All Posts By

Ken

Sep 04
Love0

The Ripple Effect

By Church, Leadership
Do you remember tossing a rock into the lake and watching the circles spread out? Those are called ripples. Depending on the splash, the ripples might go on for what seemed to be forever. Maybe you even tried to count the ripples (and probably gave up at some point). Rocks aren't the only things that create ripples. We create ripples by what we say -- a kind word, a mean word, or no word at all. We create ripples by our actions or inactions. Our example to others, especially our children, create ripples, too. Maybe you've been on the receiving end of a negative conversation and had a hard time shaking off the aftermath for a long time afterwards. Those were the ripples of a bad encounter. Just as likely, you've been given a compliment and worn the smile longer than the action that created the compliment. When we talk…
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Aug 31
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52 Days of Prayer

By Church
After months of anticipation, our EnVision remodel is underway. The first demolition crew arrived on August 30 and work has begun. As they say in construction (I'm learning new things all the time), now the fun begins! Dan Hettinger, who directs our congregational care at Mountainview, sent out the following email to our prayer team. I'm passing it along so you can join us in praying for God's kingdom to be expanded through these efforts. ********** 52 Days of Prayer for the EnVision Construction Good afternoon! Today is Day 1. It feels different here at church. There are new faces of the construction crew and the downstairs is an exciting mess getting ready for an amazing transformation. Would you, as a member of the prayer team, commit to pray every day for our church during this construction project, starting today? Nehemiah led one of the most remarkable construction projects ever.…
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Aug 28
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A Challenge We Are Willing to Accept

By Church
4:17 pm, Sunday, July 20, 1969 People gathered around their television or watched through a store window. What were they watching? The moon landing. September 12, 1962 It was on this date that President John F. Kennedy spoke at Rice University regarding the goal of sending a person to the moon: “But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and…
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Aug 24
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Transact or Transform

By Leadership
One of the leadership blogs that I track on a regular basis is by Art Petty -- as far as I know, no relation to Richard Petty. He wrote an article earlier this month entitled, "We All Make the Choice to Transact or Transform." The basis idea is this: in every encounter, we either choose to simply transact (do what's necessary) or look for ways to transform the experience. Here's an example of what he's talking about: "You see the transaction effect in the big, impersonal retail stores where cashiers seem to be trained to not make eye contact and almost never smile. You experience it at the airline counter and your doctor’s office and in so many other encounters in your daily life. These organizations and those in them who run the business simply don’t care. That’s too bad, because the cost of striving to transform is negligible and the…
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Aug 21
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Open Doors and Opportunities

By Church
On any given weekend at Mountainview, we have many different types of people. Young and old, black and white, people who love bluegrass and those who don’t know better. In the same room, we have the decided and the undecided. We have people who have said yes to Jesus and those who have given him an outright no. We have more than a few maybe's in the crowd. That’s one of the things I love the most about our church. That’s why I want to be upfront about this post: I’m talking primarily to the decided – to those who are living the baptized life. Our mission as a church is to help you become better at the Great Commission, the call of Jesus to go into the world and make disciples. We all have friends, neighbors, co-workers and family members that we would love to see have a relationship with Jesus.…
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