If only I had...

This time of year is always a time when finances are at the top of everyone's list. If your house is like mine you are having lots of conversations with your wife about the things you wish you had. A bigger house to have a Christmas party in. More money to buy those extravagant gifts for your kids. But all you end up doing is getting depressed about what you do not have. Don't read this and think that I am above this in any way. This is something that I am facing now. In both my house and it seems we are facing it at our church. "We don't have the finances to do that!" is what we hear or say in our creative meetings. Then something (God) comes along and rocks your world!
While we were rehearsing and preparing for service yesterday a gentleman walks in the door. He obviously was homeless. He asked for some help and we asked if he would stay for the service. He did. His name is John. John was traveling (walking) from Pennsylvania to Georgia. I invited him to lunch with my family and at first John declined. I had to convince him to come with me. I got to spend about 2 hours with John and realized quickly that John did not decline my lunch offer because he wanted to go get drunk or anything like that. We asked John if there was anything we could get him for his trip, coffee thermos, sleeping bag, etc. John declined all of it, he said he has everything he needs in his bag and anything else he would just have to carry with him on his walk. John was completely content with what he had. He had an old sleeping bag, a little food, and the clothes on his back. That is all he needed for his journey.
I am so blessed. I have a beautiful wife, and 4 awesome kids. My God has given me everything I need for my journey. Any extra stuff would just weigh me down and I would have to carry it on my journey. It would then be baggage that slows me down.
Are you gathering baggage this Christmas? Or are you concerned about your journey?

Thanksgiving in Charleston S.C.

7 kids plus 7 adults (if you actually count me as an adult) equals a bountiful time! We had a great family time in Charleston S.C. A special thanks goes out to the family that let us use their house to gather in. I have so much to be thankful for.

Girls are smarter

So I am back from my blog sabbatical, and you would think that after a hiatus like that I would come out swinging with some powerful post. To the contrary I have to share a funny story that happened yesterday. I will procrastinate on powerful for now.

Yesterday morning I am driving my girls along with two boys of friends of ours to school. The boys are close in age to each of my girls (6 & 10). Somehow, I am sure I started it, the conversation got into... "Girls drool and boys rule!" "No Boys drool and Girls rule!". My daughter Starr, who must always win a debate, chimes in with these statements.

Starr "Girls are smarter than boys because they don't have to think about sports and stuff"
Sam (boy, age 9) "Yeah, but boys get to rule the house cause the man is the head of the house"
I so wanted to give him a pound and say amen. I didn't because his argument was with my daughter and that would probably look like I was taking his side.
Starr "Yeah but I'm smarter because I'm smart enough not to have babies. Cause you know babies don't come out of the mom's belly. They come out of their butt!"
Sam "That's gross!"
Starr "I'm smart. And I don't want to get stitches in my butt, so I am not going to have any babies. But I love my baby Riley though"
Sam "That's gross! Starr"
Me "Let's talk about something else Starr"

At this point it is all I can do to keep from pulling the car over, getting out and laughing hysterically. However, once again, that would look bad because this young boy just had some of his innocence scared for life. So, I waited till they were out of the car and I was back on the road before laughing out loud and calling my wife to share the story.

Jaden's Prayer

This is Monday night's prayer by Jaden. (this is also a typical prayer for her)

Dear Lord,
Thank you that I had a good day. I hope that I have a good day tomorrow. I hope that everybody in the hospitals have a good day and that they will get better. Even the ones that are sick. And, I hope that the baby isle has a good day. And, I hope that everybody has a good day! Help that I don't dream about the Leprechaun tonight. And, Amen

Her prayer is always about others. Never just about herself, her family, or even friends. She always prays for people in the hospital and the sick. Of course, Little Momma (Jaden's nick name) always has to throw in a shout out to babies in some way. I have so much to learn about prayer from my kids.

Disappearing Ink

"Here try my pen. This thing is awesome. Squirt!"
One of the best gags out there. When I was 10 there was nothing more entertaining than getting someone with a white shirt and squirting some disappearing ink on them. You would watch them get freaked out then realize that it was gone. And most of the time they would jump right in to help prank the next victim.

