Financial Peace -- Message 2 Bullets

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  • Today's message was a buffet...not fine dining. Gave lots of stuff to think about.
  • Psalm 81 was a passage we spent some time in. It seems to say 3 things: 1) stop putting things before God, 2) when you do, things will flop, and 3) if you WILL put God first, he will hook you and and have your back.
  • You don't have to give it, but you aint gonna keep it! God does not need your money. In fact, I don't even think he wants it. What he wants is YOU! He wants to be first in your world.
  • I gave people (who wanted one) a paper to take home that outlined Jesus's main teachings on giving and Paul's main teachings on giving. We ran out and had to copy more. If you want it, email me and I will send it to you.
  • When the money is funny, so is my honey. There are ways that we can help marriages struggling over money. Just let us know, so we can try to help. Don't suffer in silence.

Bishop Roderick Caesar is a Pastor in New York who shares these wise principles with his church on the regular:

  1. Tithe and pay your bills on time
  2. Save systematically and invest
  3. Spend responsible and within your means
  4. Don't buy what you don't mean

Tonight, I read about a church in South Carolina (New Spring Church) that started a series this morning called "Where's my Bailout." The Executive Pastor, Tony Morgan posted some of the highlights from what Lead Pastor, Perry Noble said in his message this morning. I found some of the things he said to be pretty interesting...and wild. Click here to read this!!

Peace!

Life Change!!!! And the wedding in our Living Room

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There has been a story of life change unfolding at CCF that merits telling. So, with their permission, the story goes like this...

  • Lacreshia comes to CCF for the last 4 years. I baptized her 3 years ago (her baptism certificate is on her wall in her house). She has grown in her faith. And grown. And grown. Especially over the last year. She was in my Small Group. I am so proud of Lacreshia.
  • We started praying for her boyfriend, Maurice at the end of last year. He came to CCF the first Sunday of this year...and gave his life over to Jesus! As he has said repeatedly, "I just can't do this on my own anymore!"
  • On Sunday (yes, 6 days ago) I baptized Maurice! I want to scream Hallelujah right now as I am typing this!!!! God is so unbelievably good!
  • About a month back, Creshia and Moe (as I affectionately call them), came to me and said..."we were thinking maybe we should get married." I said YES!! God would be honored by that. We've done some premarital counseling and....
  • Today, I married them. In our living room! 6 days after baptizing Maurice. It was surreal. I'm pumped!
  • It was just us. Not a big crowd, but a big sense of God's favor and presence! After all, they reminded me that today was about them and the Lord and what he was doing in them, not about a crowd of people or a reception.

Tricia and I rallied around them and prayed while Selah exercised her wedding planning gifts with a special little wedding lunch. It was exquisite and really blessed Creshia and Moe...I know!

Below are a few pictures from the day. We sent them out the door carrying a CD with these and many more pics (yes, we even did a little photo shoot).

I love being a Pastor! You get to share life's most monumental moments with people. I thank God for what he is doing in Lacreshia and Maurice. There are so many more stories about what God is doing in other people as well and I wish I could share them all.

Praising God,

Noah





Community Living...what makes it work

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Here are the things that we have found need to be in place for community living to work in the most healthy way:

  1. The right people. There are some people that you know you could just not live with. Don't, then! In fact, I think it is the rare relationships that DO work. Make sure that you only live with people that have somewhat similar lifestyle choices and that have some integrity. Without that, good luck!
  2. Talk about the fight before the fight not during the fight. Recognize what may be a tension in the future and plan for it. Name your concerns and address them before they are riddled with emotion in the heat of the moment.
  3. Pay in! Each party in the community living situation needs to pay into the expenses of the home. It needs to feel fair to all of you. Figure out the percentage, the monthly charge, who will pay what utility or percentage thereof, what the deal will be with grocery bills, etc.
  4. Help out! The responsibilities around the pad need to shared or it can get really annoying.
  5. Develop a written and signed living/rental agreement. Allow it to speak to everything that seems important to each party...where you park, cable, internet, how having guests over will work, reevaluation period, etc.
  6. Meet regularly. Yes, an official and scheduled meeting to discuss what is going good and what is not going so good. Keep it real. Like: "When your friends come over with their loud children it can be very frustrating." OR "The fact that you all are not taking the trash out is killing me." If you cannot verbalize the things that frustrate you, you will start looking for ways to end the living situation.

Perhaps there are other things. Can you think of any? Leave a comment. Also, I would love to hear from anyone who is doing or has done this community living thing.

Community Living

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Community Living: Living in the same house as family or friends...each in your own space but sharing common areas (unless you have a mansion).

Been wanting to share about this topic for while. Here is a little about what Tricia and I have learned and are seeing happening around us.

