Weekend Recap and Looking to the Future . . .

Just a few thoughts from the weekend:

• Irene and I spent the weekend at the Meltdown Student Conference. It was over the top. Thank you Toby for inviting us to come and help out – you are the man.
• We heard Scott Smith speak Friday evening and then heard Adrian Despres and Ken Forester speak on Saturday.
• When we went to breakfast Saturday morning it was snowing.
• 33 Miles was in concert that night and they were fantastic. Rumor is they may open Meltdown ’09.
• We had White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Banana Pudding Saturday Night. Holy Mackerel that was good.
• We saw Jared Hall, a Christian illusionist Saturday night and he was – WOW!! Where did that bowling ball come from??
• We got to spend some time hanging out and eating with Steve, Kim, AJ and Molly Conley and hear about their new church and talk clowning.
• Sunday mornings highlight to me was the splat experience. If you don’t know what that is – check this out.
• We got to eat at the Apple Barn, Alamo Steak House, Calhoun’s, and the Old Mill. I love being married to a woman who likes to eat at good restaurants.
• Why does the ride home from Pigeon Forge always seem longer than the one going up there?

Looking at the future:

• We start training sessions with our prospective core group for the Journey this weekend.
• I talked with a friend of mine about designing me a sweet new background for my blog and the future.
• Mike’s at a training session for the next two days. I can’t wait to hear the great things that he has learned.
• I’m still working on reading the “Simple Church”. Hopefully I’ll have it finished in the next couple of weeks.
• Irene gave me a book for Christmas and that is what I am reading next, just for pleasure.
• I have got to get back in my shop this week. There are projects that are backing up.
• I am having lunch with Robbie Funderburk this Friday. We haven’t had a chance to talk in a couple of months and I am really looking forward to spending some time together.

Next time we’ll spend some time talking about LIFE Groups, but until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and one more white chocolate macadamia nut banana pudding please.

My walk in The Journey . . .

Last time I talked about The Journey and I told you that I would let you know where I fit into The Journey. Well, I have the privilege of being asked to be the Connections Guy at The Journey. You may ask, what is a connections guy and what exactly does he do? As the Connections Guy I am the person in charge of connections – meaning that I will help organize and help to keep on track the L.I.F.E groups, Growth Partners and Ministry Teams of The Journey. I will talk about each of these aspects of The Journey in separate posts.

One of the foundational beliefs of The Journey lies in Matthew 22:37-38. I believe that those of us who follow Christ generally do a pretty good job loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Where we often fail, especially in today’s busy life, is in loving our neighbors as ourselves. More often than not, I have found out that we don’t even know who our neighbors are. I did a series of posts on who our neighbors are in the last couple of months. You can re-visit those posts here, here and here.

Next time we’ll look at how we think we can begin to build relationships with our neighbors through the L.I.F.E. groups at The Journey. Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and say hello to your neighbors.

The Journey that I am on . . .

I am finally at the point where I can begin to share the journey that God has been directing me on since leaving New Hope in October. Last night we did our vision cast service at Rocky Creek (our sponsoring church) about the church plant that I am helping with. It is called The Journey and we are calling it a new church experience instead of a church plant. We are calling it a new church experience basically because it is completely new for this area. No one is doing this model of church around here at all. At The Journey we have three things that we focus on – Celebration, Connection, and Commission. I will do individual posts on each of the focus areas but for now I will be brief. We believe that we should celebrate through corporate worship by loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength using every tool available to us today. We should connect by growing together in groups of three (Growth Partners.) And lastly, we are called to fulfill the great commission to reach the world around us through serving others in our neighborhoods (L.I.F.E. Groups) and ministry teams.

This is really one of the biggest faith steps that I have ever taken. We are doing things now that I could never have dreamed about before. I’ve gone from having an office at a church and a youth group to having staff meetings with my pastor at the local coffee shop. Just as a point, if any of you wonder which local coffee shop we have settled on – it is Java Jolt on Butler Road. There are a lot of reasons – but lets just say it is comfortable and it has good coffee. Back on subject – what has my step of faith gotten me into? I have gone from a programs based ministry (which is where most churches are) to a relationship based ministry (which is what I have been teaching for years.) Everything that we do at The Journey will be wrapped up in relationships. For those of you that know me really well will understand what a step of faith that this is for me. I am one who must now lead out building relationships with the people around me, and that is stretching me like never before in my walk with Christ.

