Sunday Reflections

Church yesterday was great...in my opinion that is. Here are some thoughts...

• Yesterday we started a new series and a new third service. Our new series in entitled America's Idols. Stu (our pastor) did a great job yesterday! Monica said it was one of her favorite talks. You can check it out at http://www.watersedgechurch.net/ and then click on the current series tab. You can listen to it from there.
• The music yesterday was crazy good! Phil and the band are amazing!
• Our third service rocked! It was hard setting up and tearing down after having to do it that morning, but I love our new location. The Yoder Barn Theater is a great place for our church. It was nice to have comfortable chairs (the chairs at our morning location suck...they are kind of flimsy and we have seen many a big people collapse a chair in the middle of church).
• We had over a thousand people at church yesterday. We have never had a thousand at a non-holiday service. It was great to see all the new faces at the 6:00 PM service.
• Yesterday made me proud to be a part of the team at Waters Edge!

Farm Vegas Part Two

So my trip to Farmville has been a success so far. I spoke once last night and once this morning. It is crazy to me to back here. When I was here all of the students that I was speaking to were in elementary school. Their siblings were in my youth group. I really do love this place though. Today we went to eat at MacAdos and then took a tour of Longwood University. That is the college Monica went to. This place has changed a lot. Farmville now has multiple restaurants including Ruby Tuesday, AppleBees and a Huddle House. Crazy! Anyway it is good to be here and I have loved our weekend!

Farm Vegas

This afternoon my wife and I and our friend Courtney are going to Farmville VA or Farm Vegas as I like to say. I am going to speak at a weekend retreat called Disciple Now or D-Now. I am speaking at a church that I worked at in college when I went to Liberty University. This is the church that I met Monica at. She was one of the youth...just joking. She helped out with the youth group while she was attending Longwood College. Some of my favorite people in the world are in Farmville. The youth pastor that is bringing me in was in the 8th grade when I worked at the church. He now has a wife and baby. Another one of my former students is going to be there as well. She is bringing a group of students from her church. I can't wait to see lifelong friends that Monica and I have made in Farmville. I also can't wait to eat at MacAdo's! This is one of Monica's favorite restaurants.

What would you do?

There is a guy that I have known since he was in the sixth grade. I met him when I was his Sunday school teacher. His life has been a living hell. We have stayed in touch over the years and I have tried to support him, listen to him, give him advice and help him out any way that I can. He is now 18 and has no place to live. He called on Tuesday and asked if I knew of a place where he could stay. Instantly my heart went out to him and I wanted to let him stay with us. After thinking it through and seeking some advice I ended up letting him know that I didn't know of a place for him to stay and I didn't feel comfortable having him stay at my house. I called some friends to see if they knew of a place and no one did. I was looking for a teen shelter or some type of home and everything was closed. He had a friend drop him off at Wal-Mart because it is open for 24 hrs. I met him there around 11:00 PM and gave him some money for food. He ended up walking around Wal-Mart all night. The next morning I went to Wal-Mart to find him. When I found him I let him know of a place called the Peninsula Rescue Mission. It is a homeless shelter where they will help individuals find work. It is a Christian organization and I let him know that it would provide a place for him to stay and food. They also will wash your clothes and they have showers. Yesterday, I picked him up and took him to the Rescue Mission. After he checked in I went up to his room and helped him make his bed. I can't imagine being 18 and staying there. It is a very nice place, but I think the weight of staying with other older homeless men made it a heart breaking situation. I gave him what change I had and asked him to give me a call this morning. I got a call a little while ago from the Founder of the Mission letting me know that my friend didn't stay there last night. Before bedtime he got his stuff and left. I am scared for him! I have no idea where he went or who he is with. I assume he called some friends and they picked him up. People keep telling me that I did all that I could do, but I am struggling with that. This is a person who has had a hard life and needs to shown love. I keep second guessing myself and wondering if I should have stayed with him longer last night. The Bible talks a lot about helping the poor and helpless. I don't want to just dump him off to someone else so that he is someone else's problem. People keep saying that there are consequences to our actions and that that is why he is going through this. I don't buy that! I have had everything handed to me and I have always had people around me to help me when I am down. I don't know if he does. If I had been through his life I would probably make the same decisions he has. I was reading the Bible in the book of James and it says "What good is it, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, 'Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. James 2:14-17 NIV. I feel like I have helped my friend out but at the same time I have done the bare minimum. So, I'm wondering what you would do? I'm not looking for recognition or pats on the back. I honestly want to know what would you do? Please leave a comment with your thoughts. Is there anything else that I could do? If you do read this please pray for Kenneth. Pray that he would make wise choices. Pray that he would get in contact with me and I could help him out if he wants it. But ultimately I pray that someone would love Kenneth so well that he would see God's love, and ultimately have a relationship with Him.

Nags Head

Monica and I went to Nags Head to recover from the Easter hangover (that is what our staff calls the feeling we have after a big Sunday...it has nothing to do with booze). It was a great day trip. We went shopping at the outlets and then went to Roanoke Island (this is where the lost colony was lost...for more information on the lost colony visit the ever helpful wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_of_Roanoke
We ate at one of our favorites Five Guys for lunch...please bring one to York County/Newport News!!! Overall it was a great get away. We had a lot of fun together. I also enjoyed catching up with crazy Kyle and Chad C on the phone.

