So as you saw in this post, one of the things I created was a yearly "Grateful Journal". I'd like to take sometime to share with you some of my favorite "grateful-s" from January.
1. Being able to rejoice in death
2. Deeping Friendships
3. Hand-making Birthday Cards
4. Sweats,Ben & Jerry's & a chick flick
5. Conflict & Tears(and Resolution)
6. LeaderTreks Birthday Celebrations
I'll continue to review at the end of each month some of my grateful listings.
"Living Out LeaderTreks" - A series on the core values and leadership principles of LeaderTreks. I'll share how they are lived out in the company and in my own life. To start from the beginning click here
Innovation/Creativity
I don't know if you have heard of the new social website craze yet or not...
But it has given me so many ideas of ways to be creative and innovative.
Here's a couple of the projects I've done in the past couple of months since I've been a member of the site.
My Dry Erase Calendar:Using a frame with glass, cute scrapbooking paper, and free paint chips from WalMart I've got a cute calendar I can use to help organize my crazy office life. Thanks to Abby for setting me up with all the supplies I needed for this project. BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!
Grateful Journal: Saw this idea and loved it! My grandmother ended up having a 2012 pocket planner that she didn't need. It wasn't that cute, so I used some of the paint chips and paper from the calendar project and viola! I have my daily grateful journal. I'll share next Tuesday some of the things I've been grateful for from this first month of 2012.
Pretzel Rolls: I love soft pretzels! So when I saw this idea on Pinterest I knew I had to try it. It wasn't even that difficult. Only about 2 hours of rising time and I had delicious hot pretzel rolls to enjoy!
Waffled Scones: Or "The Lazy Man's Baked Goods" First saw this idea with refrigerated cinnamon rolls. All you do is put them in a waffle iron to bake for 3-4 minutes. My friend Julie and I tried it... delicious! So walking past the refrigerated dough aisle I spotted scones. Hm... never seen that before. So I bought it and tried the same idea as the cinnamon rolls. Works perfectly! Looks slightly weird, but I don't have to worry about burning my tasty breakfast by using the crappy oven at work.
Neutella Cookies: Who doesn't love Neutella... and in cookie form? Delicious! They were kind of flat, but still so yummy!
"Know Me Gifts": I was planning to attend a college friend's wedding over my Christmas break which gave me the perfect opportunity to try this creative idea out. Transfer a picture to a piece of wood. All you use is the picture on regular printer paper, a gel medium to transfer it, water to rub the paper off and mod podge to seal it. Super easy and gave me a great "Know Me Gift" I used three of their engagement photos transferred onto beautiful oak wood.
"Living Out LeaderTreks" - A series on the core values and leadership principles of LeaderTreks. I'll share how they are lived out in the company and in my own life. To start from the beginning click here
Innovation/Creativity
To LeaderTreks: Innovation means being outside the box, on the cutting edge, and one-of-a-kind. Creativity means being empowered to pursue the process of developing new ideas, concepts and possibilities.
Doug, our president and the founder of this company embodies this core value to... well... his core.
From the way he started this company by taking students on trips and giving them roles of leadership
To the leadership model that he has developed which helps train people like myself on how to teach leadership and empower students and youth pastors alike.
Just today at lunch we were discussing one of the newest ventures of LeaderTreks, DNowOnline. Him and his company partners look to the problems that they are hearing or seeing in current curriculum offerings and answer that need in a very effective and innovative way.
We see God teaching us to be creative all throughout his word...
even from the very beginning.
"Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was his name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field."
Genesis 2:19-20
We all know that God created.
And then he asked Adam to get creative.
Come up with the names for EVERY animal
Adam had to have been a pretty creative guy.
So check back tomorrow as I share a little more about Innovation and Creativity in my own life!
I'd met a friend the summer of 2010 while working at Camp War Eagle who taught me that prayer for anything and everything is a good thing. She would always return from time off with a "Guess what God did for me..." story. Her attitude towards the Father rubbed off... and this is one of my own stories.
Guess what God did for me?
I love to bake and cook. However, I do not always like the effort of said activities - especially after an exhausting day. So when I was preparing to move into my very first apartment my senior year of college one of the things on the top of my prayer list was a crock pot.
