Things You Can't Do When You're NOT a dog

New Role

In case you missed it, here's the first part of this post.

In case you didn't know, we moved here (Coffee Springs) because we felt that we were following God's will for our lives and transitioning into a new ministry role--Associate Pastor. Now many people may ask, "What exactly does that mean?" and I have to admit it is difficult to define. As a youth pastor it was simple: I work with youth. But as Associate Pastor, I'm more of a Utility man. Whatever role I need to fill for the church, I'm here.

God has definitely stretched me in this new role. When I moved here I have no office (just a storage closet with a desk and power outlet). There is no Internet at the church--which I found that I had become quite dependent on for just about EVERYTHING I do ministry wise. Fortunately, we've been able to get the internet at our house now, so I no longer feel handicapped by that. And I'm basically having to flesh out a job description. Like I said, Associate Pastor is the utility guy, but I'm trying to make a tangible, day-to-day responsibility for this new role I've found myself in.

But I must say that I am super happy in this new role. All ministry presents challenges. That's part of what makes it fun. It's what keeps you on your toes and makes you creative. And the people here are simply wonderful. They've shown so much love for us and have made our transition an easy one. They're excited to have us here, and we're excited to be here. Ultimately, we're all excited about what God is going to do here.

I had hoped to have some pictures to post of the church, but I guess I'll just have to post them later.

More to come...

Haven't Seen You in a While...

...and for that I apologize. Ever since the move, my Internet access has been very limited, but, no longer! Thanks to the help of one of the wonderful members of our church, we upgraded to wireless internet at the house. Now all I need is a Mac and a cup of Starbucks--scratch that, Dakota Coffee--and I'll be certifiably cool!

And since it has been such a long time since the last time we spoke, I want to catch you up a bit. Of course, it will take of couple of posts, but I promise not to make you wait two months for the rest of the story.

We now live at what I have begun to affectionately refer to as the "edge of the earth." Seriously, if the earth were flat, we'd be teetering on the edge. We are that far out. In fact, right now you're probably thinking to yourself, "It can't be any different from any other small, rural area in Alabama. Probably not much different than Vincent." You would be mistaken...ask Scottie, Janie, Robert, and Josh Sims. And I have to admit, when we first got here, I wasn't too hot on the location. I like cities. I like the life, the culture, the energy. Even though Vincent was a small town, it was so close to B'ham and the burbs that it carried a little of that vibe too. Wide open spaces and slow speed limits aren't my thing. But, in time, this location has grown on me.

The sun rising over the flat farm land adjacent to my house is stunning (which to use the word 'stunning' really cheapens it. In fact, any word would fail to capture the beauty and majesty of that view. I love how when someone comes creeping along in their truck (or tractor), that they ALL wave. I love how everyday is sunny. Even on days when it rains, it seems that as soon as the rain stops, the sun pops out. I love our little house. Its small and old, but filled with warmth and character.

So needless to say, I've grown to enjoy living here. But that's not the end of the story. More to come soon...

Prayer for Matt Chandler

{this is a prayer request/repost from shauninthecity.com}

Well, today we NEED to pray for Pastor Matt Chandler. One of the best preachers in the world, pastor of a growing/thriving mega-church, a husband, and father to a young family, Matt will be having emergency surgery this Friday to remove a tumor from the frontal lobe of his brain.

Can you imagine those conditions? Well – Matt is facing them with a courageous faith, but we need to PRAY! Pray out loud. Pray right now. Pray later. Start prayer chains. Tell you pastor. Tell your friends. Call grandmama and nem. MAKE A BIG DEAL OUT OF THIS.

