I've seen this book around and heard teen girls talk about how awesome it is for quite a while now. It made the New York Times Best Seller List and according to Movie ticket seller Fandago, "The Fault in Our Stars" broke the record for the biggest pre-selling love story in the company’s 14-year history. I admit it. I was curious. Curious as to what teen girls are reading these ... Read More »
Six hours notice and she was in our arms forever!
Sophie came to us with literally six hours notice. We got the phone call from the adoption agency around 10:00am and picked her up that evening. Randy was painting a house and I was with our son at a Dr's appointment when I got the phone call from the adoption agency. I called Randy immediately and asked him to get off the ladder that I had some news for him. And then I told ... Read More »
Community Outreach instead of Cyclical Church Events
For the first time ever our church took Trunk R Treat to a slightly sketchy neighborhood park. We had no idea what to expect but we prayed and planned and asked God to provide us with what He knew we needed for the night. Our church family worked hard and long to create a lit up obstacle course on the playground, set up decorated tables of candy and created a "dark room" where ... Read More »
I want a pet alpaca & and what’s your “high”?
Bill Hybels in "Just Walk Across The Room" shares an experience he does with a dinner group. They go around and share their "high" and "low" of the week. It's an incredible way to hear from other people and we have adopted that in our home. Almost every week I'll ask the kids what their "high" and "low" was of the week. And so today......I share two highs from last week and I'd ... Read More »
3 ways to overcome the fear of praying aloud
Sweaty palms. Hives. Stomach in knots. A loss for words. It's what some of us go through as we begin to pray aloud in a group. And there's nothing wrong with that. I've had four conversations with awesome Christian people in the last few weeks that have explained their desire to pray aloud but the anxiety that rises up keeps them from showing up or contributing to praying ... Read More »
Taking Jesus to the park
As a church we are learning what it means to live out our faith beyond the pews and stain glass. And so our outreach ministry team coordinated an opportunity for our church to flesh out our faith at a local park in town. For weeks on end we met and prayed for God to give us generous hearts and provision for babies and toddlers in our town. What would people need that WIC or ... Read More »
Bullying – what to do if you suspect your child is being bullied
http://vimeo.com/64940210 As long as the human race continues to exist there will be bullies in our world. For a lot of different reasons people are bullies. As parents we've probably had some discussions with our kids about this topic and since Monday starts National Bullying Prevention Month I thought we'd talk about some tips to stomp out bullying. 5 things to consider if ... Read More »
The reason for the blog silence
Busy at church.......love the things going on at our church but even in all the good churchy things I can get too busy. Someone I love dearly recently said, "Melody, you are in a hurry with everything you. You're so busy." It's true. So I'm trying to evaluate what I'm doing and why I'm doing it and be sure it's coming from Him. And even in that back off the rushed spirit in ... Read More »