As I reflected on that this past week, a few things came to mind.  First, I am not worthy of any praise compared to what the Lord has done for us.  Many times we believe that leaders of churches are making the difference.  Leadership is important, but it is what that leadership points you to that is monumental.  Christ must be the one that receives the credit and the glory.  I want to be a leader of a movement of churches that are focused on the mission and relentless in their pursuit.  A movement that is so huge that no one even thinks about giving me credit, but are found sitting in awe (along with me) at what God is doing.  Think about what happened at Pentecost.  Peter stands up and preaches and 3000 come to know Christ and are baptized.  No one afterwards was saying, “Great sermon, preacher.  Appreciate your message pastor.  Worth every cent of the offering today.”  NO!  They were speechless at what the Lord did. The Lord is the one that deserves a Standing Ovation.  How often this past month have you cheered for him with as much emotion as you exhibit at a football game.

Second, I desire a standing ovation from Jesus.  That is not a prideful statement, but a recognition that I want to please an audience of one.  In fact that was one of Keith’s points in his message this past Sunday.  I want to be like Stephen.  (Well maybe not the stoning part)  Stephen is about to die and he says these words, “Behold, I see the Son of Man standing at the right hand of the Father.”  WHAT?  STANDING?  He is depicted as sitting almost everywhere else in scripture.  But here it is said that he was standing to receive Stephen.  What an honor?  Talk about overwhelming.

Finally, my grandmother kept me down to earth.  She was sitting a few people over from me.  When everyone stood up, I looked over and she was looking at me…still sitting.  For a split second I thought about standing myself and helping her to her feet and sitting back down.  I know she just couldn’t get up that quickly, but we laughed about it nonetheless.  I told her, “Thanks for keeping me humble.”  Sometimes you need people in your life that no you aren’t that big of a deal and that God is bigger.  I appreciate people like that.  Seek them out for yourself because sometimes you can begin to believe that God owes you something because of your great service to Him.  He doesn’t owe you anything else, he already poured out His entire life for you.  It’s about time you gave Him a standing ovation.

This was not the model found in scripture.  A new believer needs a life coach, someone that can walk with them over the next 6 months to a year of their life.  Someone that will touch base with them formally and informally weekly to teach them how to pray, how to study scripture, how to look for ways to serve others, and how to share their faith.  They do not get that on day one of Sunday School. 

The most natural person to be that life coach is the one that leads them to Christ.  But for those of you who are soul winners, you may need help.  Recruit individuals in your churches that will walk them through these critical months.  Focus on three things at first.

1.  How to pray. 

Jesus taught his disciples to pray.  You teach them.  I like that acronymn PRAY.  Praise, Repent of specific sin, Ask God to move in specific areas, and Yield to God in his directions.

2.  How to read scripture.

Start them in a book.  I like for new believers to start in John and James.  I get them to underline scripture that speaks to their heart and put a question mark next to scripture they do not understand.  When we get together we talk about it.

3.  How to look for ways to serve.

Pray one prayer all day long.  “God show me someone I can bless today.”  Then as God answers the prayer, they are to partner with him.  They may even have the opportunity to share their new faith in Christ with them.

They don’t need to be plugged in.  They are already plugged in to a power source that is much greater than our programs.  They need to learn how to turn on the switch and have a relationship with the Lord Jesus.  Then your church begins to move as Reggie McNeal says from being “program driven to people development.”

The highlight of the week for me was Wednesday and Thursday night.  On Wednesday night the students were challenged to let God take off the chains of sin and be free.  About 15 students stood to confess Christ as Lord.  Hundreds came to the altar to confess sin.  On Thursday night I was blown away at God’s moving Spirit.  My nephew and niece Blake and Kelsey were there along with his girlfriend, Emily, and Kelsey’s friend Jessica.  When the invitation was given to follow Jesus and confess him as Lord, they all four stood.  It was a moving experience for me.  I closed my message with a testimony from my father.  My father continues to be a witness even in his death.  He would be so excited that they surrendered their lives to Christ totally regardless of the cost.

I was so proud of our teenagers from our church.  Kevin Miller felt like God was calling him into full time ministry, youth ministry.  Several teenagers repented of sin, and still others wanted to make their commitment to Christ public and be baptized.  They had such a great attitude all week and as they interacted with others they were so respectful.  My family was also there all week and had a ball.  The boys climbed to the top of the 15 foot inflatable in the middle of the lake.  I wish you could have seen Connor’s face when he got to the top!  They had a blast being with the big kids.

Something entertaining was the College World Series.  It was the bottom of the ninth and the game was tied.  Over 150 students and adults crowded around a TV watching USC try to capture the crown.  Curfew came, and the staff had to shut off the TV and send everyone to their rooms.  I thought there was going to be a mutiny.  The children were actually cool and respectful, but the adults were MAD!  They were very disgusted to say the least.  Maybe if we had the same passion and desire to see God move as we do a game, revival would break out!  Needless to say, it was a good call because the game wasn’t over for another hour.  USC did win the championship!!

Looking forward to next week.  I’ll be camp pastor again.

So I’m telling my church about this yesterday.  Then later in the service during the announcements I told them about our churchwide mission trip.  We are building a church facility in Rock Hill at New Kirk Baptist Church.  We send nearly 125 if our people and about 50 from other churches including those we have built in the past.  Awesome week.  You should sign up.  It only cost $50.  I thought about sending my kids because it would be cheaper than keeping them home!

Anyway someone visited our church this Sunday for the first time.  It was a young man and his two sisters.  They needed a ride home because they did not have a car and probably walked to church or had someone drop them off.  He misunderstood me during the announcement time and said, “How do you sign up for that week long fishin trip for $50?  I’d like to do that!”

