Monday Night, Date Night

Leslie went to her small group tonight, so it was a date night for Cadence and I. We enjoyed some nice outdoor Pittsburgh weather and then some play time before downing a few bottles of formula. Yep she’s growing and put down 2+ bottles (about 6oz) in over an hour. We watched some CNBC: I’m trying to balance out the Baby Einstein, Reality Shows, MMA, and with some real world knowledge. Then waited for Mommy. If you haven’t checked Cadence’s site in a while she’s posted some new pics.

 

Monday Reflection on Sunday

Didn’t get time to post this yesterday, too much time with the groups and celebrating my first Father’s Day. Here’s my thoughts on Sunday @ ICC

• Still loving One Prayer…Perry’s message was simple, but extremely challenging
• First attempt at video messages went off without a problem
• no one openly complained about watching a pastor on the screen instead of on the stage
• 2 mission groups with Power Plant in town to help us out: Brookwood from OK, Pleasant Grove from NC
• They were a huge help Sunday: mainly by streatching our regulars into new roles as facilitating their task.
• Man Day 2.0 was awesome, We have some great cooks at ICC amongst the men. Ian made some killer ribs, and Michael’s Italian sausage and pasta begged for multiple helpings.
• Bob is doing a great job with song selection and organizing the band during the summer
• With all the help, our systems were pushed and I think they responded nicely…a very controlled chaos
• Taught again in ICK; I get pumped each week by hearing those kids talk to God.
• Some of their prayers for their lost family members broke me
• Tommy broke a very expensive plastic pitcher…give him a hard time about it!!!!
• We could really use a rear projection screen and riging, it’d help a lot with appearance and stage space.
• Speaking of space, our trailer is about maxed out, good thing we have an FedEx guy helping us each week.
• Summer small groups start this week!

 

It’s Begining

 

One Prayer starts this Sunday, but you can already begin the journey by joining with others around the world in praying for this event. Join the conversation by going to www.oneprayer.com.

I’m so excited that Iron City Church is one of the 1,300+ churches participating in this unifying campaign. The coolest part to me is join with everyone in prayer, fasting, spiritual pursuit, and international church planting. If you live in the Pittsburgh area, come be a part of this groundbreaking movement at Iron City Church! Stay tuned to as I’ll be updating you on what I see God doing in my life and around ICC over the next four weeks.

 

Sunday @ ICC

• Set-up went really smooth; it always helps when TD stays away till needed
• New vocalist helping out while B does his camp counseling
• taught in ICK, probably will be doing this a lot this summer
• right before teaching the DVD player went out, not cool! Lucky we’re a little oldschool and we actually had a vcr/tv combo and a tape laying around that worked beautifully into the lesson that was planned
• Took the kids on a hike…awesome hearing them talk to God
• Summer Slump hit us about 3 weeks ago
• Stoked about One Prayer starting next week!
• Saw some peeps that I haven’t seen in a while, great to catch up with them
• Lots of praise reports
• But also a lot of spiritual battles being fought
• Lunch with summer small group leaders…love’n some mexican food
• Somealot of the people attending really get the vision and make sacrifices each week to see it happen
• Leslie & Cadence come home tomorrow…can’t wait it’s been to long
• the other kids (daisy and roscoe) and I took a long walk through the woods this afternoon
• Have been watching a lot of MMA this past week. Great fight between Pulver and Faber tonight
• Forest Griffin–”the juice is worth the squeeze” reminds me of this; also a great thought for those of us battling the spiritual warfare thats running through the ICC peeps and leadership.
• Can’t belive…actually yes I can believe what Gary told his guys today
• Busy week ahead!

 

My Cleaning List

Not the chores, but the music played while getting ready for Leslie and Cadence to come home:

• Kansas: just one to start the day Carry on My Wayward Son
• Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals
• Chasen (2x’s through)
• 3 Nails (most of you have no clue, local band from SC, no longer around but a great base line throughout)
• Fall Out Boy
• Foo Fighters
• Good Charlotte
• Fred Hammond: really like the old school This is the Day

A good day of work and play!

