Chris Vonada's Blog, page 13

The God-Honoring Courage And Calling Of Nehemiah

Today I’m a guest at Carol Peterson’s blog, From Carol’s Quill.

Nehemiah was a man of action. He was outstanding at organizing others and at inspiration. He held a prominent position in the government of Persia. However, that position wasn’t his calling. This idea of “calling” is key in our society today and I believe is very important in how we will be remembered in the history of Christianity. The story of Nehemiah is as relevant today as it was at the time it was written. How do we find our calling? Calling is found through a relationship with the Holy Spirit, and it begins with self-awareness (Click To Tweet). Please follow this link over to Carol’s blog and read the story of Nehemiah and how he found his calling. Don’t want to be the leader? Lead, follow, or just step out of the way. Either way it’s time to pony up and ride. It’s all about courage, and identifying then following God’s calling.

How The Next Gen Resembles The Last Gen And Breaking The Unchurched Pattern

Today I’m a guest at Joseph Lalonde’s leadership and relationship blog, it’s one of my favorite places to follow and visit.

image courtesy of Cynthia Koch of fineartamerica.com

I’ve read many times about younger people – how they’re different from previous generations. It reminds me of my generation and what the older folks thought then. Sort of the same thing. My thought process from there drifts into our communities and how we tend to continually focus on the next generation as the one we can help shape, with the thought this will change the world and break the pattern when we see difficulties and struggles in our world today. Today I’m sharing some ideas on how we could lead with the desired impact. Please follow this link over to Joe’s place…

If I Were The Devil by Paul Harvey

I stumbled upon this video the other day and thought it was thought-provoking and worth sharing. If you don’t remember Paul Harvey he was a well-known radio broadcaster from the 1950′s through the ’90′s. One of my favorite radio segments of all time to listen to was his “The Rest Of The Story”. The YouTube footnotes suggest this was originally recorded in 1965, and last updated in 1996.

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How The Next Gen Resembles The Last Gen And Breaking The Unchurched Pattern

Today I’m a guest at Joseph Lalonde’s leadership and relationship blog, it’s one of my favorite places to follow and visit.

image courtesy of Cynthia Koch of fineartamerica.com

I’ve read many times about younger people – how they’re different from previous generations. It reminds me of my generation and what the older folks thought then. Sort of the same thing. My thought process from there drifts into our communities and how we tend to continually focus on the next generation as the one we can help shape, with the thought this will change the world and break the pattern when we see difficulties and struggles in our world today. Today I’m sharing some ideas on how we could lead with the desired impact. Please follow this link over to Joe’s place…

The Bigger Picture Of Hope

A view from Royal Island to the land of hope

Today I’m excited to be a guest at Eileen Knowles’ blog, The Scenic Route.

The Bigger Picture Of Hope? Today I’m writing about two opposite perspectives on religion, happiness and hope. I also share about an inspiring work trip to Northern Eleuthera in The Bahamas. On that trip several years ago I learned a life lesson from some pretty cool people who live in third-world conditions. Their hope showed me with confidence the end of the story to the pursuit of true happiness. Please follow this link to read the whole ball of wax.

Many thanks to Eileen for her hospitality today! Eileen is “on the move” – literally and figuratively, having just relocated to North Georgia! Please visit her blog often and enjoy The Scenic Route…

Summer Mode

I’m berry excited about summer!

Life seems to change in the summertime. School is out. It gets hot and sticky. The line gets long at the frozen yogurt establishments.

This is a great time for me to take a break from writing, to change it up and unplug a little.

Taking a break is refreshing. Excited to see where God leads and inspires me during this “season”!

I’m aiming at posting here just twice a month through the summer. We’ll see what happens…

“For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was His plan from before the beginning of time – to show us His grace through Christ Jesus.” 2 Timothy 1:9

What are your plans for summer mode?

Image courtesy of madlyinlovewithlife on flickr

Does 10 + 1 = 7 ? (It All Adds Up To Extraordinary Relationships)

Well, if you’ve followed the 10 + 1 series over the past year you may realize that I have reworked the material into The 7 Essentials Of Extraordinary Relationships, the subtitle of my new book that was released today, May 15th. There are, in fact, 11 chapters to the book, but only 7 of the building blocks were strong enough, IMHO, to make the list. It all adds up to love as this is the twine that ties it all together. You know, the cord of three strands? Yep, it’s a Jesus thing!

