An Open Letter To My Timber Ridge Family

Dear Timber Ridge Family,

I love this time of year – holiday parties, Christmas trees, hot chocolate and the spirit of generosity that seems to swell up in our society. There’s something about peace on earth and goodwill towards men that makes me think about other people a little more than usual.

This month, I’m inviting everyone connected to Timber Ridge Church to participate in our annual Christmas Offering called My Best Gift. This is the time of year where we put feet to our faith – where we show our community and our world the love of Jesus. The idea here is that as we buy gifts for other people, we want our largest, most extravagant gift to go to Jesus. This year, we’ve set our BIGGEST GOAL EVER and we will only be able to reach it if we all join in together to accomplish this mission. 

Our goal for this special Christmas offering is $15,000.

Here’s how 100% of the funds will be used:

School Construction in Vietnam: We are partnering to serve and share God’s love in Vietnam. We’ll be sending a team to our adopted school, Hau Thao, in Sapa, Vietnam in March and these funds will cover the construction project they will work on.

Church Planting: We plan to continue to be aggressive in our church planting efforts, using our My Best Gift funds to continue to fund our plants in Toronto and in Marshall, TX and help more churches start in 2014.

On December 15, 2013, we will receive the My Best Gift Offering during our weekend services. If you’re going to be out of town on December 15, or if you’d like to go ahead and donate now, you can do that now online by clicking here. It’s safe, secure and simple to use. If you give online, please be sure to put “My Best Gift” in the note/memo section.

Please pray about participating and jump in with us. God has given us a great mission, and we’re blessed to be able to join Him in reaching our community for Christ and advancing the Gospel around the world.

Blessings,

Pastor Nic

A Christmas Gift Guide For Parents

Christmas is upon us. And I love it. I really do think it's the most wonderful time of the year. From celebrating God's gift to us through Jesus to spending time with friends and families to giving gifts to those we love...there's so much to love about the Christmas season. And as a parent, I've learned that my kids bring so much more joy into the holiday season.

But too many times being a parent means added stress as well. We feel like we have to find the perfect gift. We're pressured into spending more money than we have. At Christmas time, sometimes more than any other time of the year, we feel the need to keep up with the Jones's.

As parents, Johanna and I have felt those pressures. But we started doing something a few years ago that has revolutionized our Christmas experience. It helps us to focus on the real reason we celebrate and allows us to slow down the crazy consumerism that has engulfed the holiday.

Here's what we do: Our kids get four gifts. Yes, you read that right: four. And we have a system that we use. Here's how it goes:

Something you want,

Something you need,

Something to wear,

Something to read.

This system has allowed us to be less stressed, stay within a budget, and keep the real focus on Jesus at Christmas.

If you're a parent out there feeling the stress and struggle of Christmas consumerism, I hope this strategy might help your family as well.

Christmas Tips For Dads

Christmas time is here again.  Time for dad to get frustrated with house decorating, stress out over how much money is spent on gifts, and have his family overcome with a crazy, chaotic calendar.

But what if it doesn't have to be that way?  We have a unique opportunity at Christmas to create great family memories and lead our families in growing closer to Jesus.  And let's face it:  Our kids grow up way to fast.  

So here are some tips for dads to make the most of the holiday season for their families:

1. Check your Cheer - Dad's, don't let the stress and spending of the holidays rob you of your Christmas cheer.  Be joyful.  Be hopeful.  You're family takes their cues from you.
2. Model Generosity - The holidays are a great time to teach your family about giving and generosity. Who are you planning to adopt, bless, and serve this holiday season?
3. Dive In To Decorations - We need to help our wives with decorating the house.  We need to make it a family affair.  We need to take time to drive around and look at Christmas lights with the family.  Embrace the sights and sounds of Christmas and be sure your family is having the complete holiday experience.
4. Make It About Jesus - It's easy for the message of Christmas to get lost in the hype.  Dads need to be leading their families to remember that Christmas is all about Jesus.  Dads need to be leading their families spiritually.  How are you doing with this dad? (For a great Christmas Bible reading plan click here.)
5. Plan A Christmas Calendar - I started planning a Christmas calendar a couple years ago and it made the holiday so much better for our family.  Here are 4 things you can do to be successful with this dads: 

• Make sure you're planning family time where memories will be made.
• Create time to build family traditions.
• Check out local events that can make the holidays fun for your family.
• Be wise about what you say yes to and what you say no to.

