Heading HOME from Home!!!!

Two weeks later, and we are now less than 20 hrs from getting in the car again and heading back to Wilmington. It had been nearly 10 months since I had been back to what I've always called HOME, and I've learn a ton in my two weeks back. When we moved, we left because the only thing holding us here was comfort. Now, a year after making the decision to move, we realize the only thing we have here is Family. We do miss the area, the landscape, family and friends, but our calling is so much greater and we are so ready to get back. As I've said to some people here, this is what I called home for 22 years, and now I feel like I've been completely disconnected from our world for 2 weeks and I'm HOME! Does that mean home for me has changed...I don't know, but our world is definitely not in Arkansas any more...our family is, but what God has for us is in the Carolina's. We have fallen in love with the people, the church and the area, and now we are just waiting to see what it is that God is calling us to do! We followed faithfully in the move, we've grown, learned, and been ministered in ways we would have never gotten here in Arkansas. So, as we head back tomorrow morning, we look forward to it in ways we never realized. Driving back I remember having the thought of "what if we don't want to go back?" But that is not even part of my thinking right now. My heart has been shifted in ways I didn't realize and I'm so absolutely pumped to get back and lead people to Christ through all that I am and do! God has been preparing us for something great in the most wild roller coaster I've ever been on. We are looking for our place in ministry, we are trying to get out of debt, we are looking to lead people around us in a whole new way, and we are working on our relationships with God and each other so that there is nothing to get in the way of God and His hand on our lives. I was told once, Just follow God and PRAY that you don't get in His way! I'm afraid that getting in His way may be pretty painful, so I'm trying to follow Him and looking forward to having NO CLUE in where that may lead us! God has done unbelievable things in our lives through the last year, and now looking back on our 2 week visit back Home, we are leaving for HOME with a new passion and perspective, NOT TO MENTION ANTICIPATION!!!

Life's a Trip...

So, after having just completed one of the longest road trips I've ever taken, Sara and I are finally back in Arkansas. I'll tell you one thing, it was an odd feeling driving back into an area that I actually recognized. I was full of emotion but I truly couldn't tell you what that emotion was...excited, anticipation, fear...you name it, I felt the full range and I couldn't explain why. I felt like I was so delusional from just having been up for nearly 30 hrs with about 4 hours of uncomfortable sleep that I didn't understand the feelings. Now that I'm sitting at "home" with my parents, I think about the realization I had on the way here. I realized that I had become the one in the family that was going to be traveling home for the holidays...never thought that would be me...didn't even see myself living outside of Arkansas, much less half way across the Country! I will tell you, seeing that first Arkansas license plate and HOG sticker on someones truck brought back my Arkansan PRIDE instantly!!!

I look at all that God has taken us through in the last year and can't help but wonder what is going to happen this next year. At this point a year ago, we were planning on moving back in with my parents on our way out to Wilmington, NC...and now we will head back in 2010 knowing that there are some huge possibilities ahead of us in the near future(More on this as details come). I'm pumped to see what God has in store, but I'm truly looking forward to seeing all of our family in the next two weeks and getting a chance to reconnect and relax. God is doing a work in my heart, and I just don't want to get in the way of what He has planned. As many of us have the chance to take some time off, I would encourage you to not only to focus on family, but sit down and focus on what it is that God wants from you, make sure you are healthy during this break. Relax, recharge, and seek God. I'm looking for God to really speak and reveal things to me over this break, and I hope that I can challenge you to do the same. God has something great in store for you no matter what position you are in currently, just look to Him and He will blow any expectations you have out of the water! Everyone have an amazing Christmas and ASK God to speak to you! SEEK HIM!!!

Just Be Jesus!!!

I was thinking this morning about a comment that was made to me right after Sara and I moved out here that will forever change my life. My heart breaks for people in a way I didn't know it could. We were challenged to truly love those that we serve, even in our everyday working lives. This lead me on one of my strange yet interesting thought processes that ultimately led me to thinking about growing up in the Baptist Church. I love the church I grew up in, love the people, love the leadership that was over me, and love the ministry they have...but the one thing I truly hated was door to door ministry! I didn't understand it then, and maybe that is because I was scared half to death to do it...but anyone who know me well will tell you that I am extremely analytical and look for the practical and logical reasons for doing something...and I never agreed with it! I remember going on mission trips and dreading the time where I would have to go door to door and "Witness" to people. My mind thought like this...if someone like me walked up to the door of someone like my dad, this is how it would go: Knock Knock Knock.......door opens and huge 6'4" man meets me at the door...me-6'0" and 140 pounds soaking wet. I'm freaked out, say something along the lines of do you go to church or are you a Christian, my dad would look at me, say something close to you don't need to go to church and I'm not interested and the door would shut. Now, note that my dad is not a mean, hard man, but he is like me, logical and real, and what he knows is that the Christians that he has dealt in his past are not the type of people that he wants to be.
So, after thinking this morning about what I was told and what I was "trained" to do in the Baptist Church, I came to the conclusion that the only way to truly reach people is to love them and JUST BE JESUS!!! This begs me to ask the question, how do you make friends? Do you just walk up to some strangers door and ask them to be your friend or be friends with someone else they don't see with you? NO, you get to know them, let them learn to trust you, and live life together helping each other through the hard times. This to me is the way that we should do it...now, not to say that some door to door evangelism doesn't work, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that know Christ because of some bold kids, but you know as well as I do that when someone knocks on your door, your first reaction isn't...AWESOME, someones at the door! I've learned to love those around me, build relationships, and let Jesus reach them through that, I just need to be Jesus to them!!! Jesus went into the homes of those he knew or he had met through daily living, NOT just knocking on a door and asking them to be his friend and welcome him in for the night....I challenge you to search the scriptures, look at the life of Christ and see what it is that He is calling you to do and how, and JUST BE JESUS

