LaRosa Johnson {dot} com

I’m in the midst of my journey to read through the Bible in a year. Within the past couple of weeks I’ve finished Exodus & Leviticus, and now I’m about halfway through Numbers. It’s been an exciting read thus far. I’ve been motivated to read and a lot of stuff that didn’t make sense before is being comprehended this time around.

With my recent reading, the Lord has really been rocking me. I’m seeing how the Israelites are being delivered & provided for time & time again by the Lord God, only to spit back in his face & complain. On more than one occasion God was ready to take out the Israelites because of their disobedience. Even people that you wouldn’t think would rise up against the Lord, like Miriam & Aaron, had their moments. It’s crazy, seriously! The Lord provides manna, but that’s not enough; no, they want more meat! The Israelites want to know why they’re stuck in the wilderness & left to die or killed by those in the Promised Land, when they “had it made” in Egypt, when they were really enslaved. Oh, and you can’t forget the Levites trying to rise up on Moses & Aaron, wanting to know why they’re in charge.

In all of this, the Lord was quick to want to just take the Israelites out completely, wiping them off the face of the earth, wanting to just start over with Moses. It can’t be said lightly enough that God’s anger toward them was fuming and He wasn’t playing around. If it weren’t for Moses praying for forgiveness, I don’t doubt that God would have done it.

What’s the lesson in this for me? God doesn’t take lightly to grumbling & complaining. Just looking at the Israelites & their attitude, God wasn’t very pleased. I can only think that He’s looking at me in the same light when I act in a similar manner. More than anything, this is serving as motivation for me to continue walking upright, while making sure that I keep my griping to a minimum. Instead of complaining, I need to learn to be more thankful for what the Lord has provided, as opposed to looking back to the past or wanting more than what He’s already providing.

Thanks for the lesson, Lord!

LaRosa Johnson Bible, LaRosa, Life bible study, complaining, reading, thankfulness

Last month I started the process of coming up with ideas for Trailblazin Ministries, and I came up with a few that I felt would really benefit those who visit the site. The problem? They required a big commitment on my end, a commitment that I couldn’t realistically give myself to. The biggest of the goals was to do a plan that would take the site’s visitors through the entirety of the Bible in two years, with daily lessons Monday through Friday.

I tossed the ideas back & forth in my mind constantly in the days leading up to the new year, all the way up until yesterday. It was at that time that I finally decided that I couldn’t do it. I already have a lot on my plate, and there’s no way that I could feasibly do all that I wanted to do without suffering in another area. Would my 1st Thessalonians study suffer? Would my time with family suffer? Would my training suffer? I realized that something was going to suffer if I went ahead with this plan; or, at the very least, I would get a month or two into this and end up quitting, which wouldn’t look good at all.

Now, I’m not committing myself to resolutions, but I do have plans for the new year. First and foremost, I want to read my Bible from Genesis to Revelation in this year. I personally don’t think it would be wise for me to have made it to the end of my training to be a pastor without first having read through the Bible at least once. I started a chronological reading plan back in November and already have a pretty good head start, so I look forward to seeing this one through. This is one of my biggest goals.

Next to that is being a better father & husband, which is my first ministry. I can’t possibly live up to my new position of deacon or a soon-to-be pastor if I can’t manage my household well. So, I want to try my hardest to have consistent family devotions (maybe at least 1-2x a week) and pray with Robin more. I also need to work harder at spending quality time with each child.

I also want to be more diligent in my ministry training at Austin Bible Church. I want to make sure that I’m learning Hebrew & Greek to the best of my ability, and learning all that I can in the ministry workshop courses. That also means being diligent in working through my 1st Thessalonians study so that I can be prepared to teach it to the congregation when the Lord allows us to meet in our new building.

Finally, I just want to continue doing what I’ve been doing with Trailblazin Ministries, even if it does remain small. I realize that what’s important right now is my training & I just have to keep TM running. Once my training is done, I’ll be better equipped and have the time to do more with the site, which will allow me to better reach the world at large with the truth of God’s Word.

Those are my goals for the year. They’re all realistic & obtainable. Nothing high & lofty, and stuff that I should be doing anyway. The best part of it all is that I don’t have to do it on my own, but I’ll have the help of God the Holy Spirit, who is able to accomplish all things. Amen.

LaRosa Johnson LaRosa bible study, church, Family, goals, ministry training, resolutions

I’m not big on making resolutions for the new year, but I’ll admit that I have spent the past few days mulling over ideas. Not ideas of how I can improve myself or anything like that. Instead, I’m sitting here trying to think about ideas for ways to do more with Trailblazin Ministries in 2010.

