Peter Gowesky – Page 17

In Uncategorized

Hot dogs and the back of a VW

October 13, 2009 1 Comment

Ministry happens…

It’s true. I’ll tell you what, I do a good amount of reading, wether it is blogs, books, tweets, or online papers… I want to know what is going on… I want to be apart of it…

Recently I’ve been reading and thinking about what service looks like. What does it mean to serve your community? How can serving our community make a difference in the kingdom of God? How can our church community jump in on it?

I haven’t arrived at any concrete solid answers yet. Probably never will, (every place is different, and circumstances always change) but I do know that there are certain avenues that I want to head towards.

This past weekend we did just that, service. There was a handful of us and we did just that.

It was pretty simple…

Our tools were:

1 VW hatchback
1 EZ-Up tent
1 mostly working grill (Grease Fire and all!)
1 camping grill
200 hot dogs
water bottles/soda cans
a couple coolers
1 small vat of sauerkraut
1 small vat of chili (I’m still not convinced it really was chili)

Here’s a few pictures…

What we were able to do was give away a whole bunch of hot dogs and make some great connections with people headed over to Del. Val.’s football game. It was great. A huge win for us (CONNECTION with people!) and for them(free hot dogs)! This is a win for us because we were able to honestly say, this hot dog is truly free,and we don’t want/expect anything from you. We just are here to serve you. And in the words of my friend Rick, “We are here just trying to do whatever we can to help our community. We’re from the church up the street.” Love it. It almost even sounds like a great name for the church…

What church do you go to, where are you from? “Yeah we’re from the Church up the Street”…

So, I think that there are two more home games. We should be at both. Let’s try and double our connections, double the amount of hot dogs given away and make this place a better place to live because of the difference that Jesus has made in our lives…

Thank you to Kris & Jan Gellar, Keith Cooper, Rick and Sarah Craven, Bruce Houser, Tiffany Gowesky, and many of you who donated food! We are in this together. Let’s keep serving our community.

Remember MINISTRY HAPPENS!

~Peter

In Uncategorized

Book Review: Killing Cockroaches

October 12, 2009 No Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXHne2QjPlM&feature=player_embedded#]
So, if you’ll remember several months ago I won a book from a drawing on Twitter. The book was Tony Morgan’s Killing Cockroaches, and other scattered musings on leadership. I love reading. Especially good books. Even more so when they are free books! So, if you have any free books that you think I should read, send em my way! But anyway back to it… This was a great read. It was definitely scattered in thought… If you are expecting a logical progression of thought from start to finish you won’t find that. What you will find is short brief, few paragraph, progressions focused on a certain aspect of leadership, or church life.

There are several topics that really resonated with me, here are a few:

Compel them to come in: Are our church services compelling? Is there more value attached to what we are doing than going to Starbucks and sipping coffee, playing golf, or sleeping in? Great thoughts, provoking questions…
Evangelistic Enemy?: “I wonder if we’ve inadvertently designed our ministries to isolate Christians from the places where God really wants them to be.” Are our programs keeping our church from having a greater evangelistic influence in their communities? This one will make you think.
Gunky Build Up: “Sometimes I believe the life that the more I do, the more valuable I am to the team. The reality is that I’m not being effective if I’m busy doing the wrong things.” What kind of gunk is building in my life that is keeping me from being the best possible leader I can be ? Great thoughts…
Marketing Mistakes: First off, the biggest mistake is thinking that the church shouldn’t market! But beyond that Tony has several great thoughts here. These two are my favorite.

thinking other church’s are your competition. “We are competing with todays culture. That means that other churches are on your team!”

Publicizing church programs that compete with one another. “Figure out what you do well and what God is using today to reach people for Jesus— And do that!”

This book is a great read… I would highly recommend it. Don’t read it if you don’t want to think. Don’t read it if your not ready to make some potential changes, don’t read it if you think that your church has totally arrived and is perfect.

Read it if you want to be more effective in whatever ministry you are doing…

That’s my prayer…

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Have you

October 6, 2009 No Comments

slowed down? Do you remember the last time that you enjoyed the moment? Dependent upon your part of the country, have you enjoyed the crisp fall air? When was the last time you enjoyed the moment? Whatever moment it was? I don’t know if for you it was a walk at night with your special someone… or maybe it was a large coke!

Or maybe it was…

Holding hands with your spouse
kissing your kids goodnight,
waking up and feeling the warmth on your sheets compared with the cool air
SNOOZE!!!
the first sip of a hot cup of coffee
A good laugh that almost makes you cry…
What is it for you???

I have to admit… Sometimes I stink at stopping and enjoying/appreciating those! See it’s moments like those that get lost in the BIG details, the expenses, the deadlines, the pressures, the stress, and the overall crud. Right now I need to see beyond moments like this…

It’s moments like that where I get lost in the details and the stress, and I miss out on enjoying the moments like these to the fullest:

Investigating their first rodent extraction!

