My New Hang-out

I am sitting in the new (though it has been around for a couple of months) coffee shop in Frostburg, Mountain City Coffeehouse & Creamery. Great little atmosphere...great pretzel sandwich. It is amazing until this place opened there was not a coffee shop in Frostburg which has a student population of 5000. I hope this place stays strong and makes it. It was not busy when I came in around 11:30 am, but business has been picking up in the last thirty minutes.

Here are somepics of my family that I wanted to share. The first is me with our daughter, Riley, and the other is my wife, Michelle and Carson our son.



I am so thankful to God for these wonderful gifts he has given me!!!!

Good posts from a friend

I was reading a friends blog today on the Holy Spirit and thought they were well written and well thought out. Which is surprising considering the guy who wrote them is an Aggie. John Herring is the Minister of Adults Johnsons Ferry Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Necessary (and Dangerous) Holy Spirit

The Dangerous and Necessary Holy Spirit, Pt. 2

Gotta get me one of these

My daughter is only five, but when the time comes I think I will have to get me one of these monkeys!

I can't wait for January

No it is not because American Idol is back. Personally I could care less about that show. It is because my favorite show to ever come to TV is back for another season and I just saw the 24 teaser and it looks awesome. I wrote about my love for this show in February.

Jack Bauer gives us an illustration of biblical truth that is uncanny. He is willing to sacrifice himself for everyone else. He has been doing it for 5 seasons on 24 and it looks as though the 6th one will be more of the same. When you watch the video listen to these quotes that sound so much like the need people have for what Jesus did in their place on the cross.

"A threat will rise"--what threat do all of us face? The threat of sin and what it will do to us in this life and the life to come. It is trying to take control of us each day and it needs to be stopped.

"Fear will grow"--people are full of fear in their lives. But as John tells us, "perfect love drives out fear." (1 John 4:8) Jesus displayed perfect love.


"Our only hope lies with one man"--WOW how true it is. It is funny when you watch the video Jack's hair is long with a long beard, almost trying to look like Jesus who is the only hope for anyone.


Jack says, "I can die for something"--Jesus died for something...for God's creation...you and me. We are all fallen in need of Jesus who died for us.

"We are asking you to sacrifice yourself"--That is exactly what God asked Jesus to do. "The greatest way to show love for friends is to die for them." (John 15:13) This is where Jesus showed perfect love, His willingness to sacrifice himself.

"If we want thses attacks to stop Jack Bauer has to be sacrificed"--The attack of sin on our life will not end in this life. But because of the sacrifice that Jesus made the attack of sin on the lives of Christ Followers will stop after this life is over.

Jesus paid the ultimate price for all of us. The price that we were suppose to pay. He laid down His life for you and me. What are you going to do with the knowledge of that?

Who you voting for?

Yesterday, I took the day off because Riley was off from school. So, Riley and I are doing something in the kitchen when Michelle walks through and I ask her"When do you want to go vote today?" Before Michelle could answer Riley asked, "Why are you going to vote?" Trying to figure out how to explain voting to a 5 year old I say, "To put people in our government to run the country." Riley says, "I want God to run our country."

Out of the mouth of babes.

Being the Light

There is a story of a young woman one day who went to here pastor and wanted to talk about her job. She began to talk and told the pastor about how hard the job was and how rude the people she worked with were. She said she was really struggling in her Christian walk because of this job. The pastor looked at the woman and asked, “Where do you put lights?” The woman looked at the pastor curiously, but she did not respond. She went on to tell how her co-workers went out and partied on the weekends and came in and talked about all the things they had done and how draining it was to her spiritually to hear all of that kind of stuff. The pastor again calmly asked, “Where do you put lights?” Again the young lady looked at the pastor curiously but continued on about how her boss and his appalling language that he used in the work place. One last time the pastor looked at the lady and asked, “Where do you put lights?” The lady aghast at the repeated question looked at the pastor and said, “Well, I guess in dark places!” When the last word came out of her mouth she lowered her head and walked away knowing that she was suppose to be the light in the dark place of her work.

Jesus tells us we are, “the light of the world.” We live in a dark world with people that are not very nice and things that rage against everything the bible teaches. In this world we have two choices, one is unbiblical and the other is biblical. The unbiblical thing to do is to run and hide. This is what some do they insulate themselves from everything that is evil in this world and sit back and wait for Christ’s return. But God did not call us to do that! He called is to be in the world but not of it. We are supposed to let our light shine in those dark places of the world and make a difference for His kingdom. We are to be what Paul calls us in 2 Corinthians 5:20, “ambassadors for Christ.” We are supposed to go into the dark kingdom and do the work to promote God’s Kingdom.

