With All His Heart?

Adam Bender, 8, was one of several kids who played baseball in Kentucky's Southeastern’s rookie league at Veterans Park last year. But what makes Adam stand out is he plays one of the toughest positions on the field, catcher, with only one leg. Because of cancer, he had his left leg amputated when he was one. But he doesn’t use a prosthesis and only uses crutches when he reaches base for the Astros. Click the pic to read his story. Or the triangular play button below to see him playing with all his heart.
UPDATE: Since the story of 8-year old cancer survivor Adam Bender was published in the Lexington Herald-Leader, and on www.kentucky.com, on June 1, 2008, the one-legged catcher has been invited to throw out first pitches at a Chicago White Sox game, a Cincinnati Reds game, a Houston Astros game, and has been invited to a Garth Brooks benefit in Las Vegas. He is also being profiled for a story that will air on ESPN. On Sunday June 6, 2008, Adam threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Adam Dunn of the Reds. Edited and adapted from articles by Mike Fields and Charles Bertram.

Hot Pockets?

My neighbor Dave introduced me to Jim Gaffigan's "Beyond the Pale" DVD a few years ago. His 5 minute bit on Hot Pockets always makes me laugh. Gaffigan is the source of my "Awwwkard..." response to many things. Enjoy!!!

Who Cares About the Souper Bowl?

We do!!! At TF, it’s not just a game. It’s never been just a game. It’s an opportunity to invite someone in your world to your church for a seriously non-threatening social event. And this year, it’s even more. Because we’re collecting cans of soup to give to the needy!!!

So if you can, bring TWO cans of soup [or more] AND a friend. If you forget, we'll have cans you can buy there...You’ll both enjoy bowls of free chili, plenty of Gino's pizza, and pop and [hopefully] a great game on a ginormous 25' screen between the Arizona Cardinals [go Kurt Warner!!!] and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Click the triangular play button below if you want to see a clever ad about the Souper Bowl of Caring.

Where Your Heart Is?

If it's true where your treasure is, your heart will be also [Matthew 6:19-21], shouldn't the reverse should also be true? Where your heart is, there your treasure will be also. But what's your treasure? In the past, I've been taught that my "treasure" is money and the "storehouse" of Malachi 3:10 is the organized church's headquarters. But to be honest, I don't think that's what the prophet Malachi had in mind when he wrote what he did 2500 years before the Adventist Church existed!

So in the coming weeks at TF, we'll be talking about what else Malachi meant. And how badly Jesus wants to be Lord of all our time, talents, and treasure. With the economy tanking and anticipated giving trends changing, we all need to be proactive and take more ownership and responsibility for the ministry and outreach opportunities Toledo First provides. Not from a spirit of fear, but of faith [2 Timothy 1:7]. So what can you do?

• Pick up the invitation cards at the back of church and share them with your friends and family
• Plan to attend/read/watch the entire series January 24 - February 21, 2009
• Pray for me as I prepare to share!
• Email me [mike4tune@gmail.com] your helpful YouTube vids, illustrations, cartoons, or anecdotes about any kind of giving
• Tell me your story. How has God blessed you when you sincerely give and live for Him?

Who Needs Batman?

I don't. Because I married Batgirl!!! Before Christmas, Jackie captured a bat in our house with an oatmeal container. We don't know if it was the same one we saw flying through our living room one evening a few weeks earlier. But from the look on her face when she saw him, I knew she wanted him gone.

So being the brave man that I'm not, I ushered the kids into their bedrooms and shut their doors. Then I went to my office to call a pest control guy. But before I could hang up, Jackie informed me she had captured the intruder, read him his rights, and was about to drive him miles away from our house to a park. Since then, every nook and cranny of the inside of our home has been screened, caulked, and sealed. And if there are any more in here, we're told they will leave in the spring through the small opening under the eaves in the front of the house they used to get in. Then that opening will be screened, caulked, and sealed as well.

Which is good I guess. But even if it weren't, I'd have nothing to be afraid of. Since my wife is not afraid of bats or the needles the following injections would require to ward off rabies. Shortly after this heart warming episode, I was browsing Despair's website and found this T-shirt I had to buy. Click the graphic for more.

What’s Your Dream?

Take Charge?

Bills rolling in from Christmas spending? Ready for some changes? Want to have a little money left at the end of the month?

Taking Charge Community Finance classes are for you!!! We’ll be offering the classes on two Wednesday nights, January 21 and January 28 @ 7 PM. It’s free!!! So invite everyone you can and plan to fill a space at the table. Our good friend and Financial Advisor, Shanyn Stewart, will walk us through what we can do to Take Charge! At the conclusion to each class, a representative from FirstMerit Bank in Sylvania will be there to give away to one lucky guest a Visa gift card!!!

Securities offered through NEXT Financial Group, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC, 3040 Consear Rd, Lambertville, MI 48144.
Leach Stewart & Associates is not an affiliate of NEXT Fiancial Group, Inc.

Sponsored by FirstMerit Bank Sylvania Branch 7530 King's Pointe Road
Liz Farley, Personal Banker 419-843-9680

Family Movie Night?

