The CCJ Blog

The Kieffner boys. ‘Nuff said.

What a weird video.

It amazes me how much nature teaches us about life. Like this tomato plant, the fruit doesn’t all mature at the same pace. Neither do Christians. If we’re not careful the weeds will take over and drain all the nutrient from the plant. If they’re not suckered or pruned, the plant will produce smaller fruit. Then, there’s the importance of watering, especially in the heat, daily. Do we allow God to prune us? Do we avoid temptation by plucking the “weeds” out of our life? Do we feed on the living water daily?

I could go on, but you get the point. Plus, I wanted to show off my Roma tomatoes! 

Have a good “growth” day and produce a 100% fold crop for God with the talents He gives you.

Don’t you love this series of sermons on the life of Joseph? His life is a great example of “growing” no matter what’s going on in our lives!

Dr. Damron went home to be with the Lord on Sunday evening; please be in prayer for the Damron family. Dr. Damron was a preacher, professor, coach and wondeful man of God.
He will be forever referred to as Coach Damron for me. He was my direct supervisor for my work study job as athletic trainer and manager for the KCC (Now KCU) basketball team. He was always a hero of mine because he combined two great passions of mine, preaching the Word and coaching basketball. He also taught for KCU a third interest of mine US History. I also attended the church where he preached while in college.

I learned a lot about preaching and basketball while working for him. Most of all I learned a lot about integrity. He always said the most important thing was who you are when no one is looking. While he has countless of Christian college national championships to his name what I will most respect was that his teams were taught to be Christian’s first, basketball players later. To break every huddle the team would say, “God, Team, School” meaning our first priority on the floor was to represent God, then our team and school.

Dick Damron will be missed but we can also celebrate that he will be with the Lord.
 

Kirk Cameron of “Growing Pains” fame and the guy whose too-numerous-to-count photos wallpaper-ed my sister’s bedroom when I was a kid is a Christian now (he has been for many years, actually). He has a message to Southern Baptist Convention pastors (and pastors in general, I would guess):

Can I speak to you from my heart for a moment? I realize that, theologically, I’m not worthy to wash your socks. But imagine this scenario with me, if you will: Imagine I’m a “seeker”- I’m a non-Christian, sitting in your church week after week after week listening to you. Am I ever going to hear the message that will save my soul from Hell? Will you ever tell me the truth clearly enough so that I realize that my sin has made me an enemy of God: that I am currently on the path that leads to destruction, with the wrath of God dwelling upon me, and that unless I repent and put my faith in the Savior, I will perish? Or have you decided that it’s better to simply entertain me, and on Sundays I can come to have my “felt needs” met with good music and good advice? Pastor, while I would appreciate that, it’s the ultimate betrayal of my trust in you if you don’t tell me the truth. Will I ever hear the words “repent,” “surrender,” “turn to the Savior,” “be born again”? If you don’t tell me those things, how will I ever know to do it? Please don’t leave it up to the Wednesday night small-group leader. They’re taking their cues from you. You’re leading the flock.

And now I speak to you as a Christian. If you and I fail to teach the whole counsel of God, and we don’t warn sinners to flee from the wrath to come, and run to the love of Christ on the Cross to save their soul, we make a terrible mistake. It doesn’t matter how happy a person is - how much a sinner is enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season - without the righteousness of Christ, he’ll perish on the Day of Judgment. The Bible says, “Riches profit not on the Day of Wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.” You see, that’s how Kirk Cameron realized he needed a Savior. I had riches, but I knew that it was the righteousness of God that I needed in order to be saved from my sin.

I gotta say, I don’t have much to quibble with here. What do you think of this?

Via: The Thinklings.

One of my favorite Simpsons clips:

CCJ has a saying and theme that says, Love God… Love People… Change the World. I truly pray that with the Lord’s help we are doing that as a church body. That being said I have a tremendous passion for evangelism. (That simply means sharing the good news of Christ.) The Bible tells us that God’s will is that no one will perish so that should be our goal as well. Thankfully there are many churches who share that passion. Sometimes there seems to be some confusion about what evangelism means. For some churches it is supporting world missions in big ways. That certainly is evangelism but the Bible also talks about us being the salt and the light ourselves. Then there are others who say that people should have less emphasis on world missions and should just concentrate on being missional or local missionaries wherever we are. That certainly is evangelism but Jesus also says to go into all the world. So what is the answer? I think the answer comes when Jesus tells his disciples they are to be his witness is Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. That verse applied to us today means we are to be Christ’s witnesses in Jasper, in our region and around the world. Over the next few months we will be sharing our goals and vision in how to do this through the people of CCJ. 

A public thank you and pat on the back for Kara!  She put her professional expertise to work and gave J & D hope when they were feeling pushed away and put down.  Because of her caring and kindness toward them—complete strangers—they got to experience true Christianity and CCJ reaching out.
Not being a part of the CCJ family, they were almost surprised, Kara, at your quick response to their plight.  J couldn’t say enough good about you and that you have more pull than you realize!  No matter what happens in their situation, we all know that with God on our side, opposition will ultimately never win.  And with Kara working at it, no stone will go unturned.
Thank you, again, Kara!

Years ago, when director Cecil B. Demille was filming the movie “Ben Hur”, Charlton Heston was having trouble learning to drive the chariot. He told Demille, “I think I can drive the chariot, but I don’t know that I can win the race.” … Demille said, “You just stay in the race.  I’ll make sure you win.”
Mark Jones says that’s the essence of our faith in God. We say, “Lord, I don’t know if I’ve got what it takes to win.” And God says, “You just stay in the race–you just stay faithful and do your best and trust in Me–I’ll make sure you win.”

Last year 40 plus people traveled to Indianapolis to the Indiana State Fair for the Christian concert (Or for Daniel the concert featuring Christian artists). 

The church will once again be offering free tickets. (While Available)

The concert features 

Casting Crowns and Jeremy Camp 

The date will be August 9. We will start taking reservations June 24.

Long title for my first post on the blog. Even longer content (supposedly.)

Here is a link from Youtube.
New Orleans Trip

We made it through our week of camp. It was one of the best weeks of camp I have been at. God just made things fall into place in awesome ways. (Not the least of which was the great weather.) 

It is so weird how I should be extremely drained and tired yet I am instead refreshed. Some of that is due to leaving behind home worries and responsibilities for a few days. Some of that is because it was just great fun. But mostly I think it is just because God’s Spirit moved in dramatic and powerful ways. Here are some of the great things that took place:

23 Decisions to accept Christ and be baptized into Him
8 of these baptisms took place at camp
15 of which will come in their home churches. (2 of these or from CCJ)
2 more Re-dedication to Christ
98 campers (A record for Junior 1)

It was one of the most fun weeks ever. The faculty, staff and kids were so much fun. 

Love it! Very apropos.  So inspiring to be grateful!

Hebrews 12:1

God’s Discipline Proves His Love

 1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

Saw you and Kara one day this week waiting to cross 6th.  Thought maybe you’d been running?

Here’s a sermon from Southeast Christian Church that Darrel suggested to me the other day:

Go here.

I know I reference this church from Seattle all the time but it really is good stuff that I learn a lot from. (Plus the blog is slow this week, isn’t it?) If you have an hour to spare, watch this sermon from Nehemiah 8:1-12. It’s about a city (Jerusalem) that is repenting of its sin.