It’s hard to capture all the notes while sitting through a family ministry conference and I’m here to help. I’ll attach my notes as we go and will do my best to jot down that quote or key takeaway you were hoping to save for later. Come back throughout the conference as I’ll update as we go.
Here are the things that I needed to hear most:
*stop to pray and intercede during counseling.
*When you pray are you considering you are talking to royalty?
*What if we shifted our thinking from ‘tactics, methodologies and programs’ to ‘building objectives?’
*Don’t fall for the trap of doing ministry for Jesus when you should be doing ministry with Jesus.
*Extroverted people like a celebration setting to feel close to God. Introverted people like quiet time for reflection to feel close to God.
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War In The Wilderness – Parenting Through Difficulty by Brian Haynes
Parenting between 2 garden. The Garden of Eden in Genesis 2-3 and Garden of Peace in Revelation 21. Everything in between is desert. This is life.
Midbar. Wilderness you can survive in. Isaiah 43:19. We forget we live in the desert sometimes.
T’siyah. Desert you can survive in if you have help. Jer 2:6
Yashiymown. Desert you can’t survive in. Psalm 78:40.
Reality.
We are raising our children in a desert called “life.” A very real wilderness war. Eph 6:10-14
War-fighting through difficulty.
Spiritual battles – lies
2 basic lies. Lies about God and lies about yourself. Overpower lies with the truth. Identify lies and replace them with truth.
Physical battles – sickness
Often acted out in different ways. Stress related sickness and cutting.
Mental battles – mental health
It’s all connected.
Can’t focus on the spiritual because so messed up physically or mentally. You need to help in all ways someone is battling. At first it might appear through one battle but often all 3 are under the surface.
The freedom cycle. (For spiritual battles)
“I wasn’t worthy of God rescuing.” Lie and it gives birth to other issues.
The event leads to a lie. The lie gives birth to a cistern (living water vs hole in the ground you dig and capture water that eventually become toxic). A cistern leads to a thirst. The thirst leads to another event.
Cistern can be any type of thing they go to instead of God to medicate the pain. Leaves you empty eventually.
Break free from the cycle by pointing to truth and truth leads to freedom. You have to believe truth in order to get out of this cycle spiritually. Often a work of parents and other adults all speaking new truths. A work of the Holy Spirit so we must pray for it. The truth is what sets you free. This is a fight. Abide, hear, and obey. Build a tribe. Learn to pray. How will you know a lie, if you don’t know the truth?
*stop to pray and intercede in counseling.
You need a counselor, a doctor, a pastor…You need a tribe.
Learning to pray is far more than thanking God for food. Recognize demonic assignments being made in your own home. Generational sin.
Keep drinking living water.
John 7:37
Hope.
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General Session 1
Hear O Israel means to listen in, to stop and listen.
The world and families change the Word of God remains the same.
Remember the goodness and kindness of the sovereignty of the Lord.
“Do not be in a hurry to leave the king’s presence.” Ecc 8:3
Dr. Richard Ross
D6 is For THE Kingdom not for their kingdom.
If we can detect the highest goals of parents we can understand those parents better and move them towards change.
1. Ones life in Christ, including parenting flows from the heart.
You shall love the Lord your God with all you HEART.
First Love, Revelation 2:4 “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.”
We have got to see the hearts of parents change before anything else about parenting is about to change.
2. Parents with a first love in Jesus embrace biblical goals for themselves and their children. Can you imagine parents with these goals for their children, higher than any other goal for their kids?
3. The majority of church parents don’t have a first love in Jesus.
4. Parents are not doing what you want them to be doing because of lukewarm hearts.
Until parents’ hearts change, their practices in the home for discipleship will not change.
We’re you ever closer to Jesus than you are right now?
5. Guide
Church parents have 3 goals for their children. Success, happiness, and Morality.
Carefully lead parents to identify their top goals for parents. Then show them their top goals are the same goals as the lost people. Gently but clearly show parents having the same goals as the lost is the same as having cold hearts.
Parents spend 10% of their income on Club sports…In other words they are tithing.
6. Parents need genuine discipleship in order to have hearts oriented towards in Christ.
What do you want to see passing from one heart to another? Disciples are transformed when they being to embrace the cross and the thrown.
Parents move towards a first love in Christ as they fully embrace Jesus.
When you pray are you considering you are talking to royalty?
7. Parents restored to a first love in Jesus will embrace biblically sound goals for themselves and their children.
8. Parents who embrace biblically sound goals for their children will be motivate to lead their children spiritually.
@richardaross
New Maps For guiding Your Ministry Objectives.
What was the epic childhood toy of your generation?
