leaving tomorrow

well, i'm up here at my office with my buddy chris and we are just tying up some loose ends before we leave for camp siloam in the morning. i am so pumped, we are going to have the best time! well, i'll update ya when we get back. LATER!

The Pigeon Room

well, today i just finished tackling one of the most difficult tasks that i've had to do in ministry thus far. we have this HUGE storage room in the back of our building that is called "The Pigeon Room", and it is a place that if no one knows where something goes...well, they just throw it on the floor in there. when you have a church with about 420 members and a HIGH volunteer base you can end up with a BIG mess on your hands.

we filled up 2 dumpsters with trash from out of there. some stuff we later found out, might not have been trash...oops, sorry. i have never had much trouble with the "Ministry Side" of ministry; it's always been the stuff like this that has gotten the best of me. cleaning out a GINORMOUS room and then organizing all of it's contents. for those of you who know me, you know that i am organizationally challenged. this is all changing little by little, thank God. i had help from 5 guys in our youth group, and with all of their hard work and perseverance we finally finished it today. now we have 7 brand new shelving units for storage that we built and NO clutter piled up on the floor. i'd like to thank rob, gray, tim, kyle, and martin for helping to make this all happen. i couldn't have done it without you guys. now we just have to do too more, much SMALLER closets and we will be finished with organizing ALL of the storage closets in the church. THANK GOD!!!

sonogram

jeanette and i went to the doctor today because she was having some pains monday night when we were moving tony and erin, our new children's pastors, in to their house. we were a little worried but trying to stay confident in our faith and how far God has brought us thus far.

we got to the doctor and i honestly held my breath for what seemed like an eternity. until, finally, we saw a VERY evident heartbeat. as we looked closer, we saw tiny little feet and hands and the head. the baby is almost an inch tall. i was so relieved and excited that everything was okay that i almost started crying...i've done plenty of that since we found out that we were having a baby. we go back july 5th to actually hear the heartbeat and we'll find out the sex of te baby sometime in september. WE ARE SO EXCITED!!!

Camp Siloam

i am getting ready to embark on a very surreal experience this next week. 12 years ago i went to church camp for the very first time. it was at this time that God reached down and met me right where i was at. the rest is all history. this will be the first time that i have been back to this camp in 11 years. last time i was going into the 9th grade and now i am taking my own youth group. i'm use to being the one who was always a little mischevious and getting into trouble at camp (no, i didn't do anything bad...just a little fun mischief). so, it'll be interesting to see what happens with me being in charge this year. this is a time that i get to let my hair down and have a little stupid fun that i wouldn't normally get to do. the only thing that i'm not happy about is, nett isn't getting to go because of her being pregnant and her not being able to get off work. other than that, we're all going to have a lot of fun. i'll be sure to let you know how it all goes.

Father's Day

well, this was my first father's day that i am a dad...kinda. i still count it, even though the baby is still in the womb and i don't even know if it is a boy or a girl yet. i had a great father's day, jeanette bought me a new charcoal grill that i have been wanting for quite sometime now. so, i spent all day yesterday playing with it and grilling up steaks and sausage links. MAN, THAT WAS SOME GOOD FOOD!!! i can't wait for next year when i have a little 5 month old on father's day. maybe i'll be able to teach it to say daddy earlier than most kids do.

couple of days off

jeanette and i left sunday after church to go to texarkana for a couple of days to relax and take a few days off. we had a lot of fun. i always love taking a little time off just to unwind. i went and played golf monday afternoon with some old golf buddies of mine. i was blown away at how well i played. i actually played better than the last time i was on the course, which was 10 months ago. what's crazy about that is, then, i was playing twice a week! so, we had a lot of fun and then on tuesday evening i grilled burgers for everybody and my boy jackie came over to chill with us. then we went over to his house so he could spank me in some xbox 360. so, all in all, we had a great time. we got back wednesday night at about 11:45pm. it felt so good to finally be asleep in our own bed.

6 Flags

well, we took our high schoolers to 6 flags over texas in arlington yesterday. we pulled out of the church parking lot at 5:30am and pulled back into the church parking lot at 11:45pm. i must say that this was one of the funnest 6 flags trips that i’ve ever been on. i have found though, that i am a little more affected by rollercoasters than i was 10 years ago. i didn’t get sick or nauseated or anything like that. But, i did get a little disoriented on a couple of rides that never use to even phase me. that makes it just that much more fun though! if you’ve ever wanted to know what it feels like to fly like a superhero, you have to ride the SUPERMAN at 6 flags in arlington. that was such a cool feeling! i’m already looking forward to going again next year!

WE'RE HAVING A BABY!!!

GOD IS SO GOOD! well, after just over 6 years of trying and spending THOUSANDS of dollars on fertility doctors and medications and the doctors finally saying that there wasn't much else they could do, God decided to step in.

