YNAB 3
I have been a quicken user for I don’t know how long. I have tried other finance apps over the course of time, but always went back to quicken for one reason or another.
One thing that I was always lacking in taking care of our finances was a true budget laid out. One reason was the frustration of having a non-fixed income coming in each month. I had never really approached our finances with a budget in mind.
I got back in the mood to try to figure out a “new” budget for ourselves to hopefully, eventually get us out of debt. I did a quick good search to see if there was any cool budgeting software for the mac. I came across some really cool review sites that did various reviews of a lot of different budget friendly finance apps. After looking through several I started to notice a lot of the reviews were giving a lot of praise to YNAB which stands for yourneedabudget. I found that there were a number of reviews on this specific app. What really drew me to this was the fact that it was using an envelope system which is what I was wanting for us, but one where we would setup virtual envelopes. It’s 2010, I don’t want to have a bunch of envelopes sitting around with money sitting in them. This appears to be the perfect solution for us.
What makes me so excited about using this particular app, which works on other operating systems, is the fact that it approaches your handling of all your money through the budget. Yes there is a register to keep track up your bank account, but the main focus is your budget and then tracking your register. This is what I have been looking for for an extremely long time and I am excited to have finally found it. I know it is early, but I have extremely high hopes for it. There is a 7 day free trial, and I was so impressed with it that I bought it the first night after messing around with it, which cost $50.
I am really looking forward to using this over the next few months. What I think is kind of funny is the fact that I am actually excited about dealing with our budget and our finances. Usually that isn’t something that gets me excited, but I must say that I am for the first time looking forward to paying bills.
On a side note, I have gone through and really started analyzing everything that we spend and boy does it open up your eyes when you really start breaking down everything that you spend money on. I was shocked at how much money I was spending a month on itunes without even thinking about it. I honestly thought I was spending no more than $5 a month on music and iphone apps. My credit card statements looked like I was spending more like, on average, $15 a month.
All in all I am looking forward to getting a handle on our finances along with getting out of debt. Check out YNAB 3.
Messing with Desktop Publishers
I just installed Windows Live Writer here at work and want to test it out. I have gotten frustrated with publishing through the web interface. It is a little slow and clunky. I am trying out Blogo on the Mac side of things and found out that one of the best for the windows is this app. I will probably use the one at work for mainly posting to our youth website defy122.com. We will see whether or not this and Blogo can make me happy with publishing post to the blogs. I really hope so, always looking for something to get me posting to the blog a little more.
Insane, But Really Cool
This is pretty cool to see how a guys transforms his body of the course of a year.
365 Days Of Exercise – Watch more Funny Videos
God’s Words
It is amazing what God and can tell you and when he might choose to speak to you. I have been thinking recently about what to preach on for the next youth led worship service and I have had a few ideas, but nothing concrete. This past weekend I took the youth group up to Worlds of Fun, which was a blast but freezing!!!! On the way back from KC I was driving the church bus and of course it was silent with just about everyone sleeping. I was in day dreaming driving mode thinking about all kinds of different things and then I felt God speaking to me about what it was that he wanted me to preach on. The message was being laid out before me and tied into one of my devotion reading from the previous week. I am still needing to organize it all, but I got home last night at 11:30pm. Got in bed and started typing it all out so that I wouldn’t forget it. It is exciting to see God at work and different times in which he chooses to speak to us.
1st Week in Office
Since the kids have gone back to school this week I have decided to start going into the office at church. I haven’t really gone into the office at all this summer other than to just look in there. It was very strange to actually go into the office. Honestly this was the one aspect of youth ministry that I wasn’t all that excited about.
It was weird going into the office, but it was a good weird! The only jobs that I have ever worked in my life were ones that required me to be there at this time and you have x amount of time for lunch, basically they tell you everything that you do throughout the day. I was a little worried about how I was going to feel my time. Needless to say it wasn’t hard and I couldn’t believe how fast the days went by, in my opinion they went by too fast at certain times. It really feels good to be in a professional work environment and I think I am going to thoroughly enjoy working up at the church. I know there will be ups and downs as with any job, but I am very excited about what God has in store for me.
I have spent the first 2 days getting organized with some of my stuff and going through all that is in the office. I still have a lot of stuff to go through and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. And again organizing all that is in the office cabinets and drawers. I got a chance to do preparation for Sunday while in the office and it was really good to have a place to just focus on the study. I know that I will be making good use of the office and being productive with my time there. One thing I am going to do and need to do is paint and redecorate the office, it looks quite outdated. God is good and I feel him working in all that is going on right now as I jump into this huge change in my life.
MacJournal Test
Just wanting to test macjournal to wordpress feature.
The Call
Well I have completed my 1st 2 days of officially going into work as the interim youth pastor at our church. I have been working as the interim youth pastor all summer long, but have been doing everything from home. I did this so that I could spend more time with the kids this summer and it allowed me to collect my unemployment. I had decided ahead of time that once the kids went back to school that would be when I would start going into the office and start treating this like a real job. I had kept track of some of my hours earlier on in the summer so I had a least an idea as to how much time I would be devoting. I was easily putting in 30 hours a week during the time that I kept track.
Working with youth has been something that I have felt like God has called me to do for quite a long time, but I was unsure as to whether or not it was to go into full time youth ministry. God really opened a door for me that I couldn’t deny seeing it and due to my time that I was spending in his word I recognized that this was God wanting me to take a step of faith and work with youth as a pastor.
Honestly at first I was nervous about working as a pastor due growing up as a pastors son and knowing the responsibilities that come along with being a youth pastor. I told my students that I was nervous about taking on this position and they laughed and said, “What are you scared of us?” I knew it wasn’t that I was scared of them, but it was the “office” aspect of dealing with being a youth pastor, coming up with ideas to spark the youth and lesson planning. I have been teaching youth since I was in college off and on, so I knew the teaching aspect didn’t bother me, but I had never been in the position where I had to come up with the resources and material on my own.
