Yesterday in one of our sessions we heard from Francis Chan who is an incredible communicator and a tiny little fireball. This guy came with some serious energy and passion. He asked this one question that I want you to ponder today, “Is there anything you want to hear more from God than well done?”
I am currently here at the Orange Conference in Atlanta with John, Dan & Kristi. Let me just start by saying the conference is awesome. There is always so much you can pull away from a conference like this. I have run into friends from Liberty University and been able to catch up with what they are doing. Some of them I have not seen in eight to ten years. It is so funny when you recognize someone and then you both just stand there and stare at each other until one of you goes up to the other and says something like, “Didn’t we have like 4 classes together everyday for 4 years?” Thinking, please don’t hate me that I can recognize your face but can’t remember you name…but it’s all good.
Couple things I’ve noticed being here:
- Dan and Kristi are one of the best at what they do. Easily they could be teaching these classes and challenging other churches to raise the bar higher. We are so blessed to have them at Fellowship. Make sure you let them know it!!! I am proud to have them as pastors to my boys.
- The idea of Orange is to merge children’s and student ministry together into a family friendly, single focused ministry. Dan and Kristi have made huge strides to connect with me and connect with students. Only being here a year we have a great relationship with each other and have a huge respect for each other. Hearing about other churches and how those two ministries connect…our ministry is way ahead of the curve. We still have a long way to go, but GO GOD that we are headed in the right direction.
There will be more to come and I can’t wait to share with you some of the stuff I’ve gotten.
Matthew and Tyler are both playing little man soccer. They are both playing for the first time and they both scored a goal for the first time in their lives…it was just for the other team. That’s right they both scored a goal for the other team. But regardless, both teams jumped up and down and cheered. I may have shed of tear of why not the other team’s goal…but it was great to watch them play and connect with other kids.
My question is why is the game so long for the little guys? 2 thirty minute half’s. That is a lot for even me. They go all out in the first half and then there is nothing left for the second half. I think that is a lot like us sometimes as Christ followers. We start out great and then the second half comes and we have nothing left. How can we find that balance of giving our all and yet still pacing ourselves? If you can answer that you will be a very rich person after your book becomes a best seller. Even as children we struggle with that balance and it continues into adulthood.
I think the best way to approach this is to ask what is the most important things in my life? Follow up that question with what should be the most important things in my life? Have a great Saturday and remember which way the goal is.
Jess and I thought it would be fun to take the boys out to dinner and then go to Dip-N-Dots in Bear, DE. Love me some Dip-N-Dots…Anyways we put the top down on the Jeep. This was Jessica’s first experience in the Jeep. From henceforth my Jeep shall be known as THE JEEP. It started out great until we got to about the Target on 202 and had to pull over and put the top on because her hair had covered her face like cousin it and the boys were possessed in the back trying to eat and swallow the wind. Very funny to watch. On a good note the boys did learn how to give the Jeep wave.
On our way home Jess was having some difficult times breathing and seeing. Allergies had taken over. If you know Jess she is allergic to everything except water. The pollen that had accumulated in THE JEEP from the top being down had caused Jess to have an allergic reaction. Once we got home she had hives all over her face…not a very good first experience with THE JEEP and the wife. Now she is all drugged up on Benadryl and virtually passed out on the couch.
“Patience is a virtue”…The writer of that poetic genius obviously never tried to install a soft top on a Jeep. Otherwise it may have been written; patience is not going to help anyways or patience sucks. For the last two weeks I have been working on getting parts, returning parts, buying more parts, returning more parts, giving up and buying the whole dang thing.
Patience is not my strength. It never has and I know that God has been working with me on this particular issue. The only problem is, I don’t want to work on it…even though I need too. Ever have those issues in your life that God is ready to deal with, yet your not?
The directions for the soft top were obviously written by somebody in a mental hospital or somebody in prison who is thinking, if I’m not going anywhere, neither are they. The directions say EASY install and 2 hours needed. 6 hours later, I no longer was smiling and I couldn’t find my Staples “EASY” button anywhere. Why is it that something that is supposed to be so easy turns out to be so difficult? It reminds me of our faith in Christ. A simple child like faith, reminds me that it would be easy, but we clutter it up and confuse it and make it so much more difficult than it needs to be. We make big deals out of small issues and instead of having faith and trusting we question everything to the point to utter confusion. When we look at the Bible as a whole it can be confusing and intimidating at times (just like the directions to my soft-top) but when we slow down and take it step by step it makes so much more sense. Sure it’s good to have the big picture but we have to start with the baby steps.
