Orphan Sunday

Our world is full of orphans. The numbers are staggering. But one statistic stands above them all.... it only takes ONE caring individual to make a life-long difference for an orphan. Tomorrow, November 8, is Orphan Sunday all over the world. Isaiah 1:17 commands us to defend the cause of the fatherless. Foster Care. Adoption. Orphan Care. Loving an orphan reflects the very heart of God. [Deut. 10:18] I urge you to consider what steps you can take to make a difference in the life of an orphan today.

One specific way you can get involved is through the lives of orphans and widows in Southern Sudan. Check out the following videos and sites for His Voice for Sudan. My dear friends, Amber & Vernon Burger, have partnered with an incredible church in Southern Sudan called Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Together they are empowering orphans, widows and Church leaders to make disciples of all nations. You will be amazed at all that God has already accomplished. And you can be a part of what is yet to come.

Go. Send. Pray. Support. Commit

www.hisvoiceforsudan.blogspot.com

I Love My Mom Because

I know. I know exactly what you're thinking. It's about time I made a return to blog world! I couldn't agree more. And what better way to return than with a post celebrating one the most important people in my life. My mom. This post is dedicated to mom in honor of her birthday.

On Oct 15, 1948, Nancy Carol Loftus (now Kuntz) came into the world. She was born to Michael and Angeline Loftus, a meat cutter and stay at home mom. She is the second oldest of six girls. Count 'em, six! Lord bless my papa. She met and married my dad 38 years ago And they were blessed with three children, one of which was me! My life would never have been the same without her. Literally. She is one amazing woman.

When I was in elementary school one of my favorite times all year was mother's day. This was partly true because we were asked to enter an essay contest entitled I Love My Mom Because. I loved this for two reasons... 1) I really love to write and 2) I couldn't wait to take it home for mom to read. It was so special for us. While I may not be in elementary school anymore I've decided to take this fabulous mother's day tradition and honor my mom today with one more entry on all the reasons why I love her. Some of these won't make sense to most readers, but that's ok. Mom this is for you!

I love my mom because...
She's always there for me
She gave me her passion for singing
She accepts people just the way they are
She loves to laugh
She loves to play games, especially scrabble
She tells the best 'hermann' stories
She never yelled at us for calling her 'bumbie squishy'
She always tipped well when we played restaurant in the basement
She was always excited to watch our rolling skating shows
She taught me to cook
She bought me my first Bible
She stayed up all night with me when an earthquake was predicted to come and I was SCARED She taught me everything I know about being a sandwich artist
She taught me the importance of being clean and organized
She was an amazing example of a wife and mom
She taught me to love well
She taught me to forgive
She was there when I gave my life to Christ
She knows me better than almost anyone
She disciplined me when I needed it
She dedicated me to the Lord as a baby and has always encouraged me to follow wherever He leads
She let me go on an oversees mission trip when I was just 16
She believes in me no matter what
She encourages me to follow my dreams and take risks even when its scary for her
She is the best shopping buddy ever
She let me completely redo a room in our house, sanding hard wood floors and all (now that's faith!)
She knows when to listen and when to talk and she's great at both
She prayers harder and more faithfully than anyone I know
Her faith challenges me
She fought cancer and won
She's always stood by my dad as he's followed his business dreams
She is amazing at giving gifts
She knows how to make birthdays/holidays special for our family
She faithfully built character into me even when it seemed like I wasn't listening
She provided above and beyond my needs
She always made me feel safe
Celebration or grief, she's still the first person I want to call
She's my very best friend

Mama,
I wish I could be there to celebrate with you today. Words cannot fully express what you mean to me. I am incredibly thankful for your life, your love, your influence, your character, your prayers, your sense of humor, and a lifetime of great memories. God has been so gracious to us. I love you with all of my heart.