Dads, let's be intentional in making the most of Christmas for our families this year.  Let's lead well.  Let's model the Christmas spirit for our children & not miss out on a great opportunity to build memories that can last a lifetime!

Timber Ridge V.O.W.

This week's Volunteer of the Week at Timber Ridge Church is Carmon Rike. Carmon uses her time, talent, and abilities to serve in our Sprouts ministry as a part of our Timber Ridge Kids team. Each week she cares for our kids and helps them know that God loves them. Thanks Carmon for all that you do!

Carmon & Pastor Nic

If you'd like to volunteer on our Timber Ridge Kids team, or any other area in our church, you can get more info by clicking here.

Timber Ridge Volunteer of the Week

This week's Timber Ridge V.O.W. is John David Sursa. John David serves each Sunday on our Guest Services team. He's served as a greeter, an usher, a member of the parking lot team, and pretty much anything else he's been asked to do. It's not unusual to see him serving in multiple services on a Sunday too. THANK YOU John David for all that you do to serve others and make an impact here at Timber Ridge Church! YOU ROCK!

John David & Pastor Nic

If you're interested in getting connected and volunteering at Timber Ridge, click here for more details.

Timber Ridge V.O.W.

This week's Timber Ridge Volunteer of the Week is Sherah Mills. Sherah has invested countless hours serving at Timber Ridge Church. She's taken elementary children to Kidz Kamp, served as a sponsor for youth camp, and serves consistently and faithfully in our Kid Ridge area every Sunday morning. If you've got a K-6th grader, it's a good bet that Sherah has had a major impact on their lives.  THANK YOU Sherah for all you do! You ROCK!

Pastor Nic & Sherah

If you are interested in using your time, talent, and energy to make a difference by volunteering on a team at Timber Ridge, click here to get more info!

Timber Ridge V.O.W.

This week's Timber Ridge Volunteer of the Week is Cole Lindsey. As a junior high student, Cole is setting the example of serving and making a difference at a young age. Each Sunday morning Cole invests in the next generation by faithfully serving in our Kids Ridge children's ministry, loving on our kids and helping them connect with Jesus.

Pastor Nic & Cole

If you're interested in making an impact by volunteering at Timber Ridge, click here for more info!

The Equity of Leadership

When we hear the word economy, we usually think banks, business, government, and finances. As a leader there is another economy. It's the leadership economy. Similar to the banking world, you consistently make deposits and withdrawals with the people and the teams you lead. The decisions you make, the actions you take, and the words you speak can be used in a powerful way to build equity as a leader.

And if there is one word to describe how you build leadership equity it's this: TRUST.

Trust is the currency of leadership equity. If you build trust with the people you lead and the people who lead you, you'll quickly realize that you're building equity in your leadership.  And trust is a difficult currency to work with. Because it takes time and consistency to develop, but it can be destroyed in a single moment.

So how do we build trust? Here's four ways to build trust with the people you lead and with the people who lead you.

1. Honor your word. If you say you'll do something, do it. Plain and simple. 
2. Take care of business. If the people you lead can't trust you with simple tasks or a small amount of responsibility, you're not likely to be given more leadership and responsibility. Likewise, if the people you lead don't trust you to get the job done, they're likely not going to follow you for long.
3. Be present. Leadership, at the end of the day, is all about relationships. And you build trust in relationships by being present and investing in people's lives. When you show you care, people realize they can trust you.
4. Exhibit integrity. Always have integrity in your speech. Refuse to gossip. Refuse to complain Refuse to be negative. Remember this principle: If people will talk about someone else to you, they'll talk about you to someone else. And no one trusts that kind of person. 

