"Keep yourselves from idols"

These are my notes from Rob's sermon this morning. We went to the 9:30 am service because of my class reunion and then worked the cafe for 11:30 service.
Worship was amazing with 800 people singing Cannons and Marvelous Light and Jesus Paid It All.

We are at the end of 1 John and will be starting a new series on Idolatry next week. These verses sum up 1 John and lead into the next series.

1 John 5:13-21

1st John was written:

1 So we may have joy

2 So we don't continue in sin

3 To warn about leaders who are leading astray with heresy about who Jesus was. There were splits in the church.

4 So we know we have eternal life
It gives us confidence through our life experiences because of God's testimony of Christ.


5 Finally it gives us boldness in prayer
We need to see Jesus for who he is
Jeremiah 29:11-13
Matthew 7: 7-11
Proverbs 15:29

a Bold prayer helps us pray for each other

b It keeps us from the sin that leads to death
What is that sin?
Rob honestly states he doesn't know but what he does know is that in the Old Testament there were capital sins that led to stoning and death
In the New Testament it's blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
John didn't need to define that sin because his audience knew what that sin was.
We need to remember that holiness is a baseline standard for followers of Christ

c Bold prayer provides us with discernment in a world full of demonic options. He is our true north.

If you are in Christ you have a saviour, but you also have an enemy who wants to blind you.

Is the last verse random? or Is it a summary of what he has told us in the last 5 chapters...idols will bring you down.

The service ended with the youth group getting up and doing a visual dance to "Everything" by Lifehouse. If you have never seen it done, it is very moving and I'm putting a You Tube version by another church on here

Fairmont West Dragons...30 yr. class reunion

This weekend was my 30 yr. class reunion. Unbelievable that I'm that old! I graduated from Fairmont West High School in Kettering, Ohio in 1978. There were 650 in my graduating class.
Last night we went on a tour of the high school. It was nice to see familiar faces. Some of my class has aged well...others...well let's just say time wasn't as kind.
I think one of the coolest things was that they invited teachers/staff to come as well.
I saw one of my favorite geometry teachers who came from Atlanta.

My high school has some areas that have changed dramatically and other areas brought back a lot of memories because they haven't changed at all.

Tonight we had the bigger party at a really nice farm in Beavercreek.
They had great food and 70's music with a DJ who used to play at some of the discos I went to in my college years.
My best friend Rachel and her husband,Michael came. Rachel and Michael had triplets 19 months ago so she and I are at very different stages in our lives but when we are together it feels like we are 16 all over again. I saw my date for senior prom and he lives in Lexington and is doing well.
For the most part I recognized people but I did find myself looking at name tags for some of the men who had lost their hair :^) Our foreign exchange student,Pavi, came back from Finland. We also had a guy who came from England.
It was a nice time and I'll look forward to seeing some of them again in 5 years!

Democrat or Republican?

I am not a political person. I think I only took one political science class and that was because I had to for my major. However, when it's a presidential election year, I do find my curiosity piqued. I like to hear both sides of the story. I like to hear all of the issues ....not just the ones that may people crazy..ie abortion and gay rights.
I like to know why they think the way they do. I think many times it has to do with where they have been as a person,how they were raised, their experiences, their passions.
Anyone who knows my husband knows he is totally right wing republican. When he found out I voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 he gave me the cold shoulder for 3 days. My daughter Kristen was in kindergarten and did kid's voting and she voted for Bill Clinton too (Mom's have some influence at that age :^) We have grown up since then and just agree to disagree at times although I have voted Republican the 3 elections. He has no interest in watching the Democratic National Convention speeches (I think he watched Monday night preseason football :^)
I haven't decided who I'm going to vote for. That's why I have been reading the articles that Chris(my housechurch leader) sends me. I've read the newspaper articles and listened to the speeches. I've looked at the emails my dad (another right wing republican) sends me. I am watching the conventions. I think it's important to go into an election with an open mind and with as much knowledge as you can obtain to make a decision.
I thought Michelle Obama did a good job on her speech. It wasn't anything I didn't expect. I am more interested to hear what Hillary Clinton has to say.
Anyway, I will be staying up late this week and next trying to digest all of this so that when November comes I can vote with a good conscious.

