the BAKERS | www.jimjessbaker.com

It’s my birthday 

Thanks for spending time reading things on this blog.  I appreciate it.  

I’m encouraging my friends on facebook to comment and share a favorite memory of time we’ve spent together.  Feel free to join in! 

Blessings! 

Hey everyone, we just posted some camera recommendations on our photography blog for people that might be buying a camera for a loved one or for themselves this holiday season.  

Click here to check out our Holiday 2013 Camera Recommendations!

Are you more productive in certain environments?  How do you create that productive environment?  And how do you maintain productive in a less than desirable environment?  

Please comment and let us know!  

Kris Vallaton recently posted this on his facebook page.  I’m not 100% clear on their time line for this, if this is called Vision 2022, because they want everyone to be doing these things by 2022 or what but nonetheless… I found these to be really solid, tangible, specific, good goals, and I wanted to share them with you.  

Here is Bethel’s call to action for our VISION 2022 plan; 

Vision 2022

CALL TO ACTION

PRAY
1- Adopt a nation in prayer. Keep track of the events of that nation and pray accordingly. Ask God for history altering words and prophesy them over that nation. 

2- Take ownership of our city. Make the well being of our city your business in prayer. Ask the Holy Spirit for insights into His strategies for the Kingdom to manifest in every realm of our community.

3- Prayer walk your neighborhood and discern the spiritual influences that at work in the lives of your neighbors and intercede accordingly.

4- Target the poor and the broken as well as the wealthy and influential in prayer. Pick out specific people in the community to help in prayer. Ascertain their needs and desires and represent them before God.

GO
1- Assess your God given abilities and create a plan that best utilizes your gifts in a way that fuels our apostolic mission.

2- Join a team that is carrying your passion for ministry and serve with them.

3- Turn your occupation into a divine mission by seeing yourself as an ambassador of Heaven.

4- Come to BSSM or attend Bethel Church classes, and get trained, equipped, and deployed to reach into the darkest places on the planet.

GIVE
1- Develop a investment strategy for your family to fund this reformation.

2- Build a resource that is specially dedicated to sourcing the Kingdom.

3- Set 5 year giving goals that require faith, inspire sacrifice, and are rooted in extreme generosity.

4-Determine to live below your means to help meet the pressing needs of others.

Engage:  What do you think?  Do you think those are good goals?  Which of those are you going to be implementing or have you already?  Comment and let us know!

This morning after worship, we had a time of giving.  

Today was the deadline for 3 of our School of Biblical Studies students to have their tuition paid in full for this quarter, or they had to go home.  

The total need for the students was a little over $4,000.  

The one hundred of us were dismissed for ten minutes, to pray about how much we were to give and then come back and give.  

There are about 100 full time volunteer missionary staff and students on base currently.  The total giving was over $3000.  

I’m always amazed, at YWAM giving times.  Because none of us make a lot of money, we’re all full time volunteers, but the offerings are always quite big, even though many people have financial needs of their own.  

I love being a part of a community that walks in generosity towards one another.  God’s economy is so different than the worlds.  

Engage:  Do you have an amazing story of God’s provision?  Share with us in the comments.  

I didn’t end up preaching last night…

Yesterday afternoon, from my window I could hear RK preaching his heart out to the DTS and I felt like people were connecting with him.  We had hung out last week and he wondered if he was going to share at Launch our Thursday night community meeting.  I told him I was going to… 

But as Thursday arrived I was reminded of this quote…

“The best leaders are often the ones smart enough to get out of the way of smarter people.” – Ron Edmondson 

RK preached a simple message reminding us that when we preach the gospel to INCLUDE the resurrection.  

That we often preach heavy on Christ’s death… but not His resurrection.  

We have to preach them both… the fullness of what both mean.  

Which do you or your church lean more towards?  And how do you think that affects your theology and how you walk out your life?  

RK also talked about the church that he pastors in Waikiki.  I used to partner up with them on Tuesday nights.  

RK said he believes that people get better by helping others.  And so he encouraged his congregation of mostly homeless people to all give towards giving clean water to people that need it.  

Here’s a link for the ministry that RK partners with with some videos and statistics that you should check out.  –>  Thirst Water Program

I’ve been thinking about sustainability a lot lately, probably because of my new hobby of gardening.  I actually e-mailed this ministry asking about their process.  

I remember some of my friends that worked with the peace corps for a while saying that people would set up wells, thinking it was a good thing, but that the women would continue to walk miles to the river because it was a social thing.  So I’m interested in hearing if people continue to use the filters once they are gone.  

The filter that they use is like $40 on amazon and it filters a million gallons of water.  It seems like $40 is not a lot of money at all to help a family get clean water.

Gah… I’m remembering how sick I was in Africa, and how those kids were probably sick all the time because of the water they were drinking.  Actually in the Pastors meeting that I was in, while in Africa, they said one of their biggest problems was the lack of clean water.  

I’ve got a meeting next week with a woman from Justice Water which is a ministry of YWAM.  I’m looking forward to getting more information on all of this.  

Thoughts?  Comments?  Comment and share!  

IMG 2654 from Jim and Jess Baker on Vimeo.

I’ve been thinking recently about writing a blog post, that is essentially a letter to my 18 year old self…

I’m going to be 29 at the end of this month… so I’ve lived a solid tens years after becoming an “adult.”  

I have no problem with my age, people get insecure about it… there is nothing I can do to change it.  And honestly I’m glad that I’ve learned some of the lessons that I have, so there is a lot less drama in my life.  

Since I’m almost 30 though… someone joked today about how I’m half way to 60.  That’s kind of crazy. 

However, knowing that makes me want to live even more intentionally.  How can I make this next 30 years really count.  

I was in a meeting with my leaders here and they complimented me on my support raising teaching that I did in the staff meeting in September and said that I should book myself to speak at Launch (the community meeting I oversee)  the speaker I was trying to book this week is unable to speak so I’m going to speak.  I haven’t preached a message in quite a while, in fact, I think the last time I preached was in Kenya in 2010.  I’m looking forward to it, and am nervous at the same time.  

I have the captive audience of about 100 people for 20-25 minutes.  The topic is “World Missions.”  

I’m going to share with them some things I’ve observed in ten years of life experience after doing my DTS at age 18, (which the majority of my audience will be, DTS students, age 18.)  Mainly, I’m going to share some practical things to avoid, or implement, to help them continue to be successful in World Missions.  

I’ll try and post my outline here after I preach.  Try is the key word, I feel like I’ve been writing a lot about things I would write and haven’t gotten around to.  Just like what I’m going to write below…

I still might write that letter to my 18 year old self, or at least write about some of the things I’ve experienced in the past ten years.   We’ll see what happens.  

Hey everyone, it’s been brought to my attention that since the 24th of October my e-mails have not been sending.  I think this has to do with the upgrade to Mavericks (new Mac OS).  So if you’re waiting on a response from me, I apologize, I probably responded and it never got sent.