Mule Day

My wife and I got to attend one of Middle TN’s most interesting phenomenon, Mule Day.  If you have never been to Mule Day you really need to go.  It happens every April in Columbia TN.  There is a huge parade, a fair, and a ton of rednecks.  It is very cool.

The official definition of Mule According to the official website, http://www.muleday.com/, is the following:  Mule Day is an annual celebration of all things related to mules and is held in Columbia, Tennessee, the “Mule Capital” of the world. Begun in 1840 as “Breeder’s Day”, a meeting for mule breeders, it now attracts over 200,000 people and takes place over four days. In addition to mules, traditional Appalachian food, music, dancing, and crafts are featured.  

Good times to be sure.  Anyway, I am posting some pictures for your viewing pleasure!  

hopefully you can come to Mule Day 2010 April 11th!

Keeping the Radar Up

Something I have noticed recently is that many of my friends who are making major decisions for Jesus are struggling.  I have seen this to be true in my own life.   Whenever I have made a serious spiritual decision that was a serious leap of faith, from salvation, to deciding to change a sinful life pattern, temptation has come into my life like a house on fire.

It seems that our enemy, Satan just cant resist coming after people who are making major life choices to follow Jesus.  In fact, if you feel major opposition to something you know is morally right, chances are that is the best validation you could ever receive to stay the course.  Temptation that I have seen come at me have been in the following areas:   an impossible obstacle, ridicule, lust (the desire to go outside God’s boundaries sexually), or just plain reluctance to be motivated.  

If you are feeling resistance from outside forces as you pursue God, I offer the following advice.  Pray and push through.  Pray, asking God to help you by his mighty hand, and secondly push forward as hard as you can.  God will show you a way through that hardship.  Do not waver because God is for you.  He wants you to follow him and he will give you the means to overcome temptation.  

Here is a cool passage of scripture to think about:

1Peter 5:8-11

⁸ Be sober!   Be on the alert!  Your adversary the Devil  is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. ⁹ Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are being experienced by your brothers in the world.

    ¹⁰ Now the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will personally restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little.  ¹¹ To Him be the dominion  forever. Amen.

check out my podcast!

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=274809927 

Sermon on Sunday

Hey,  

I don’t know if you are into listening to sermons but you can catch my latest sermon at Green Hills Church on this link.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=274809927 

My sermon is called “The Way”  and is about the cost of discipleship.  The price of following Jesus and being a part of the way of God.  I look at the 4 responses toward Jesus found in John chapter 7 and tie how we too struggle with responding as a true follower to Jesus.  

This was a hard message to teach but one that I think will be a blessing to those who hear it!

Weeds

I just mowed my yard today for the first time this year.  Check that, I mowed the weeds that had sprung up where my grass used to be.  I think I have about 1 million dandelions in my front yard.  Absolutely disgusting. The crazy thing is I don’t want to do much more than mow my yard since I am renting and don’t own our home.  My wife and I decided to wait a little bit until we get our own home.  Stuff like the fact that we are church planting and we don’t know enough about Nashville to really know where we want to live long term have weighed into our decision to wait.  

Anyway, I noticed how even though I am bugged about the weeds in my yard, I don’t have any motivation to spend any money on it.  I think that is because I am not really invested in living here long term.  Why spend all my time and money on fixing the yard if I wont be around to really enjoy it?

In my ramblings today, I was thinking about how we are only here temporarily on the earth, about 80 years is the top end of our time here.  I have no idea why I spend so much time investing in this world instead of my future home in heaven and the life to come.  Its like spending all my time fertilizing, seeding and watering the grass at my rental house.  Instead I should be investing my time and my energy on my future home, heaven.

Passion to change the world

Wow!  I never thought Bill Gates was a philanthropist on this level.  I love his heart to change the world and reduce human pain an death.  You need to listen to this video if you get a chance.  

http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_unplugged.html

By the way, him releasing the mosquitoes is awesome!

Numbing

I just spent my Saturday doing nothing.  It was actually very enjoyable.  I woke up late.  Surfed the internet.  Watched a movie, and my North Carolina Tar Heels lose to Florida State, worked out and pretty much did nothing else.  Didn’t even read a book.  At about 6 PM tonight I realized I have been numbing out all day.  I don’t know if you numb out but I am guessing you probably do.  Numbing is doing activities that require minimal brain effort in order to not think about what is really going on in your life.

Most of us numb out because life is too painful to interact with it or really think about what is going on in our lives.  We may watch a lot of TV, go out every night, spend a lot of time surfing the net, or just sleep a lot to avoid what is really going on internally.  The primary reason we numb out is because a major piece of our life is broken, or we are missing an important cog in our personal world.  

I think the reason I am numbing is because my wife was out of town on a Girls weekend and I don’t know what to do on weekends without her.  This has been a good reason to feel like there is a big piece of my life is missing.  But… I know that having this time without her around has made me take stock on how I am doing spiritually and emotionally.  I realize I have work to do in my own life.  I need to face the big questions of life.  Where am I going?  What does God want from me?  How can I live a life that leaves a legacy?  