  • Tricia and I have done community living about half of our marriage so far (A college dorm, her sister Melyssa and My sister and brother-in-law, Selah and Randy.)
  • Selah and Randy currently live in the upstairs of our home. It is a great set-up.
  • My parents and my brother and his family have recently moved into one home as well.
  • We are fans of community living and have not regretted a minute of it yet! But, you have to know how to wisely start it and wisely maintain it or it can be a mess!
  • The amount of people needing to enter into community living across America is rapidly increasing (I have read some crazy increased stats recently). It is much more common in many other countries. American individualism and materialism have driven us all to have our own everything. Now, American "poorness" is forcing many people to move in together (some are calling it "recession divorce"). It is even forcing divorced couples to live together in separate rooms in many cases.

In a later post, I will share:

  1. Positive things that we have learned that make this work.
  2. Some of the many benefits to community living.
  3. Some ways to make it fail if not paid attention to.

--Noah

Power in Partnership (Guest Blogger, Pastor TC)

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Saturday, February 28th, 2009 R.E.A.L. Teens (our CCF youth group) partnered with the Duval H.S. Gospel Choir to put on a gospel concert as a fundraiser for a Spring college tour. It was a time of high praise as choirs and praise ensembles came together with dancers and rap artists to give God the glory. 600 people were in the building at once (the worship center holds 400) and the energy was everywhere. The night saw myself, Pastor TC a.k.a. ASON (www.bigsonny.com shameless plug here) debut new songs with my wife singing along me. The true highlight of the night though was when a young man from Duval’s Gospel Choir sang until praise broke out all over the room. This from a public high school choir! Special thanks to the young men and women of the PG County Youth Explorers (Dist 1) who provided security and also to the many teenage and adult volunteers who worked diligently to make the evening a stunning success!






International Sunday is in 10 days!

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Here is another reminder...International Sunday is in 10 days on March 15th at 10:00am!! If you are local or a CCF partner or attendee, please:

  • Pray that God will use this day to reach hearts for Him!
  • Plan to be here!
  • Bring as many people as you can fit in your car. (You can pick up a stack of invitations this weekend. We have 3,000 left.)
  • Wear clothes that represent your heritage. (Raised on a farm? Wear overalls.)
  • Bring some food along that represents your heritage. Bring the best think you make. We are gonna throw back!
  • Pray for Glenn Kauffman, our new Bishop as he plans to speak that day. Pray for a multiplied anointing on him.

See you there!!

How to make sure Small Groups fail!

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I think that Craig Groeschel really nails it on this one. This is a profound list! He posted this one the Swerve blog this week.

Tons of churches have attempted small groups only to abort shortly after takeoff. I’ll share the top 10 ways to ensure the failure of your group.

  1. Make sure the senior pastor isn’t in a group. If small groups aren’t modeled by the pastor, they won’t have much of a chance for success. (Amy and I host two small groups in our home.)
  2. Make sure the senior pastor doesn’t talk about small groups. If small groups don’t ever find their way into a sermon, it will help reduce the likelihood of success.
  3. Make sure small groups are not staffed or resourced properly. To guarantee your groups fail, don’t staff them, buy them curriculum, announce them, or get your best volunteers involved.
  4. Make sure small group leaders aren’t trained. When you do get some small group leaders, don’t train them. Let them figure it out on their own.
  5. Make sure the church doesn’t address childcare needs. Pretend like all small groups don’t have any child care needs. Don’t open the church one or two nights a week to provide child care. Don’t pay for childcare like I’ve heard North Point does. Ignore childcare needs completely.
  6. Make sure the church doesn’t have a small group vision or philosophy. Let people do whatever they want without any direction or oversight.
  7. Make sure your groups become inward-focused and never multiply. Don’t ever encourage your groups to give life to new groups. Allow them to grow inward-looking. Better yet, hope they become filled with negative and critical church members.
  8. Make sure to require your church attenders to do so many other things they’ll never want to be in small groups. Ask people to go to Sunday night church, Wednesday night church, committee meetings, Sunday school, etc. If you keep them so busy, you can ensure they won’t participate in small groups.
  9. Make sure not to require staff members to be involved. If your staff (or key leaders) isn’t in groups, that will help keep others from being in groups.
  10. Make sure you never make small groups a membership or partnership requirement. Be a low-expectation church. While you’re at it, don’t ask people to serve, pray, witness, or give sacrificially either.

What are your thoughts? Where do you agree of disagree?

Tricia is Blogging and it is GREAT!!

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I consider this a VERY BIG and VERY SPECIAL announcement...

Tricia is blogging!!

I have never pressured her or even asked her to do it. This is all her. She has been blogging for about a week and I have really enjoyed some of her posts. So proud of my wife! It is a public blog and she wanted me to share it with you. She will be writing about wife stuff, mommy stuff and church stuff. I am having her a nice site designed but it is not ready yet. Well, I hope that you will enjoy reading hers when you read mine. I will add her to the bar on the left too.

The site is www.triciakaye.blogspot.com or you can CLICK HERE TO CONNECT TO IT!

Enjoy! Go, babe, go! Get your blog on!

Automatic Millionaire (re-posted)

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(This was a post from last March, but I think that it applies well during a time that I am preaching on $$. Enjoy.)

