What Tomorrow Holds?

I know it's Tuesday and I haven't blogged in a few days. I'll make this brief because, well I am really busy. Sunday was great and now we prepare for another weekend. My thoughts this morning are in another place though. I have a dear friend. I don't get to talk too him much but there is an awesome connection and He does a great job for the Lord in ministry. I look up to this friend and He probably does not know how much I admire him and his work. When I get to see him and his wife it is like a breath of fresh air and it is always encouraging. This morning I heard the news that his wife has cancer and that it is a very aggressive form and has already spread to numerous places. My heart is very sad and my prayers are going up for him and his wife even now as I write this. I write this not to make everyone feel depressed but to keep the important things the important things. Our God and our families and friends are what is important. Tell God today you love Him, tell your spouse, mother, father, sister, brother, friend, tell all those you love, that you love them because we never really know what tomorrow holds. I know God will be with my friend and his wife through the coming days. So I pray for healing and I pray for peace for my friends and for all of my family and friends, "I love you!"

Are You Self Addicted?

Last night was our home-team meeting with the college/young adult group at C3. Andrea and I have the privilege of leading our college/young adult ministry here at C3. Last night was awesome. We had great discussion and I think that God touched our lives last night in a special way. Our discussion last night focused on getting ourselves out of the way and caring more for others.

One of the questions last night was, "are you self addicted"? Think about that. I think that to an extent we all are self addicted to one degree or the other. We care about our time, our money, our things, our family, and dare I say, "our" church. The scary thing is that none of it belongs to us. NONE of it. Our time, money, things, family, church, it all belongs to God. We do not even own ourselves. We are God's as well. We did not make ourselves and we can not save ourselves. We are God's creation. So then why are we so self absorbed? I think that once we get our lives in the correct perspective, God's perspective, we live the life that God intended us to live. We are here to do God's work and to serve Him. That means loving others. Without loving others you can not love God or accomplish all that He wants us to. In order to do that we must get our eyes off of ourselves. We need to break the addiction. The addiction to self.

Through The Calm And Through The Storm

It is about 8:35pm here at C3. We just ended rehearsal and I walked outside with some friends to see the storm clouds approaching. It just got me thinking here in the last few minutes. The clouds look ominous and pretty scary on the horizon. Sometimes that is like our lives. We look out over the horizon and all we can see are dark clouds and a storm. But as I looked at the scene and it was right at sunset, it was also beautiful. I was also thinking of the song that we sang tonight in rehearsal and that we will sing on Sunday. This song is truly one of my new favorites. I have even commented on it in a blog before. The song is "You Never Let Go". The words of the chorus are:

O no You never let go through the CALM & through the STORM. O no You never let go every high and every low. O no You never let go, Lord You never let go of me.

The beautiful part of the storm is that God never lets go. He is the same God that holds us in the calm and through the storm. He never changes, He loves us the same in the calm and in the storm. He is in control in the calm and in the storm. He knows our future in the calm and in the storm. We don't have to worry when we see the storm on the horizon or if we are in the middle of the storm or even if we are in the calm. Because God never lets go. What a great thing to think about on this stormy evening. With God even a storm can be beautiful.

Miscellaneous Ramblings

Good Monday morning. It is the start of another week with many things to accomplish. This is also the time I look back and kind of evaluate what has taken place. Last week was busy and I don't know how many times I said that I was tired. Coming off of a youth camp that we did in Texas and getting back into a normal flow was difficult. That is why I am so glad that God is able to move in spite of our shortcomings. This weekend at church was great even though I felt inadequate in worship. Sometimes you just have those kind of Sundays where you feel you are not hitting on all cylinders but God shows up and we have a great service. This Sunday was one of those days. It is incredible how He (God) brings everything together.

Pastor Barry did a fantastic job preaching on the Sabbath. What a great message in our rest series. Youth was great last night and Travis did a great job speaking to the youth about reaching out to their unsaved and unchurched friends.

And finally from my rambling mind this morning I am thankful that my friends and I have started blogging. I have always had an inclination to write so this is up my alley. I believe that blogging lets people see a little into ourselves. Sometimes we are angry, sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes wrong, sometimes right but you know what that means? We are human. So many times I don't think that pastors or ministers are allowed to be human. We are supposed to be supermen. I do think that God holds us to a standard of excellence but at the same time His grace covers us just like any other person. No one is perfect in this world and never will be but Jesus Christ. The leadership team here at C3 are just ordinary guys who God has called to reach the lost the best way that we can. I am thankful that God sees fit to use us even though we are only human. Human feelings and emotions and all. Blogging lets you see us as regular guys trying to do a work for the Lord. So pray for us as we lead C3. God is doing some amazing things as we continue to see an incredible movement of the Holy Spirit as the Lord is saving people every week. Life change is what it is all about as we continue to be "blogging" Christ Followers at C3.

That's all for my miscellaneous ramblings.

iPhone

Well, while I was in Texas I lost my cell phone. For those of you who do not know I am a gadget kind of guy. I really wanted an iPhone when they first came out a few weeks ago but had resigned to wait until Christmas time to get one. Well then I lost my motorola razor in Texas last week. Now some of you might think that I lost my phone on purpose but I assure you that is not the case. I was happy with my razor for a little while longer. You know what happened next. Yesterday I bought an iPhone. This phone is absolutely incredible it does not even come with a manual. I can not remember how many pages my moto razor manual had in it, but it was a lot. It is so intuitive and easy to use Apple does not give you a manual they just tell you to play with it. Now that is confidence in your product. The leap in technology is awesome and I am already a fan. I would definitely recommend the iPhone to anyone who is in the market for a new phone. It's hard to believe that the coolest phone on the market just a few years ago is now a dinosaur.