A Lazy Sunday

Why is it that when I don't have to get up early, I still can't sleep in?
I have a natural body clock alarm that wakes me up at 5...I will sometimes go back to sleep but not usually past 7am.
So I got up early, did my quiet time and ate my oatmeal. I eat oatmeal every morning.
I'm a little boring in that way but I'm not a big breakfast person.
Darrell and I lounged around( one of the benefits to going to church on Sat eve.),cleaned up the house, then decided to go to DLM for lunch.
If you're looking for a nice place to eat on the weekend, you can get your lunch and go upstairs and they have a guy who plays the piano. We are trying to eat healthy so we did the salad bar and water.

Last night we went to Office Max and found the game Qbert. Qbert is an arcade game from the 80's that Darrell and I played everyday when we were on our honeymoon in Clearwater Beach in 1985. We were excited to find it except the software was defective so we had to take it back :^( That's ok cause I just found it free on yahoo games :^)

We are selling things on ebay so we had to check out some pricing. We saw Aisa,Ron, and Ava in Borders! We were looking for a Beckett magazine to sell the ZILLIONS of baseball cards Darrell and Zach have collected over the years and his autographed Micky Mantle ball.

We also went to Sunglasses Hut to get a price for Zach's Oakley sunglasses he wants to sell. They have the coolest Ray bans in various colors..might have to save up for those! I like the teal ones and the white ones.

Next stop was Target to take back deodorant I bought for Zach that was the wrong kind.
You can't go in Target without buying something ...new PJ's :^) and popcorn in their cafe. Something funny that happened there..a little girl was eating with her mom . All the sudden she screams loudly.."Mom that girl has purple hair!" I turned around and looked behind me and sure enough she had purple and white hair..She looked at me and I looked at her and we burst out laughing because the little girl's expression on her face was so funny and her mom was mortified that she had screamed it out loud.

So now I'm back home watching the Little League World Series as it pours down rain here. We're gonna hang out and watch the closing ceremony of the Olympics.
A nice quiet evening to end a nice quiet weekend.

Testimony

These are my note from Rob's sermon tonight.
Luckily the air conditioning was working very well or it could have been a little on the side of Hades in there :^P with all the college students coming back for the year.

We sat with our friends Kendall(she has the most awesome hair),Chad and Jeff.

Abby and Neil led worship tonight. They have a jazzy style of worship.

1 John 5: 6-12

Many times when we need to learn...we need to have things repeated to us over and over

John repeats 3 things throughout 1 John

1. He wants us to know who Jesus is

2. He repeats the phrase "This is how we know we are daughters/sons of Christ"

3. The way we know we love Christ is through obedience

In this passage, the word testimony is repeated several times.

If you put Jesus in the docket and God as his attorney..God presents 3 strands of evidence on who his son is.

We need to portray Jesus how God has revealed him to us

To put these verses in context, heresy on who Jesus is has crept into the house churches

Pieces of evidence

1 Witness of history
Jesus is baptized in water and blood Physically..water and death on the cross..blood

2 Witness of spirit

The spirit lives inside of believers and enables us to call God our father.
It enables conviction to come into our lives

3 Witness of redemption
Changed lives

Case closed..Jesus is God


2 questions to ask yourself

What is God repeating over and over
a Not obeying
b So you are prepared for the future
c Testing

What is God's testimony about you?

My new favorite Phil Wickham song

If you don't have something nice to say...Shut Up!!!

I try to keep an open mind when it comes to church. Not everyone likes the same things and I do respect that everyone should have the freedom to choose. HOWEVER, when I see and hear people "church bashing or "critiquing" it infuriates me ..to the point that I think I could physically hurt the person.
Again I understand that people have bruises from past experiences. I have bruises from past experiences but it's something that needs to be given to God and given time to heal. The church is the bride of Christ. He doesn't want Christians kicking her in the gut. I'm reading a book by Margaret Feinberg called " the organic God" and she expresses it much better than I can.