I am thankful for God’s forgiveness because there were some angry words in my head last night for the writer of the directions and the artist of the pictures. The good news is I have a new top…the bad news I don’t really know how to take it off. The adventure continues…
What a great weekend. We had a great Sunday morning and later had a youth staff meeting where we cast a vision for the upcoming year. It was well recieved and we also had a few potential youth volunteers there as well. Parents you should be excited about the talent that God is assembling to work with your teens. God has continued to dump talent into the youth department and I am blessed to work with them.
We talked about sex again on Sunday night. This has been God’s timing for this series. I have had so many teenagers come up and talk about the pain of poor choices they have made. God is using this message series as a way to warn some teens, wake up others and challenge all of us (including parents) to talk about the seriousness of this issue among our teenagers.
Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the DeSimones, Give it back to kids golf tournament. I learned a couple things…
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✴Pink pants are in for guys…but only if you can drive the ball 300 yards…I can’t.
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✴I have no clue what I’m doing when I’m golfing…but I really enjoy the cart.
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✴I can tell you about “EVERY” part of the course…even the parts your not supposed to see.
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✴Golf is not like the SAT’s, the higher the score does not better.
Overall, I had a great time with friends golfing. Our team did not finish last which was surprising to us all. You will have to ask the Master Locaters Team #2 who came in last.
Still waiting on parts for my Jeep…I got them but they were wrong…and now I am topless. Pray for no rain…the parts will be here tomorrow…Yeah Right! I’ve heard that before.
As I was preparing to speak this weekend to the teenagers I came across this verse in Ephesians chapter one: “Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love.”
God settled on US as the focus of HIS love. How amazing to think about that. That God, the creator and sustainer of the this playground called Earth, with all the “stuff” that He has to control, with all the power you can’t even imagine, focuses His love on US. Why? So we can me made WHOLE and HOLY by His love. It is THAT love that transform the hearts and minds of those in the Delaware Valley. It is not our programs and procedures but it His love.
We talked this weekend with the teens about how we can be more wise with the decisions we make if we could understand:
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1. How much God really loves us.
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2. That we are an original masterpiece.
The choices we make today affect us for the rest of our lives. (That goes for adults as well) How awesome to know as we sit in our classrooms or in our offices today, in the midst of the business and the chaos, in the midst of the pain, discouragement and constant confusion that we are the focus of His love.
We are not alone, even when we try to go at it alone.
Sorry that my posts have not been posting…
Today I did damage control to get ready for my “parts” to arrive tomorrow. I ripped out all the carpet in my Jeep. I ripped out the center console. I screwed in every screw in the Jeep. Do you know how many screws there are…I lost count after 75. My patience was tested today as I tried to get all that done.
God has been working on my patience in many ways over this weekend. Do you ever feel like God is just working on you all at once? It is an amazing feeling but it can be exhausting. Any time God wants to take us to a whole notha level…he always begins in the areas that we least want to work on. I learned very young…never to pray for patience…because then God always had me work on it and it was hard…now I pray that God would work through my weaknesses and that He would help me to grow in those weaknesses. Maybe I’m a wuss, but sometimes it hurts getting taken to the woodshed. What way is God challenging you now? The key is for us to be growing more each day and to have grown more this year than last.
Today was the first day that my boys began the soccer process. Matthew had his first double header as a 5ive year old…what’s up with that? I don’t think I could have played as long as him. They had two twenty-five minute halves. I was exhausted yelling to him…keep running. He likes to run with his head down and consequently run past the ball. He does awesome when the ball is in front of him…he can kick it a mile. Other than that he really enjoys entertaining the crowd…imagine that. He was very successful at doing his somersaults.
Tyler on the other hand did not play with the four years olds but was “recruited” (okay Matthew’s team was short handed) to play with the five/six year olds. Cool thing was he was great, I think he is a natural…he’s not Tiger Woods, but he held his own with the big kids including knocking some of them down…I was so proud of him.
Now every Thursday night we have practice and Saturday’s are games. Our life has changed…the key is the balance.
Every have one of those nights?
My buddy Jeff came over tonight to help me put my soft top on my Jeep. It started out cloudless and sunny…but it soon turned to rain and wind. The Mullers came out and helped as well in the rain as my Jeep began to fill up. About 3 inches of water later…we finally got the top on…missing a few pieces. All of us completely soaked like we just got out of the shower. It was one of those nights. We couldn’t help but laugh at the end of the night. What was supposed to be a 30 minute job turned into a 4 hour job. It was a quick reminder that what we have planned is not always the way it turns out.
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