Wonderland Redefined took home trophies for Winningest Team:

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And The Benchwarmers took home trophies for Awesomest Team:

Check out ALL the pictures on in our Facebook album.

One of our own has planted her stake in digital ground. Abby’s new blog is Ephesians424. Check it out. Bookmark it. Leave some comment love.

Thoughts?

“What’s going on this Friday?” “Why do I need an invitation?”

We want to have a night with just the people who are seriously Redefined.

It’s a new year. It’s a season that usually involves a lot of prayer and planning and dreaming.

And we feel like the Lord has spoken about Redefined 2012.

So we want to tell you about it.

We have some things to show you, tell you, ask you about, entrust you with, etc.

And we want to weed out the weaklings. The part-timers.

So bring the card you got in the mail, come on time for dinner at 6:30, and we’ll have a great night.

(If you’re seriously Redefined and you didn’t get a card in the mail, leave a comment and let us know.)

I’m about to share a great secret with you. Check over your shoulder and make sure no one else is around.

Biblos.com

This website is seriously fantastic. It’s not very cool looking, which is annoying, but it’s worth it.

Wanna see how? 

Let’s say you’re reading your Bible, and you’re not sure you understand a verse very well. You type it in at the top, like so:

Then, you get this page:

You get every translation, which is cool, but those tabs at the top are amazing. I’m going to show you my favorite two, and the rest you can discover for yourself.

First, the the Comment tab (fifth one from the left):

That is over a dozen serious commentaries on that one verse. These are theologians and scholars who spent their lives on the scriptures. This is good stuff.

Second, the Hebrew/Greek tab (7th from the left):

That, friends is the verse broken down into it’s original language. The left column is the Strong’s Concordance number assigned to each word. (If you went out and tried to buy a printed Strong’s Concordance, you’d get some serious sticker-shock.) The second column is the transliteration of each word. The third column is each word in it’s original language, and the last column is the English word you read in your Bible.

Click on the Strong’s number next to a word, and you will see the original word, it’s short and long definitions, how it is translated in the rest of scripture, etc. Pretty amazing.

There’s so much more on this site – maps and cross references, etc. – but we can’t go through it all here. Check it out for yourself.

Biblos.com

Did you know about Biblos already? Do you use it? What DO you use to help with your Bible study? Click to answer!

So we’re supposed to serve people, right?

“… whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. 27 And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20)

It doesn’t have to be an organized service project, in fact – it probably shouldn’t be. It should probably be a lifestyle, a habit that we get into. When we see a need, we fill it. Not because we expect anything, but because our God and King is a servant, and we want to be like him.

You know what people need these days? They need their yards raked.

It might be kind of awkward to just walk over to your neighbors house and start raking, but what if they weren’t home? You get home from school when? 3 PM-ish? When do they get home from work? 5 or 6?

What if you and some friends became the leaf ninjas of your neighborhood? What if you took a couple hours after school to rake up some yards, and leave a note like the one above on their door. (‘Cause it’s all for the glory of God, right?)

What if someone in your neighborhood had a really bad day at work, and they came home to a clean lawn and a note reminding them that God knows them? If it didn’t make his/her day, it would certainly make it a lot better.

And it would help you become more like Jesus, which is what we’re all after, right?

Have you ever raked yards for someone before? Someone you didn’t know? What happened? Did they know it was you? Click to answer!

Just discovered this guy. He recently released an entire album based on the attributes of God, and he has a blog called Lyrical Theology.

You can preview the album here.

You can check out the blog here.

You can watch a video of the spoken word piece that his wife does on the album here:

What do you think? Like it?

I’m reading through the Old Testament, and this morning, my bookmark waited at the beginning of Esther.

Like most of the Bible, when you’re in to it, it’s hard to read it and not learn something new, or see something you didn’t see before. This morning, chapter six, and the sub-plot about Mordecai and the plot to kill the king really spoke to me.

Two of the king’s doorkeepers, Bigthan and Teresh, get mad about something and hatch this crazy plot to kill the king. Mordecai – Esther’s adoptive father – finds out about it, tells Queen Esther, who informs the king on behalf of Mordecai. Some people look into it, discover that it’s true, kill the two guys who were planning to kill the king, and make a note in the king’s official record.

The whole story is three verses long, and then the book goes right back to the king’s right-hand-man, Haman, hating Mordecai. It seems a little out of place.

Until chapter six

In chapter five, Haman’s hatred of Mordecai gets really out of hand and he builds a gallows – 50 feet high – to kill Mordecai on. His plan is to go visit the king early the next morning, and suggest they kill Mordecai. He’s the king’s favorite, after all, so he’s pretty confident the king will let him to whatever he wants.

But chapter six starts, “That night the king could not sleep.”

Hmm. So the king has someone come in and read through the official records – whether he was trying to catch up on some work, or bore himself to sleep, I’m not sure. The reader gets to the part about Mordecai uncovering the plot to kill the king, and they discover that nothing has been done to thank Mordecai for his great service.

When Haman shows up to ask about killing Mordecai, he ends up having to parade Mordecai through the city and sing his praises. Everything starts to go downhill for Haman and his Nazi plan after that point.

This is what stood out to me this morning: We don’t really know how much time passed between the end of chapter two and the beginning of chapter six. Mordecai did this great service for the king and the king did … nothing, for Mordecai. No banquet, no bonus, no holiday, not even a Thank You For Saving My Life card. Nothing.

Sometimes it feels like we work hard at something, or we pray a lot for someone, or we give a big offering, or we volunteer to serve people, or we read our Bibles every morning, and God does … nothing. Sometimes it’s easy to feel forgotten, like God’s not really going to do what He promised, or that His Word isn’t as perfect as we thought.

But God sees everything. He doesn’t forget, He’s just outside of time. His plan is perfect, and at just the right moment He will answer the prayer, return the investment, bless the effort, deliver the oppressed, open your eyes, etc.

If you’re feeling like God’s not “working” right now, or His Word doesn’t “work,” hold on a little longer. The Bible says His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. He has a plan, and it’s a good plan, just hold on.

We talked about Satanism last Friday, and this is one video we didn’t have time to show. This guy just released an amazing book called Ascent from Darkness, that’s his story about Satanism and how God pulled him out of it (the day before he was supposed to kill himself). The video is really short, and doesn’t scratch the surface of his story, but it’s an amazing reminder of how big our God is!

What do you think about his story? About the Spooky series?