"Now, I'm not naive. I realize the church in America is far from perfect and in many ways has gone astray, but the church is still the bride of Christ. She may have holes in her dress, stains on her shoes, and smeared makeup on her face, but at the end of the day, she is still the bride. When we recognize that God's perspective of the church is not necessarily our own, then we will begin treating her with the respect and care she deserves. We will begin building her up to what she is meant to be instead of tearing her down."....Anyone with a pulse can point out the ragamuffin qualities of a local assembly, but if you spend too much time focused on the stains, then you'll soon lose focus on our wildly infallible God. He is far more concerned with his church than you or I or a hundred pastors put together will ever be. He has a plan. He makes no mistakes. He will not fail"

Stuck in the elevator

We took Zach back to Lee University today. It was uneventful until we got there and started to move his stuff in. The dorm has an elevator which we thought was a good thing since he is on the 4th floor...we were wrong!
About the 4th time up the elevator we noticed the elevator wasn't moving up. We hit the button several times. That should have been our clue to get off. Also there was a little wire hanging from the door...another clue. The elevator began to move and went about half a floor up and then all of the sudden it vibrated and down we went. We tried to open the door but it wasn't budging. Luckily the phone in there worked...unluckily they hadn't dealt with this before.
I think the people on the outside were more panicked than we were...which isn't a good thing because that means they don't really know how to get us out. After about 15 min I was starting to get a little nervous.
Luckily Darrell stayed calm..he knew we weren't between floors and we were at the bottom. They got the first part of the door open but the second part wouldn't open. They went up above us and removed the top. I climbed up the railing and Darrell boosted me and 2 guys helped from the top. Then they got a ladder for Darrell and Kristen. We were there about 25 min ..about 24 min too long!
I'd like to say I won't be getting on an elevator anytime soon but unfortunately I spend a good chunk of time in elevators at my job .
I do now understand why people feel claustrophobic in elevators!

8 gold medals...He's awesome!!!

Overcoming the World

These are my notes from Rob's sermon tonight.
Tonight was a great set for worship...We sang 2 Phil Wickham songs..Divine Romance and True Love. I love the words to True Love.

The earth was shaking in the dark
All creation felt the Father's broken heart
Tears were filling heaven's eyes
The day that true love died, the day that true love died
When blood and water hit the ground
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
We were free and made alive
The day that true love died, the day that true love died




1 John 5:1-5

What kind of faith is it that helps us overcome the world?

1 Christ based faith...Christ as the object of our faith

2 Reborn faith...born of God. Born= generated by God. God gives us the DNA to obey.
Sin becomes unnatural..we are convicted when we make choices in our life.

3 Loving faith..The ultimate litmus test...do you love your brothers and sisters in Christ? Brothers and sisters aren't always the most loveable people. We have the capacity to hurt each other.

4 You are commissioned ready

5 Joyful faith..God's commands aren't a burden..we do it out of joy. If you don't you are wasting time in church.

"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Don't forget about the great love of your Father.

After Rob's sermon, Jason Wing got up and talked about Apex and it's purpose.
There are old testament churches which focus on programs and things within the church.
Apex is a New Testament Church. Never is church referred to as a building in the new testament. Church is the people.

Apex is not a church in the typical sense. It's a network of house churches who desire to spread a passion for Jesus Christ through communities where He is yet to be worshipped.

Channel 7 comes to my work :^)

Channel 7 came and did a little story on our Diabetes Center.
You can read the article and watch the little video. It has my friend Cindy teaching class, Dr. Parilo, and Mrs. Bull who donated the money we use to educate those who have no insurance. You can see it
here

Stepping Up....Week 2

Our Tuesday night women's study met tonight to talk about Psalms 123 and 124.

Keeping our eyes on the Lord..not always an easy thing, and knowing that even when we feel as though we're drowning in floods of rage, God doesn't leave us.