Understand this: Building trust takes time, consistency, and hard work. But it's the most important investment you'll make as a leader. Why? Because building trust = building leadership equity.

Timber Ridge V.O.W. - August 25th

This week's Timber Ridge Volunteer of the week is Landon Salyer. Landon serves as our Parking Team leader and every Sunday you can find him helping guests find parking spots and welcoming them to our campus. Landon plays a big part in helping our guests feel welcomed and at home each week as they attend Timber Ridge. Thank you Landon for all that you do to serve and make a difference!

Pastor Nic & Landon

If you attend Timber Ridge and would like to get connected to serve on a ministry team, you can get more info and sign up to serve by clicking here.

The Leadership Ladder

Leading in an organization or within a group of people has its ups and downs. There are times when it is exhilarating and fun. There are times when it is difficult. And at times, leadership can be downright daunting.

But regardless of whether you are a part of a church, business, team, or other institution there are some ways you can increase your leadership skills. There are certain behaviors, attitudes, and skills you can adopt that will help you move up the leadership ladder.

If you'd like to improve your leadership, try one of these three things:

#1: Contribute more than you criticize. Move beyond being a problem spotter, to becoming a problem solver. Leadership math is very simple - it's basically this formula: Contribute > Complain. In the end, leaders are people who contribute more than they criticize.

#2: Increase your commitment and decrease your agenda. Leaders of an organization are people who are more concerned with the mission and vision of the organization than they are with their own personal agenda. If you want to lead, it means more commitment, more time, and more sacrifice for the mission...and more death to your own agenda.

#3: Realize relational equity trumps positional equity. It's been said that people don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care. That statement has never been more true than when it comes to leadership in our current culture. A position doesn't necessarily make people follow you anymore. And titles certainly won't magically make you a person worth following. People who are willing to invest in others and add value to a team build relational equity that allow them to lead in ways that no title or position ever could.

Regardless of where you find yourself today within your organization, you can move up the leadership ladder. You can make a difference. You can be a person worth following.

Timber Ridge V.O.W. - August 18th

This week's Timber Ridge Volunteer of the Week is Terrye Nickels. Terrye has served on our Guest Services team since the beginning of our church. Each week she serves as a greeter warmly welcoming people and helping them to feel comfortable and at home in our worship services. Thank you Terrye for all you do to consistently serve and help people connect with Jesus!

Terrye & Pastor Nic

If you attend Timber Ridge regularly and are interested in serving on a Ministry Team, click here for more details.

Timber Ridge V.O.W.

This week's Timber Ridge Volunteer of the Week (VOW) is Emily Miller. Emily is one of the student in our Student Ministry who consistently and faithfully uses her time, talent, and energy to make a difference here at Timber Ridge Church. Emily can be found each week loving on kids and helping to make our Timber Ridge Kids ministry an exciting and fun place for kids to learn about Jesus. She's also one of the first people to tackle an extra task, whether it's filling water balloons for a youth event or cleaning the bathrooms for Sunday services.  Emily, YOU ROCK!!! Thanks for all you do to help people connect with Jesus at Timber Ridge!

Pastor Nic & Emily

(If you attend Timber Ridge and are interested in serving on a ministry team, you can get more info here.)

Timber Ridge V.O.W. - July 28th

Congrats to Christy Jenkins as our Timber Ridge Volunteer of the Week for the week of July 28th! Christy serves double duty most Sunday's working in our Guest Services team in the cafe and also serving with our Timber Ridge Kids team as a nursery worker. Thank you Christy for keeping the coffee hot & the kids loved!  We appreciate all you do...YOU ROCK!

Pastor Nic & Christy 

If you would like more info about serving on a ministry team at Timber Ridge, click here.

