aarondininny.com

Some Encouragement/Advice

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:04:40 -0500

If you are in any position to encourage folks in your life, may I suggest something to you? Don’t ever encourage people with generalities. (i.e. “you need to go to seminary”) Be specific about why things are important. (“you need to go to seminary because it will change your range of understanding of the reading and interpretation of God’s word and meta-narrative”)

I obviously experienced this in one way or another. Looking back now, I don’t want to encourage someone to do something if I can’t give a good reason for doing it.

-AOD

(btw, this is just ONE reason a person should go to seminary)

Solace @ Hampton Coliseum

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:28:31 -0500

If you follow any of my different social sites, you’ll probably hear about this more the next couple weeks. Our worship band, Solace will be playing for the Arena Racing crowd at the Hampton Coliseum on March 5th @ 7:30 (doors open at 6:30).

We began this journey about 3 years ago while playing for the youth at OVBC. After some shift in leadership structure, the band continued on as more of a worship gig band. We played D-nows, local venues and last year we played for Arena Racing. This year is a little different. It is a $5 night, so there will be a nice size crowd there to hear the message of Jesus through song.

We are stoked about this, PLUS we have a special song(s) we will be ending on. But, it is a surprise :-) It’s general admission, so bring your group and I’ll see you there!

-AOD

In The Word

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:31:12 -0500

Yesterday marked the end of a 30 day period in my life where I have literally been in the Word of God more than ever. NewThru30 is a reading plan that takes you through the New Testament in 30 days. It was designed by the awesome folks at Elevation Church. I will confess, that even as a pastor, I have a tough time getting in the Word as often as I should. This study helped me in two ways. (There were more, but these are the main ones:-)

The importance of being in God’s Word is immeasurable. You hear this a lot from pulpits, bible teachers, etc. But, until you are in the Word A LOT, you cannot know what God has in store for you. I often tell my students, it’s like getting to know a friend. The more you hang out with them and experience life together, the more you trust them and feel that deep sense of friendship between the two of you.
God’s grand narrative of scripture made a bit more clear. I will not say that I understand the fullness of God’s redemptive story now, but I will say, reading the scripture at a fast pace helps to see God’s story “Big Picture”. You get a better understanding of who He is and what His plan is all about.

Reading through the bible at a fast pace is not the ONLY way to read. You should take your time to here God’s voice. But for the reason’s mentioned above, I am now more in love and closer to God than I have ever been. I challenge you to take the NewThru30 reading plan seriously and get into the Word! Go to the site and download the plan. Try to start on a Monday (to make the plan easy to adapt) but if you can’t just get started and READ!

-AOD

Our Youngest Is Getting Fun

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:58:12 -0500

Not to say that she wasn’t fun before, but check out this convo that happened between LeighLeigh (our youngest daughter, 15mo) and our babysitter’s husband…

LL: woke up and waved “Hi” to Bill
Bill: are you a queen?
LL: Nod “yes” repeatedly
Bill: Good afternoon, your majesty
LL: (in sign language) thank you! thank you!

Hahahahah! Man I was weak. Our youngin is getting so big!

-AOD

iPad Article

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:03:15 -0500

I haven’t said much to anyone about the iPad since last Wednesday’s announcement. I am an Apple fan, but not in a cult-ish kind of way :-) I do, however think that this device will revolutionize media in general. THIS ARTICLE was posted by my friend @churchydave. Read it with your stigma’s put aside. Again, revolutionary!

-AOD

I will be at the Whiteboard Sessions this year, will you? WIBO...

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:32:06 -0500

I will be at the Whiteboard Sessions this year, will you? WIBO is a one day conference on May 21st with great leaders sharing with other great leaders about their experiences and thoughts about ministry. This is the second WIBO put on by Ben Arment and this time it’s in my backyard here in the Va Beach area at the Sandler Center. REALLY looking forward to it!! If you are a leader or someone who is passionate about Jesus, you should go. We could have lunch?! Check out the site for the deets.

-AOD

"to the church referee: “you are an arrogant, self-centered, slimy coward! you will walk into a..."

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:12:14 -0500

“to the church referee: “you are an arrogant, self-centered, slimy coward! you will walk into a church and complain about the way people SERVE YOU? are you kidding me?””

