CBOF Fellowship Dinner with Don Barden

Thursday, February 15, 2018

MESSAGE RECAP

 

What a pleasure it was to have Don Barden join us. Don is an author, leadership coach, and CEO of 3Ci in Atlanta. He was gracious enough to travel to Cleveland (on his own dime) to share his story and love of the Lord with us.
 
His story was certainly unique and thought-provoking. A few takeaways included:

​

• When he was young, Don was never attracted to the stern “faces” of Jesus in statues, artwork, movies, etc. — what he described as the super-serious, don’t-touch-me image of God. It wasn’t until he saw an image of a smiling, compassionate Jesus that he felt the tug in his heart.

​

• We pray for help with our problems, but we don’t (and should) pray for help to understand our problems. He used the image of standing right in front of a wall and believing that we can’t get through it, but having no idea how high, wide or deep that wall is because we’re so close to it. Hand the wall back to God and don’t worry so much about the future, as God has blessed us so much in the past.

​

• What enabled Christ to take that group of apostles and win over one third of the world? The same God that did that, can do that and more through us!

​

• He also shared a new perspective on the story of Jesus bringing Lazarus back from the dead (John 11:42-43). Jesus was weeping not because Lazarus had died and he missed him. He was weeping because he knew he had to do the unimaginable — bring Lazarus out of heaven and back to earth for the benefit of everyone else. 

 

As a special gift, Don provided a brief “thank you” video.

Save the Date!
Our next dinner meeting is June 14. Tony Lauranaitis, CEO of Choice Cabinets, will be our featured speaker.

​