Remember Sunday nights when you were a kid [or an adult] and you couldn’t wait to watch The Wonderful World of Disney? Want to see a fun family movie, one for kids of all ages? Then come to TF on January 17 @ 7 PM for a night of laughs!

Toledo Junior Academy will again be hosting Family Movie Night in the fellowship hall! If you came last time, you’ll remember what fun we had!

We’ll provide the popcorn free of charge. Drinks and other movie snacks will be available for purchase. We’re inviting all our friends and families from Toledo Junior Academy and James Meade Learning Center—why don’t you invite yours too! Special thanks to the Home and School Association for this info.

Where's JFK's Plane?

His VC-137C Boeing 707, known as "Air Force One" when the president was on board, is in Dayton, Ohio at the best "air and space" museum outside of Washington DC. Pastor Rachel and her brothers joined Joshua, Lydia, and me and the Jessops for this little field trip during winter break. If you have never toured this museum, you really should [click pics for more info]. Admission is free, but get there early to sign in for the bus tour to the Presidential Hangar and the Cold War Gallery to see the Blackbird SR-71 and the only one of two Valkyrie XB-70's ever built. Special thanks to Leonard, Julie, and Andrew Jessop for their excellent guided tour!!! I LOVE airplanes!!!

Is Torture A Moral Issue?

Whether you voted for Obama or McCain, approved of the bailouts for Wall Street or Detroit, or are Christian or Muslim or Jew, please take 60 seconds to watch this clip and consider signing the petition to end "advanced interrogation techniques" in the USA like I did.

YOU have a voice. Use it!!! Because Isaiah 59:15-16 NLT says, "The Lord looked and was displeased to find there was no justice. He was amazed to see that no one intervened to help the oppressed."
Click the "Help Obama End Torture" link to the right for more info.

What If Starbucks Marketed Like A Church?

This is religious satire people. Enjoy!!!

Merry Christmas 2008?

What Would Jesus Buy?

Wanna watch an entertaining but thought provoking DVD with your family this Christmas? I highly recommend Morgan Spurlock's latest and greatest documentary What Would Jesus Buy? Click pic for more info or the triangular play button below for the dead serious LOL preview.

Is the $hop-ocalypse Upon Us?

Americans spend $450 billion/year on Christmas every year. That’s right people. $450 billion with a “B”. But just think, if Christians in America spent less at Christmas, WE could have bailed out Chrysler, General Motors, and Ford all by ourselves! And as this video clip I'm showing in church this week reveals, we would still have money left over to provide clean drinking water for the entire planet!

But instead, more and more Americans are losing their jobs. And more and more people around the world, 25k/day to be specific, die each day of preventable hunger and water related illnesses while Christians continue to spend, spend, spend. Is the $hop-ocalypse upon us?

Merry Christmas Card 2008?

It’s that time of year again to take the Fortune Family Christmas Card Quiz. There's only 10 super easy questions no one can fail so enjoy!!! And for those of you who fought the traffic at the post office and snail mailed us a year in review letter or beautiful Christmas Card, BIG thanks and WTG to you!!! We do enjoy hearing from you!!! [I snapped the pic above through falling sleet while touring Zoo Lights with 13 other loony tunes from TF last SAT nite]

1.) In 2008, who didn’t spend some time in Toledo, Ohio?
a. Mike, Jackie, Joshua, Lydia [and Barkley]
b. Barack Obama
c. Joe the Plumber
d. Plaxico Burress

2.) This year for Christmas Lydia wants:
a. The Chicken Pox
b. An “American Girl” doll
c. Her two front teeth
d. Both B and C

3.) Which never happened?
a. Joshua Skyped his sponsored brother, Golu, in India
b. Joshua built a bridge across the creek in our back yard
c. Joshua and daddy’s pinewood derby car won all its races
d. Both A and C

4.) Why was Mike on the news?
a. Because Mike’s church prayed at the stump
b. Because Mike’s church prayed at the dump
c. Because Mike’s church prayed at the pump
d. Mike wasn’t on the news

5.) What was one of Joshua and Lydia’s favorite movies this year?
a. What Would Jesus Buy?
b. The Devil & Daniel Webster
c. Sicko
d. Kung Fu Panda

6.) Joshua [9 years old] and Lydia [6½ years old] are learning how to:
a. Load the dishwasher
b. Fold clothes
c. Play piano
d. All of the above

7.) Joshua [in 3rd grade] loves:
a. Playing coach pitch baseball for the YMCA Red Sox
b. Marie Calendar’s “Razzleberry Pie”
c. Sledding
d. All of the above


8.) Lydia [in 1st Grade] loves:
a. Gymnastics at the YMCA on Thursdays
b. Cleaning her room on Fridays
c. Reading to daddy any day
d. Both A and C

9.) Jackie still loves:
a. Driving around Toledo taking care of babies 2-3 days/week
b. Country music
c. Mike
d. All of the above

10.) Mike’s fave books in 2008 include:
a. Searching for the God of Grace
by Stuart Tyner
b. Searching for God Knows What
by Donald Miller
c. Just Courage by Gary Haugen
d. All of the above

Answers: 1D; 2D; 3D; 4C; 5D; 6D; 7D; 8D; 9D; 10D


>9 Very Fortunate—Samuel Morse couldn't have telegraphed it better.

