All Hands on Deck

18 Jun

studying post

This Sunday I have the awesome honor and great responsibility of teaching my first church-wide apologetics class.

I can’t make that sound as daunting and wonderful to you as I would like to. In world importance it is trifle, but in personal and perhaps lasting change it is big. First off, it is a wonderful opportunity to share some of the creation science apologetics that I have studied for 3-5 years. (Really, anytime you or I have the chance to teach it is a culmination of all that God has taught us up to that particular point in life.)  It could prompt lasting change if it encourages even one person to study in order to  enable them to defend their faith better and give a reason for the hope that they have.

Conversely, it is daunting because there is soooooo much information to choose from and therefore a great deal that I aim to communicate accurately. Additionally, our church is very blessed to have a pastor on our staff with a doctorate in apologetics. He is a great teacher who sets the bar high and I have learned a great deal from him. In other words, this isn’t the class’s first rodeo and they will spot a weakling. (Smile.)

That being the case, I had decided a month ago that for VBS I would choose a behind the scenes, low responsibility type job as it starts the Monday directly after my Sunday class. Well, as it turns out, VBS was short on Bible teachers and I changed my volunteer status to teach four-year-old Bible. Part of the responsibilities of the Bible teacher is room decoration. Also, I still needed a co-teacher as volunteers were sparse. I turned to my community group and sought out help. Wouldn’t you know that a co-teacher committed out of my group as well as three ladies to decorate the room?!

Needless to say, these are full weeks for me and I want to give a public praise to God for providing opportunities and the means to meet the demands of these opportunities.  It is remarkable that even though the three ladies decorating the four-year-old Bible room have week-day jobs and can’t volunteer for the face to face VBS time, they are able to contribute to make the classroom environment fun.

What about you? What ministry opportunities are coming your way? How can you enlist the help of friends and sisters/brothers in Christ to help meet Kingdom needs?

I am so grateful that when God calls us He also provides the means to meet the tasks.

This weekend I will post a list of apologetic resources for the participants of Sunday’s class to access. They are for you as well! The resources are geared to further equip us to answer questions about creation, dinosaurs, and the Flood. Be on the lookout for the list and for upcoming posts that will cover the teaching time.

Thanks, as always, for taking time to stop by This Temporary Home. Please read this post with grace as I am certain I have mixed tenses throughout…and yet, I am leaving it that way. Yikes! 🙂

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Filed Under: Apologetics, Life, My Story

My Children’s Dad

15 Jun

Happy Father's Day

He’s the kind of man you want on your team, in your court, and beside you in battle.

He’s loyal, fun, and intentional.

He lives to please his Father.

He takes time to stoop low and teach, play on the floor, and read God’s Word.

He encourages dreams.

He works hard until the job is done then looks for ways to complete the same job better the next time around.

He makes pancakes almost every Thursday night and plays hide-and-seek like he gets paid for it.

For all of these reasons and more I am so grateful that when I married a great man, I also married a wonderful father.

Happy Father’s Day, Ron! And Happy Father’s Day to all the readers of This Temporary Home that have the honor and responsibility of being called Dad.

If you would join me in praying for Ron and his mission team this week as they are on mission in a communist country then I would be very grateful.

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Gratitude Prompts a Change in Perspective

12 Jun

Gratitude Prompts a Change in Perspective

Have you ever found yourself in a new place in life and completely nostalgic for the comforts of familiarity?

A few short months after Ron and I were married we moved to his childhood home in Florida. Having lived solely in Alabama for the first 21 years of my life (18 of those in my small hometown boasting two red lights and a McDonald’s) I was excited about the move, but unaware of the challenges of change.

Moving to the beach intrigued me. Continuing my studies in communication disorders at a new university excited me. However, I was unaware of the differences in culture, accent, and even socioeconomic differences that awaited.

When change happens we crave the small, steady denominators that made home home.

I missed knowing the cashiers at the grocery store, seeing people in Walmart with whom I attended school, and familiar faces at church that held common memories in time and space. It took me many years to embrace my new identity as a Floridian.

