We’re at Spanish Landing in San Diego. The large group is being picked up at the airport. I’m anxious. I love being back and reconnecting with family. It’s like the year never happened. We are back. But we aren’t home. We are aliens here. And we have work to do.
Allons-Y!!
I have been silent for a month, but I have not been quiet. We are pretty much settled in, and we are putting roots down. I haven’t written much, but yet people have visited my site. I wonder – who is reading this? Why?
I ask because I haven’t had any comments, and I would love some feedback on what I post. I feel like I am crying out into the wind, and nothing comes back to me. I know, it’s not polite to beg…but I am begging. Please interact – I value your input.
In the six months since we’ve left Indy, we have been going full tilt trying to get settled in and get the house ready. We had family over for Thanksgiving, and it was a great time. We are getting to know more people at Lifepoint, and we are grateful that God is leading us to where He wants us.
Yesterday we got to hang out with Kari and Ramiro and their cute daughter Abby. We talked all evening and had a blast. We then got together for lunch today and had even more fun. Last weekend we got to hang out with Sam and Amy, and we had a great time with them too!! We are excited to see where these friendships lead.
We won’t lie – we miss our Indy family and friends. But we know that they are supporting us and that makes all the difference.
Today at LifePoint, Bob taught on the Forgotten Virtue of honor. Here is the link to his post : Sunday is a big day.
I would like to honor my best friend and my wife Nicole. She is by far my better 99.99%. I am a much better man because God blessed me with an amazingly wonderful woman. I cannot begin to fathom where I would be without her.
I would love to honor God. I will forever lack the words that will express what He means to me and to you and to the world, but I will try to say something. Without God, everything is meaningless. I live because He exists. I love because He has shown me how to love. I live for Him because He died for me. Thank you Lord for Your love.
I want to honor LifePoint church. Even though we have just started attending, we feel that God lead us there for a reason, and we are excited for Him to reveal His plans for us.
I want to honor Traders Point Christian Church. We miss you, but we know that there is a reason. We learned so much, and we see that God was preparing us for something big. The list of thank you’s would be too long, but I do have to thank Aaron for his leadership and submission to God. His vision casting has been so instrumental in keeping TPCC on course when the many transitions could have taken the church off course. I also want to thank the entire staff and all the elders for everything that they do.
I hope that we can rediscover honor – it truly is a forgotten virtue.
Who will you honor?
Nicole and I went to Iowa this weekend for the Fangman Family Reunion, and it was a good weekend. I didn’t golf again this year, although I think that next year I will. My plan is to get good enough to shoot 50-55 (I think par for the 9-hole course is 35), and with the handicap I have from the horrible outing I had a few years ago, I might be able to win the thing. Who knows? But…with school starting up at the end of August, I doubt it’ll happen until 2012. We’ll see.
Anyways, it was good seeing family and reconnecting. The meal was delicious, and since it was a Mexican themed meal, we had pastel de tres leches. It was soo good!! After the reunion, we went back to Nicole’s aunt’s house to watch some fireworks. Sunday we headed down to CR and had lunch with Erica, Ben and Darla before heading over to Gilbert and Jill’s to hang out for a little bit.
Even though we may not see each other very often, it recharges my batteries when I spend time with Gilbert. He is my best friend, and he’s my brother. I’m glad to have him play those roles for me.
I hope they are able to come visit sometime soon – there are roller coasters to be ridden at Six Flags.
I love to read other blogs, and I always check Chris’ to see what is going on with him, and I read this post. I love his points, and he has a gift for being transparent. Check it out.
P.S. I thought about trying #1 also…but I don’t want to be “that guy” either.
This year I led the Mission Trip to Mexico. It was an amazing/awesome/
tiring/draining/uplifting/
encouraging/recharging trip. Nicole was able to go with me this year, and she had a great time. She was a hard working machine!
Being in charge of the whole trip was an honor, and while I did have some bumps in the road to deal with, God brought everything together.
In this first post, I want to highlight the pride I have in my wife. She was worried about how she would handle the work and the campsite, but I believed in her. Still, she had to experience it for herself. And she was amazing! She sawed, hammered, chicken wired and stuccoed like a pro! The campsite wasn’t a big deal in the end. She was a trooper.