Blogging World, I'm Back

It has been ages since I blogged. I have been without my laptop (which I'm picking up today) and have been away at Youth Camp so I have not sit down to a computer for almost two weeks. There is so much to say but I will keep my comments brief. Let me say first of all, Sunday July 8th was a phenomenal service. The spirit of God was so strong in worship service that morning. To hear everyone sing "You Never Let Go" so loudly was just incredible. I even got emotional at the end of the service. I never got a chance to blog about that experience and it was just incredible and was a great launching point for my trip to Youth Camp in TX.

Youth Camp was unbelievable. I believe we had five kids from C3 saved and the blessings of God were all over the trip. The families that we helped with the rebuilding of hurricane damaged homes were so grateful and a blessing to us. The family of the project that I was working on was such a great family. The family consisted of a 76 year old great grandmother and her daughter and three great grandchildren. We were able to hang the dry-wall on her ceiling and bless them with other things that they needed. Thank you Nehemiah's Vision for hooking us up with an awesome family.

We ended the week in Dallas at Fellowship Church. The service was inspirational and great as usual. We heard a great message from Ed Young about being under the umbrella of authority. It was a Biblical perspective of how we are to respond to authority that God has placed over us. The message was great and the worship was awesome. I got a chance to talk briefly with Pace Hatfield, Fellowship's Worship Pastor and our friend Yancy McGregor a Worship leader while we were there. It is always great to catch up with friends.

And lastly a big thank you to all the counselors and to Travis who did a phenomenal job at Camp. Another thank you goes out to the band, Riverdale for leading us in incredible worship all week. And to the kids, what a blessing to us all. Y'all stepped up and worked your behinds off to be a blessing to others. You exemplified C3 Church well. I love you all.

And finally it's great to be back home and return to the blogosphere.

The Main Thing

Today is a busy day. Because of the 4th of July this is the last day of the week that I am scheduled to be in the office. I have a band rehearsal tonight and it will be a full rehearsal because this Sunday will be the most unique service we've done in worship. I am leaving (driving) for Youth Camp (TX) right after the Sunday morning service. And to top it all off we are having family over at our house tomorrow. So it is going to be a busy day and night. But, even in the busyness of this day it is important to keep the main thing the main thing. I am excited because I have a lunch appointment with a man that I know is totally lost. He has no relationship with God. He is an older gentleman that is Jewish in his decent, grew up in New York City and is probably the one man that I would say is impossible for God to reach. Now I know that nothing is impossible for God. That is precisely why I am going to have lunch with my friend. For whatever reason God has laid him on my heart and for whatever reason this older gentleman really likes me. I think he views me as sort of a son to him. This gentleman was my boss in the late 90's when I was an assistant production manager at a children's book publisher. This could be the most important thing that I get to do today. I don't know if I'll get to share the gospel with him today but I hope I can plant some seeds. This man knows what I do for a living yet still wants to get together. I pray that God will use me in a special way in this man's life. It is not very often that a young man gets a chance to be an influence in another person's life that is almost double his age and not a family member. So as we all go through the busyness of the day let's not forget to keep the main thing, the main thing. Pray that God will lay a person on your heart and look for opportunities to sow seeds. Establish relationships and show the love of God to others that don't have a relationship to Christ. This is the main thing.

Preparation

All right Y'all. It's Monday morning and time for my usual take on Sunday. I will make it brief because there are other things on my mind this morning. Yesterday was just awesome. I am once again amazed at the spirit of worship at C3 on Sundays. The message on the authority of scripture was great too. An all around stellar Sunday. Thank you God for blessing!

Now to shift gears. Sometimes don't you wonder why our brains don't quite take the commands we give them. Last night was such a night for me. I was tired and wanted to go to bed but the old mind did not want to go to sleep. I think I finally got to sleep at 3am. Does that ever happen to you? I can totally relate to my friend Barry's blog. I was just worrying last night. I usually pride myself as one who doesn't worry much but I suppose that through the last year and a half God as really pointed out my pride and my weakness because I have been worried and stressed pretty much constantly. I say that and some people might freak out but the worry and stress don't incapacitate me but just hinder me from being my best. In fact we all know that stress can manifest itself physically and I am no different. My stress manifests itself physically through my skin and complexion. My skin has been very bad lately so much so that I think I am going to a dermatologist. But this is beside the point. The point is that worry, stress and fear can do bad things to us including physical manifestations and yes, a loss of sleep.

I was thinking last night of many things that have me worried and stressed and I could be all spiritual and say that I gave them all up to God and now I am free. That would be a lie. Honesty and transparency are good for accountability. I know that God is in control of all our circumstances so I can trust in Him. But just like Pastor Byron said yesterday having knowledge of God's word and applying God's word to our lives are two totally different things. I know I need work on the application part and God will help me work things out. God has moved many times before in my life and I know He will move again. I don't speak out of desperation but I speak from preparation. (I know that sounded a little "old school" preachy) I am prepared for God to move in any number of areas in my life and I am prepared to see the results of God's work. I guess it's the preparation portion of anything that is the least exciting or fun part of a plan. It's always the results and not the preparation that we love. So I say Lord help me endure the preparation.

Isn't it funny how God can break down all of our impressions of even who we think we are and our own assessments of our spiritual condition. Pride can be a horrible thing even in little areas that we think we have under control. It just proves that we need to constantly ask God to help us be more like Him and forgive our unbelief. Lord help me find the joy in the preparation and help me get a good night's rest.