My Hero…

I love the show hero’s,  I haven’t watched it in a while, but the reason I love it, is it allows you to imagine what if i had this super power or that one, what would it be like.  I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid I was just like my six year old, She would love to be able to fly, I used to have dreams about flying.

Hero’s are great, they are bigger than life, and stronger than steal.  More courageous than a lion.  Real life hero’s although they don’t have supernatural powers, still seem bigger than us, more alive, more bright, and sharp.  It gives us this feeling that hero’s are people born to be hero’s.

lets think about it though when we think of a hero its about what they do. Usually what they do, anyone could do if they just made the choice to do it.  My hero for today, is my daughter Taylor.  She is 13 and an inspiring young lady.  She is right now in Mexico, working at orphanages, going to the dumps where people live, speaking to crowds of people about hope and faith.  She is inspiring, what makes her my hero, is something she said to me early this morning.  She said, “Dad i will never resist helping other people, I will never resist doing what God wants me to, even if it stretches me, because I know that what I do matters, and If I don’t do it, it keep others from the help they need.”

Yep, my hero, man I love that kid.  You should listen to your kids now and then, they might teach you something.

David-

Did You Change the World today….part 2

I met an educator today that is changing the world. As I have said before my wife is an educator and I am a Pastor, so our lives are great, we find ourselves in the path of need all the time, and get the opportunity to change our world one individual at a time, which is usually how it works. Never underestimate the power of one or few to bring real change. One of my favorite quotes is…

“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead

I also Love Proverbs 31:8-9 (MSG)

“Speak up for the people who have no voice,
for the rights of all the down-and-outers.
Speak out for justice!
Stand up for the poor and destitute!”

Its important that those who can speak out, those who can help, do. If we don’t who will. There are those who can’t speak up for themselves or stand up for themselves, and even if they did they would not be seen or heard. We as teachers, have that responsability, because in my mind the most injustice in the world finds its focus on children or the young, and it is our responsability to teach, train and help them learn and grow, to partner with their parents to build a strong foundation for their future.

I connected with a young lady today that is doing just that. She is an assistant principal in one of our local middle schools (Del Crest Middle School, Midwest City, Ok). This particular school has a fairly impoverished population and she knew that a lot of her kids would be home alone over spring break, she wasn’t sure what they were going to eat, or if they would get breakfast and lunch, and she knew that most of them would be home that whole time by themselves and the idle time spent can easily turn into trouble. So She created a program where they could come to school over spring break. There were a certain number of Kids invited and then a certain number of students above that who could sign up to be a part.

She Invited some of her students who were struggling academically and this afforded them an opportunity to ask a lot of questions and get great tutoring, becuase the ratio was about one teacher to ten students.

She had 90 students show up and attend all week. She told me that it has been incredible. She and 10 other teachers gave up their spring break to be there for these kids. We played a small part by providing breakfast and lunch one of the days for everyone.

Wow! As I spoke to her I could see the fire in her eyes, she had great expectations for these students, and she got the results she expected. What a great thought, what a great educator to think beyond the norm, to think at the level of the students need, and how it intersects with the teachers dream. I am so impressed, and I will support her and work with this school as much as we can to be a help to someone who is changing her world today.

Inspired

David

Life is great….

I love my life!  It seems to me there are people in life who just want to be miserable.  The glass is half empty, they see the negative in everything.  I just refuse to live my life that way.  Sure I have trials, and issues that come up in life, but I trust God, and He sees me through every situation.  I don’t know how its going to turn out at times, and sometimes I feel like I am stretched to my limits, but God is always there to lean on.  As a result, I have a beautiful wife, who loves me and is the most excellent mother I have ever seen.  I have two wonderful daughters who love me and their mother lavishly and are the best of friends.  My wife and I both have careers that we are passionate about and that contribute to positively effecting others.  I love my life!  Hard times come and go, good times come and go, people come and go, but great friends and great family are forever.  I know, in our society everything I just said sounds cheesy, but I don’t care, because I love my life!  What about you?

Its all in how you say it….

http://divineanointing.com/ says that a perfect opportunity was missed because of the arrogance and sarcasm of the “Christian and a debate over Creation vs. Evolution. What good does it do us to know the truth, if we present it in a way that will be outright rejected, not because the information but our attitude. What a sad indictment against the church. Lets be careful to speak the word of truth in love.