We're Opening the Small Boxes

Today, Sara and I visited Barefoot Church down in North Myrtle Beach, SC. We had an incredible time hanging out with several staff and volunteers and joining them in worship. Pastor Clay presented a message that was extremely challenging and not to mention appropriate for us as we are going through this season in our lives. The message challenged everyone to open the small things so that we can get to the larger gifts. Just as with a child and Christmas, it doesn't really matter what is in the box, it usually matter to them for who gets the biggest gift. As Christians, he challenged us to look to God in faith and be looking for the smaller gifts to open so that we can get to the bigger ones. I realized that we are in that season right now in our lives. We have tried to take the gift from God as they come and figure out what it is that God has us to do, but there are several things that have the opportunity to hold us back. We have to completely focus on God, Listen closely to what He is telling us to do, and...as Pastor Clay put it, GET OUT OF THE LAZY-BOY!!! You can't follow God sitting on your tail, God has called us to minister to others, and that's hard when the only thing we are focused on is ourselves!

To fill you in, the last couple weeks have been a sort of cleansing process by God...getting rid of the junk in our lives that may cause us to stumble and He is setting us up for something BIG! Barefoot Church is an amazing church with an incredible heart for the people of North Myrtle Beach. God has a plan and I look forward to seeing what that is, but for now, I'm going to focus on the small gifts that God has given me and never lose sight of God! We so look forward to continuing to build the relationship we have started with Barefoot Church!!!

DEBT BEAT DOWN!!!

When I graduated from school, I knew that I had a ton of debt that was going to be dropped on us within 6 months and I wasn't to happy about it then. Being nearly a year and a half since I finished school, it has been the biggest hit to our finances since. We have a few other debt items that are holding us back from really being able to live the way we feel like God has called us to. Sara got out of school with no debt, we have a small credit debt from making it through the past couple of months during our move, and a few medical bills, and we will have a car payment coming here in the next two months from an extremely generous gift that was given to Sara by her parents. I'm going to be extremely transparent so that others can hold us accountable to this and also see that no matter what hole you are in, you can make it out. We are currently in a position that we have right now just over $33,500 in debt(and remember, that's about 70% school loans) and those are split into 7 different bills. With the budget that we have set up, we will be able to pay off with just our income 3 and possibly 4 of those bills in the next year. Getting the snowball rolling as Joe Sangl says! The other bills that we have will be payed off through time, the last being obviously my school loans. Financially, God has finally blessed us with the stable income to make the decisions to we have to get out of this debt we have. I am also planning on selling my car, getting something cheaper, using that money to put down on the debt, and then also putting nearly every bit of our next income tax return on the debt outside of creating an emergency account. So, be praying for us, because I'm sick of this debt that feels like a weight on our shoulders and I want to get rid of it ASAP!!!

Life Change All Up In My Face

Life change happens right in front of us all the time and most of the time we don't slow down long enough to either one-let God use us or two-take hold of opportunities God is hitting us in the forehead with. I've had a couple instances that have happened over the past month that may be an encouragement to anyone who may read this.

I was sharing with our Sunday morning, 5AM bible study guys a couple of weeks ago out a situation with my car. Basically, my car got towed for no reason and I fought for about 5 hours on the Saturday before I shared with them to get it back without paying. Without going into all of the details on that situation I will go into detail on the conversation I had with my neighbor who had a friend staying with her whom also had her car towed(Her's was a legit tow, mine on the other hand...I did get it without paying if your wondering!) While we sat in the lobby of our apartment complex waiting for things to unfold, the conversation started out with them dropping just about every four letter word you can think of out of frustration. I'm going to give you a break down of how the conversation went so if you don't follow it, read it again and I think it will make since.

So, it started out talking about how we felt about the complex, what I paid for our 2 bedroom, were we lived previously, how much more expensive and smaller that it was, if Sara was my wife living with me, then how we had ended up in Wilmington, what I do for work, the fact that she used to work for the lady that replaced, how she hated it, what I used to do for work, that I'm a youth pastor, if I work at a church now and what church we go to now, how she feels like she needs to get back to going to church and wants to be connected in a small group, the fact that me and Sara lead the Life Groups at Lifepoint....inviting her to come back to church and check out Lifepoint.

Now that I'm done with that, I hope you followed the progress of conversation. The biggest point that I want to make is that in all of the frustration and just staight up being pissed off that my car had been towed and they were wanting me to pay $100 to get it back, I made a point at the beginning of the day to ask God to use this situation rather than focusing on the situation. All said and done, I was pumped to know in my own heart that I had done what God wanted me to. I was fulfilled in know that, without knowing that she may come to church some week, which by the way she did a couple weeks later with another friend of hers...and she said she loved it! As I sit in the same spot I did that morning and remember the feeling of frustration but realization that its not about me or my situation but that God has a plan in all things makes me realize how important it is to slow down and look for God in all that we do. So, when I wake up, when I go to work, when I look at my wife, everything...my focus has to be on what God wants from me!