Love,
aim

A Project

I'm in the middle of a super fun project for work. While other ministries in the church get really swamped in the summer (i.e. student & children's ministry), singles ministry tends to slow down, at least a little. Less programming means a whole lot more time to work on the ministry rather than just in the ministry. So we're looking ahead and planning towards the fall. What that means for me is extra time to do some of the things that I really love, but can't focus on quite as much when the calendar is busy. Like, writing! Come August we will be kicking off our small groups again. We offer three types of groups: Community groups, growth groups and discipleship groups. Our discipleship groups are geared towards new believers and/or people who are new to Summit or Houston's First. We have used a variety of materials over the years, like One on One with God and Navigators 2:7 Series. What we have found is that there are elements of each one that we really love, but not one that is exactly what we need. So we've decided to write our own. I am in the researching stage right now and I would really LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU (that's code for PLEASE COMMENT!!). If you've participated in a discipleship group of any kind, what is the best material that you've come across and why? If you have never been a part of something like this I would still love to hear from you. What are some things you were taught or you wish you would have been taught after becoming a follower of Christ? What do you see to be the key elements of a curriculum intended to teach new believers what it means to walk with Jesus. We don't desire to reinvent the wheel. We do, however, desire to evaluate the current effectiveness of discipleship in the church and to be a cataylst for change if needed. Feel free to share any thoughts you have in regard to this topic. Thanks so much for your input!

Our Church Devo

Every year at my church our Pastor, Gregg Matte, chooses a devotional for us to go through together. This year we are reading "The One Year Walk with God Devotional" by Chris Tiegreen. And it is SO good. Seriously, I highly recommend it if you are needing one for this year or wondering what you might want to read through next year. Every day has a different topic and a scripture verse to read and meditate on. And each excerpt is divided into two sections: "In Word", which focuses on what the Bible has to say. And "In Deed", which prompts you to think about what your going to do about it.

Here's a quote from today's reading. "Constant Need" I Kings 19:1-18
We must battle constantly against two great urges: the urge to think great victories should be followed by self-sufficiency; and the urge to let the visible circumstances rule our thinking. (Here's my favorite part:) Never let the visible rule. Your victory yesterday does not decide your status today. Neither do your enemies. You need God desperately every day equally, regardless of how threatening--or how successful--things look.

I need God desperately every day equally, regardless of how threatening--or how successful things look. YES, I did just say that. I needed to hear it again. I think I am going to tape this to my mirror, my refrigerator, my dashboard, my computer screen, and maybe even my forehead this week. Oh how I need Him. It's true weather I live like it or not.

CONSTANT NEED! Let that be the power behind your day today.

Leavin' on a Tra-ain

Huh, should have been a song... and actually, I might not be back again...

Well, its Friday morning...eaaaaarrrrrly. Way too early for a vacation day. 5:40 to be exact. Normally I like to sleep in on my days off. But NOT this morning. I woke up several times last night because I was so excited for today. In fact, I've been counting down the days for about a month. I don't even mind that really early sick feeling you get, like when you were a kid and you got up super early to go to camp. Anyone??? Don't care much for the feeling, but LOVE what it usually stands for. Today it's totally worth it. In about 3 hours my family is headed to Chicago to celebrate a most blessed Independence day. Sounds great right? Yes, and would be all by itself. But the even more exciting part is that we are going by TRAIN!! What you might not know about me is that I loooooooove trains. I have ever since I was a kid. My sis, bro and me used to ride the train every summer to my grandma's house actually. So this is going to bring back so many memories...and be such a fun thing to do with my entire family...two baby girl niece's and all! YAY! Ok, gotta finish getting ready and pack the car to head to the station in a bit. More to come on the adventures of Chicago by Train. One of my all time favorite cities, by one of the best modes of transportation, with my all time favorite people. Can you say good weekend or what?!

Some things I'm looking forward to:

1. TRAIN (did i mention that) /QT with the Fam

2. Taste of Chicago

3. Fireworks on Lake Michigan

4. Giordano's Pizza

5. Portillo's Hotdogs

6. Michigan Ave...shopping!

7. World's largest Crate and Barrel

8. Oh...and there are 7 Starbucks within walking distance of our hotel

And on and on and on... Gotta Scoot. Talk to you soon.

