reFinIng tHe daRk

I went to go visit my family in Ohio this weekend. Wow, what an amazing, refreshing, exciting time. Sarah and I visited a church on Sunday, CedarCreek. It was done with excellence, the service was very relevant, and it had good foundational speaking. The speaker over the weekend talked about trials. Something I have heard 100's of times but it still pierced my heart. He talked about how without darkness, fruit would not be able to produce abundantly. Without trials, hard times, and difficulties we would not be able to produce the amazing fruits of the spirit. Yes, hard times are hard! But without those refining moments in our life we would be basic people. For those of you who are going through a hard time make sure that you are in prayer, reading the word, and running after God. God knows what he is doing.

riChaRd

In college I partnered with some amazing friends to try and launch this ministry called "Making Visible Ministries" The ministry existed to make the bulletin board missionary come to life and to empower the Church congregation to make a visible difference for the voiceless heros. While at Moody we were the first team of Moody students to ever propose a ministry to the college. (We had 3 min. to sell it to the executive board of directors.) Moody did not invest in it but they did offer all of us jobs to farther the institute. Which was awesome but we all turned them down. The ministry went on the back burner for a long time. Until a few weeks ago I just started thinking about it. This is an amazing ministry that just needs some wheels. So, I e-mailed James and asked him to send me the video we made to give people a taste of what they could do to make a difference in the world. (The video was made with limited resources but I think it turned out well.) If you know of anyone who would want to put wheels on this, learn more about it, or just thinks we are crazy. Please send me an e-mail, jlaberdia@gmail.com
---Check it out below---

beComIng moRe proFesSioNal

Well, recently I have decided that it is time I become more professional. I started up a new site called JonathanLaBerdia.com. I will post different types of blogs than my personal blog (this one), adding some podcasts of lessons I have taught, and other tidbits. Hope you enjoy the site and if you have any questions, comments, or critiques. Please let me know.

Check it out

JonathanLaBerdia.com