I have to tell you I don’t know if I’ve been this excited for a service in my entire life.  This Sunday at Fellowship Church something is going to happen that I’ve never seen done at a church before.  I’m sure it has happened sometime somewhere, but as for me, never come across it, and I’m totally juiced about it.

Wish I could tell you the secret, but I can’t, so you’ll just have to make your way to Fellowship Church in Holden, Mass this Sunday, the 13th, at 11:00 am to see it.  Sorry 9:30ers, this one’s for a later time period.

Also,I might be starting to play in a basketball league this Monday.  I’m not totally sure, but if I do, it would be on Monday the 14th in Rutland, and I would be playing in a 30 and over league.  Can you believe that? Im totally out of shape as far as basketball is concerned, but it would require getting back in shape - an event which I’m ready to do again.

By the way, I’ve been to the gym 4 times a week for the last 4 weeks now.  Thanks for your support!

My favorite thing about this week’s blogging has been this:  I had someone tell me that one of the site’s on my blog had an evil link to it and I should be more careful about what I’m allowing on my site.

I was frantic.

I looked all through my site and my blogs searching for the smut or the porn that someone could have placed on my blog.  I couldn’t believe someone would do that.  Well, I could believe it, I just didn’t want to.

After some time searching for the evil, I finally found out that the site I was looking for was a site of our small groups director who asked the question,”Will we go to heaven?” and then explained why he was asking the question.  I don’t often reply to blogs in great detail, and this was no exception, but evidently this was a bad question to ask.

Though I believe that we will go to heaven when we have a relationship with Christ, I also believe Jeff has a point and a perfectly good right to ask the question.  I hope his blog sparks communication among people and the truth comes out, not because it’s what we’ve been taught, but because it’s what is actually found in Scripture. So I applaud Jeff’s genuine searching for the truth.  More people should lead in a way he has – by asking questions.

Jeff and I have debated many things, but I will never look down on him for seeking the truth – I won’t look down on you either.  Well…maybe you.

Until next time…

Thanks to all of you who have been praying for Carie and I as we’ve been a bit under the weather.  We both feel better today.  She has been resting and feels much better.  I have not been (at least not on Monday), and consequently, I only feel a bit better.

Anybody see the Steelers/Dolphins game on Monday night?  Evidently the grounds crew at Pittsburgh laid down a layer of grass over the already existing layer of grass, and then it began raining and raining and raining.  So basically the ground was a thick nasty bog, in which no one could move. Of course this made for a low scoring game, of which the Steelers won, 3-0.  Big Ben didn’t throw the ball a lot, but almost every time he did, it was completed.  Thats what I’m talking about.

Today I have a meeting that lasts all day with a company we’re using at church called Fellowship One. Hopefully this will not make me more sick. And then I will be working tonight on packing and preparing our new house.  Pretty exciting!

This weekend begins our new series, a Christmas Conspiracy!  For those who attend Fellowship Church, prepare yourselves.  It’s going to be a ride.

Until next time…

I did not blog yesterday.  This marks the first weekday in more than a month that I at least didn’t post something.  It was a good break.  My reasoning for not posting was the construction that was going on in the house Carie and I are moving into soon.  A team of people came over, and saccrificed their time in order to help us with this very big project.  The team was amazing as we all came together to get a lot accomplished.  Carie and I are so appreciative of the people that God has put in our lives!

I didn’t blog a Sunday recap.  There was no particular reason for this other than busyness of the times in my life.  Sunday was good though.  We continued our series called,”The Riches”, and people were challenged to view their money and their stuff as a tool to be used for eternal purposes, not for temporal consumptive purposes.  I think this is becoming a very positive and important trend that we’ll see in the near future. People will walk away from “Give me, give me, give me”  to begin to ask the question, “What can I do for you?”  I love it!

This weeks going to be a busy one though, with more construction and more music responsibilities on my end, and a small group leader meeting this Wednesday.  Speaking of music, there might be a special guest leading our worship at Fellowship this weekend.  I’ll provide more details later on in the week, but it looks like it’s going to be good!

I led worship for one song last weekend.  It was a new song called,”Song of Hope” by the Robbie Seay Band.  What  did you think of it?

I have to go now and begin my work week.  I love what I do. It’s the greatest job of all time, associated with the greatest people of all time, and preparing to do something big for the glory of the greatest name of all time.

Until next time…

Yesterday I finished Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, book 5.  Like the others, it was absolutely amazing, and has lured me into wanting the begin the new book immediately.  (And the Half Blood Prince) It started off slow for me, but this was probably because I was in one of those “I don’t want to read anything right now” moods, but in the last week, despite the busyness of my life and my sickness of the last two days, I picked up the pace and finished it.

