My sister-in-law sent this video to me and I cried thru out it. Why? Because my card board testimony would take up alot of cardboard!

Ok, most reviews said it left much to be desired but as a dedicated fan, I loved it. It made me laugh, cry and reflect on friendship. One great line Carrie said “life doesn’t always turn out like you planned in your fantasy that’s why you need real friends to help you get through it” or something like that!

After having read the book 11 Indispensable Relationships You Can’t Live Without, spending time with my friend Betsy who has been sharing on a book she’s been reading called “Waiting and Dating” that has a section on developing friendships and now this movie, I have to say I am more convinced that there are some people who play a great part in your life and too many of us miss it by not developing friendships that can withstand the good, the bad, the ugly of life.

I am grateful for my friends and the movie showcased just how important friends can be to help you survive anything in life. Anyway catch the movie, the basic themes of forgiveness, love, relationships, disappointment and failure are so real to our own lives you can’t help but get caught up in it all.

What the heck is going on with some of our educators!? This poor child suffered humilation at the hands of a teacher and I’m embarrassed to say it was a Flori-duh teacher. See, this is when I would need massive prayer not to hurt someone.

It is always sad when a parent has to bury their child. This rapper lost his premature baby.

For a long time all these youth were our kids…this was Destiny 3 on 3, a basketball program started to keep our youth off the streets.

The church I’ve been attending is starting a new series and mini-movement amongst anyone who wants to be a part of it, its called:

More about the series here, if you love South Fl even if you don’t live near by join the movement here.

I found the timing of this so interesting since I just finished the book I recommended a few days ago by Dr. Leonard Sweet, 11 Indispensable Relationships You Can’t Live Without. Withness 11 is Where is Your Jerusalem? He wrote:

 ”Every place has a personality. When you speak, can people hear the personality of your place? Do you speak with an accent? Does your “speech betray you,” as it did Peter with the servant girls? (see Matt 26:73). The incarnation means that disciples of Jesus speak not only with a gospel accent, but with a geographic accent as well. The intonations of place get deep inside and change us. If you’re a part of a “place,” it changes you.”

 I’m a Nuyorican (Puerto Rican) born in Brooklyn (Williamsburg) raised in Manhattan (Lower East Side) who lived in almost every borough (Bronx, Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn) but who now finds herself in South Florida, specifically Miramar, a place that started out as bedroom community because of its proximity to Miami, Hollywood, and Fort Lauderdale. It is the second largest city in Broward County. We are sandwiched between Hollywood to the East, Fort Lauderdale to the North, Miami to the South and not much to the West. More people live in Broward County that used to live some place else than any other place, most of the people are coming from Latin America. The majority of immigrants are from Haiti, Peru, Jamaica, Columbia, Nicaragua according to INS records.

Miramar, South Florida is now my Jerusalem, my place. It is changing me. I am still adjusting to the way things are done here from developing relationships to ministry but I know I can’t be any other place. Do I miss my NY. In ways I do but I don’t miss living there, I know I am sure because I was just there last month. SoFlo is in me now, the personality of my current place helps me appreciate where I came from but also cherish where I find myself now.

When around my close friends in NY, I speak my place and they know I love SoFlo! But now its time for me to figure out how to share my love for SoFlo with others around me in a tangible way and if possible, make a difference. I just turned down an opportunity to join a pastoral team deep in Miami because Broward County is my place and where I need to share the love of the gospel. We love SoFlo and we know God is making a place for us here.

Check out this video:

My son Sam has had a fascination with eschatology lately since his New Testament readings have had alot of prophetic messages about the last days. So to help him visualize some of these events, I ordered some movies from this place. I have a list of them some of them like the ones we watched today go back to when I was 11!! I remember watching A Thief in the Night and A Thief in the Night II-Distant Thunder on 8th Street and Ave D in Manhattan during some church’s street evangelism effort. It was powerful then for an 11 year old and even though it was very outdated in terms of looks, phones, sound, etc. my son was moved to ask to accept Jesus as his personal savior today! He had said this prayer before but today was different. He really understood what Jesus did for us and how hard it will be to be a believer after the rapture (yes I am a pre-tribulation believer), we all cried together as he repeated the prayer his daddy led him with today.

