Walk by Faith

Often when God desires to stretch us and teach us more about who He is He'll call us to take steps of Faith in our walk of Faith.  Those steps take on different forms in our life at different seasons of our life, but they always require one key ingredient...  FAITH.

In other words we should not expect the things God calls us to do to be easy.  Often we think that if it's God it's easy.  Ahhh, Not True.  Because of the very nature of Faith, we can expect those calls of God to move us past our own understanding and resource and put us in a place where we must rely on Him.   So often we take steps of faith because we believe that God is calling us to, but then in the middle of it start to doubt and get worried because things get a little tough.  What we need to realize is that when we made the decision to take that step of faith we also made the decision to put our life in a place that might be a little uncomfortable for a season, a little stretching.. 

Think about Peter walking on the water...  Nothing of his own strength enabled him to do so.  It was only possible as he keep his eyes on Jesus and trusted Him. 

What steps of Faith has God called you to take lately? How are you holding up?

Keep your eyes on Jesus 

Chris

We like Home Groups!

Kingsfield Church is passionate about living out the commissions God has given us in His word. One of those is interacting with one another in a way that honors Jesus and allows us to not just do church, but rather be the church. For that to take place one of the things we hold to as a church is the importance of Home fellowships (soon to become connection groups after our summer revamp... but shhh, no one knows yet). On Sunday a passage in James 5 reminded us yet again of their important role in our church.

A twitter from your house plant!

Tatum and I are notorious for killing house plants, and have for the most part, if not entirely moved to the fake stuff. Not as cool as the real deal, but it works for now. I recently ran across something that might help us out. it's a kit called BOTANIcalls. Simply put this deal enables your house plant to Twitter you whenever it needs water or wants to thank you for taking care of it. Talk about brilliant.
When we surrender our lives to Jesus we are in no way promised that life is then spent "skipping through the daisies". As a matter of fact Jesus promises us that we will experience tribulation. James tells us that there will be of all sorts of shapes and sizes. As Christians it is not Gods intentions that we would face those tribulations without Him. What we have been given as Christians is a connection to our creator, water for our thirsty souls. We've taped back into our purpose and brought back into the atmosphere where we've been created to live and thrive in relationship with God.

How foolish it is for us to neglect that relationship and not cultivate it. How foolish to not move ourselves constantly toward the very one who has given us life. how foolish to not abide in him as John 15:5 tells us "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." If you plant a seed and give it the resource it need to come alive. We couldn't then withhold that same resource and expect it to flourish.

I have to wonder, if I had a BOTANIcalls in the soil of my own heart how often it would twitter me and what it would say when it did? Would it be content with the amount of nutrients I'm pouring into it though interaction with the Lord and His Word? Or would I be getting the message that says "hey buddy, I need more, getting a little dry here!!!"

May we never be those who are guilty of holding back from the soil of our lives the nutrients we've been created to thrive in.

Lots going on

At this point I have come to consider myself one of the worst bloggers ever. There are guys who are probably ten times more busy then me and yet still kick out the blogs. I don't know how they do it, but I am determined to figure it out.

Speaking of busy, I personally have never been more busy in my life and am asking the Lord for an extra portion of His grace to be able to manage it all. My days have consisted of everything from creating graphics for the upcoming Series and planning out my teaching schedule to board meeting and ministry budgets. All normal stuff, but just lots more of it than usual. I've literally been non stop from early in the morning to late at night with all sorts of great stuff that God has on my plate right now. I'm enjoying every minute of it.

A highlight over this last Couple of weeks was the first ever Kingsfield Married Couples Breakfast. We had a great time together over some breakfast and games. Then Tatum and I got a chance to share with the couples some things that had been on our hearts for them. We've heard great feed back and are actually looking to do a breakfast for the couples every 3 months.

This last week I took some time to get away by myself for a couple of days. I used the time to seek the Lord and His continued direction with all that He is doing. I had a great time with the Lord and really got so much done as I was able to kind of turn off the phone and emails for a few days. Well at least that was the intention, some things somehow just can't be ignored.

We'll be finishing the book of James next Sunday at Kingsfield church and then start are trek toward Easter in a Series I've titled "Statements : from a cross ~ from a tomb". We'll be looking at many of the statements made by Jesus and those who went looking for Him after the crucifixion. Each one meant to shape our lives.

Here's a sneak peek comp of the graphic...

My Valentine, and the coffee shop.

On Friday Tatum dropped the kids off with the grandparents and set out on our valentines date night.  Were really simple when it comes to the whole dating thing.  We really just love being together and can spend hours just walking and talking.  This last Friday we found ourselves as usual sitting in Peets Cafe, sipping coffee, eating Gelato and talking for hours.  She had her usual evening half caf and I got my usual Hazelnut latte extra hot. I know my drink sounds a little girly but I'm convinced that the "extra hot" part balances out the feminine tones in "hazelnut".  We literally sat there for over 3 hours talking about anything from family and the kiddos to ministry and Kingsfield.

I am so blessed to have such a Godly and amazing woman.  She is always so supportive and so much fun to dream with.   The longer we spent talking the more and more excited we got about what God is doing and what He is leading us to.    I truly am amazed at how much God has blessed us with our marriage, our family and Kingsfield Church.  I left Peets Friday humbled by the goodness of Jesus...

Faith Works

At Kingsfield this last week we started a new series that I'm very excited about. Were doing a study through the book of James that were calling Faith Works. Life can bring about any number of circumstances. Each one giving us opportunity to see how big God is as we trust in Him. No matter what life may bring our way when were willing to trust in Jesus, He will always bring us through. James shows us what Faith looks like in the life of a believer under the everyday moments... The series will be online and can be downloaded off of our podcast.

I'm really excited about 2009 and all that God has in store... both for the Normans and Kingsfield Church. He is so good to us.

Chris

Christmas with the Normans

I don't know how time flies by so fast. My last post was forever ago and for that I apologize.

Lots has happened between then and now.. (I know, I'm hysterical), unfortunately way to much for me to get across in a blog update, but lets hit the basics...

Kingsfield has been great, were closing out the year strong and really excited to see what the Lord will do with 09. I always love new years. I know that nothing really changes, but still I get really charged to start thinking about what's ahead. Christmas Eve service was alot of with a great crowd out to enjoy some time together as one big family. We used the tension between Christmas almost 2000 years ago and a typical Christmas today to launch us in to our study of Isaiah 9. The Drama team helped paint the picture and did a great job, it was perfect. We'll have the service on line soon for those of you who were out of town.

The Family is doing great as well. Christmas was spent running around between families. We're grateful enough to actually enjoy spending time with our families. We're also very grateful that both sides actually only live a few miles from each other in Redlands. Today we reconstructed the house that was torn into pieces. Well really Tatum did that as I went to work assembling a bike, electric scooter, big wheel, and a mansion doll house, bigger than both my girls. Our new kitten Bella thinks it's for her.

Yes, I said kitten... I have never really thought of myself as much of a cat guy. Until my daugher started asking for one and then I happened to run across the "bengal cat". The bengal cat is supposedly more like a dog than a cat. They actually are very much about the fam, like water, hang their heads out the window while driving, can fetch, and learn tricks. Not to mention the fact that they actually look like a leopard. The one we got is 4 generations removed from the Asian Leopard and has a super cool print. Totaly safe so no worries... we did our homework first.