SOO MUCH POTENTIAL!

Had the privilege to do some community outreach to kids at a local hospital with a team of people. You see their situation and just thank God for their lives and for your life as well. The system might label you as one thing, the environment might lead you to believe in what other say about you, the medical professionals might diagnose you with something.

But over and above all that we have to remember that God Almighty, Jesus Christ created us in His own image. His fingerprint is on us. He wants to live inside of us. He gives us the choice to bring Him into our life.

Will you choose to receive the gift of eternal life only through accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and savior? Today is the best day, this is the best season.

Wishing you a blessed and merry Christmas! God bless you in the New Year of 2010! The best is yet to come!

Enjoying The Ride,

Cecil

Reading Between The Lines

As you are more exposed to different situations and experience life as it is, you understand that things aren't always as it seems. That can be at school, place of work, home, and possibly even where you worship God. Seeing it firsthand is very interesting. Interesting in that it reveals so much about people, motives, desires, etc... And if you can cover it with spiritual discernment, you get to really see what's being said, by whom, for what purpose, etc...

Just learned that as soon as encouragement comes, discouragement follows right after it - and possibly even from the same places. The experience is great because its a tool to keep us focused on staying humble before God and man and trust in God every step of the way.

One thing I'm starting to see is that you keep moving forward fulfilling the call of God on your life. You're never going to make everyone happy and to keep your motives and intentions pure to glorify God alone and help others reach their God-ordained potential.

Enjoy The Ride,

Cecil

Spiritual leadership is knowing where God wants people to be and taking the initiative to get them there by God's means in reliance on God's power.

SPINNING AROUND

The other night our daughter decided to go for a spin - literally. She stood in one place and just went around and around for a few moments and then stopped. I stood and watched her thru this process and waited to see how this would end up. So she stopped spinning and TRIED to stand still. As you would expect, she started wobbling and walking into the kitchen cabinets and almost took a fall. I have to admit I had a smirk on my face the whole time then eventually started cracking up because she was having fun in this dazed moment.

I knew this would be the end result because I've done that plenty of times as a kid. And you see your whole "world" spinning around you. So she likes it so much she did it again later that night but not as long. The best part this time is that she is able to hold still and look down at the floor. She calls out, "Daddy, daddy!" and then points to the floor and says "floor turn awound (around)"! So this time she holds herself up and understands the floor is now spinning under her. How do you not laugh at these moments?

When you feel like your spinning, twisting, and turning around so much in life running after everything and everyone, your world might seem like its out of whack. You might be spun like a top and then when you try to stop it just seems everything around you is spinning out of control and it doesn't make sense. You start wobbling in what you believe, cant stand straight up in your faith in God, and start banging into situation that hurt you. But I dare you to hold strong and stand up with total confidence in God, He will hold you up and you'll be able to say that thing around me might be going crazy, but I will hold onto the promises of God and He will get me thru these times in life. The spinning will slow down, it will eventually stop, and we will move on.

Enjoy The Ride,

Cecil

Throwdown to Surrender Continued...

All I can say is that I know that God spoke to me and the church this Sunday. People said they received something for themselves and believe the church heard a prophetic word. I trust that God will continuously remind us and encourage us to push forward. Praise God and all glory belongs to HIM alone!

A FEW TIDBITS:

Repair your altars by surrendering your past. Take out sin and put in obedience to God. Dont let the past hold you back from enjoying the present and God-ordained future.

Give God and release to Him what you have right now as you surrender the present. As the items on the altar were placed in order - get your life in order. Get your priorities straight with God. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and THEN ALL THESE THINGS SHALL BE ADDED UNTO YOU! Let it out of your hands and place at the feet of Jesus.

Then cry out to God that sustained your fathers and forefathers and trust Him to do a miracle for you and your generation. My generation and my child's generation need to SEE the miracles of God firsthand. The elders need to pray and encourage it. My peers need to pray and work for it. My children need to experience it. He will come down in all power and work the miracle when the light seems to be fading out and the darkness seems to be rolling in.

Dare to stand up even as one in the midst of trouble and chaos for God and He will never put you to shame.

Enjoy The Ride,

Cecil

Throwdown to Surrender Preview ...

Preparing for Sunday Service and its a pleasure diving into the Word to explore all the hidden treasures the Spirit wants to reveal. We only have to go looking for it.

Sunday's sermon will be: SURRENDER: YOUR PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE!

The scripture God led me to was the famous battle between Elijah and the prophets of Baal.