• Pray for Matt Chandler by name. Pray for his peace of mind. Pray for his total recovery! Pray that he hears the voice of God in a real way in this tough season.
• Pray for his wife Lauren by name and pray for their beautiful family. Pray that God holds her up and strengthens her from the inside out as she serves as the rock of their family.
• Pray for Dr. David Barnett – the chief surgeon this Friday. Pray for his skilled hands and that God uses him to perform medical miracles. The surgery is THIS FRIDAY AFTERNOON!
• Pray for Village Church. Pray that they lean on God like never before. They love their pastor and need him to recover. They have a prayer meeting tonight (Wednesday) @ 7pm.

Quote of the Day

"Some people want to live within the sound of church bells but I want to run a rescue station at the gates of hell."

-C T Studd

Quote of the Day

God’s “wrath” is his withdrawal.”

- Greg Boyd

Youth miniStarz

Hungry Enough?

Hunger from Nuru International on Vimeo.

Veterans Day 2009

Randomness

Hello everyone out there in the blogosphere. Just wanted to give you a little random updates from my world...

• I'm really excited about the "Revolution" Community Youth Service @ VHS this Wednesday. It's great to see the body of Christ coming together to worship our Saviour.
• Been studying the book of 1 Corinthians A LOT! I'm [and Chuck too] preaching through the book on Wednesday nights. There is SO much information to process. Just wish we had enough time on Wednesdays to get to all of it.
• Going to the beach this weekend. No, I'm not an idiot. Every year our District of the Assemblies of God hosts a Youth Leaders Weekend @ Orange Beach. I look forward to this every year. It's a great time to reconnect with friends, relax, get new ideas/hear from God. This will also be Aiden's first trip to the beach. I'm hoping it's not too cold to at least stick his feet in the water.
• Speaking of Aiden, the little guy's growing so fast. I still can't believe how quickly it's going by. But, I'm enjoying every moment of it. I LOVE that every time I say "Da-Da" to him he busts out a HUMONGOUS, toothless smile.
• Amanda and I are trying to find a workout program to get back in shape. I get winded way to easily and the pounds are coming on quicker than before. For those of you who want to pull the "Oh Matt, your still small" I leave you with this: I'm already bigger than my Dad was at 22. Exactly.
• The VHS Jr. High football team went undefeated. First time that I've ever been a part of an undefeated team in any sport. My first year coaching Jr. High (2005) we were 2-4. My second year (last season) we went 7-0, and then got dropped in our last game to finish 7-1.
• I love being a part of the VHS community. Love the kids, the faculty, the parents. Couldn't ask for a better job.

Back in the Swing...?

Greetings everyone. It's definitely been a while since I've sat down and written out a blog post. For that, I apologize. I know that you--like I--have jam-packed schedules. So thanks for continuing to check in. Here's some things that have been going on:

• I am LOVING being a Dad. It's still a bit surreal to me and it's definitely weird if I pause to let that opening statement settle in. [*PAUSE*]. Yep, it's weird. I am not intelligent enough to write how amazing it is to watch this little dude grow up. Couldn't be prouder of every little advancement that he makes; whether that be holding his head up, making sounds that in no way are words (but still calling it "talk"). It's all wonderful. He's going to be an awesome man of God when He's grown!
• Been coaching football at Vincent for the Jr. High. I love football. It borders on obsession at times, so I have to keep that in check. This year I've met two (new) awesome men: Shae Supri and Chris House. It's their first year teaching/coaching, so it's been fun helping them out. They even let me help call plays. Even more thrilling to me though is that through my time at the school we've had about 8-10 new guys coming on Wednesdays. Three of them have gotten saved and I can see a HUGE difference in their lives already! God is awesome, and I am so thankful that He gives me opportunities like this to impact the lives of teens.
• Got to hang out with a friend of mine from High School. Actually, we've been best friends since about 2nd Grade. He's in Pharmacy school @ Auburn (boo!). He's a super competitive, super intelligent, super funny guy. He was the person who knocked me down to Salutatorian in HS.
• I have another best friend, Allen, who goes to school in Troy. Got to meet his girlfriend Rachel a couple of weeks ago when I went down to NB. They're doing a fantastic job volunteering as youth leaders at a church down in Enterprise.
• Started a new sermon series on Wednesday nights. We're going through the entire book of 1 Corinthians verse-by-verse. This is a new experiment for me. It's going to take us about 25 - 30 weeks to finish. I am super-excited about it and believe that at the end, our youth ministry will look completely different.

