Trials vs Temptations

Introduction

Ice-breaker question: “Which is harder to deal with—trials or temptations?” The group used personal experience to compare the two and set the stage for studying James 1:12-15.

True Success in Surrender

Introduction

• Guest preacher: Ernest Smith, Lead Pastor of Front Range Church (Castle Rock, CO), a Lake Pointe church-plant (2013).

• Ernest recounts Lake Pointe’s partnership, highlighting the Strategic Launch Network and personal support from Pastors Steve & Josh.

• Sets the stage by confessing a lifelong struggle with comparison and the cultural pressure to “be successful.”

• Central tension: God’s definition of success vs. our drive for status, wealth, and control.

• How God re-defines achievement through Naaman’s healing and our own obedience.

Faith, Trials & Wisdom

Introduction

• Initial brain-storm: participants named “faith,” “trials,” and practicality as hallmarks of James.
• Leader highlighted four biblical men named James and identified the letter’s author as “James the Just,” half-brother of Jesus and senior pastor of the Jerusalem church (circa A.D. 40).
• Purpose of the letter: equip scattered Jewish Christians to live out genuine faith amid persecution.

Facing The Two-Question Test of Eternity

Introduction

• Pastor returns from vacation and 20th-anniversary trip, grateful for church family and fellow pastors who preached in his absence.
• Launches new series, “Run to Win,” promising some weighty themes.
• Opens with a lighthearted “St. Peter at the gate” joke to expose common confusion about salvation and judgment.
• States pastoral priority: preparing believers for eternity above all else.
• Sets goal for message—clarify exactly what happens the moment after death and at Christ’s return.

Contending for the Faith

Introduction

• Ice-breaker: everyone rated their fear of heights (0 - 10). The leader later tied this to “spiritual heights,” safety harnesses, and the assurance God gives in vv. 24-25.
• Session goal: finish the Jude series (week 5) by exploring vv. 20-25—how believers contend inwardly (vv. 20-21) and outwardly (vv. 22-23), and how God ultimately keeps them (vv. 24-25).

Fearless Living in the Hands of God

Introduction

• Pastor begins by greeting all campuses and online viewers, then poses a penetrating question: “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”
• Acknowledges common, paralyzing fears—rejection, failure, success, loneliness, financial entrapment, relational stagnation.
• Sets the stage for Acts 23, continuing Lake Pointe’s series on the life of Paul.

A Simple Guide to Split a Monorepo into a Separate Repository

Assume we have monorepo at git@github.com/haydenk/monorepo.git

Removing Hugo as a Blog Application

Absolutely nothing against Hugo, in fact I love Hugo as a blog framework. I found myself focused too much on having the right look and meddling with themes that I was not producing any posts.

This one will be short, I am not a wordy person. I just wanted to get my thoughts down while they were on my mind.

I will return to Hugo at some point or maybe something better than Hugo will have come around by the time I am ready to return. In the meantime, I will focus on creating posts within this repository.

Journey to Create A Shopify App

When I started, I struggled with what I was going to use. I wanted to use Rails but I couldn’t find much information on how to use Rails with an embedded app in Shopify. That has since been debunked.

Before it was debunked, I settled on using Remix because it was in the Shopify developer documentation and made it easy to get started. Really, this turned out to be a huge pain in the ass both in development and with deployment.

Fresh Start macOS (Apple Silicon) Setup

UPDATE 2025-02-27 Replaced asdf for mise. I had some oddities pop up on the latest asdf update that I didn’t have with mise and mise seems to work nicer.

Sometimes I like to wipe my Macbook and start over but I forget some little things that make starting over frustrating.

I am not going to give full detail instructions on how I install it. I usually just follow the steps from the project site. I will only include nuances that I may do different or in addition to the normal steps.