© Bob Rempfer 2019. All rights reserved.
Prayer for Small Group
My dear Lord Jesus, I come to you now to be restored in you—to renew my place in you, my allegiance to you, and to receive from you all the grace and mercy I so desperately need this day. I want to receive your heart and your emotions for the lost. I honor you as my sovereign Lord, and I surrender every aspect of my life totally and completely to you. I give you my body as a living sacrifice; I love you with my heart, soul, mind, and strength; and I give you my spirit as well. I cover myself with your blood—my spirit, my soul, and my body. And I ask your Holy Spirit to restore my union with you, seal me in you, and guide me in this time of prayer. In all that I now pray, I include (Family / Friends / Church / Nation). Acting on their behalf, I come under your authority and covering, and I bring them under my authority and covering. Holy Spirit, apply to them all that I now pray on their behalf.
Forgive and cleanse me and set me completely free from the fear of what people will think of what I am able or not able to do, the fear of not being good enough, the fear of being inadequate, the fear of speaking up. Create in all of us a heart that believes and acts on what YOU say is true.
Dear God, holy and victorious Trinity, you alone are worthy of all my worship, all my heart’s devotion, all my praise and all my trust and all the glory of my life. I worship you, bow to you, and give myself over to you in my heart’s search for life. You alone are Life, and you have become my life. I renounce all other gods, all idols, and I give you the place in my heart and in my life that you truly deserve. I confess here and now that it is all about you, God, and not about me. You are the Hero of this story, and I belong to you. Forgive me, God, for my every sin. Search me and know me and reveal to me any aspect of my life that is not pleasing to you, expose any agreements I have made with the world, the flesh or the devil, and grant me the grace of a deep and true repentance.
Heavenly Father, thank you for loving me and choosing me before you made the world. You are my true Father—my Creator, my Redeemer, my Sustainer, and the true end of all things, including my life. I love you; I trust you; I worship you. Thank you for proving your love for me by sending your only Son, Jesus, to be my substitute and representative. I receive him and all his life and all his work, which you lavishly ordained for me. Thank you for including me in Christ, for forgiving me my sins, for granting me his righteousness, for making me complete in him. Thank you for making me alive with Christ, raising me with him, seating me with him at your right hand, granting me his authority, and anointing me with your Holy Spirit. I receive it all with thanks and give it total claim to my life.
Jesus, thank you for coming for me, for ransoming me with your own life. I honor you as my Lord; I love you, worship you, trust you. I sincerely receive you as my redemption, and I receive all the work and triumph of your crucifixion, whereby I am cleansed from all my sin through your shed blood, my old nature is removed, my heart is circumcised unto God, and every claim being made against me is disarmed. I take my place in your cross and death, whereby I have died with you to sin and to my flesh, to the world, and to the Evil One. I am crucified with Christ, and I have crucified my flesh with all its passions and desires. I take up my cross and crucify my flesh with all its pride, unbelief, and idolatry. I put off the old man. I now bring the cross of Christ between me and all people, all spirits, all things. Holy Spirit, apply to me (Family / Friends / Church / Nation) the fullness of the work of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. I receive it with thanks and give it total claim to my life.
Jesus, I also sincerely receive you as my new life, my holiness and sanctification, and I receive all the work and triumph of your resurrection, whereby I have been raised with you to a new life, to walk in newness of life, dead to sin and alive to Father. I am crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. I now take my place in your resurrection, whereby I have been made alive with you, I reign in life through you. I recognize that I don’t deserve to reign anymore than i deserve to be forgiven, so with gratefulness and a real sense of undeserved anticipation I now put on the new man in all holiness and humility, in all righteousness and purity and truth. Christ is now my life, the one who strengthens me and makes me emotionally available. Holy Spirit, apply to me (Family / Friends / Church / Nation). the fullness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I receive all the benefits of your resurrection with thanks and give it total claim to my life.
Jesus, I also sincerely receive you as my authority and rule, my everlasting victory over Satan and his kingdom, and I receive all the work and triumph of your ascension, whereby Satan has been judged and cast down, his rulers and authorities disarmed, all authority in heaven and on earth given to you, Jesus, and I have been given fullness in you, the Head over all. I take my place in your ascension, whereby I have been raised with you to the right hand of the Father and established with you in all authority. I bring your authority and your kingdom rule over my life, my family, my household, and my domain. And now I bring the fullness of your work—your cross, resurrection, and ascension—against Satan, against his kingdom, and against all his emissaries and all their work warring against me and my domain. Greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world. Christ has given me authority to overcome all the power of the Evil One, and I claim that authority now over and against every enemy, and I banish them in the name of Jesus Christ. Holy Spirit, apply to me (Family / Friends / Church / Nation) the fullness of the work of the ascension of Jesus Christ for me. I receive it with thanks and give it total claim to my life.