Unfortunately, that's all the time I have for now. Hopefully there will be more tomorrow!

[I really have no idea what to title this] pt.2

Here's the second video in the series from The People's Church...

Teenage Love Pt. 2 from People's Church on Vimeo.

[I really have no idea what to title this]

Here's a video from People's Church in Oklahoma City advertising their upcoming series. I love it...

Teenage Love Promo from People's Church on Vimeo.

Just a Heads-Up

Sorry for the LOOOOOONNNNNNG delay since my last post. With the new baby, helping with the VHS football teams, and a couple of sudden life-curveballs, it's been hard to get everything done. So blogging got pushed to the bottom of the pile.

It's still going to be a few weeks before I really get back in the swing of things as far as blogging is concerned. Hopefully I'll be able to get back into posting daily.

Benaiah Aiden

Wow! What a weekend. This has definitely been one of the highlights of my life (as if you couldn't tell from the pictures :)) Amanda and I both apreciate all the prayers and for all the kind words/visits and gifts over the past few days.

I'll try to recap as best as I can (which really isn't all that good because words really can't describe ow great this has been):

Abouts 2am Saturday morning, Amanda woke up. She wasn't feeling well and she was having some spotting. She waited around til 2:30, but she was still spotting, so she woke me up. For the next half-hour, we tried to see if her condition would get better. We even called the OB/GYN, and he sayed we should be ok. Of course, Amanda was worried that something had happened to the baby. I knew she wouldn't be able to sleep until she was able to talk to a doctor face-to-face. So we loaded up in the car and headed to Brookwood at 3:30.

When we left the house, I fully expected to be back home in just a short while. Amanda was not having contractions and the due date was over 2 weeks away.

When we got to the hospital (at 4) and got out of the car, Amanda froze in pain. I tried to pursuade her "Come on, we're here now. Let's just get inside teh door." We got inside and they put us in a room (probably because Amanda said, "I think we may be having a baby today.") We got in and when they hooked Amanda up to the contraction monitor and then checked to see if she had dialated. When they did, her water broke. And we discovered that the pain that Amanda had experienced in the parking lot was in fact a contraction. In fact, they were starting to come every 5 minutes or so. So our "quick trip" to calm our nerves turned into "Wow, we'll have our baby today!" :)

Our doctor was on vacation, so we met Dr. Gams who would be our substitute physician. After about 2 hours at the hospital, Amanda hadn't dialated any more, so they gave her a hormone that increased the rate of her contractions. She also got an epidural, so from about 5a on, she was pretty comfortable.

When they checked Amanda an hour later, she had dialated to 7cm. Every time they checked it got closer to the goal. By 11, she was at 9 1/2 cm (or so we thought)

About 12:45, the Dr. popped in again and checked to see if she made it to 10cm. But, he delievered some discouraging news: Amanda was not at 9 1/2, she was at 7, maybe 8 at best. He said that the labor had stalled out and that we would have to have a C-section.

There's a verse in Job that sums up how I felt in the moment: "I am terrified." That's actually probably an understatment, but I don't know if there's a strong-enough word to describe how I felt. I tried to be calm and brave because Amanda was even more shaken that I was (obviously). She had never had surgery at all--or even been admitted to a hospital. So that compounded the fear. They set the time for 1:30p to do the surgery.