Boomers 46-64 – Space
Gen X 65-80 – Cabbage Patch Doll / Rubik’s Cube
Millennials 81-94 – Tickle Me Elmo
Gen Z 95-12 – Angry Birds
NASA had 8 goals. Their systemic problem was a complete lack of focus.
President JFK said, “Land a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth before this decade is out.”
3 problems that had to be solved. Propulsion, Life Support, and Navigation.
The whole organization rallied around this to achieve the mission.
Children’s Ministry and Family Ministry have a similar challenge.
VBS/Sunday School/Youth Group/Large Group/Small Group/Community Groups…
“What if we shifted our thinking from ‘tactics, methodologies and programs’ to ‘building objectives.’”
Most people see the how of your ministry but the why is what drives your ministry. Your how is informed by your why.
It’s what happened below the waterline that sunk the Titanic.
Guiding Objectives
Bible Engagement (daily reading not just church reading)
Sharing One’s Faith (creates growth and accountability)
Volunteering in the Church (they belong they don’t attend)
Involved, Nurturing, Warm Adult
Insight #1 – Barna Children’s Ministry Leaders fell like they have little impact.
Insight #2 – The reality is…
39% or 2 out of 5 children in the children’s ministry have a positive, meaningful real action ship with a mentoring adult.
Achieve the mission. We need one loving and caring adult in the lives of each child. This is what makes the difference in a resilient child.
Bob Ross Principles-
Foundation – Bob Ross always painted the background first. It’s boring and bland, but you have to start there. The background is the why of your ministry. Intentional Ministry.
Layers – know why you are layering.
Mistakes – happy accidents.
Time – people wrap their minds around the what because we think it can be solved in 90 days. It takes a generation to see significant results. If we want to redeem our families it takes time.
What to do this week to implement? Number one thing is having the most robust systemic questions on the under side of the iceberg. Have conversations about our why.
Church and home have to work together in ministry.
Discipleship that occurs in the home is transformational.
@ronhunter @Markins
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Pastor Paul Kim from South Korea
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Pastor Alex Kennedy
Define reset as to set something as it was or to set something in a new and fresh way.
Remember God’s grace in the Shema.
A cup filled with water, a little bit at a time, that is now overflowing.
Love God, Love Others…Begins with God’s love for us and overflows.
There’s a big difference between condemnation and conviction.
Conviction is from the Spirit and full of hope.
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Robby Gallaty
Performing for an audience of one. Who do you do ministry for? Who are you performing for? Who are you counseling, teaching, or leading for?
Hebrews 11 Enoch pleased the Lord.
“It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying—“he disappeared, because God took him.” For before he was taken up, he was known as a person who pleased God.” Hebrews 11:5 NLT
Enoch didn’t please his spouse. He didn’t please the chairman of the board or his boss. He didn’t please his pastor or the deacon. He pleased God.
You can’t please God and fear man.
Prov 29:25 “Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the LORD means safety.
What’s more important to you, the approval of God or the applause of man?
You can not please God and promote self.
Promoting self is such a gray area because we justify it for the cause of Christ.
The higher you climb, there’s no graceful way down.
Some of you are climbing a ladder of success that you’re going to realize is leaning against the wrong wall. The wall of self achievement.
Charism outpaced character
Godliness was a byproduct of gifted news.
Fanfare of the world outpaced the Lord.
Ministry can become a sudductive mistress.
We can fall in love with the ministry of Jesus but fall out of love with the Jesus of our ministry.
You begin to enjoy the tile, accolades, and forget the person who called you into ministry.
The Bible became a tool and not a treasure.
You know you’re sliding in the ministry when
Don’t fall for the trap of doing ministry for Jesus when you should be doing ministry with Jesus.
Leading on Empty Book: Pastors get into the trap of burnout. You bypass how the Bible is meant to nourish your soul. Bible, heart, mouth but before burnout it’s Bible, mouth, speak. Are you there? You can’t outsource your devotional time with God.
Jesus never promised an easy life but He did an easy yoke.
You can please God by faith.
Exodus, rule of first use in English. Tool of interpretation.
When a word is introduce in the Torah it impacts the rest of the Bible.
“So Joshua did what Moses had commanded and fought the army of Amalek. Meanwhile, Moses, Aaron, and Hur climbed to the top of a nearby hill.” “As long as Moses held up the staff in his hand, the Israelites had the advantage. But whenever he dropped his hand, the Amalekites gained the advantage. Moses’ arms soon became so tired he could no longer hold them up. So Aaron and Hur found a stone for him to sit on. Then they stood on each side of Moses, holding up his hands. So his hands held steady until sunset. As a result, Joshua overwhelmed the army of Amalek in battle.”