Personally I hate Halloween. I wished in many ways it would go away, but the people outside our church are going to celebrate it, so this year we have decided to go into the dark places and see if we can make a difference for God's Kingdom. We are doing a "Light the Night" in our church parking lot. We have secured lights from our local volunteer fire department, two bounce houses, a cotton candy machine, a popcorn machine and some awesome kits from the American Tract Society. Please pray that God would help us as we reach out to our community through this event.

Former Golden Boy of the SBC

With all the things happening at Southwestern Seminary, the institution I hold an Master of Divinity from, I feel I need to respond. Dwight McKissic preached at chapel earlier this semester and spoke of his private prayer language. Obviously SWBTS President Page Patterson did not like his view on the subject because McKissic's message was taken off the website for people to be able to view and then this week President Patterson had the trustees, McKissic is a trustee, vote on a new policy of restriction of anyone that has a private prayer language at SWBTS.

For more info on the story read the letter to the trustees from Dr. Patterson and Dr. McKissic's response at SBC Outpost or this article on Dr. McKissic's sermon at SWBTS at Associated Baptist Press

What is funny to me is that McKissic was the Golden Boy of the SBC back in October 2001. He was a board member of the BGCT and asked the board to affirm inerrancy, BP Article

In a story by BP about McKissic at his resolution that was present the SBTC. About half way down you find this...

"As their first act of business, messengers approved a statement on the reliability and trustworthiness of the Bible written by Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington. "I simply wanted to introduce a resolution on biblical inerrancy that I don't have to read now, but want to make sure it's accepted here. By the way," he added, "this is the same motion that was rejected by the executive board of the BGCT."

SBTC President Ruben Hernandez thanked McKissic for the statement and said, "You're in friendly territory." Messenger Bill Sutton, pastor of First Baptist Church of McAllen, moved the suspension of the rules in order to act immediately on the resolution, receiving numerous shouts of "second" to his motion.

Asked to speak for the resolution, McKissic said, "I want to reiterate the position of the documents as I understand them of the SBTC and to give testimony to Baptists in the state of Texas regarding our beliefs that the Bible is the inerrant and infallible Word of God." The text of the resolution stated, "We believe in the divine inspiration of the whole Bible and the inerrancy of the original manuscripts," adding that the BGCT executive board had rejected his effort to present the motion for consideration at their 2001 convention.

"I bring this motion today because I want to be absolutely convinced that I'm in a room with Baptists that can affirm that if God breathed the Scriptures, they have to be without error," McKissic passionately declared to the applause of convention-goers who cheered and waved their ballots when it was time to vote. "I just need to know there are some Baptists who will take a stand on this issue," he shouted.

Asking if any messenger wished to speak against it, Hernandez joined the audience in laughter at such a thought. "All right. That's beautiful." After messengers voted, he added, "Unanimous. Let it go on record."


Amazing that you are part of the in crowd as long as you agree with us, but when you decide to talk about what you believe that is contrary to what the powers that be believe then you are on the outside looking in.

Personally I am a cessationist that is willing to be proven wrong! But, I can fully cooperate with someone who is a continualist. I was eating lunch with my accountability partner today and we were discussing why churches shoot themselves in the foot so often when it comes to reaching out to people with the good news? I believe the SWBTS trustees have shot the SBC in the foot one more time.

Tragedy in Africa

I was reading another blog about the story of Darfur and that many Christian leaders have tried to bring this tragedy to the light of people in America. Here is the story.

What really breaks my heart is the lack of concern for the most part among those who should care the most. Some estimates have 200,000 people dead while others believe it is closer to 400,000 people. Another 2.5 million have been displaced because of government repression. The Sudan government not only allows a group of Muslim nomads to do whatever they want in villages to people in the northern part of Sudan but also the government gives them support to do it.

These Militia called Janjaweed, which means "devils of horseback" rape the women, kill the men and take the livestock of these villagers. The reason? The Darfur people are black non-Muslim and the janjaweed and the government of Sudan are Arab and Muslim.

If the devastation keeps going the death toll could pass the 500,000 that were killed in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. If you want to see what happened there a good movie is "Hotel Rwanda."

Why should Christians care? Because these are people!!! These are creations of God that cannot protect themselves and we need to do everything within our power to help keep things like this from ever happening to people.

One of the problems cited in the article with the US interfering is that the Sudan government and the Janjaweed could raise up Islamic extremeist to come there and defeat the evil West.