During the down time, we tried to comfort each other. I got to put on my surgery scrubs. They wheeled Amanda back and came back to get me a little later. It was probably only 5 minutes, but it felt like 30. When I got to the operating room, they had Amanda sliced open. I got to sit at her head behind the curtain (thank God for that because I would have straight passed out). It took only 3 - 5 minutes and we heard the most wonderful sound I have ever heard. Little Benaiah Aiden was here (at 1:47p) and he was letting everyone know about it. Because he was a C-section baby, he had a lot more fluid in his lungs, so his first yell sounded like he was under water.

Amanda's cousin Amy--who works in the NICU at Brookwood--was in the room and was one of the nurses who handled the baby. She even got to give his official weight (7 lbs. 8 oz.). Then mommy got to hold the baby for the first time. Then daddy got to take him to the nursery to let everyone else see. Amanda's dad lucked up and found our path so he got a sneak peek.

After everyone got to see him through the window for a coule of minutes, we carried him to the recovery room, were the nursing staff gave him a bath, checked his temp., gave him a shot or two, measured him (21 1/2 in.), put medicine in his eyes, etc. Then Daddy and Aiden got to wait for mommy. About 20 minutes after we got in the recovery room, they wheeled mommy in and she REALLY got to hold baby.

We stayed in recovery for about 2 hours. I know it killed our family because they couldn't come back. Then at 4p we moved into our suite and the family got to see baby and Mommy for the first time.

So many other small things happened that would take too long to explain. But needless to say, we are overjoyed (an understatement indeed) to have little Benaiah Aiden with us. Also, August 1st happens to be my late grandmother's birthday. So God gave us a little poetic miracle in that too.

The Buffalo River... the end

You can read the first two parts of this account here and here

When I woke up Friday morning, I had lost a lot of the desire to keep going. I had fun the day before, no doubt; but, now that I had slept all night (and watched as Jason and Robert fought off the army of raccoons that invaded our camp) I had stiffened up and really did not want to paddle more. Jason and I agreed that we should try to get to the end as fast as possible... and we did.

Too fast actually. We did not realize that our campsite was 2/3rds of the way to the end and thought we had to paddle as long as we did on day #1. Wrong! It took us only a couple of hours to get to the bridge where we could load back up on the church van. Had to wait about 2 more hours before everyone else caught up.

Once everyone did we all loaded up on the van and went back to the hotel. Ate some pizza... took a nap... ate some more (including frog legs for the first time ever!)... went to bed.

Woke up and helped load the van. Cranked up the big white bus and about the time we started getting in someone said, "Hey, what's that?" Couple of minutes later we determine that it is in fact gasoline. Diesel Gasoline in fact. As mentioned earlier we were at the end of the earth, so of course, no mechanic shop was open on Saturday except one across the border in Missouri. Yeah.

So a group of 4 brave souls--Shelby, Mark, Kenny, and Terry--stayed behind as the rest of us shoved off for Alabama. Ate lunch at an extremely hot Burger King in Memphis. Really thought we'd all die of heat stroke by the time we got to B'ham. But, we made it home.

It was great. Got to know some new people. And there's probably a whole lot that I've forgotten since a month ago...

Oh, well.

The Buffalo River pt.2

Ok, so this post is WAAAAAYYY over due. But, here is part 2 of the post I began earlier chronicling my expedition to the Buffalo River in Arkansas.

You can read part 1 here.

We woke up early the next morning (Thursday, I think) and enjoyed a free breakfast at the before-mentioned Western Sizzlin'. Then we loaded up on the vans for another 45 minute trek through mountain roads and little towns. We arrived at the canoe rental place called Crazy Bill's. This immediately struck a little fear in my heart because I was in the presence of Buffalo Bill (compliments of Joe Dirt). We then were taken to a drop off point where we were picked up by a Crazy Bill's bus. They took us up river to the place where we would put in.

We got in. The water felt great. Saw a lot of fishermen not catching anything. Took a couple of swim breaks. Watched Robert jump off a 45 ft. cliff...twice. Thought Josh would be eaten by a moccasin. Enjoyed my Vienna's for lunch. Thank God for caramel popcorn or I would not have survived the trip.