Next time I’ll talk about where I fit into The Journey. Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and I take a Grande Decaf Skinny Caramel Latte, please.

Sorry . . .

To those who read this blog, I am sorry that I have not been posting like I should. Right now I am way behind in a lot of things. So here are a few of the things that I have been dealing with:

We finally got the big submittal out at the office that I have been working on, so that is one thing off my plate. Now all of the follow-up begins. This is the part of my job that I enjoy the least.

Mike Thompson and I have been meeting a least once a week at area coffee houses trying to find a home for our meetings. I think that we have settled on Java Jolt on Butler Road. The coffee is good and they have WIFI. It is the biggest rush to see how God is directing people into our paths with the same burdens that we have. One thing that I am seeing through all of this is that God has His hand on this and He has a set direction for this Journey.

I will get back to the acrostic on Disciple, I promise. It just seems that the time to finish that up seems to go somewhere else when I get a little spare time. Something else to watch for in the near future is a discussion of our upcoming L.I.F.E. groups through The Journey. I am finally getting my head wrapped around that whole concept.

I have been reading the Simple Church along with a couple of other books. If you have not read this book, get your hands on a copy and start reading. It is a book about how we have over complicated the church with an overload of programs. This is something that I have been feeling deep in my soul for several years and did not have a clue what to do about it. Whether you agree with what is said in this book or not, it is an excellent read.

Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and try a caramel latte – they are over the top.

D – Develop spiritually

OK, finally I can start trying to explain the acrostic of disciple that a friend gave me. Understanding the foundation that I have laid in the previous posts about the personal responsibility discipleship, today we will look at how a disciple should develop spiritually. Discipleship is a continual walk with Christ. It was always meant to be a growth process that never stops. The same as a child continues to develop until adulthood, our discipleship should be a process of continual spiritual development until we arrive in the presence of Jesus.

Moses called the nation of Israel, in Deuteronomy 5:1, to three distinctive development stages – to hear, to learn and to follow. Let me take a minute to briefly look at each of these. We’ll start with hearing. We need to understand how we hear from God today. He has given us His word and we must spend pointed, focused time in His word each day. When we spend time in His word, He will begin to speak to our hearts things that we need to influence our lives. Hearing is absorbing and accepting information about God.

Once we have heard from God, then we need to move to learning from God. Learning understands what we have heard. We need to understand the meaning of what God has spoken to us and the implications of that meaning and the way those things will impact our lives. We need to grab hold of what God has given us and study it until we fully absorb it until it is a part of us and our way of thinking.

This will lead us to following. Following is putting into action all we have learned and understood. This is simply life application of what God has given us. We need to understand that is God gives us something, we study it, understand it and we don’t live it, our mouths may profess Jesus as Lord but our lives deny Him and His teachings.

As disciples we must develop spiritually in our lives. If we don’t, we all nothing more than children in adult bodies. Until next time – keep you eyes on Jesus and remember a race is not over until we get to the finish line.

Clown Program - report . . .

To those who read the post about the clown program that we did last night in Union, I thought that I would give a brief report. We had the privilege of doing the program at the First Baptist Church. We were invited by our friends Janet and Spencer Ledford. Janet is actually the one who prayed me into clowning, so it is always a special time to gather with them and their family. It was extra special since this is their first ministry as staff at a church. We had a great time and so did all that were in attendance. The best part of the night was that God allowed us to see a harvest for His kingdom. A teenage young lady accepted Christ as her savior last night and we have a new sister to journey through life with. It is always fun to make people smile, laugh and bring joy into a church, but it is special time when you get to see a life changed. We thank the Lord for what He did last night, we give Him the glory and thank Him for the opportunity to join Him in His work. That is what makes all the effort worth while.
Until next time - keep your eyes on Jesus and keep smiling - people will wonder what you are up to.

Clown Program . . .

For those of you that follow what we are doing as clowns - we have a program with PeeWee and Bumper tomorrow evening at the First Baptist Church in Union, SC. This is Irene's home town. Pray that God will use us in a mighty way to bring joy to the people of this church and even bring a harvest of souls for the kingdom.

