Visioneering ch. 18 & conclusion

Yo, yo, and hello everyone! Today I'm going to write the last blog about Visioneering. I have now read the last chapter and the conclusion to the book.
Chapter 18 is called The Leader's Mandate. Apparently sometime after Nehemiah and company had finished rebuilding the wall in Jerusalem Nehemiah had to leave them to go back to his service to the king. During that time the people in Jerusalem fell out off the moral compass. Nehemiah had helped them regain their former glory by rebuilding the wall and helped them get back on track with God by obeying the Sabbeth and so forth. When Nehemiah left, the people went back to treating the Sabbeth day like any other day. When Nehemiah heard about this, he talked to the king about it, and went back their to get the people back on track again. You see, "visions require constant attention". Nehemiah needed to remind them the hights from which they had fallen and help them regain that glory again. They needed bold leadership. That kind of leadership does two things. 1. Bold leadership must be vision based. And 2. Bold action must be carried out against a backdrop of clearly defined beliefs and behaviors.
Lastly from this chapter "Maintaining a vision requires bold leadership".
And in the conclusion Stanley summerizes what he covered throughout the book. Visions are much more than mere imagination. You know full well what is and also a mental picture of what could be and what should be. This will require change. Some people are very much against change. But don't let that stop you, especially if God is the One who birthed this vision in you. Keep pushing forward until you, by God's grace, see that vision (or visions) comes to pass. I'll end this post the way Stanley ends the book, "Pay the price. Embrace the vision. After all, everyone ends up somewhere in life. You have the opportunity to end up somewhere on purpose". Please go out and buy this book. It's great! If you have a vision (and I think we all do!) then you certainly need to read this book.
Thank you all for reading. God bless you all in Jesus' name.
And please be praying for AIMers (those on their mission fields and those in Lubbock) and for my friends Elijah and Kristen (preparing to go to Auckland, New Zealand) and Rob and Denyce Hindman (preparing to go to Moscow, Russia). And lastly, my parents Richard and Teresa Blaisdell are leaving to go to Cameroun, West Africa on Tuesday to teach church leaders there with Jim Corner. Jim has lead mission trips there 3 times a year since 1996. Two of those trips are mission oriented and where you teach people the gospel using a chart from World Bible School. And the thrid trip is a teaching seminar. That's what my Dad and Mom will be doing this time. My grandmother (Meme) is coming over to stay with me. So, I'm certainly not going to starve any. So please be praying for my Dad, Mom, and Jim. They'll be gone for most of Febuary. Thanks! God bless!
Zack

Visioneering ch. 17

Yo, yo, and hello everyone! I hope and pray all of you are having a great day.
I have now read chapter 17 in Visioneering. This chapter is called Maintaining Your Course. Chapter 17 is about finding a set of core beliefs and behaviors and operating by them. If we don't find them and/or operate by them, we will be unblessable. We must make a line in the sand and refuse to step over that line, no matter what happens. And we must decide these as teams so everyone is on board with team and/or bussiness protocall. There must be a boundry. As Jesus said in Matthew 12:25, "Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. Everyone must agree to the agreed upon set of values. "Maintaining a vision requires adherence to a set of core beliefs and behaviors". At several points in the Old Testament God and His people made a covenant together. If both sides held up their end of the bargain there would be blessing. Of course God always held up His. So if the people didn't hold up their end, they would be punished.
We are nearing the end of this book. Tomorrow, Lord-willing, I'll finish blogging about Visioneering and start blogging about 2 other books.
Have a great day everyone. God bless you all in Jesus' name.
Zack

Visioneering ch. 17

Yo, yo, and hello everyone! I hope and pray all of you are having a great day.
I have now read chapter 17 in Visioneering. This chapter is called Maintaining Your Course. Chapter 17 is about finding a set of core beliefs and behaviors and operating by them. If we don't find them and/or operate by them, we will be unblessable. We must make a line in the sand and refuse to step over that line, no matter what happens. And we must decide these as teams so everyone is on board with team and/or bussiness protocall. There must be a boundry. As Jesus said in Matthew 12:25, "Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. Everyone must agree to the agreed upon set of values. "Maintaining a vision requires adherence to a set of core beliefs and behaviors". At several points in the Old Testament God and His people made a covenant together. If both sides held up their end of the bargain there would be blessing. Of course God always held up His. So if the people didn't hold up their end, they would be punished.
We are nearing the end of this book. Tomorrow, Lord-willing, I'll finish blogging about Visioneering and start blogging about 2 other books.
Have a great day everyone. God bless you all in Jesus' name.
Zack

Visioneering chs 15 & 16

Yo, yo, and hello readers! I hope and pray everyone had a great Sunday yesterday and are having a great day today. I appologize for not blogging yesterday. I'm going to blog about chapters 15 and 16 from Visioneering today.
Chapter 15 is called The Inexplicable Life. This chapter pretty much talks about what God is doing through you and your vision. It's not about you or me and our vision(s). It's about God and what He is doing through us. And it's about Him getting the glory and the credit for what has been done. We need to be very careful that we don't sacrifice our families, morality, and faith in accomplishing our visions either. In which case God won't bless us in our endeavors until we come back to Him. He won't bless us if we are "unblessable" when we become "unuseable" as Stanley says. We must be constantly aware of the "divine potential in all yu envision to do".
Chapter 16 is called The End of the Line. "The end of a God-ordained vision is God". When the vision has been completed all people will stand back and proclaim that God was at work there. That is what happened when Nehemiah and company finished rebuilding the wall in Jerusalem and when Peter had a great catch of fish (Luke 5). Everyone will know and be amazed that the Lord was at work there.
Do you know what week this is folks? Super Bowl week! Sunday is the day of the Super Bowl. I'm excited! The Colts are going to win and Peyton Manning will be the MVP. It's going to be a close high-scoring game. I'm going to say Colts 31 Bears 28. Please chim in on who you think is going to win, score, and MVP please.
I'll blog more about the book tomorrow. God bless you all in Jesus name! Peace be with you.
Zack

