We Coffee You

When was the last time you sat down with your spouse and had a heart to heart? Have you been relying on “Hallmark Cards” to tell your Mom how much she means to you? Is there someone that you need to apologize to? Are you feeling a little distance in between you and your best friend?

Have you got something to say?

It’s hard to make time to sit down and connect with the people you love. Schedules, responsibilities, even finances can keep us from open, heart-felt dialogue.

So have a cup on us.

Dialogue Church believes that good communication is the soul of healthy relationships. So we want to buy you and that special person a cup of coffee. We can’t say what needs to be said, we can’t make it a priority for you, but we would be privileged to send you and a friend to Starbucks on us.

Swing by Dialogue Church any Sunday before November 1st, and we’ll put a Starbucks gift card in your hand. Then its up to you, and the conversation that coffee creates.

That’s it. No strings attached.

You won’t be asked to do anything. You don’t have (but are welcome to) join us for our worship experience. You don’t have to wear your Sunday best (please don’t—you’ll stick out). You aren’t expected to have something to good to say. Just show up, grab a card, and…

Join the Conversation.

Head back to www.ragamuffinsoul.com for more Creative Chaos!

Helping God Out…aka “Healer” was faked.

So the story broke today. Mike Guglielmucci faked the whole thing. He never had cancer. He never had a terminal illness. He never went to the doctor, got the bad news, and then sat down and penned that awesome song. It was a lie. He was a fake.

But the song wasn’t.

Let’s face it. The song is a good song. I admit that I didn’t like it much at first. And, honestly, if it wasn’t coupled with the incredible (and completely made up) testimony, I don’t know if I ever would have liked it. But I do now. And so do millions of people around the world. God took Mike’s lack of class and character, turned it around, and made good come out of it.

Just like He always does.

I feel horrible for the thousands of people who spent $40 a pop to buy the healer DVD. I hope somehow they get their money back. I and am grieving for the people who will harden their hearts toward God because of this debauchery.

But I think that it is wonderful to serve a God who uses screw-ups, idiots, and yes even sinners–like me. I know that I’ve been guilty of the same thing Mike did. He tried to help God out a little bit. As if God were incapable of bringing glory to himself without that incredible story and somewhat mediocre song. I’ve done the same. I’ve enhanced details to make the story zing, threw in a key change to manipulate emotions, marketed for shock value, and…

I’m not proud of it.

And I struggle every day to be authentic and real with God and before His people–His church. It’s just that I understand the temptation to spice things up a bit now and then. I know that God doesn’t need me or you, or Mike Guglielmucci for that matter, to carry him. And it is comforting to see that with the song Healer–just as it has been with me and you–that even when we thought we were carrying God, he was carrying us.

Read the story here.

Have you tried to “help God out”? Hit the “comment” link and Join the Conversation.

30 Men Lift A School Bus to Save a Pregnant Woman

It’s amazing what we can do together.

Donnette Sanz , 7 months pregnant, was walking to lunch when she was struck by a van and pushed into the path of an oncoming school bus. Immediately, a team of good samaritans began straining against the weight of the 5 ton school bus. More people gathered until, together, they were able to free Donnette from the wreckage.

Sanz was rushed into the St. Barnabas emergency room at 2:18 p.m. She survived the emergency delivery, and died at 4:22 p.m. Her baby was taken to the neonatal intensive-care unit and is expected to survive. The baby boy was named Sean Michael.

Baby Sean is living proof of what a team can accomplish.

The next time you are wondering if you are really needed at your church, remember baby Sean. Remember the power of a team working together.

You have a bus to lift.

Click here for the full story.

My Blog Is Better Than Your Blog

“Never have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few.” –www.despair.com

So I haven’t posted in a while…a long while. It wasn’t that I lost interest; I lost focus.

I found myself checking my blog several times a day just to see how many hits I had. I know, I’m pathetic…I was on this quest to prove that “my blog was better than your blog”. And as the hits came in, I felt some how justified as a person because of them.

I wonder why I am so prone to defining myself by how important I am to other people. By finding my self-worth in other people’s opinions, I allowed them to define me. I was as witty as you said I was. I was as smart as your “hits” declared. It is a scary thing—the power we allow others to wield over us.

I don’t want to be defined by you. I don’t want to be defined by my accomplishments, or my failures, or my status, or my abilities.

I want to believe that what God says about me is true.

I want to believe.

So what defines you? Hit the “comment” link and Join the Conversation.