Author: dannrobertjohnson

Orphan Sunday –– 5 Ways You Can Make a Difference

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November 8, 2015. Christians around the world will observe Orphan Sunday and will stand in solidarity for the vulnerable. Many churches will highlight James 1:27 and renew their commitment to visit orphans in their affliction. Whether you are a church member or a member of church staff, you have an opportunity to join believers in standing for the orphan on this important day.

Here are 5 ways you can get involved:

1. PRAY. Pray for church leadership as they decide how to care for vulnerable children and families. Pray for Christians to reflect God’s love at home and abroad. Pray for the needs of the fatherless.

2. PLAN. November will be here before we know it. We’ve got a countdown clock as well as resources available to make sure November 8 doesn’t sneak up on you.

3. REFLECT. Orphan Sunday isn’t the church’s version of a greeting card holiday meant to give churches something fun to do. Instead, in the words of Francis Chan–

We’re children of God. We should celebrate that we are no longer orphans. We’re loved by this Father. We’re in this eternal family. And this overflow of joy makes us want to rescue these other kids. I want to do a little bit of what God did for me.

4. COMMIT. Orphan Sunday looks different for every church. Sermons, small groups, youth classes, prayer meetings … all afford Christians the opportunity to acknowledge the day however God leads. Launch an adoption fund or complete a Journey Bag drive. The options are as unique as each church. Bottom line: Influence your fellow church family in whatever sphere you serve.

5. PRAISE. Praise God in advance for what He will accomplish in November. In the words of David Platt–

When I think about Orphan Sunday, I think about a celebration of worship resounding to the Father in churches around the world who are saying, ‘We are your people adopted by your grace, brought into Your family, and we’re worshiping You for that together–as Your children–as a global family.’ And at the same time, we’re standing together, we’re praying together, and we’re committing ourselves together.”

What will you do this November? We’d love to hear from you and help however we can.

Learn More

  • This post was a copy/paste that Lifesong for Orphans, an organization that has been involved with all 3 of our adoptions, provided me for this purpose. I hope you click the link. And I hope your team won on this Kickoff Sunday. Unless they were playing mine. Don’t post any scores in the comments, I haven’t watched yet! For those of you who don’t care, or live under a rock as large as China––where, as far as I could tell, the day passed without observation––we’re talking about the NFL… something our culture has managed to make a pretty big deal of.
  • So let’s make a big deal of doing something for orphans, too, eh? Click the link above!
  • Dann

Handwriting Defended.Then Diminished.

Does anybody write on paper anymore?

I do. Most mornings. My usual: “Good morning, Lord,” followed by journaling followed by comments on whatever Scripture I’m reading that day.

Today I was done journaling after 4 lines. Then (the Book of Revelation has never exactly been my favorite place for devotions) my written comments about Revelation 8 were not much longer. 

Except they started a train of thought that went on for 7 pages.

When’s the last time you hand-wrote seven college-ruled pages’ worth?

About a dozen years ago, I tried to switch over from handwritten devo notes to digital ones. We’d just moved to China for the first time, and I’d discovered that the notebook paper I’d been journaling on since I was 18* was nowhere to be purchased.

I hated digital journaling. I gave up after less than a month. Too much of the rest of my life was digital. So since that time I have either brought paper in myself or had others bring it to me from the States.

Here’s the other weird thing I noticed this morning [it happened only because I did a rare immediate re-read because Tammy, who once in a while does, had asked to read, and so I went back to remember all I’d written about]: I observed that when writing on paper, I never correct myself.

Weird. I can write on and on and when I’m done, if I go back and read it, I don’t care to change anything. Whereas that never happens when typing. I can’t so much as write an email without editing it thrice, plus.

But I was soon to discover––though I’d thought these were the reasons––it was not the paper, and not the handwriting that made the difference.

No. Because I proceeded to also wrote this blog entry out by hand. As an experiment. (That and Tammy had my laptop in a coffee shop taking some online course.) And, lo and behold, I did not proceed to embark on some no-need-to-edit stream-of-consciousness piece. Far from it, my paper (pictured above) was full of cross-outs. Carrots for inserted words. Whole paragraph insertions. Then, after transposing it here, it changed so much it’s hardly the same document anymore.

