Pics of October

Our pumpkin cookies were so yummy. Cadence mostly liked the candy. She ate if off as fast as I could put it on. I think Candy Corn might be her favorite. Although she doesn't seem too partial. :)

Look at that messy face. We had chocolate all over us before it was over. And all over the table too.




Cadence is much more confortable on the piano than either Mary or Ella but they'r e coming along too. Cadence has a hard time sharing "her " piano but we're working on it.

Big Church/Small Church

Here I am eating my lunch, blogging off the clock...

In reading the comments from the last post, I figured that I would use this one to describe what has been going on with our church in the last couple of months. 

Ashleigh and I moved to NC to be a part of a small church plant in Mooresville, called Race City Church.   Ashleigh was the Worship leader (Band Leader to our drummer, Evan).  I was the youth pastor and filled in for Pastor Keith when he was out or recovering from 4-wheeler crashes.

The church just never got any traction for positive growth.  Maybe it was leadership, maybe it was hard feelings, maybe it was our building.  In any case, Keith decided that something had to change.  As he prayed, he felt that God was prompting him to set aside his personal goals for the church and seek to partner with another ministry in the area.  This made sense because we are about reaching people for Christ.  If we aren't effective with it we should come along side and learn from those who are.

After meeting with several other pastors, Keith got together with the pastor from Mosaic Church in Charlotte, Naeem Fazal.   This was a body that was experiencing explosive growth.  It made sense to both of them that we could partner and become stronger because we all had strengths to help in spreading the gospel.  

On October 14 we merged with Mosaic and closed the doors on the Race City Church building.  It has been very strange being in such a large church.  Race City had like 40 people if everybody showed up.  Mosaic runs 4 services in a local movie theater using video in one theater so we can have more space for people to sit.  I was impressed with the efficiency with which they ran their services.  They have to completely setup and tear down all of the audio and video fro 2 theaters as well as the entrance way.  Oh yeah, the have a big children's ministry that requires almost as much set up as the rest of the church.

After being there a few weeks one thing became clear.  These were people.  Not hyper successful gospel cyborgs.  They had weaknesses and bad days.  They were disorganized at times.  It was refreshing to see that they were human.  It also helped us to see where we could come in and help.  Ashleigh and I are working to become more involved with the worship teams.   We love to teach others how to connect to God and others through worship, training young or inexperienced players what it means to be a part of a team with the focus of leading others to experience the presence of God.  There is a unique opportunity to lead a generation of worshippers here at Mosaic.

I am also finding my place in the youth group.  It is odd being the "old guy".  I played ultimate frisbee with a bunch of guys and I was at least twice the age of all of them.  But all of the leaders have said that they want to use my experience.  I am already leading a middle school guys small group.  There seems to be almost no ego involved here and that is extremely refreshing to me.  I just see a lot of young people who are hungry for God and leaders who are willing to do anything to help them find Him.  

In the end, we can be critical or defensive but the final reason for any of this is the pursuit of God.  I am very excited to be a part of Mosaic and feel that this is right where God wants us to be.  God has really been prompting me on to pursuing leadership with this body.  I am willing to follow where he leads.

By the way I have been reading "What Jesus Demands From The World" by John Piper.  This book is exceptional, Piper's books usually are.  It is challenging to hear again what Jesus said and did here and what our reasonable sacrifice is.

see you all later.

My wife is wicked funny!

I know.

I just implied that blogging was for jobless losers.

Here I am at work posting for the second time this hour...

By the way have you noticed my grasp of the blogging lingo...

Here is what my beautiful, talented, phlegmatic wife emailed to me after reading my last post... 

Hey good job blogging but I thought you were working at work.............................;)

I'm glad you somehow found time to update your blog as well.  Let's see as far as my checklist for the day:

read other people's blogs (check)

Look at our bank statement (check)

feed your daughter both breakfast and lunch (check)

teach Elizabeth (check)

Clean off the desk (CHECK) You will be very pleased

mop the kitchen floor (check)

unload the dishwasher (check)

reload the dishwasher (check)

come up with supper for my family (check)

play in the sandbox (check)

push a swing (check, check, check)

hold Agnes (check)

do my Bible Study (check)

get Cadence to take a nap (check)

so maybe people that tread blogs do more in a day than just read blogs,

maybe we just read fast and then be productive, maybe.........................

Ashleigh

touche my dear, you are right!

Turns out she is 

funnier than I thought

Oh yeah I figured out how to add pictures...

Cut the trash talk...

Ok ....

I get it...

I am not a good blogger.

I admit it and I embrace it.

I told my wife that I had started a blog.  She asked me about my post and all of that.  Well I waited like a month to post again.  That was September 26.  I guess blogging is supposed to be a daily thing to record the events of your life.  I get that.  I guess that I have better things to do like my job, where they are very generous with my computer time and ask very few questions about what I do with my day. Probably because I work.  I am busy accomplishing the things I am required to get done.  I also am trying to leave my office in better condition than when I started there so I occasionally do more work than I am supposed to.  

When I am at home I miss some prime time blogging chances because I get like 45 minutes with my extravagantly beautiful and unbelievably funny daughter, Cadence.  I like that she goes to bed at 8:00 because I get to spend the next 45 minutes with my spectacular and equally funny wife, Ashleigh.  She usually dozes off around nine because she has been chasing and writing jokes with Cadence.  Also I am really a boring person for Ashleigh to be around because I like to talk about baseball, football, apple computers and prophetic versus priestly trends in worship leading.  For get about science and math related topics.  Ashleigh is probably the most generous person I know because she listens to me and seems to be interested in what I am talking about all the while sitting and watching baseball games with me.  

Let me see if I have completed my blog checklist:

-Ranted about how I am too busy and important to blog (check)

-Subtly tried to make the point that those who blog probably don't have jobs or anything else better to do (check)

-Talked about my amazing family using words that seem a little out of place. (check)

-Creating a check list because I am trying to be funny and witty so my sisters-in-law will leave nice comments.  (check) Actually that check is conditional on the aforementioned comments!

The only thing I have trouble with is putting a funny movie or picture in my blog. 

Perhaps someone can help me with that.  

For now just imagine a really cute, curly-headed little girl singing "doh-doh-doh"  after hearing her daddy tell his wife about that one of his bass guitar students would be playing "Silent Night" for the upcoming Christmas Recital.  

Sing it yourself, low and use the syllable "doh" instead of the words.  It is a lot of fun really!