Visioneering

Yo, yo, and hello everyone! How's it going right now? I hope all is well. Right now the Mavs are playing the Kings. Go Mavs!
I have read the 14th chapter in Visioneering. It is talking about distrations to your visions. There are three things that can distract you from your vision. They are opportunities, criticism, and fear.
Nehemiah and his group had finished building the walls back up, and all they lacked was putting up a gate. But his enemies found out about their successes, and tried to throw them off track. They tried to get Nehemiah to go with them to have a meeting with them. But he wouldn't go. This was an opportunity, but the men were really plotting to kill Nehemiah, so it was obviously good that he didn't go with them. "Good" opportunities can throw us off our visions. We sacrifice our visions for a "good" opportunity. Stay focused on your visions.
The second distraction is criticism. Nehemiah's enemies tried to get him to go with them four times and of course he said no. But on there was a fifth time too, and this time they said that Nehemiah was trying to make a rebellion against the role authorities, which of course wasn't true. They were saying things about him that weren't true. Nehemiah didn't fight back though. He said they were making up stories that they knew weren't true and that was the end of it.
The third distraction is fear. Nehemiah and those with him faced some intense life-threatening situations. Nehemiah's enemies got Shemaiah, a fellow Jew from Jerusalem, to lie to him, telling him someone was out to kill him, and that he should run to the temple and grabe a hold of the alter. But if he had done so, it would be illegel, because only priests can go in there and the only exception is when one man accidently kills another and he can run to refudge there from the family of the dead one, lest they take vengance on him. But Nehemiah saw through the trick and said he would not do it.
We need to look at ourselves and see what "good" opportunities are holding us back from our visions. What criticisms are holding us back. And what fears are holding us back from pursuing our visions. We need to hand them over to God and step out on faith and take hold of the victory in Jesus' name. If God has really given you these visions, He will give you strength to do it.
I guess that is all for today. I'll write again tomorrow. God bless you all in Jesus' name.
Zack

The Dirt on Learning/ Visioneering

Yo, yo, and hello everyone! I hope and pray all of you are having a great day! Well, I have read the last chapter in The Dirt on Learning and the next chapter in Visioneering.
The last chapter in The Dirt on Learning just talked about steps to implement the book's material into your church. Things like getting a group together who share your concern about the church's educuation program, talking to the Education Minister (or Senior Minister, whatever the case may be) about your concern, of course praying about how and when to make changes, and so forth. This is a great book! I highly recomemend it. Learner-based teaching is no dought the most effective teaching method out there.
And in Visioneering, Stanley talks about Moral Authority. This is talking about influence. Everyone has influence for good or bad. If you have a vision to make good changes, then use your influence for good. But he suggests to give up your vision before you give up your moral authority.
I guess that is all for that right now. Tomorrow I'll continue with Visioneering until the end of the month. The Dirt on Learning is over. I'll start reading and writing about two new books at the start of Febuary.
On a different note, the Dallas Mavs got hammered last night by the Chicago Bulls. Oh well. We can't win them all. Look out Sacramento Kings. Here comes the Mavs!
God bless you all in Jesus' name! Adios.
Zack

The Books

Yo, yo, and hello everyone! I hope and pray all is well with all of you.
I have read the next chapter in The Dirt on Learning and the next chapter in Visioneering.
The next chapter in The Dirt on Learning follows the last section of the parable: the good soil that produced a hundred, sixty, and thirty times what was sown. The good soil represents what Jesus is really going for. He isn't interested in merely scattering seeds out there. He's interested in producing crops. He's not interested in temporary seed sprouting. He wants strong, healthy crops. He doesn't want temporary converts that will fall away. He wants those who actively, and genuenly understand; and who have counted the cost of discipleship. To do all this, we need to take active steps to ensure that our teaching is learner-based. This means thinking outside the box in most cases. We need to take active steps for taking care of the fields to make sure they are able to yeild good crops. We need to take active steps to make sure we're doing the best job we can in teaching in ways that are learner-based.
Now on to Visioneering. The next chapter in this book is called Alignment. This is saying we need to stay focused on the vision that the team has set. Everyone needs to be in "alignment". Everyone needs to stay focused even in the mundane jobs we may be doing before we can act on the vision and in the day to day jobs we do for the vision. We need to set aside a time to make sure everyone is ok and still focused on the vision. "Visions thrive in an enviornment of unity; they die in an enviornment of division". If there's any division amoungst the team, the problem must be fixed, or the team and the vision will be destroyed. We must stay focused and take action to ensure everyone is still on the same page of vision.
On a more personal note, I have a lot of friends who are married and are having children of their own now. My church's knew Outreach minister and his wife just had a baby girl just a few days ago I believe. Two of my sister's friends have had baby boys. And some of my sister's, brother-in-law's, and my friends have had children. There is a lot of excitment and joy in the air! Thank you all for reading my Ebook. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack
ps. The Dallas Mavricks are on a roll! We've won 7 or 8 in a row now. We just defeated the Orlando Magic and face the Chicago Bulls tonight and play the Sacromento Kings over the weekend. Go Mavs!