Happy Independence America! Happy Independence dear friends!

Endurance

Welcome to the new blog site. As you can see from my previous post it's been a while since I've graced the blog world. I have to confess I tend to get really distracted by my blog layout. My motivation to write is completely fueled by how satisifed I am with my layout. Crazy! I guess that's the 'presentation is everything' side of my melancholy, perfectionist, creative, design type personality. So, this blog is an attempt to leave all that behind and just write already. So, for those who are coming over from Crucible of Interruption (that's my old blog)...thanks for sticking with me!

A lot has happened in the last 5 months. Woah...i mean, a lot. I became an aunt...again. My sweet niece Gracyn is already 4 months old and is a strawberry blonde, blue eyed, half-asian bundle of smiles. My first niece Mikail is now 16 months old and well, only still in the 3rd percentile for her size so still just a lil' bit of a thing. She has blonde hair and blue eyes and looks a lot like both her mama and her daddy. She is sweet, energetic, talkative, busy and such a blast. And pray as hard as I might, they're both still in St. Louis and missed and loved tons by there aunt aims. Praise God for cell phones, facebook, shutterfly, videochat and airplanes. You'd miss them too. Just look (notice they both have the "Kuntz chin")...

The past 5 months have brought many exciting changes in addition to a niece. I've discovered some new loves and revived some old ones. The Lord's been opening some amazing doors for me to teach (new love) and lead worship (old love). I'm truly blown away each time that He works through me and extremely challenged to let Him do so more often. His strength really is made perfect in weakness. I've decided to start taking Him at His Word and am being awakened to the power that elludes from that place. The physcial life can never really be separated from the spiritual. And as I grow inwardly an outward change seems to be running alongside....literally. I never thought in a million years I would call myself a runner....but that's what I am. I run (new love). I never was an athlete growing up, but I realize now that my competitive side has been waiting almost 30 years to be born. Not sure what it is about the dare to beat my own time, but it does something to me. My goal is to do a 3 mile loop in 28 minutes. I started at 42 and in a week I'm down to 34. I'm hopeful! The mind is such a powerful resource in things like this. The scary part is that it's power can work against me as much, if not more than it works for me...if I let it. What I tell myself when I'm running will make all the difference in how successful I am in enduring to the end. "It's amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it"...huh...it's really not cliche'. Romans 5:3 says that "we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces hope, and hope produces character." I started running because I was recently challenged at MetroLive, where Curtis Jones spoke on 'hope'. The reality is that all of us are hoping for something, but for many of us our hope is connected to our situation. It's conditional hope. These verses talk about hope that will last. If I want enduring hope I must have enduring, persevering, never surrendering character. But greed is the enemy of hope. Greed says that I need it and I deserve it. When what I want becomes what I worship then all of the hope is choked out because I believe I have to have it. But TRUTH says that the only thing I can't live without is Christ and when I realize that, then I'm free to hope. When I can live without "it" then I'm free to want for anything. Yes, read that again. It was a liberating moment for me too. Check out the podcast of Curtis's talk. It's definitely worth your time.

Enduring hope comes from enduring character. And enduring character comes as I determine to never give up running. So, what are you hoping for? Is your hope found in that thing or in Christ. Don't be discouraged if your answer isn't Christ. Work on your endurance to build your character and then watch enduring, lasting hope come. And then do like Curtis challenged me to do and buy yourself a new pair of running shoes and get out there!

Truth for our Times

The following is an incredible article written by John Piper. In which, he makes a surprising correlation between the recent plane crash on the Hudson River and the Presidential inauguration. You WILL want to read it. I am thankful for and challenged by the depth of wisdom and measure of grace and humility with which Pastor John communicates such powerful truth. May the mercies of God win the heart of our new President.

The President, the Passengers, and the Patience of God
January 21, 2009 by John Piper

Sometimes we are so overwhelmed at being treated better than we deserve that we must exult in the all-sovereign God—the God of birds' flight and Obama’s rise. When King David pondered how many were God’s “wondrous deeds,” he said, “I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told” (Psalm 40:5). That’s the way I feel watching God’s public mercies in the last few days.

