Valencia Family Ramblings

Hey everyone! Here are some of my top recommended links of the week (from the blogs that I subscribe to):

FAITH:

• Since the first of the year, I have been all about Matt Chandler’s podcasts. If you don’t know him, he is the Lead Pastor of The Village Church in Dallas. If you aren’t familiar with his story, check this out. Amazing.
• Two excellent posts from Jud Whilhite of POTSC: My Faith is Too Shallow and Be Blown Away.
• Perry Noble presented a couple quotes (one from CSL, one from Spurgeon) that were both encouraging and challenging!
• Two excellent posts from Mark Batterson: For God or To God? and Holy Anticipation.
• The World Needs More Tim Tebows - even this, coming from a UGA Bulldog like me! Tyler Braun’s blog has some good comments about the add issue. Check it out.
• Good read on Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill.
• Stonecreek Church Helps Haitian Family Rebuild | @11AliveNews Feature.

OTHER:

• Stephen Brewster on Controlling the Controllables - excellent reminder in life and business.
• Seth Godin, marketing guru, has had some great posts on his blog this week. Specifically, What’s expected vs. what’s amazing and his take on the difference between Hunters and Farmers.

I hope that you, like me, were encouraged by each of these!

Thoughts?

Dustin

What happens at Grandma’s Monday night dinners obviously doesn’t stay there. All the world gets to experience this stuff!

Hey everyone! Here are some of my top recommended links of the week (from the blogs that I subscribe to):

• Excellent audio message by John Piper from more than 10 years ago at Passion ’98. If you have 45 minutes to spare, I highly recommend it! Oh, and he also threw out this CS Lewis quote on Tuesday.
• Mike Foster suggests that we throw our ‘buts’ out!
• Pete Wilson was on fire this week. First he wrote about impression management (convicting!) and then character redemption.
• SCL humorously gives his take on why he believes John Mayer would be the perfect celebrity for Christianity.
• I just started subscribing to Ed Stetzer’s blog this week, and he hit it off with an interesting article about having a plan to incorporate younger and ethnic leaders into your ministry.
• Convicting post by Dr. Chris Stephens about “Wow, I wish I had…” He’s addressing ministry, but I feel you can easily spin it towards your personal walk as well.
• Another new blog this week: Tyler Braun’s Man of Depravity. He had some interesting thoughts about worship lyrics and the importance to know what we’re singing about. Later on he gave an example of a song that he felt had great lyrics.

I hope that you, like me, were encouraged by each of these!

Thoughts?

Dustin

Yes, you heard it here first. Olivia took 6 ‘crawls’ last night. We even have it on video. You know what this means? Our lives are about to get even more crazier.

Hey everyone! Here are some of my top recommended links of the week (from the blogs that I subscribe to):

• Someone I follow on Twitter is Shaun King (an Atlanta pastor), and since the devastating news in Haiti, he has actively been using social media to help (finding doctors, providing aid, information, raising $, etc) – here is his post regarding working with Sanjay Gupta from CNN.
• “Glorious Opportunity” from Ragamuffin Soul – excellent reminder on MLK Day.
• “So Much Greater” from Steven Furtick.
• “Forgiveness and Reconciliation” from Anne Jackson – wow, something that I needed to read this week.
• “Stay Humble” from Mark Batterson.

I hope that you, like me, were encouraged by each of these!

Thoughts?

Dustin

A couple weeks back ATL had temps in the 10-20 range for a week straight. Now, I like the cold weather… but that is a different level of COLD. With the help of a little moisture in the atmosphere, our area got a little snowy action. With that comes the floods of people who storm the grocery stores in search of bread and milk, and a few other people who decide that going 20 miles an hour on the highway is the safe thing to do. Anyway, because we received an inch of snow, and roads were a little icey, all ATL area schools were closed and my office decided to open at 10AM that day. Regardless, we had a little fun that morning!

Yes, I typed that title with Zach Morris’ life song in mind. But anyway, we were able to reconnect with some of Jen’s highschool friends over the holidays (Lisa came in town from CA, Nino in from TX, and Laura is local in the ATL). Thanks to Lisa, Sophie learned how to “shake your bum bum”.

OK, well maybe not. But Jenell did come into town from Austin, TX. The day after Christmas, Jen and Jenell ran a 5K (along w/ Jenell’s sister). I was jealous that they hit up The Flying Biscuit on their way out.