I laughed when I heard it, then I thought. “He’s right.”  It IS a week long fishin trip.  Jesus told the first disciples who by trade were fisherman, “Follow me.  And I will make you fisher’s of men.”  He basically was saying, “Catching fish really doesn’t matter.  Follow me, and I will make your life matter.  Follow me, and you will make a real difference.  Follow me, and lives will be changed.  Follow me, and I will let you partner with me as I transform people.  Follow me, and you will make history.”

So today at work, you are on a fishin’ trip.

Life’s a Trip…Live It.

Therefore, stop asking this question, “Are you a Christian?”  95% of America would say that they are a Christian.   Almsot like it is synonomous with being an American.  Many can’t even tell you what one is and they claim to be one!

Start asking a question like this, “Tell me about your faith journey or tell me about your spiritual life.”  The answer to that question will reveal if they are a born again follower of Jesus.

Try it and don’t forget to ask those people in the church either!  They might not know what a Christian is either.

So as we sat there yesterday out of the blue he said, “When the water is slick as glass, the sun is setting, you prop your feet up on the side of the boat, no one is around and everything is quiet…that’s a good place to be.  People who haven’t been there don’t know what their missing.”

I said to him,

“Daddy, when you are hurting you need to go to that place.”

He choked up a bit and said,”It’s too far away.”

I said, “It’s closer than you think.”

So here is the experiment…make life a trip.  How?  I’ve got to go to work!  Pretend you are an undercover agent at work, posing as an employee but really a missionary.  I’ve got to take care of the house and children.  Pretend you are raising a missionary.  I’m shut in!  Great.  You can be one of our greatest prayer warriors.  Be specific and follow up with staff and our prayer ministry to see how God is working.  Make phone calls, write notes, and bake cookies for someone in need.

So here is the assignment….For 40 days pray one prayer all day.

“God, show me someone I can bless today.”

Pray it all day.  Make a note and put it on your mirror.  Pray it over and over when you are getting ready for work.  Make a note and hang it from your rear view mirror.  Pray it in the car on the way to work.  Put a sticky on your computer at work and pray it throughout the day.

I promise you…God will answer that prayer.

The next step is to look for the opportunity to tell them why.  “Jesus has changed my life and served me, the least I can do is serve you.”

On our Facebook page we want to chronicle the stories of how we are partnering with God.  For those of you who are not a fan of our Facebook page, send an email to leeclamp@barnwellsc.com.  You can also write a note and mail it to the office or call Andrea at the church.  We want to celebrate how God is working through our lives.  This is not intended to lift us up, because we can’t do anything of supernatural significance on our own anyway.  This is intended to get us moving in a direction that God is already moving in.

Don’t waste any time.  Make the most of every opportunity.

Each Sunday we will give you the opportunity to let us know how many days you participated in the project and the number of individuals you were able to bless.  Over the 40 days, our goal is for us to serve 1000 people!
Life’s a Trip.  See you Sunday.

The church should not simply be reactionary to the problems of the community.  The church shouldn’t just be the one coming behind a collapsing community and pick up the pieces. The church needs to be blazing the trail for the world to follow.  If our community is going to progress, we as the church must raise our level of excellence.

So where do we start?  First, we must not be satisfied with where we are.  One of the reasons communities die is because they want to coast and not be progressive.  If you coast, you slow to a stop. 

Second, leaders must rise up and take ownership of their community especially young leaders.   Why young leaders?  Because they haven’t figured out yet that it can’t be done.  We cannot sit back as the church and let others lead.  When someone is needed to lead something, our first reaction cannot be “I don’t have time.”  The church needs to run for city and county council, run for school board, serve on committees, and coach recreation ball. 

Third, our failure rate has to increase.  What?!  If we are not failing very much, it may mean that we are trying new things.  I think back to when we helped our city do something they had never done before:  a family day on July 4^th complete with family games, fireworks, and musical program.  Nearly 1000 people attended.  It started with an idea. 

Finally, we must begin to make more “What if” statements.  What if we tried this?  What if we did this?  What if we organized this?

Have we forgotten how to dream?  Have we settled for where we are?  Are you willing to do something about it?

If our community is going to progress towards excellence, it must first start with God’s people seeking Him.  I hope to see you at our community wide prayer gathering on Monday, March 22 at 6 pm at the circle.

Serving our city into a better tomorrow.

Being the missional church is simply the people of God partnering with God in his redemptive mission in the world.  This includes not only saving souls but bringing the kingdom of heaven to this earth, which is far better than what we are experiencing now.  We are serving our city into a better tomorrow.  That’s what it is all about.  If a few people want to see it happen, there are probably a few cowboys that will see to it that things are done as they always have been done.  If we stampede, there will be better community when the dust settles.  Lives will be transformed which will mean that businesses will operate more effectively, schools will be the top of the state, crime will plummet, and God will be glorified.

Continue to serve your city into a better tomorrow.

It was at this point that I realized I was stuck.  I couldn’t back down the mountain.  It was too slick.  I couldn’t go up the mountain, I would slide.  I couldn’t sleep in the car…We were one mile at the bottom of the mountain from our cabin.  I wrapped the boys up and we started to walk.  I had a car full of groceries and only a few groceries at the cabin, but it was too much to carry.  I grabbed my gps and off we went.

As we walked it was a bit taxing as the steep grade was tough especially in the cold air.  The roads were not well lit and only a few individuals were walking. I was trying to act like everything was fine as not to alarm the boys, but Caden wasn’t buying it.  We prayed to Jesus and said, “Please get us to the cabin safely tonight.”  Why do we pray prayers and then assume that God isn’t going to answer them… After about a quarter of a mile I reached in my pocket to look at my gps.  We had traveled in the wrong direction.  I stopped the family and turned around.  The bad part is that it was a stretch that was down hill so we started back up the hill.  As we were walking back up the hill, I looked at the gps and noticed that we were to turn right…just when the gps went dead.