Until next time - keep your eyes on Jesus and smile, there are clowns on this page.

I don't usually . . .

To begin with, I'm sorry that I didn't post yesterday, but things were crazy at work trying to get a project ready to submit. I'll post either later today or tomorrow starting the acrostic on discipleship. As for the title of today's post - I don't usually post things from e-mails but the following struck a cord with me. I don't know if it is true, but I would like to think that it was. So here goes . . .

If you don't know GOD, don't make stupid remarks!!!!!!!

A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the courses had a professor who was an a vowed atheist and a member of the ACLU.

One day the professor shocked the class when he came in. He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, 'God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I'll give you exactly 15 minutes.'

The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, 'Here I am God. I'm still waiting.'

It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him; knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold. The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently. The other students were shocked and stunned and sat there looking on in silence.

The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, 'What the heck is the matter with you? Why did you do that?'

The Marine calmly replied, 'God was too busy today protecting America's soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid stuff and act like an idiot. So, He sent me.'

A big thanks to all those in the service that are defending our rights around the world. May God bless you and keep you safe to return to your loved ones. Until next time - keep your eyes on Jesus and pray for our troops around the world.

Discipleship continued . . .

Last time we looked at what discipleship is not. Now, to look at what discipleship is, we need to look at the followers of Christ and what their lives modeled. What I learned as a definition of a disciple was a person who learned at the master’s feet. This is what I see in scripture, but I also see this going a step farther. Not only do I see disciples learning from the master, but I see what they have given up to do this. Jesus said that in order to follow Him, one must take up their cross daily. Those people that He was speaking to understood that in order to follow Jesus, they would have to give up everything. There were those in scripture that were not willing to do that and they walked away. That was their choice – their personal responsibility. Those that did follow Jesus, took the personal responsibility of doing so and understood the cost.

To take discipleship one step further, Jesus left instructions for those of us that are disciples to make more disciples. Once again, notice that there is personal responsibility involved in this part of discipleship. During this series of posts, I am going to expound on an acrostic that a friend gave me. We’ll take a walk and try to understand what Jesus meant when He commanded us to go into the world and make disciples.

Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and remember – church is the people, not the building.

Discipleship . . .

Have you ever sat down and thought about what it means to be a disciple of Christ, what discipleship really is or what it might cost? I have been thinking about this a lot over the last couple of months. If the truth be known, most of my adult life has been spent trying to figure out discipleship. I will try to be brief in my conclusions.

Let me start by telling you what discipleship is not. It is not a program in a church. That is what the church has tried to do for years and it hasn’t worked because it was never designed to be a program. Discipleship was designed to be something very personal. I can remember growing up and going to something that was called Training Union. Then the program was renamed and called discipleship training. The problem lies in that discipleship was never designed to be ten people sitting in a room reading parts from a book. By doing what we have been doing in the church, we have removed the personal responsibility of discipleship. Discipleship is not a program, but it is a personal walk with Jesus.

Let me know what you think about this subject. Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and a pizza with everything for me please.

A New Year and I’m back . . .

Hello world. I hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful start to a New Year. I’m back as I promised from my brief break from blogging. I really needed that break. I had gotten to the point where I could not even put together a complete thought with everything else going on. So let me take a few sentences and catch you up on what I have been up to:
• Completed all of my Christmas projects and everyone that got one as a gift seemed pleased.
• Put my mind in cruise control for a few weeks, no reading, concentrating, major thinking, etc. It was nice.
• Spent some wonderful time with my beautiful wife and loving family over the holidays.
• Watched several movies. Lots of fun-nothing that made me think to hard.
• Helped a friend (Mike Thompson) and his family get moved to the upstate. This included a trip back to the low country to pick up an estimated handful of stuff. This led to some nice fellowship.

With all of that out of the way-what is coming in the New Year?
• Begin working on the church plant that I will be helping with. More on this in the near future.
• Begin to sort out in my head what is really means to be a disciple of Christ. That series of posts begins shortly.
• Spend time building relationships with people that don’t know Christ. This hopefully will lead to an opportunity to share Christ with them. Also to get them plugged into a group of believers that will help them grow in their walk with Christ.
• Learn how to love my wife and family more.
• Grow closer to God.

With all of that said, it is to work I must go. Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and follow the yellow brick road.