I saw this in the newspaper today….
Outfielder Rick Monday of the Chicago Cubs dashes between two men in the Dodger Stadium outfield in Los Angeles, in this April 25, 1976 photo, snatching an American flag the men were about to burn.
You can read the whole story here. It is a really cool story.
Whenever I tell my kids “no”, they somehow think that I haven’t answered them. So they will do one of two things: 1) they will continually ask me until the get an answer, or 2) they will go and ask their mom instead. Why do they do this? Is it because “no” isn’t really an answer? Or is there something else to this? More importantly, why do we treat God the same way?
One of the things that for the last couple of years has really bothered me, besides our over use of the word “awesome”, is Christ-followers saying that God answered someone’s prayer after years of prayer. Wasn’t He answering it all along? Or do we feel that we finally got an answer, because we got our own desired result?
I have several friends who have been praying for years to have children and after several years of prayer they were able to conceive. 
And all along God was answering their prayer. He was saying, “not now, later”. And with my brother-in-law and his wife, it has been “no, I want you to adopt” at this point. And both of them got answers. But somehow we don’t see it that, or at least that is what we communicate to people when we say, “God has finally answered our prayers.”
So let’s stop saying that and start realizing that God telling us, “no” and “wait”, is indeed an answer to our prayers! I have been waiting for almost 12 years now, since I graduated from Elim Bible Institute, for God to put me into full-time student ministry. And I have been receiving the answer of “wait” and it may even be “no”. While it is not easy, I accept that as His answer to my prayers.
I recently decided that I would upgrade my iBook from a 30 gig hard drive to a 60 gig hard drive. I found one for $70 at bestbuy and bought it on Saturday. I was going to just swap out the old one and install the new one myself and then i saw the 17 pages of directions (with pics) on how to do it and decided against it. My friend, Dirk, also recommend that I not do it. So I checked the Geek Squad website to see if i could get a price and it was $60 to install. Then i checked CompUSA and they do it for only $30! So I checked with my local store and they do it even if the hard drive was not bought there. So I took it in yesterday evening and Kimmy picked it up this afternoon. 
I told them not to load the software onto it, and that I wanted the old hard drive back. So when I got home from work I took out my Mac OS X disc and began to load it. While it was doing that I slipped my old hard drive into an external case that I have. After everything got loaded on, in about 20-30 minutes, it asked if I wanted to transfer files from an old mac or a partition on the hard drive. So I quickly plugged in my old hard drive and told it to transfer from there. It took all of my applications, files, and preferences over. And it then booted up and you could hardly tell that I had a new hard drive installed and had to reload in the OS. Now that is one seamless and inovative operating system. 
If only it would have been that easy when I had to do basically the same thing on my mommy’s windoze computer this weekend. 
Anyway, figured I would boast once again in the wonders of Apple!
Today started off with a major thunderstorm. When I left for work at 5:30a it was raining hard, lightning was flashing and thunder was rolling! I knew it was only a matter of time until the kids woke up and crawled in bed with their mom. Kimmy told me that they did that at about 6:00a! But then later in the day the sun came out and it got up to 80 degrees today! 
But tonight it got even better and wetter! My church has a tradition of doing a baptismal service on Good Friday. But they do it in such a unique and creative way.
There was 31 people who got baptized today! Before they people who were getting baptized got dunked they had them write something on a piece of paper that symbolized what the old life they were leaving. Then they stuck it on the cross they had up on the stage. Then they had a recording of their testimony play as they entered the tank and before they got dunked. After all of them were done the Executive Pastor read a Scripture and four people (3 of them were students! took the papers off the cross and lit them on fire and tossed them into the air (it was flash paper).
Then at the very end our Lead Pastor had everyone who got baptized come forward and then had family and friends pray for them. What a cool way to end a really powerful service! I am so happy that we have found Rockpointe! And those poor people are stuck with me for a very long time!
It was the best baptismal service that I have ever been a part of! Other then the ones where I had the privilege of baptizing some students! That was definitely the bestest!
Our Worship Pastor sent me link to Detroit Music Awards and guess which church got nominated for some music awards? Yep, you guessed it; Rockpointe Community Church. You can click on the link above to see it, but I also posted a pic of it below!