A few months ago, a friend of mine (Ben) recommended a book to me. I trust Ben's taste and took him seriously when he said that it was one of the most influential books that he had read in 2007. I made a mental note to get it and last week, while Tricia and I were down south we went to a Barnes & Nobel and picked up the "The Automatic Millionaire"by David Bach. Throughout our vacation and in the car ride, Tricia read this book to us and we finished it before we got back to MD.

This book was outstanding!!!!!! I am telling you the truth when I say that it will impact your finances and your future tremendously if you read it and implement even a little bit of it.

Basically, the book walks you through the value and steps of automating your best financial decisions. It denounces budgeting, suggesting that none of us are wired to be controlled by our money, but that we would rather control it. If we will make the decision ONE TIME to save for our future, then we can automate it and never think about it again. Imagine taking the decision out of your hands every month. Instead of deciding every 30 days what you "think you can afford", you have already automated your savings out of your bank account first...even before you pay your bills...hence, paying yourself first!

If you are a "yeah butter" saying "yeah, but I barely make it now" or "yeah, but I live paycheck to paycheck" ...then Bach will speak to you!

Probably the most influential part of the book for us was identifying our "Latte Factor". This is basically how much money we waste per month x 12 plus interest if we saved it (providing you an annual savings amount). That is your "Latte Factor." You can identify yours by clicking here, but you really need to read the book to get it.

I will stop ranting now, but I am telling you, if you have ever listened to me before....read this book! With your spouse! Soon!!! If you wait to long you may cost yourselves a couple hundred thousand dollars. Tricia and I read it just in time!

Today we finished automating everything and we are feeling so good about our recent financial decisions!

To blog or not to blog or re-blog

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Some people have asked me how I always have something to write on my blog or how I decide what to post. This is how I break it down....this is what works for me.

To Blog...

  • I like to capture memories, experiences and lessons as they unfold. Maybe about church, ministry, family, personal...whatever. It happens and I blog it.
  • The other thing that I do is a keep a running list in my PDA called "future posts". This is the place that I jot down ideas to develop further and blog about later. The idea could come at anytime, so I just write a few words to trigger my memory. I currently have about 30 posts on the blog runway that I look forward to writing about. I have thought about listing some of the topics and having you tell me where to go next. We'll see.

Not to Blog...

  • Confidential items that aint the whole world's business.
  • Material I plan to teach or preach soon. (I blog that stuff after I speak, not before)
  • Stuff that I need to process, pray through or seek counsel on. I try to be cautious not to share half baked stuff that I have not done my due diligence with God on first.

To Re-blog...

  • I have not done this much yet, but I am about to start re-posting things I have blogged over the last year and a half.
  • Learning is repetition, learning is repetition, learning is repetition. If it is good, I want to re-read it, re-think it and re-learn it!
  • Plus...my blog readership has more than doubled in the last 4 months, so more than half of you have not seen it yet anyway and the other half of you probably forgot it. ;-)
  • (Be watching for some re-blogs over the next few weeks.)

A snow day...the good and the bad.

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Weather is really nasty today. I decide to close the church office and work from home today. Everybody else can work from home as they can, be with their families....and stay safe!

The good things about working from home on a snow day:

  • Change of pace can be exciting...I feel like a kid again on days like this
  • More presence time with my sweeties
  • Can get caught up on emails and such
  • Will knock a LOT of admin/tasks off my lost today as I work from here
  • I will feel like a got a big administrative jump on my week

The bad things about working from home on a snow day:

  • Had to cancel Staff Prayer and Staff Meeting
  • Had to cancel 4 other important meeting that were scheduled for today
  • Now, I have to find a way to reschedule them all (with the rest of the week already jam packed)
  • Our team loses a day of productivity

I must say, I am thankful for the flexibility in my role as a Pastor. Much of what I do can be done from practically anywhere.

I hope that you locals have a great snowy day!!

You don't have to give it, but you aint gonna keep it!

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Haggai Chapter 1 is a powerful passage that hit me like a brick wall all week long as I prepared for my message this morning. Click here to read it! I've read this passage many times, but never through the lens of economic times like these. New insights emerged. There's a lot of great stuff in this passage, but here are just a few thoughts I shared this morning:

God seriously wants to come first in your life! He wants you to honor Him first! If you are not, you may just find yourself wondering why nothing seems to be enough and things seem to be falling apart (a familiar story to many these days). I love this quote by Dietrich Bonhoffer, "Satan does not here fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God." Don't forget him just because the volume of bills and needs yell at you!

God never rebuked Israel for building their house. He rebuked them for not building HIS house FIRST! Likewise, God is not disapproving of your stuff. He just wants to come before it! What moves might you need to make toward building into God's House today?

Look, I believe that God owns a cattle on a thousand hills. He is God! It is all His. I also believe that God does not need your money and you do not have to give it....but you aint gonna keep it. Allow me to repeat that. You do not have to give it, but you aint gonna keep it!