The Books

Yo, yo, and hello everyone! I hope and pray all is well with all of you.
I have read the next chapter in The Dirt on Learning and in Visioneering. Chapter nine in The Dirt on Learning is called From Drudgery to Delight. It is about making learning fun! The authors write Bible school ciriculum for Group Publishing and they include a lot of fun little gizmos to enhance learning. Jesus certainly brought delight to the learning process for His disciples. I think we can make learning fun today in the Church.
And the next chapter in Visioneering is called Warding off Criticism. It talks about what to do when we receieve criticism for our visions. The vision you have will most likely bring about change and those changes are going to be hard for people to accept. No one likes change who likes things the way they are. And there a lot of gaps too. For example, when Nehemiah envisioned Jerusalem as a walled-city there was no telling how long the walls there had been broken down, and all the people there had grown used to it being that way. There were several people (rulers from the surrounding areas) who were greatly opposed to the changes. But Nehemiah prayed about it, and decided to go along with the proposed changes and rebuild the walls. We need to think about the criticisms, pray about them, and look honestly at our selves. If we need to change our visions in some way, do it to bring about the best change possible. We must not confuse our plans with God's vision. Remember, "a vision is what could and should be. A plan is a guess as to the bes way to accomplish the vision". Also, "visions are refined- they don't change; plans are revised- they rerely stay the same". And "respond to criticism with prayer, rememberance, and if necessary, a revision of the plan".
I believe planting churches somewhere here in the US (Northeast perhaps?) is what God wants me to do write now. I'm hoping and praying to be able to come back to the South and be an Outreach Minister and/or a Spiritual Development Minister. What are some of your visions for the future? Comments please.
God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack
ps. This is Wenesday, so please pray for the AIM students today, and for Elijah and Kristan Peters (preparing to go to Auckland, NZ) and Rob and Denyce Hindman (preparing to go to Moscow, Russia) to be missionaries. Thank you all and God bless!

Lot's of catching up to do:)

Yo, yo, and hello everyone! Once again I apologize for the extended time between blogs. I watched the movie Shallow Hal last night. I didn't know it would last as long as it did (there were lots of comericals). I had decided to write my blog after watching the movie, but was too tired. So, I went to bed. But now I'm here and ready to write. I have read two chapters in The Dirt on Learning and 2 chapters in Visioneering to make up for lost time. So, here it goes.
Before chapters seven and eight in The Dirt on Learning, we see the next phase of the Parable of the Sower. That is the weeds that grow up with the plants that choke and kill the plants so they don't bare any fruit. Chapter seven worns against the danger of competition, rewards, and bribes. What's the point really in competition that pits teams against teams? It creates rivalrey. It creates an us-against-them mentality. Things like that are asking for trouble. Rewards and bribes can't be good either. It fosters a do-this-and-get-that focus to all of us. The only reason they will do the "this" is to get the "that". The authors propose that if we do competition that it is understood that having fun is the name of the game. That if we do rewards that everyone understands what the real goal and mentality really is supposed to be. In chapter eight they look at intrinsic motivation instead of extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is what rewards and bribes are. If we constantly offer rewards and bribes for filling out lesson sheats during Bible class or sermon time, or coming to Bible class, or whatever then getting the reward is the only goal for the children, most likely. Intrinsic motivation is when learning is fun and the kids are there because they geniuenly want to be there and learn. They want to learn because it's fun. They find something they like and are interested in, and they keep at it and really want to learn it.
Now on to Visioneering. Yesterday and today I read chapters nine and ten. Chapter nine is about The Power of Vision. This chapter tells about our own personal influence on other people and what they will do in life. When we recognize something in someone and we tell them, "Your really good at that! Your going to do great things in life with that gift." that is casting a vision for their life. It works in both positive and negative ways. If you tell someone "I think you'll do great at that in life", that's a positive way. But if we say "I don't think your cut out for that" that is a negative vision. Some great Bible examples would be when God changed Abram's name to Abraham and Sarai's name to Sarah in Genesis 17; and Jesus changing Simon's name to Peter in Matthew 16. No dought each of them thought back to those moments alot over their lives over the years after those moments. Parents have the greatest influence over their children in casting visions for their lives. And leaders as well have great influence over their followers as well. Now on to chapter ten. When we are ready to step out to take on the vision we have from God, we must be willing and ready to make sacrifes. There will always be an eliment of the unknown when stepping out on our vision, but we need to have the faith to do it. There will always be a chance that nothing is going to work out. We need to look into our hearts and see if it's worth the risk or not. Again, in that area we need to have faith that things are going to work out no matter what. When we step out on faith on behalf of our vision, we to make financial sacrifies for that vision. And we can't ask anyone else to make any more of a sacrifice that we our selves have made. When we do these things, we are well on our way.
I guess that is all for today on the books. I'll post more tomorrow. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack
ps. I'm hoping and praying to get involved in church-planting mission work here in the US after Sunset for a number of years. After serving on the mission field I hope to return to the South and be on a church staff as an Outreach and/or Spiritual Development minister. What are some of your visions for your life? Comments please. God bless!

Payton exercises Patriot demons!

Yo, yo, and hello readers! Sorry I haven't read the books yet. I'll post about them tomorrow.
For now, let's just say... How about those Colts!!!!!!! The Bears vs. the Colts for the Super Bowl. I'm pulling for the Colts. Your thoughts.
God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack

Dirk for MVP

Y0, yo, and hello everyone! I hope everyone is having a great day today.
I was reading out of the One year NIV study Bible (study notes by LaGard Smith) today about Joseph and the Pharoah put Joseph in charge of gathering food during the 7 years of plenty in preparation for the 7 years of famine. During the famine years everyone had to go to Egypt to get food. And Joseph's brother (the ones who sold him into slavery) went to get food. That is very forshadowing, is it not? They go to get food. Joseph immediatly recognizes them, but the brothers don't recognize him. They bow down to him, just like Joseph dreamed they would back in his youth (which the brothers obviously didn't appreciate). I found that very interesting.
What about you? Your thoughts.
The Mavs beat the Lakers last night! Yahoo! Dirk for MVP baby! Nash is having his best year ever right now for the Suns, but hay you gotta give it to Dirk this year. I think so anyway. Your thoughts.
I hope and pray all is well with all of you! God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack
ps. Back to the books tomorrow. Take care y'all! God bless! Peace out!

