*Chad Jarnagin

Jen is a champ. I can’t imagine what she is going through right now as we wait on the arrival of Baby J. 

For those that don’t know, we’ll announce his name when he makes his debut. Baby J is not his hip-hop name, just what we are rollin’ with for a while.

If you would, please take a minute to pray for Jen and our little unborn homie.

Congrats to Michael and Leah Neale on the birth of their 3rd child, and Katie and Josh Peters for their #3 as well.  OH, AND Mark and Stephanie Lee had their 2nd! WOW.

C2DVD is a movie and a small group study. Relapse (above) is one of Ryan‘s films. He does tasty work. 

If we step back from this busy life for a moment of reflection, we will start to hear a deafening silence. The ironic thing will be that it is truly the still silence that is so deafening. Everyone in my circles struggle with noisy, crazy, hectic schedules, running from meeting to meeting, coffee to coffee, and service to service.

After you read this JUST TRY to take 5 minutes and sit in silent solitude. This might be hard iPhoners… NO calls, NO texting, NO computer (AIM, Facebook, Twitter, etc), NO music, NO Xbox 360, NO talking. Nothing, but silence. If you haven’t experienced this in awhile, the sound will be loud. You’ll see what I mean.

If you have not seen the Nooma video “Noise”, go check it out. In the book Facedown (Matt Redman), Bill Hybels (WillowCreek) asked, “Is the ambient noise level of my life low enough for me to hear the whispers of the Lord?” A. W. Tozer has said “in some instances, absolute silence might well become our greatest act of worship”. The silence Tozer is talking about doesn’t happen in our worship services. Everything in our culture is screaming at a db level that is dulling our hearing the Creator’s voice, and sometimes His will. I myself continue to struggle with this.

CHURCH LEADERS: When our people come into worship on Sunday, let’s try to remember that life is fast and loud. It can be voluntary or involuntary, but our communities are fast and loud places. If we are living there as well, how can we lead them into the Holy place? When I come into church I NEED the music peeps to help lead me to a place of silencing & yielding my world in order to seek God in everything.

I think we know that God is everywhere AND in everything, but how often do we live acknowledging that? We usually let our little worlds dictate our response to the Almighty. In order to effectively lead people into worship of God, we must be clear to hear where He is leading us. We can’t always be on point with our leadership, let’s keep it real. I stink it up more times than not, but we should step up our game b/c we have a responsibility.

Application of a TRUE “quiet time” or “silent time” is the only means of execution here. He WILL be in the secret silent place. It probably looks different for everyone. I hope to find more frequent time and space to seek, sense, and listen for more of His heart in the middle of my crazy, whack, funky life.

Shalom.

This is an original concept of a ring that could control the playback functionality of your iPod / iPhone device wirelessly. It uses bluetooth technology and is USB powered.

Hmmm… nothing would surprise me at this point.

Wait for it… wait for it… How many of you will wait for it? There is a pay off.