On Monday evening, I began feeling like I was getting sick.  Tuesday morning rolled around and that was true indeed – I was sick.  I didn’t go into the office, but elected rather to stay in our apartment and read, blog, pray, rest, and come up with the next several series we’ll be doing at Fellowship Church.  Here they are, in order of appearance.

The Riches (4 weeks)

Advent Conspiracy (5 weeks)

The Road (3 weeks)

How to dismantle the Atom Bomb (4weeks)

Confessions of a Pastor (4 weeks)

This should take our church all the way to Easter.  Can you believe it?  Easter’s considerably early this year, March 23rd, so be prepared.
I should mention that most good ideas are taken.  In this care, each of these series ideas are names of sermon series from other churches, TV Shows, or Musical Albums.  Can you guess which ones are which?

So today I’m back in my office feeling quite well, having all of my health back, and the only thing lacking is my voice, which I have not found yet.  So please no calls.  At 1:00 pm, I’m helping Lonnie, our former pastor, move his stuff into the moving truck. If anyone would like to help, feel free to do so.  If you know the address.

OK!  OK!  Change of plans.  As I was typing this, I received a text from Lonnie, mentioning that they have changed their plans and they are not packing the truck until Friday at 9.  This is very good, though I’m not sure why.

Until next time…

Hola!

So yesterday was such a crazy day-such roller coaster day!  IN the morning I picked my sister up from the airport in Portsmouth. We had a good time together, and ate at Cracker Barrel which is a treat.  Also, has anyone else noticed that going to cracker barrel in New England is wayyyy different than anywhere down south.  The accents are European and the sweet tea is a joke up here! 

Then work was super busy here at Fellowship.  For one, I received this information guest card cracking on my message from Sunday.  They said “My intro was too long” and I need to get to the “Meat” faster.  Basically that person was either playing a joke or was simply a miserable wretch.  Poor thing.

Then I had this decision to make that was kind of big.  Financially and Investment wise.  I had prayed about it and talked with others and was very excited about it, and then as I talked to the final person I needed to talk to before making the decision, I got worried.  That was the only way to describe it.  It wasn’t a word from God or anything.  It was just fear.  As I talked to the guy, I was looking up some daily blogs I look at every day and had yet to do so.  I opened one of my favorite ones, http://www.stevenfurtick.com, and this is what he said:

“In Matthew 25:14-30 Jesus told a parable about stewardship.
Three men managed money for their master, and the one who took the greatest risk with the master’s money received the greatest reward.
The most conservative one who took no risk was severely punished, and Jesus called him worthless.

I’ll tell you one thing, this flies in the face of the way most church committees and deacon boards think about stewardship.  I mean, how many Spirit-led and God inspired budget items and mission initiatives have been voted down by church boards and congregations because:
“We can’t spend God’s money like that…we have to be good stewards.”
This is often code for: “We can get away with being cheap and faithless, if we blame it on God and couch it in Biblical terminology.”

Of course, there are times when purchases need to be denied.  Of course, we need to operate with sound wisdom, and not every good idea is a God idea.
But the point stands: the best steward award in Jesus’ parable went to the man who risked the most…not the man who played it safe in the name of “good stewardship”.

Is it possible that in the name of good stewardship, some churches never get out into the realm of faith, putting themselves in a position where God has to come through?  Is it possible that the churches to be commended as the “best stewards” aren’t the ones sitting around with a 57 year old trust fund earning interest that eliminates any need for God’s help?  Or the churches who refuse to spend money to enter the modern age and do ministry with excellence because “it’s not good stewardship”?

Good stewardship requires wise decision making, to be sure.
And there’s a fine line between faith and foolishness.
But good stewardship also requires aggressive risk taking.

God’s people should never veto God’s will in the name of good stewardship. “

Man, I was floored and immediately the worry went away and I had a peace that I was making the right decision.  Thanks God!  You bring us to the right path, if we’re walking in your truth.

Later on that day, after I hung out with Carie and my sister some more, I went out with two guys in my life group, Phil and Mark.  The conversation was sullen and slow at first, but then we started talking and probably could have gone the rest of the night.  I praise God for these guys and the rest of my life group who follow through on my leadership and as far as I know, they all got together(or are going to) and became procative on building authentic community with one another.

Then this morning I woke up at 5 and showered and came to the office to continue study of my message.  The week’s topic is on love, and I just came to a point where I started weeping as I went through the passages we’re talking about aand the parts I was studying.  The wholeness of the love of God is so amazing!  It crushes selfishness and ego, manipulation and guilt.  It stomps what I want and paves the way for His Kingdom.  May we all learn to look through the past of our own earthly love experiences and find the wholeness of God’s love to actually be all we need.  I’m so pumped to share with Fellowship Church this principle as we look at going from Good to Great!

Until next time…