The Dirt on Learning

Yo, yo, and hello everyone! It's cold here in the Dallas area. I hope you are warm wherever you are right now.
I tried blogging a few minutes ago, and it didn't go through and lost all the post! So, I'm going to give a baisc over view here. Ok. Here it goes- again! The sixth chapter in the book is called Families: Where Roots Go Deep. Pretty much it is saying that the family is the primary provider of Christian Education and to many families are passing that reponsibility squarly on the church. The church has done a noble job of carrying the torch here, but it is time that churches partner with families in this great endeavor. Churches can encourage families to eat together at least once a day and provide discussion questions for them to talk about around the dinner table. And churches can encourage parents to just "be" with their kids instead of pressuring parents to always have an plan all the time.
Parents need to always be aware of "teachable moments". When families are watching TV together and some one on a TV show says a cuss word parents can say, "we don't use that word". Or if there's a violent exchange on a show, parents can say, "we don't behave like that, we talk about it". And so forth.
There's so much more in this chapter, but I'm bummed out about the computer losing my blog earlier, so please go out and buy this book. It's a great read.
God bless you all in Jesus' name! Peace be with you all!
Zack
Ps. I'm pulling for the Saints and the Colts to win on Sunday and make it to the Super Bowl. And the Colts to win the Super Bowl. Comments please. God bless!Peace out.

Visioneering

Yo, yo, and hello! I hope and pray everyone had a great weekend and a great MLK day.
I apologize for not blogging the past few days. No excuses. I'll do better in the future.
I've read chapters 7 & 8 in Visioneering. Chapter Seven is Going Public: Part One, and Chapter Eight is Going Public: Part Two. These two chapters are pretty much talking preparing your self with all the details of the vision you feel is from God. There are four components to an effective vision. These are from Nehemiah 2:17-18a, which says, "Then I said to them, 'You see the bad situation we are in, that Jerusalem is desolate and its gates burned by fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer be a reproach'. And I told them the hand of my God had been favorable to me, and also about the king's words which he had spoken to me".
These four imporant components are: 1.The Problem. 2. The Solution. 3. The reason something must be done. 4. The reason something must be done now. Chapter Seven talks about 1 and 2. Chapter Eight talks about 3 and 4.
The seventh building block is Communicate Your Vision As A Solution To A Problem That Must Be Addressed Imediately. To be able to talk about your vision you must clearly address the problem. Then you must address a solution to that problem. Then talk about why something must be done. And lastly discuss why this must be acomplished now. If you don't have these four things nailed down, you aren't ready to talk about your vision. We will now talk about each one individually.
The problem facing the people of Jerusalem was obvious. The walls had been broken down. But Nehemiah clearly addressed that obvious problem as he began his speech, "You see the bad situation we are in, that Jerusalem is desolate and it's gates burned down by fire" (v. 17a).
There's no telling how long Jerusalem had been like that, so obviously the people there had become acostumed to it. They may have thought that it would get done at some point, but clearly it never did. And clearly the problem was reduced to just being the way it is. It took an outsider to come in and wake them up. "Nehemiah's words were a wake-up call. In essence he was saying, 'Open your eyes! Things are bad! We're in trouble!'. His fresh set of eyes brought a new perspective. And without much prodding the people of Jerusalem took a fresh look at their situation. In that moment they were able to see their city through Nehemiah's eyes. And once that happened, they caught his vision". To be able to do that we must investigate what the problem is, and be able to tell what your vision has the potential to do to solve the problem.
Next is the solution. The people could clearly see the problem. Now, Nehemiah proposes the solution, "Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem". The solution, as well as the problem, are clear. It just took someone to motivate them to do it. Nehemiah cast his vision: Jerusalem as a walled-city. "A vision is always a solution to a problem. It addresses a felt or percieved need". If you can't state your vision clearly you aren't ready to talk about it yet. Nehemiah imagined what Jerusalem would be like as a walled-city. Are you gripped by an imagination of what could and should be for your situation? If so, your ready to cast your vision.
Now, let's move on to Chapter Eight which talks about 3 and 4. Next is The Reason. Just because Jerusalem's walls were broken down doesn't mean they should be rebuilt. The people there clearly grew accostumed to it. Nehemiah's pointing out the problem wasn't enough. The people there needed the encouragement to step up and do something about it. They needed some one to say, "Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer be a reproach" (2:17b). This clearly hit there pride. They had become a disgrace to themselves, to other nations, and to God. They needed to restore their own dignity to themselves and to their city.
Another question that needs to be addressed is, What difference will it make" What do you have to gain and lose? What will it mean if your successful? What will it mean if your not? And "Why should I appempt this?"This should be asked over and over again. It will force you to make your thoughts about your goals concreat. It will make you focus on your values.
And lastly, The Timing. "Why should the vision be cast now, as apposed to later? What's the rush? What's the urgency?" When Nehemiah was delivering his speech, you sense a heckler there saying, "Hay, what's the hurry? Why the rush? It will get done eventually". The answer to that is found in 2:18a (be carful, it's suttle), "And I told them how the hand of my God had been favorable to me, and about the king's words which he had spoken to me". Did you catch it? He said that he based it all on God's soverign working in his circumstances. God was with him all the way to get him to this point. Nehemiah didnt' point to the broken-down walls as to why to rebuild, but to God's soverignity in His working in Nehemiah's circumstances is the reason it must be done now. We must wait for God to work in our lives and circumstances too.
The eighth building block is Cast Your Vision To The Appropriate People At The Appropriate Time. The fact that something must be done is not enough. We must know why it must be done now. People will give what they can afford to for a needy couse. They will give their lives and hearts to something they see God working in. "Before you cast your vision, you must be able to answer, 'Why now? Why should we throw our time and energy into this project now?"
If this is a God-given vision there will be an urgency to point to, something that will be apparent to people that this a God-given vision and not just your personal vision.
Lastly, we must be able to answer those four things to be able to cast your vision. When you can then you can say, "Arise, let us rebuild".
Thank you all for reading my Ebook. God bless your day and everyday. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack
ps. Please be praying for the AIMers on the field and in Lubbock. And for my friends Elijah and Kristan (preparing to go to New Zealand) and for Rob and Denyce (preparing to go to Russia). Thank you all! God bless!