So here I am walking down a dark road, responsible for my family, no directions, a mountain to climb.  I didn’t panic but it was at this time that I said to myself, I’m turning around and going back.  Back to familiar territory.  Closer to my car.  Closer to civilization.  And as I turned around to tell Leisa, head lights of a vehicle were approaching.  The closer it got I could tell it was a gator ATV with an enclosed cabin.  It was as if God whispered in my ear, “Calm down.  The Gator is the answer you have been looking for.”  The driver of the gator  told Leisa and the boys to get in the cabin and I climbed in the back and off we went.  I knew that the hill going up to the house was going to be a steep one even in an ATV so I wasn’t completely convinced yet that God was answering my prayer.  She asked where we were going and I said, 2535 Raccoon Hollow Way, Sevierville, TN.  She asked where that was and I said, the only thing I can tell you is turn right.  As we approached what was familiar territory there were two drives to the left, both steep.  I wanted to make sure that we went up the right one because I did not want to come back down on that snow and ice.  I prayed, “Please Jesus make this gps come on.”  and it did.  I got a glimpse of where to go but it wasn’t conclusive, so she started up the farthest road.  As we went up the steep road I wasn’t convinced we were going the right direction.  Then I began to read the house numbers and they were larger than mine and climbing.  I realized we were going the wrong way, and I freaked.  I tapped on the glass and said, “I don’t know where we are mam.  I think we are in the wrong area mam.  I’m not sure which way to tell you to go mam. It may be best just to take me back down to where my car is.”  That’s when she said, “Just calm down.  I’m going to get you to your cabin.”  As we crested the hill the road continued down the mountain and sure enough the numbers started to decline meaning we were just a few 100 feet from my cabin.  Then there it was, “A glimpse of Heaven.”  (That’s the actual name of our cabin!)  I then got out and breathed a sigh of relief and choked up a bit realizing how awesome God was.  I asked her name.  She said Nell.  I told her she would one day be an illustration in front of 500 people.  She said, “You’re a preacher.”  I told her, “Yes”  She said, ‘Pray for my husband.  He just passed away in November.”  We gathered with her and prayed and also prayed for her safety as she was continuing to help others.  I gave her $20 for gas.  And down the hill she went.  I’d say that I was worried about her, but I’m starting to believe in prayer.

I’m sure there is a spiritual lesson in there somewhere.  You can probably figure it out.  For me though it was pretty simple.

Allow me to use one of our church members as an example.

There is a man in our church who has had a spiritual awakening in Jesus over the past few years.  He works at a local plant.  One day he received an email from his boss that said, “Some of the people are offended by your conversations.”  This floored the man, because he couldn’t understand what he had done.  His boss then called him to his office.

The conversation went like this.

“I’ve been talking to some of your workers and they are offended by how much you talk about God and your involvement in church.”

Our church member then leaned back in his chair and sighed and said, “That’s a relief.  I thought I had done something wrong.”

The boss was perplexed and said, “You can’t talk like that to everybody.  They don’t want to hear it.”

He said, “Listen.  I can’t change who I am for this company.  Jesus changed my life.  I can always find another job.”

He then was reprimanded and dismissed. 

Folks…that’s being missional.  Check out Acts 4:18-21.

• About 10 men gathered to pray for me.  It was such a joy to hear their prayers and their hearts.
• The youth choir rocked today.  We are blessed to have such great teenagers.
• Several of you told me the message was for you today.  It was for me too!  Sometimes we get so busy that we miss out on a love relationship with God.  Revelation 2 is a wake up call for churches that are busy doing programs but forget about sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to what he has to say in his word and through your prayer time.
• Had lunch with Vivian and Jacque Ussery today in their home!  What a cool place.  It was built by his grandfather in the 40’s and has been completely renovated by the Ussery’s.  He has quite a collection of cool old stuff including many antique coffee grinders.  We talked about the marriage tune up at the Merge on Feb. 19-20.  It is going to be a lot of fun.  I hope you sign up.  Contact the church office today.
• It was great to see so many come and honor Harry at the reception.  There were several former youth choir members who came back.
• During our church council meeting today we heard several stories of how God is working through our ministries.  The jail ministry shared about the dad of one of our newest members, Art, who traveled from Spartanburg to perform magic tricks with a spiritual message.  The children’s ministry received a grant Trina applied for to bless the mentoring program.  The student ministry had a great parent/teen ski retreats.  The local missions group built a few wheelchair ramps.  The men’s ministry crew is gearing up for the Men’s Retreat on March 12-13.
• May God never remove our church’s lampstand from its place.  May our influence in the community and relevance continue to thrive.
• Saints win the Super Bowl!!  Sorry K.  She is a huge NFL fan and was pulling for the Colts.  I was pulling for the Saints.  Their name sounded more spiritual.
• God gets the credit!

His church is experiencing revival as lives are being changed.  This past year they baptized 85!  Wow!  He retold a story that one of his church members told him.  A lady from his church was talking with someone they worked with.  When the individual found out that they went to the new church on Hwy 70 she warned the girl that it was a cult.  The church member was confused and said, “Why do you say that?”  She then said, “I know of someone who started going out there, and when they came to work they were changed!  Everything about them changed including their dress, the way they talked, and the way they treated others.  Something bad wrong is going on out there!”

That’s what I want them to say about our church.  When people go there they come back changed.  Jesus calls us to be transformed.  Scripture teaches that we are a new creation when we come to Christ.  The old has passed away and the new has come.

