This blog has officially moved. (I learned today that this is called "migrating" in the blogosphere.) Why? It's easier to remember the web address, has more functions, and is easier to use than this one.
Come on over to www.barrywingfield.com and reset your "favorites" or sign up to receive emails of every post or set your RSS feed to it!
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Stirring Passion #5
Not an accident. I'm convinced that God does not equip and impassion his people for no particular reason. On the contrary he gifts and stirs the hearts of his people because he has a plan for when they get out of their seats and off the bench and into the real battle for the planet.
Not an accident. God's people at Cornerstone didn't wake up one Sunday and give over $46,000 for local and world wide mission work by accident. God's stirring in the hearts of his people was evident in over 46,000 ways on Seed Sunday.
Not an accident. Witnessing God grow our church into a local-to-world-impacting kingdom extension of himself is exactly what he wants us to see and experience.
Not an accident. New CBFers aren't staying around for no reason. Quote from a very new Cornerstonian facebook post from April 29: "I am so grateful to God for finally placing us in a church where we fit that is on fire, passionately pursuing Christ and really actively being his hands and feet in the community and around the world." Me too!!!
Not an accident. It's absolutely amazing to me that by June 12, Cornerstone will have sent 14 members to western China to lay the groundwork for long-term missions. At least 13 of whom had absolutely no idea they would be called to do anything like that just 18 months ago! These unexpected missionaries were not surprising to God. I wonder how many other unsuspecting international mission workers we have in our church?
Not an accident. From inner-city mentoring through STEP, to international mentoring through IFO, to Clinton Elem, to Our House, to Church Under the Bridge, to the AR Bapt Childrens home, to city-wide service on Be The Church Sunday, to.... whatever's next on God's agenda for us! This city is being transformed by the power of God at work in his people. (It's not an accident that God gifted you for ministry and then put you in a church like Cornerstone!)
I've never been more proud, excited, thankful, and spiritually stirred to be a part of a church community.
Cornerstone, your passionate pursuit of Christ is showing!
It stirs my faith!
2 Cor 9:2
Not an accident. God's people at Cornerstone didn't wake up one Sunday and give over $46,000 for local and world wide mission work by accident. God's stirring in the hearts of his people was evident in over 46,000 ways on Seed Sunday.
Not an accident. Witnessing God grow our church into a local-to-world-impacting kingdom extension of himself is exactly what he wants us to see and experience.
Not an accident. New CBFers aren't staying around for no reason. Quote from a very new Cornerstonian facebook post from April 29: "I am so grateful to God for finally placing us in a church where we fit that is on fire, passionately pursuing Christ and really actively being his hands and feet in the community and around the world." Me too!!!
Not an accident. It's absolutely amazing to me that by June 12, Cornerstone will have sent 14 members to western China to lay the groundwork for long-term missions. At least 13 of whom had absolutely no idea they would be called to do anything like that just 18 months ago! These unexpected missionaries were not surprising to God. I wonder how many other unsuspecting international mission workers we have in our church?
Not an accident. From inner-city mentoring through STEP, to international mentoring through IFO, to Clinton Elem, to Our House, to Church Under the Bridge, to the AR Bapt Childrens home, to city-wide service on Be The Church Sunday, to.... whatever's next on God's agenda for us! This city is being transformed by the power of God at work in his people. (It's not an accident that God gifted you for ministry and then put you in a church like Cornerstone!)
I've never been more proud, excited, thankful, and spiritually stirred to be a part of a church community.
Cornerstone, your passionate pursuit of Christ is showing!
It stirs my faith!
2 Cor 9:2
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Stirring Passion #4
(This ended up being a long one. Pour your favorite beverage, find a comfortable chair, put your feet up, and then after your can't-read-this-whole-thing-without-falling-asleep nap, read the second half of this somewhat self-indulgent dad post...)
George Bernard Shaw is attributed with the quote: "Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children" (although some believe he simply reworded a quote from Oscar Wilde) (http://www.bartleby.com/73/2097.html). Here's my own rewording: "I wish I could have the maturity of my 40's combined with the passion and energy of my 20's." I'm sure the quote works at any age simply by halving the first number (i.e."...maturity of my 60's...passion and energy of my 30's.").
Physical energy, at least for now, is regulated by my exercise, eating, and sleeping choices. For me, these are disciplines I have to monitor and re-engage with on a regular basis or I can get out of sorts with any of them.
Passion, I believe, has elements of spiritual conviction and relational engagement to it. I think it's impossible to be passionate without conviction. I think it's difficult to be passionate without meaningful human relationships. And meaningful human relationships with people of similar conviction may be the most passion producing combination.
It has been and continues to be a passion stirring thing for me to get to know my oldest son Daniel at this wonderfully exciting time in his life. In two weeks he'll marry Katherine Sneed of Flippin, Arkansas under a canopy of pecan trees in Keo, Arkansas. His mom and I couldn't be more thrilled to add Katherine as our daughter. She graduates from UCA on Saturday with not only a degree but with deep and lasting spiritual friendships and experiences. We are proud of her and love her and look forward to loving her more and more. We know that she would have never given Daniel a second look if he weren't more passionate about his relationship with God than his relationship with her. That's just one of the many reasons we thank God for her.
The last 2 years have been very impacting in Daniel's life and watching it has been impacting for Alicia and I. It's difficult learning to treat your grown son like a man instead of like a boy. After all, the dad-boy relationship has been around a while.
