditch.

To make a long story shorter we got stuck, in the sand, in the ditch, and ended up on some old broken metal fence posting, and blew our tire out! Blah. So, we pulled out the beach chair, the kids took a nap and so did Carrina and I practiced my aim as I threw rocks at the near by trees. Several people stopped to help. Two trucks tried to pull us out to nonavail, and finally a friend called a tow for us, and Ron’s Wrecker came and got us right out, fixed the flat and we were on our merry way.

Our goal was to be back by 5ish, we got back to Gaylord around 9ish, and went and ate Chinesse buffet. We were HUNGRY! All we had eaten were berrys, and one guy came by around dinner time with a truck full of peaches and gave us some, and boy did they hit the spot! God is good. Finally getting back home we got the kids in bed and I wanted to watch Shawshank Redeption again, so I put it in and laid down and watched maybe 30 minutes of it until all I saw was the back of my eyelids…