The worship has been great with Steve Fee band.  Ergun Caner is a powerful speaker and the first night he really encouraged those who have felt beaten down in the ministry and made a comparison to Paul in Galations 6.  Ed Stetzer spoke today and focused on the ministry of reconciliation as opposed to the false gospel of moralism.

I sat in on Dr. Richard Ross’ breakout session which challenged us to gather prayer partners around teenagers and engage parents to equip them to disciple and pray for their teenagers.  He is such a humble and intelligent guy.  I am always challenged by him.  I got to hang out with Clayton King a bit who is one of those guys you just want to hang around.  He is a trip and is MCing the event.

I led a breakout session entitled Changing the Scorecard and had some sharp student ministers in attendance.  We looked at the current scorecards in the church that we measure to define success: budgets, baptisms, and butts in the seats.  We then worked on developing matrices to count results rather than assuming results were taking place because people were in attendance.  Had a great time with them.

The boys and I spent some much needed time together tonight at the swimming pool.  We had the pool to ourselves partly because everyone else was at the worship service.  I hate to miss anything at a conference like this, but it was important to my boys for me to swim with them and chunk them around the pool.  I missed a good message as Ergun Caner talked about discerning what God wants you to do in your current ministry and if he wants you to stay or go.  I guess I’ll get the CD and listen to it.

Tomorrow we wrap up the conference and hopefully we will be able to make it home.  The roads are pretty iced over.

On Saturday Leisa and the boys traveled down to Port Canaveral to board The Disney Wonder on a four day cruise to Nassau.  It was an awesome trip.  Both the boys were so excited and a bit wild, but the boat allowed them to let out their energy.  Connor got kisses from the princesses and Caden got autographs from all the characters.  We made a few new friends at dinner time as they sat with us.  Harris and Alisa from New Jersey and their daughter Faith.  Leisa and I won the newlywed game and got to go their spa on the boat which was an awesome experience.  Caden snorkeled for the first time at Castaway Cay and was able to see a few fish.  It was a great time for our family to recharge and create memories together.

On Thursday we got off of the ship and traveled to Orlando to the Nickelodeon Resort where we checked in and waited on the rest of my extended family.  My four brothers and their children and my mom and dad traveled down later that night.  My Dad has been battling liver cancer so this was a great time for all of us to get together and have a vacation away from everything.  It was my prayer that Daddy would make it through the weekend and be able to enjoy seeing the grandkids at Seaworld.  He has always wanted to take them there.  It rained all day, but we just pretended like it wasn’t raining and put on our ponchos and walked from place to place.  Caden and Connor fed dolphins and we saw several shows culminating to the Believe show with Shamu.  This was the highlight of the trip for me as the grandkids gathered around Papa and watched the show together.  They both got a whale tail necklace after the show that the divers were wearing (great marketing ploy!).  Connor rode the Polar Express with Daddy and got to see Santa with him and they took a picture together.  Connor asked if Santa could give him his gift a little early. 

On Friday night Connor started coughing every 10 seconds.  This went on for the next 24 hours!  It was aweful.  We went to urgent care and got an antibiotic for bronchitus and a steroid.  We still were able to go to the Magic Kingdom.  It was so crowded but we were able to all do the classics together.  We filled up a boat on It’s a Small World, and all went in the Haunted Mansion together.  The grandkids got a nap in the Hall of Presidents and then we rode a few more rides.  We headed back to the hotel and watched the Clemson game.  Then we went to a game show where Caden, Katie, Leisa, and I were contestants.  We won and Caden got slimed!  The imfamous green goo from Nick.  It was a great end to the week.

We traveled all day on Sunday and it was back to work on Sunday morning.  Luckily I work with one of the greatest staffs in South Carolina and are among some of the greatest people on the planet.  Everything was pretty quiet around here this past week and nothing skipped a beat.  It is a mark of good leadership among the staff and members. 

Now it is time to Expect the Unexpected!  Our new series this December.  I look forward to spending Christmas with you.

I said, “What are we doing?”

He said, “Playing Santa Clause.”

We then opened up the back of the station wagon (That’s right!  We had a two-tone gray station wagon that was two-tone only because my brother helped my dad hand paint the top of the station wagon that was rusted.)  My Dad hollered, “Does anyone want some free toys?”  There was a mad rush on the car and all of my former treasures slowly started to be distributed among people that I did not know. 

Twenty years later I found myself doing the same thing with my boys.  Last year we went to the home of a child that I was mentoring and gave him some of Caden and Connor’s toys.  My boys helped gather the toys and then took the toys up to the apartment.  As we pulled away from the apartments I watched as the children with smiles on their faces began to play with the toys in the sand around the stoop. 

How will you give this Christmas?  There are so many in need around us and in other parts of the world.  Allow me to offer a few suggestions that could have an eternal impact.

• Give to the Lottie Moon Christmas offering.  100% of the funds go to foreign missionaries around the world. 
• Adopt a family and give their children Christmas presents.  Names of these families can be received from Trina and Ryan at the church office.
• Give an offering to our sister church in Pomona, Belize.  They need $1000 to finish bathroom facilities at their child development center. 
• Sponsor a child to attend our CDC.  The registration of $360/month will change an at risk child’s life forever with early intervention and allow them to attend our CDC. 
• Become a prayer partner for one of our teenagers.

This Christmas season our theme will be…Expect the Unexpected.  God always is in the business of showing up when you least expect Him.  Allow Him to work through you and bless your life as you give your life away to others.  Santa shouldn’t have all the fun.