(The crock pot - the best invention EVER for busy people who love delicious home cooked meals at the end of the day)
I was praying that I'd find a super cheap one at a garage sale, or maybe Salvation Army, or maybe a friend would have an extra one they would so graciously give to me as an "apartment warming" gift. One night a couple weeks after moving in a friend called asking for the gate password to the storage place we'd both used for the summer. This very nice friend had a truck and I still needed to move our kitchen table and chairs to the apartment so I took the prime opportunity to ask if I could meet him over there and if he could help me with the table. He agreed. So off I went to meet him at the storage place. In order to fit my table and chairs into his truck though, we had put a couple of his boxes in the truck of my car. We returned to the apartment, unloaded the table and chairs, chatted a little bit and then he got ready to leave. As he was climbing into his truck I remembered that I still had some of his boxes in my car. So we pulled them out. As he was placing them into the bed of his truck he said, "I don't know what I'm going to do with all of this stuff. It's my kitchen stuff."
(He was still living in the dorms for another year)
So I stopped him."What do you have Jake? I've got a kitchen and it's in need of some stuff." So we stepped back inside and preceded to go through the two boxes. He offered me a couple plates, some muffin tins... and then guess what God did for me!
Out came a CROCK POT!
I start jumping up and down in my kitchen. I was so excited that God has answered my prayer. Sure it was just a loan, sure I would have to return it at the end of the year. But for 9 solid months I was the proud caretaker of a crock pot. I promised I'd make good use of this generous lending and make something at least once a week in the crock pot. It was great! I shared meals with my roommate, friends, study parties, new recipes, old favorites, O-group reunion parties. I loved it and was bummed when I had to give it back at the end of the year.
(Jake, if you are reading this, I hope you have been putting that crock pot to good use!)
When I moved up to Chicago and started working everyday I realized that I missed my weekly Crock Pot meals. I also realized that a large portion of the staff tend to eat lunch in the office to save money. SoBRILLIANT idea - if we picked a crock pot recipe and everybody brought one or two ingredients then we toss it in the pot before work starts and we have a DELICIOUS lunch to share. I thought Wednesday would be the perfect day since it would be a midweek pick me up. However, there was one little hitch... NO CROCK POT. So it was back to praying, but God was taking a little longer to answer. I was beginning to feel like I was just going to have to bite the bullet and purchase one when Christmas came around the corner... and times got busy. I put the thought on the back burner and promptly forgot about the desire for a crock pot. That is until the LeaderTreks annual Christmas Party. My friend Abby had pulled my name for Secret Santa and the last part of my gift she presented to me...
A NEW CROCK POT!
Thus CROCK POT WEDNESDAY was born. I actually look forward to Wednesdays now and this beautiful new tradition that God helped me start by giving my own crock pot.
In future look for more Crock Pot Chronicles as the year moves forward. I'll share some of the delicious recipes we try here in the LT office.
(having instant hot water in the office may or may not help me in my tea addiction)
I reflect on God's message to me yesterday.
(I must confess though that it did not come from church, because I am a skipper... but for good reasons! To helpTHISbeautiful lady get engaged)
I did however, go to see Donald Miller speak at Wheaton College. And this is what he talked about:
Living A Story Worth Telling
Main Points:
A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.
How to make your life a good story:
1) Want Something & Go after it - God is not a micro-manger, he has given you choices, he has given you passions, go out & act on those passions for God's glory. "God bonds in the doing!"
2) Expect & Engage Conflict - God uses conflict in your life to grow you (James 1), If you just seek comfort in your life you won't have a story worth telling. Conflict is necessary for growth and climax.
3) Envision your climatic scenes - Let us not live in reaction, you should be able to edit on the fly and think about your larger narrative. **Note - these climatic scenes are not your greatest moment, they are simply way points to your true fulfillment which is reunion with Christ after death.
Questions to Ponder:
1) What do you want?
2) What conflict do you need to engage?
3) What are the climatic scenes you envision for this life?
4) Am I seeking to be a sub plot of Christ's larger story? Do I see my reunion with Christ as the hope that does not disappoint (Rom 8)?