If you are numbing, take stock of where you are.  What issue is causing you pain?  Why are you hiding in mindless activities?  If that is you I encourage you to look courageously upon your fear or pain and work to overcome it.

Cabana bar = church location

Ok its been a while I know but I am back in the blogosphere.  No crazy excuses just been crazy busy.

Church planting has been going great.  Just moved locations from John Overton High School to one of the coolest locations in Nashville, Cabana Restaurant.  Yes, our church is meeting in a bar.  You can see the place at www.cabananashville.com

We also had an article in the Paper about us.  You can check it out at the Tennessean webpage or clicking here:  http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009902180326  

Its been amazing to have a place like this fall in our laps.  It really helps us as we live out our vision of calling people back to God here in Nashville.  I love how it screams louder than any words we might say that we love people who are far from God and we accept people just as they are.

By the way if you want to hear the message I taught our first week at Cabana just click here:  http://greenhillschurch.org/podcast.html or Go to Itunes and type in Green Hills Church

Monday Ministry Tip: Seeing God’s hand at work

One of the most difficult endeavors is to wait on God’s provision.  I know that there is a huge temptation for all of us in ministry to just go out and make things happen for God.  The problem is that in doing that we leave God out of our plans.  Ministry just becomes what we can scheme or pull off.  There is very little room for the invisible God to direct or interfere with our work.  Instead of ministry we are left with a church business.

Henry Blackaby talks about seeing God at work and joining Him.  That is an amazing view of ministry.  Coming to a realization that God is at work all around us and if we choose to follow his leading he will make what we are doing flower and produce great fruit.  The scary thing about seeing God as the primary cog in our ministry is that you have to wait on his timing and provision.  

God’s timing and his provision is usually what I fret about most.  I want God to provide on my timetable and in the way I want him to work.  But God isn’t a predictable and controllable being.  Thats what makes serving him so exciting.  I was reminded about this the other day.  We were excited about starting a new ministry in our church.  We felt that God was leading us in starting this ministry but the catch was we didn’t have the money or volunteers to pull it off. 

We decided to wait on God’s provision and pray about it instead of pulling it off ourselves.  It has been so exciting to see God work in this time of waiting.  It has been a couple of months of us waiting on God but in that time we have seen God donate the equipment, and volunteers we needed.  We just needed some computer software to be able to pull it off.  Last Friday, I got a message from an old friend who told me God had laid it on his heart to provide the computer software we needed and he purchased it for us within the hour.

Through all this I have been humbled.  I got a chance to see God once again as provider and his way of providing was so much better than my sterile plans.  So the tip is this:  prayer and waiting on God is the best way to find success and fulfillment in ministry.

Monday Ministry Tip: Finish Lines

I know that every person who is in ministry feels like they work all the time.  Serving in a ministry entails a lot of energy and personal investment.  Along with all the personal, hands on ministry and teaching that everyone sees, there are countless hours of hard thankless administrative and preparatory work. If you aren’t careful, you can easily burn out and become emotionally and physically drained.  

A couple of years ago I had a friend who introduced me to the idea of implementing finish lines.  A finish line is a moment that you designate as quitting time.  When you cross the finish line it is a moment of personal Sabbath.  You cease from working, thinking about work and talking about work.   It can be a time of day every week, or a once a week finish line, but it is important to define when your finish line exists.  It is even more important to keep your finish lines every time. 

In my life, I have an off day (Friday) that I don’t keep and technically Saturday is not a work day, but I usually find something work related to do on both those days.  Usually I am working on a message or some important task, and even though I should honor Friday as a day off, its really hard not to get sucked into work.  

But, my finish line is Sunday after Lunch.  We often go to lunch with people from Church so that technically still is work because I am still in Pastor mode, but after lunch on Sundays I am done.  I can completely rest.  I stop thinking about church, I stop thinking about work and I just rest.  I can hang out with Tabitha and Bailey and enjoy life.

I encourage you to pick a finish line.  Its not an easy thing to do but it is very worth it.  Even God took a Sabbath after creating the world.  Its a great example of how valuable rest can be.  I hope that you too can choose a time and a day where you say, my work is done.  Now I can focus on family, fun and God.

Feed my starving Children

I had the honor to bring my small group and some other from our church to partner with Belmont University and Feed My Starving Children to make meals for kids in Thailand.  We along with about 800 other volunteers were able to make 413,000 meals.  Thats right 413,000 meals.  That was an awesome experience.  Our shift was able to make 113,000 meals.  We were cooking in our food assembly line.  I don’t think I have ever seen my friends move so fast.  If you ever are interested in being a part of a organization that gives back, I thoroughly endorse “Feed my Starving Children.”  If you want to check out their website check it out here.  http://www.fmsc.org/  

Here are some Pics!