Perry was the life of the party in college and attended FCA with us every week at Clemson although he went to Anderson.  He was the youth and college minister at North Anderson Baptist Church where we went our freshman year.  There are two things that stick out in my mind about Perry from those years.  I remember how he always lifted up his teenagers in public and claimed that they were the best teenagers in South Carolina.  I also remember how he would go out to the hang out areas of Anderson and share the gospel with people with boldness and courage.  He had a burning passion to see people come to Christ and have their lives changed.

He felt a strong desire to plant a church in 1996 and started Newspring in 1999 at Anderson University.  Since then it has grown to over 10,000 in weekly attendance and has planted 3 multisite churches.  Many of my students after going off to college worshipped at Newspring and were impacted by his ministry.

In the church leadership world, Perry has been talked about and ridiculed by 100’s of people.  Ironically, most of them are church leaders. 

The bottom line is that Perry has a heart for Jesus and a love for other people.  He has a burning desire to see people come to know Jesus and he is open to doing what God wants him to do in ministry at Newspring. 

The lunch was great.  He was the same guy I remembered from college. 

And… he found out our waitress didn’t go to church anywhere.  They talked a bit about how he was a waiter at one time.  We asked her what day is the worst to work.  She said, “Sunday lunch.”  That’s the one time of week that tips are the lowest.  That is discouraging church!  God wants you to be a blessing to the world! 

He invited her to come to Newspring.  I’d be very surprised if he never saw her again.

The bill was $26.  Perry paid the bill and I left her a $26 tip.

Then there is Dr. Luke Bonnett, owner of Chapin Pediatrics.  He was a wild one his freshmen year and then he began to hang out with Jeff and I.  He watched our lives and desired something more.  There was a pull from other friends to continue the party scene, but he would spend hours across campus in our room.  We became close friends, and he eventually surrendered his life to Christ.  Jeff and I became part of his spiritual story.  We prayed him through college and then through each MCAT test he took.  He was denied an interview at med school on more than one occasion.  When he finally got one, he knocked it out the park and was in the top 10% in his class at MUSC.   

Tommy Haff and Alan Swartzentruber rounded out the group.  Tommy became very close to Jeff and Luke in a fraternity that was different than the rest.  Alan and I cheered together and served on leadership at FCA.  Both these guys are good as gold.  Alan actually caught a fish at the Lake.

In college, we held one another in check.  We weren’t afraid to challenge one another.  We weren’t afraid to call sin…sin.  We loved one another enough not to let the other fall into a sinful lifestyle.  We try to gather once a year now.  When we gather together; we play together (Luke lost 18 balls in a round of golf), encourage one another, challenge one another, hold one another accountable, and pray together. 

So here is my question to you…

Whose spiritual story are you a part of?

Who is challenging you in your faith, encouraging you to stand firm, and rebuking you when you stray?

If your answer is “no one”, quit dragging your feet.  Find someone in your Sunday School class or small group and ask them if they will be a prayer partner with you.  If you aren’t in Sunday School or a small group, join a group.  The leadership of the church can point you in the right direction, but you will have to walk. 

For those of you who haven’t been to worship in a while at Barnwell FBC, allow me to extend a personal invitation to come back and join us as we partner with God to change this community and our world.  On Sunday, November 22 we will have a Thanksgiving Homecoming.  It begins with Sunday School at 9:45 am and one joint service at 11 am where all the services will come together.  Following the service we will eat lunch together at Barnwell Elementary School.  BBQ will be served and we are asking you to bring 2 of the following 3:  dessert, salad, or vegetable.  I look forward to seeing you.

Be the Church

So now that I have come up for air, I will try to set a priority of blogging a bit more.  For the thousands maybe millions that are reading the blog or maybe just my mother, I apologize for making you wait  this long. 

At any rate, welcome back.

We desire to give individuals complete healing as was described in Acts 3.  Not just a surface level gift of money, but a complete healing that seeks to help people at the root of their problems.  At the very core is a life apart from Christ.  We seek to help people spiritually and sometimes that involves physical healing.  Always remember that there are some out there who cannot hear the message you preach because their stomach is growling so loudly.  Feed them so that they may see the message of the gospel in action and that they may actually listen.

If you desire to join a church that is on mission, the First Baptist Church welcomes you.  It is our desire that you understand what you are getting yourself into when you decide to follow Christ and join our church!  We have decided to begin a monthly new members gathering called Connections.  All future members will go through this informative class in order to have a clear understanding of the gospel and find out about the heartbeat of our church. 

Who is this gathering for?

1.  Members who have responded to the invitation in church and have been presented as a “Candidate for Membership”.

2.  Individuals who have confessed Christ as Lord with one of our missionaries from FBC (that’s you!) and desire to be baptized.

3.  Guests at First Baptist Church who desire to know more about the church and its mission. 

Our next gathering is Sunday, October 25 from noon to about 2 pm in the Activities Center.  Lunch will be provided for your family and you will hear from my heart.  You will also be introduced to our staff at FBC.   There are no strings attached, but you will have an opportunity to express your interest in joining FBC and following Jesus.  Those who desire to join will be presented to the congregation the following Sunday for membership.

If you desire to be at our next Connections Class, please make reservations with K at the church office.  I look forward to seeing you.

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Apathetic, but after the resurrection he was Awe Inspiring

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Blind, but after the resurrection he was Bold

Before the Resurrection, Peter was a Coward, but after the resurrection he was Courageous.

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Defeated, but after the resurrection he was Delivered

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Embarrassed, but after the resurrection he was Extraordinary.

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Finished, but after the resurrection he was Fearless

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Garbage, but after the resurrection he was golden

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Hardened, but after the resurrection he was Holy

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Illegitimate, but after the resurrection he was In the family

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Judged, but after the resurrection he was justified.

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Kicked around, but after the resurrection he was Kingdom Bound.