"Living Out LeaderTreks" - A series on the core values and leadership principles of LeaderTreks. I'll share how they are lived out in the company and in my own life. To start from the beginning click here
Purpose
A great book I recently picked up off the bookshelf at work, Communicating for a Change really impacted the way I began to prepare for co-teaching my first LTE. The main point I got while reading is that the best way to communicate for change is by teaching onesimple central point. I was in charge of teaching two out of four sessions for the weekend. We are given the basic material outline to teach, but the actual presentation is up to us. We construct our own presentation around those points. So I used the title of each session as my main point. I decided that everything I said should come back to that point. From there I internalized it, asking what Biblical and personal stories do I connect with that I can use to teach this point? I hand wrote notes that included stories and transitions. The next day I simplified it, giving myself the bare bones of my presentation. The next day I simplified again. I wanted so badly to communicate just ONE point that I was going to get myself to the simplest notes I could and deliver a quality message that communicated LeaderTreks' curriculum to the students. I put in probably close to 12 hours of prep for less than 2 hours of teaching. At the end of the weekend we offered four points that the students could connect with and by applying it in their daily life they could become a better leader.
My favorite part of the weekend was thefinal debrief. I wanted to see what they were going to take away from the weekend, so I asked, "What one thing about teamwork/leadership are you going to remember most from this weekend?" As each student answered I dug a little deeper asking them how they wanted to apply it in their lives. I asked them to make an application (listing a who, what, when, where, how) that they could make in the next week to begin to live out this principle.
Hearing these students make connections to the points we taught and they experienced in initiatives was so amazing. That was the purpose of the 12 hours of determined preparation.
It wasn't so I could give the best presentation.
It was so these students apply these principles to life outside of a training weekend.
It was so that these students could bedeveloped as leaders.
"Living Out LeaderTreks" - A series on the core values and leadership principles of LeaderTreks. I'll share how they are lived out in the company and in my own life. To start from the beginning click here
Purpose
LeaderTreks' stated purpose is to develop leaders to fulfill the Great Commission
It would sound way better if I told you that all my job entailed was going on mission trips and viola - LEADERS DEVELOPED!
However, the past 5 months have shown me that this is not the case.
Developing leaders to fulfill the great commission takes a lot of training - time in the office and after work.
"Passion is not high emotion but a steely determination, fired by love..."
So what do I love?
I love seeing girls empowered on the work site when they use a power tool for the first time in their life and they are told, "You can do this!"
I love hearing students make connections during the Bible Study and having it click that the words we read in black and white are meant to be lived out in color every day.
I love seeing a team of high school students who met less than 24 hours again accomplish a challenge as a unified team.
I love hearing that students are excited to come on our trips because they are challenged.
I love hearing that students are going home and sharing the deep ways they were changed.
I love being challenged to see people as people and not objects to help me accomplish a task.
And because I love this,
I'll work a 9 to 5 day,
through conflict,
through hours of sessions,
and quizzes,
and self-evaluation,
and evaluation from my boss,
I'll work with steely determinationbecause I know it helps to fulfill LeaderTrek's purpose - TO DEVELOP LEADERS
which helps to fulfill my purpose - TO GLORIFY GOD
through everything that I do.
(Col 3:23)
Return tomorrow to read about how I'm specifically apply this in my life and work.
I've decided that I like my church so much and the message that God is teaching me through Jericho Road that I want to spend some time reflecting on it and sharing it with the world wide web (or at my least the 6 dedicated readers)
So welcome to my first SUNDAY REFLECTIONS
This morning when I walked into church not only did I pick up a handy dandy bulletin,
but they also stuck a label on me.
My label: chauvinistic
It wasn't just me, everyone got a label. Black, cool, pathetic, drug abuser, sex offender, home maker, republican, atheistic...
we all got a label.
Our pastor, Jeff, talked about how we label ourselves, and we label each other. And we spend a lot of time either trying to keep up appearances with a label that we want, or we spend just as much time trying to hide or tear down the labels that we think are negative.
Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted [fn]us to the glory of God.
proslambanÅ (accept)
1) to take to, take in addition, to take to one's self
a) to take as one's companion
b) to take by the hand in order to lead aside
c) to take or receive into one's home, with the collateral idea of kindness
d) to receive, i.e. grant one access to one's heart
1) to take into friendship and intercourse
e) to take to one's self, to take: i.e. food
My friend Tyler then read to the congregation this story:
I grew up with this story, but had not heard it for several years, and by the end of the story I found tears coming to my eyes.
I've been labeling myself lately, and been avoiding my Papa's workshop.
I've been choosing to live a life determined by the stickers I've put on myself and the stickers others have put on me.
As we took communion we were invited to come and place our labels on the wooden cross in the middle of our "sanctuary". Before I stood, I repeated the "Prayer of Confession" to myself, took my label, placed it on the cross and went to receive the bread and the juice.
