My Upmost for His Highest - Year in review

I used the subject daily devotional last year. Whenever I came to a particular page that really struck me that day I earmarked it. For those of you that have the devotional, here are my earmarked pages from last year:

Feb 7
April 29
May 6, 15, 19, 23, 30
June 8, 15, 19, 21, 24, 27
July 4, 7, 28
Aug 2, 3, 10, 12, 18, 24, 28, 30
Sept 4, 14,
Oct 11, 22,
Nov 15, 18, 23, 25, 29,
Dec 2, 7, 15, 16, 24,

It was a great devotional. If I had to pick a number 1 day that stuck with me if was May 19th.

"Out of the Wreck I Rise"
God does not keep a man immune from trouble; He says-"I will be with him in trouble." It does not matter what actual troubles in the most extreme form get hold of a man's life, not one of them can separate him from his relationship to God. ............Either Jesus Christ is a deceiver and Paul is deluded, or some extraordinary thing happens to a man who holds on to the love of God when the odds are against God's character. Logic is silenced in the face of every one of these things. Only one thing can account for it-the love of God in Christ. "Out of the wreck I rise" every time.

Posting :)

Posting is easy, guys. I wasn't around for whatever discussion clearly took place, but the following are people who already have posting privileges:
JD
Rick
Shane
Bryan
Jen

If you aren't on this list and want posting privileges, send me your email address and I'll "invite" you to post.

:)

Looking forward to seeing you guys again!

Life Group Calendar

I've updated the calender with upcoming life group events.

Oct 29th - Pottawttomie (ck sp) trunk or treat.
Nov 4 (Friday) - Book Study - Messy Spirituality Ch 3.
Nov 18th - Get own sitters and have a Thanksgiving theme dinner kidless!

Of course this could always change!

Koci's Don't know how to blog

This blog is to prove to the Koci's that you can post blogs.

Randi please fix their profiles!

bz

To Drink or Not to Drink?

Here's some discussion about drinking and the Christian life from a university professor's blog that I follow. First a letter from a conflicted Christian, then the blogger's response. Both are worth reading. Great question; great response.

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/09/09/a-letter-about-alcohol-consumption/

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/09/09/response-to-a-letter-about-alcohol-consumption/

Prayer!

I am taking what is a bold step for me this school year and attempting to initiate a faculty prayer group before school on Tuesdays. I'm sending a school wide email after school today inviting anyone in the building. I really have no idea who - if anyone - will come. Our first meeting will be next Tuesday. I'd appreciate your prayers!

Randi

Messy Sp;irituality

We have one extra copy of the book if anyone needs it. Just let me know!

bz

Friday 8/19 Lifegroup

Next Friday 8/19 Life group at the Zeigler's. Mexican theme dinner at 6:30. 7:00 book review/discussion chapter 1 of Messy Spirituality.

Friday Night

How about we all get individual sitters and go somewhere to dinner? Blind Tiger? I'd be interested if one of you locals had a small town unique place to dine that we could do a little road trip to.

Any other ideas?

bz

Dropped the ball...

So I dropped the ball on going to the baseball game this Friday, and as I'm back at school, I don't really have the time to coordinate it. Does anyone have any other ideas for ways to spend our Friday evening?

Book Study - Don't be Afraid!!!

We've selected a book to study with reading assignments.....what's going on here?????? I know there is some anxiety out there with this change. Don't be afraid. We are all diverse individuals, each with different preferences. Some will get more out of this book study than others. Sometimes some of us won't have time to complete the reading. Don't worry. I've scanned the book and feel confident that even if you can't read it for discussion there will be much you can contribute and learn. Excited to try this "new thing" in our group.

bz

Baseball Game?

For me, summer is not summer until I've seen a baseball game. My summer is rapidly coming to a close (I go back to work August 9th and get kids the 16th) so I want to get something on the books. I was wondering if anyone else is interested in making a trip to KC to see a baseball game a life group event. I originally thought Royals, but Darci said yesterday that she's heard T-Bones games are more fun and less expensive, and both sound good to me. Has anyone ever been to one?

Here is what I could find online in the way of pricing and you can find their schedule here. Looks like they have games at 7:05 Friday, August 12 and Saturday, August 13. They also have a game that Sunday, August 14 at 5:05 if we'd rather do an earlier game. We could also open it up to the other life group...?