Jeanette has a condition that is called PCOS, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. this causes her not to ovulate, therefore making it impossible to get pregnant. over the past couple of years we had been going to a fertility clinic and had spent literally thousands of dollars trying to get pregnant. we have done everything short of spending 13k on IVF for one shot at getting pregnant, we didn't have the means nor the want to gamble on that much money; especially with our luck thus far in the process.

so, we had decided to stop going to the fertility clinic and try on our own. honestly, at this point, we knew more about fertility and getting pregnant than the average 3rd year med student. it has been well over a year since we last went to the clinic and jeanette hasn't been on ANY medications for some time now. about 2 months ago we decided to stop trying for the rest of the year. we wanted to go ahead and enjoy the rest of the year not worrying and stressing out about it. low and behold, this is when GOD decided to step in.

HE waited for US to stop trying before HE started...

memorial day weekend

i am so pumped about this weekend. a bunch of us are leaving today at 3pm to go ATVing today and tomorrow. this is going to be so much fun. the last time i actually got to go on an overnight trip and do this was when me and pastor jeff did it about 7 years ago. we are going to have so much fun. i am going to miss my beautiful, lovely wife however. also, we are leaving after church sunday to go to texarkana to hang out with friends and family for a couple of days. it's not very often that jeanette and i get the same day off, so this is going to be a lot of fun. happy memorial day weekend!

officially in AWE...

nike and apple have teamed up to make an amazing combination. nike is now making shoes that will talk to your ipod nano and tell you how far you've been running/walking, at what pace, and a whole bunch of other statistics. when you start to get tired you can push a button and play your POWERBOOST song to get you pumping again. i like to walk and run and i love my ipod mini. this definitely makes me want to get an ipod nano. nike is a marketing genius! something else that's cool is, whenever you sync you ipod to your computer it logs your running/walking statistics and it tracks you over a period of time to show you your improvements. HOW COOL IS THAT!!!

fun weekend

well, this weekend was a lot of fun. we had graduation friday night and got to see all of our seniors take the stage to receive their diplomas. i must say that i am so proud of all of them.

we also, had tony and erin velasquez in to interview for the children's pastor position. we had so much fun hanging out with them and riding 4-wheelers and taking them to look at houses. they're great people and a lot of fun.

7mins. 8secs.

this is how long david blaine held his breath underwater last week after living in a life-sized fish aquarium for an entire week. he was attempting to break the world record for holding your breath while underwater. the record is 9mins. however, the guy that holds the record didn't live underwater for the full 7 days before that and escape from chains and handcuffs while he was holding his breath. the record itself, is something that i believe that david blaine could break with little effort. it is his desire to do things with style and flamboyance that kept him from breaking the record this time. you gotta give the guy credit though, 7mins. and 8secs. is a really long time to hold your breath. heck, i couldn't even hold my breath long enough to write this blog.

SMASHED

well, i played in the high school dodgeball tournament yesterday and...OH MY GOSH AM I SORE!!! our team went 0-5; for those of you who don't understand sports records, that means we played 5 games and lost every one. we had an absolute blast though!

the first match i literally lasted 3 seconds...NO KIDDING, THAT'S ALL! our team wasn't the most athletic team, we just wanted to get out there and have some fun. however, the first team we played was the most athletic team and they just wanted to get out there and hurt somebody. they succeeded with me. as i ran to the center line to grab a ball with 2 other team mates i reached down and as i'm in a crouching position reaching to grab the ball i look up just in time to see 2 dodgeballs traveling at the speed of sound coming right at my face. as the first one bounced off of my forehead the second one was less than a thousandth of a second behind hitting me square in the mouth.

honestly, i couldn't help but laugh because i could only imagine how funny it was for the several hundred spectators. if they would have given an award for "Most Punished Player", i am very confident that i would have won hands down. i can't wait for next year. maybe i'm just a glutton for punishment, but i really did have a lot of fun. well, i have all year to practice; i guess i need to start dodging wrenches right away.

YOUR MOM

you know, there is a phrase that never ceases to be funny to me. i can be sitting in the most serious conversation and at any point take just about anything that anyone i'm talking to says, and turn it into a mama joke. i know, i know, i am extremely immature and need to grow up. but, your mama jokes never seem to lose their humor. i've heard that there's even a show on MTV devoted to "Your Mama" jokes now. in fact, i use the statement so much, we're going to make a shirt for our youth group that says "Your Mom Goes to Journey Church". HOW COOL IS THAT?! i can tell that some people around my age, 20s and 30s, get preturbed by my uncanny ability to turn anything they say into a "Yo Mama" joke. so, you guys tell me, am i really still that immature or am i justified in admiring a timeless phrase that has been engrained in our culture? seriously, leave a comment, i want to know. if you don't have a blogger account just click on anonymous and put your name at the end of your comment. let's see what everyone else thinks about YOUR MOM, 'cause i know i love her...