 

 

 

A Married Bachelor

So I’ve been “batch’n it” this past week; as has a good friend who shall rename nameless. He and I were talking about the process of preparing the home for when our wives return. We concluded that it is a delicate balance of clean and utter mess (usually this outweighs the cleanliness) that you live with long enough so that you only have to clean once before she comes home.

Today it dawned on me that this has some deep spiritual applications as well. I feel that a lot of my life I live in a delicate balance of clean and utter mess. More often than not I allow the utter mess to keep me away from my time with God…and the mess continues to pile up. Instead of regular maintenance on my spiritual walk and drawing close to God, I just go when I’ve had enough and need to straighten some things out. Wow! That may work for my house and wife; but I don’t think this flies for my spiritual house, the temple of the Most High. Somethings got to change.

 

A Great Prayer

I had the privilege of discussing and praying Ephesians 3:6-21 with a great friend this past week. And yes, we did it in the KJV, we went old school!

Verses 16 and 20-21 seem to provide parrallel thoughts. What challenged me the most was that God desires to do “exceeding abundantly above all” in my life for His Glory (see vs 6 for an idea of what gives glory to God); and that He’ll provide the strength to do it.

Sometimes I get impatient waiting on God to do what I think he’s asked me to do; when really, He wants to do way more than that. The good question is: are we comfortable in our life? if so we may not be where God wants us. Because when exceeding abundantly above all things start happening, we should be freaking out. Better question: are we willing to take the risk involved to get where God can do this? Paul was in the midst of severe tribulation while writing this prayer!

 

Lessons from the field

I learned a unique lesson this past week playing soccer:

I admit, I’ve never been the biggest, strongest, or best player on any team I’ve played on the past 20 years. However, I’ve always played the best mental game and therefore earned spots as the sweeper (last defender) and at times given the joyous job of marking the other teams best players. I have seemed to piss off a lot of the opposing players over the years; and almost every time it’s taken them out of their game. However, I’ve never really been part of a winning team either, but oh how I like to take the oppostion out of their game, especially the coocky ones.

I think Satan is like that. He’s not on a winning team, but loves to annoy us just enough to get us out of our game. Even though we may be winning as a team, I may not be scoring any “goals” because of satan’s attacks. And his attacks take me out of the game and I loose the enjoyment of winning!

 

Word Choice

So some of you have been waiting for my thoughts about the this artical and this response concerning the SBC. I’ve had plenty of time to think, and have rewrote this a couple of times now….mainly to keep it simple.

First a declaration, I am a Southern Baptist by choice! I was not raised in a SBC church, actually the church I was raised in was quite against the SBC. I choose to go to a SBC college and Seminary because my convictions theologically, pedagogically, and practically most closely align with theirs. I have been a member of two established SBC churches, one doing things traditionally and one a little more progressive; and am now on staff at a SBC church plant! I am one of a few younger “leaders” that may still hold hope for the SBC, yet only have a voice via the blog world.

Here’s my opinion on the matter: The SBC needs to have a Cooperative Understanding, not just a Cooperative Program! Here’s my logic:

• 304,180,375 and counting: population of the US (source 1)
• ~75,000,000: unchurched US citizens in 2004 (source 2)
• 345,941: # of SBC recorded baptisms (source 3)
• 16,206,920: total recorded membership in the SBC (source 4)

This means we reached .12% of the total population and .46% of the unchurched population. I wonder how many statisticians would consider that significant! Further that’s only 1 baptism for every 47 members of a church. And these numbers are post the Bobby Whelch 1 Million bus campaign. It’s interesting that the tag line for the SBC website has One People, One Purpose. These numbers illustrate that we do not have One Purpose yet alone a Cooperative Understanding of that Purpose! Throughout the OT when the nation of Israel failed, God had some choice words for their priest. Pastors it’s not the SBC’s responsibility to orchestrate a new program or campaign, but those of us on the front lines speaking to the those on the frontback pews (we are baptist aren’t we) to help them on God’s mission: imago dei. Being His image bearers in a marred world.

 

 

Future Post

I’ll be posting my thoughts to these findings and this man’s response very soon! I know I’m a little behind in getting it out, but I’ve had two weeks to process it. You’re not going to want to miss it. Read up on the links above to get prepared!