Click the player below to listen to my recent interview with popular speaker, Allyson Lewis, author of The Seven Minute Difference: Small Steps to Big Changes
In this interview you are going to learn:
- How “change happens in an instant.”
- The power of taking “micro-actions”.
- How to leverage your time to move forward using a simple practical tool called, “5 by 11.”
- THE number 1 obstacle to change and growth.
- How God has actually hard wired our brains to be receptive to growth and change with repetition.
- and more.
I found myself inspired and energized by the end of this interview and I am confident that you will too. Apply even one principle from this 30 minute interview and it will redeem itself in hours. A big thank you to Allyson Lewis for taking time to speak with us. Enjoy.
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Tags: podcast
I have just added a 40 day Bible reading guide for the Gospel of John to the Lent Resource page. It is a check list along with some tips on how to be consistent in your Bible reading. While this list is set up as a Lenten discipline it really could be used over any 40 day period. This list begins on a Wednesday and ends on a Saturday six weeks later. Sunday’s are free days for catching-up or reflecting on a reading that grabbed you from earlier in the week. I did this because traditionally Sundays are not included in the count of 40 days of Lent.
Last year a member of my church took on reading the Gospel of Luke in 40 days. That discipline got him start reading daily. If you have wanted to read the Bible daily, but have yet to succeed, then reading either John or Luke in 40 days could be a great opportunity for you to get started.
Tags: bible reading, lent
Ash Wednesday is just two weeks away now. Tonight, our church launched a new discipline for people to adopt during Lent that I am very excited about. We have 17 members who are homebound or in nursing homes. Our Evangelism Committee asked people to consider adopting one or more of these members during the six weeks of Lent. We have a very distinct mission for our adopters.
At the beginning of Lent we are giving each family in the church a decorative handmade wooden table cross that is about 12 inches tall with a devotional guide. Each week during Lent we will give out a symbol to add to the cross. The symbols are relate to Jesus last hours and crucifixion. There is a devotional thought for the week associated with each symbol explained in the devotional guide. We want to include our homebound members in this congregational activity. So some people are adopting a shut-in and bringing him or her a cross and then returning each week with the next symbol. We hope that the symbol will be a tangible reminder throughout the week of God’s love for them and our love for them as part of our church family.
Even if your church isn’t doing anything like a cross project it doesn’t mean that you couldn’t adopt an elder in need of some companionship. Lent runs from Ash Wednesday, Feb. 17th until Easter Sunday, April 4th. During those six weeks imagine the joy that a visit would bring someone. You may enjoy it so much that it continues far beyond those six weeks. Or perhaps, you could just decide to visit a different person each week. You could be the grace of Jesus Christ to them. You could be the love of Jesus Christ to them. It’s something to consider.
If you want to know how we set it up at our church it was quite simple. I printed out a half sheet that explained the project and at the bottom it said, “Yes, I will adopt….___________________”. We put the name of a different shut-in on the blank line of each sheet. We grouped some together that stayed in the same nursing facility that we thought people may want to adopt together. People just picked up the sheet of the person they wanted to adopt. We recorded the names of the adopters next to their adoptees on a list we had of our shut-ins. We did that to make sure that we didn’t miss anyone and also if we have to recruit a few adopters I didn’t want to be needlessly asking a bunch of people who already had someone. I think we only have few left but we have two weeks to find someone willing to adopt them.
I placed a two copies of our handout on the Lent Page. If you would like to see or adapt one just click here. I saved it both as a PDF file and as a Word Document. The PDF is to make sure that anyone could access it. The Word format is for anyone who would like to adapt it.
I have a couple more ideas for Lent that I am working on posting before the weekend. I would love to hear from other people about things they give up during Lent or spiritual disciplines that they take on. Even if you are from a church or denomination that does not observe Lent I would encourage you to look at the disciplines on the Lent Page because they are all spiritual exercises that benefit someone at anytime.
Blessings to You
On the Lent page, there was a broken link for the Love Notes handout. It has been fixed. A big thank you to PD reader and pastor friend Erin, who brought this to my attention. My apologies to anyone trying to download it prior.
A number of years ago, I listened to a tape series about prayer by Richard Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline. One lesson that stood out to me and made a marked difference in my prayer life was his recommendation to visualize prayer. There are at least four beneficial shifts you will experience if you strive to visualize your prayers.