Here’s a glimpse of “All Sorts And Conditions Of People”…

“… and they lived happily ever after…” - It’s the standard ending to fairy tales, or stories that imply the good characters were blessed with happiness or joy. Happily ever after suggests we’ve found the right person or people to share life with. The saying also implies that the journey is ending. That’s cool in fairy tales. In our lives that’s just when things get exciting, and real. I’ll outline how finding the right people is where the journey begins, and the 7 Essentials that I will share with you will then put you on the right track to having extraordinary relationships.

Surrounding yourself with the right people is probably the most important aspect of finding satisfaction in your life here on earth, next to having a personal relationship with Jesus.

Sound interesting? You can take a closer look inside at Amazon by clicking this link, and purchase it there too!

It Could Happen… (Why I Like Medium)

“We now live in a world of infinite information. Most of our systems weren’t designed for this world. Even if you had the best recommendation system ever, and everyone stopped publishing interesting stuff tomorrow, you’d never get through all the content you’re interested in. You need a place to start. So our goal is to help people pay attention to the most valuable stuff first and to have the best ideas win.” Ev Williams,  founder of Medium.

Like I said about 6 months ago, a whole bunch of people just spent a whole bunch of time writing a whole bunch of material on the internet. How do we sift through the ashes to find the best of the best? I believe they just may have a model with the A to the Q.

These guys brought us Blogger. And Twitter. Hello, did you register that one? Like these dudes have been on the cusp before, maybe just maybe they’re on to some new goodness here too?

So here’s their angle:

Great ideas compete on their own merit at Medium. They rank short stories and manifestos based on interest and engagement.
They claim the best in-browser editor on the web. There is no layer of abstraction. “Smooth as butter and like no other” – Hmmm… it is incredibly clean. What writing should be
Writing here is a collaborative effort. That can be in the form of writing on a shared idea, or by inviting collaborators to help polish up a piece before publishing it. I like both of these possibilities.

OK, I got an invite and I hung out a shingle. “Just Out There” is my namesake. I have some material on the back burner for this place… we’ll see where it goes.

Please stop by and check it out, pretty cool!

The HA!! : The Secret Sauce To Reaching Home Plate

Time for “The HA!!” – This is my mini-series on life lessons I’ve gained through my humbling sports endeavors… I LOVE sports but genuinely suck at most of them, and, therefore, I’m a “HA = Humbled Athlete.” Please check out the posts in this series by clicking this link.

The NY Yankees… the best team money can buy?

Baseball, like many sports, is a world of statistics. They keep track of lots of numbers – runs, hits, errors, earned run average, runs batted in, and batting average, just to name a few. One number they don’t keep track of: What are the odds of any given batter making it around the bases and scoring? I guess this stat, like a cumulative of the rest, goes into the most important one of all, the won – lost column.

Growing up in Vero Beach, we had a professional baseball team for spring training. The Brooklyn Dodgers, later moving to L.A., trained in Vero from 1948 to 2008. They had a decent team at the time I was growing up and watching them play. It was fun to brush shoulders with legends.

I started following the Yankees later on. I guess if there was a baseball team that seemed to attract lots of drama it would be the Yankees. Why? I guess it’s the personalities, and the money that feeds them. Is there any humility there? Not sure. Feeding the big dogs as they round the bases…

And so we’ve reached the end of The HA!! – Baseball being the last sport that I played competitively.

I recall actually feeling superhuman and connecting the bat with the baseball. Once. It was awesome to really tag it, the sound of the wooden bat making contact with the ball. Wow! I was fortunate to score a few times, getting on base and then having teammates help me advance to second, third and back to home plate. High fives in the dugout. What were the odds? Well, for me, not all that great since I sucked at this one too! I couldn’t bat, being totally afraid of the ball. My first thought was always that I was going to get hit. In fact, I did get beaned by the ball a couple of times. I guess everyone did that played little league. That wasn’t a big deal, in little league. It was when I got to the next level that I faced a huge pitcher with a reputation for throwing wild, and really hard. It was all true, he will tell you himself to this day. I think this must have worked to his advantage as I’m guessing that I wasn’t the only one who feared the pitcher as a young athlete.