I was focused on yesterday and the hopes of one day which would bring a return move home to Alabama. I had little desire to explore the greatness of the area in which God had placed me.

Unfortunately my inability to embrace the changes in my life perhaps robbed me of a portion of present joy.

Today, almost 12 years later, I love the area I live in. My family enjoys the recreational parks, habitat preserves, the beach, and the museums and sites near our home.

Within the last three years I have often wondered why I spent much time and energy trying to make my current home more like my childhood and less like the newness of life that God had placed me in. I missed opportunities to enjoy God’s creation in my own backyard because I was longing for the backyard 500 miles away in which I grew up.

Are you in a new location be it geographical, vocational, or missional? Maybe the novelty of your experience leaves you longing for the familiarity of yesterday. Take heart my friend! There is good to be gained from every new venture. Look around you today and purpose to find a good to be grateful for. Gradually your gratitude will give you a change in perspective. Your eyes will see not as a pilgrim longing to turn back, but as one set to forge ahead to the lasting pilgrimage of the celestial city. (See Pilgrim’s Progress)

*an edited repost

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Loving Well

3 Jun

Loving Well

 

So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

(Ephesians 5:33, NLT)

Two links to help you love well in the covenant marriage you are in, or the one you are preparing for:

  • One great post on faithfully consummating  marital love by Sheila Wray Gregoire. (Click here.) Shelia blogs at To Love Honor and Vacuum. I frequently read her blog posts as I find them on Pinterest. Her site is packed full of biblical counsel for women in particular and couples in general. 

Satan likes a marriage without sex as much as sex without a marriage. Why does the church only condemn one of the two? ~Shelia Wray Gregoire

  • One wonderful sermon on love and lust by Timothy Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York. Very much worth 30 minutes of your time whether you are single or married. (Click here.)

You’ll never be well married unless Christ is the Spouse of your soul. ~Timothy Keller

Ron and I recently celebrated 12 years of marriage and I am so grateful for a husband that strives to love me well in every way. May the content linked within this post today serve to enrich your marriage or your biblical view of marriage in general.

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Three More Reasons I am Glad I Ditched Facebook

30 May

Three More Facebook

On Wednesday I told two reasons I am glad of the decision to quit Facebook. Today I will roll out the last three reasons why I think this was a good decision for me.

1. Judgmental reactions are avoided. 

Many times a person would post a picture on Facebook and I would immediately send out my judgmental antennae labeling exhibit A as too revealing, infomercial material, or fake to the hilt. Judgmentalism is a subtle sin that Christians can overlook easily in light of the  more offensive,  in your face sins like swearing or underage drinking or the like. However, judgmental and pious attitudes are equally sinful as the aforementioned.  Cutting out Facebook equated cutting down on judgmental attitudes that held everyone around me to my own and often unobtainable standards.

2. Freedom to live without constant need for affirmation.

Often times, I would post a picture, statement, article, or blog post and have no response from friends. When this happened I would worry that I had said or done something wrong, that people were tired of listening to my voice, or that I wasn’t accepted or liked. Without putting myself out there for the friend world to respond to I feel freedom to be myself and invest my voice into the people within my sphere of influence in face to face relationships and within this community at This Temporary Home. You show up to read my writing without any sense of compulsion other than because you want to. Thank you is not enough, but all that I have to offer. So…thank you!

3. Regaining a measure of privacy. 

It is my experience in our world of social media and the blogosphere that people can know very much about you without ever talking with you. I am really not sure how comfortable I am with that. On the one hand it is great to share in what God is teaching me or what adorable thing my children are doing at their current age, but on the other hand, I loose sight of who in fact is reading that information when I share it with over one-thousand friends. In ditching Facebook, I have regained a sense of my children’s privacy and my own. Not everyone needs to know what I am doing or thinking or struggling with on a daily, or update-by-update basis.

Regaining private moments and marking them as private makes them more special and gives me stories to tell and share as I recall them. I have no idea how putting our kids out there for so many people to see will affect them in the long run. I want to guard these precious children I have been entrusted with and for me that started with Facebook and has lead to cutting down significantly even with pictures I post on This Temporary Home.