When I asked if she was willing to go again next year, she said yes – as long as we aren’t pregnant at the time.
So…is it wrong to pray that she can’t go next year?
I love you Nicole!!
Jake posted a link on the HSM Leader's Blog for leadership development, and I love the article he used.
Here is what popped in my head as I read it:
I love the imagery that the thread that holds our webs together is God. When we aren't connected to Him, everything falls apart. It doesn't matter how beautiful our web is – without God, it doesn't matter. Too often God is seen as a hindrance, and we try to remove Him from the equation. Because of Him, the web of our relationships with others is strengthened. We can love others in the truest sense.
And the world hates it.
It tries to tell us the gospel is wrong.
It tries and it fails.
It fails because the world can't win. Jesus has already overcome the world.
I struggle with selfishness. Always have, and I will until the day I am called home. Yet I overcome it through the strength that Christ gives me. He's broken those chains of bondage and showed me how to love the way that He loves. He's broken my heart for what breaks His.
And I am thankful for that.
My response to show the world that the gospel is TRUE. Christ is REAL.
And that He loves us.
Yesterday I sat at Starbucks for about two hours catching up with my friend Matt Mehaffey. He was in town and we were able to get together to catch up on each other’s lives.
As we sat there and talked, my mind drifted back to the time we drove down to Florida for the High School Ministry’s Spring Break. Our friendship was in its early stages, and it really blossomed that week. I had the late driving shift, so as we were making our way through Alabama on down through Panama City, Matt rode shotgun. While everyone else slept, Matt and I conversed and we really got to know each other. I’m normally a private person with parts of my life, but with Matt, I shared a lot of my past and he did as well. It was a great conversation, and the rest of the week just drew us closer.
Later on that year, Matt and Janie invited Nicole and I to be part of a new small group with them and the Fergusons. We accepted the invitation and became part of something really special. When the Bowman’s came aboard a few months later, our group was complete.
When Matt and Janie announced their call to Miami to plant a church, I was happy for them…and sad that such great friends were going to leave us. We eagerly jumped aboard with supporting the Pursuit, and that eagerness will never subside. It was a bittersweet day when we said goodbye to them when they left.
As Matt and I talked, I realized that Matt is one of my Jonathans. He is a great friend who supports me and isn’t afraid to keep me in check. We can talk about anything, and even if we go months without talking (other than Twitter), we pick up right where we left off. He is a great brother in Christ.
As we said our goodbyes, I felt that bittersweet feeling again. It didn’t last long. You see, (to borrow a line from MercyMe), “In Christ, there are no goodbyes.” It’s always “until we’re together again.”
As I drove away from Starbucks, I felt refreshed and re-energized. God has a way of doing that through family.
Since I've started Twittering, I have formed new relationships with pastors all over the country. I have started to interact with men in Texas, Florida, Kentucky, Illinois -and the list is growing longer. I have started to read new blogs, and the information I am getting is awesome. I am getting different insights on how to approach ministry, and things are whirring in my head. Some of you may have noticed that I added new blogs to the list, and I will probably add more. I just finished reading Jason Curlee's posts on Youth Ministry expansion, and it gives me encouragement over the direction of ours.
Something I did not expect is the faternity that exists amongst those I Twitter with. Even though I have not met these men, there is a bond that connects us. I should know better, because I have encountered the same thing in Mexico on the mission trip and in Florida on the Spring Break trip. The bond of Jesus connects us is ways that transcend distance or discipline. I suspect that some of those relationships will last for years, simply because of the mission we have accepted and the support we need to fulfill our mission.
I don't know if I will ever be able to meet everyone in person, but given the opportunity I will do so. I know of at least one or two that I will meet next time I am in Miami – Benny Salas and Herns Eugene. I'd like to stop by Corpus Christi and meet John C Atkinson and Jason Curlee, and Albany, GA to meet Doug Rea. That's just to name a few.
I'm still meeting new people, and who knows how much this list will grow.
We went to Buffalo Wild Wings tonight with Brooke and Darrin to watch the Hawkeyes take on the Cyclowns in basketball. I love spending time with them cause they are such a great couple. We really enjoy their company and look forward to more times like this.