Exodus 17:10-13 NLT
Faith is the word for steady. Continuing.
Faithfulness. A great translation is allegiance. A rededication. Loyalty to something you re-up over and over again. To have allegiance to God everyday. Jesus is the King to who I give my loyalty. Believing it is so, when it’s not so, because God said so, so it can be so.
Do I believe that God can send revival to my context?
If you don’t slow down, you’re going to burn out.
The law of reciprocity. When you do this, you get that.
But what about the Spiritual disciple of silence and solitude.
Silence was God’s first language. He spoke everything out of silence. He spoke to the profits out of the still small voice. Have you sat long enough to bend your ear to the accent of the Holy Spirit?
Over time, when you let the water sit, the sediment is still and you can see through it. Think of your soul this way. The volume of the culture is so loud. You can’t hear the voice of God. Our prayer life is trying to tell God that He can do better. It’s about getting God’s Kingdom on Earth through me and that takes listening. Started with 20 minutes. Soon it because insatiable…and not to GET something from the Lord but to just sit with Him.
The problem is not your staff, the problem is you. Gut level honesty with the Lord is painful. If you sit with the Spirit long enough you see where you are prideful. That you really want the credit. That you have jealousy in your heart. Jealous when another pastor baptized more people. If you can’t pray for the church down the street to be blessed then you have an issue.
Robby heard from the Lord. 2 words. Spontaneous baptism. And for 15 weeks a season of revival with 1000+ baptisms. Do you have a word from God?
Every great movement of God begins by not moving. You have as much of God in your life as you want.
You may be the blood clot for revival coming to your church context. The problem might be you. Prayer and repentance.
@Rgallaty
General Session 2
Resetting your mindset with the mind of Christ.
Key Point #1: We reset our mindset when we recognize that our thoughts are not God’s thoughts.
Key Point #2: We reset our mindset not by thinking positively but by thinking righteously.
Key Point #3: We reset our mindset by unlocking our thoughts through repentance.
Key Point #4: We reset our mindset by transforming our thoughts with the mind of Christ.
Romans 8:5, ESV “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.”
Isaiah 55:8-9, ESV “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Are you choosing your thoughts over God’s.
Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts. Prov 4:23
Who or what influences our thoughts the most? God’s thoughts are not our thoughts.
Choose today who you will serve. You have to choose your thoughts every single day.
We have a world where emotions are driving the bus and this has to change.
How do you want to feel when you wake up tomorrow? What do you need to think to feel that way?
We need to think righteously.
Eph 4:22-24, NLT “put away the old person you used to be. Have nothing to do with your old sinful life. It was sinful because of being fooled into following bad desires. Let your minds and hearts be made new. You must become a new person and be God-like. Then you will be made right with God and have a true holy life.”
We have the mind of Christ but a lot of times we don’t operate in that, we shrink back into the flesh.
Repentance is the key. We need to repent of our negative mindsets.
WWJT: What would Jesus THINK?
Romans 2:4, ESV “ Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”
Our thoughts impact our body chemistry. Our minds control our body. How have you been talking to yourself? A lot of kids are mean to themselves.
Embrace a mindset of “want to” vs “have to.”
What worries do you need to give to God so you can walk in confidence?
Book: When Sorry Isn’t Enough
The power of “even though” and “with God’s help” tapping.
Gratitude, give thanks 139x.
Mindfulness 5-4-3–2-1 (bring yourself into the present)
Distraction – Not addiction.
Containment (give your worries to God)
Matthew 16:21-23, ESV “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
The Mind of Christ is the goal but not the means.
Bit.ly/mindset-battle-quiz
What would your life look like today if you lived out each day believing you had the mind of Christ?
SMART Goal (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely)
What is one takeaway you will implement this week?
Share it with someone
Power of writing it down
@TheDenisePass @MichelleNietert
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Game: Easter Bunny: Cute or Creepy – https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/easter-bunny%3A-cute-or-creepy/games-3117.html
How do we help the next generation of introverts become who God created them to be at home and at church?
You were made on purpose, for a purpose. Being an introvert or extrovert is not our identity, nor is it our destiny, they are just descriptions.
Empower the next generation of introverts. People being how God made them to be.
Being an introvert isn’t a struggle, it’s a super power. See the gifts within you.
Knowing that God intentionally created introverts and extroverts.
It’s not about how you like small talk or being in groups but about your brain science.
Dopamine or acetylcholine –
Extroverted people like a celebration setting to feel close to God.
Introverted people like quiet time for reflection to feel close to God.