What about you? Have you considered dropping one form of social media? Have you already done so? What are some of the benefits or lessons that you have learned? 

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Two Reasons I Am Glad I Ditched Facebook

28 May

 

Two Reasons Facebook

I decided to take a break from Facebook the beginning of this year. It was a decision that I had grappled with for some time. I excused my forbearing with Facebook because it was and is a great way to gain readers for This Temporary Home. I held onto that social media outlet for the sheer reason that it promoted traffic to the blog and perhaps provided a glimmer of light and substance on the Facebook market.

Fast forward several months and I am more convinced than ever that I made the right choice when I listened to the still small voice of the Father asking me to trust Him and let the stat counter for the blog fall where it may.

That being said,  my goal is to provide encouragement for those of you who may be sensing it is time to take a hiatus or a permanent departure from Facebook or other social media that you currently use. Some people, like my husband for example, are not driven to check the latest status updates or page patrol. But others, like myself, waste time and emotions on digital portrayals of people I know but would otherwise not keep up with in real life. Or, if I do communicate with them in real life, then I can send a text message, email, share a cup of coffee, or make a good old-fashioned phone call to catch up.

Here are two reasons why I am glad I ditched Facebook:

1. Reduced use of one form of social media seemed to contribute to overall decline in time spent on other social media outlets.

I continue to use some forms of social media. However, I found that by eliminating Facebook I dramatically decreased my time spent mindlessly surfing the other social media outlets that I continue to use. I do not find myself checking the remaining social media with the fervency as before.

2. The twin monsters of envy and  jealousy have drastically quietened themselves.

Envy and jealousy are two of the sins that Jerry Bridges refers to as subtle sins. I’ve written about them on numerous occasions because they pose a problem for me as a Christian woman and for most women in general. Since quitting Facebook, I have no idea what other families did this weekend and therefore less temptation to be jealous or envious that while others were out snorkeling in the Florida Keys, I was at home scrubbing toilets and cleaning dishes. I know about my friends adventures via real life conversations and chances are extremely high that I will celebrate with and for them.

I found it too frequently the case that I would hear about an amazing day at the beach or some such tale and then become jealous that I was stuck in the mundane that day while reading that post.  Facebook ran interference with my contentment.

Join me on Friday for three more benefits of quitting Facebook. 

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A Memorial Day Prayer

26 May

 Memorial Day

Father, thank you for all our armed service men and women. Thank you for the scores of men and women who have served on our country’s behalf. For those who have stood guard, charged ahead, and kept the peace in turbulent times. Today, we honor their sacrifice and that of their families.

Thank you for bravery in the face of fear, for fortitude when retreat seems logical, and for sacrifice of self for the good of fellow man and soldiers. No one can fathom the face of war unless they have looked into its dark eyes themselves. Likewise, none know the pain of heroism like the widows, children, and parents of the fallen.

Thank you for our freedom in America and for those who served and are serving. May we not give up what they fought so hard to provide and maintain.

Please forgive us our sins as a country and as the Body of Christ. Help us to turn from the bondage of sinful living and turn to the freedom found in obedience to your life-giving commands.  May we remember and spread the good news of your Son, Jesus, who also laid down His sinless life so that we might live in your presence in total forgiveness of sin.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

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Riding the Waves

20 May

At times he would glance at me with those beautiful blue eyes and flash his charming grin as if to check and assure himself that mommy watched his feats of strength. Other moments, he would forget he wasn’t the only boy splashing in the ocean and though he was feet from the next child, would dive bravely into the next wave with the gusto of Alexander the Great. Then there were those moments that the wave came with greater strength than he anticipated and he would stand coughing and looking about as if, “What just happened here?”

Riding the Wave

Often we adults resemble the above description in reference to the challenges and opportunities that waves of life bring in peak, trough succession. Some opportunities in life we look at and think I got this. Other, more humbling opportunities, we stare in disbelief and wonder why we were chosen to ride this wave into shore. Sometimes we give it our best go and end up gasping for breath.