Coming into this year I had come up with a few ideas that I thought were going to work out rather well. One of my goals was to start on a devotion series for 1st Thessalonians, after having finished James in December of 2008. Well, it got started but not until April, primarily because it took me forever to get my outline together for chapter one, and I’m still only part way through my outline for chapter two as we near the close of the year. The other major idea was to begin a study on spiritual gifts. That plan didn’t come together at all; I didn’t even get a chance to start on it. I guess the Lord had other plans & didn’t allow that to ever come together.

2009 wasn’t entirely a disappointment. The site got moved to a backend content management system (from Movable Type to Joomla to Drupal), as well as a much needed redesign. In terms of running the site, things are going a lot more smoothly. Plus, George Sly took on a bigger part this year, adding his own devotion series. So, I won’t complain. Even though all of the plans didn’t come together as expected, it was still a solid year.

Now, as I get ready to move into 2010, I really have a burden for putting up more content on Trailblazin Ministries, and doing it more consistently. I’m determined to get away from the music (not entirely, but it’ll take a major backseat to teaching), and I want there to be a heavy emphasis on teaching the Bible. There are two ideas that are really sitting in the forefront of my mind, but I really don’t know if I have the motivation to do them, even though I think they’d be great ideas.

The first idea is to have Trailblazin Ministries go through the entire Bible. I had thought about doing it in a single year, but that would be about 5-6 chapters per day, Monday through Friday; yet, if I do it in two years, it cuts the reading in half. Now, along with that, I would give my own summary & commentary of sorts on the text that’s being read. The big thing is that it’s such a major commitment and I don’t want to get it started and then quit a month or two into it. I’m afraid to try because I know my tendency to not see things through, as well as not really knowing how heavy my schedule may be. But, if I don’t try, I won’t know if I could have ever done it.

The second idea is more feasible, but I’m still not quite sure how it would work. It would be to do a “word study of the week” where I pick a Greek or Hebrew word and put together a word study on it, with definition, a listing of its usages, and so on. The only real hard part here is that most of my original language resources are in copyright and I don’t want to run into any kind of copyright issues if I have to copy & paste text. That’s really the only big hurdle and it’d be easy enough to plan out the list for the entire year.

Not to mention, I’d also like to do something more with my podcast.

All of this would be on top of maintaining the 1st Thessalonians devotion series, as well as any other content. I’d love to make this happen, but quite frankly I’m scared of failure. I really don’t want to start something and not see it through. So, pray for me, pray that I can get some clear direction for which way to take Trailblazin Ministries in 2010. If you have any ideas for content or for the podcast, feel free to pass them along. I’m open to all ideas, and I’ll at least consider them.

LaRosa Johnson Ministry bible study, Ministry, new year, planning, Trailblazin Ministries

Tonight I decided to try something new with my studies. For the longest time, I’ve been using the note files to take notes for my studies, which is basically the stripped down equivalent of a word processor. Since upgrading to Logos 4, I’ve found it to be a little bit limiting in the way I take notes. So, looking for a better solution, tonight I thought I’d give Microsoft OneNote a try now that I’m trying out the Office 2010 beta.

Given that I’m using two monitors for my study (at least at home) this is pretty feasible. I just move the OneNote window to the second monitor (in the same position that I previously had my Logos 4 notes file), and take notes like I normally would. The primary advantage to taking notes this way is that it’s super easy for me to organize & rearrange my notes, plus my outlines are formatting properly. The only real drawbacks are that my Scriptures aren’t hyperlinked automatically & they’re not searchable from within Logos.

I’ll continue to give this a try and see how it goes. The real challenge will be when I start studying without the aide of the second monitor and I’m back to having a more confined workspace.

Anyway, I’m going to continue working with this and see if I can refine the process a bit for better note taking. The one advantage I’m already seeing is the ease in moving between OneNote, Word & PowerPoint. Who knows, OneNote may be the way for me to go permanently.

LaRosa Johnson Bible Software, Tech Stuff Bible Software, bible study, Logos 4, Microsoft Office, OneNote

Just a quick note on a Sunday night before I head to bed.

I’m really enjoying the latest version of Logos Bible Software. The latest version is version 4 and it’s a great application. It’s made my studying enjoyable and given me that extra boost to want to study the Bible. One of the cool things about it is the accompanying iPhone/iPod Touch app that they released in conjunction with the desktop software. It allows you to access your library (and I have a pretty large library) on the mobile device without having to repurchase books.

