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!

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!!!!