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Peter Gowesky

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In Faith in Real Life

Seasons Change

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I love the seasons.  I particularly like the change of seasons.  For whatever reason I enjoy change.  I like when spring turns to summer, I love when summer turns to fall, and I am anticipating fall turning to winter.  There is nothing like when winter’s grip breaks loose and spring begins to show herself.  Right about now I have had enough of the heat wave and I am excited for it to cool off a bit.  Alas, that is why I love the change of seasons.  I enjoy change.

Seasons aren’t just weather related.  Many of us have been through seasons of life and we have seen changes come and go in our own lives.  It has been over 8 months since I have last written anything here on the Salt Lick.  There have been moments when I felt like writing something and then I paused, thought about it and decided against it.  For whatever reason I felt like I was in a season of life where I didn’t have anything else to say.  The last thing that I wanted to do was just add to the noise in life.  So I felt it best to remain quiet.

Seasons change.  There have been a lot that has happened in the last 8 months.  Some really amazing things.  It has been an incredible 8 months and I am expecting another incredible 8 months (hopefully more).

I am excited to share them with you, and I will let it out in dribs and drabs as time permits.  It is hard to unpack what God has been doing in my life over the last 8 months in one post.  It will be several.  Tomorrow there will be big news though.  I have been waiting to share this with you because I am really excited to see how God works in this particular situation…

I know for me the last 8 months have been incredible.  But what about you?  What has happened in the last 8 months? Leave a comment below and let’s hear about it!

~Peter

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In Faith in Real Life

Till 2010

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This past weekend I had the incredible opportunity to take eight of our youth leaders down to the National Youth Workers Convention in Atlanta Georgia.  We heard from some great speakers, (Andy Stanley, Francis Chan, Perry Noble, Steven Furtick, Donald Miller and others) all of us were challenged in one way or another.  We learned what it looks like to lead in uncertainty, we were challenged to love the Lord with all that we are, we were asked to commit to leading Godly youth ministries focused on Jesus, and challenged to share the greatest story that has ever been told with an unswerving diligence and dedication.

Over the course of this extended weekend I honestly believe that God has stretched me.  There were times of heartfelt worship, moments of raw emotion, thoughts of missed opportunities, and words of encouragement.  I was challenged to adopt a bigger dream and vision than ever before.  There are many details that I need to work out yet before I share with you and my church body what this means and looks like.  However, I know that this is exciting!  It is big!  It is going to rock our worlds and hopefully the worlds of many around us.

So in preparation for this dream right here at the start of seeing God fulfill it I have decided to quit blogging for a little over a month.  I will resume blogging here at www.thesaltlick.tv on January 1st, 2010.  My desire is to use this time to really focus on listening to God, and following the leading of His spirit.

Others in the blogging world have called what I am doing a “Blogatical”.  That’s a pretty good description…  There is a lot that I don’t know about what’s to come over the course of this next month.  However, here’s what I do know.  I know that God is the God of all things!  I know that I want to hear from God.  I know that I want to rely solely on His Holy Spirit and be led by Him alone.  I know that I want to see God do some amazing things here in this online community as well as the community that I live in.

So until 2010, I’m signing off!

~Peter

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In Uncategorized

Real quick

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Tonight we talked about the question what does God want for your life… We checked out a few ideas in Micah 6:6-8 and also Matthew 23:23.

God wants us to do justice, love mercy, and be faithful!

Here were a few resources we talked about in regards to making a difference.

www.kiva.org

http://stuffchristianslike.net

I know that we can make a huge difference in this world.  These were just two examples.  I’m excited to hear the stories of what God lays on your heart.