I think my favorite line in this study is:
"He knows when something glorious in the future necessitates something difficult in the present."
Sometimes we are so focused on now that we forget what is yet to be.

She also talks about the Feasts of the Pilgrims in the Old and New Testament and the symbolism fulfilled in Christ.
She also talks about the leaven that is hidden in the dough and how many times we have "hidden hypocrisy" in our lives. We hold on to things i.e. we say we forgive but we hold on to a hurt that permeates our lives just as leaven permeates dough.

I'm definitely guilty of holding on to hurts that I need to let go of. Easier said than done.

Issac Hayes...A memorial to a great song of the 70's

I was sad to see that Isaac Hayes passed away this weekend. I will always associate this song with my teenage years because I think our high school marching band played it at practically every football game :^)

Washington DC Conference Day 3&4

I am back home in Springboro :^) My last 2 days in Washington DC were a whirlwind of lectures. Friday night we had free time so we walked a couple of blocks over and ate at a very nice restaurant called The Daily Grille. On our walk home we stopped at Borders which was huge! Mary and I bought Elizabeth Edwards book "Saving Graces"
Saturday morning we got up bright and early for the 5K jogathon. The picture above is one they took for their website. I don't know the 2 on the left of me but my friend Mary is standing to the right of me. I did pretty well..I finished 24/200 in my age group of walkers. They had a huge breakfast for us afterwards.
Our speakers yesterday were probably my favorite besides Elizabeth Edwards. They both dealth with healthcare for those who are poor and under served. Dr. Francine Kauffman is an endocrinologist who looked at global perspectives of the impact of diabetes on children in poorer countries such as Zimbabwe. A child diagnosed with type 1 there has a life expectancy of 7 months to 3 years. Unbelievable! She has supports an organization called Life for A Child which supports those children who don't have the resources needed. The documentary she did is definitely worth watching and is on the website I have linked.
So now I have a few days to recover before heading back to work. Kristen and her friend Jackie are leaving this morning for Lee and we take Zach back next weekend.
I had a great time and learned alot and got alot of great resources for my patients but there's no place like home :^)

Washington DC Conference Day #2

We had the 2nd day of our conference. Our main speaker did her presentation on diabetes in pregnancy. She was a great speaker. I spent the morning going through the booths connecting to the different companies so I can provide resources/education materials to my patients.
Our dinner this evening was at the Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian. The ride there was nice. I got to see the FBI building, the Reagan building, the Capitol, and the mall area where tons of people were hanging out playing kickball,softball,etc.
BD and Lilly sponsored our dinner tonight. They rented out the museum which was nice. We had a buffet dinner and open bar...I'm not really much of a drinker but I did have a very nice red wine and a peach sangria. The coolest 2 areas of the museum were the Wright Brothers room and the space room. I couldn't really take pictures in the space room because it was dark and my camera doesn't take pictures very well in the dark. I do have some pictures of the Wright plane and glider. I also took a picture of Amelia Earhart's plane which is the red plane on this post.
Tomorrow we have a speaker who was the commissioner of the FDA. We have free time tomorrow night so I'm hoping to see some more of the monuments and sights of Washington.

Brett Favre is a New York Jet

I have been following this drama very closely but it was still a surprise to me when Green Bay traded Brett to the New York Jets. My friend Adam wanted to know if I was still going to root for him. My answer is yes. I will be a New York Jets fan now. Although there are always 2 sides to every story..I feel that Green Bay treated Brett badly and I just can't root for them. I know people think he yanked them around but I feel he was pressured to retire..I think he honestly wants to come back to play football and he wanted to play for Green Bay but it just wasn't in their plans.
Actually there are 2 players from Centerville,Mike Nugent and Nick Mangold, who play for the Jets so it will make it easy for me to root for them.
I personally hope that he does well and I think it's Green Bay's loss and New York's gain.
And Adam, I will root for Jay Cutler :^)