That’s not all…he started asking questions about is being saved about being a good person, not lying, etc and we said when you want to walk like Jesus you want to follow what he did and what he said we should do as disciples, so then he said, “oh so being good is like extra credit!” We had a laugh with that one.

I’ve been working with a few Spanish churches to help them move into English service ministry, utilizing marketing and a few other avenues that most traditional Spanish churches don’t consider. In a recent meeting I was sharing with the Pastor and Leadership of one particular church that they don’t need to worry so much about the church “Walmart Effect” because there are just as many people looking for “smaller” than there are of people looking to “biggie” size their church.

Some people (like me) prefer smaller churches because I do want to be known by name, I do want to be able to get in close proximity to the pastor for a quick handshake sometimes and not fear the bodyguards and I do like to get to know others around me. I have experienced the MEGA church as well when I first moved to FL and it just ain’t me. My home church was about 450-500 when I moved and that is as big as I can tolerate. I am not saying that there is no place for MEGA, I just prefer MICRO or thereabouts.

So I tell churches don’t sweat it. Relax. Be the unique you and people looking for that type of church will come. This guy tells us pretty much the same, people looking or leaving a church choose MEGA versus MICRO pretty much evenly divided.

seem to live in New Jersey so says this article, NY has the 3rd dumbest.

I am reading a book called 11 Indispensable Relationships You Can’t Be Without by Dr. Leonard Sweet. The inside cover text that made me buy the book starts off with “The real meaning of life is not a journey question or an arrival question. It’s a relationship question. Your journey and your destination are both important, but neither is possible without an answer to this prior question: Who are you taking with you on the journey toward your destination?” Sweet believes there are characters in the Word that have traits we should look for (and also be for others) in relationships. In his mind, these 11 characters are God’s dream team for your life.

I am about half-way through and I’ve loved it so far. It has discussion questions after every chapter making it a perfect discussion book for friends, leadership teams, etc. I’ve always liked his writing style and this book for me is just wonderful because it points out an area that I believe people in ministry always neglect…looking for, developing, nurturing and maintaining key relationships.  Sweet calls these key people withnesses in our life as opposed to witnesses. His rationale for that is that these people walk “with” us in life in various roles while witnesses watch, observe our lives but are not active in it. I liked that.

Just this morning before I started my homeschool day with Sam, I was reading chapter (Withness 7) on needing a Deborah, someone who covers your back…one of the things he elaborates on in this chapter is the fact, a sad one but true, that the church is good at wounding their own and that we should expect to have a friend backstab us.  He said that is the ultimate betrayal when a back-guard becomes the back-stabber.

“Look around you at your circle of closest friends. You can be certain of one thing: One of them will betray you. You say, “No, certainly not! Not my friends.” I say, “Are you better than Jesus?”

He continues with this illustration:

“I will never forget a Starbucks meeting with a pastor and his lead elder. They wanted some advice on how to take their staff to the next level. As we stood up to go, I felt moved to say to the pastor, “Remember one more thing: You can count on one of your confidants betraying you. Every time you see a picture of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, don’t look for the hidden Mary. Look for the hidden Judas. Goethe in a famous essay suggested the whole picture was designed to convey Christ’s words ‘one of you shall betray me.’”

The lead elder laughed and said to the pastor, “You don’t think it’s me, do you?” The Pastor laughed back, “Just don’t do it with a kiss.”

A year later it came out that the pastor’s wife and that lead elder were having an affair.”

What I like about this book is that it’s honest…the good, bad, ugly. He doesn’t sugar coat the fact that we need people in our lives, that some of the people we allow in our lives will hurt us deeply and that Christians can be mean or meaner than folk who don’t profess to know Jesus.

I  think every one should read this book because it will challenge your committment to personal development and your belief that you can do it without the help of others. Bottomline, you need a team of people around you.