Brain pathways, extroverts like quick action and quick conversation. Connecting with everyone at the same time.
Introverts take into account the past, present, and future. Need more time to process but go deeper to add more context to the conversation. Connecting with one person at a time.
Help introverts get solitude and support. Help introverts live connected. Give space.
Love your neighbor as yourself. This is one neighbor. The Good Samaritan is one person. Love in God’s economy is about quality and not quality. How has God equipped you to love one person at a time.
Help the next generation of introverts by replacing labels and expectations with love and encouragement.
Shyness is about fear. Being in an environment with less stimulation. These are different labels. Quiet has taken on a negative connotation in our culture but in scripture it’s beautiful.
Make it your ambition to live a quiet life. 1 Thessalonians 4:11
You are observing, what did you notice? Tell me about that? Give students a place for quiet and a place for reflection. The church can offer a balance of both enthusiastic worship and quiet reflection.
Extrovert happiness feels like enthusiast and excitement.
Introvert happiness feels like calm and contentment.
It just looks different. One is not more valuable in God’s eyes. Be who God created you to be.
Elijah the profit. The still small voice of God. God is in the whisper. Sometimes He blows are mind in the big expressive way but other times in the gentle whisper.
The only person God is asking you to be more like is Jesus.
Let me help you see yourself the way God sees you. Here’s why God made you exactly who you are.
@HolleyGerth
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The Power of Discipling Kids in Worship
Psalm 8:1-2 MSG “God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name. Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you; toddlers shout the songs that drown out enemy talk, and silence atheist babble.”
Every time you press play on a song in your kids’ classrooms you are unleashing God’s power.
Matthew 21:16 NIV “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.
“Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, “‘From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?”
I have a dream that every church leader and every pastor would champion worship to happen in the disciples they are making.
2 Samuel 12:19-20 “David noticed that his attendants were whispering among themselves, and he realized the child was dead. “Is the child dead?” he asked.
“Yes,” they replied, “he is dead.” Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.
Stop just doing songs and start leading kids, students, and families in worship.
@yancynotnancy
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How to Measure Success in Youth Ministry
Rabbit Starvation and Youth Ministry
What I realized, is that change happens over time, by God’s grace in ways I don’t often expect.
The Relevance Myth
They starved to death eating twice the amount of calories they were recommended daily.
If we are just their friends, that’s enough. But we don’t realize that friendship is not discipleship.
The path to relevance makes you feel like you’re accomplishing your mission but the most important thing is not for the students to like you and follow you, it’s for them to follow God.
Real relevance is not saying to kids what we think they want to hear but speaking to them what their hearts have always longed to hear.
The Pragmatic Myth
If it works do it…if it’s healthy it grows…weeds grow, cancer grows, James 1 says sin grows. Our culture shares this myth. Do it whatever the cost because if you throw everything at it, then it will grow. The problem is they are not here to hear your message.
Events and programs are not necessarily transformational but a form of rabbit starvation. When our mission is all protein and no fat the church is in trouble.
The groups that depend on the blubber animals are the most fortunate in the hunting way of life, for they never suffer from fat-hunger. This trouble is worst, so far as North America is concerned, among those forest Indians who depend at times on rabbits, the leanest animal in the North, and who develop the extreme fat-hunger known as rabbit-starvation. Rabbit eaters, if they have no fat from another source—beaver, moose, fish—will develop diarrhea in about a week, with headache, lassitude and vague discomfort. If there are enough rabbits, the people eat till their stomachs are distended; but no matter how much they eat they feel unsatisfied. Some think a man will die sooner if he eats continually of fat-free meat than if he eats nothing, but this is a belief on which sufficient evidence for a decision has not been gathered in the North. Deaths from rabbit-starvation, or from the eating of other skinny meat, are rare; for everyone understands the principle, and any possible preventive steps are naturally taken.
Overconsumption of relevance and pragmatism has left many churches filled with unsatisfied.
For students a TP Cannon is far more exciting than an adult sharing the Bible but that’s not the goal.
Not how big but how vibrant is the youth ministry in your church?
Ask your pastor, what does a well developed disciple of Jesus Christ look like? This is success for you.
Matthew 28:19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”
How do we build disciples that last.
Proclaim Christ and Him crucified.
Gospel Preaching and Disciple Making
Discipleship is inherently personal.
“Avoid the vocabulary of numbers over names.”
Eugene Peterson
Repent of our idols of programs and relevance.
Agonize over the right things. Be more passionate about the Christ likeness of your kids.
We don’t do this alone. Go and make disciples by teaching them. We can not do this on our own but here is the beautify, Jesus is with us always even until the end of the age.