Keeping Your Kids Safe Online:4 Guidelines For Parents

Earlier this week, I posted about 5 Social Media sites your kids are probably using. (You can check it out here.)  It's always good to know where our kids & teens are hanging out...even online. But it's even better to set some standards in our families to help keep our kids safe online & to help them win with things like social media.

So here are four guidelines that can help your family develop a plan for keeping your kids safe online.

4 Ways To Keep Your Kids Safe Online

#1: Know your kid's usernames and passwords. Regardless of how much or how little you allow your kid to be online, you should have access to their online passwords and usernames.

#2: Check your kid's profiles regularly..and communicate this to them! If your child was hanging out at someone's home or in another neighborhood on a regular basis, you'd check out the environment. It's no different online. As parents, we should consistently check our child's online activity and profiles. But be sure you communicate to your child that you'll be doing this. You don't have to tell them when you'll do it, but communicating to your child that you will be checking from time to time does two things: First of all, it helps them have accountability to you on the front-end. Secondly, it allows you to build trust because you're not spying on them if you've already communicated you'll be checking in on them.

#3: Set time limits & "hours of operation" for online activity and social media usage.  As a family, set standards for how long per day your kids can be online and what hours of the day you expect for their social media activity to be "closed." Remember to include phone usage into these limits, since much of social media is done through smartphone apps.

#4: Keep your computer in public places. One of the best ways you can help your children stay accountable in their online activity and relationships is to be sure that you keep all computers in your home in public places, like the living room, family room, or office. The accountability that this provides helps your kids avoid visiting questionable sites and engaging in dangerous relationships.

Your Kids & Social Media

If you have a preteen or teenager, chances are they are using social media of some kind. As a parent, navigating this ever-changing world of online connections can be daunting and overwhelming.  

Here are five social media sites - along with some brief descriptions - that kids are using:

Tumblr - Current stats show that over 60% of Tumblr's users are teens. Tumblr also links with facebook and allows people to share across platforms. Teenagers love tumblr for it's fast pace sharing of photos and quotes. 

Instagram - Instagram allows users to upload pictures and short videos to share with their friends and followers. Instagram’s main functions are done on its mobile app for iPhone and Android. You can start an Instagram account where you are able to search for people by looking up their name or importing your Facebook contacts.

Twitter - Twitter is a social media site that allows people to connect through short, text-like, 140 character updates. If you sign up for your own twitter account, you can search your child's name to see if they use twitter. Even if their username isn't their real name, you should still be able to find them by searching their real name.

Snapchat - Snapchat is a photo messaging app for smart phones. Snapchat’s users consist of mainly kids and teens. Snapchat allows users to send and receive photos that disappear after a short time limit. The dangerous thing is that  once the time limit is up, the photo is hidden and hard to retrieve. 

Facebook - Facebook currently reports that just over 50% of their users are teens. If you are on Facebook, you've probably realized that the activity of younger users on this site is starting to be slow and that many teens are moving to newer social media sites. However, there is still a strong teen presence on Facebook simply off of sheer number of users alone.





As a parent, it's good to know the neighborhoods that our kids hang out in. And that truth may be even more true when it comes to social media and the online neighborhoods they create. Be informed. Be proactive. Know what's going on in the lives of your kids.

For another FANTASTIC blog on social media sites, sexting, and kids, CLICK HERE.

(And if you want a few pro-active tips for helping your kids stay safe online, CLICK HERE.)

Timber Ridge Volunteer of The Week - July 21st

This week's Timber Ridge V.O.W. is Chelsea Marlow.  Chelsea is a nursing student at TSU and has been at Timber Ridge almost since the beginning. She has used her gifts, time, and energy to serve in a variety of ways over the last 18 months, including volunteering with Timber Ridge Kids, serving at special community events, and working on our media team. Chelsea currently serves as a key member of our media team, making sure things like video, audio, and production run smoothly at our worship experiences on Sunday. Thank you Chelsea for all you do!  You ROCK!