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Lost, but after the resurrection he was Loved

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Misunderstood, but after the resurrection he was a Masterpiece

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Nothing, but after the resurrection he was Noble

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Oppressed, but after the resurrection he was Obsessed

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Poor, but after the resurrection he was Priceless

Before the Resurrection, Peter was a Quitter, but after the resurrection he couldn’t keep Quiet

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Ridiculous, but after the resurrection he was a Revolutionary

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Shattered, but after the resurrection he was Sold out

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Trapped, but after the resurrection he was Tenacious

Before the Resurrection, Peter was Uncertain, but after the resurrection he was Unbelievable

Before the Resurrection, Peter was a Victim, but after the resurrection he was Valiant

Before the Resurrection, Peter was a Wimp, but after the resurrection he was Warriors

Before the Resurrection, Peter was eXpelled, but after the resurrection he was eXhilarated

Before the Resurrection, Peter was a Yahoo, but after the resurrection he was Yelling out the name of Christ.

Before the Resurrection, Peter was a Zeroe, but after the resurrection he was in the Zone, a Zealot for the cause of Christ.

Changed people Change the World

Then with Jesus dead, and Peter’s head on the chopping block he fled and went back to what he was doing before.  Then something happened that changed not only Peter’s life but changed the course of history:  Jesus was resurrected from the dead. The resurrection changes everything.  If it is not true, then you are wasting your time reading this and I am wasting my time writing it.  Your faith is in vain and is futile.  But if it is true, then you have a decision to make.  Follow Jesus and let him save you from your sin.  Hope to see you tomorrow!

Angie took over the newsletter after Dianne Fischer moved to Aiken.  She did it without a hesitation and jumped right in this week in getting it done.  She is also the first face that people see and is always pleasant to those who come in.  She had the opportunity to talk to a psychic the other day and kept me from having to talk to them!

Ann is daily managing a 1,000,000 + budget with multiple people spending money.  On top of that she also fields questions from church members and assists me in personelle policies and financial reports.

Our custodial staff is so much more than just maintenance.  This past weekend Sue was decorating tables for a wedding party.  She even went home and got her own ferns and set the tables.  Did she have to do this?  No.  All she had to do was open the door and clean up after the party.  She took it upon herself to go above and beyond.  I have never heard Dianna complain to me.  She consistently does her job and makes it possible for ministry to happen at the merge.  Phil is out new comer.  He has done a great job stepping in upon Sandy’s retirement.  The lawns look great and he has been assisting Tori in the CDC to make sure it is ready for operation August 30.

Next time you see them around our church, let them know you appreciate their hard work.  They are ministering on a daily basis here at FBC.

He is an African American man in his late 60’s or so with a dread lock beard and wiry hair.  He is very fit as he walks what seems to be about 5 miles a day.  He is not homeless and worked for many years as a field hand for a farmer.  When I asked him why he was giving all of his money away, he simply said, “Because the Lord tells me too.”  I picked him up one day when it was pouring down raining.  As he stepped into the car I asked him where he was going.  He told me and I began to take him there while water dripped off his beard.  He was soaked.  I offered to take him to lunch and he opted to take the money as he was not hungry.

I saw him again the other day.  I approached him and asked him if he remembered my name.  He said, “I do not remember your name, but I remember your heart.”  Wow.  What a compliment.

I then reminded him my name and he said, “Do you remember mine?”  I said, “It’s Willis.”  He smiled.

Check out Hebrews 13:2.  It will challenge you.  Do you think that this scripture is true?  Isaiah 53:2 talks about Jesus.  Check it out.  It may give you a different picture of Jesus than what you envision.   You know:  brown flowing hair, nicely trimmed beard, and blue eyes.

Next time you see him walking around town, say hey to my friend Willis.  Take him out to lunch.  He may teach you something.

The highlight of the day for me was sitting with one of our leaders at FBC, Bob Dixon and sharing our stories and praying with each of the veterans.  For 30 minutes we had an audience of 5 as they wanted to be interviewed.  We asked them how we could pray with them and prayed by name with each of them.  Then Bob and I told our faith story.  Bob shared war stories with them and then talked with him about the last 12 years of his life and his desire to follow Jesus. 

Many churches would not have seen this as a mission.  They would never have gotten to the point of approaching others and ask them, how can we help you serve people.  It is encouraging to serve at a church that is missional to its community.  I hope other churches will be proactive in this recession.  You can check out a video podcast on this topic.  Open itunes and search ystuff.  Click on the video podcast “Serving the Community vs. Preserving your Programs.”  Check out the scarf!

We checked into the Anchor hotel right on the beach, and then headed out to the slow paced town with dirt roads.  Very small island with several shops and restaurants.  We returned back to the hotel after buying souvenirs and had a closing worship time at sunset on the beach.  It was an emotional time as we recapped the week and then we closed with singing on the beach under the moon light.  I thought about my mom, because the moon was extra bright and she is a moon lover. 

We then traveled by foot back into the town for a final feast of bbq chicken, fried shrimp, and broiled snapper.  After our meal we got ice cream and then came back to the hotel.  I fell asleep in the hammock next to the ocean under the moonlight.  Pretty relaxing.  A world away from our surroundings during the week.

Final recap…

·                    Our teenagers blew me away.  They never complained when we had many things we could have complained about.  They ministered in unbelievable ways, and represented Christ and our church very well.  I was so proud of them.

·                    We shared the gospel with 275 children and gave away 200 soccer balls with colors representing the message of the gospel.

·                    We lead 4 worship services for the church.

·                    We had several children and adults come to know Christ and plan to be baptized.

·                    We developed a partnership with Pomona Christian Community Church that will be a lasting.

·                    We encouraged the beginning of a men’s group at the church.  It was the first men’s gathering they had had in quite some time.