- Perry Noble

One of my beautiful girls. Such a great pic, had to share!

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:05:42 -0500

One of my beautiful girls. Such a great pic, had to share!

GO SEE THIS MOVIE on January 22nd!! I saw it with some local...

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 00:18:24 -0500

GO SEE THIS MOVIE on January 22nd!! I saw it with some local church leaders. It is not your typical “Christian” movie. Take my word for it, GO!

"You can’t decide what you are going to DO, until you decide who you are going to BE."

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:09:29 -0500

“You can’t decide what you are going to DO, until you decide who you are going to BE.”

- Andy Stanley #Passion 2010

This video is from Carlos. This was the intro I read before the...

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 10:29:22 -0500

This video is from Carlos. This was the intro I read before the video…

Danny is a homeless guy in Atlanta who happened to walk up on me while I was shooting the EPK for my new record.
I was singing the song…God Of Second Chances.
Danny walks up…kneels down…starts crying…puts his hands up in the air…and…

I was in tears while watching it, mostly because this was the conversation at the end of the song…

If you listen carefully at the end you hear me saying this to Danny.
“Keep trying to make it man.”
He looked me square in the eye…cocked his head sideways with a confused look on his face…and said,
“Trying to make it? No man. I ain’t trying to make it…I’m making it. Jah puts His soldiers everywhere. Jah says, Yea though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death… So He places some of us, in that valley.”

Read the whole post HERE.

Think about that for a minute…We have this cultural view of success and “making it”, when we might be right where God wants us to be!! That totally changes our view of true success. Would you be willing to be a street soldier for Christ?! I don’t know if I could.

-AOD

Here is our Christmas Eve service from, well Christmas Eve :-)...

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:39:43 -0500

Here is our Christmas Eve service from, well Christmas Eve :-) Enjoy!

The Still Small Voice

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:23:53 -0500

I received this email from my pastor recently. It’s an article by Rick Warren on a very practical way to get yourself in a position to hear the voice of God. Praise God for Pastor Rick and his ministry.

Now, don’t just read it…DO IT!

Receiving guidance from God

By Rick Warren

For our churches to become what God wants them to be, we must listen to God. He doesn’t have laryngitis. He still speaks today. You and I need to hear from God on a variety of topics – what we’re going to preach on, how to effectively lead, how to help our people with particular problems, and so on. We need to have the wisdom of God.

In the Old Testament, Habakkuk saw his nation being overtaken by another. He wanted to know why God would allow this. So he did five things to tune into what God was up to:

1. He withdrew. Habakkuk said, “I will climb my watchtower” (2:1). He got by himself. Getting alone and avoiding distractions can be tough in today’s world. But one of the reasons why you don’t hear God speak to you more is because you are surrounded by noise. You’ve always got the TV on, your iPod in your ear, or your cell phone ringing. The world around you is so loud you never hear the still, small voice of God.

Luke 5:16 says, “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Jesus often made it a habit to get alone by himself. If he needed to do it, we do too. But don’t stop there. You can’t just withdraw.

2. He waited. After withdrawing, you need to calm your thoughts and emotions and be still. After Habakkuk got up in the tower, he said, “I will station myself” (2:1). The Good News translation says, “I will wait.” Habakkuk stayed put so he could hear God. Many of us don’t hear God because we’re just too busy. Hurry is the death of prayer. If you’re going to hear God speak, you shouldn’t just get away. You must mentally and emotionally calm yourself down.

How do you do that? Relax your body and wait. Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.” As you wait, get still and comfortable. Let go of muscle tension. Your body affects your attitudes. If you don’t feel well physically, it affects your emotions and your moods. Your body influences your attitudes. As your body relaxes, so does your mind.

Once your body relaxes, you simply wait. That takes time. It’s difficult for most of us to calm down. And you can’t force yourself to do it. It takes time for your body and your mind to get those RPMs down. God speaks to people who take the time to listen. If you’re in a hurry, you’re not going to hear God speak.

3. He watched. Next, you let God give you a mental picture. Habakkuk said, “I will look to see what He says to me” (2:1). Pastor, have you noticed that God often speaks visually to us? He often gives us a mental picture of what he wants to say to us. There are hundreds of examples of this in Scripture. He would impress a mental picture on their mind as they were praying. You can see this all throughout Scripture a - from Abraham in the Old Testament to Paul in the New Testament.