(If you attend Timber Ridge and currently do not serve on a ministry team, get more info on how to volunteer and make a difference by clicking here.)

KidRidge Weekly Parent Take-Home: Week of July 21st

Spread the Light

KidRidge July 21, 2013

MEMORY VERSE

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill can’t be hidden.” - Matthew 5:14

BIBLE STORY

Great Commission • Matthew 28:16-20

BIG IDEA

God is doing something in me to show the world who He is.

TAKE HOME

In this week’s Bible story, Jesus commanded His followers to go into all the world and tell about God’s love (Matthew 28:16-20). And then we saw how some of those men obeyed and God’s love spread from one town to the next (Matthew 9:35 – 11:1; Acts 1-2, 8-10; The Epistles). What a great reminder from Jesus that we should all be examples of God’s love to others. One great way to be a light and a city on a high hill is to be quick to share the great news that Jesus came to the earth, died on a cross, and rose from the dead so that we could live forever with God! What a wonderful thing God did and what great news to share! Remember, God is doing something in each of us to show the world who He is.

Remember as a parent how it felt after your first child was born? You were so elated! How did you spread the news? Person to person, no doubt! God is developing a story of His love in each of us that we can share, and soon His love can cover the whole world. We taught the KidRidge group this week that God’s light is passed from person to person starting with the people around each one of them. 

This week as a family discuss:

• What are ways to start to share God with the people around us in our everyday lives?

• What are ways you could someday tell other places in the world about Jesus? 

• If you have been on a mission trip of some kind to another nation, share about this experience with your family.

• How can we spread the Light of Jesus in the community of Stephenville?

Timber Ridge VOW

This week's Timber Ridge Volunteer of the Week is Vickie Almquist. Vickie faithfully serves on our Guest Services team as a greeter each week and has also served on our cafe team. Vickie's heart for hospitality & warm smile help people feel welcome each week as they attend Timber Ridge.

Thank you Vickie for all you do to serve and make a difference on a consistent basis!  You ROCK!

Vickie & Pastor Nic

If you attend Timber Ridge and are interested in making a difference by serving on a ministry team, you can get more info by clicking here.

Timber Ridge Kids Take Home - From Sunday, July 7th

Hey Timber Ridge Parents!  If you have a K-6th grader, here's your weekly take home from our Timber Ridge Kids team. It provides a brief summary of what your kids learned on Sunday, as well as some ways you can reinforce the lesson & engage your children in spiritual conversations at home this week!  Check it out:

This Week's Key Bible Verse:  Luke 6:31 -- Do to others as you would have them do to you.
 
Kindness is making someone feel valuable by the way you treat them.  When you are kind to someone, you are giving the best part of who you are.  
 
#1: Watch the following video together. As you watch, answer the questions together.  Use the video to start a family discussion about what it means to be kind.  Think about the things you each consider as kindness.  

Think about something you can do as a family this week to show kindness to someone.  
 
To go deeper, CLICK HERE and watch this video. Think about the difference being kind can make, not just in you, but in people you encounter everyday.  Talk about these questions:

• What impact should having a relationship with God make on our words and actions towards others?
• In "big church" this week, we used the movie Man of Steel,  to talk about how Superman is the source of hope for the world.  We know that Jesus is our source of hope.  How can being kind help spread that hope of Jesus to others?  

A Paradigm Shifter

When we read and study God's Word, there are often times when the truth within the Bible alters the lens in which we look through life.  I think Proverbs 24:16 is one of those verses.  Here's what it says:

The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again. - Proverbs 24:16

Far too often, we keep score of the wrong things. We tend to count the failures, keep track of the mistakes, and keep tab of how many times we fall. But that's not what matters to God. That's not how God keeps score. It's not about how many times we fall. It's about how many times we get back up. And that's why this verse is paradigm shifting.

The Lesson: It's not how many times you stumble or fall. It's how many times you get back up that really matters.