Visioneering/ Dirt on Learning

Yo, yo, and hello everyone! I hope and pray all of you are having a great day today.
I have read chapter 6 in the book Visioneering. This chapter is Taking Inventory. In the last chapter Nehemiah was granted promission to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls. He is given letters of permission from the king noteing that he has permission to pass freely and to obtain lumber and other needed working material.
In this new chapter we see that Nehemiah actually didn't tell a soul about his vision when he got there. Instead he surveys the area and sizes every thing up. He needed to know what he and his troup were up against. This brings up the sixth building block: Walk Before You Talk; Investigate Before You Initiate. Before we can go out on behalf of our vision, we need to "count the cost" (see Luke 14:28). We need to get the cold hard facts before we launch out. If we don't do that, we're looking for trouble.
As Stanley says, "Investigation will accomplish at least one of three things. It will confirm the divine origin of your vision, give it futher definition and focus, or tip you off that you were mistaken about the vision altogether".
In talking about Confirming our Vision, Stanley looks at Joshua who (along with Moses) sent out men to spy out the land of Canaan. Those men were very intimidated by what they saw there that they abandoned the vision to conquer the land. But eventually (in the book of Joshua) they do conquer the land there (see Josh. 2:24ff).
In the Vision Defined part he looks deeper into Nehemiah. I guess he orginally wanted to rebuild the walls to their original hight, but when he got there and saw it, he decided to scale it down a little bit. If he had decided to rebuild it all the way to where it was, it would have been a daunting task.
And lastly Vision Aborted. No Bible examples here.
Then I read the fifth chapter in The Dirt on Learning, which is about Emotion: The Glue of Learning and Retention. This chapter opens up with a man who taught his Children's Sunday School Bible Class on Jesus calming the storm from Matthew 8:25ff. He used duct tape to outline a boat in the classroom and put some blue out lining around it to indicate water. During the class, he lifted each one into the boat and sat down in a chair and taught the class. One of the boys "fell out" of the boat and he saved him. This story really hit home for those kids. Emotion is a big sign for learning. Jesus knew this well. In this story in Matthew, it must have really hit home for them too. And there are lots of other stories Jesus told to evoke emotion too (ie. deamon possesed man and suicidal pips in Matthew 8:28-34; the sadness of the rich young ruler in Matt. 19:16-22; and so forth).
Of course not all emotions are good. It's never good to envoke fear into your learners by threatening them. Also, discipline will have negative effects on the child(ren).
(And as far as discipline is concerned, the real problem there is the child is bord with the curriculum be used. That means we need to have interactive learning. )
Emotions, when used constructivly, are great learning tools. Make the Bible stories you study come alive. The Hands-On- Bible- Curriculam produced by Group are great at that! We need to" make learning emotive" as the authors say in Dirt.
And lastly, they suggest we need to use "empathy factors". They use a great teaching activity here. Deviding the class into two groups. One group gets a candle. The other group lines up into two rows. The candle group has to go through the second group while the second group tries to blow out the carrier's light. (I hope that made sense!) This will provoke lots of responses. Trying to keep your Christian light burning while your friends burn your's out. But in the game, some one was always there to light it again. Very cool stuff.
I guess that is all for today. God bless you all in Jesus' name! Until next time-
Zack
ps. The Mavs won tonight! Wow! What a game that was! Go Mavs!

back to the books

Yo, yo, and hello! I hope and pray everyone is having a great day today. After thinking about stopping writing about books, I've changed my mind, again. Sorry (lol!).
I've read chapter four in The Dirt on Learning now. This chapter (and the next two as well) will focus on the seed that falls on rocky ground. On this soil, the seeds sprout and you can see little heads pop up above the ground, and they produce a crop. But, after a while, the sun gets so hot that it burns the plant to death, because the plant's roots can't go down deap into the soil for nurishment (spelling error?). So, this chapter is about short-term and long-term memory. Short-term memory is kindof a promblem posed by churches who give out rewards for memorizing scriptures. Now, memorizing scriptures is very important, but more than likely the kids just go from one memory verse to the next without going back to review any of the ones previeously learned. And thus whatever was learned in the past is now forgotten. Likewise we shouldn't be naive when we see people show initial (spelling error?) interest in the gospel and Christianity. If we don't do some follow up work with this individual, then the interest will soon fade away. And we shouldn't get so excited about winning converts either. We need to follow up on them. Nurture them. Help them grow. Problems are going to come into their lives, and if we haven't helped them grow in their interest and nurture them in their knew found faith, those problems will due them in and we'll loose them. We can't be satified with sprouts.
One thing that can certainly help us retain people is tie in heavenly truths with things are people will understand. Jesus was the Master at this. For example, He says "you are the salt of the earth" (Matt. 5:13a). "You are the light of the world" (Matt. 5:14a). And "For where you'r treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matt. 6:21), just to name a few. He knew what people would remember, and He tied eternal truths with things they knew about.
We need to develop in story telling. Another thing Jesus was masterful at, telling His parables.
The Schultzs tell of Rene Schlaepher, a California pastor, who told of filmmakers' story telling secrets in a ministry related magazine. These are ways people learn:
"Simplicity: Don't complicate. Be able to describe your story in one line.
Suspense: It's wondering- what's- going- to happen- in- the- end that pulls people through a story. Shared Emotion: When you tap people's emotions, you lock them into the story.
Surprising Start and Sudden Stop: Great movies bring you into the action before you know what's going on. And they end with a quick punch."
The Prodical Son story Jesus told in Luke 15 is a perfect illustration of all of these.
The Schulzs also advise teaching in, what they call, Interval Reinforcements. That means not going over brand new material all the time. We need to pick out some major points and reinforce them every so often. If we plant seeds and never water them, they'll never grow. Too much water will kill them off as well. They're research shows that if we go over material just once 10 percent will be remembered in 3o days. If there are six exposures to the same material in 30 days 90 percent of it is remembered. Those percentages are mind boggeling.
They advize the following: Review main points frequently within each lesson or learning time.
Address the point multiple times, using different approaches that appeal to different learning styles. Reinforce the key points at the conclusion of the lesson. Review main points at the start of the next lesson. Once a month, review all key points from the previous thirty days. Allocate an entire session once a month to reinforce key points. Set aside a session every six months to review all key points from the six months prior to that. Take a few key concepts and emphasize them for a year rather than tackling a new concept, verse, or story each week. And supply high quality materials for families to use during the week to review and reinforce the lesson points introduced at church (we'll talk about this more on chapter 6).
They also suggest taking a break every now and then during class. After every section of the class, take a short break to stretch and move around to let it all sink in and move on to a different part of the class. Also, they suggest use music to help students' memory. Music certainly helps people memorize things. That is all for that chapter.
I also read chapter five in Visioneering. It is about Faith the Essential Ingrediante. We must depend on God to bring about our vision and keep on depending on Him to keep us there. We must never think that God got us where we want to be, now we must work harder to stay there. No! Only God could get us there, and only God can keep us there. That was the basic jist of it.
Please, got out and get these books and read them.
Guess that's all for now. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack

new format

Yo, yo, and hello to everyone! I hope and pray all is well! I need to apologize for not writing a blog in the past few days. No excuses. Sorry.
I've been thinking (which is kinda dangerous for me- lol!). I think I'm going to stop writing about the books I'm reading. Don't know what to write about then. I'll just try to be more creative.
So here it goes. Today is Wendsday. As many of you know I went through the AIM program in 2002. AIM stands for Adventures in Missions. It is an 8 month training program at Sunset Church of Christ in Lubbock, TX. This is the same church that runs Sunset International Bible Institute where I hope and pray to go to in 2008. You go to school for 8 months there and then you go to a mission field under the supervision of a missionary. AIM is served by a director, an AIM staff director and a number of AIM assistances. The AIM assistances were them selves AIMers who went through the program and served on the mission field. They are role models for the current AIMers in Lubbock and help them prepare themselves for their own time on the field. During your AIM time in Lubbock you will participate in Area Church too. Area Church is where the AIM director puts the AIMers into groups and they go with two AIM assistances to a church in Lubbock or in the surrounding area of Lubbock on Sundays. The places I went, we helped teach Bible classes, did service projects, had devotionals with the youth group, helped lead worship services, and any number of things. AIM also takes a lot of trips as well to visit supporting churches and other churches interested in knowing more about AIM. For example, an anual trip is taken to Paducah, KY to work with the Loneoke (I'm sure I misspelled that) Church of Christ there. This church is a supporting church for the AIM director and his family. Another annual trip is taken to Paris, TX to work with the Lamar Avenue Church of Christ. This church is also a long time supporter of the AIM program. And they support the AIM staff director too I believe. And they will visit a few more depending on travel schedualing and what not.
On Wendsdays the AIMers get together and read notes from AIMers on the mission field. The AIM director reads their letters and then they pray for all of them and all the other AIMers on the field. It is a regular activity for those at Sunset to pray for the AIM students on Wendsdays. All AIMers make a covenant with each other to pray for each other and for current and future AIM students. So, please offer up a prayer for the AIMers on their respective mission fields and for the current AIMers as well today. And do so regularly, especially on Wendsdays.
And please pray for Elijah and Kristan Peters (preparing to go to Auckland, New Zealand) and for Rob and Denyce Hindman (preparing to go to Moscow, Russia). Both of these couples are great friends of mine and both are preparing to be missionaries on their respective mission fields. Thank you all!
On a closing note, I hope everyone is having a great New Year! And hope that everyone is making some New Year's resolutions to make some positive changes in their lives and especially some positive changes as regards in your relationships with family, friends, and most importantly with God. I know I need to do that.
God bless you in Jesus' name! Talk more tomorrow.
Zack
"... The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field." Matthew 9:37-38

Visioneering

Yo, yo, and hello everyone! I hope and pray everyone is having a great day today.
I have read the fourth chapter in Visioneering. It is about The God of How. At the start of this chapter Stanley talks about Chris, a guy who was in his Youth Group. He was a High School senior in Atlanta. He had a vision to share the gospel of Christ to every student at that school. Naturally he shared this with his Youth Minister (Stanley). They discussed several different things they could do, including writing everyone a note and sticking it in their lockers, or mailing them out, or any number of things. But none of them seemed right. So he decided to affect as many of his fellow students as he could. And that's what he did. He talked to everyone he could. And then there was Mark, a guy who transfered to his school from Miami. This guy hated the school, everyone, everything. After just a few minutes around him and you could tell why no one wanted to be around or talk to him. Everyone, that is except Chris. He introduced himself and showed him around the school. He even invited him to spend the night with him one weekend. It was then Mark talked with Chris about what was going on in his life. He told Chris about his drug addictions, how he was living with his mom, how she packed him up and sent him to Atlanta to live with his Dad, and other stuff. Then Chris told Mark about Jesus and Mark accepted Jesus him into his heart and quite drugs.
Chris graduated with out seeing his vision come true. Mark was still attending the school. Some time during Mark's senior year the school had a drugs awareness day before Spring Break. The school's officials knew Mark had been on drugs and had a radical turn-around in life. So they invited him to share his store after the keynote speaker. When his time came up, he told his fellow students about Chris meeting and befriending him and telling him about faith in Christ.
And that was it, everyone at the school had heard about Christ.
This store illustrates the principle: what always comes before how. We will know what God wants us to do before we will know how it will come about. We will know what long before how.
This is certainly Nehemiah's situation. He knew what God wanted him to do long before how God was going to do it. For four months nothing happened. Nothing seemed to be on the horizan either. But God had a plan. He was setting everything into action. Nehemiah talked to the king and he let him go.
We must remember a devine vision needs devine intervention. That brings us to the fith building block: What God originates, He orchestrates. How is never a problem for God. It is certanily a problem for us, but never for God.
We need to differentiate between good ideas and God ideas. If we try to act out on good ideas we have to depend on ourselves. We are limited and so are our resources. But if we depend on God to accomplish His ideas, we depend on One who has unlimited resources. We must always stay focused on the vision, not on how to get it done. God will help us get there. In the mean time we must prepare ourselves and be ready to act when the time comes.
How is God's specialty. He knows how to reach your unconverted spouse or child. He knows how to protect them when they're away. He knows how to help you get where you want to be and any number of things.
We can be preoccupied with the "how?" question, but we must focus on Phillipians4:13,"I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength". This verse says He will help us accomplish that which He wants us to do for Him.
We must wait for the right time to act on what He wills for us to do. We must stay in Him and rely on Him. In John 15:5 Jesus says, "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing".
This is a God thing! He doesn't need to depend on us, we need to depend on Him. We are players on His team.
God wants us to depend on Him to answer the "how?" questions.
There are along of things I want to accomplish in life. I need to depend on Him to answer my "how?" questions.
I guess that's all for now. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack

The Dirt on Learning

Yo, yo, and hello everyone! I hope and pray all of you are having a great day today! Before I get into the book, my parents, sisters, brother-in-law and I saw a sneak preview for the movie Three last night. It was GREAT!!! I understand that it opens today in theaters. Please go see it. The movie is based on Ted Dekker's book by the same title: Three. Very good! Lots of Christian overtons in it.
Now, on to The Dirt on Learning. I read the third chapter yesterday. This chapter is about the learner-based approach. This approach is a major shift for most of us I would imagine. The learner-based approach that learning is more important then teaching. Notice that teaching is important, but learning is more so. Just like a farmer can sow all the seeds he wants, but if the seeds don't get in the soil and produce a croup it doesn't really matter how much seeds get out there. It is the same with teaching God's Word. It doesn't matter how many people are out there spreading His Word and it doesn't matter how many people hear the Word. All that matters is how many convert and become faithful Christians.
The goal for Christian education is that God's Word is learned. For that to truely happen we must adopt a learner-based approach to Christian Education. First of all, what do we mean by the term "learner-based"? "It's an approach with a clear goal: that learners understand, retain, and apply their learning. "The focus is on the learner, not the teacher. It's success is based not on how eloquently the sower casts seeds, but on whether the seeds take root and bear fruit. This shift of perspective is an enormous change for most churches. But the results are stunning, 'yeilding a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown' (Matt. 13:23b)".
Here are some of the characteristics of the learner-based approach.
1. Learners are distinct and unique. No two finger prints are alike. No two people are alike. No two people learne alike. Learning styles are different. Some are auditory. Some like to feel and touch, and so forth. The learner-based approach accomadates all learning styles.
2. What works for the learners is far more important that what's most comfortable for the teacher or leader.
3. Learners help guide the learning process. The learners are allowed and encouraged 'to make choices, follow their own curiousity, and explore what interests them. They're encouraged to make learning relevent to their own lives".
4. Learning occurs best when learners enjoy the process. The students will learn and retain more material when the process brings them joy and excitment, when they are encouraged to build friendships and interaction.
5. Education is evaluated on what learners understand, retain, and apply; not merely by what is taught. Learning is far more effective when it is fun and interactive for the learners, and when it brings on the desire to learn more.
The learner-based approach seeks to bring real life relevance of the subject matter to the students. "When we allow learners to help guide the learning process, they find avenues of relevance, ways to tie the Bible to their own lives".
So, how do we become more learner-based? First of all, we need to get away from our teaching inclinations. Most of us teach in the ways we were taught when we were that age.We need to lable all of that for what it is: teacher-based inclinations. We need to figure out how students learn best. Leonard Sweet says that older generations liked TV shows like Bananza. It is a "linear" show for "linear" thinkers. It has a consecutive story line. The show starts with a certain situation, then builds on it sence by sence until it reaches a conclusion. Younger generations like shows such as ER. It is characterized as "loopy". It loops in and out of different story lines. It is layer upon layer. That is the way most people of younger generations think. That is also the way the internet works. So, here is the obvious question, how does the church "organize for learning"? We must start by recognzing that all learners are different and that we all learn in different ways. We all have different learning styles.
The authors work for Group Publishing. They have developed Christian Education materials for all age levels that is Bible- based, hands-on, and inovative. "All of these materials use an active, experiential approach- people learning by doing. It's a learner-based technique Jesus used" as the authors say. A perfect example is Jesus washing the disciples' feet in John 13. They felt Him wash their feet, they heard Him speak to each of them, they watched Him do all of these things. This act encompassed all learning styles.
This is also called interactive learning. "This is student-to-student talk". "... people learn and retain more when they get to talk". Now this doesn't mean students only talking to the teacher. It means students talking to each other one on one or in groups. Good questions might be, "Why do you suppose Peter denied Jesus" or "What are some ways we deny Jesus in our own lives" instead of "What three ways did Peter deny Jesus".
Their reserach shows that interactive learning results in deeper learning.
How do we create a learner-based enviornment? A great example is shared in the book (infact all of the examples are great and are in the book- so please go get a copy of it and read it). A director for the VBS at a church took out all of the tables in the classrooms where VBS classes were to be held. An impreticular lady leading a crafts exercise wanted the tables in there. The director convinced her to just take a chair for herself in and allow the kids to use the whole floor. It worked out fabulously! She said that the kids loved having the whole floor to work with. Everything worked out great!
How do we organize students into groups for learning? The authors suggest grouping a few from each age group into groups. Here are four reasons. 1.It enhances learning. Everyone can move at their own pace. There's no peer presure to hurry up. The older kids can help teach the younger ones, which gives them a chance to teach.
The second reason is everyone cooperates. The children really help eachother out and it helps their cooperation skills. The older ones help the younger ones. And the younger ones look up to them.
The third reason is flexibility. If you only have a hand full of one grade level just mix them in with some of the older kids. Or if you have a large group of grade levels, just mix them all up. This helps because it seperates those who cause trouble together.
And forthly it helps with discipline. Mixed age groups brings positive peer presure to behave. The older children don't want to act uncool around the little ones, and the little ones don't want to act immature around the big kids. So, it helps all around.
This is a really good book. I highly recommend it. I hope and pray to become a missionary after attending SIBI and after a number of years on the mission field come back to Texas or elsewhere in the South as a Christian Education minister, or Discipleship minister, or Outreach minister or a combination of two of those three someday. Maybe that will work out, or maybe not. We'll see.
Thank you for reading my E-book. I hope and pray all of you have a great day. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack
ps. Go Mavs! We won again last night! Twelve in a row. Tonight is against the Spurs. It's going to be tough, but I think we can win. And the NFL playoffs start tomorrow. Cool stuff! God bless!