Saw dozens of turtles sunbathing. Started to get sunburnt (not nearly as bad as Glenn and Devin). Finally made it to the campsite. Sat in the lagoon for hours. We were the 4th canoe to arrive (out of 8 or 9) and the last canoe came in about 4 hours after we arrived. Some people liked to stop and fish and swim a lot.

Cooked my hot dogs amongst a variety of foods--from beanie-weenies to pork chops that were 2 inches thick. Crawled in the tent and tried to go to sleep on my wet sleeping bag.

Pt. 3 tomorrow (hopefully)...

Insights from "The Monkey and the Fish"

Just finished reading The Monkey and the Fish: Liquid Leadership for a Third-Culture Church by Dave Gibbons. This book really challenged me and it also reinforced some things that I already have been exposed to. Here are some excerpts:

"I believe that today God is calling us in the church to become a different kind of movement, known for our kisses of compassion rather than our condemnations."

"I think we {the church} are preoccupied with big."

"We cannot be fully human alone."

"...questions should lead us. Questions, not answers."

"'You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into the bottle, it become the bottle. You put it into a teapot and it becomes the teapot. The water can flow. The water can crash. Be water my friend' [Bruce Lee]"

"While an answer may fork in a specific situation, questions can guide us to the answers is all kinds of situations."

"Where is the other side of the tracks in your cit or region? In other words, who are the marginalized or the outsiders near you, people whom you feel pain for?"

"What will draw most of the world to Christ is not simply a prosperity gospel but a gospel that takes a real look at the beauty and the bane of suffering."

"Any worthy endeavor is constrained by our worst fears."

"Our {the church's} party should be the best.

"...create unity among diversity."

"We need to learn to walk in the blur and in the intersections of cultures, to bust the walls that separate us from a world of colliding cultures and generations, and the shifting of roles, responsibilities, and influence."

"All of the prejudices we've set up among cultures, among peoples of color, among backgrounds is so alien to the mind of Christ that it is the deepest kind of evil that I know. {Brennan Manning}"

The Greatest Wedding Entrance...EVER!

Crap, why couldn't I think of this...?

7 Lessons on Parenting

*Disclaimer: I found this pic on a Google search, this was not an experiment of mine

Ok, so I haven't had a lot of extra time to come up with my own posts this week, but there have been some AMAZING posts on other blogs that I read. I can't post every good thing I see, but in light of the baby that's almost here and my journey into fatherhood, this post spoke volumes to me:

(oh yeah, I found this on evotional.com. Mark Batterson's blog)

Can I take a little blog survey?

I ask this question of other parents all the time: what is the greatest lesson you've learned as a parent? Would love to hear about some of the lessons you've learned at different stages of parenting. Nothing ismore rewarding or more challenging than being a parent. We need to help each other out. I know it's tough to boil it down to one thing. So feel free to share a few lessons learned.

Here are seven lessons I've learned:

1) Your greatest failures as a parent can turn into your greatest successes IF you simply apologize. You are modeling one of the toughest skills to learn: how to handle mistakes.

2) A great marriage is one of the greatest gifts you can give your kids so focus on your marriage first and your kids second.

3) You create memories via engineering shared experiences. Be intentional about setting shared goals. Become a student of your kids. Learn to love what they love.

4) Parents are prophets. Don't just use your authority to speak correction into their lives. Use your authority to speak encouragementinto their lives. Otherwise you will become a prophet of doom.

5) We have a Heavenly Father who compensates for our parental weaknesses. So take a deep breath and relax a little. Even if you're a single parent, you're not alone. God will make up the difference!

6) One of the greatest gifts you can give your kids is time. A little one-on-one time opens channels of communication like nothing else. If you hang with them when they are young they'll want to hang with you when you're old.

7) If all else fails, teach your kids to say please, thank you, and sorry. Especially to God.