Our youngest son called me Tuesday evening to ask if I’d like to join him as he drives home from college in a week and a half. It means I have to buy a one-way plane ticket and take a couple of days out of my schedule. As long as the airfare wasn’t too high (what’s too high?), I decided, absolutely.

Sure enough, Southwest had a great fare. So we’re scheduled to go.

I’m excited.

Is it because sitting in a Toyota Corolla for 24 hours of driving over two days sounds like a lot of fun?

No. Rather, it’s because I expect our experience will be along the lines of something Kevin Swanson, executive director of Christian Home Educators of Colorado, said a couple of months ago. Read the rest of this entry »

Almost 3 years ago, one of my very first posts (Oh! It was my first post!) was a book by Alan Gotthardt called The Eternity Portfolio.

Yesterday morning, I attended a meeting at which Gary Hoag, the vice president for “Advancement” (i.e., fundraising) for Denver Seminary, spoke. Among other things, he presented what he calls The Stewardship Portfolio, a small portion of Gotthardt’s larger presentation.

In essence, says Hoag, (and, again, this is really a minor modification of what Gotthardt says): according to Scripture, we can divide our giving into nine categories within a 3 x 3 matrix divided, across the top, by type of ministry, and, down the side, by where the ministry occurs. Read the rest of this entry »

ADDENDUM as of 2/5/09: While I am still excited about the materials I discuss in this post, it is with great sadness that I feel compelled to note I have discovered there are reasons for caution with respect to the sources referenced herein. With respect to Vision Forum Ministries and Doug Phillips, I call your attention to the series of articles at Ministry Watchman and Jen’s Gems. And with respect to Geoff Botkin, see Who is Geoffrey Botkin? at the Under Much Grace blog.

As with my previous posts, I can only offer a small fraction of the richness contained in the Vision Forum 200-Year Plan CD set.

In describing how he drafted his own 200-Year Plan, Geoff Botkin said two considerations motivated him in his quest: Read the rest of this entry »