Visioneering

Yo, yo, and hello everyone! How is everyone doing today? I hope and pray all is well out there.
I read the next chapter in Visioneering yesterday. Before I get in the third chapter of the book, I didn't tell y'all the third building block Stanley gave in the last chapter. And that is pray for opportunites to come your way and perpare like you believe God will answer those prayers.
Now, on to chapter three. He opens up the chapter with the fact that our visions are going to seem crazy to people. If your vision is a God-given vision then it's going to seem outragous. People are going to say, "you can't do that" or "that will never happen" and so forth. Perhaps that's why Nehemiah waited so long to talk to the king. He was a slave, working for the king of Persia. The king's predecessors were the ones who tore down the Jerusalem walls to begin with. Nehemiah couldn't escape and there was no way anyone was going to sit by idolly while the walls were rebuildt. Him thinking about this seems crazy. And that's the same with some our own visions. It can be overwhelming to look at our circumstances that are far removed from where we want to be. This is true. God-given visions are hard to do. But that's where God wants us to be. He will give you the strength and wisdom to accomplish what He wants you to do. You might feel uneasy about it, but yet feel that this is what you were made to do. If that describes any of us, then we're about to have a breakthrough.
But God had Nehemiah where he was for a reason. For some time God was preparing the way for Nehemiah to be where he was then. Nehemiah was in a special place. He was cupbearer for the king. No one had a more special relationship with the king then he did. He was no dought a trusted servant to the king, he had to protect the king from poisen and what not. God was behind the sences working it out for Nehemiah to talk to the king. Everything was perfactly positioned. That brings us to the forth building block: God is useing your circumstances to prepare you to accomplish His vision for your life.
This is what God wants to do in all of our lives, to get us to a point where we are perfectly positioned to accomplish His will for our lives. It might not feel like at the moment, but years down the line we can look back and see God was at work then to help us be ready for the present time. God has promised to work all things for the good of those who are called according to His purposes (Rom. 8:28). God is working in your present circumstances to prepare you to accomplish His vision for your life, as Stanley says.
One of the problems of success is confusing success with the rewards of success. The rewards of success for a sports team is winning the national championship and all the accolades that go with it. But the success really started long before that. It started when the players where recruited and signed and a winning aditude was instilled in them to be a true team. We need to keep that in mind all the time.
We also need to celebrate little successes. Every win that a team wins should be celebrated and when they win the last game, the championship game, then you have come to the reward of your successes along the way. But in the mean time, we must wait to accomplish our God-given vision. That time may be frustrating, painful, and maybe even waistful at times. But we need to trust God to bring us through to where we want to be. He is in control and He knows what is best. So we must wait. We must surrender to His control. He is using our present circumstances to bring us right where He wants us to accomplish His vision for our lives.
Please go out and buy this book and read it along with me. It has already blessed my life very much. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack.
Ps. Please pray for the AIM students today. And for Elijah and Kristan (preparing to go to Auckland, New Zealand), and for Rob and Denyce (preparing to go to Moscow,Russia). And I haven't recieved any word on there condition at this moment. Please continue to pray for them in an extra special way. They must really be hurting right now. Thank you all very much. God bless you all.

The Dirt on Learning

Yo, yo, and hello everyone! Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great New Year yesterday. I sure did. May God bless us all with a great 2007.
I read the second chapter in The Dirt on Learning yesterday. This chapter starts off the first part in Jesus' Parable of the Sower. This is the part where Jesus talks about the sower tossing his seeds out and some of them fall in rocky soil. This soil was once very fertile. But over time it had been walked on so much that it got hard. And it got harder and harder as time went on. So now it won't do anything. If you try and plant seeds in it, all it will do is lay there until birds come and eat it. Jesus uses this as an analogy for understanding. If we're teaching people and they don't understand what we're talking about and we don't explain it, then it's like planting seeds on rocky soil. Soon the devil will take away the memory of those words just like birds come and eat seeds on the rocky soil. Seeds that fall on rocky soil is reduced to mere bird feed. Let's don't let that happen to our teaching. We need to use easy to understand language. Sometimes we use "churchy words" that some people don't know what we're talking about. So, let's use language that better to understand or at least explain what those words mean. This is a really good book y'all! Please go out and get it. This book will help us better understand teaching.
Did any of you see the Boise State/ Oklahoma game last night? What a great game! I was for OU so I was disappointed they lost, but give Boise their due. They played great! Unbelievable game!
That's all for today. God bless you in Jesus' name!
Zack
ps. Please pray for my cousin-in-law Jay Bradley. He is in the US army. He's been to Iraq 2 times already and he is preparing to go back there later this month. He is currently in Fort Riley, KS training. He will be in charge of training the Iraqi army. Please pray for his safety and his troups' safety, and the Iraqi army's safety. Thank you! God bless!