The Battle Belongs To The Lord.

Then Jehoshaphat took a position before the assembled people of Judah and Jerusalem at The Temple of God in front of the new courtyard and said, "O God, God of our ancestors, are you not God in heaven above and ruler of all kingdoms below? You hold all power and might in your fist—no one stands a chance against you! And didn't you make the natives of this land leave as you brought your people Israel in, turning it over permanently to your people Israel, the descendants of Abraham your friend? They have lived here and built a holy house of worship to honor you, saying, 'When the worst happens—whether war or flood or disease or famine—and we take our place before this Temple (we know you are personally present in this place!) and pray out our pain and trouble, we know that you will listen and give victory.'
2 Chronicles 20:5-9 (The Message)

It is amazing how awesome our God is. Truly when we fight our battles on our knees in the privacy of our secret prayer places; God will give us the victory in the public places.

Whatever challenges that you may be facing give them to God, don't be the reactionary. You will be truly overwhelmed at what our God can do.

Got Milk?

We have come to yet another mile stone in journey of parenting. We have begun to give Solly milk. Yes the nectar from the cow, the stuff that is a lot cheaper than formula. It is hard to believe that in a few short weeks our little baby will be 1 year old. Man time is flying by, so that is why you better make the most of every moment.

Over the past few weeks Raymond has really hit a chord in my heart with the sermons on family and parenting. I pretty much had rearranged my entire priority list, but this has taken it to the next level. It is amazing what a child, your child will do to your life. I mean we all have the understood things like you no longer will sleep through the night without listening for that cry, or it now takes 3 times longer to get ready or go anywhere than it did before. These things are the basic stuff you expect. What you don't expect is the overwhelming responsibility that hits you when you look into those eyes and see how much this little life depends on you and when you look even deeper in those same eyes and are smacked with the magnitude of love that this little person has for you.

I really want to be the godly father that I should be for Solomon. What do I need to do? What do I need to say? How do I become less concerned with my needs and more with his? What can I sacrifice in my life, so that his will be better? How am I investing in Solomon's life emotionally, spiritually, and relationally?

Then two things hit me as I'm standing there with all the cold air rushing out of the door of the dairy case. One, all I have to do is go deeper in my relationship with my heavenly father, because as my relationship with Him deepens I will know the answers to my other questions. Then two, Wow! Who would have thought all that would come out of grabbing a gallon of milk out of the dairy case.

What's In It For Me?

A few weeks ago when I began this entire blog revelation, I asked a question. The question was one that I thought would be answered very quickly and by many. However only one response was given and the response was "you tell me." At the time I found that somewhat amusing, but several days ago I listened to a sermon on worship by Louie Giglio. It was a sermon that I had heard some time ago and filed it away as another good sermon that really hit home and would have been great for others to hear.

I received a phone call today that brought that sermon back to my mind. The conversation was one that stemmed off of what someone had heard about the our venues of worship. For those of you who are not aware of what a venue is or how many venues we had, it is very simple. A venue is a "style" of worship, we have a classic hymn venue and more modern venue. The reason is that not everyone likes the same style of music. As the conversation unfolded the person was asking if we were eliminating the classic venue and replacing it with the modern venue. It was a totally legitimate question and the person was telling me they were just curious.

It seems that someone heard we were going to use some of the band members at 8:30 and they assumed (deadly word by the way) the music would be changing. I of course assured this person that we are only trying to improve the service and it would continue in the same classic style venue. It was at this point where I made the statement that "we don't know how to worship." The guy is was talking with agreed and said he had made a similar comment to someone and got blasted!!!!

My response to that is how many of us leave the worship service and say "I didn't like that song" or "I like it better when she sings" or "The music was too loud" or "He needs to shorten his sermon" or "I just didn't get anything out of that today."
Hey I got a news flash THE WORSHIP SERVICE IS NOT ABOUT YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How many of us have ever stopped and said "God were you pleased with the worship?" or "God were you blessed by the hearts of your people?"

I really want to say to all those who are so afraid that "they are going to take our worship away" what are we worshiping the "style" or The "Savior". It's not OUR worship its HIS and no matter how many choruses of Amazing Grace we sing, no matter how we flow from How Great is our God into Heart of Worship, no matter how we cue the videos or lights or sound, no matter when we take up the offering, no matter how the invitation is done, if God is not blessed and pleased then we have missed it...

Going back to my original post of "What Is Worship?" maybe the reason there is no response is due to the fact we don't really know.

Small Group.. The Element Of Fellowship

It is Saturday night and I found myself having to return early from our small group outing. Let me just say that I LOVE OUR GROUP. I was a little bumed that I had to come home early (Solly was not going down quietly), so I left early from the bowling frenzy that was taking place. By the way the guys were sooooo stomping the girls. GO Squash!!!!!

Anyway, when I returned home Solly of course had gone to sleep and this left me with some time for Jeremy. So I began to think about the people in our small group and how we had begun to make connections with each other and it hit me. This is the Koinonia that is spoken of in scripture

And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers. Acts 2:42(ASV)

This is our group!!!! We pray togther, study scripture together, laugh together, cry together, Do A LOT of eating together and most of all we love together. It is the coolest thing to have a group of people that you know you can count on.



The video clip you just watched was not a clip from Napolean Dynamite, although if we looked within our group we may just find some characters. By the way thanks to Chris for the excellent footage. We are just out and about doing life together. Isn't that what we should do as believers, be there for each other?
I guess the thing that kills me is when I hear people say "small group is just not for them" or "they don't like small group."

WOW, you don't want people to be there for you and hold your arms up when you feel like you can't go on? You want to go through life without knowing people are lifting you up before the Lord and asking God's blessings on you and your family? You don't want to laugh and laugh hard when you share the crazy experiences that you have had and then realize others have done crazier? You don't want to have the blessing of riding down the road and getting a call from out of the blue from one of you small group family and hear them say "I just wanted to tell you I was praying for you and I appreaciate you."?

Well as for me GIVE ME SMALL GROUP!!!!!!!!

Cause You Gotta Have Friends.

Friendship has got to be one of the greatest things in the world. Here is my little man Solly (on the right) and his buddy Cody. I have a feeling that these two are gonna be handful when they get older.

Oh Be Careful Little Mouth What You Say!!!!!!!!

It was so interesting how the day unfolded after lunch. I returned to my office to check my voice mail and discovered a very irritated lady that had left a message. Upon returning her call she began to, well how do I say it UNLOAD!!!!!!!!!!!!! on me. She began to say things and call names of people that had done things to her, which by the way I had no idea who this lady was or any of the people she was talking about.
After about 5 minutes I was able to break into the one sided conversation and ask her what she was talking about. Long story short she had called the wrong church. I am so thankful that I was able to keep my cool. I was then able to help her with the steps she needed to take to fix the problem she was dealing with. I couldn't see her face, but if it was anywhere close to the color of mine when I am quick to speak and slow to think, then the color was definitely RED.