Holy Spirit, I sincerely receive you as my Counselor, my Comforter, my Strength, and my Guide. Thank you for sealing me in Christ. I honor you as my Lord, and I ask you to lead me into all truth, to anoint me for all of my life and walk and calling, and to lead me deeper into Jesus today. Help me steward my talents that I not be found a worthless servant. I fully open my life to you in every dimension and aspect—my body, my soul, and my spirit—choosing to be filled with you, to walk in step with you in all things. Apply to me, blessed Holy Spirit, all of the work and all of the gifts in Pentecost. Fill me afresh, blessed Holy Spirit. I receive you with thanks and give you total claim to my life and ask your intercessions for (Family / Friends / Church / Nation)
Heavenly Father, thank you for granting to me every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. I receive those blessings into my life today, and I ask the Holy Spirit to bring all those blessings into my life this day. I declare that I have brought the whole tithe into your store house that there may be food in your house, so open the windows of heaven you promised and pour out a blessing so large that I don’t have room enough to receive it and I have to give it away to others and to you.
Thank you for the blood of Jesus. Wash me once more with his blood from every sin and stain and evil device. I put on your armor—the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the readiness of the gospel of peace, the helmet of salvation. I take up the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and I wield these weapons against the Evil One in the power of God. I choose to pray at all times in the Spirit, to be strong in you, Lord, and in your might.
By your grace enable me to speak wisely, and not speak flippantly….or to joke only with great care.
Help me to see and walk in who YOU say that I am.
Prayer Requests Pending
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Answers
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Directions
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Why no longer @BlueHost
It has become a necessity to redo things from the ground up.
Although the BlueHost techs offshore are super nice people, they lack (through probably no fault of their own) either the ability, or the permissions, to fix problems.
Recently my site went down and the complaint was that I had a forum that had been compromised. Not sure what a forum is nor was I aware that I had one. But, in good faith, I worked with the tech team in Bangalore (I assume) over the better part of a week and they, though extremely apologetic and polite, were unable to resolve the problem.
I was assured the problem was taken care of and it wasn’t. I was assured that my case (2nd phone call) was being elevated to 2nd tier support and it wasn’t. I was assured (3rd phone call) that my problem was being “expedited” and it would be resolved in 1 to 2 hours … but when I pushed they got honest and admitted that it may be 24 to 48 hours.
This became the pattern through several 24 – 48 hour periods in a row. Frankly the reason I stayed with bluehost for nearly 10 years was that the stateside techs were knowledgeable and helpful and could not only handle my problems, but they were well versed in how I could avoid problems in the future. Now THAT is service.
My “corrupted forum” devolved into, according to them, a bad ssl certificate. Using my access to the Cpanel interface, it said everything was OK, but the site still registered as not having an SSL Certificate. Cpanel would not allow me to change things and evidently tech support’s access to the back end wouldn’t allow them to do anything for me either. As entertaining as it was to talk with these very accommodating and lovely people, listen to their keys clickety-clacking away to the accompaniment of roosters crowing in the background (no, I am not kidding) since we weren’t making progress, I decided enough is enough.
Wherever the techs are who used to service my account, I thank you for years of great service. I miss you terribly and wish you all the best in finding new employment and a bright future.
Invitation!
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Entry with Audio
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A small gallery
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- Nulla consequat massa quis enim.
- Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu.
- In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo.
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A nice entry
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Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim.
Sell all thou hast, and buy Photoshop
Deadlines. They are never just another day at the office. Just when you think you’ve planned far enough ahead, bluffed and cajoled to get things in on time, something gets added to the pile. It is then that one of my mantras seems extremely useful. “Sell all thou hast, and buy Photoshop.”
The story goes like this. My friend is a warm, decent, friendly guy who has suffered the ravages of age like we all do. He was the newly minted president of a large organization. As the figurehead an announcement and some photography was in order.
Now, I am usually happy to see him, but when he “dropped by” the office and the boss scheduled an impromptu, (zero planning) photo shoot, I was a bit panicked. Clearly he wasn’t any happier than I … “I only have 5 minutes” he growled.
Portrait photography should be handled by a pro. A photographer’s fees are well worth it as he/she can really do wonders with pose, light, etc. However, when your boss says “get a photo” you do it. I got him to relax and laugh, got the exposure right, outdoor morning light from behind him with a flash fill to take care of the shadows, blur the shrubbery background…yada yada.