So…if it’s not using paper that makes for un-edited writing, what is it? If it’s not the handwriting, what is it?

It’s the audience.

The audience. I guess that means––and this can only be good news––you’re not God. God is the only one I can write to without having to constantly adjust for clarity. Without repeatedly analyzing how I might more thoroughly impress him.

Writing to him happens on a level that writing to anyone else cannot go.

Do you ever write him, friend?

If that’s not your particular habit, why not take today and do your own experiment? Who knows what you might learn (don’t expect he’s going to learn anything) in your own 7 pages? I’ll heartily recommend notebook paper and a pen––they do give the brain that little bit of extra think-time as the hand catches up––but less so than I would have yesterday. For they’re not what matter the most.

It’s the audience.

Happy letter-writing.

 

 

*gotta credit that 8½”x11″ recommendation to you, Mrs. Stimmel––freshman year at Crown College.

As Soon As I Fell–Book Review

[First-time post in a new category.]

Tammy and I just read the same book—at the same time, oddly enough, on separate devices on our recent international flight.

 As Soon As I Fell, by Kay Bruner.

We’ve never met Kay, don’t know anything other than what’s in her book, and didn’t receive a free copy in exchange for this review! I haven’t even visited Kate’s blog yet.

But my recent contemplations about self-publishing gave me an idea: I could, if I came across top-notch writing by an already self-published author, give them a shout-out, no? Word-of-mouth is how books grow popular best, and, of course, people do things like this all the time; it’s just a new thing for me. (I’ve never even written a review on Amazon.)

As Soon As I Fell is a self-published memoir absolutely worth your time and money. Both Tammy and I loved it. Its message will be especially, though not exclusively,  powerful if you are a missionary or in ministry or if you grew up in a religious culture emphasizing right behavior.

Not only is the story compelling—repeatedly we found ourselves marveling over the Bruner family’s misadventures on ships during their years of life in the South Pacific—Kay has some seriously strong communication gifts.

Authors often can’t help analyzing another writer’s writing. We’re a critical-eyed lot, I guess. Do I feel better about myself if I can find something amiss with another’s syntactical manipulations? Or if I can scoff at their toleration of spontaneous word generation in surely once-brief sentences?

I don’t think so. I think I just can’t help it.

Time and again, Kay’s writing would impress me, and I remember getting consternated over how she could utilize so many more adjectives than I could ever allow myself and still not bring Death by Adjective down on her passages. All she ever seemed to be doing—and this is in contrast to so many of the rest of us who too often look like we’re trying to write well—was saying exactly what she wanted to say. My hat was off to her skill throughout her book, yet I never felt like she was trying to impress me. As to errors, formatting issues, things that slipped through the editorial cracks…I can’t recall exactly how many I noticed, but it was a small handful only.

But all that kind of stuff (“who-cares nonsense” my wife might say?) are not the reasons (at least not conscious reasons) most people will enjoy As Soon As I Fell: it’s the story.

It’s a great story, and Kay’s courage in telling it was in fact so poignant for me personally that it had the effect of pushing me over the edge on something I’d been debating: whether or not to post freely about our anniversary trip. Maybe that sounds odd, but people you who pull their salaries from charitable giving know what I’m talking about. It’s not that anyone (at least not these days) would say a pastor or someone in ministry shouldn’t take a vacation; but people can still sometimes be funny about how ministry people spend money “on themselves.”

Thanks to Kay’s courage in writing about her life, my courage to put that stuff aside (and some of it is just in my imagination, I’ll admit)—and say good-bye to comparison, fear, envy—was bolstered. Instead: Hello, beauty, honor, restoration—that trip was a gift to Tammy and I. (And I saw after posting about it how many others were blessed to have “come along with us” or inspired in some other way.)

So…As Soon As I Fell.

Let it be a gift to you, too.