"LORD, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered, and that my life is fleeing away. My life is no longer than the width of my hand. An entire lifetime is just a moment to you; human existence is but a breath."
Psalm 39:4-5 NLT

I only have a short time on earth to leave a mark on people. When I die that mark will fade away quickly. I do not want my kids to leave the same mark on lives as I am. I want them to leave their own mark. What I want to teach them is how to leave a mark.
My pastor is a man that I think has learned this lesson and is living it. For years now He has been giving many young people opportunities to get up on the pulpit and preach, or lead in youth, or in children's ministry. I always thought that he just wanted less work and it was a nice chance to get a break for him. I am sure that it is a nice break, but in reality I think he is trying to teach and give younger people a chance to leave their mark. He is not spending his time trying to make his mark permanent. He is helping others in leaving their mark. Now that's a legacy that I want to leave in my family.

"Lord help me to train my family how to pull off a disappearing ink prank well!"

If your like me and this blog-off re-ignited a desire to get someone with disappearing ink then click here and let's go soil some shirts.

Fireproof

You are going to see more about this, but I wanted to put this up so that more people than me can get excited about it. At Garr you will definitely see some support of this movie. If I had not already done so, I would write something about marriage. Instead after you watch the trailer go read it here. 7 year itch

Big Head Josh with a needle close by.

I delivered the sermon "The Heart of a Champion" yesterday at Garr Church. I have to admit I struggled a lot on this sermon. I had my topic, and scripture reference ready a week ahead, but I did not start writing the sermon out till Saturday (the day before) Side note: I do not recommend this, procrastination never makes perfect. I started Saturday at 10am and finished writing at 3am Sunday morning. I then went to sleep and got up at 7:30am and started to revise some. I walked on the stage feeling like this is not going to go well. I do not have a great sermon in my hands and this is going to bomb.
I have to admit that during the sermon I was unusually comfortable. The sermon seemed to flow decently. And it was 30min long! Every time I went through it at home at best it was 20min. After the sermon I had tons of people come up to me and tell me how good the sermon was. My family came to me and said that it was the best they have heard me deliver so far! I began to swell! Oh, I kept up the "christian" facade and always replied with a statement like: "It had to be God because it was not great when I was preparing it" Which is true, but inside my head was having a hard time getting through a doorway.
This morning I was doing my usual blog reading and I re-read an awesome blog by my dad. The Cutting Edge. POP! I realize that the power was not, and never will be, in my ability, but in my willingness to be available. That sermon was not great because of my ability to write great sermons. The power came because I made myself available to deliver God's powerful sermon.
I will hopefully be delivering more great sermons, but not because I am only getting better at it. But because I am going to make myself available to be used.

A realization at midnight

I was preparing for my sermon this Sunday and I realized something. My sermon is on the Heart of a Champion. Your physical heart pulls blood in, processes it, then pumps it out. If any of those three things are not happening then there is a big problem and you could be dead! Your spiritual heart should be doing the same three things or else you are spiritually dead! Pull in God, Process and apply to your life, then pump it out!
You'll be hearing this statement on Sunday also, but I needed to get that analogy out cause I thought is was good.

Comfortable Socks

Last night I am sitting on the couch in my comfortable socks watching the tely ,America's best dance crew. [that show rocks!] My wife calls me into the bedroom and says hurry. I run in there and she tells me that she just got a call and a friend of her family (friend of mine also) who is a missionary was in the Conga and his plane along with all traveling with him were captured and they were being held for a ransom. As of late last night the ransom was paid, but we are still waiting word on their release. Please pray for Mark and his family!
This got me to thinking. What am I willing to sacrafice for the call? You know the one that says "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel" This man is willing to sacrafice his freedom, and maybe life, to reach people in the Conga. Here I am sitting in my comfortable socks watching T.V. Am I even willing to sacrafice my free time? As a society (I am definatly included in this) we think we have to work more to pay of the debt we have accured buying things to make us comfortable. So here is my prayer.