-Gadberry

Did you change the world today?

Just about every evening, my wife Janae and I will ask each other, “did you change the world today?” Most of the time when people think about changing the world we think in terms of massive amounts of money, major world shaking projects, and political power and influence. What I have found to be true however is that most major world changing goes on every day with normal people who decide to live their lives with purpose and passion about making a difference today.

I am a Pastor and my wife is a teacher, so our occupations put us in position to truly, effectively change the world. The truth is however, I know a lot of pastors, and teachers who are passing up opportunities to change the world. We can all effectively change things for the better, but it is not something that happens automatically, or without intention and purpose.

A pastor can have opportunities to bring change, but get busy with urgent unimportant activities, and have day after day go by not having changed anything, or brought help to anyone. A teacher can get caught up in the day to day, and even be resentful of parents who wont help or kids who wont behave, and just do “the job.”

Every day everyone of us, no matter what we do, have opportunities to bring change, to help someone, to raise the bar, to care, to love, to change the world.

My wife works in a school system with great need. She has been working with her second graders on a presentation they were going to make. They had to make a report get their parents involved, and then present it in front of the class and their parents.

As it drew near many of them, because of the lack of parental involvement, didn’t appear to be ready. She could have given in to the status quo and accepted it as the norm, instead she made an impassioned plea to the kids, and let them know her expectations, and because she has spent time loving them, and going the extra mile caring for them, it has created an atmosphere of trust and respect. They arrived on presentation day and did an outstanding job. She has created in these kids a desire to learn.

Kids in these situations are many times aware of things that never enter the mind of kids who aren’t living in poverty. They’re aware of facts like “no one in their family graduating from high school or going to college.” She has inspired many of them in second grade to say, “I will finish high school and I will go to college.”

She has also brought a great change in many of the parents, getting more active with their kids, realizing how special their children are, and becoming proud of their accomplishments. She has a word for these kids who have been beat down, and had very little expectations placed on them. She calls them scholars, she says to them, “you are my scholars, you are brilliant, and you will succeed.”

So do what you can today, and when you go home tonight ask your loved ones, “did you change the world today?” With a little effort we can say, “yes, I did.”

-David

Revolutionizing Man-Kind

I am right now in the middle of a personal development program for men, called the Total Man Retreat. The theme revolution man-kind. Reintroducing men to what kindness is all about and how it is kindness that attracts people and helps us lead. Many men think kindness is weakness, but in reality kindness is strength.

Most men are known as harsh, mad, angry, and aggressive. These are the terms more readily used to describe a man. Its rare to hear someone say, that is a kind man.

We’ve heard from Dale Martin, Church of the Harvest’s Edmond Campus Pastor, about a good man. We need to see ourselves as good men, and we need to behave ourselves as good men. Relying on the direction of God, and not being afraid to be good, realizing that real men are good men.

We’ve Heard From Rev Spike Our OKC Campus Pastor about the revolution Cycle. How God wants us to surrender not just sacrifice. Sacrifice says i’ll do this for this outcome. Surrender says, I’ll do this because ive given my life to it, regardless of the outcome.

We’ve heard from Pastor Kirk Pankratz Church of the Harvest’s Senior Pastor. He spoke on the revolution of Kindness. What Kindness really is, we should overcome being “mad” men, We should learn what kindness is and understand what kindness does, and to please God your kindness can be simple and easy, it doesn’t have to be world impacting but day to day Kindness will impact the world.

Today, I am going to Speak on How to revolt. We must have a personal revolution, before we can lead one publicly. We must have purposed revolution, because revolution without purpose is mere rebellion. We must have the right motives in our revolution. A revolution must be led not said. We must count the cost for the revolution, and we must pay the price for our revolution.

So what are we revolting against? Personal issues of anger and frustration, so we can lead our families into fulfillment and peace. Against hate, bitterness, anger, and malice, so we can change the world. Against, wrong images of men, wrong identities of what it means to be a man. So we can lead in security that Character is prominent, integrity a major tenant, and Love our greatest motivation.

God wants us to be men, and he wants us to love our wives, love our children and attend to them, and quite frankly He wants us to change the world for the positive.

Simply, “Revolutionize Man-Kind”

David