Archive for spiritual life

EXAMEN.me (an awesome resource)

// May 18th, 2009 // No Comments » // spiritual life, uth ministry

examen-me_225x60I’ve been hearing about the practice of examen for awhile now.  I’ve briefly looked into it and thought it looked good, but never really delved deeply into it.  Then, an God-send came in the form of a web-app.  I know, I can hear it now.  Why do you need the internet to worship and study God’s word?  Well, I’ll tell you.  EXAMEN.me brings the whole concept of “examen” to the masses.  It comes in two versions, free and registered.  The great thing is that both are free. The only difference is that  the registered version allows you to journal and keep your notes saved on the website as well.  Personally I would rather journal in a seperate notebook and simply let the site lead me through the process.  This past week I used it in my Sunday School class.  I printed out a sheet that gave each teen five different passages to choose from and led them through the same process found at EXAMEN.me.  The students were not only quiet, but actually spent the entire Sunday School time digging deeper into God’s Word for themselves and were able to share with each other after class what God had pointed out to them.  The site puts “examen” into an easy to understand process.  I for one endorse this site fully.

Link: http://www.examen.me

How’s your groceries?

// October 9th, 2008 // No Comments » // spiritual life

Way back in the day, sometime before my kids were born and after your parents walked up the hill both ways in the snow I had a youth pastor named Grover.  Of course, he didn’t want us to call him Grover, he went by Newlie.  Not quite sure if this was better than Grover or not, but he seemed to think so.  I remember him telling the story of a refrigerator repair man one day.  He said the repair man got a call that a brand new, top of the line, extremely expensive refiregerator had broken.  This greatly agitated the women who owned it and she wanted him at her house NOW!  He came out and asked what the problem was, she informed him that all the food she placed in the fridge went bad a day later.  He made some adjustments and asked her to call him again if there were any more problems.  The next day he gets another phone call and the woman is now irate.  He immediately goes over to her house and takes another look.  All the meters inside the fridge look fine, yet it still isn’t working.  The repair man is perplexed until he look at the back of the fridge and discovers one very intersting fact.  This top dollar, advanced refrigerator was simply unplugged.  This woman’s groceries were going bad because the fridge was not receiveing any electricity.  All this to say, how are your grocereies doing?  Are you plugged into the power source for your life?  Jesus is our power source for life.  If you’re not plugged in to him, click here to find out how to meet your new best friend and Savior.  If you do know Christ as your Savior, then how are your groceries?  Are you daily keeping yourself plugged in, or have things started to get a little lax?  From the mouth of Newlie, “How are your groceries?”