Prayer

Last night, a good friend of ours had an accident and fell off the roof of his house. By God's grace he had his cell phone on him so that he could call for an ambulance. They did surgery last night, and the doc. gave us all some good reports from it. He has multiple fractures and a piece of bone fragment that was pushing against his spinal cord, however they were able to push that piece of bone away from the cord and stabilize the fractures with about eight pins. Please pray with us as we seek God and ask for him to have a full recovery.

Overflow "a church for the thirsty"

I met with a local church planter today for breakfast. There is a group of people planting only a few miles from where we are living. It was great to hear about his dreams and vision for the future of the church and how Overflow would be and is now being a voice in the community. First of all, he has his office space in the local MALL!! How awesome is that? Talk about consumer Christianity at its finest (lol), I'm joking! But what a great way to meet people in the community. He has this place set up like a lounge area with some high-top tables and chairs, so you can sit down and relax while using the free wireless access and sip your free cup of coffee, or maybe take a lounge and catch the last news on the big screen TV. I mean, come on, who wouldn't want to take five from a long day of shopping.
The cool thing is that the mall staff have been nothing but supportive of this entire thing. There is what's called a community center in the mall that the church is able to use to hold there bible studies and what not. There is a huge stage in center of the hall that is at there disposal to use. God has been showing them is favor time and time again. I guess that when its a God thing you don't necessarily have to force your way into things, God will simple open doors and close doors.
They are possibly looking to have their first "official" service in May (i think)or maybe it was March, (one of those months) of next year and they are more than likely going to be meeting in the Movie Theater down the road from the mall.
These are exciting times for Overflow and I was just glad to be able to meet Brian through another personal meeting that I was having the morning before. When I had mentioned one of my passions was church planting he told me about Overflow. I'm excited for these guys and what they are focused on being and doing for the Lord. They have been having bible studies now for the past 2 months and already needing to have a baptismal service in Dec. for 8 people!!!! Now that's what its all about, right there. Check them out HERE at there blogsite for now.

1st Facilitator's Meeting

Last night we had our first vine group for our facilitators who have been going through training for the past month and last night was the first of 8 that we will be doing up until mid December. Our goal is to model what a small group should look like over the next 7 weeks. We will share life together and come to know what it means to have relationships of trust and environments of grace to grown in as we seek God together learning to live the life God intended for us to live.
I'm really excited about this ministry. It's a place where people can build one another up in love and reach out to those who have yet to experience the love of Christ in their own lives. The two main purposes of the vine group is edification and evangelism, all the while keeping Jesus as the center of our group.
In my research for doing this training I came across an article by Outreach Magazine that stated the following, which I thought was very interesting,"According to surveys conducted by Lentz through Smallgroups.com, there is a 10% chance that a church visitor will become a member, but if the visitor is invited to a small group, the likelihood of his becoming a church member increases to 50%. These percentages show that new members need to connect with the church community or they won't stay."
That statistic alone is enough or should be enough to get through to some people/churches out there that people need to feel the sense of connectedness or the sense of authentic community for them to be part of the church body and to be functioning or the better word here would be "living" the life God has called them to live.

Drama Blunder, my bad

I wrote a post about a week or so ago about a Murder Mystery Dinner that our student ministries will be putting on to help raise money for outreach and different stuff, because we are a small church with really no youth budget at all, we have to raise all our money.
So we had our first meeting Sunday night were we got all the students together and who ever else wanted to help with putting on the interactive play. We had a great turn out and so I shared with them some things about the play and gave them several hand outs and then we determined who was doing what part in the play.
Now, I never acted this play before (it was actually the former youth guy, who is still attending our church and helping out that put this all together about 2 years ago), and so he gave me all the files and documents from the last time they did the play. In doing so he gave me a document of mob words that would help the people get into their mob/gangster part. Now my first mistake was not reading over all the material that he gave me, I mean, come on, they put the play on before and besides I know this guy they are great people, (but even great people make honest mistakes) and so you probably guessed it by now, we some how left a cuss word in one of the mob word sheets and one of the parents (who obviously prof-read) the material found it.
So needless to say I found a voice mail on my cell phone this morning reminding me that it's probably not a good idea to be giving our youth cuss words to read!! Yikes!!! Well, all I can say is sorry, and if this is the worst thing that happens during this play or for the rest of the year, then it's not that bad. I'm sure they have heard worse on movies and the media these days. I guess its just kind of funny coming from the youth pastor who has only been around now for about 3 months...I guess there's a chance I might be known as the cussing youth pastor in the community, wonder what kind of buzz that might create in the youth culture.

South Bend, IN.

Tonight we went down to South Bend, IN., which is not that far of a drive for us, only about 30 min. We went to the mall, so Casey could do a little shopping for her birthday. The mall was pretty busy for a Saturday night, and there was some traffic on the way home because of the Notre Dame game against USC was in town tonight (they'll probably loses). Anyway, that was our night, nothing major, just some random thoughts...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

A tribute to my lovely wife on her 24th birthday!! We were just reminiscing today about when we first met at College, I was 24. Casey and I are 5 years apart and so we were just laughing and remembering our first few days and weeks together as we dated. We were talking about how much we've both been through in the past 5 years...College, Marriage, Olivia, we moved several times and once out of state...those are some major things to have happen in a short amount of time. God has been so gracious to us and we have been blessed to have our health and wonderful times, along with the hard times, through these last 5 years. I said to Casey over lunch today, "I wonder what the next 5 years hold for us?" I guess only God knows, but whatever comes our way, we will face it together as a family and celebrate one another each and every day. Hopelessly in love with my beautiful wife always and forever. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CASE!!!

