Give Thanks Day 6

On this sixth day of November, I'd like to give thanks for the places that God has allowed me to serve in ministry.  I think back over the past 15 years about all the places that have given me the opportunity to lead in ministry positions.  It has definitely been a learning experience.  I think back to that first church position in 1998 when a little country church in Walnut, MS allowed me to serve for a year as their youth minister.  Talk about green... sure, I had two summers of internship under my belt, but nothing had prepared me for what would come my way during that time.  I am so grateful to that church for seeing the potential in that "wet behind the ears" guy.

I think about the honor that it was to go back to my home church and serve as youth pastor during a time of transition.  Those were some times of faith-building, but I would not trade them for the world.  I remember when that search committee looked at me and addressed me not as the guy who grew up here, but as a real potential to go forward.  I am so grateful for the team of adult volunteers that came alongside of me during that time and helped move forward the transition.

I think about the times in Fairhope and Birmingham where God began to turn my focus from just students to the entire church congregation as a whole.  I think about those from these precious churches who invested in helping me fund my education.

I am grateful to New Life Fellowship in Gilbertown, Alabama for giving me the honor of being the first full-time pastor of that precious church.  I am grateful to them that they worked along with me as I cut my teeth on this lead pastor thing.

And to Bethany Baptist Church... I am honored that you have placed the reigns in my hand to lead this precious congregation in the Lord's work.  The support and love that has been demonstrated to our family over these past 6 months is enough to get you all choked up.

Each of these places of service has been used by God to mold me a little bit more into what He desires me to be.  I would not be where I am or who I am without any one of these.

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Praying for Revival

Our church fellowship, New Life Fellowship, is looking to hold some special services at the end of this month with the hopes that God will move in a mighty way.  We have been praying about this for a while now and feel that God is up to something, and we want to be a part of it.

I would be the first to share with someone that no man, woman, boy or girl can make revival take place.  Revival is the work of God.  Only He can make it happen.  But there could be a reason that we are not experiencing the mighty works of God on our part.

James 4:2 says, "You desire and do not have.  You murder and covet and cannot obtain.  You fight and war.  You do not have because you do not ask."

Could it be that we are not seeing the mighty works of God in our midst because we simply are not asking?  We go through so many things on the checklist: planning, inviting, scheduling, reading up, studying the Word.  We can easily miss the most  important thing: to ask God to do what only He can do!

I would like to invite you to join me in praying an asking God to send His winds of revival to our land.  If you are in the Gilbertown, Alabama area on February 24-27, stop in and join us for some special services at New Life Fellowship.  We will have Ryan John leading worship and Chris Vowell will be preaching.  We start at 6:3opm each night.

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Rock the Block Recap

It is times like these that I realize that while I'm not old, I'm definitely not as young as I used to be.  I am in recoup mode from our church's "Rock the Block" this past weekend.  It was amazing time as our fellowship partnered with another one to reach out to this community with the Gospel of Jesus.  This was the first time our fellowship had done an event like this (similar to VBS or a backyard Bible club).  I believe that things went really well and many children (and their parents) heard the Gospel.

We had around 25 children of various ages on our campus Friday - Sunday.  We had music, Bible stories, crafts, games, and more.  The theme of the weekend was "Our Great B.I.G. God" based off of Ephesians 5:1.  Four main points were covered...

• A great big God who created a great big universe.


• There was a great big problem.


• In spite of our great big problem, God showed a great big love.


• God has a great big plan for our lives.

I was so encouraged as our people from New Life Fellowship, though they had not done an event like this, stepped up to serve and love on the families that God sent our way.  I can honestly say that I am honored to be the pastor at such a loving and serving fellowship.  We closed the weekend with our worship services on Sunday morning letting the children help in leading worship.  You can hear the message from that service by clicking here.

A big thanks to the crew from The Church at Brook Hills who gave up a weekend to serve alongside of us.  Three families came down and helped us pull this event off.

Now comes the hard part of the event: the follow-up.  We all are tired. We all are dragging.  God has sent these children and families our way to love on them and continue the process of sharing Jesus and discipling them.  I ask for your prayers as we continue to do the good work that God has called us to do in our community.

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Pray for Rock the Block

This coming weekend, our church fellowship will be teaming with a group for The Church at Brook Hills to conduct a backyard Bible club event that we are calling "Rock the Block".  This is the VBS format that The Church at Brook Hills has used for the past few years with great success.

This is very encouraging to me on a couple of different fronts.  First, it is a beautiful picture when the body of Christ can come and do things together.  Too often churches are "competing" with one another over the same few people instead of trying to work together and reach the entire world.  Any time that fellowships can lock arms and work together, we give the world a glimpse of what heaven will look like.  If we are all going to worship and live together in eternity, then why can't the church get along here?

Another reason I am excited is that this is the first major event that our church fellowship is doing since I have been here as Pastor.  We have had a couple of little things, but nothing on the scale of this.  It is calling for all people to roll up their sleeves and pour into what God is doing.  It has been encouraging to watch and listen to people talk, discuss, plan and more about this event.