Lord make me uncomfortable! Take away the things, and even the desire for things, that make me comfortable so that I can be poised to move at any moment. Help me to shed these comfortable socks and put my self in uncomfortable situations where I am relying on you and sharing about you at the same time.
Amen.

Pretty Fly for a White Guy!

2 Kings Chapter 2

11 As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.

Anytime I read this story I think about all of the sermons that I have heard about how Elisha stuck with Elijah. However, Elijah is the man in this story. Elijah never under estimated God and always expected God to step in. Just a couple of versus before this one Elijah is walking to the Jordan and instead of walking over to where a bridge is, or even a ferry, he just walks straight up to the Jordan river. Now keep in mind that over 50 prophets are watching him at this point. Whatever your profession is, imagine 50 experts in your profession observing you. I am willing to bet that most of us would play it safe. But not Elijah he walks up to the river smacks it with his coat and watches the water split so he and Elisha can walk across. Elijah was constantly putting himself in situations where either God did something miraculous or it was going to be complete failure. This proved to be so even when it was time for him to die. When I read this chapter I see where the other prophets keep telling Elisha that "your master is going to be taken away from you". That makes me think that Elijah was bragging about going home to be with Jesus. I can imagine Elijah saying "Dude, God told me my time was up, so I told him there was only one thing I wanted to do before I go home." Fellow prophet replies "What's that?" Elijah "I want to fly! Then God said" "I think I got just the thing for you. Go to the Jordan" "Dude, this white boy is going to fly! Get the gang together we gotta go to the Jordan. Make sure Ishmael brings the camera you are going to want to put this on YouTube!"
Elijah had done everything on his bucket list and was ready to go home. He had seen God step in and do miraculous things numerous times. So when it came time to go. He knew it was going to be big, because God had always gone Big every time before!

P.S. This post is part of a contest with some fellow (family) bloggers. Be sure to check out their posts also. Blog roll is on the right of my blog page.

Taylor's Prayer for the unsaved Doll

So the other day Starr Taylor, my oldest daughter, was saying her prayer before bed, and she said something that blew me away. Here is basically how the prayer went.

Dear Lord,
Thank you for a good day. Thank you that I got to go swimming today. And thank you for my doll Felicity. And dear Jesus, please come into Felicity's heart. Cause you know Jesus that she can't pray, so I'm praying for her and just go into her heart so that she is saved. And Thank you for going into Felicity's heart cause she is my favorite doll. And, Um, tomorrow help that daddy let's me stay up and watch T.V. Amen.

It hit me. Am I praying for my unsaved dolls, I mean friends, because they don't know how to pray for salvation themselves? Or are my prayers just for things that I want? Unfortunately I think they are normally for things that I want. How about you? What is the focus of your prayers?

The 7 year itch!

The 7 year itch is defined as: You hit the seven year mark and get an "itch" to be with another person other than your spouse. I had not even heard of this till I was already married. And it never crossed my mind. This October 21 will be my seventh anniversary of marriage to the most beautiful woman in the world! Unfortunately, no matter how Godly the participants, or how committed, we live in a sin infested world and I have seen more than a few marriages fail due to infidelity. So here is what I am doing as I approach my seven year anniversary.
1. putting my family first. This is harder than it seems sometimes. When the choice is whether to work late or eat dinner with my family, it will be to be with my family. When the choice is to lead the youth ministry or spend evenings with my family, it will be to be with my family.
2. Pursue my wife harder than I did when we were dating. The wedding ring is not my comfort it is my drive.
3. Spend more time away from my kids with just my wife and I. My kids so badly need an example of how a boy should treat a girl. That way they don't have a "7 year itch" when they get married.
4. My relationship with God must be overflowing enough to cover my family.

If you have been married seven years or more leave comments as to how you are, or have avoided the "7 year itch".

So you wish you could dance?