·                    We encouraged Pastor Wayne who is a bivocational pastor with 5 children.  He is a teacher and only gets reimbursed for expenses at the church.  He also serves as the chairman for the Baptist churches in the district.

·                    We impacted lives at the children’s home and brightened their week as many of our teenagers played and prayed with them.

·                    We developed a passion for international missions which will last a lifetime.

We began the day with another wonderful breakfast of oatmeal and fresh pineapple.  The children began to arrive for sports camp early and we were into full swing.  I prayed today that the Lord would save someone from their sin.   I first went to Mattison’s group and during his Bible study a child, Jeremiah, kept getting up and walking away from the group doing his own thing.  I pulled him off to the side and picked him up like a baby and started talking to him.  He was a cute 8 year old.  I asked him if he knew who Jesus was.  He said, “No”.  I then one on one shared the gospel with him.  I asked him if he wanted to follow Jesus and be baptized.  He said, “Not now.”  He was a cute kid.

Then I began to walk across the field and an 18 year old that was in our worship time last night came up and asked me what he could do to get his life back on track.  I told him that it was impossible and kept walking.  He followed and said, “What?”  I said, “It is impossible to do on your own.  The real question is What do I need to do to be saved from my sin?”  The night before he was very engaged with the gospel message even during invitation.  He told me he became a Christian the night before.  I then asked him to pray and confess Christ as Lord right then.  He did.  Then we encouraged him to be baptized.  His name was Alex.  His friend, Jerrel, walked up and also asked almost the same question as Alex walked away to get a Bible.  I told him the same thing and he prayed and confessed Christ as Lord.  They both came tonight to the closing worship time and met Pastor Wayne.  He encouraged them to come to the baptism classes next week.  So the Lord answered my prayer times two!  We had a closing ceremony where the kids recited their memory verses and we sang a few songs.

After lunch half of our team went back to the children’s home and the other half painted children’s furniture for the preschool.  It was very rustic furniture.  Nothing like what we would use in the states.  I had the opportunity to talk to the pastor’s oldest daughter Christy.  The Lord has his hand on her life.  She is such a strong, teenager in her faith.  It was good to listen, encourage, and pray with her.  As I listened I couldn’t help but think about how similiar teenagers are all around the world.

The team came back and we all gathered in the worship center with the cooks, the team, and the pastor.  We presented him with a tee shirt, left over soccer goals, and a love offering.  He presented me with a Belize flag from their worship area.  We plan to hang it in the merge.

Then they prepared a feast for us!  Fresh Lobster tails, fried shrimp, and some type of bread pudding made from a root and ginger.  To top it off our third coke product this week in a glass bottle.

The final worship service was awesome.  We had a sharing time.  Many from the village came out.  The women’s group got up to share and their was a black out in electricity.  When their is a blackout in the village, it is dark!  I guess this happens all the time.  A few of the children got a bit scared and the ladies calmed them as they lit candles and told them to sit down, we weren’t finished.  They began to sing worship songs by candle light.  At the end of their song the lights were restored.  It was one of those Wow moments.  Pastor Wayne shared a brief message and thanked us, and then we sang Shout to the Lord (which was a song I learned with our students my second year in student ministry at Barnwell on our first mission trip.)  There was many hugs and tears and we returned home.  The people of Belize may not have as nice of things as the average American, but they have each other and they value relationships.  If there is one thing I have been challenged with it is this:  We should use things, and value people…Not use people, and value things.

Now starts a beautiful partnership with a missional church in Pomona, Belize.

Check out pics from the day at www.facebook.com/leeclamp

We had enchilada’s and mango’s for lunch.  Excellent.  The ladies of the church including Ms. Taylor, Carla (the pastor’s wife), and 2 others ladies have slaved in the kitchen for us.

In the afternoon, we finally had down time.  We traveled into the rain forest mountains to St. Helen’s Cave.  It felt like we were stepping into the Indian Jones movie.  We traveled into the cave which had a river running in it and was about 30 feet tall.  We stood with all the lights out and it was a darkness that no one had experienced before.  We stood silent and listened to the trickling of the river.  It was eary.  Ancient Mayan’s used to venture into the cave with no light and spend weeks there alone in a purfication process.  They thought it to be the closest thing to death.

Then we went to the Blue Hole.  It was in the middle of the jungle.  A bluish green water hole that was 25 foot deep.  A natural spring bubbled from underneath with extremely cold water and caused a river to flow away from it into the caves.  It was so refreshing after being drenched in sweat from the hike in the 110 percent humidity of the rain forest.

We traveled back to the church.  The pastor’s family is becoming close friends.  He told us of his desires for the church to be the church to the community.  They have a preschool of 3-4 year olds.  Because there is a lower expectation in facilities they are able to provide schooling in their building.  $6000 will purchase a building for 15 children.  They would like to extend their preschool to K5.  $1500 will help them finish their bathroom.  $15000 will finish their entire second story to expand their school as well which is a long range plan.  Copying machine $1500, and pastor’s office $4000.

After a dinner of fresh fried Red Snapper, rice, split pea soup, and cake; we had a youth service.  There were about 25 teenagers who came.  Our students did a funny drama that they came up with, and Mattison gave his testimony.  I then preached the gospel from Ephesians 2.  I was sweating bullets.  It was rolling off my face and neck, and rolling down his arm.  No students got saved, but I think a few Geckos on the wall were contemplating.  I was able to encourage the youth leader, Yovan, and prayer with her.  She is doing a good work, and has about 40 teenagers that meet every Saturday night.

We closed out the day on the roof of our hotel singing praise songs and praying together.  Now if only I could call my family, it would be a perfect day.  I miss them very much and not being able to call is killing me.

