Those who know me, know that I am a bit of a weather nerd. I watch the weather online, read weather blogs, look at forecasting maps like the NAM & GFS, and get depressed when a snow storm misses our area. Honestly most of this is in the winter, trying to sniff out when we might have snow which I love so much. How did a guy who grew up in South Texas get such a love of and hunger for snow??
Well the winter here in PA has been a terrible year so far for snow which always brings the global warming debates to mind! And recently we at the Moore house have been increasing our “green” awareness and thinking about how we can reduce our carbon footprint more. This past summer we listened to a great sermon series with Matt Krick and Rob Bell from Mars Hill Bible Church called “God is Green”.
I am a bit ashamed to say that when I was younger my attitude was “it’s all going to burn anyway, so why worry about it!” But this goes contrary to everything that I love. I grew up spending a lot of time camping, hiking, and loving the outdoors. I realized that this is something that I treasure and want to pass along to my kids too and that if we don’t make a priority to care for the creation, they won’t be able to enjoy it as I have.
Additionally, listening to Rob Bell, he pointed out that this is a sanctity of life issue! How long will life be able to be sustained on this earth if we continue treating it with neglect. So I am seeking to be more Pro-Life, for the unborn and the born!
Of course WHAT to do is a much more complicated issue. We do things like recycle aluminum, plastic, etc. We are hoping to gradually get some better gas mileage vehicles (although I don’t know that we can afford the new flexfuel Suburban!). There is much debate going on about global warming or global atmospheric cycles and some seems to be just politics as usual. I was excited about the recent rise in ethanol production and use, flex fuel cars, and other carbon reducing measures. But changing one thing causes a ripple effect to other things in the world economy.
Check out the video below to hear an alternate perspective on what we should be doing about global warming. And then share what you do to lessen your carbon footprint.
I must start with saying that I am sorry the last Mandy’s Monday was back in January - how horrible is that!! Hopefully, you did not give up on me completely!
Yesterday I had the privilege of teaching in the Junior High Sunday School class and it was great fun! I have always enjoyed this age group. Calvary’s Student Ministries had been going through a super series (meaning that all three age groups (Jr. High, Sr High and College/young adults) were studying the same thing as well as the small groups). And the series was a look at how to study your Bible titled “Hungry”. The idea was that as Christians we need to learn how to study the Bible on our own in order to be able to “eat” and fill our own hunger. This is not to say that we do not need the church!! It is just to say you need to be involved in the filling of Scripture in your lives and not just relying on others to teach you. We used material from Howard Hendricks’ book How To Study Your Bible as inspiration and direction. Our approach was to motivate students to observe, interpret and apply the Bible to their lives.
So to what I got to teach- I was asked to teach on the final step in Bible Study which is application. I was pretty excited about this because it is just so important. We do not read the Bible or even study it for the purpose of knowledge, but for life change!!
Applying the truths of the Bible is the milk and cookies in life! Just think about it for a minute. If I got out a recipe, measuring cups, flour, butter… and had it all out on the counter and then just stared at it I would not be enjoying the cookies! The same is true with Bible study - if I observe the passage and dig into all these tools to understand it better but I never apply it to my life I am missing out on the oooie gooie goodness! There is not much yummier to eat than warm cookies right out of the oven. And you dip them in some milk and it is a little bit of heaven right there in your kitchen. When you read the Word, contemplate it and then allow it to change your life in thought and action - well that is just a little bit of heaven right here on earth.
Psalm 34:8 reads “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the person who takes refuge in him!” There is the challenge and the reward - take refuge in Him, taste and then you will see that the Lord is good - better than milk and cookies!
I hope to have my lesson available later this week for those who would like to listen, however I will go ahead and warn you that the last fourth of the lesson is missing because my mic went out and therefore the recording stopped.
I will include 4 steps of application and 9 questions to ask along with the audio. So check back - I need to go make some cookies and think through how I can bring a little bit of heaven into my life tomorrow!
Wow, for the longest time I would tell the “Apple freaks” I knew that a Windows PC was just as good.
Then…I started doing media projects on Mac computers and…Oh my!! I was convinced. (my apologies to those “Apple freaks” over the years…I was wrong). So we now own a pretty and powerful Mac-mini like the one below. My statement after getting it a few weeks ago and setting it up was “It just does things!” And that is true, on a PC it was usually a frustrating experience because it was SUPPOSED to do things but always ran into problems. The Mac is more intuitive and when there are problems (it is still a computer) much easier to fix.
Now, to put the icing on the cake, we are making the switch with our team at work to increase our media capabilities, productivity, and presentation abilities.
So, any of you Mac lovers out there who want to pass on some tips and “be sure to…” or “have you seen…”, please do. Mandy and I are learning so much.
Also, because it is incredibly easy to do, we have updated some new pictures on our gallery too, so check out Owen’s 1st birthday, Christmas 07, and our Bird pictures!! Yes bird pictures…we have always enjoyed birds, but this past Fall my parents opened a Wild Birds Unlimited Nature Store in Tulsa, OK. So for Christmas we enjoyed getting some new feeders, birdbath and some seed. I never knew that the type and quality of seed had so much to do with the type and amount of birds you see at your feeders (makes sense though, good food, more birds) We are getting so many birds that we have never seen at our feeders in 5 years!! Fun
Wow, the silence of this blog is deafening! It has been too long since we posted anything…you can imagine that life has been crazy.
We just celebrated Owen’s first birthday! First with some of his Texas family and then here in PA. More pictures will come in the days ahead on our gallery.
Eating cake is not the only thing Owen has been busy with, check out the video below to see what he’s up to.
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