Anyone who has been around me for a while knows that I love to dance. Not that I am very good at it, but I do love it. I always wanted to learn how to break dance. This set of videos has re-ignited my fire to break dance. King David Christian Conservatory if you by some slim chance read this then you must find a B-Boy and call me in for lessons.

Dylan's Prayer

Dylan's Prayer
Dear God,
Thank you God that I had a good day.
and thank you that I have a good day tomorrow.
and thank you God for the things on my windows.
and thank you God for my Spiderman pajamas, and that River did not take them.
and Thank you God for the holes in our bellies.
and for the holes in our eyes, and for the hole in the other eye.
and for the hole in our mouth, and for the hole in our bottom.
and thank you for my pinky finger, and for this finger, and this finger, and this finger, and this finger. (one eye opens and in a whisper "is that all of them?")
and Amen.

"Was that a long prayer Daddy?"

"Yes it was, but it was good, I liked it!"

Thank You Shilo

This post must start with a disclaimer. Josh, if you by some, odd, slim chance become the other person that reads this blog I want you to know that I love you man! There are things that you have done that have made an impact in my life. I think about and pray for you often. "Mini-Me, you complete me"
That being said this is a thank you note to Pastor and band from Shilo Church that came all the way to Charlotte from PA to worship with us at our FUEL event. Especially Cisco (I hope that is how you spell it) For one, you rocked the guitar that night. But most importantly your testimony that you were sharing with Josh (who was also in a motorcycle accident) and I, made a huge impact. Josh was not involved in church for years and the accident influenced him to try it again. Since that night Josh has been to several small group meetings, and tried church services out some more. Cisco, thank you, thank you, thank you. For being willing to share your testimony with a stranger. For driving 8.5 hours just for what you thought was playing guitar. And most importantly setting an example on how to Love, Value, and Connect other people to God.
I know I singled out Cisco in this, but thank you to everyone that made the trip (and those who stayed home with the kids) to worship with us. I am eternally grateful.

P.S. Jeff, please make sure this gets passed on to everyone up there in P.A.

Prep your sub-floor!

I am in the process of laying down laminate flooring. Now you must know something about me. I am a glutton for punishment. I would rather research and take the job on myself than pay someone to do it for me. Many times I say it is to save money, but many times after I buy the tools, supplies, and take off of work, it would have been cheaper to pay somebody.
So in the process of researching and getting price quotes on 520 square feet of press board with a picture of wood glued on top, I continually get asked the same questions. What kind of floor are you putting it on? Are you on a concrete slab or sub-floor? Then as I research on installing this laminate flooring, everything I find says make sure you prepare your surface well before you lay the floor down. Make sure it is clean. Make sure it is level. Make sure there are no nails that are, or will, poke out and damage the floor.
So I get to Friday night and I begin to rip up the carpet in the living room. I start tearing away the stained, and dirty carpet and padding. Come Saturday afternoon I am finally done cleaning and prepping the surface to put my floor on. In a matter of a few hours I have the new flooring down in the living room. It took me all Friday night and half of Saturday to prep. Then only half a day to install.
It got me thinking about what my sub-floor looks like. If my sub-floor is not cleaned of any dirt, nails, staples, and pits then the beautiful covering on the outside will wear out quickly. You will start to see imperfections and when it is put under stress it will begin to crack. Am I spending twice as much time on my sub-floor as I do with everything else that people see? We may look good on the outside, but if our heart is not been cleaned then we will crack quickly.
On the flip side, everything I read said that if you take the time to prep the sub-floor and install it right. Nothing beats the look and durability of laminate flooring. So spend more time on preparing our sub-floors. Then nothing will beat the result and durability of your life with Christ.
Matthew 23:27-28

Dylan's Prayer

I am trying something today that I think will be a recurring thing. Each night I say prayers with my kids and sometimes those prayers are so simplistic that they are profound. And sometimes they are just out right funny! We will see how this goes, let me know in the comments.

