I Updated My iTunes Account – Finally!

When I’m not collecting thoughts here on the blog or feeding my tribe at home, occasionally I travel a bit and communicate Bible truths to university student and women’s groups. One of my favorite things to do is to lead retreats – those times when I get to interact with God and His people, with the Bible and our hearts wide open.

I’ve finally updated my iTunes account with a few of my recent teachings/lectures/talks. If you are interested in giving them a listen, you can click here or on the link at the end of this post or on the iTunes link to the right. All talks were recorded on a digital voice recorder with no microphone, so fair warning on the audio quality.

Me in Berlin, teaching at the Connexxion Women's Retreat.

Five of the talks are from the Connexxion Women’s Retreat in Aug. 2011 in Berlin. (You can read about it here.) The topic was The Beauty of Clarity – seeing God’s hand in our lives clearly changes everything.  The main idea is that God works in our lives in seasons – longer periods of time centered around particular themes or activities. How can we learn to recognize what God is already doing in our lives and cooperate with Him, rather than fighting or ignoring Him? While each can stand alone, they were written and given in a sequence that built on each other. And I hope if you give it a listen, you can hear very clearly my deep affection for the German women there. This retreat was a labor of great love for me. The sessions are entitled:

1. Where Are You On God’s Calendar For Your Life?

2. What’s The Next Step

3. When Your Heart Shatters

4. If God Were To Name You?

5. How Do I Respond To God’s Call On My Life?

The other two talks come from a series I gave to a group of cross-cultural workers in the Germanic speaking countries, also in Aug. 2011. The invitation to speak to this group was one of the highest privileges and honors I’ve ever been given. My topic was The Main Thing In Missions Is Integrity. People don’t fail in ministry (or life) because of a lack of skill. They fail because of unresolved character flaws. Learning to let God address the condition of our heart and not just our outward behavior is the key to a life and ministry that goes the distance. The talk entitled The Main Thing In Missions Is Integrity is one of the most important I’ve ever done – in terms of how much it cost me to learn these lessons and how they have changed my life personally. If you listen to just one talk from me, I suggest you make it that one. They are entitled:

1. The Main Thing In Missions Is Integrity

2. Practices For Building Personal Integrity

If you are so inclined, there are quite a other few older talks in the iTunes account from other things I’ve done – primarily women’s ministry type things. Shout out to my beloved Crosspointe ladies:)

More talks from a recent university retreat I gave are coming soon.

LINK TO ITUNES- CLICK HERE!!!

Jesus, Over The Wreckage – (Jesus, pt. 5)

Europe speaks to me. No where do I find more visual metaphors for the things going on in my heart than on the continent I so love. Honest moment here, I often weep I don’t live there anymore.

During my last visit, I had a morning in Berlin with a chance to see anything I wanted. So I had a friend take me to the Gedächtniskirche, or loosely translated, the memorial church.

The church, as it stands today.

It was built in the late 1800′s, and bombed during WWII. It was not rebuilt as a reminder of the horror of war. The lessons gained and memorialized by the wreckage were too valuable to just cover over with something new. Instead, its ruins testify to its past – and were intentionally incorporated into a new church compound.

I knew as I was visiting that there was something important here for me to see, to learn. I just didn’t know what it was at the time.

This morning, months later, I was meditating on how one’s faith recovers from devastation and from pain. And my eyes were drawn to a photo I have of my morning at this church, stuck to the wall over my desk.

I was taken by the realization that the present day memorial is of Jesus… golden, present, powerful… over it all.

Somehow, He takes the wreckage of our lives – the things that have been bombed, maybe even destroyed with our own hands – and He doesn’t abandon it. He doesn’t cover it over and pretend it isn’t there. He redeems it.

I don’t understand this. But I’m trying to. And I’m trying to let the visual, of Jesus… golden, present, powerful… over my wreckage, speak to something deep in my heart.

He sees it all.