I would ask you to join us in prayer on a few things:

1. Pray that children may come.  We are the new church in the area.  We have a small children's ministry compared to some.  We are trying to get the word out about Rock the Block and hoping to see our campus flooded with children who need to hear about the Lord.


2. Pray for safety and health among the workers.  If you are in ministry, you know that during these times sickness creeps in and tries to knock people out.  We have already had some of our people hit with sicknesses of different kinds.


3. Pray for Jesus to be lifted high. When Jesus is lifted high and clearly shown to people, He will draw them to Himself (John 12:32).


4. Pray that our fellowship might be strengthened. I am looking at this event to be a shot in the arm for our people.  This is something, as a fellowship, they have never done before.  This is stretching the faith of many... and that's always a good thing.

Thank you in advance for the prayers.  I can't wait to see what God has in store for our community this weekend.  I'll try to post pictures and comments as I can.

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Church Teamwork

This past Sunday at New Life Fellowship, we were blessed by the presence of a small group from the Church at Brook Hills.  I know a couple that is in this small group.  It's amazing how this meeting came about, but that is a topic for a whole other post.  The bottom line of this group being in worship with us this past Sunday was to meet our fellowship and meet afterwards with me about the possibility of teaming together to do ministry in our local area.

One comment that I made during the service was that it is a beautiful thing to see the Body of Christ coming together and working together to carry out the Great Commission.  I'm not sure where it all started, but it makes me sick when I see "churches" at war with one another instead of working together.  I have had the dreadful experience before in watching churches in a community fight over the same couple of hundred people, while many more hundreds in the area were not being reached with the Gospel at all.  I believe that I read somewhere that if one has trusted Christ as Savior and Lord, then they will spend eternity together with others who have worshipping the Lord.  If we are going to be a team then, why not start now?

Why is it that churches who practice the same faith fight and "compete" with one another instead of joining hands and helping bring about what Jesus prayed for in John 17?  I see it happen most when a congregation loses its focus on the task at hand (the Great Commission) and focuses more on building a kingdom for themselves.

I pray that we might hear the words that Jesus prayed so many years ago on our behalf...

May they all be one,
as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You.
May they also be one in Us,
so the world may believe You sent Me.
I have given them the glory You have given Me.
May they be one as We are one.
I am in them and You are in Me.
May they be made completely one,
so the world may know You have sent Me
and have loved them as You have loved Me. (John 17:21-23 HCSB)

If we do this, then maybe... just maybe we might see the Lord move in even more amazing ways than we are currently seeing.  Do we all have to look the same and use the same approach? Of course not! If we share a common belief though, then we should be building one another up and so showing the world around us a clear picture of Jesus Christ.

In what ways do you see the Body of Christ (the church) working together in unity?

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Good Time With Friends

Yesterday, being Memorial Day, was a time of remembering and hanging out with some good friends.  We were invited by some of our faith family to come over and enjoy some good eating and swimming.  We excitedly accepted the invitation.  All day, I was looking forward to going over there and hanging out with this family.

When 4pm rolled around, we began the never boring task of getting our three boys together and heading over to this fellowship.  We were welcomed with open arms and didn't take long to make a splash as the temps were edging close to 100. As we swam, more and more people showed up bringing goodies and smiles.  It was a great time around that pool as the conversations carried on and memories were made.

It was as this wonderful afternoon was winding down that it struck me: this is why fellowship is so important in the church. If we just get together to sing some songs and listen to a sermon once or twice a week, can we really call ourselves a family?  Can we really say that we are living in "community" (which is what the definition of fellowship is in the Bible) if we aren't living life together with one another?  This is an area that we are looking to build up and make a major priority within our faith family at New Life Fellowship. If we are going to be all that Christ has called us to be, we have to build one another up in community (Ephesians 4:25-32).

What do you do with your local church family to build community?

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The Church

At New Life Fellowship where I serve as Lead Pastor, we have started a new series called "Ekklesia." For those who do not know, ekklesia is a Greek term that is commonly translated "church" in the New Testament. We are going through this series and examining what the New Testament has to say about the church.

I am really enjoying the studying that is going into this series. I am encouraged by our congregation because they really want to do this thing right. Pretty much all of our congregation has been part of a local church for a good portion of their lives. As we examine the Scriptures, we are seeing that the plan that God put in place is much more simple than we often make it.

It amazes me how many churches think that they have to be doing every program under the sun or they are not serving the Lord. If we (the local churches together, not just one) are the Body of Christ, why does one local congregation think they need to do it all? Where is the body? I do not have anything against programs in themselves. I have a problem when the program runs the church instead of the other way around. I have encouraged our congregation that we will have some programs going, but only those that help us accomplish our mission and no program is above being changed or even axed.

When you think about the local church, what comes to mind? How do programs help/hurt the work that your local church does in your community?

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No More Sermons

I have decided to remove the link from this blog to sermons that I have preached in the past.  This decision came about because of a couple of reasons.