Where are you in the ocean of life right now? Are you relishing a good time and looking about to see who will join you in rejoicing? Are you facing a daunting wave that could either provide the ride of a lifetime or the fear of failure? Or, are you so far offshore, perhaps as a result of your own choices or unexpected events, that you haven’t considered catching a wave in months or even years.

Despite the prevailing circumstances, and your choices to date, the truth remains:

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:25-26, ESV)

The truth is, we need to pray and seek to make God our chief desire in a ocean full of cruise ship distractions and temptations. When we do, we may fear being overcome by our calling, but we will catch the waves intended for us. Or, if failure prevails, we will learn from the maneuvers that result in a mightier challenge than supposed and subsequently leave us sputtering up salt water with thoughts of, “What just happened here?”

The Apostle Paul was a man acquainted with daunting waves…literally. Three times he was shipwrecked and spent one night and a day adrift at sea. (2 Corinthians 11:25) In any or all of these circumstances was Paul outside of the will of the Father? I cannot find reason in the Scriptures to support such a claim. Therefore, could we not attempt to catch a wave in obedience to God’s calling on us and find ourselves gasping for air? Indeed that may be the case, but we will never know the outcome if we do not first attempt the feat.

As I stood on the shoreline watching my son with pride as he fearlessly jumped into the waves and swam with big boy breast strokes I was watching him with joy. I watched rejoicing in his efforts and cheering his successes. I checked to see if he was okay and encouraged him to rest and try again when the waves crashed and left him coughing up salty water. (I also yelled several times that he was going too far!)

Don’t you think our Father watches our efforts and acts of obedience in a similar and even more perfect way?

I do.

So go ahead. Go all in. Jump into the crashing waves and swim with all your might.If you hear your Father on the shore cheering you on and encouraging obedience you can proceed with this knowledge:

Only one life,’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last. ~C.T. Studd

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A Gift for the Graduate in Your Life

14 May

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Last year, Ron and I were honored to be two contributors among others such as Dr. Jay Strack, Chuck Allen, Dr. Danny Akin, Brent Crowe, and Dave Edwards in Dr Jay Strack’s book, #CriticalIssues #AbsoluteAnswers. Editor, Jack Countryman,  and the team at Thomas Nelson packaged a wonderful resource for youth, parents, and youth workers to benefit from. #CriticalIssues #AbsoluteAnswers tackles 70 issues that teens face and the questions concerning them. This book provides Bible-based answers to such questions surrounding identity, self-esteem, leadership, missions, faith, pain, sex, divorce, homosexuality, and discipleship, plus much much more.

It is with humbled and excited hearts that we are proud to share this wonderful resource with you. Our teens are bombarded with the pull of the world and it is our hearts desire that they acquire biblical answers and direction to choose the narrow path towards Christ-likeness and ultimately Home.


Ron and I would love to send this wonderful resource to you! You can purchase a copy by clicking the link above for purchase via Amazon. Or via PayPal by clicking on the link below.

An excellent gift for the eighth grader entering his first year of high school or the senior running out the door to college. If you would like to make a bulk order for your youth-group or for graduation gifts, please e-mail me at Brooke.Cooney.1@gmail.com and we would love to make that happen for you.

 God bless you and the lives of the youth that you influence.

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Love Thy Neighbor

13 May

Love thy neighbor

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27, ESV)

You might assume that all pastors’ neighbors have heard the gospel. I should hope that you are right. However, evangelization doesn’t mean salvation.

My pastor-husband and I have lived in the same house for twelve years. In that time span we have witnessed to all of our neighbors in our court with the exception of two – one who moved in within the past year and one set who only scurry to the mailbox, their door, and their car.

For one reason or another, none of our neighbors have repented and put their faith and trust in Jesus. Each of the neighbors have their own reasons and excuses. Some attend mass and feel that the combination of going to church, being a good person, and committing no unpardonable(venial) sins is enough to get them into heaven and rescue them from hell. Others take the pragmatic position of “that’s good for you.” Finally, one adheres to a self-made form of religion that mostly resembles the modern thought of coexistence—every path leads to god.

For me this begs the question, what are we doing wrong?  

Hop over to iBelieve to read this post. (Click here)

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