Studying the events in 1 Kings chapter 17 leading up to the Mt. Carmel challenge in chapter 18 and the after effects was truly eye-opening.

• God wants us to keep living, working, and believing in Him even when we are in the "famine" times of life.
• Regardless of how long we've been in the "famine", there is a promise of God that He will send the rain ... and unlike man - GOD KEEPS HIS PROMISES ... so hold on!

There's more and we'll see how it is shared on Sunday. Stay tuned!

Enjoy The Ride,

Cecil

Twas The Night Before The Bird

The day before the country and the world celebrate as Thanksgiving Day is here. Do you think tonight is the night the most people spend in the kitchen? Prepping their meals for tomorrow, trying to concoct new recipes or put their own spin to an old traditional one. More than the bird or the stuffing or the pies, its about the people. Let's give thanks for our families and friends, our co-workers, bosses, service people, vendors, even our perceived enemies. I thank God for my wife and child every day!

In everything give thanks to the Lord and He will bless you!

Tonight should be a fun night at church ... just spending time with church family with food, games, and prayer. Then have cousins from out of town staying over - should be interesting.
Then of course tomorrow morning ... the annual TURKEY BOWL! Play some football, build up an appetite and go have a great lunch with family.

Enjoy the bird or the fish or the whatever you eat tomorrow!

Enjoy the Ride,

Cecil

LOVE SERVED

Saturday was an interesting experience for the 15 or so people that stepped out into the neighborhood to show our neighbors that we care and we're there. The CHURCH HAS LEFT THE BUILDING initiative started off with minimal expectations I think. We set out to rake leaves from the yards of about 40 to 50 homes near our church. Three teams of about 5 people per team went out with rakes, bags, and brooms in hand.

I haven't even raked my own yard yet - thanks to Sherin for doing that! =)

I'll be honest in that I expected a little more resistance, but to all of our surprise, no one turned us away but welcomed our act of service for them. Some of us received cold drinks from the neighbors, some were offered pancakes, etc...

Our team helped two guys cleaning up their yard and hopefully was able to make a lasting connection with them. James and Gino taught us a purpose for bagging the leaves - you can use it to surround and "insulate" a fig tree during the winter season. I'll use that one for our fig tree.

I dont think any of us will forget that day and the people we met. Our prayer is that they saw the love of Christ through service for them. Just as Christ came to serve, the church is here to serve the people. Let's serve them what they need - LOVE!

Enjoy The Ride,

Cecil

Summit to Conference to Celebration

Heard from Paul Walker on leadership in ministry on Friday night. Heard about changing our words, thoughts, actions, and steps and the winds of the Holy Spirit to blow into our lives from Kevin Wallace at Mens Conference on Saturday. Worship Celebration on Sunday. Talk about trying to be a sponge and take it all in and try to retain as much possible.

The host pastor on Friday night, Dr. Calvin Rice, talked to the workshop of Pastors about teamwork approach & mentality in church leadership. He started singing the song from the kids show Wonderpets: "What going to work? Teamwork!" I cant beleive I started singing along ...thank you Abi for making me relevant. Paul Walker was the guest speaker for the general session and he really shared his heart and experience on local chruch leadership. So many great insights and stories. The principles are applicable in one's own life and in any arena of responsibility.

One of many things that stuck out to me ... you can gauge a church by how many sinners come in and get saved not by the programs.

Enjoy the Ride,

Cecil

Pizza Time

Last night we made homemade pizza for dinner. We made two "medium" pies. Toppings included: ground beef, peppers, onions, italian sausage, mozzarella and ricotta cheese. Interesting conversations among a few people over pizza slices as well.

Sexual immorality inside and outside of marriage; sexual temptations and how to deal with it; the love languages ... and you'd think the food was hot and steamy. =)

Regarding temptations an idea that caught my attention: If you see yourself standing or walking into a situation where your sexual integrity may be compromised put on your running shoes and "run" out of there.

After all that, almost had one whole pie left over.

Canyon of Heroes

Wow! What a spectacle we either saw on TV, heard on the radio, or watched live in person in NYC. The ticker-tape parade for the 2009 World Series Champion - New York Yankees was awesome. It took nine years for the NY Yankees to ride in floats on the same route but as the players said it never gets old.

1 million people in downtown NY and millions around the world celebrated their heroes.

Who is our hero? Who orwhat do we celebrate? What or who do we cheer on? Whose name do we chant? Whose arrival are we waiting for so anxiously?

