Family Fest Speaker Podcast

The way we talked to and with each other shapes our lives, our families, our school, our church, and our nation. Those who want to live meaningfully must enrich the lives of others, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. The quality of our response to joy depends on the quality of our thoughts and love that we share and spread. The welfare of each of us is bound up in the wel...

We have been called into partnership with God to bring joy and love, peace and goodness into God's world. God speaks in the midst of the storms; at unexpected times when we're not prepared. After Jesus was transfigured, the disciples could not stay in the upper room. We too must go back onto the streets and bring the power of the love of Jesus Christ to others.

Community takes a long time to form, for barriers to drop and for mutual confidence to grow. Community forms when we conscientiously seek the fulfillment and the happiness of every other member. Small acts of sharing life, small acts of nurturing joy, are small acts of meeting Jesus.

Pete Larson - Family Fest Ministries. Laugh Often, Love More Keynote is an approximately one-hour presentation geared for MOPS groups, Church marriage enrichment, Cana Dinners, or other groups looking for a fun and informative presentation on Christian marriage.

God invites us into something that's greater than all of us. He wants us to receive him and he helps us sense his presence in one another. However, without a reliable navigation system we might wander into harm's way. Scripture: John 4

There are times that we need to be carried and there are times that we're supposed to carry others and both of them require trust in God. To truly trust, we need to believe that the people closest to us will jump in the deep end for us. That they are willing to find us even though we're lost in the bottom. Scripture: Mark 2

When you hide hurt, you become full of hurts and hurtful. When you hide fear, you fill up on fear and become fearful. And when you hide shame, you become full of shame and shameful. Be careful what you hide. The Lord tells us the denying, the ignoring, the fixing, the hiding will never serve us well. The repentance and confession is the way.

In confession, darkness gets released and no longer has power over us. We're safe when we're in the Lord’s light, not in the darkness. The Lord draws us in with a voice of love and compels us to be with him.

We're trained to be hunters and hold on to our resource and gifts. Yet as we hold tight, we become a black hole that collapses. God intended for us to receive his gifts and then give them away. When we're given the cup that we've thirsted for, we must share it with each other.

This podcast is Mandy Peterson's faith testimony from Family Fest Winter Weekend Family retreat at Grand View Lodge in February, 2017

God wants us to have life, not an ordinary life, but an abundant life. God has privileged us to know that truth, the abundance of his love, the abundance of his life, the abundance of his mercy, the abundance of his joy. To believe that God loves you abundantly is an act of faith.   Scriptures: Romans 8 and John 10:10

Prayer is essential. Prayer is the desire to learn the language of God and heaven. It is communication between God and us as friends.  The language in heaven is the love and mercy of God.  We need to preserve with prayer in order to reach a deep intimacy with God. Scriptures: John 15, 1 Kings 19    

In our humility we seek God. God always sees us, for He sees everything. To be looked at by God is a beautiful thing. When God looks at you, when He delights in you, He smiles and He forgives.  

Without gratitude we will not grow in our faith, we will not grow in our spiritual life, and we can’t grow closer to God. Gratitude is the pathway that allows us to have humility and a pathway that allows us to acknowledge God and in turn trust Him.

It costs so much to be a full person in Christ that very few will have the enlightenment or the courage to pay the price. We must abandon the search for security and reach out to embrace the world like a lover, yet demand no easy return of love. When a person is centered on himself, the smallest risk is too great because both success and failure can destroy. When a person is centered upon God, the...

This podcast is Hilary Lunke's faith testimony from Family Fest Winter Weekend Family retreat at Grand View Lodge in January, 2017

Patrick Dominquez - SS 16 Talk #1 - Our Goal is Love, The Problem is Life God intends us to be wholeheartedly connected to our spouses but relationships often follow a pattern of Wow, Oh, and Here We Go. The book of Genesis starts off with God's Wows, all creation, but moves into the Oh when Adam and Eve disobey God's command. Our journey is filled with Wows, Ohs and Here We Go's but faith is our...

Patrick Dominquez-SS16 Talk #2- When our goal is love, it's not okay to stop trying when faced with pain. The story of Cain and Abel illustrates the pain that can be present in relationships. Cain kills Abel out of jealousy and is driven away from his family and cursed by God. Sin is always crouching at our door, but we have a choice. When we do what is right, we will be accepted.

The Bible heroes are incredibly flawed yet the Bible has something to say to us in an attempt to understand our purpose. Despite all our flaws, we can have hope that God draws straight lines with crooked sticks and will break through to lead us to be the kind of people we yearn to be.

Jesus Christ stared death in the face. He died for you and for me. He conquered death. Everyone who has hope in Jesus purifies himself just as Jesus is pure. Life is challenging and can make you retreat and fearful. But love is the goal.

The Lord leads us into our purpose and he knows that when we step fully into our purpose as sons and daughters of God, we will face the adversary. The devil wants to tempt us to turn God's promises into proofs and to impose our finite interpretations on his infinite ways. He wants to split us from God and from others and from our conscience. We can ask Jesus to show us how to take up the armor of...

The moment we believe we are beloved children of God our paths shine brighter. He has claimed you and his intent is for your light to continue to shine brighter, if you do not shrink back. When you turned your life over to the Lord, he said, “I've got this. I will carry it on to completion in you until the day of Christ Jesus.”

The invitation that Jesus gives throughout the gospels is both a spoken invitation and an unspoken invitation. Many who listened to the invitation experienced its power and saw he truly was who he said he was. If we haven't said yes to His invitation, there's something missing in our lives. We’re all invited into this loving relationship, but we need to say Yes. Scriptures: Matthew 4: 18-28, John...

Our fears become obstacles and barriers to trusting God. Essentially we're saying to God “My fears are greater than your abilities.” God says “fear not” because fear can sink us faster than anything. Fear can keep us away from trusting Him. Once you're empowered to trust God, you begin to do things that are beyond your fears.   Scriptures: Matthew 14: 22-23, Isaiah 43

Jesus came to give up his godliness and to serve. Being a servant is a difficult call on anyone's life, but we know it's a call to lower ourselves to see the needs of others. It is in serving others that we see the grace of God and that we receive the grace of God.