Dylan's prayer.
Deer Lord. Thank you for a good day.
and thank you for my pee pee going all over at Aunt Amber's when I went pee pee at her house.
and thank you for Jaden's cough, and that she feels better.
and thank you that I don't feel good tomorrow and I don't go to school and I get to stay home with mommy.
and Amen.

My Prayer.
Deer Lord. Thank you for my son, he is awesome!
Teach me to walk with you and not crawl. Teach me that my faith is about the movement I make, that action I take, and that person I just passed by.
And thank you that I don't feel good tomorrow, and I don't go to work, and I get to stay home with mommy.
Amen.

Why crawl when you can walk

I am on my fourth and final attempt at having a child that makes the jump to walking without going through the crawling stage. With each kid at about the 10 month mark I have had my hopes high as they begin to pull themselves up to their feet each time I hold their hands. I then proceed to pull them along forcing them to take steps just to keep their feet underneath them. Then I make a statement like... "she's gonna be walking in a week, I bet" And then it is usually followed with bragging about how advanced my kid is. It's only a matter of a week or so that I come home to see me kid crawling. Now nothing is more cute than seeing my kid crawl, but I still have hopes of them walking soon.
This is Riley. She is almost 10 months old now and she is ready to start walking! I promise this time. This kid is the chosen one, she is like Neo on the matrix, she has a destiny to fulfill.

P.S. She is also standing in first place as the cuttest kid at Garr.

One Prayer

I am really, really, excited about this. We will be joining tons of churches world wide for this One Prayer event starting June 7/8th. If you are a pastor please check it out and see about getting your church involved. If you don't have a church you attend then please join us at Garr as we join churches worldwide for this event.

The Bomb.com!

Easter was the bomb.com! (Jeff I told you I would find a chance to use it) I stole the bomb.com statement from one of the Newspring assistants (sorry I didn't get your name). We had a blast. If you were not there you missed a good time. First of all Thank God! We had 4 people get saved. All the planning and work is worth that alone. Here are some of the highlights

• We had 313 people come to the service! That is over 200% increase from the week before. We blew out our 200 goal! Way to go Garr members.
• We had over 2,000 eggs for the kids
• We gave out over 300 free ice cream tickets
• Blow up jumpers, Face painting, and food!

Here is the biggest thing I want to brag on. I had a buddy of mine come from work and he said that he had at least 12 people greet him and his family and invite them in to the service. That is what I am talking about Garr Greeters!
Now if you think we are a one time shop then you are wrong. You don't want to miss next Sunday. We have a surprise in store for everyone. Make sure you are there in time cause you don't want to miss the beginning of Jeff's sermon. This new series "Live Like you were dying" is going to rock!

Good Friday?

As a kid I always wondered why it was called "Good" Friday. Why is the time that Jesus was betrayed, beaten, spit on, crucified, and speared threw the side, a time to call "Good". I grew up in church and as a kid the worst thing I did was run in the sanctuary or climb over the pews. (p.s. I always thought that a pew was a rather adequate name because they certainly stunk to have to sit in.) It wasn't till I was older that I committed a sin that even dropped my jaw! It was then that I went to God and asked for forgiveness and it hit me like a ton of bricks. That is why they call it "Good" Friday! This horrible point in time in humanity was part of the biggest landmark spiritually.
That being said. I do believe that there should be an amendment made to this holiday. All of you who have the day off and are not working. Your spending time with the family or doing yard work. You should not be allowed to celebrate it as a holiday unless you celebrate Easter Sunday with even more excitement. You see this holiday is nothing to rejoice over without Easter. The death is only the first 1/4, to make it whole you have to celebrate the Resurrection.
So if you do not have a church to go to this Sunday then you will not want to miss the opportunity to go to Garr Church this Sunday at 9:00am. It is going to be off the hook! Plus as an added bonus you get to see yours truly rocking out on the drums. See you there.

No time to say Hello, Goodbye, I'm late, I'm late, I'm Late!

There is so much to do that in one day, there is not enough time.
I just wrote two sentences and now I am behind.