1. Time.  I am finding myself with less time than before to make sure that sermons are recorded correctly and posted here in a timely fashion. For those who had been checking out that page, the "newest" sermon was the one I delivered at First Baptist Birmingham, Alabama back in August 2011.


2. Focus on writing.  This is supposed to be a blog... a place where one can write down their thoughts and share with the world.  This is not a place necessarily to post my sermons.  I would like to focus this blog more to writing out my thoughts.  I would like to experiment some with doing a video blog.


3. Sermons found at New Life Fellowship.  The Lord has blessed me with the amazing opportunity to be the Lead Pastor at New Life Fellowship.  Each week, I have the blessing of sharing God's Word through preaching each week.  We have recently started recording the messages and making them available through the church website and iTunes.  If one was looking to hear what I have to say via preaching, I would encourage you to check out those sites.

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NLF Website

On March 11, 2012, I stepped into the role of Lead Pastor at New Life Fellowship in Gilbertown, Alabama. This has been something we felt God leading our family to for sometime now. I've had a few people ask me if there was a website for the church so they could find out some info on it. Up until now, there has not been this tool in place.

I am excited to announce the launch of New Life Fellowship's official website! You can find it at www.nlfgilbertown.com. It still has some work to do on it, but it's a start. Check it out!

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We're Still Here

We are finally here.  It seems like it has been forever since I've been online, but it's only been about a week.  It is amazing how much a week feels like forever.  Last Tuesday, we moved our family to start the new ministry that the Lord has blessed us with: pastor of New Life Fellowship in Gilbertown, Alabama.  That was about a 2 year walk of faith in itself that God answered in an amazing way.  The people here at New Life Fellowship are amazing.  I am very honored that they would trust God enough to call me as their pastor.  I look forward to sharing about the amazing things that God is going to do through NLF.

Today, we finally got our satellite and internet hooked up at our house.  It has been about a week since we have had access to these features of life.  It has been somewhat pleasant not having them around, but we have certainly missed them also (apparently there is this thing called March Madness going on).  Due to the location of our new house, we have had to change our cell phones and move away from the iPhones  :(.  This was just the best option money-wise for our family (thanks for the reminder, Naomi).

We have had some people ask about not seeing us around Facebook or Twitter lately.  We have not given them totally up... just for Lent.  I know that this will update to my Facebook and Twitter account, but I will not be on those social media sites until Easter.  If you need me, you can contact me via email or trying calling me.

Some have asked about the new church.  I look to be sharing about that very soon.  We are in the process of getting a website together to let the world know who we are and what we're about.  When we get that up and going, I'll definitely share that information here on the blog.

Big thanks to all who have been praying us through these times.  God has heard and answered in a mighty way.  He is most definitely doing a good work and will complete it in His timing.

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The Next Chapter

As you read through a book, you go from one chapter to the next. Each one building on those that precede it. It seems to be very similar when it comes to the story of our lives.

August 14, 2011. This was the date that I stepped down as youth pastor at FBC Birmingham, Alabama. It was a day of mixed emotions. I was taking my family and stepping out in faith to pursue what I felt God was leading for us: stepping out of student ministry and into being the lead pastor of a church.

For the past six months, my family had been in a period of trusting the Lord and waiting. I would speak at a couple of churches, but no leads as to where God wanted us to serve.

That was until a couple of weeks ago. Through a set of circumstances, I came into contact with a church that I had talked to almost a year ago. We began to talk again and pray for guidance. I went and preached a couple of times, met many of the people, and took a look at the town.

This past Sunday, all that discussion with this church and the Lord about direction came to an end. The end of that road was an invitation (accompanied by a 100% vote) to become the Lead Pastor at New Life Fellowship in Gilbertown, Alabama. We humbly accepted this role feeling a peace that this is exactly where God wants us to be.

I cannot put into words the emotions going through me at this moment. The task that God has called me to at New Life Fellowship is one that has my mind spinning. I am honored and humbled that God would allow me to shepherd an amazing group of people.

Our official "first day on the job" will be Sunday, March 11. I ask that you continue to pray for our family as we transition to the next chapter in this wonderful story that God is unfolding through us. Pray also for New Life Fellowship as it is a young church - only four years old - and trying to make an impact on their community for the Kingdom of Christ.

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The Weekend Review

I spent this last weekend in Gilbertown, Alabama and preached at New Life Fellowship. It was my first time to spend time in this area of my home state.

Here are some highlights from the weekend:

Meeting new brothers and sisters in Christ.

This is one reason I enjoying preaching at different places. It is so good to meet those I will spend eternity praising Jesus before we get there. The crew at New Life Fellowship is a great group of folks who are trying to make an impact on Choctaw County and the world.

Small town living is much more laid back.

Most of my life has been spent in bigger cities. The times I've spent in smaller towns have been times when I find that endangered species: free time.

There are some good eats in Gilbertown.

If you're in the area of Gilbertown, AL, then you need to check out The Harbor for some good seafood and Bimbo's (yes, that is the male owner's name) for some good burgers or pizza (I heard the poboys are pretty good, too.).

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