I (and his mom some too) definitely treated (spoiled?) him like many young, 1st time parents do. If he cried, we jumped (and danced, and sang, and fed, and walked, and drove, and bounced, and anything else we thought would end this horrible unbearable thing called "crying".) He slept on my chest in the recliner for the first two weeks of his life when he wasn't feeding with mom. I was perfectly happy continuing this indefinitely but his mom thought a 16 year old sleeping on his dad's chest in a recliner might make other people uncomfortable. So we finally agreed to start the transition of training him to sleep in his own bed in his own room. We completed this transition about 6 years that felt like 60 years later. (Mikaila was in her own room and own bed by day 2. Yes, we were young and dumb, but we could learn. She and we were much happier and slept much better than did Daniel and his overprotective young parents. When Jeremiah cries we don't even hear it.)
I could write a book about everything we learned about Daniel between ages 2 weeks and 21 years but for now I'll spare my blog readers all the details of homeschooling, camping, kindergarten, moving, friends, fights, surgeries, football, basketball, summer camp, sleep overs, garage bands, drama awards, choir trips, spiritual awakening, temptation struggles, heartbreaks, and many other failures and triumphs in between. It was tough. I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Off to college proved to be time of soul searching and struggle for Daniel in year 1. Then toward the end of his freshman year God got his attention in some major ways. (Many of those "ways" will be groomsmen on his wedding day.) When God got his attention (this is what we theologians like to call "worship") he became Daniel's number one passionate pursuit. His pursuit of God has led him to the African continent twice, to worship ministry positions for three churches (1st Baptist Church Conway, Chi Alpha Campus Ministry @ UCA, a United Methodist Church in Cabot, and currently he leads the worship team each Sunday at Christ Church, Cabot), to leading a discipleship group of his peers, to deep relationships with men and peers of similar conviction, and to a life dedicated to serving him wherever in the world it takes him.
And it has led him to the heart and affection of a Godly woman (who reminds me a lot of his mom) and to the second most important decision he's ever made. On May 11, he will with conviction and passion, vow to God and to Katherine to continue his pursuit of them both for the rest of his life.
Chills.
Tears.
Stirred passion!
George Bernard Shaw is attributed with the quote: "Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children" (although some believe he simply reworded a quote from Oscar Wilde) (http://www.bartleby.com/73/2097.html). Here's my own rewording: "I wish I could have the maturity of my 40's combined with the passion and energy of my 20's." I'm sure the quote works at any age simply by halving the first number (i.e."...maturity of my 60's...passion and energy of my 30's.").
Physical energy, at least for now, is regulated by my exercise, eating, and sleeping choices. For me, these are disciplines I have to monitor and re-engage with on a regular basis or I can get out of sorts with any of them.
Passion, I believe, has elements of spiritual conviction and relational engagement to it. I think it's impossible to be passionate without conviction. I think it's difficult to be passionate without meaningful human relationships. And meaningful human relationships with people of similar conviction may be the most passion producing combination.
It has been and continues to be a passion stirring thing for me to get to know my oldest son Daniel at this wonderfully exciting time in his life. In two weeks he'll marry Katherine Sneed of Flippin, Arkansas under a canopy of pecan trees in Keo, Arkansas. His mom and I couldn't be more thrilled to add Katherine as our daughter. She graduates from UCA on Saturday with not only a degree but with deep and lasting spiritual friendships and experiences. We are proud of her and love her and look forward to loving her more and more. We know that she would have never given Daniel a second look if he weren't more passionate about his relationship with God than his relationship with her. That's just one of the many reasons we thank God for her.
The last 2 years have been very impacting in Daniel's life and watching it has been impacting for Alicia and I. It's difficult learning to treat your grown son like a man instead of like a boy. After all, the dad-boy relationship has been around a while.
I (and his mom some too) definitely treated (spoiled?) him like many young, 1st time parents do. If he cried, we jumped (and danced, and sang, and fed, and walked, and drove, and bounced, and anything else we thought would end this horrible unbearable thing called "crying".) He slept on my chest in the recliner for the first two weeks of his life when he wasn't feeding with mom. I was perfectly happy continuing this indefinitely but his mom thought a 16 year old sleeping on his dad's chest in a recliner might make other people uncomfortable. So we finally agreed to start the transition of training him to sleep in his own bed in his own room. We completed this transition about 6 years that felt like 60 years later. (Mikaila was in her own room and own bed by day 2. Yes, we were young and dumb, but we could learn. She and we were much happier and slept much better than did Daniel and his overprotective young parents. When Jeremiah cries we don't even hear it.)
I could write a book about everything we learned about Daniel between ages 2 weeks and 21 years but for now I'll spare my blog readers all the details of homeschooling, camping, kindergarten, moving, friends, fights, surgeries, football, basketball, summer camp, sleep overs, garage bands, drama awards, choir trips, spiritual awakening, temptation struggles, heartbreaks, and many other failures and triumphs in between. It was tough. I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Off to college proved to be time of soul searching and struggle for Daniel in year 1. Then toward the end of his freshman year God got his attention in some major ways. (Many of those "ways" will be groomsmen on his wedding day.) When God got his attention (this is what we theologians like to call "worship") he became Daniel's number one passionate pursuit. His pursuit of God has led him to the African continent twice, to worship ministry positions for three churches (1st Baptist Church Conway, Chi Alpha Campus Ministry @ UCA, a United Methodist Church in Cabot, and currently he leads the worship team each Sunday at Christ Church, Cabot), to leading a discipleship group of his peers, to deep relationships with men and peers of similar conviction, and to a life dedicated to serving him wherever in the world it takes him.
And it has led him to the heart and affection of a Godly woman (who reminds me a lot of his mom) and to the second most important decision he's ever made. On May 11, he will with conviction and passion, vow to God and to Katherine to continue his pursuit of them both for the rest of his life.
Chills.
Tears.
Stirred passion!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)