Day 1 of Conference

Our main speaker for the conference yesterday morning was Elizabeth Edwards. She gave a very emotional speech on healthcare for those who are unable to afford it. She has definitely been dealt some obstacles in her life but seems to have a positive outlook on it.
Last night we went on a dinner cruise on the Potomac. On our way there was a guy jogging in bright pink thermal short underwear...so weird! The cruise was nice. The picture above is the sunset from the boat I took.
Tomorrow we go to the Smithsonian for dinner so I'm looking forward to that :^)

AADE in Washington DC

These are 2 of the pictures I took this evening when we went sightseeing. As you can see there are definitely political issues going on in front of the white house.
We started out with a delay in our flight out of Dayton because of the weather. It only ended up being 1 1/2 hrs so we got in about 2pm. We ate lunch at a little grill around the corner from our hotel and then shuttled to the Conference Center to get registered before tomorrow. We met up with one of our coworkers,Barb, and walked around to look at the sights. We are about 5 min from the White House and several monuments. It's very red, white and blue here :^) You can get McCain or Obama stuff on any street corner. We ate at the oldest saloon in Washington DC for dinner. Their parks here are beautiful but definitely the homeless situation is a problem.
Tomorrow starts a busy day of learning but I'm excited to be here.

Seeing Jesus For Who He Really Is

These are my notes for tonight's sermon at Apex
Rob is on vacation with his family so Adam Dressler from TriCounty Vineyard gave the sermon. He's a good speaker.
I loved worship tonight. We sang one of Phil's songs "This is Worship".
After the sermon we sang my all time favorite "From The Inside Out" and "Lead Me To the Cross.
We sang one of the new songs from Cannons "You're Beautiful" by Phil Wickham.

1 John 4:1-6
John was dealing with the message of Jesus being misinterpreted by Gnostics who had 2 main beliefs 1. Matter is bad so the real God would never take on the form of flesh
2. Secret knowledge was only given to a few who "earned" it.

False teachings don't necessarily need a false teacher.
We will all come into contact with false teachings.
We allow things to attach to Christianity and make it hard to see the pure message of Jesus.

People will judge the fruit of Jesus and his followers.

Ask yourself "How do I really follow you God?"

1 The emphasis is on the spirit. Jesus wants to warm your heart through the Holy Spirit. We need to be open to the Holy Spirit to move us. His Spirit is a gift.

2 The work of Jesus always connects back to Him.

3 You need to put your heart under authority.

Somewhere in all of our lives we have let in false teaching. The Pharisees "did" things morally but they missed the point...the heart of Jesus.

See Jesus for who he really is. Don't let false teaching attach itself to your faith.

Ask yourself..."What am I attaching to you..how am I letting false teachings shape who I am? Help me to see who you really are.

Heading to Washington DC

This Tuesday morning, Mary(my job share partner) and I head to Washington DC for the AADE(American Association of Diabetes Educators) national meeting. I think it's kind of cool that we are having it there this year since it's election year.
There are health care bills that definitely have an impact on diabetes care. One of the girls we are meeting up with has type 1 diabetes and she is very politically active. She makes several trips to Columbus when bills are up to be voted on. Ohio is one of 4 states that do not mandate insurance companies to pay for diabetes supplies and education. This can be a huge financial burden on the person. They don't take their meds and they end up with the complications which is expensive to the patient as well as taxpayers. It's crazy.
I haven't been in Washington DC since I was 12 but it made a huge impact on me then. The first day we get there we will be able to sightsee. Our conference runs Wed through Sat. The conference is 8 to 5 every day and then there are dinners in the evening so we won't have a lot of time to see the city. We are going on a cruise dinner on the Potomac Wed night so we will be able to see the monuments at night.
Elizabeth Edwards (John Edwards wife) is our first speaker. She is actually an adviser to Barack Obama on health care issues for his campaign. I will be interested in hearing what she has to say.
My other favorite part are the freebies! There is always a huge exhibit hall with the major drug and meter companies sponsoring elaborate booths with a ton of info for me to bring back to my patients but also toys..i.e. last year they gave out i pod shuffles.
Although I'll miss my family, it will be nice to experience Washington DC again.