~Peter

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In Faith in Real Life

Where the Wild Things Are

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Last Sunday I had the opportunity to teach in all three of our main gatherings here at church.  I always appreciate the opportunity to teach.  For me part of the process is unlocking the creative imagery for whatever topic we are discussing…  This week we used the book by Maurice Sendak, “Where the Wild things are” to help illustrate the teaching time.  Here is the video that was seen in the morning gatherings and was supposed to be seen in the evening gathering.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ui2zxiwA_U]

This week we were talking about God’s Love.  Here are a couple thoughts and questions to think about…

  • How often do you run to where the wild things are?
  • How does it make you feel to be reminded of the truth found in Romas 5:8? “But God demonstrates His own love toward us that even when we were sinners Christ died for us.”
  • You have never experienced a loveless day in your life!
  • Which lie do you have the hardest time not believing?
    • I’m to dirty for God to love me
    • Everyone else is against me, my world is falling apart, God can’t love me in all this
    • If I’m good enough I can earn God’s love
  • How does understanding the depth of God’s love for you motivate you to love others?  Should it?  Does it?
  • 1 John 4:11 “If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

Just some good Wednesday morning thoughts…  What do you think?

~Peter

 

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This guy is funny!

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jon acuffSeriously, just when you think that you are funny, someone else always shows up to the party that is infinitely funnier!  Totally ruins the mood!  So, whenever I look for a good dose of humor, I turn to non other than my friend Jon Acuff.  We’re facebook friends, that proves friendship right?  I mean, we all have deep and meaningful relationships with every single one of the 4.25 million people that we are “Friends” with.  So, then you could say that I am friends with Johnny as I like to call him.  (I can do that cause we’re friends…)

Today’s post was too funny not to share… Here is today’s post from his blog, Stuff Christians Like.  Check it out daily for a good dose of humor!

Today’s post is on the subject of: “The V neck”.  And as you know, I am a fan of the V.  So, head over here… check it out, and enjoy!

~Peter

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In Family & Parenting

Slow it down

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This week has come and gone with the greatest of ease.  Man!  I’ll tell you what, time slips by before you know it.

This week I was in meeting after meeting it seemed.  We ended up in the hospital with Noah’s forehead…  I met up with some other youth pastors discussed long range goals… I stressed out.  I cleaned our whole front yard(all million walnuts and all) and it seemed like life flew by.

Photo 76 Today I am going to try and slow it down.  Take it in.  Listen to each moment.  Spend time with the kids doing silly things… drawing dinosaurs, birds in nests, cranes, and whatever else Noah’s mind can think of.  We’re going to play pirates, build blocks, and legos.  Grace will run around and play kitchen, and tag along with big brother.  Today won’t come back…

The next time I’ll visit today will be in my memory.

What is one thing you want to slow down and enjoy today?

~Peter

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In Faith in Real Life

Can this be possible?

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpXPCJUC2Kw&feature=popular]

Here’s what I want to know… Is this even possible?  I mean honestly?  $29.95 will get me that sculpted body, in 6 simple minutes a day?

So, here’s what I think.  I think that it’s crazy!

What do you think?  Do you think the shake weight can actually work?

Seems like a short cut to me…

I’m shaky on the shake weight…  Are you solid, or shaky?

~Peter

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Card Houses…

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The other night I was hanging out with a good buddy of mine, Rob.  Rob and I go way back… We go back to the days of middle school.  We were young morons that grew up together and lived life in the fast lane together.  The stories could go on forever.  So we got our families together for a fun evening of hanging out and catching up.  We ended up playing cards but then the card playing digressed into talking…  Which was awesome…  So I started building…  My hands are always doing something… Got to keep them busy… I started building a card house…  Didn’t get very far.  But then I thought about a little experiment…  Let’s see how many cards I can get on top of this card structure.  Here’s a few pictures…

card foundation...104 cards on top...Besides the obvious skill involved in getting all of those cards to balance there was a vital and necessary element to the whole production; the foundation.

Foundations are essential…  It doesn’t matter what you are doing…  Foundations are vital…

They are vital in:

  • card houses
  • real houses
  • friendships
  • marriages
  • jobs
  • school work
  • sports

It doesn’t just stop there.  Foundations are essential in your relationship with God and your understanding of Him!  With the simple card hut in mind, what kind of foundation are you establishing in the spiritual corners of your life?  Do you find yourself strengthening those foundations? Are you spending time reading God’s word? Are you finding times of quiet where you can pray and commune with God?  Are you finding times to be silent before the whole world and ask God to speak to you?  Are you finding times to spend with other christians so that you can encourage one another/build each other up/pray for one another and sharpen one another?  It’s these moments and efforts that help us strengthen our foundation.

Let’s try it.

~Peter

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