Luray, VA Jellystone – we have credit here Snake Discovery – Wisconsin New England – CT/MA/NH/ME Hilton Head/Savannah Local weekends Raystown Bedford – Fship village Lancaster Uniontown KOA? western NY or Coudersport? Disney? Emily’s?Read More →

Well, since I posted last October (2016) we were given notice by Charter that my sever date is the end of 2017.  We could move to Denver, but in our situation, the Bradfordz have decided we don’t want to move away from family.  So over the past few months leading up to December, I’ve reached out to old contacts, made new contacts, and slowly started working to find something I could work from home, or stay on the east coast at least. It was a new connection that I made on LinkedIn.com that actually bore some fruit.  So over the last month I’ve been inRead More →

Children’s Ministry for me starts with feeding God’s lambs.  In John 21, Jesus appears to His disciples after on the sea.  He cooks breakfast for them. Then he takes Peter aside, to re-affirm who he is.  Jesus asks him “Do You love me more than these?”, Peter says yes, and then Jesus tells him: “Feed my lambs”.  Jesus does this two more times, but the next two times, he says sheep.  Is it that Jesus is saying to make it a priority to feed younglings (in spiritual and physical age).  We can look to time and time again while Jesus was alive where He lovesRead More →

About six months ago, Mollie and I began reading a book called Spiritual Parenting.    Mollie devoured the book and got lots of good content out of it.  I read some of it, but could not get through the entire thing.  What I did read… in many ways was almost life changing in the way is presented being a parent.   Here’s a video about the small group of the same name.Read More →

It’s so cool how C.H. Spurgeon starts out his what’s describe as: “A Book for Parents and Teachers on the Christian Training of Children” “The best of the church are none too good for this work. Do not think because you have other service to do that therefore you should take no interest in this form of holy work, but kindly, according to your opportunities, stand ready to help the little ones, and to cheer those whose chief calling is to attend to them.” seems like he’s saying “feed my lamb”.Read More →

In John 21, Jesus shows up for breakfast after the disciples have gone back to their “mundane” job of fishing.  After breakfast, Jesus takes Peter aside and asks Peter if he loves Jesus.  Peter says of course.  What Jesus says next some people miss… He says “feed my lambs”.  Then He asks Peter the question again 2 more times.  The 2nd and 3rd times, Jesus said “feed my sheep”.     15After breakfast Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?e” “Yes, Lord,” Peter replied, “you know I love you.”“Then feed my lambs,” Jesus told him. 16Jesus repeated the question: “Simon son ofRead More →

Well the yikes I posted that last post has me thinking double yikes!!!  2010?  Anyhow… this is me trying to get myself to re-invigorate (I’d be ok with just invigorate) feed-my-lambs.Read More →

May 24th…. that is the date of my last blog post.   maybe I need to make a goal of the number of post before the end of the year.   Basically for me life gets busy, and I fail to keep this blog updated.   Ok how about a goal of 12 posts before the end of the year?  That’s about one per week. Maybe if I can get that far, someone besides me will actually start subscribing and reading my blog. Read More →

My first (and last) two posts of 2010 were about the book “Think Orange”.  Back in January, orange leaders around the US took a week and blogged about Orange.  This morning I stumbled onto one of those bloggers at http://danscottblog.com/   I found his blog by Googling “Elevate Community”.   He has some great posts about the Orange concept and even has a promo for the Family Experience at his church.Read More →

So the book “Think Orange”, written by Reggie Joiner,  is about thinking about how church is done in a different way.  That probably doesn’t do it justice.   Let me break it out into the principles mentioned on page 82: 1. Nothing is more important than someone’s relationship with God/2. No one has more potential to influence a child’s relationship with God than a parent.3. No one has more potential to influence the parent than the church.4. The church’s potential to influence a child dramatically increases when it partners with a parent.5. The parent’s potential to influence a child dramatically increases when it partners with theRead More →