Have you considered how unlikely was the crash of USAir flight 1549 in the Hudson River on January 15—not just the rescue but the crash itself? Picture this: The Airbus A320 is taking off at an angle—maybe 30 degrees. It’s not flying horizontal with the earth. Not only that, it is flying fast—not full speed yet, but perhaps four times as fast as your car would go at top highway speeds.

The geese are flying horizontally with the ground, more or less. They are not flying in a cloud like a swarm of bees. They fly level with the ground, often shaped like a V. In view of all that, what are the odds that, traveling at this speed and at this angle, this airplane would intersect with the flight of those geese at that very millisecond which would put a bird not just in one of those engines, but both of them?

Two laser-guided missiles would not have been as amazingly effective as were those geese. It is incredible, statistically speaking. If God governs nature down to the fall (and the flight) of every bird, as Jesus says (Matthew 10:29), then the crash of flight 1549 was designed by God.

Which leads to the landing in the Hudson River—which is just as unlikely. The airbus now has no thrust in either engine. The flight attendants said it was as quiet as a library in the plane without the sound of engines. The plane is now a 77-ton glider with its belly full of fuel. Captain Sullenberger decides to land in the river. Anywhere else would mean one big fireball.

He banks and misses the George Washington Bridge by 900 feet and glides the plane into a perfect belly landing. A few degrees tilt to the front or back or the right or left and the plane would have done cartwheels down the river and broken up. On the water, the flight attendant does not let passengers open the rear door. That would have flooded the cabin too fast. The emergency doors and front doors provide exits for everyone and the plane floats long enough for all of them to climb out. Ferry boats are there almost instantly. The captain walks the aisle twice to make sure everyone is off. Then he leaves. Later the plane sinks.

If God guides geese so precisely, he also guides the captain’s hands. God knew that when he took the plane down, he would also give a spectacular deliverance. So why would he do that? If he means for all to live, why not just skip the crash?

Because he meant to give our nation a parable of his power and mercy the week before a new President takes office. God can take down a plane any time he pleases—and if he does, he wrongs no one. Apart from Christ, none of us deserves anything from God but judgment. We have belittled him so consistently that he would be perfectly just to take any of us any time in any way he chooses.

But God is long suffering. He is slow to anger. He withholds wrath every day. This is what we saw in the parable. The crash of Flight 1549 illustrates God’s right and power to judge. The landing of the plane represents God’s mercy. It was God’s call to all the passengers and all their families and all who heard the story to repent and turn to God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and receive forgiveness for sin.

I am writing these thoughts on the evening after the inauguration of Barack Obama, the first African-American President of the United States. I cried twice today. There were two points when I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all. Once was when I prayed with some brothers after Obama’s speech and was overcome with the sinfulness of my own racist background. The other was in trying to express my emotion to an African-American brother about what this must mean for him.

As much as I reject Obama’s stance on abortion, I am thankful to the bottom of my soul that an African-American can be President of United States. The enormousness of it all is unspeakable. This is God’s doing. The geese were God’s doing. The landing of Flight 1549 was God’s doing. And the Obama presidency is God’s doing. “He removes kings and sets up kings” (Daniel 2:21).

And I pray that President Obama has eyes to see. The “miracle on the Hudson” and the “miracle in the White House” are not unrelated. God has been merciful to us as a nation. Our racial sins deserved judgment a thousand times over. God does not owe America anything. We owe him everything. And instead of destruction, he has given us another soft landing. We are not dead at the bottom of the Hudson.

O that Barack Obama would see the mercies of God and look to the One whose blood bought everlasting life for all who trust him. The parables of God’s mercy are everywhere. The point of them is this: God is a just and patient Ruler, and Jesus Christ is a great Savior. Turn. Turn. Turn, O President of the United States and passengers of this planet.

Full of thanks for all God’s mercies,
Pastor John