Put Things Back Where You Found Them

i started a new series this week entitled "Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten". this is going to be a super fun series to preach. i'm taking some very simple, yet profound, statements that i learned in kindergarten and tying them into the Word of God.

the first message was entitled "Put Things Back Where You Found Them". it's crazy that i still have so many memories from way back in kindergarten. i remember playing with these huge life-sized blocks that we use to make buildings out of and then play King-Kong vs. Godzilla and destroy the entire city. then after playtime was over we all had to put everything back from our station back where we found it. this started to carry over with everthing; we had to put the scissors back where we found them. we had to put the crayons back where we found them. we had to put the glue back where we found it...except for the kid that always ate the entire bottle before we were done with the project. he just got to throw his away.

it was some time later, as i was sixteen, that i remember sitting in my living room late one night reading my Bible that i began to think about how excited i use to be about my faith when i first committed my life to Christ. i remember the feelings that i had after being delivered from a lifestyle of drugs, alcohol, depression, and gangs. i couldn't help but tell everyone that i talked to about how good God was and how he had completely changed my life. yet, as i sat in my living room a couple of years later i was curious as to where that zeal had gone. i had gotten so caught up in school, friends, and even church that my relationship with God had taken a backseat.

i finally realized that, that rule that i had learned in kindergarten applied to more than just putting up some blocks when you were done playing with them. it was applying to me many years later as a teenager in a totally different light. as i sat there that night, i finally realized that i needed to put my relationship with God back where i found it.

Dodgeball

well, it's official, i'm signed up to be on at least one team in the dodgeball tournament at the high school next week. i'm kind of nervous, this could show how old or young i really am now. i can still ride 4-wheelers and do stupid crazy stunts with the rest of them but, this is really going to be a test of athleticism and endurance. and, it's been a long time since i've been involved in anything that required either of those two things. so, it'll be interesting to see how it all turns out. i guess i need to go start practicing. remember, "if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball"...

Muldrow Bottoms

well, seven of us ATV nuts all hooked up yesterday to go riding down in some sand pits that are about 20mins. from us. that is the first time that i've ever ridden in sand, and it was definitely different. i'm use to riding on dirt and this was a totally different experience. once you get use to it, it's not so bad but it was definitely an adjustment. we had an absolute blast! it's cool to be living in an area that has a lot of great places to ride, close to home. that definitely wasn't the case when we lived in dallas or texarkana. we're talking about making a trip down to Wolfpen Gap, just about an hour and a half south of us, sometime next month. i can't wait!

SPRING FEVER!!!

man, the weather has been phenomenal here lately. i can't hardly stay inside. it's not been too hot or cold and the sun has been shining. i have got a major case of spring fever right now. pastor jeff and i have been trying to plan a camping trip for a couple of months now and the weather has finally warmed up enough to go. we're going to try to go down to a river in de queen arkansas that he grew up fishing on for a couple of days. i think he may have a hard time getting me to come back home if the weather stays this good while we're down there. hopefully, i'll be able to talk him into us stopping over at Wolfpen Gap on our way home. that is absolutely my favorite place in the world to ride ATVs. it's over 42 miles of loop trails up in the beautiful hills of arkansas. if you like riding ATVs or dirtbikes like we do, you have got to go there. I CAN'T WAIT!!!

the little things make a BIG difference

well, as you may have read, i went and got my 4-wheeler last sunday and when we got it home and started to ride it, it wasn't performing like i remembered it. which was odd, because the motor had been completely rebuilt recently. so, me and a couple of guys in our youth group, aaron and ryan, started taking things apart and cleaned out the air filter, which was filthy, and changed the spark plug and IMMEDIATELY it was running like brand new again. it's just so amazing to me that the smallest things can make such a BIG difference. it's funny, that the same is true in life. it's the little things, like just spending a little time with God each day and surrounding yourself with great people who lift you up, that can make your life so much better. so, try your best to do a little maintenence that will enhance your life a GREAT deal this week.

On the Look-Out

Well, we are still searching for the right person who is going to be a great fit for our Children's Pastor position at the Journey Church. I just posted a listing on www.churchstaffing.com and hope that it will yield some fruit. We are patient in finding the person that God wants to be here but, we are also anxious to get the right person in here so we can start taking our Children's Ministry to the next level, just as we have with every other ministry in our church. This is going to be a very important hire for us. We believe that this is really going to help take us to the next level in providing top-notch discipleship throughout every age group in our church. Please be praying for the Lord's guidance and wisdom as we search for the right person. This is a very big deal for us, since our staff is such a very tight-knit family, we want to find someone who meshes well with our thinking and our style of ministry. We'll keep you posted!