My church just updated their website and it looks really cool!
Went to Battle Cry this weekend with the students from RSM and had such a blast getting to know the students better. Who can give me a “HOO HAH, TWO TIMES TUESDAY!”? 
The last and only Aquire The Fire event I went to was the “Day One” event they did in 2000 at the Pontiac Silverdome. I walked away from that event not impressed at all and never wanted to go back to one again. And I hadn’t until I came to Rockpointe and Kent announced that the student ministry was going. I didn’t want to go, but I never like to miss out on these opportunities to hang out with students. (I am a wierd person and love doing over-night events with a student ministry.) So i decided to go and was pleasently surprised. The things that I did not like about the event I went to were changed. Instead of a parade of speakers, which bored me and I know the students were as well, they had a good mix of speakers and bands. I know the students at RSM were impacted in some really cool ways. And that means more to me than anything.
I like the concept that Ron Luce has of getting a generation to stop being passive Christians and to start not only taking a stand for what they believe in, but to also decide to do something about letting their voice be heard. And that can be accomplished by speaking up and by also reaching out to our communities and lending a helping hand. I like this and am in big support of it!
I know there are many people out there who have issues with ATF and I do as well, but overall I think they do a pretty darned good job.
Tonight it was announced that Kent (the youth pastor) would be leaving Rockpointe to return to his homwtown of Pittsburgh to start up a new church. I have only had the opportunity to know him for about 4 months, but in those 4 months I feel that I have met a lifelong friend. I do not know where life will lead us, but I know that through the wonders of the internet, email and blogs, we will keep in touch and remain friends.
Kent, I am praying for you, bud, as you enter this new phase of your life and ministry! I look forward to coming down there and seeing what God will be doing through you and your church!
I have only had a chance to read it once, but I am going to be reading it again. It is one of those books that is a very easy read, but you need to read it a couple of times because it is something that needs to sink down deep!
The book shows you the difference between how Saul, David and Absalom ruled as kings. As you read it you get an understanding of how different kinds of leaders lead, and your natural tendency is to think of someone else and how they fit into the picture. As I read it I fought the urge to want to say, “Yeah, that is so much like ________”. But the author reminds you that you should look at yourself and how you lead.
What? You mean that I am supposed to gauge how I lead and not use it as a sword to slash down leaders who have hurt me? That is crazy! Of course, I am being silly, but that is commonly all of our reactions. We would use a book to justify our feeling or the way we reacted towards a bad leader.
As I read the book I could see areas in my life where I was a total Saul or Absalom. But I have to honestly say that I think that I handled my departure from my previous church much the way that David handled things with Saul and Absalom. A lot of that I owe to God putting people into my life that showed me the right way to lead. And one of the biggest ones I have to thank is the youth pastor I had as a student, who mentored me and is now one of my good friends. I am so grateful for him.
This book is a book that every pastor should read and then have every leader in their church read. And not just once but on a regular basis. It is something that we all need constant reminding of and also need to check ourselves to make sure we are leading with the right heart.
The books subtitle is “A Study in Brokenness” and that is exactly what it is. David was a broken man whose life was submitted to God and committed to God. One of the glaring differences between David, Saul and Absalom, is the David was a God pleaser and Saul and Absalom were men pleasers. David was more concerned with God’s opinion of him than what his next door neighbor or best man thought. Reputation is a big thing, but when it all comes down to it, I would rather have a reputation as someone who was sold out for God than have a reputation that people thought I was a cool guy. And as a church, I would rather have my church known as one that went after the lost with everything we had and did what we could to see them come into a relationship with God, than one that pleased the religious people.
That may not be the best book review or even the easiest to read, but it is what I got from it after my first read. I may review it more than once here.
Some of you may remember my post titled, “I Hurt” that was about a friend of mine who got let go from his church. Well, today he got offered a job from a really cool church in his area, that he really likes and thinks that it would be a good fit for him and them! You can read about it here and here! I am so happy for my good friend! 
Bro, I am so happy for you! This new adventure is going to be really cool and that church is so lucky to have you as their new youth pastor!