I could probably count the number of times that I made it all the way around the bases on two hands. Yet, I continued to play… and the coaches continued to draft me every year that I tried out. Why? I’m not sure… lol… I guess I was a decent fielder as I played second base and shortstop. Plus, the real issue with batting didn’t well up until I was in Pony League. It was always there, but got really bad after being schnockered by “throwing smoke wild pitcher giant.” Yea, that guy!

Dugout chatter. Yep, heckling was allowed. I don’t know if this is still the norm. It was bunk most of the time. Idle chatter… until the pressure cooker was steamed up to full, then the trash talk seemed to make a difference. I guess there were some rules to this, no talking about someone’s momma, there wasn’t any cussing or swearing, it was mostly heyyyyyyy batteeeeerrrrrrr SWING !!!!!

OK, so how to wrap this one up?

Maybe think of baseball this way: Every time we step up into the batters box we have a new opportunity. At that point, it’s just me and my bat. IF I choose to swing at the right pitch, I may get on base. Then, I’m often relying on my teammates to help me move forward, or the third base coach to wave me home.

In baseball every kid was the same. We all wanted to get on base, and score a run. To say we were eager would be an understatement. Our trip to the batters box was all about offense and our opportunity to shine. Well, we can think of our life here on earth the same way. You can be sure that your momma is watching, just like when you stepped up to bat. Lots of other people are watching too, and rooting you on.

The disrespectful devil in the dugout, always wanting us to fail. His voice is bunk. Idle chatter…

Remember the Beatles song, “Can’t Buy Me Love” – they were referring to money. I wonder how Derek Jeter feels about that one? Dunno, it does sound kind of fishy to think it would when we consider what love really is, right? btw, Jeter is a personal fav of mine. Like Jesus. He spoke of love, money and heaven, right?

Will we reach home plate? I think it depends on how we play the game. God could probably lay out some statistics.

I wonder, what are the odds?

Surely He has a won – lost column, don’t you think?

Speaking of brushing shoulders with legends…

Now there’s a humbling thought…

Hope you’ve enjoyed The HA!!

If I Had Known Then What I Think I Know Now (Why I Wrote A Relationships Book)

The journey IS the goal – CV

I’m really excited about my forthcoming book, “All Sorts And Conditions Of People: The 7 Essentials Of Extraordinary Relationships”. It’s scheduled for release next week, on May 15th (not to worry there will be a reminder ). Why did I write a relationships book? And what makes me qualified to even write such a title?

Well, I’m not a relationships expert like Dr. Phil or Oprah, that’s for sure. However, I will say this: I’ve been in a relationship or two, some good and some not so good. And it took me a long time to figure out the secret sauce to successful relationships. I think most would agree that in life we are in contact with all sorts of people every day. By all sorts I mean those who are different from us, possibly coming from different socio-economic backgrounds or those with varying religious beliefs. Heck, for that matter, just look within a family and you’ll find “all sorts” too! Some of these places we journey through are where we have to learn to get along, like at church or at work. Remember this tidbit from the Bible…

Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself”.

He also said that this is pretty important, like #2 only to loving the Lord.

When I started writing on the internet some of the wise men in the world of blogging told me to write. “Just write”, they said, and don’t worry too much about anything else. That was good advice as I needed to learn how to write, and I’m still learning here. I did find out that by just pouring my heart out that:

like most people who have reached middle age, I’ve been through some crazy stuff, and
some of this stuff is worth trying to share as it may help someone else.

So, here I am…

Today, I find myself in the best relationship of my life. Ever. I made a list of the positive traits that I really admire about Julia. Your list would likely be different from mine so I’ll spare you that, but I will share with you this: Surrounding yourself with the right people is probably the most important aspect to finding satisfaction in your life here on earth, next to having a personal relationship with Jesus. I’m certain that my current relationship is a God thing. I’m also certain that He gave me a gift (for writing) and that He wants me to share, using it to bring honor and glory to Him. And so, the secret sauce to these relationships is a bit of handiwork that He’s inspired in me, and taught me through these bits and pieces that I’ll be sharing more about on May 15th. I hope you’ll find in this book good info that you can use in every relationship in your life.

That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

“and that’s all I’ve got to say about that” – Gump

Image courtesy of photostock at FreeDigitalPhotos.net