The iPhone app is really nice and it made me drink the Kool-Aid. I said I would never buy an iPod or Apple product, but seeing what the Logos app was capable of and basically doing what I had always hoped a Bible software company would do (i.e. not making me repurchase books I already own in digital format), I couldn’t resist. So basically, I bought an iPod Touch (8GB) just so that I could use this app. I’m still not abandoning my Zune just yet though as a music player.

What’s more, I even bought an 18.5” LCD monitor ($99 @ BestBuy) for my desk to expand my workspace now that Logos 4 has the ability to “float” a window & move it to a second monitor. This has really helped to increase my productivity and efficiency in studying. Having the real estate from two monitors really improves my workspace and makes it that much easier to study.

It’s getting late, so that’s all for now. Look for a video review soon (hopefully, if I can swing it) on the Trailblazin Ministries website.

LaRosa Johnson Bible Software, Tech Stuff Bible Software, bible study, bibles, iPod, Logos 4, software

…or do I?

Just a real quick blog tonight. I want to share a thought I’ve had on my mind recently.

I know without a doubt that I have the pastor-teacher gift, I’m thoroughly convicted of that. With that comes an innate desire and passion to want to study the Word of God and take it to the deepest depths that I can possibly take it to. I enjoy studying the Scriptures, breaking down the Greek and Hebrew, reading reference works, and so on. In a lot of ways, because of the gift that the Spirit has given me, it’s a given that I should have such passion. I honestly can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing than studying; it’s the only thing that satisfies me.

It is that satisfaction that brings me to my thought. Is it wrong of me to think that others should have that same passion? Of course, I know that the answer is yes, at least on some level; it’s wrong for me to think that all believers should have that desire for the Word. Not everyone will have a desire to delve into the original languages and read church history, and that’s fine. Sure, they should have some level of passion for studying the Word, but I doubt for most it’ll be anywhere near the level of desire that I or other pastor-teachers have. But what about those that really don’t have a desire for the Word at all, to the point where they rarely read their Bible? What’s up with that?

I think a lot of this thinking, for me, stems for the article I wrote over @ TM about holy hip-hop music. Because of my gift, am I looking “too deeply” at the music and expecting too much for other listeners to do the same thing? I mean, I can listen to an album and tear it apart (i.e. Excelsius’ album Liberation that I’m doing the study guide for), but I wonder if others are even interested or equipped to do the same. For me, it comes easy and is second nature almost. But am I wrong to think it should be for others? Maybe so.

I don’t really have an answer other than that; but it’s some food for thought that I’ve been chewing on. At the very least, I gotta stay focused on grace and exhibiting that in my life.

LaRosa Johnson Faith, Ramblings bible study, expectations, hip hop, Music

So, I’ve been reading through and studying the book of Revelation over the past few weeks. Overall it has been an interesting read and I’m learning a lot. There was a lot I already knew, but so much more that I didn’t know before engaging in this study. One of the more interesting things is the straightforward nature of the text. It really doesn’t leave much room for error or personal interpretation, although many people tend to still do so. Another thing to note is that even in the plain reading of the text, you end up being left with more questions than answers; there are so many items & symbols that just don’t get interpreted and have to be left as is. Either way it has been a fruitful study and I’m looking forward to diving into chapter 13 tomorrow.

LaRosa Johnson Bible bible study, prophecy, revelation

The other day I was listening to Evangel’s solo album Expository Journey, and it was a good listen. It definitely reminded me of why it was a top 3 album for me in 2008. Well, this morning I woke up and I got to thinking about ministry and my training. In getting through my thoughts, there were plenty of mixed emotions, highs & lows, patience & impatience, and so on.

A part of this hit me yesterday when my wife & I agreed to renew our lease for another two years (instead of just doing it for a year, as we had done before). In previous years I was slow to want to make a commitment for that long because I really wasn’t sure where we’d be at that point in time. When I looked at my ministry training, though, I didn’t have a second thought about renewing our lease for two years. You see, at the very least, I know I have at least two years left (this year & next) for my ministry training. At most, I know I will have made it through my requisite three years of Greek and two years of Hebrew (if all goes as planned). Hopefully by that time, I’ll also be that much closer to being prepared for ordination and ministry.

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LaRosa Johnson LaRosa, Life, Ministry bible study, Ministry, patience