Many of you are natural visual thinkers. You often think in bright, beautiful pictures. It’s very normal for you. Studies have shown that 50 to 75 percent of the population see in pictures. If this is you, when you read the Bible, you don’t just read the story, you see

Hebrews 5:14 says, “Our spiritual senses must be exercised.” You can develop the ability to see with your spiritual eyes if you’ll practice and let God work on it in your life. You can train yourself. When you quiet down and calm yourself, and get all the distractions out of the way, then you can simply say, “Jesus, is there anything you want to show me? Do you want to give me an idea, an impression?” the story!

4. He wrote. Record the ideas God gives you. Habakkuk did this. He said, “The Lord gave me this answer, ‘Write down clearly what I reveal to you.’”

Many people don’t like to pray because they end up saying the same thing over and over. They’re stuck in a rut. What’s the solution? Write out your prayers as you think them. Journaling can help. Almost every great Christian in history has journaled. They wrote down what they wanted to say to God and wrote what God said back to them.

There are many benefits to doing this. It keeps you focused. It helps you remember what you’ve said to God and what he has said back to you. That way you don’t have to learn the same lesson over and over! And it allows you to test the impression. Not every idea you get is from God. So you can write them down and test them later.

If you want to hear from God, keeping a journal is a terrific discipline to build into your prayer life.

5. He worshipped. Habakkuk 3:2 says, “Oh, Lord, now I’ve heard your report and I worship you in awe.” When you have received God’s loving response to your prayers, it’s going to make you want to love the Lord more and draw you closer to him. This turns prayer from a monologue into a dialogue. It becomes a conversation. It’s important that we express our thankfulness when we hear from God.

Pastor, if you will begin to practice these biblical steps on a regular basis, it will open up a whole new dimension of your Christian life. Prayer will become a great adventure to you instead of a source of boredom and guilt. Of course, this isn’t the only way to pray. But this is a key way that God can get your attention and you can hear him talk to you.

Thanks for reading…

-AOD

Video from Matt

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:10:00 -0500

Video from Matt:

Here is a video from one of my favorite speakers, Matt Chandler. (click the post title) He tells his story a couple days before an unexpected brain surgery. Powerful! God is good, even during the bad!

-AOD

This is one of my professors from Southeastern Baptist...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:38:00 -0500

This is one of my professors from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Mark Liederbach. He is teaching at a recent morning chapel. I respect him dearly as an amazing communicator of truly living the Christian life. Watch this video, learn about what true discipleship looks like.

-AOD

News and Notes

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:05:17 -0500

Hey everyone, I just realized I haven’t blogged in a while. I’ve noticed a lot of people lately have cut back on blogging and they say they’ll blog when they have something to blog about. That has pretty much always defined aarondininny.com. But, lately i have just forgot! The past couple weeks have been awesome at OVBC and the Dininny household.

On Oct 18-21st we had a revival service at the church, which led to a lay ministry weekend the 23-25th, which was rounded up by a Trunk or Treat on Oct 31st.

Then on the 1st, I preached for the Sunday morning service. You can find that HERE. The sermon set us up for a church consultation weekend on the 6, 7 and 8th. We are on a new course at OVBC. I will share as we continue through this process.

The 8th also happened to be our baby’s 1 year birthday! So family came in to celebrate. BTW, I caught a 17 inch Striper that Saturday night, woohoo! I’m no fisherman, so I was excited!

Now, I am prepping for Wednesday night and a DiscipleNow this weekend that I am doing some of the preaching duties.

So, crazy stuff has been going on the past few weeks. But, I’d like to say one thing. I did not neglect my family during this time. You may have been saying, “how did he spend time with family?” Family is my priority. God, Wife, Family, Job. This is the order of importance.

Take care of your families guys. Tuck your kids in at night. Love your wife or husband. Stay busy doing God’s work, but keep in focus what is important.

-AOD

An amazing moment at Catalyst, where there was not a dry eye in...

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:30:38 -0400

An amazing moment at Catalyst, where there was not a dry eye in the house. The testimony of Jimmy Wambua from Kenya. He was sponsored by Compassion International as a young child and He gets to share his story. Jimmy’s testimony starts at 3:45.