In order to go BIG, you have to think small

I so often get caught up in how many people are coming to the church. How many visitors we did or did not have. I was reminded last night that I can make a bigger impact by directing my focus better. I preach to the youth all the time about reaching your friends. Inviting them to come to church. (cause I want to see more visitors). I end up waiting for those visitors to show up so that I can tell them the good news. Unfortunatly, I usually don't get to impact very many lives that way.
With a money market account you put your money in one account and that account invests in several stock accounts. Your focus is just on that one account. I need to be the same way. If I find a few people in my life that I invest in, then they in turn go and invest in a few in their lives. We've all seen the example and know where that is going. So now by focusing on those few I am impacting many.
Who are the few in your life? The ones that you are loving, sharing the word with, investing in.

You can pick your nose and you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your friends nose!

So I have waited way to long to post this story. Sorry life gets busy and posting drops down on the list. They say that you can tell a lot about someone by being around their friends for a day. Whelp, I don't mean to boast about me in this, but I do mean to boast about my friends. A few weeks back one of my good friends walked up to me after church and handed me some money. He said the Lord spoke to me and wanted me to invest in your family a little bit. He said it is not much money, but take it. He was not aware of my family situation at the time. We were getting ready to take my youngest daughter (Riley) in to have tubes put in her ears. The cost to us on top of what insurance would cover was just over $1,000.00. The money he gave went to help with that. The Lord works in awesome ways! To be honest I think the gift was more about impacting my life than paying for a bill. I had to look at my time with the Lord and ask: Am I listening and ready to do what he asks me to. Am I ready to walk up to a buddy and hand him some money and say "Lord just wanted me to invest in your family". I pray that I can be the same kind of friend back.

P.S. Riley is doing great now with her tubes in. Everything went smoothly and she has had no ear problems thus far.

Put on the brakes!

You always hear the statement "put on the brakes". Or "Stop and smell the roses". "Take some time to enjoy life". While I think those statements have truth to them I realized something this weekend. Those statements only apply if you first step on the gas! Just like in your car you should be filling up with gas about once a week because you are "go"ing so much. But you only have to change the brakes once a year or so. So here is my life advice. Take time to enjoy the moments, smell the roses, but then step on the gas and get on to another destination. Keep your foot poised on the gas pedal. You only get a short time and you want to get to as many moments as you can.

This post was inspired by my changing of the brakes on my truck this weekend. Which I might add that whomever invented the drum brakes was not a christian man/woman. He/She was definitely not listening to the voice of God.

My Valentine Boast

I realize that Valentines Day is just one day out of 365 that I should be showering my wife with love. However, since it is such a public day I feel like it is a good chance to make this quick post and say... I have the best wife ever! If you want to know why I feel like I am able to make that claim, then click here and read about her.

Happy Valentines!

Read it and weap, or click away!

So I have a slight apology to make. I have not been updating this blog becuase I was waiting till I had a very profound word to pass on to the web world. I was afraid to put raw thoughts out there and was working on well written pieces to put on the blog. Then a thought hit me. No one is being forced to read this blog. It is not being broadcast to people that have no choice. You clicked yourself here and if you are not entertained you can click away. So that apology done and an a apology for future blogs that are just thoughts that I will try to write well but not make perfect. I will vow now to put thoughts out there and if God can use it to bless someone then awesome. If it is not for you then I will put links to some great blogs that I like to read and they, I promise, are very well written and entertaining.
So I have an issue that I am struggling with, I am at a church where I am in a position to help lead and hopefully turn things around. It is feeling like it is stalled and not effective in the community. Now I have no experience in how to run a church or even how to change a church. I am not a pastor. I am a pastors kid, but not a pastor. I have not been to seminary and don't know nearly as much of the bible as I would like. But, I do have a passion for getting this church off of the ground. Recently we have made some changes and immediately 4 people left the church. It didn't really phase me, but it seams to have phased the pastor. If this is a concern for the pastor are there any hopes of change in this church? Like I said I don't have the answers just my thoughts.