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!

It's been a while!

I've been thinking a lot lately and realized how much blogging helped me get out my ideas/feelings. Thought that I would start a new blog for myself, but then again, I don't want to deal with starting a new one. Our lives have been completely thrown everywhere in the last year. Everything from moving to Wilmington after a modern day computerized dart throw at a map, to having the responsibility of a Life Group ministry put under us, to meeting new friends that have changed our lives forever. Being homesick has reached a whole notha level. When I realized that I will not have seen any family in over 10 months by the time we get home for Christmas blew my mind. Before our move, I hadn't went more than a month without seeing family. Being a holiday has made it even harder. Standing outside of the King's house outside of Raleigh, looking over the Lake behind their house, I realized how much I missed Arkansas, Family, and friends back home...but then I realized how absolutely blessed we are to be in the position we are. Having as many people invite us over to join their families for Thanksgiving as we did has blown my mind. God has placed us in a position that has truly challenged both of us, but for me, the friends I have made challenge me daily to focus on my relationship with God, with Sara, and doing everything I can to be a leader and example of Christ to anyone. I've been challenged to truly reevaluate what it means to live in a constant relationship with Christ and what it means to live ministry, not be in a ministry. The feelings I have felt over the last couple months has been one of humble growth and confused direction. God has called us to this area for a reason, but beyond this, I have no clue. It may be the typical thing to say, but I've grown more in the past 10 months than I've ever grown. My life has been thrown upside down, our relationship is stronger than ever, and I can see how God is setting us up for something huge!!! Hold me accountable, whomever reads this, blogging helps me get things out, and I look forward to sharing the ideas that I feel God is placing on my heart so that I can possibly use this to help anyone that may read this. Love you all and look forward to getting back into a good habit of expressing myself. If I can help you in any way, let me know!

PS...Starting on a plan of getting out of Debt and will be giving updates periodically, but pray for Sara and I to stick to it and kick this Debt we have in the Teeth!!!!

If you attend Lifepoint, you NEED to read this!

So, I don’t quite know how to go about telling this but here goes. We were absolutely blown away last night in our Life Group. Our group is comprised mostly of younger couples from what we had gathered from talking with everyone, but we also knew there was a couple that we didn’t know much about, that was new to Lifepoint, and that was looking to get plugged into a couples group...by the way, we also knew that she had an accent from talking with her on the phone. NOW, bringing you to tonight. We only had 4 people show up, but we had a dating couple that attends UNCW who we haven’t met before come, and then our foreign friend and her Personal Assistant. Now, when I say Personal Assistant, I mean a individual that is helping her get acclimated to the U.S. (getting a bank account set up, drivers license, all the stuff we see as normal and a pain)!!! Through talking with them, we found out that she has only been in the U.S. since Thursday, September 10^th as I recall (three weeks!). On Friday, she received a door hanger from Lifepoint saying something about a Church. Now, on to the amazing back story! She and her son moved here from Germany, but her son has been here since school started back in August by himself...HE’S 14! She received a lottery Green Card for her family from the U.S. last year, and their family has decided to take the chance of giving up everything in Germany to see if God is calling them to the U.S. Her son told her in moving here that they needed to find a church...HE’S 14...and Lifepoint is there with an invite, God is at work here! Her husband is still in Germany, and pending finding jobs and such here in Wilmington, he will be visiting for 4 weeks in December and possibly giving up his job, land, etc. in Germany to make Wilmington, NC, U.S.A. their home! God is amazing in that we were planting Midtown the week they moved here, a week earlier and they would have never gotten the door hanger! Instead of figuring out the Midtown thing, they went online, Googled Lifepoint and visited our Ashley Campus that Sunday, 3 days after moving here. Now in talking with her tonight, she and her family are all Christians, and know that God has put them and Lifepoint here for a reason. They have attended every weekend since, and she said that this past weekend’s message on life choices made it clear that she was following God and he is in control. Her son has even attended the Ignite service and loves it! God is doing amazing things here in this city and I can’t wait to see what’s next! Now, if that doesn’t pump you up about what God is doing through Lifepoint Ashley, and now Lifepoint Midtown, I think we may need to hook you up to some jumper cables!