The Rittersport Store…now on the recommended sightseeing list

Can we all agree on this…German chocolate makes American chocolate look like…well, not chocolate. They’ve gone to a level of chocolate competency that frankly, we can only import, not reproduce. So my good Berliner friend took me to the Rittersport store in Berlin. Rittersport, for the non-initiated, is a really good, very portable chocolate, that comes in a square and is easy to break into bite size pieces. And at this store, be still my heart, they make you a chocolate bar according to your design. And, yes, it was quite delicious.

Oh, the joy of chocolate!

This woman must have the happiest job in the world.

The almost finished product - for my daughter. White chocolate with colorful crispy cereal and sprinkly thingy's on top.

My Great Berlin Photo-Op

I sometimes say, “Life is about the photo-op.” What I mean is that if God gives you great stories, then you’ve just got to share them. And everyone loves a good photo with a good story. With that in mind…

The day of the Connexxion Women’s Retreat, a friend and I were doing a little sightseeing in Berlin, cause, come on, how could you not? It’s Berlin, baby. Little problem though. As we were walking, I stepped in a hole and proceeded to turn my ankle in a really bad way. Really bad. I heard a pop, felt something stretch in a way it isn’t supposed to and realized a lot of blood was rushing to my ankle. So I hobbled over to the steps of the church we were visiting and began to think…I don’t feel so well. My stomach began turning in that dangerous way, leading me to pray, “Oh please don’t let me throw up in front of my friend.Pleeeeeeeeease, don’t let me throw up in front of my friend…” Then, my head started swimming and my vision blurred so that I couldn’t see. While I had a vague sense that what was happening wasn’t good, the next thing I knew, I was flat on my back and looking up at my friend’s very concerned face. Time had obviously passed. All I could say was, “Did I just pass out?” And all she could do was nod in the affirmative, with a facial expression that looked like she could throw up at any moment too. By this time the paramedics had been called and I had to stay put till I got the ok from the medical professionals. But how could I let this experience pass me by without the photo op?

Yeah, I'm not feeling too well right about now.

So here I am, wondering what in the world just happened.

And here I am with my wonderfully efficient German paramedics, once they determined that I did not need to go to the hospital.

The end of the story is that I was ok. My ankle swelled up like a grapefruit and I’ve got some impressive bruising, but I was able to stay on my feet for the rest of the trip. Actually, I was quite embarrassed by this. I felt foolish that I wasn’t watching where I was going and weak that I couldn’t control my body. And there was a strong spiritual element to this in the timing and in how it made me feel deep in my soul. Hurt. Vulnerable. Embarrassed. And not at 100% when my upcoming weekend demanded that I be at 120%. But I’ve found a good way to overcome embarrassment is to not be afraid to laugh at myself. And now I’ve got a pretty good story and the photos to prove it. Come on…passing out in Berlin? That’s pretty memorable, wouldn’t you agree?

A Meaningful Photo For Me

I can’t tell you how this photo makes me feel. During one of my teaching sessions at the Connexxion Women’s Retreat, someone actually found it valuable enough to take notes.

The Beauty Of Clarity – the Connexxion Women’s Retreat.

I just finished up being and teaching at the Connexxion Women’s Retreat in Berlin Germany. While I am a bit tired, I am also unbelievably happy at how things went. I’ll have to take a few entries to really do the story of the weekend justice and I want to do it justice because hopefully, I have a few readers who were there and I want them to hear my thoughts on it:)

The obligatory group photo. This by the way is one of my most valued souvenirs of my time in Europe.

Our topic was learning to see and hear God clearly in our lives (The Beauty of Clarity) – and then trying to figure out the next step we need to take in response to what we’ve seen and heard from God in our lives. Pretty basic stuff when you think about it, but wow…more difficult to apply than it seems. I had extraordinary conversations with many of the women and I can’t tell you how blessed I was with the chance to hear their hearts. One of the most consistently amazing experiences of my entire Christian life is to hear women with another heart language sing and pray and describe their experience with God, and know that we are speaking and relating to the same God.

This is me doing my thing. In Berlin. I am so blessed.

I still can’t quite believe I got to go. So stay tuned! It was a great, great weekend and I am so excited about telling the story. Just by way of preview, it involves paramedics, a great photo-op and some awesome German chocolate with pink stuff in it. How can you not come back now?