First, specificity. When you take time to vividly imagine what your prayer would look like answered and lift that image with all its details upto God you tend to be far more specific in what you pray. For example, I had an extremely unruly Sunday School class of Junior High kids once. (Okay, may be more than just once) I was about to give up on the class and it was about the time that I happened listened to the Richard Foster tape. I decided to go in early to class one Sunday and take time to pray for each child before they arrived. I walked around our table and stood behind each empty chair and prayed for the child who would be sitting in it. I visualized them engaged, helping, curious and enjoying the class. I prayed for each one of them and then for the class as a whole. I pictured how they interacted. Imagined the excitement in their voices. My class was a very different class from that point forward. I can’t explain how it changed things. I just know it did. At some level, it changed me and I am sure I brought a completely different spirit to the class.
Second, extended prayer. When you slow down to visualize prayer you spend more time praying. A prayer of ”God please heal Margie’s broken hip.” becomes several minutes of picturing Margie standing straight and tall, happy, free of pain, and delightfully mobile. I find myself more engaged and actively concerned for the person when I do this.
Third, a growing ability to focus. Between the fast pace of media, constantly interrupting cell phones, and an incessant habit of multi-tasking, many people are finding themselves having a growing difficult focusing in prayer. If that is you, then you will very likely struggle at first with visualizing your prayers. However, with practice your ability to focus will grow. You will even see an increased focus in your prayers that are not marked by visualization.
Fourth, greater efficacy. Why? How? I don’t know, but prayers that I slow down to actively visualize seem to be more obviously answered. May be I’m just watching with greater frequency because I have a picture in my head that I am waiting to see in reality or may because the intent of my prayer is so much clearer God is more response. I can’t really explain it and you don’t have to take my word for it. Try it for yourself and draw your own conclusion. So far, though greater efficacy seems to go hand-in-hand with visualizing my prayer.
How to Start.
Select something to focus on in prayer. Picture the person or situation you are praying for as it is now as vividly as you can. Start with a mental image and then one by one layer in all of your other senses. Next, picture how things are changing into how you would hope that they would be. Once again, make the picture as complete and concrete as you possibly can. Hold this in image in your mind and lift it up as your prayer to God. It is really that simple and that difficult.
Here is one last thought for you to consider if for some reason you are hesitant to take time to envision your prayers. Many of the revelatory experiences that people have of God in the Bible are dreams and visions. God speaks to people through images that he places in their minds. Doesn’t it just make sense that we might want to communicate back with Him in that same way. God gave us amazing creative minds. Let us use the fullness of our minds to connect with God in prayer.
Tags: prayer
I am striving this year to experience more contentment with less. I want less stress, hurry, scurry, and stuff. I want to make more space for stillness and being present to God. That is taking some reordering of my priorities of time and space. Freezer cooking was one of my first adventures into this. It was quite successful. For the past 12 days or so, I have eaten home cooked left overs and meals for nearly every lunch. I finding that warming something in the kitchen at church and eating it there or at my dest is a much more satisfying experience, than dashing through a drive-thru for a meal that costs me time, money and health. Eliminating déjà vu is another commitment that I have made to open some space for God.
So what do I mean by eliminating déjà vu?
I am horrifically bad about handling things like email, snail mail, and paper over and over again. I skim mail and say, “I’ll deal with that later.” I can find myself reading and rereading emails multiple times, just because I fail to act upon them or purge them immediately. Then one day something snaps. I realize I have something like 2500 emails just hanging out in my inbox and can’t stand it. The result… I spend a marathon session of email purging. It is a rather energy depleting task; particularly, if I find something I really should have acted upon weeks ago. Nevertheless, it must be done, but couldn’t it be done differently. The answer is a resounding, “YES.”
Each email quietly makes a slight demand on me. But let’s face it, there are really only three things you can do with a piece of mail, toss it, refer it, or act on it. I have grown tired of the subtle constant tug of unprocessed mail. I am nowworking very hard at a “handle something only once” policy. It used to be that physical clutter sucked away my energy and attention from God. Now, can you believe it? I have virtual clutter too! Not only am I trying to handling things only once, but I am opting out of email lists to eliminate mail before it is even sent.
I am beginning to feel some effects of the shift. I am having far less, “Haven’t I opened this email before?” moments. Praise God. I think I will praise God now that I have a little bit more time. What about you? Is virtual clutter needlessly draining your time and energy? Do you cling to old email or snail mail only to find yourself handling it multiple times? Join me in eliminating déjà vu, by committing to only handling things once. I am sure you won’t regret it.