@samluce
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Time in a Bottle
The 260 Concept – From the time your teenager is 13 years old until age 18 years, you have 260 Saturdays. How will you spend your 260?
Do you need to redefine how you spend your Saturday’s?
As the time get’s lower on the clock the intensity changes. If the athlete realizes they might not meet their goal in the allotted time they change the strategy.
Parents must evaluate where you are, know the time you have with your children is getting lower and lower and change the strategy as the time expires.
The teen choice coach approach
Create positive family traditions. Frozen Friday.
What is a tradition you have or want to have and how do you do this consistently.
Begin with the end in mind.
@britney_dent
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Healthy Marriages, the Starting Place of A Great Family Ministry
Finding the source of the Nile. Underwhelming.
Marriage is a lot like the source of the Nile. It’s not very exciting once you get past the wedding and the cake. The marriage not so much. But that’s the headwaters. That’s the starts. Family Ministry starts at marriage. Not at baby dedication or high school.
Some of you guys are doing really incredible things but a lot of you are starting halfway down the Nile. Kara Powell shows us that 12% of parents have faith conversations. Maybe we need a tweak and need to go back to the start of the marriage because it just flows downstream. Correcting a polluted stream is hard.
What would happen if you shut down everything you did to help parents disciple their kids and you just help marriages? Maybe you do both.
*NextGen ministries must champion ReEngage.
If you want to have a great marriage, draw a circle around yourself and fix everything inside the circle. You have maximum control of everybody in that circle.
@JohnMcGee
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Reset to Produce
GOD’S HEART IS FOR US TO RESET
to Readjust, Realign, Reboot, Recalibrate, Recharge, Reconnect, Reevaluate, Reexamine, Reflect, Refresh, Regroup, Renew, Replenish, Restart, Restore, Retreat, Retune, Revive…Amen!
Jesus said…..I am the True Vine, My Father is the Vinedresser. Every branch that does not bear fruit He takes away, but every branch that bears fruit He prunes that it may produce more fruit. Abide in Me, and I in you. A branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me…From John 15
Jesus said.I am the True Vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, bears much fruit, but apart from Me you can do nothing. If you abide in Me, and My Words abide in you, you will ask and it will be done. By this My Father is glorified that you bear much fruit and as you produce fruit you prove to be My true disciples.. From John 15
Jesus is The Vine…We are the branches (+) Half-Time Adjustments (x)
+ Abide bear fruit x
*God’s Heart for Multiplication*
The word prune sounds painful, and guess what, it is!
There is always purpose in pain.
Intimacy
(+)
Identity
(+)
(x)Intentionality (x)
Rest (+) Adjust (x) Reproduce
+Evangel-Shift x
+Disciple-shift x
+Leader-shift x
To Hear
To Learn
To Obey
To Share
Ask more questions. Offer more prayer.
*PRAY because Prayer is Ministry and Prayer is something we can ALL Do…
With open hands…
“Prayer is a powerful form of indirect communication. In almost every conversation there is something that we can respond in prayer for/with them.
*May I pray for you…? *How can I pray for you…?
@weaverunited
How a Heart-Based Approach to Parenting Changes Everything
Every family is unique, every family has a story, but we aren’t the heroes in the story. Watch what God does.
Inside the heart we find:
Desires
Emotions
Beliefs
The problem with a behavior modification approach is it feeds the selfish side of a child. Reward/punishment model in parenting feeds the selfishness in a child and has long-term damage. If you do this, then you will get that. We need to focus on the heart.
Character: A patter of thinking and acting in response to a challenge.
Psalm 19:14
May the words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my rock.
Romans 5:3-4, Suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. You can only control one word here; perseverance.
Common Belief: My job in life is to have fun. As kids are going out the door we say, “Have fun.” Or as they come back from church it’s, “Did you have fun?” Don’t encourage this belief that their mission in life is to have fun.
A Mission-Oriented View of Life: Love the Lord your God with all your HEART. My mission in life is to love God with all my heart. Integrity, maturity, godliness, responsibility.
When you pursue pleasure the outcome is addition.
Overemphasis on safety leads to anxiety! Safety is not our goal in life. We go behind enemy lives. Christians are who are on a mission and not bound by safety.
Two Training Cycles
A break vs time out. A break resembles repentance.
Jonah, cycle #1 to get things done.
When a child is off track we move from Cycle #1 to Cycle #2 and we refuse to allow them to engage in what they are doing. Taken into the workshop of the heart.
The heart is the most sacred place on earth because that’s where God lives.
What is God doing inside your heart?
@biblicalparent
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