>7 Fortunate—Judging by the old saying, "What you don't know can't hurt you," you’re practically invulnerable.

>5 Unfortunate—Any friend of yours...is a friend of yours.

>3 A misfortune—Jesus still loves you.

Pump Patrol?

On Tuesday night NBC 24 wanted my thoughts on gas prices and the economy. I spoke about Advent and Immanuel and how God is always with us, in good times and bad, just as He was with Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20:10-11 when God miraculously healed him and proved it by sending the sundial backwards ten steps. Unfortunately, much of that was edited out. Here's what wasn't:

David Custer [DC], NBC 24 11pm News Anchor: "Well, just a few months ago gas prices were topping off at over four bucks a gallon. They’ve fallen dramatically and some Toledoans are thanking a higher power. NBC 24's Arielle Berlin [AB] explains."

AB: ‘We’ll have lower gas prices...’ That was the call to prayer just six months ago.
Me: We asked God not to allow gas prices to go any higher.
AB: And since that prayer at the pump vigil in June, gas prices have fallen. A lot.
Me: We think God did that. That He lowered them and they stayed low for quite a while now.

AB: The Toledo First Seventh-day Adventist Church is taking partial responsibility for the drop in prices at the pump. But issue the reminder that we’re all in this together.
Me: We have to pray for God’s wisdom and that our government’s leaders will make wise decisions and that the church will not drop the ball.
AB: There is of course speculation. Why would God let us get into this mess in the first place? Did God abandon us?
Me: Why on earth would we come to the conclusion that He’s not with us now? That’s insane.

AB: This past weekend a church in Detroit prayed for help for the big three [automakers]. Churches in California, Florida, and right here in Ohio have prayed for the economy to turn around.
Me: Prayer is a normal thing. This is not a last resort. This is something ordinary Christians do constantly all the time.

AB: Back in June the Adventists had faith their prayers would be answered. And today, they say they were. Now after seeing the church in Detroit pray fro the big three, the Toledo First Seventh-day Adventist Church say that may be their next move. With the industry effecting so many people in Toledo they say it couldn’t hurt to ask God for a little holy help.

DC: I guess this means you should never under estimate the power of prayer.
AB: That’s true.

Hot As A Pistol?

Jason McElway is his basketball team's manager. For the past couple of years, he's been fetching water and toweling off other people's sweat. Because he is autistic, Jason says he's used to feeling different. But never this different. Never this wonderful. Click the triangular play to see why Jason was hot as a pistol.

The Death of Grace?

One day after an F-18 Hornet fighter jet fell from the sky and crashed into his house, 37 year old husband and father Dong Yun Yoon returned home and reminded us that grace isn't dead. Rescue workers sifting through the debris had found the bodies of his Yoon's wife, Young Mi, 37; his nearly 2-month-old daughter, Rachel [in pic on right]; and mother-in-law, Suk Im Kim, 60 on Monday. The body of his 15-month-old daughter, Grace [in pic on left] was recovered Tuesday.

Though little was left of his house except a charred garage wall and piles of blackened beams, Yoon said he bore no ill will toward the Marine Corps pilot who ejected safely before the jet he was flying on a training mission experienced engine failure and plunged into Yoon's neighborhood two miles west of the runway at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. "I pray for him not to suffer for this action," Yoon said. "I know he's one of our treasures for our country."

How a grieving father speaking to a mob of reporters could say anything coherent much less do so sharing words of forgiveness and encouragement remind us that though his family died, grace didn’t. The Advent Birth of the Christ child is obviously alive and well in this young father's heart. Proving that even amidst unspeakable tragedy, Jesus can grow in yours as well. Grace is not dead. Click pic above for more from the LA Times article I read and the triangular play button below to hear Yoon in his own words.

They Kept Shopping?

The throng of Wal-Mart shoppers had been building all night. Suddenly, witnesses and the police said, the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob of 2,000 surged through in a blind rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede. “When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been in line since yesterday morning,’ ” one eyewitness told The Associated Press. “They kept shopping.” [click pic for more].

Our English word Advent comes from the Latin adventus and is the translation of the Greek word parousia commonly used in references to the second coming of Jesus. Christians believe that the season of Advent serves as a dual reminder of the original waiting that was done by believers for the birth of their Messiah as well as the waiting that Christians today endure as they await the second coming of Christ.

How sad that not even the death of a 34 year old man in Wal-mart can remind some how eternally significant it is to know the 33 year old man who also died on a Black Friday. Do you care more about saving a few hundred bucks on a TV than anticipating the birth and return of Jesus? Do your kids? How can you tell? Mute the playlist on the right and click the triangular play button for more.

What's So Amazing About Grace?

This rendition of Amazing Grace by Il Divo might be my fave all time...Mute the playlist to the right and click the triangular play button to hear what's so amazing about grace.