The pressure continued to ratchet. “Let’s announce this position in the next issue” (the magazine was within hours of the deadline). IT WAS A GOOD PHOTO of an upper-middle-aged white guy. What I needed though, was a visual image of the warm, affable guy he is. Seriously, he’s funny, intelligent, has great instincts and insights … but age creates a lot of distractions. So I pulled out the magic art director’s shoe horn and went to work.
Success in these situations depends a bit on skill and a bit on judgement. You want the person to look better than they do, but you don’t want anybody to easily see what you did. It’s rather like makeup…when it’s done right, the face is what you see, not the makeup.
I blew up the high-resolution photo and I moved the lapels of his coat (cut and clone) to hide his middle aged spread. Then, I cropped enough of the photo so that the really incriminating evidence went away. His smile has the normal number of teeth that are a bit crooked, one eye doesn’t open like the other, etc etc, so I just generally did the sort of touchups that make a photograph a bit more pleasing without removing the character of the person in the photograph.
I knew that I had a success a couple of weeks later when a staffer from his new organization’s in-house magazine called me with a question. “Hey Bob, can we use your photograph? We just can’t seem to get a good photo of this guy and yours looks great.”
I laughed and for the sake of full disclosure I then walked them through what I had done in the photograph. Before my explanation, they didn’t see it and neither did their new president.
Rules
- In most cases, it is better to make the ask before you make changes even if it is just the off-hand remark during the shoot, “I’ll touch this up and make you look great.”
- ALWAYS be honest about what you’ve done and care for the feelings/permissions of the person involved…(hence the photo isn’t here for your enjoyment).
And if you are a beginning art director, sell all thou hast, and buy Photoshop.
Academy for Creative Excellence – UK Opera Theatre
UK’s Academy for Creative Excellence (A.C.E.) had a vision “to inspire a life-long love for opera and musical theatre.” They wanted to offer students in the central Kentucky area an opportunity to be engaged in the highest possible standard of performing arts training and performance experience!
A.C.E approached us with a desire to raise their visibility while maintaining a tight budget. Since they are young, entrepreneurial and tech-savvy, a website was a natural place to begin the branding process. They are positioned well to exploit the web and social media because their daily activities can be a rich source of unique content.
In establishing the site, there were several parameters. We were asked to portray a serious (albeit beginning) training in the three theatre performance disciplines, vocal performance, acting and dance yet maintain a solid sense of fun and approachability. Setting a tone of excellence for the UKOT Academy for Creative Excellence (and their summer Broadway Bound programs) was important because the instructors at the Academy are directors, vocal coaches, and choreographers who are actively engaged in the arts on a local, national, and international scale. However, all of their instructors have a love for young people and a passion for performing arts education – and their passion is infectious!
Branding – Black and White
Geez….color doesn’t cost anything on a website, so why not put color on everything? Blue headlines, green subheads, chartreuse backgrounds, etc. And then make it flash enabled, and give me some dancing squirrels and a picture of my cat.
No.
Why not? Well, because people need to actually use your site to accomplish a purpose.
There are lots of people out there who want to sell you the website equivalent of a Bugatti Veyron. “It’s hand coded, its custom built, its one of a kind…very cool design.” But honestly, do you actually want the “hand built Bugatti” of a website if you are an ordinary carpenter, brick layer or plumber? Wouldn’t a “pickup truck” of a website more accurately reflect your business and actually do a better job of introducing you and your business?
Granted a Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge, Toyota, or Nissan, pickup truck won’t do 250 mph plus, but try hauling 20 sheets of drywall, screws, mud and all your tools to a job site in a Bugatti.
If you don’t need a “hand coded wonder” don’t pay for one.
To say “don’t spend too much” may seem counter intuitive for a guy who builds web sites to say, but I am completely convinced that only what makes your business brilliant matters. If the core of your business is a guy with a dream and a pickup truck, you need a website that reflects that.
Amazingly Creative, Inc. revolves around one core offering: we believe in your amazing creativity. Our core competency is to listen for and discover what makes you and your business unique. We then study your market space and collaborate with you to create a design solution that expresses why your business offering is superior in light of your customer’s desires.
We offer design solutions for print and web. We succeed by creating marketing vehicles that tangibly express why your business offering is preferable in light of your customer’s desires.
Having a solid marketing plan that includes a budget for print collateral and a web presence is money well spent. Having a clean, professional look is simply one of the basics of business.
What may we do for you?