#CAT09 Reflections part 3

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:09:10 -0400

This is a continued series of posts about Catalyst ‘09 and the people there with me.

Dave Daniels-Dave is the Media Director at Reality Church in Va Beach and he runs “churchymedia”, a website geared to help small churches do big church production. He and I have known each other for a few years now and this was our 2nd Catalyst experience together. Dave brings out a side of me that is hard to get to with most people. He’s just one of those guys that “gets it”. Our humor is eerily similar and again, he gets it. So we were at the Blogger’s Meetup and he brought a contraption (really, a contraption. but it worked beautifully!) to interview people about the event, why they blog, what’s their twitter address, etc. I had just gotten done telling my friend how I am bad with “off the cuff”, “on the spot” kind of stuff. It was like God had His iPod cranked up and didn’t hear that part of our convo, because Dave asked me to do the interviews. I messed up the first couple, but I think they turned out ok. You’ll have to wait and see, HERE. I thank Dave for challenging me, getting me out of my comfort zone and understanding my humor. One more thing that would seem to be out of character if you just knew Dave a little bit, is his serious side. In his ChurchyDave way he presents his point of view, only after having thought thoroughly about the topic. (I wonder if that’s what his wife says??) I got to see a little of the serious side of Dave at Catalyst and I’m glad that he is in still in ministry, even after being a youth pastor for a few years. Dave, you da man. Thanks for taking all my stupid questions about iMovie and Final Cut and whatever else i can’t wrap my mind around!

Ben Jamison-I met Ben last year. He works with the Virginia Baptists Mission Board, specifically as a chruch planting strategerist. Ben is a great guy and passionate about people coming to know Christ. His heart is to help new church starts by connecting folks together, allocating funds and provide his expert advice. I love talking to this guy because He knows so much and I don’t think he is too much older than I :-) He just had his second baby after a rough pregnancy. God is seeing him and his family through.

You should say a quick prayer for Ben and Dave right now and Thank God for their ministries!

-AOD

#CAT09 Reflections part 2

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:30:20 -0400

This is a continued post about Catalyst ‘09 and the great people that I was able to “lean on”.

Brian Metz-I met Brian at “The Nines” online conference via twitter. He asked the question, “does anyone need a roommate for Catalyst? I wasn’t even sure if I was going yet, but I said “sure, I do!” So we talked, via twitter/facebook. I never even heard his voice until I met him the hotel lobby the night before the event. I LOVE that aspect of social networking. It’s not really complete unless you actually meet the person at some point. Brian was an awesome guy, one that I connected with right away. We talked A LOT about things that we had no fear of talking about, because we were both in non-threatening positions with each other. I was very liberating. I shared some stories about our struggles trying to have kids. He shared about moving to Boston to plant a church, but a year later having to leave it because of a terrible illness in the family. So, by the end of the two nights we spent together in the comfort of our Hampton Inn beds, watching MLB playoffs (read: Red Sox losing), he called me legalistic on some issues, I called him a coward on some issues. But it was all in love, with a goal in mind to build each other up in the name of Jesus.

Brian, I miss you buddy. Glad we could get together and challenge each other! Hope to see you soon.

Brad Ruggles-As mentioned in a previous post, I attended the Blogger’s Meetup at the Loafing Leprechaun on Wednesday night, before the Catalyst event began. Brad was the mastermind of this event with many notable faces there. More important than that was the connection we could make with new people or the face we could put to a twitter account. Brad did a great job with this event, securing 100 spots at the restaurant and putting together some AMAZING Swag bags. I got the new Skillet, Phil Wickham, Kari Jobe, Jason Gray, North Point Live and more CD’s. The Divine Commodity (awesome book, btw), Master Leaders, The God of Guinness, God’s Blogs, were among the book titles as well. My friend made a Swag bag video if you want to see it. I don’t know Brad well, but I follow him and enjoy his creative perspective. You should follow him too. Check his site, linked above and enjoy. THANKS BRAD!!!

More to come, the saga will continue…

-AOD

If you don’t know about Zach Williams, now you do!...

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:16:00 -0400

If you don’t know about Zach Williams, now you do! “Names That Fell” @ Catalyst ‘09. (Not the greatest video, but sound is good)