How soon we forget... the Minot, ND floods

I am suddenly struck by how fast the national consciousness forgets. I forgot. I lived in this beautiful community for three years. And I forgot. Just a short few weeks ago, my former home was overrun by flooding.

I received an email this morning from our best friends who left Minot to start a church in Ft. Collins, Colorado asking for prayer and humbly requesting financial assistance for their trip (they'll be sleeping on the floor of our former church, making their own meals, etc.) back to Minot to help rebuild friends' homes.

I went to our former church's website. I am in shock. They posted a Google map with markers indicating all of the families -- OUR FRIENDS -- who have been "displaced" by the flood. What a humble way to say they lost their homes, our former pastor's family included. His home remains underwater.

Please would you pray for this wonderful community? It isn't a flashy place to live -- North Dakota -- but it is filled with the kindest and most giving people my husband and I have ever met in our entire lives. We have said this over and over and over again since we left. I have rarely cried when leaving a location (I usually cry when we arrive at the new place knowing the hard work of replanting roots). But I wept as we sped past the city limits of Minot, ND.

Here is more information about the flood.

Thank you friends.

godly parenting

Another wise post from Pastor Andy, Trinity Church of Minot, ND. Here's a snippet:

Christian parenting rises or falls based on whether we parent according to the Law (focused on behavior modification) or the gospel (focused on heart transformation). The thought which struck me after I finished preaching which I wish I would have said is this: If our true goal in parenting is gospel-saturated, grace-driven heart transformation (which will give rise to increasingly more holy choices in our children as a gracious by-product, but not as the primary goal), then the most fundamental question we as parents should be asking ourselves when our children are increasingly recalcitrant, rebellious and non-responsively sinful is this: "How can I make Christ and His grace more beautiful, glorious and compelling to my child?"

So what can I do TODAY to make Christ more beautiful to my girls?

Trinity Church Blog: Just Say 'No!'

Click on this link to watch the video. Trinity Church Blog: Just Say 'No!', and then tell me what you think...is any level of cloistering of value?

worldliness defined

“That system of values, in any given age, which...makes sin look normal and righteousness seem strange.”
- David Wells, Losing Our Virtue, p. 4

Thank you again, Pastor Andy.

james 3:10

From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.
James 3:10

Pastor Andy, thank you for the admonishment.