Here’s the idea… Let’s take life a little slower. Let’s focus on the beautiful moments more than the stressful ones…

Could you walk through life a little less hurried? Could you stop and admire the details a little more?

What keeps you from living slowly?

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Typhoon Ketsana

October 5, 2009 No Comments

As many of you are aware, there have been several tragedies worldwide lately. A friend of mine, Jeff Davis, put this website together. It is my hope that you would jump over there and spend some time watching the video, but also remember that these just aren’t dramatic pictures, but they are glimpses into the lives of real men and women, boys and girls.

Let’s join together in prayer for each one of these people! Click here to visit the site.

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Laugh at God?!?

October 4, 2009 No Comments

The Bible is filled with some crazy stuff. I know that. But I read something today that I hadn’t noticed before.

Side Note: (It is so cool when you read through a familiar passage of the Bible and all of a sudden you see something fresh and new about God and who He is. Or you notice a detail that you hadn’t seen before! There is one more reason why you should be reading the word of God every day…)

So anyway back to it… I was reading today about a time when Jesus was healing people. You can read about it in Luke 8:40-56. Jesus had been healing several people over the course of the last several verses and then there is this story. There is a pressing problem. So much so that the dad came to talk to Jesus personally. He came to plead with Him to come and heal his daughter.

As Jairus, the dude, is going to get Jesus and is in fact walking(maybe briskly???) back to the house with Jesus someone comes and says, “forget about it. She’s dead. Don’t waste His time.” Jesus says, Don’t be afraid, only believe and she will be made well.” So they get to the house and they dismiss everyone and Jesus says, “STOP CRYING! She’s not dead, just sleeping.”

AND THEY LAUGHED AT HIM!

The people laughed at Jesus. Can you imagine laughing in the face of God? He just got done saying, don’t be afraid, only believe and she will be well. Then the very next second Jesus says, she’s not dead, just asleep. THE PEOPLE laugh… Remember who the people are… They are the parents of the “sleeping dead” girl. I’m telling you this is odd behavior!

If I were Jesus I would be like, forget it. I’m not healing her now… Laugh at me again, see what I do. I ought to smack you from here right back into Egyptian Slavery! How did you like wandering around for 40 years, sleeping in a tent every night? Go ahead, try that on for size! PUNK!

That’s just me. Not Jesus.

Jesus says, Child arise. AND SHE DOES!

So, here’s the weird part. These people really didn’t have faith. Jesus says, believe and she’ll be fine. Yet when it comes time to believe they are so far from actually believing. They laugh! Out Loud. But He still heals the child.

After not having noticed this juicy little tid bit before, it made me wonder, and think, how much faith do I really have? Have there been times when God has whispered to me, “I am going to do ______ through you or for you”… I hope that my response isn’t laughter!

What about you? Do you have the faith to believe that God means what He says?

~Peter

In Family & Parenting

lazy saturday

October 3, 2009 1 Comment

Every now and then it is really nice to just sit and relax… This morning proved to be one of those days. Noah and I enjoyed a morning together, while Tiffany and Grace ran to the grocery store, (clearly not as much fun!) to get a few necessary items. I wanted to share with you a glimpse of our morning.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps5U4M9m0is]

What is your favorite thing to do on your “Lazy Saturday”?

~Peter

In Uncategorized

LISTS…

October 2, 2009 No Comments

MAN OH MAN! Do you see that? If you were at the Five on Sunday night you should have a clue as to what that is… It is another honey do list! It was one left for me today! Everything on it is accomplishable, today even…

Here’s the deal, a list like this:

Keeps me on task
Reminds me of whats next
Helps remind me of what’s important/priority
Encourages Productivity

What do you think? Do you have a list of things that keep you on point in your life? This is a list for me to accomplish here at the house… But what about in your life? Are there things in your life that keep you moving in forward motion? What about in your walk with the Lord? What moves you forward/reminds of importance/priority?

~Peter

In Uncategorized

I probably should think more…

September 30, 2009 2 Comments

Today I was reading in Luke 7, and I saw something that I haven’t seen before… Check this out…

“The dead man sat up and began to speak. And Jesus gave him back to his mother. Fear gripped them all, and they began glorifying God, saying, ‘A great prophet has arisen among us!’ and, ‘God has visited His people!”

This made me think… What has God done in my life lately or the lives of my friends and family that has caused me to say, God has visited His people… Think about it… We say that God is with us, and He is near to us… But what recently has made you say ‘God has visited His people!’ I imagine that if we think about it we would have far more to cheer and shout about than what we do… Shame on me for not recognizing when God has done amazing things!

So… Today’s all skate question is this, “What has God done lately in your life that should have made you say, “God has visited His people, or God was definitely in that!”

Ready… Set… Go…

~Peter