Most of us know the story of the prodigal son. A young man, probably full of late adolescent angst or early twenty know-it-all syndrome, tells his daddy. ”I can’t wait until your dead to get my money. Give it to me now.” Forgive me for the tremendous paraphrasing but you get the idea. Dad gives him the money. The young man then heads out on his own. He squanders his money and finds himself yearning to go home. He realizes that even life as a servant at home would be better than the life he has made for himself. When he comes home his dad is exuberantly overjoyed. Dad kills the fatted calf and has a big ol’ party much to his other son’s dismay. The other son feels very slighted. He has stayed at home and been a good obedient son. He feels passed over to say the least. Dad and the good son have a talk and the dad tries to explain his extreme joy.
THE PRODIGAL FATHER
We almost always refer to this as the prodigal son. The word prodigal according to one online dictionary is defined as:
Carry a one dollar bill in your bill fold with a paper clip on it. Pray that God will send you the person that needs this one dollar bill. Then the next time you are approached by someone needing money, trust that this is the person you need to give the bill to and let them have it. I suspect some of you just raised an eyebrow and within you an objection is arising. ”If I give some guy a dollar on the street, how do I know he won’t misuse it for alcohol or drugs?” You don’t.
I had the same objection until one day I was thinking, “If I give a guy a dollar to go get a meal and he then uses it for alcohol, how is that any different than the many times God has given me things, only to see me turn around and abuse the gift. Then it came to me. What I do is different…it is a lot WORSE! I then realized that carrying around my little prayed for dollar was going to be an act of faith and trust every time I gave it away. Giving it away was going to require me to trust my prayer and act in pure grace.
I have truly valued this practice over the years. It humbles me each time I pull that dollar out. I realize how much grace I have received and realize that I struggle to even give someone literally a dollars worth of grace. I encourage you to try it. Even if for just one dollar.
Heifer Int. Cow and Child, Rwanda
I mentioned in a recent post that my daughter, Ruth, is going to be raising money to purchase a cow for a needy family via Heifer Project International as a Lenten project. I am really proud of her for taking on something so ambitious. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, February 17th, but she is already up and running. She actually cleaned someone’s workshop today in exchange for a gift to her project. She has started delivering collection jars to local businesses and she has setup a website called DifferentTomorrowToday.com. Her site is enabled to take credit card and paypal donations. Wow! How inspiring.
Ruth is sixteen and doing this unprompted by anyone. Imagine how different this world would look if we all passionately adopted a single mission like this. I hope her efforts inspire you to make a difference. She will be posting her results regularly to her website if you want to track her progress or are inspired to make a donation you can check it out at DifferentTomorrowToday.com.
Check out my Lenten page if you are looking for ideas. I will be adding more soon. Ruth’s project has inspired me to consider creating some adopt a mission suggestions. One that I am putting together for our church is an “Adopt a Shut-in” project. I explain more about that in a future post. Blessing to you.
p.s. So far Ruth has collected $86.54, including her very first online contribution. She has pledges for significantly more, but I don’t know how much. A cow is going to cost $500. You Go Girl!
Yesterday, I posted an article on saving time and money through freezer cooking. That may seem like a strange post for The Practical Disciple. It’s not like cooking ranks up there with prayer and scripture reading, but good stewardship of time and money does. I am also posting these freezer posts because I find that there is a distinct need to help people with the raw chaotic order of their lives in order to attend to spiritual necessities like spiritual disciplines. All that said, here is a word to those of you yesterday who may have felt a bit left out because 1) you don’t have freezer or 2) You are single or have a small household and casserole cooking just isn’t very realistic.
TO THOSE WITH SMALL FREEZERS
1) Bulk shop for non-perishables. The beauty of freezer cooking is batch producing what you need done so you radically reduce shopping, prepping, clean-up and time spent on decisions around all of those things. You can apply that same spirit to non-perishables and have some of the same benefits.
2) Freezer cook but just on a much smaller scale. Nothing says you have to do a dozen meals at once. Just think of the time you would save if you even just did a double batch of something from time to time. Two days ago, I needed to brown a pound of ground beef. I instead browned two and then packaged and froze one. I won’t need to do it the next time.
3) Focus on soups, stews, and chili. When you place them in a one gallon bag and freeze them flat they take amazingly little space, reheat well, and are healthy.
4) Consider buying a small chest freezer. You can get a decent size one brand new for $150 or less. You can find them for even less in the classified ads. Put the word out that you are looking for one. An older person who is downsizing might give you one for free or very reasonable. If you use it wisely, it will pay for itself easily.
TO SINGLES AND SMALL FAMILIES
1) Consider making a casserole recipe but dividing it into smaller servings, perhaps, even individual servings.
2) Partner up with someone. Considering having a cooking day and sharing a meal once a week or once every couple weeks with someone else. I found in college that sometimes cooking for one is much harder than cooking for four.
I welcome other suggestions. Blessings to you as you strive for greater stewardship and a more peaceful life.
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