Family

I'm not doing a very good job at keeping up with a posting every day. Everything is really busy and I forget about it. I'm working on doing better.

We had a great Fall Festival at church yesterday, Oct. 28th. We had over 35 families attend that do not attend this church or church anywhere come and participate in our community centered Fall Festival. It was great. Our people here at Lakeside did an awesome job. They went above and beyond in service. I was very proud of them. I was very proud to be here at Lakeside yesterday. God really blessed us. I praise him for his blessings and for the great day yesterday.

Here are the grandkids:

Forgiveness

I'm sitting here thinking about all the church problems that I have seen and have been associated with. I'm thinking hard about why we have such a hard time forgiving each other when problems arise. It just seems we want to devour each other instead of loving, caring, and forgiving each other. I've seen church members and church leaders try and do God's work and dole out punishment for someone rather than loving them. They do it for the sake of the purity of the church, as if God hasn't already purified his church through his Son.
I came up with 11 reasons why we fail to forgive our brother. Here they are. There are many more I'm sure, but I've actually seen these reasons practiced in the places I've been. (How Sad!)

Reasons we have such a hard time forgiving a brother or sister:
1. We like to hold on to our grudges to make us feel superior.
2. We want to have something to hold over the head of another.
3. We have already decided that they are not worthy of forgiveness.
4. Because we are so angry and/or so mean.
5. We want some satisfaction from others before we forgive.
6. It will make me look weak in the eyes of others if I forgive someone.
7. We seem to thrive on the turmoil of the situation.
8. We focus in too much on the sin and not the sinner.
9. We are so caught up in a legalistic system that we want an eye for an eye.
10. The way of the world is to seek revenge and the world means more to me than God.
11. We haven’t let Love for others be our primary motivation as Christ Taught us. 1 Peter 4:8

Shawn

Family

I broke down and finally decided to start a blog for myself. I've been fighting it for some time now and finally decided to go ahead and start. I'm not the greatest writer in the world. I type the way I speak and so sometimes I get ahead of myself and leave alot of puncuation and words out.
I'm naming this blog, My Grandkids Just Call Me "Duke." Mostly because I couldn't think of a great name. But my grandkids are great and so why not be reminded of them everytime I'm blogging. They call me Duke because when Debby (my wife) found out that we were going to be grandparents she said she was to young to be called gramma so she decided the grandkids would just call her Dutchess. So I decided we ought to be called the Duke and Dutchess. But when Amaya was born and she started to learn to talk she could couldn't say Dutchess and started calling Debby Nana. But she could say Duke and so Duke stuck and Dutchess did not. The second granchild came and he (Caden, now 1 year old) calls me Du, which is well on his way to calling me Duke.
That's my beginning. I will post pictures soon of those grandkids and begin with other ideas and thoughts.
Grace & Peace to all!