Brads Blog

Top 5-9: i-Tunes

Rachel is getting ready to take her CPA Exam this Tuesday and she is heading off to Bham alone to study so I am left home alone. Not sure what I am going to do. She wanted some music to listen too so I threw her together some new to us worship music last night. 

So here are the Top 5 songs I downloaded off of i-tunes tonight: (not the only five, just the top 5, went a little crazy...) 

1. How He Loves by David Crowder Band: I think they just covered this and released it last week. It's decent but no where near the original. I included this because it is really a little pet peeve of mine. How come in the Christian music industry when you put out a new album the odds of you writing half the songs on it are 0%. No where else in the world could you get away with this! Who would buy a Dave Matthews Band CD of them playing nothing but Coldplay songs? Weird. 
2. Lead Me to the Cross by Daniel Kirkley: He has a pretty cool sound. Plays the piano and it ends up sounding a little like Gavin Degraw.  Again he didn't actually write it but still good! 
3. I Will Boast by Paul Baloche: Don't know why but I can't stop listening to this song. I actually find myself hoping for it to come up on Pandora at work.  
4. Captivate Us by Watermark: I was downloading all this for my wife to have some music as she studies for the 1st part of her CPA test this Tuesday. She said she wanted something that sounded like Caedmon's Call and this is pretty close. This girls voice is incredible. She was also singing on stage when I met my wife:)  
5. You are Everything by Matthew West:    

  

Website Missions

Yesterday's I mentioned we are starting the Jonathan Project. (You can read about it below)

We are trying to think of some of the most creative things we can do with $500.00 and 12 people. I thought I would throw together a series of posts on some ideas I have had. 

Website Project:

Pretty simple idea here, we would get 5-10 non-profits and an equal number of website designers. Match each designer up with a non-profit and give them 24 hours to put together a website. We find a restaurant to host us and we set up computers to show the sites. Everybody who shows up (10 Designers, 10 non-profits, our 12 people at least) get's one vote and the winner get's the $500. 

• 10 Non-Profits get great websites they otherwise would not have been able to afford.  
• Major Networking for everybody involved. 
• Web designers who may or may not be Christian are exposed to people who are doing what God called them to do.  
• Restaurant get's a very busy night hosting 40-50 people.  
• You could easily round up media coverage giving even more exposure to all the ministries.  

The Jonathan Project

There is a new ministry that I am starting here at Saint James and wanted to pick all your brains! 

For a while now I have felt like missions in the local church has gotten very uncreative. Church's seem to be doing worship in some incredibly creative way's but that creativity seems to have not gotten to far out of the doors. So here is what we are going to do about it: 

The Jonathan Project:

It will be a small group with 11 other people and you will do one local missions project a month for 6 months. Every member will commit some money monthly (above and beyond tithe) and whoever is in charge of leading the trip that month will be able to use the money and people however God leads them. (within reason) It's kind of like The Apprentice only you can't get fired!

If there is anything that you have ever seen and thought "I wish the church did more about ________" you may have what is called a Holy Discontent. God wires us all differently and gives us all different passions. The Jonathan Project will be your chance to make a difference in the name of Jesus without having to raise money and get volunteers!

Hopefully this will allow us to serve in some very specific ways. Here are some thoughts/objectives ideas: 

• I am encouraging whoever leads the group and are struggling to search for how to serve through their profession. Most of us would say something like "I am a lawyer who goes on overseas mission trips" when we should understand ourselves as "A Missionary who practices law." Our mission comes before our profession. 
• This will help us tremendously in developing leaders.
• Everyone in the group will serve in what will hopefully turn out to be an extremely diverse set of trips, opening their eyes to a lot of different ministry opportunities. 
• Hopefully they will all realize how easy it is to make a difference.   
• Community  
• The people we serve will come to understand the grace and saving power of Jesus Christ.   

Tomorrow I will start posting some of the unique missions ideas that have come up in our brainstorming sessions.  

What do you think? 

Sweet Home Alabama

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about all the things we had going on that caused my little online slowdown. 

We were in the process of adopting a child from Uganda. 

We were also in the process of buying a home and that is finally a done deal! 

I have not lived in an actual house since before college. Really looking forward to it. 

We felt like just buying a built house was going to be way to easy and we were not really looking to build an entire house, so we landed right in the middle buying a half built house! 

Emy's Place

If you want to hear a incredible story of using a tuff situation to help out others this is it. 

Emy's place is a home that a guy in our church just recently purchased to be converted into a Ronald McDonald type house for families who have children in the ICU and can't afford a hotel. He did this after losing his daughter 2 years ago due to a brain tumor. He was able to stay at a home very similar to this in Seattle while his daughter was in the hospital there and because of that grace shown to him he is taking this project on. 

Our YA group committed to be there every wednesday night until the place is finished! Thought I would shoot a quick video to give you glimpse of what is going on. 

Forgive not File

When I was in High School I had a religion teacher who told us that when we get to heaven God was going to play our life story as a movie in front of everybody there. Since we were there for eternity this would not be a problem. I never actually believed him but it still haunted me! 

I had to come to the realization that God does not file my sin's away in a Ferris Bueller type "permanent record" 

He forgives them. He eradicates them. He does not cover them, he eliminates them. 

We need to live like that. We don't need to worry about our past mistakes, we need to focus on relentlessly following Jesus Christ. 

Colossians 2:13-14 says, "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross."

Good for a Friday

Just stumbled on this site. Might be the best "good for a friday" site ever! 

www.todaysbigthing.com 

In their own words "What we do is pretty simple. Every day, we find the best thing on the Internet and put it on this site. Just one thing, for each category, each day." 

You may want to just save this for friday's though! 

Emy's Place

I lead our Young Adults group here at the church. (which is coming up on it's 4 week birthday) I really wanted missions to drive what we do and a few weeks ago a guy at our Church purchased a house to remodel and use as a Ronald McDonald type house. Our young adults have committed to being there every wednesday until the project is finished. 

Last week Randy (the director) mentioned that somebody from WSFA was trying to get a hold of him and sure enough it hit the airwaves tonight! Here is the video below that shares a little about what is going on. It's incredible to see how God provides once you take an irreversible step. In this case purchase a second house! 

If you want to come out and join us there is still a good bit of work to be finished! Every Wednesday @ 6pm-8:30 until the project is complete. If you have any questions just shoot me an email bgoode@sjlife.com Oh and by the way we are defining young adults as "older college students to younger married people" 

I've been married 3 years.

I mentioned last week that we went to ATL for the weekend to celebrate our anniversary. I love Rachel more then I could have ever imagined. 

This pastor would tell you that he loved his life more then he could have imagined. It didn't stop him from having an affair with his secretary last week. 

Saw a quote the other day that was priceless "“When you watch “Jon & Kate” and say, “That could never happen to me” the devil does the robot.” 

There is even now a pro-cheating movement that is happening on the internet. Check out this article. 

I write all this to say if you think you are immune to marriage problems, you are wrong. 

Stupid questions are better then Stupid mistakes. If you think you have an improper relationship with someone of the opposite sex ask somebody around you if they think so as well? Ask your husband/wife? The worst that can happen is they say no. Odds are though that if you think the relationship is inappropriate, it is. 

You are responsible for your marriage. 

Galatians 5:16 says: So I say, live by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Accountability is key, make sure you have it. 

Jury Duty

Enough said.

I am looking forward to it a little bit. I have always loved Law & Order, although I have a feeling this won't move quite as fast! They said to bring a book so I do look forward to use that time for a little bit of thinking/planning with a journal. I am also looking forward to my fellow jurors!

No idea who will be in that mix!