Having been able to work out of the home for the summer, doing all the planning from home gave me a more relaxed atmosphere. I am extremely grateful that I got to go through some of the lesson planning and ideas from home where I wouldn’t feel the extra pressure that I “thought” I would experience at the church. I am also thankful that I did it get to do the job voluntarily, it allowed me to discover whether or not I liked doing it without getting a paycheck.
As the summer progressed and I went on the mission trip, I began to feel more drawn to youth work it was a very excited feeling. While on the mission trip I got to see an aspect of youth ministry that I had never gotten to see before, I was in charge. I got a chance to know each of the youth that went on this trip even more which produced and even greater respect for them in my life. I truly “fell in love with the youth”. God really began to speak to me and I had a certain peace that just came over me when I thought about a future in the ministry, this is something that I have never experienced with any other job that I have ever had in my life. I knew in fact this was God at work.
September 1st I will officially start working as the interim youth pastor at Metropolitan Baptist Church. I am very excited that the church is giving me this opportunity to serve as the youth pastor and I know that I am in the right place in my life right now. It is crazy to think that I am now 31 years old and that it seems to have taken me a long time to get to this point in my life, but I feel nothing but pure joy and excitement.
I have started reading a book called “First 2 Years of Youth Ministry” by Doug Fields. I am excited to get through this book and apply some of this knowledge to my work, I feel like God has a lot in store for me and look forward to being used as His tool to reach the youth of our community. I remember when I was hit by a car at the age of 7 telling my mom that God had a plan for my life, He kept me here for a reason and I have had that thought in my head ever since. I feel as if God is starting to reveal part of that plan and I know in time he will reveal his entire plan as long as I stay faithful and fully trust in Him. The reality is that God has a plan for all of our lives, but we have to be faithful Him and allow him to direct us in the right direction. We need to be willing to do what God desires for our lives, we need to be willing to put our total trust in Him, he wants nothing but the best for us.
A Sense of What God Experiences
This summer my kids have made some friends in our neighborhood, which has been awesome!! They started out hesitant to play with them, at first Halee wouldn’t even play without Gavin playing. All our neighborhood kids are quite a bit older than my kids, but they really play well with them and seem to enjoy playing with them.
Gradually over the summer and it has become even more prevalent lately, their “friends” come before anything else. They have really become some what obsessed with playing with the neighbors, they complain when we leave and have to go some where because they think they might miss out. With summer coming to an end I was really wanting to spend time with the kids on their last couple of days, but they insist that they want to play with their friends. We did spend time together this morning, but it wasn’t long before they started asking if they could go see if the neighbors could play. I know this is all a part of growing up and friends start coming before parents.
As I was doing my quiet time this morning I started to think about how they were acting towards spending time with me and I couldn’t help but think of how God might feel with everyone of us. We all have things in our lives that we sometimes put before our relationship with God. While most of them are not necessarily bad they can be things that take up too much of our time and we begin to obsess over whatever it may be. God wants to spend time with us, but often we are too busy with our own agendas to really pay attention to God. We should all desire to spend time with God, but it does require us to put away our wants and desires which can be hard for a lot of us.
Although it made me a little sad that they would rather be playing with the neighbors, I think it is awesome that they are been able to develop these relationships. It helps develop their personalities and build confidence which I hope helps them out in school this year. I hope to remember just how God feels when we choose to over indulge in our desires and putting our wants ahead of our relationship with Him.
Body Surfing Typhoon Lagoon
Posted by Josh in Uncategorized on August 8th, 2009
Mission Trip 2009
It’s been about a week since we went on our mission trip down to East Carroll, LA. What and awesome experience we had, I felt like it was exactly what I needed in my life especially as the Youth Pastor. I had never really been on a mission trip where we went and worked on homes and it was very interesting. I wasn’t too terribly excited because I knew what the heat was going to be like and wasn’t looking forward to dealing with that while we re-shingled some homes in the are and painted others.
I got to be the construction captain for one of the painting crews, it was really an incredible experience to be able to work with the middle school kids and helping paint an elderly woman’s home. (It was Tutti Fruitti which is a hot pink color.) All of the kids in my group worked extremely hard and we were able to get the home completed in 3 days.
On a more personal level, being on the trip with the youth that went allowed me to be around them for a full week and I got to know each and everyone of them even more than I knew them before. They are really incredible group of teenagers and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire week.
This was my first time of “being in charge” outside the Sunday School, and Wednesday night environment. It was really the first time since taking over that I truly realized that I was the Youth Pastor, at first it was a little shocking when they asked what do we do now? I was looking for someone else to answer. I also got the chance to really talk in depth with some of the students about more personal stuff that youth pastors have to deal with and for me it was really a fulfilling experience to be able to talk to them about their lives and try to help them out. I felt like it was easy for me to step in the “youth pastor” role and be there when they needed someone to talk to.
I felt like God really answered some of the prayers that I have been praying about over the past several months. One of the biggest is making sure that I am in the right place where God wants me to be and without a doubt I am where he wants me and it feels really good to me. I feel like he is drawing me into the ministry, I am going to continue to pray about it to make sure it isn’t just a mission trip high. But, it is really exciting to be right where God wants me to be. This is the first job that I can honestly say I really look forward to doing each and everyday and I hope it continues down that path. I do feel like I have finally found my passion in life, working with youth. It is really exciting after all these years of wondering what God wants me to do to finally know and feel like I am headed in the right directions.
Please Pray for me as I continue to seek out His will for my life, Pray that I don’t resist but just give in to what He is doing with me. I am super excited about this coming year and all the He has in store, especially if seminary is in my future.
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