If you would like to help make a call to your Congressman, Senator or the Presidents office. There is an email you can send to President Bush and Kofi Annan at the UN at the Save Darfu website.

Praise for my wife

My beautiful wife's, Michelle, birthday is September 28th and no I will not reveal her age, as my Dad would say, "I maybe dumb but I am not stupid." In February we will celebrate our 7th year of marriage. We have been through so much in our seven years together. She has moved three times, me twice. We have lived in four different houses and she has given birth to our two children. There have been many other things that have happened to us over that time.

Michelle has always been gracious and loving wife who I love with all my heart. She has faced every challenge that has come her way with a strength that she daily finds in the Lord. She has been a wonderful help in every aspect of my life as a pastor. I am proud to be her husband and can't wait to see what God does in our lives from here on out.

I LOVE YOU MICHELLE!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Treadmill improved

As if the treadmill is not the best one...here is a great challenger

Lego Treadmill

I love silly stuff

I was reading a friends blog today and he had this video up and it is absolutely hysterical! How in the world someone thinks up this stuff I have no clue. But here is the link! I hope you laugh, I know I did

Treadmill Video

Making a difference

This picture is a delivery that was made this week to a school just a block from our church. It is the school my daughter will be attending kindergarten at this year. I am the dude in the middle back. The guy next to me is Bob Stevenson, the principal at the school and to my right is our WMU director. The kids are some students at the school. Our church collected nearly $1000 worth of school supplies for kids who can't afford them.

Today was awesome as well. We had lunch at our church for the 60+ teachers and staff at the school. Bob introduced me first as a parent and second as the pastor of the church. When he told the teachers that our church was the one who collected all the school supplies, smiles came across all their faces. I was asked by several of the teachers if we could do the luncheon monthly for them. We went all out for this luncheon. We did grilled chicken sandwiches and grilled chicken salads. Our church family really came through on this one. The teachers were very appreciative of what we had done to help them.

These two acts of Christian love I can tell already are going to go a long way in reaching out to that school and those teachers and kids. Please prayer for our church and for Beall Elementary as we seek to make an impact on that place for God.

Football and Life

I was browsing some blogs today and one I came to was from someone that spoke at the Pennsylvania/South Jersey Convention several years ago when I was pastoring there. Alvin Reid is one of the most genuine guys I have met. He wrote this week "Everything I Need to Know About Ministry I Learned Playing High School Football." It is a great help. I have linked it for you but I wanted to relate a story about High School Football and what it taught me.

I had a coach in McKinney, Texas that taught me an important lesson for life through a football analogy. Coach Sam Serio was the coach's name. He always told us that, "If you do your job the scoreboard would take care of itself." He would say something like, men if you linemen will block who your suppose to block, qb you hand or pass the ball to whom you are suppose to, RB you hit the hole you are suppose to and recievers you run the route the way it is suppose to, I promise you the scoreboard will take care of itself and we will win.

Though this was not always correct. We weren't perfect it never seemed to work out the way it was suppose to. You know things happened. A guy on defense would blow up a block and mess up the whole play. The center(me) quaterback exchange would get fumbled or something like that would happen. If we were playing Gainsville in Gainsville their field would be a mud pit and nothing would go right. The thing is that we couldn't focus on one play we had to do it every play even when the last one went bad. We had to play the game for the whole game, not just one or two plays.

The life of a Christ follower is much like that. You do the things that you are suppose to do and the scoreboard of life will take care of yourself. You read, study and absorb God's word, you spend quality time with God daily in prayer, you use your talents and gifts for God the way they are supposed to be used and let yourself be a witness then God will take care of the rest.

Just like football things are never perfect. People lie, cheat, steal and hurt each other. Then for some reason we stop doing what we are supposed to do and start worrying what everyone else is supposed to do. We live in a messed up world where people don't do exactly what they are supposed to do. Just like that football team we need each other. We can't do it alone. We need to encourage, work with and strenghten each other. Then we need to get back on track doing what God wants us to do. Just like football we have to play for the whole game and we are not done till life is over.

Passion

I heard a question the other day that made me really think. The question was, “Why do you do what you do?” I mean my father was a Fireman, so there was no family history of being a pastor. As I dwelled on that question more several thoughts ran through my head about why I am a pastor. I thought about God’s call on my life at 15 years old. I thought about my training in college and seminary to prepare me for the ministry. But none of those were the right answer to the question. Then a word came to me that has driven me more than anything else, the word was “passion.”