Easter

WoW! Today was a great day! I was blown away with how many people were at church today. We had two services at the Ferguson Center for the Arts. In between services we had a helicopter drop eggs onto a field and then kids were allowed to go on the field and collect eggs. (Nobody was in the field when the eggs fell from the copter). Our early counts estimate 2,200 and that doesn't include preschool numbers. There were probably at least another 1,000 or so at the egg drop. People were going crazy. The real crazy thing is that 20,000 Easter eggs weren't enough. Some kids didn't get any.
The service went amazing! I thought Stu and the band hit it out of the park. What a great message that Jesus destroys all our myths about Him because of what He did on the cross. It is kind of funny though that the main feedback I got was about the bow tie I wore for the Mythbusters segment. People told me over and over again how much they liked the bow tie. I'm just glad they liked it. It was a great day!

Teacher of the Year!

My wife is awesome! Recently she received Teacher of the Year for her school. I know I am biased, but my wife really is an amazing teacher. What makes her so great in my opinion is that she really cares for her students. For example last week she took her class to see Horton Hears a Who after school. One of her students got sick and wasn't able to go, so Monica arranged with her parents to pick this student up and take her to the movie today (on Saturday). She often goes to her kids' games (I never saw one of my elementary school teachers at one of my games). She runs a tight ship and demands respect, but the cool thing is she respects the students. Every year it doesn't matter who ends up in her class; she learns to love her class. I've been blogging about being selfish lately and time after time my wife blows me away with how unselfish she is. She truly cares for people. Without a doubt she is teacher of the year, but she doesn't need an award to tell her that. She gets to make a difference in the lives of her students every year and that goes a lot further than any award. By the way she doesn't even get her own parking space for Teacher of the Year...what up with that? JK.

LA Here we come!

So Mon (Mon is short for Monica, my wife....I am acting like people actually read this thing, but the only person who reads it is my wife Monica) and I received our Jay Leno tickets in the mail today! We have to change our Price is Right tickets now because they are for the same day. I am amped about April 7-11. Two Lakers Games, In and Out, Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, Jay Leno, Shima (Monica's best friend from high school and the person that gave me my favorite wedding gift!), Price is Right and more. I can't wait. We are still holding out for American Idol tickets. I doubt we will get them but we requested them. I am super excited!

Clayton King

I just got word that I've booked a speaker for G-3 this year...Clayton King! But there is more news...his wife is coming with him! When I first dreamed of G-3 four years ago, I had Clayton and Charie in mind. I am amped about this!

Selfish Part Two

So we are all selfish. I'm so selfish sometimes I don't see that I am being selfish. It is easy to see in others. I can point out selfishness in someone else quickly. I guess that is why Jesus said take care of the plank in your own eye before you worry about the speck in someone else's. But it is not enough to just admit that you are selfish. James 3:16 says, For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. You see selfishness leads to disorder. Wherever we have selfishness we will find disorder. Disorder in our lives, with our money, with our friends, with family, at church. The list goes on and on. I don't know if this is correct or not, but I believe that every sin comes down to selfishness. When we sin we are saying I would rather do it my way than God's, or we are saying I would rather do what is best for me then what is best for others. That is what sin is. The problem with sin is that is brings disorder to our lives. Selfishness though is so blinding that we don't think about the disorder that it will bring. We think that we can handle it or that it isn't that big of a deal, but it is a big deal. It was our selfishness that nailed Jesus to the cross. It is my selfishness that continues to bring disorder to my life.

Pals

Have you seen the movie Young Guns? It was on TV the other day and I DVR'd it. I had forgotten about a lot of the movie. One of the things that I forgot about was a theme that went throughout. Early in the movie Billy gets inspired by having pals. All throughout the movie he references his gang as pals. He is crazy, but he leads them based on the premise of being pals. Having people that will ride with you no matter what the circumstance, having someone to watch your back, having someone that won't leave you when you are wounded; that is what Billy's pals did for him. I have a couple of pals and I thank God for them! By the way, this morning when I clicked on my I-tunes, the first song that played was Blazing Glory by Bon Jovi from Young Guns II...great song!

Selfish Part One

I've been writing a series for our students on selfishness. I don't know if it has connected with any of them or with any of the student leaders, but it has been rock'n my world little country girl. We are all selfish and that is pretty easy to admit, but what does selfishness lead to? For Adam and Eve, their selfish decision led to them feeling shame and then hiding from God. For Samson, it led to him losing everything, including his life. For King David, his selfish act with Bathsheba, led to murder and all sorts of chaos with his kingdom. For Peter, it led him to deny he knew Jesus. For Judas, it led to him betraying Jesus. For Rob (sometimes Rob speaks in third person), it leads to over-eating, fussing at people, laziness, continual thoughts about what is best for Rob, not living in the moment, missing out on conversations with the person I am talking to because I see another conversation that I would rather be a part of. The list goes on and on. The point is that we are all selfish, and we can continue to be, but it comes at a cost.

Nightmares

So my wife Monica and I have had the same nightmare two weeks in a row. Last week she dreamed that there was someone in our bedroom and she freaked out! It woke me up and I started wrestling my pillow thinking it was someone in our room. Then this week I have the same dream. I see a guy in our room and I reach out to grab him and start beating the bar-jesus out of him. Once again it was my pillow, but I woke up with my adrenaline pumping. My wife is now convinced that there is someone living in our attic. Scary stuff. I will keep you posted if this continues on...

Blogging

OK...so I have resisted blogging because it is all the rave with pastors and for some reason I try to resist fads. For example, I never wore a Live Strong bracelet and I have never grown a goatee (a few years ago you couldn't be a youth pastor unless you had a goatee. I couldn't grow one because I lack facial hair, but even if I could I would not have because it was a fad.) The point is that I now have started a blog. The reason is that I want to connect with other church leaders, pastors, students and anyone else who is interested. Now here is the issue...because I waited so long I am now one of those people who jump on bandwagons after they have been popular for a while. It is like the cheesy guy who still says "Whoomp There It Is" or the girl who still wears stirrup pants. You get the point. None the less, I am now a part of the world of Blogging.