What do you guys think?

Messy Spirituality

This evening at lifegroup/VBS decorating, we looked at a few books to read and discuss. We decided to go with Messy Spirituality by Mike Yaconelli. Preferably we should all have it and have read the first chapter before the next time we meet for study, which is August 6th.

Only 19 left in stock - order soon!

Friday - LG - VBS Decorating

OK. Here is what I have so far about this Friday. We will meet at the Church to decorate for VBS. Darci will be there all day. Shane is showing up around 5. I plan to get there around 6. I would suggest we do the Pizza thing again. I'll order them around 6:15. Let me know if you are going to be there or just get there by 6:15.

bz

VBS Decoration Schedule

First, keep commenting on Bryan's prior post. If you haven't read through these comments, do! Some great stuff!

Second, check out Bryan and Stacy's pic on the WHBC home page!

Third (and the meaning of this post) : the following are some dates Darci will be out working on VBS decorations:

Friday, 7/15 - Shane has the day off and they will both be out all day

Saturday, 7/16 - There is a wedding early afternoon and the entire sanctuary has to be up between 2:00 and 5:00! Any help would be appreciated.

Friday, 7/23 - We are scheduled to help as a Life Group that evening with decorating the rest of the building

Darci will be up throughout next week decorating as well. Feel free to contact her with questions.

Thanks, folks!

Why do we do........

Just got back from Upward Training tonight. I thought there was a great question brought up that might also help with our life group direction.

They asked "Why do you do what you do at your church/lifegroup every week?

Please ponder for a while then post your thoughts in the comments. I'll add what they gave us a little later.

bz

7/8/11 Life Group Notes

I published the notes as a comment to Randi's "What do we think" post. You can see what I interpreted my scribblings as. Good discussions!

Bryan's Notes

(Bryan - I copied your comment into a post in case people couldn't see it as a comment!)

Here are my notes from Friday night.

1. Doing life together. General consensus that we are just scratching the surface of each others lives. We need to be more intentional in our activities. It was agreed that we should plan on an event every week. Rotate between study nights, hang out nights, discussion nights, service nights, etc. Randi to make google calendar to help organize.

2. Loving God. Agree that the sermon studies are good but also a need to go deeper into His word outside of the sermons. Opportunity to meet in smaller study groups within our life group. Stacy Z and J.D. to bring options to next group on additional study subjects.

3. Living Connected. Thoughts were around getting together on fun nights, ladies night out, men's night, etc. Options would be things like lunch, golf, geo cache, pool night, picnic at a lake, cards night, etc.

4. Serving all. General consensus is we all serve a lot within the WH but we are pretty poor at serving the outside community. Next big thing inside the church is VBS. Meet at church on July 22nd. Still need outside service. Thoughts were Pottawatamie, Rescue Mission. Also heard that we could do a men's service project and a women's. (help's with babysitting) Next group we are all challenged to bring an idea for community service and we will move forward from there.

Ideas for Things to Do...

• Buck night (all Friday home games) @ Royals Stadium - schedule here
• Geocashing - cool site with info here
  
• Photo scavenger hunt - sample here
• Game/Cards night
• Girls Night - cooking/baking, hair/nails, movie, dinner/drinks, etc.
• Guys Night - movie, golf, shooting guns, play basketball, poker, etc.
  
• Other city-wide events - click here for a calendar
  

Serving: Colby Trip

Details on the Colby Trip:

• Date: Friday, August 19
• Colby, KS
• Worship band playing a college kick-off event
  
• People involved: me, Shane, Randi & Jim

FYI...hopefully the rest of the group can still get together.

What do we think?

During our meeting, we discussed how to improve in the following areas:

1. Doing Life Together
2. Loving God
3. Living Connected
4. Serving All

Bryan is going to send out details on the discussions (or maybe you could comment on this post?), but one thing I think we all agreed on was spending more time together. On the right is a list of links and the first one is a calendar. You can view and update it via Google Docs. It's easy to update - just click on the day you want, type your text, and save!

We also talked about how to better stay connected. If we like the idea of a blog, we can try this. If Facebook is better, or email, we can do that. Whatever it takes to help us live connected. :)