The word passion means, “A powerful emotion, such as love, joy, hatred, or anger.” I started thinking more and more about that word and how it related to my relationship with God and why I am a pastor. I realized that the reason that I want to do what I do is because I have a great passion.

The great passion that I have is for God and God is passionate about people! He loves people for many reasons including because He created people. God passionately seeks out people to bring into fellowship with Him. I set in my heart several years ago that I wanted to be passionate about and for God and I realized that if I was going to be passionate about and for God then I had to be passionate about the things that God is passionate about. As I studied God’s word I realized that one of God’s greatest passion is people. So, as I have pastored over the years I have done things to develop a great passion for people

The problem is that sometimes I lose my passion for God and the things of God. There are different reasons for the loss of passion, but the thing I have to keep coming back to is being passionate. Trust me there are times that I know I could do things that are easier than being a pastor, but the passion God has put inside of me is greater than anything else I could do.

My question for you is why do you do the things for God that you do? Do you do it because of your great passion for God and to see His kingdom come on earth? Or do you do them because of selfishness or a desire for the recognition from people? I challenge you to step up and do the things for God out of a passion for Him and nothing else. Let God be your reason for everything and let everything else take care of itself.

Bigger rip off

I wrote last week about the incredibly high price I paid for airfare to Texas. Well, I did a search last weekend and for the same flights and times I could have flown for about half of what it cost me over the 4th of July weekend. What a greedy and crazy world we live in!

Riley

Sunday is my daughter's fifth birthday. WOW! How time flies. I wanted to go ahead and write today because I don't think I will be able to before Sunday. Riley is a special joy in my life because I always wanted a little girl and God granted me my prayer. I pray daily that God would help me be a great dad to raise her. She brings joy to my life!

These pictures of Riley were taken at the North Carolina Zoo back in June. She had such a good time she wanted a Zoo birthday party. Well, we couldn't do that so we are do a Carnival theme party on Saturday.

Its a racket!!

Last week on June 29 my Aunt past away from complications of colon cancer. I had know this was coming for some time and had been preparing myself to preach at the service. This meant flying from Pittsburgh or Washington/Baltimore to Dallas. I knew it would be pricey because of the short notice but it became highway robbery...or is it airway robbery? Anyway, for one roundtrip ticket because of July 4th it cost $1290. My cousin, whose mother past away, was paying for my ticket. My parents told me to bring my daugther along with me as well and they would pay for her.

I tried some alternatives. I could have found a cheaper one for about $900 but I would have flown from Pittsburgh to New York, changed planes and then to Dallas. I would have also flown to NY on the way back. By the way the $1290 flight was a direct flight. Something is wrong with that picture.

The time in Texas was good though. I got to spend some time with my brother and his family. Scott is about to start his second year of three years as a Neonatal-Prenatal Fellow at Texas Children's Hospital. I got to hold my one month old nephew Ben. The fun part was that Riley was with me and my other two nephews, Matthew and Andrew, stayed with my parents until we left on Wednesday. The cousins don't get to spend much time with each other so that was a good thing. I know my mom and dad really enjoyed it.

I think the funneist thing that happened during the week was listening to the three kids tell "knock knock" jokes. At the ages of 3, 4, and 5 they don't get the concept of what an good knock knock joke contains. Well, they didn't care they told them anyway and laughed at each one, even though to a grown-up they didn't make sense and were not funny at all.

I am so thankful for my wonderful loving family. God has truly blessed me beyond measure with them.

Woke up in a bad mood this morning

Of course that is because I went to bed in bad mood last night at around midnight est. Yes, I stayed up to watch the heartless Mavs loose four straight games and loose the NBA Finals. I had gotten my hopes up way too high. They beat the Spurs and the Suns and all they had to do was defeat so team from the Eastern Conference. That should be easy right. They beat two of the best teams in the NBA already, they also won the first two games handily. But in the third game I saw it with my own eyes. In that hotel in NC I saw the heart get ripped right out of the Mavs and then two more times, including that 20 something beat down in game 4.

The Mavs had the better team. Evident by the fact that after game three they stayed close in 5 and 6. But D-wade is the best player in the NBA hands down and the pour Mavs had no answer for the guy. Maybe next year...maybe never! I keep thinking maybe the Rangers will when the World Series also!

Just Me

Still in NC

As a family we are staying till Friday, so we decided to go the NC Zoo in Ashboro today! What a wonderful time. God has created som truly amazing things. God is a creative God. Here are some pics in honor of Steve McCoy whose grandmother had a stroke on Tuesday of the convention. He always has a Phriday is for Photos, so here are some of the ones that I have taken today here in NC!