Great Days Ahead!

The last few weeks have been a blur!  Maundy Thursday, Easter, Children’s parties, Associational Senior Adult Activities, Leadership Retreat: they have all been a part of my last few weeks.  I have had times of encouragement, moments of reflection, joyful activities, and difficult decisions.  You know, it sounds a lot like life in general doesn’t it?  We all have ebb and flow, joy and sorrow, excitement and boredom.  The key is to not allow the events of our life to govern the attitudes of our life.  God is great even in the midst of my difficulties!  God is gracious on good days as well as bad.  Knowing that, I am excited about some of the new challenges that He has laid out in front of us.

April 27^th will be a banner day in the history of the church I pastor.  We will be moving our morning services to our new church property.  It is currently a wide open corn field, but we hope to very soon see facilities where we can reach out to our community.  We are being faithful to the decision made by the church quite some time ago to follow God’s leading to a new location.  We will have a great time of worship, prayer, vision casting, and commitment.  There will be an excitement in the air as we step out in faith to see how God is going to do this amazing work!

It is my hope that as we seek God’s vision, we will fulfill His call on our lives to “Help people connect with Christ, and grow deeper in their Faith”!  

Have any of you been through a process like this before?  Have you had a “special sunday” at a bare property?  Was there something about that service that was especially meaningful?  I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions as we plan for this awesome day! 

Early or Late?

Hey guys, just a question for you.  I know many of you are at churches that have multiple sunday morning services.  Do you typically have one service with more “energy” than the other/s?  If so, which one?  Is there any significant reason that they are different?  (type of music, ages, location, etc.)  I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Can someone please save America from “Idol”

Once again I have seen an episode of the slow death of television.  American Idol puts through good looking people that can’t sing while rejecting “plain” people with real pipes.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s pathetic.

Somebody PLEASE call the Doctor!

There has been a terrible plague going around our part of the planet…and I’m it’s latest victim.  From Tuesday noon until last evening, I didn’t even want to get out of bed.  (It’s not unusual for me not to want to get out of my recliner, but my bed…that’s a different story).  This particular plague starts with flu symptoms for a few days and then progresses into pneumonia!  So guess what?  Tomorrow I have my chest x-ray to confirm the latter.  Anyone else have any sick day horror stories?

Shout Out!

Just wanted to give a shout out to the EBC Student Group.  You Guys Rock!

Highs & Lows

I write this post from the cafeteria of Barnes Hospital in St. Louis.  I am on a trip with the students from our church to the “Dare 2 Share” conference.  While at the conference I have watched with amazement as our students have begun to catch a vision for sharing their faith with those around them.  This afternoon they are collecting canned goods for a local St. Louis food pantry as well as sharing their faith door to door.  This was the moment I had been waiting for!  The opportunity to see our students in action was gonna be great!  But God had a different plan for me.  One of the deacons of our church, John Raffety, has been battling brain cancer.  I really felt the need to come by the hospital this afternoon and see his family, (I tried to catch them this morning, but they were running errands).  God used the time I was there to not only minister to the family, but also to me.  As I sat there next to John, I was reminded that the same God he loves and serves is the God our students were out sharing with the greater St. Louis community.  The God that gives Kay and Doug and Matthew the strength to stand in difficult times is the same God that has the power to transform relationships, hearts, and lives.  On a cool February Saturday God once again revealed Himself to me, reminding me of His incredible mercy, grace, and love.  I don’t understand why things happen the way they do…but I trust Him enough to know He will walk through them with me.

Thanks for noticing!

Hi guys, many of you out there have noticed that I haven’t blogged in a few months.  Things have been busy, but that’s really not an excuse.  With the new look of the site comes new blogs.  The new launch will start over the weekend, thanks for checking in!

Awesome Day!

I had an awesome day yesterday. I got to spend it with the senior adults from my church while we went to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. I had such a great time! Not only did I get to spend the day getting to know some of the people from my congregation, I also got to spend time learning about one of our greatest presidents. His faith in the face of tragedy, (the loss of his sons), was a reminder to me of God’s grace. The situations we find ourselves in are not always cheerful and rosy, but God has promised to walk through those situations with us! Isn’t He good?

A Heckler’s Remorse

All right, all right, It’s been a little while since my last entry. This morning I received a reminder of that fact from someone whom I once heckled unmercifully when he went for a while between entries. The ribbing was well done and fully justifiable. So now that I have been in his shoes for a little while (newly pastoring a church) I can say that I understand what he was talking about when he said it was hard to find time to get to it! Oh well, hopefully the next few weeks will be better than the last few…lol. Anyway have a great day and I’ll be posting more soon!

Here We Go!

This marks my first official post while pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Carlinville.  I have been absent from the page for the last month or so while trying to get settled in but now it’s time to start things up again.  I’m going to do my best to update the blog at least every other day so check in often to see what’s going on!