Is it a ballplayer that will be break down in a few years or a risen King who lives forever with all strength?

Enjoy the Ride,

Cecil

LIFE PIE & THE FORMULA

All of our lives are made up of basically the same areas:

• Self / God
  
• Home / Family
  
• Education / Career
  
• Finances
  
• Community / Church

Do we end up looking for happiness from any of these areas? If so, we'll end up worshipping those "things". Which will lead to us "serving" those things or people. In reality, our personal relationship with God needs to be at the center of the "pie" and He should extend into all the other ares of the "pie".

ADORATION + SERVICE = LIFESTYLE OF WORSHIP

ADORATION – asks us to LOSE our 5 senses and enter into “SPIRIT” worship

SERVICE – asks us to USE our 5 senses and enter into “ACTION” worship

Remix-in' It Up!

Remix last night was interesting. Talked about the reality of the enemy in our lives.

Tough question came up in discussion:

Does God want us to fight some battles on our own as much as we can then hand it over to Him to finish the rest or should we back off and let Him fight from the start?

God enables and empowers us with His strength, tools, and armor of God to step into the battlefield of life. Make a choice in the morning to be led by him and trust in Him and take some steps of faith and you'll see Him give you the victory.

The enemy throws many lies at us and builds a wall of lies in front of us so we can't move forward. But we have to listen to the direction of God and take a step for Him and He will get you past the lies and tricks of Satan.

Are you ready to go against the enemy? Man is not the enemy ... its the power of darkness and Satan. If we get proud like Satand did, we'll be thrown down from high places with God just like Satan was.

God is your hero and He loves you!

Bring In The Closer

In baseball, you bring in the closer, ie. Mariano Rivera, to shut down the opponent and secure the victory for your team. Watching the other series, you noticed that closers were not successful in these situations and that determined the team's ability to advance or go home. Being successful in the "regular" season is just that, regular. Being successful in the "playoffs" is legendary. Not everyone can handle it like others.

When we cruise through our "regular" routines of life, we might think we're succesful and that gets us to a certain level - maybe even the "playoffs" of life. But when we're in the thick of a do-or-die situation in life, do we have the closer attitude and mentality to shut down the enemy and stand in victory? Just like the pitcher on the mound has 8 other teammates on the field and countless teammates and coaches on the bench with him to help get the victory, we have 3 distinct people yet 1 God.

We have the Father God, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit to HELP US shut down the enemy's attacks and declare victory after facing a tough situation in life. You have the power and authority and you have the help. Use it and see how sweet a victory tastes in life.

God's Party for His Kidz

First night at a community outreach was a pleasant surprise. A small team went to a children's hospital in Queens, NY and ministered to a group of 15 kids and 3 staff people. We stayed about an hour, had some music, drama, and discussion.

It was a first for me in that type of setting but it opened my eyes to a whole new opportunity. This also showed us that we never take for granted the love we have from our families and the great environment our families created for us to grow.

The kids helped read Psalms 40 and a verse from Jeremiah. The version we used said that God was throwing a party for His children and He wants us to come to His party. Are we ready and prepared to attend His party?

Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Touching Base

Last night I got a chance to meet with folks from church and spend some time talking about life, the church, and future ministry. Its great to see that the desire is there in the hearts and minds of the young people to continue the work of God and His church in these days.

We even made a new dish for them to try out and it came out OK - I think. Funny thing is my wife didn't even try it because it was made with pork meat. I guess she's not into PIGS. It came out OK I think for the first time. Anyone want the recipe?

Hearing them out allowed me to see into their thought process and gauge their interests and passions. These folks want to get involved and make a difference in this generation. What an awesome feeling! The future is now and get ready for some great things ahead!

FINALLY JUMPING IN!

Life is good yet chaotic! Leadership is needed in the middle of chaos!

As I jump into the 6TH ocean of the world, the BLOG OCEAN, I anticipate to stay afloat and navigate through with tidbits of info on LIFE and LEADERSHIP for a Christian. My hope is that these tidbits can be useful to you, the reader, and made practical as we move forward in life together. Your feedback and input is welcome and appreciated.

God has given me a passion to learn about leadership, implement the learned principles, and empower others to get to the next level. If you ever lose the desire to learn and grow, you will start to die. Let's move ahead in His Word and talk about some practical apps for life.

There is a generation that is living in a chaotic world that only God can bring some peace and calm to it.