Letting God out of the Box

This last week at a children's camp one of our teens shared that our church was truly letting God out of the box. She was right. Our church has become open to God doing what he wants not only in our services but in our lives.

This last Sunday we had some of the teens come up at the beginning of the service and ask if they could lead 2 camp songs in church. The songs were Lean on Me and Amazing Grace to the tune of the Lion Sleeps Tonight. The great thing about the church is that we changed what we were going to do and allowed them to lead these songs and it was an amazing time of praising God.

When you let God out of the box and are okay with God doing His will in your life amazing things can happen. It creates relationships that you never thought would be opened. It causes you to do things you might not normally do, like loving the unloveable. When we start allowing God to open up loving relationships with others it opens the door for us to share Jesus Christ with them.

Most of all when you let God out of the box in your life it causes you to understand that the heart and mission of God is to reach everyone with Jesus Christ. It also helps you understand that God's plan for accomplishing this is each one of us. We are God's plan for reaching everyone with Jesus Christ.



This can only happen if we allow God to be God and don't try to contain Him.

Remember it's not about you!!!!!!!!

"Just a thought"

A New Appreciation for Socks

As you read this I want you to think about how many pairs of socks you own????







A few weeks ago I took a great group of teens to Michigan for a mission trip. We were going up to work at a children's camp. Before we went to the camp we were going to go to downtown Grand Rapids and make breakfast for the homeless. The teens were not sure of this whole event of going to inner city to pass out breakfast. I wanted them to experience and see how other people lived that have a lot less then us.



Things didn't work out for the breakfast but through the help of my oldest son Scott I found out that we could go down and pass out socks to the homeless. I thought socks, really socks, well okay if they need them we can do that. I was down town at a store and went in to buy socks. I could get 6 pairs of socks for a little over $7.00 a bag.



Some of you may have been in different stores and seen the security tags on leather coats or expensive clothing. Well, this store where we went to get socks had put security tags on the packages of socks. We had to wait for them to take the security tags off each bag of socks. It was crazy to think that they had to put security tags on $7.00 bags of socks. I started to get just a glimpse of how valuable and how much people wanted simple socks.



The next day we went down town with my son Scott who has lived just around the corner from where we were going to pass out socks to the homeless. We got a pep talk from him about not letting anyone borrow your cell phone, or give out change, or give out any info about yourself. We then proceeded to a park where we saw some homeless people and we went over to them and started talking to them and they asked us if we were passing out socks. We of course said yes and their faces lit up and people came over to get socks. One lady asked if she could please have more than one pair so she could give a pair to her friend who was not there. It was almost overwhelming to watch people get so excited over getting a pair of socks. When the kids started this journey to the less fortunate they were smiling and kinda excited when they got back in the van to go it was quite a bit quieter.

Maybe none of you have ever gotten socks for Christmas and thought, oh man really socks for a Christmas gift. I even have a drawer just for my socks. Now though I can't open that drawer with out thinking about the people who not only don't have a drawer for their socks, they don't even have the socks.


I know the teens as well as myself got a new appreciation for the value of a pair of socks.

Do you appreciate your socks???

"Just Saying"