Family Fest Speaker Podcast

How do we become emotionally aware? How do we wake up? God invites us to collaborate with him through our creative spirit. It's there that he speaks to our heart saying, “I have something for you. Listen to me. I'm speaking to your mind. I'm putting a thought in your mind.” God speaks to whomever he wishes whenever he wishes. Scripture: Luke 12

Spiritual death is not knowing Jesus as your Lord and Savior. God wants us to take him to spiritually dead people. He wants us to roll away the stones so that he can speak the words to their heart and give them spiritual life. Scripture: John 11

Have you ever observed geese flying in a V formation? The head goose shields the wind and all the rest are carried by him with very little effort on the part of any one bird. Often we strive for self-sufficiency, like an eagle or hawk, but God made us more like the goose. He wants us to follow behind him and share in communion with each other.

The process of finding yourself in the Bible has several steps. First we must enter the story, then we must make the story our own. Next we need to reflect on the good news of the story and, finally, we must give the story a meaningful name to us. Scripture: Mark 2: 1-12

Ginny Lacke

What if all the events in our life that we thought were meaningless and insignificant and didn't have purpose, God had been a part of it the whole time? God invites us to see the divine in every moment, big or small. God's timeline isn't about changing the trajectory of your life as much as it's changing the condition of your soul. Scripture: Esther 4: 14

God works to give us wake up calls, to not just change the trajectory of our lives, but to change the condition of our souls. He is working in our life; intersecting in our life. God wants to work through us, he wants to work in us, and he wants to work with us. Scripture: Esther 14

Looking at the last supper, we see ordinary people experiencing extraordinary things. We are reminded that through Christ all things are reconciled. We trust that God is going to do what only God can do and that through Christ, all will be set right.

Sometimes in life we're supposed to hit the brakes, but often we end up hitting the gas. It's hard to slow down. We know we're supposed to let go, but somehow we're clinging tighter. We're so desperate to run after what God wants us to do, that we miss how God wants us to be. God wants us to be in his proximity, he wants us with him.

Michael Frost says we're not called to take a leap of faith; we are called to a faith of leap, a boldness that stirs our faith. It stirs us to boldness and that boldness builds up our faith. The three types of boldness are courage, clarity and confidence. We step into this faith of leap, trusting that God will do what he says and we will be bold in what he has set out for us.

Listen to Paul Maloney's testimony from Winter Weekend, January 2020

Better Parents, Stronger Kids Helping parents and kids lean into the love of God as they grow. Building a strong foundation to raise faith-filled, joyful, and self-reliant kids. Laying a Solid Foundation: Focus on your marriage Love unconditionally Identify your core values Use effective discipline Give your kids Time Surround your kids with other adults

We are amazing, wonderfully, incredibly created. God didn't make any junk. He didn't mess up. We are not a mistake. If we listen, God’s voice rings true as we search to discover the unifying force that brings us together.

Often, the voices in our world can be overwhelming. Fear is an extremely loud voice in our world today. We often ask, “God, don't you care? Don't you care about what's going on? Don't you care about people that are suffering?” Jesus reminds us not to be afraid. God has the power to calm storms. He is all divine and all human and He has the power to calm our storms.

In our culture today, we drink from many different wells; success, achievement, appearance, but they are not enough to satisfy us. Our hearts get thirsty, our lives get busy when we try to satisfy so many things. The water of our culture tells us to do more, need more. Jesus came to give you abundant life. If you drink the water that he provides, you will never be thirsty again. Scripture: John 4

Who can be saved? How is it even possible? Jesus says "what's impossible for people to get themselves to God, is possible for believers." As we ponder this condition of impossibility of the perfect law, let us consider what is going on below the surface. We have to look at the condition of ourselves. If we believe we’re good enough or that we've done enough good deeds, we miss the solution God put...

Jesus died on the cross so that he might take all of our impossibilities upon himself. In the context of our impossible situation, the brokenness of our sin, Jesus’s mission was to come and pull us through. This is how we experience grace; Christ died for us so that he could forgive us and that we might have life and live eternally with him.   Scripture John 18

Life is tough. Life is challenging, but Jesus walks alongside each of us. He calls us to get out of our boats and to find our true voice, our vocation, the reason we were put on this earth. He picks us up out of the storm and whispers to us, I Love You. You are beloved. You are an image-bearer of God.

The spirit of God is in you and that changes everything. We are the food that Jesus can take and turn into a miracle to feed the many. We don't have to stay on the bench for lack of credentials. Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 3:16, John 8, Matthew 8, Mark 6, Colossians 1: 9-14

Jesus is the door to eternal life. He is the only one that can take us from darkness to light, from death into life. Jesus fixes his eyes on us, calls us by name and into a life of faith. If you want to have life, you need to go through him. Jesus changes everything. Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 3:16, Colossians 1: 15, John 1:1, John 10:9, Matthew 14, Hebrews 12

We were created to live, but a sin ruined everything. God could have saved the world any way he wanted and he chose pain and suffering. To really understand the cross, we have to understand sin. Jesus Christ is the mediator that allows us to come together with God. When God looks down at us, he chooses not to see the sin. He chooses to see the blood of Jesus on doorpost of your heart. Scriptures:...

Jesus will take you just the way you are. He will take the most grotesque, terrible, ugly, ridiculous things and he will turn them into something beautiful and sweet and useful and eternal. What was it that made you realize, Jesus is God and I'm going to believe in him and I'm going to follow him all the days of my life. If you feel the love of God in your heart, then let it show on your face. Scr...

Every day you have the opportunity to humble yourself before the Lord or distinguish yourself among men. Too often we spend more energy trying to distinguish ourselves before men instead of humbling ourselves before Jesus. If you want to be mature in Christ, then become and stay childlike, with unabashed love for Christ. Scriptures: 2 Samuel 6, Luke 7, 1 John 5:12

Beth Ulrich's Testimony at February 2019 Winter Weekend

We can find God when we seek and search for him with our whole heart. God is reflected in all of us. Due to technical difficulties, the first half of Kent's talk was not recorded properly.