Daddy's Little Butterfly

While we were in PA, we couldn't resist doing a little shopping at the local outlet mall and of course we couldn't pass up getting Olivia her first Halloween costume. I know, Halloween is of the devil and who in their right mind would let their little one dress up and take part of such an evil holiday...give me a break.
I know I am being a little sarcastic here, but what do you think? Is Halloween something Christians should or should not participate in? Vote at the bottom of this page with your answer.

Going Home

Today we will be making the journey back to Michigan from Pennsylvania. I feel like I have been gone for ever, and where did the month go? I can't believe that the month is half over already. We had great times visiting family despite the circumstances, though Mae lived a wonderful life in the Lord, we had a great time of celebration of it and a great service in her honor.
She's at home with her Lord and Savior rejoicing in the life of Eternal Bliss...how wonderful it must be. We rejoice and give thanks to God for the hope that we have in him who is able to save us from this life of death.

On the road again

Hitting the road in the morning back to PA. My wife's great-grandmother went to be with the Lord this morning. She struggled for some time now with dementia and as of the last few weeks of her life battled cancer. She is at peace now. And so the funeral is in PA, and so we will do some visiting with my family while we are there. Not looking forward to the long boring drive (7 hrs).

Proud Father

I was visiting in a nursing home the other day and we were taking a break in the lounge area and we started talking with two ladies sitting there about Olivia (our 6 mth. old). The one lady looks at me and says, "I bet your so proud of her" and my automatic response was, "Oh, Ya, absolutely!! Thrilled!" and then my after thoughts were like, "I am???" somewhat puzzled, not that I'm not proud of my daughter or anything its just that I guess I never had thought of it that way. I mean I love her to death and think she's the best thing in the world, but never really gave it much thought that I'm really proud, proud to be her parent, proud that she is mine and came from us, proud in ways I never really thought of.
This all made me really think how proud our heavenly Father is of us. I mean, think about it for a second. And if you have kids or did and they are grown now you can really relate. As Olivia's father and her being only 6 months old, there is not a whole lot of "THINGS" that she does to be proud of, and guess what, THATS THE POINT!! She doesn't have to do anything to make me proud or to gain my approval, I love her no matter what!!! Why, because she's my daughter, she's born of our flesh, she is made like us (of course she is a spitting image of her dad), she is part of our family and has been since she was born, actually even before she was born. While Casey carried her, we talked with her, sang to her, and told her stories, we anticipated sharing life together even before she was born! I can't help but think how God, through, the Holy Spirit, "draws" people and "calls" people into a relationship with him by simply speaking the words into existence. The bible talks about how He foreknew us and called us from eternity passed!! How cool is that.
So, the point isn't how much we "DO" in God's name or for Him, (its not like He needs it, His GOD!!) He just wants our heart. There is nothing that brings me more joy than to have my little girl only being 6 mths old begin to reach her little arms in the air when she see's me, as if she's saying "I LOVE YOU, DADDY", and I pick her up into my arms and just love on her and kiss her and hug her. WHY? Because I am so proud to be her Father. Think about it.

New Seasons

Summer is slowly turning to Fall here in the Michiania (SW Michigan & Northern IN.) and so the leaves are changing colors, there is a slight new breeze in the air, the business of summer is slowly coming to a close. All these things together make it very obvious that there is a new season on the horizon.
This is exactly how I feel in my spirit. A new and exciting season is approaching and I can tell already I'm going to be in for a great ride. There is a fresh optimism in the air of my life, a new hunger, a new look/perspective, a new freshness, that hasn't been there quiet like this before. I can't exactly put my finger on it just yet, but one thing I am for sure, is that there is going to be times of change, for myself and those around me. It may not be in the immediate future, because seasons don't change over night, but in time things begin to die off and new things begin to bloom.
It sure feels good, the growth, though painful at times, I know that I am being drawn closer to the heart of God like never before and I'm just "waiting" and "listening" to hear his still, small voice.

MYSTERY DINNER

CrossXroads Student Ministries Presents...
Mystery Theatre Dinner
It's Final, we are taking the plunge and we have only four weeks to pull it off. The youth are excited about it and I think its a great way for us to raise some funds for the youth. The great thing is that a good friend of mine who helped to create this theme and dinner has done it once before 2 years ago. His name is Russ. Russ and I just spent the majority of the day brainstorming some promotional ideas and so we are totally pumped!
Last time they did the Dinner they didn't promote it like they really wanted to and therefore only had members from the church come. This time we are working with the local Christian book store and a local catering company to help promote it and get some donations in the process. We are also going to be talking with our local radio stations to see if we can get some free advertisements during the next couple of weeks. We will also be networking with a some local churches in the area to have them come out to it also.
The dinner consists of 6 courses (gourmet of course), we are talking about an Italian Mob style mystery and so the food will be awesome and the play is really interactive with the dinner guests. In the end someone gets murdered and then the guests try to guess who it was. We are also thinking about taking pictures of our dinner guests as they arrive and then photo-shopping their photo to a mystery theatre background and giving them the picture before they leave.
We are totally excited and have a ton of work to do!! If you are close enough to the area and would like to have a fun date night with your significant other, tickets are available from the church and can be reached at #269-925-3887. Also in the next couple of day you will be able to purchase your tickets online at SHC.

FACTS

The FACT is,,is that Jesus is the cure all answer to all life's problems. I was just reading today out of I Cor. 1-3 and Paul was talking about all the "wise" men of his day and how there were people like this all over the streets telling people that they had the answers to all life's problems. That is why Paul continually says in these first few chapters that he did not come with man's wisdom, or with wise and persuasive words, but with God's power, Holy Spirit power and anointing. The fact is we can try to fix things all our lives and put band-aids on all our hurts, but that fact is we will never experience true healing, true peace, true and fulfilled lives, until we understand that Christ is our ultimate remedy for all things in this life and the next.