As I enter this new week, I'm pondering these questions: 1) What if I lived my life like I only had one TRUE label - I am special, the Beloved of Christ 2) What if I choose to see others as if they had one TRUE label - made in the image of God
3) What if the church really accepted those that walked in its doors?
"In him the whole building is fitted together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit." Ephesians 2:21-22
I like to pretend that I am strong. I like to shut down my feelings from those around me. I like to think that all I need is me and God.
So I have probably come across as emotionless whenever I've been questioned about my mother's fight with skin cancer.
This morning God tapped me on the shoulder... and then slapped me in the face.
In an email update from my dad this morning he shared At one point I mentioned to Dr. Sanclement to be encouraged because there were hundreds of prayers being given up to support his efforts today. It reminded me that every time I lift my mother up to my Savior that I am joining hundreds of others in this journey. Not only am I joining family and friends of my parents, but I'm offering the opportunity to co-workers and friends here. We are creating a web of community around this one event. And this web of community is being built into a holy temple from which God's glory is flowing.
As you converse with God today, remember that He has built around you a community.
This community is being fitted together. This community is a holy temple and from it God's glory WILL SHINE!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Other ways God has shown me the larger community I am a part of:
Today I'm wearing a necklace a close friend sent me from China - reminding me of the adventures she is having across the sea.
Catching up on Youth Ministry blogs found a couple good videos reminding me of the work God is doing in students around the states. 3x5cards, jars of joy, drops of love
Happy New Year!!! and with the new year comes a new section of my blog. Every so often I want to bring a guest blogger to Attraversiamo. My Dad, Earl Cheek, has happily become my first guest writer. The following is an email he sent out to family and friends concerning my parents spiritual health as they work through my Mom's (Louise) second round of skin cancer. In a rough time of year for my family, this letter really lifted my spirits and gave me a new view on the events that God brings into my life. I hope that it does the same for you.
Dear Family,
I'm sorry for the delay. I was anticipating my
sitting here 24 hours ago. But it just wasn't to be. I've just spent
some time recording the chain of events that included a couple of doctor
appointments last Friday and what happened yesterday surrounding
Louise's surgery. And, I will summarize that before I close this email,
but I've realized that these events aren't about a tragedy that's
befallen our family. It's not about what's happening to us physically,
she being scarred and my being warn to a frazzle. It's just like every
other event in our lives. The Lord orchestrates all of them to be
opportunities. For a long time I considered them to be tests, to see
whether I match up to the expected "good christian standard", but with a
test you either pass or your fail. A test is all about what we do;
whether we can succeed or not. Opportunities on the other hand are
about what we can gain. They have more to do with our internal
perspective than with our exterior physicality. Both Louise and I have
issues that we don't recognize as wrong perspectives. We want our paths
to follow the course that we've set. The Lord on the other hand has
different paths that He wants us to follow. The real issue is that we
have to "BE" different people than who we are now to walk His paths.
There's only one way for us to 'BECOME" who we need to be and that's for
the Lord to change us "FROM THE INSIDE OUT". The reality is for that
to happen we have to walk through the events that He knows will give us
opportunities for those changes to be made. That can be scary! That
can be emotional!! That can be heart wrenching!!! I've never really
believed that it's "Trust and Obey". That always denoted too much
rational understanding on our part. In my life it usually seem to be
"Trust and Hang On". Even if you don't enjoy the ride (and that's
really where "Perspective" come in) you can at least believe that it's
all for your best interest, close your eyes and hang on. The only
reason to believe is because you know in whom you believe. It's coming
out the other side of those scary events and seeing how He preserved you
through them, that makes the change happen "from the inside out". It
deepens your communication with Him and prepares you for the next
opportunity.
I'm giving up my insistence on having a couple of my most treasured
activities, skiing with my kids and playing with my first grandchild,
Emily June Cheek (June Bug). Both things can,
Lord willing, happen again at a later date, but both haven't happened
for long enough that it is time, that they should happen NOW. My
perspective is changing. He will provide all good things in His time.
If I haven't already, I will come to that understanding. Louise is
giving up her insistence on what she looks like. She does not look the
same as she did a couple of weeks ago. That will change, but whether it
changes back to the way she saw herself, is still an unknown. Her
perspective is changing. Still as I said in my earlier email, the Lord
is creating a beauty in her that no surgery can change. That's why we
all love her so much.
So join us in our learning opportunities. Give up what you can never keep and hang on to what you can never loose.