Check out pics from the day at www.facebook.com/leeclamp

We went back to the children’s home.  Today we were able to give them hats that Taylor Boyleston and Philip Johns gave us.  They loved them.  Each of us gathered a couple of youths together and prayed.  This home is doing a great job at loving on the children and teaching them manners and respect.  There is mostly teenage girls here.  We gave each of them a Bible.  Ren is our resident Gideon and brought 200 Bibles.

Tonight the ladies had Bible study together with the women of the church.  Bible study is much different here.  A lot less organized and lot more free.  The woman sang together.  Then they read a passage of scripture and discussed it verse by verse.  The men do not have an organized small group gathering throughout the week, but we invited men for a Bible Study.  Three men gathered with Ren, Nick, Pastor Wayne, and I and we began to tell life stories.  One of the men lived in Chicago for 25 years and returned home to Belize.  He was the village mayor.  Seemed to have a lot of influence.  Just got saved about 3 years ago.  Very skeptical of Christianity all of his life because of Christians and false preachers.  He desired a group to begin to help the men build relationships together and strengthen one another.  I then looked at him and said, “I think I am looking at the leader.”  He said, “I don’t know enough of the Bible.”  I said, “Now you are starting to sound like Moses.”  We challenged him to begin a small group of men to hold one another accountable, pray together, and simply read the scripture together with Pastor Wayne’s support.  Ren told him that he messed up now, because we would be praying that he rise up and lead.  We talked for two hours.  Issues were brought up and I would be reminded of scripture and read it aloud to the men.  It was an encouraging time.  We went longer than the woman and even had to leave early.  That doesn’t happen often!  We prayed together and then returned back home.

Check out pictures at my facebook account.   www.facebook.com/leeclamp

We began the day with breakfast provided by the servant ladies at Pomona.  They have been there when we arrive everyday and leave after we are gone. 

We blew up 90 soccer balls and laid out soccer jerseys that Michael Allen donated from the soccer teams at BHS.  It was a frenzy!  Starting at  9 am children started showing up from all over the village.  We had about 90 children involved in the soccer camp. 

It was controled chaos to say the least, but the children had a blast and our teenagers and adults did a great job.  Belinda and Heather manned the snack station and distributed the balls.  She talked with several children around the covered area.  Katie and Dawn led a volleyball group.  Mattison, Grady, Ashley, and Kirsten all lead a soccer group.  Several teenagers came out and helped lead the soccer group.  They were phenomenal.  Even some of the 12 year olds gave Matt and Grady a run for their money.  Most of them were playing with bare feet.  The teens lead a bible study and we presented the balls to the children after camp and told them what the colors represented and shared the gospel.

After camp we ate lunch.  Corn torilla shells, chicken, and vegetables.  Excellent.  We then went to Hosanna Home, a children’s home that was opened by a man in PA.  The children know him as Mr. Bob.  It was very clean, the children were very respectful, and it was well run.  Located in the mountains, it had a beautiful view.  Highlights there included getting to know some teenage girls and playing cards with them.  I let them paint my fingernails, and they put a head band with hair on my head.  They had a blast.  Grady killed a tarantula that was as big as my hand.  Our teenagers are awesome.  They were loving on the kids and playing games with them.  I was so proud of them.

We went back to the church and had dinner (bbq chicken, beans and rice, and fried plantana).  They also bought me a birthday cake and sang to me.  It had trick candles.  The pastor’s daughter has captured my heart.  Her name is Abigal and she is nine.  Full of life with big brown eyes.  Delightful personality.  She helped me blow out the candles.

Then we had a children’s service.  About 50 children showed up.  Families hung around outside the church talking to Pastor Wayne.  We talked with them about the story of Jonah through games, puppet show, and drama.  Our team then split up andm made bracelets with the children and prayed with them.

It has been a long day.  I was exhausted and drained from the heat, and we had a team meeting when we got back.  Our leader pulled out the guitar and we started to sing.  Then Sarah, our leader, said “I know you are drained, but pour out your life this week as an offering to the Lord.”  I was reminded of Paul’s words when he said that he was being poured out like a drink offering and that he beat his body and made it his slave so that he would not be disqualified from the prize.  I am rejuvenated.  Tomorrow will be great.

We slept well as did the gecko in our room.  We awoke at 5 am, thanks to Ren and Grady again.  We were dressed and ready by 6:30 am.  We did not need to be ready until 7:30 am, but it did give us time to read the Word!  We then went to Pomona Christian Community Church where they fed us eggs, cheese, fried jacks (like an elephant ear!), and fruit.  We were finished with breakfast by 8:30 am. 

Pomona

Children’s Sunday School (they do not meet with everyone on Sunday AM) started at 10 am, so we had plenty of time to talk with children as they trickled in for an hour and a half.  I spoke with the pastor’s sons Aaron and Jesse.  They are really cool and full of personality.  A dog was using the bathroom in the yard and I said, “The dog is poo pooing.” Jesse looked puzzed and asked what I was talking about.  I said, “Do you not call it poo poo?” He said, “No.”  I said, “What do you call it?”  With an innocent straight face said, “Sheet.” with a creole accent.  I died laughing and said, “I don’t guess that is a cuss word here.”

One of the things that we are learning is that cultures other than America are not as consumed with time and the program.  They are more concerned with relationship and people.  This is a lesson the church could really do well to learn and grasp.  We started fifteen minutes or so late, we ended 30 minutes late, but it was all on time.  The pastor’s children are full of personality.  His oldest daughter led the children in singing.  Her name is Christy.  His next two children are sons, Jesse and Aaron.  His next two children are full of smiles and dimples Abigal and Ruth. 

After singing, the children stood up in classes and recited a Bible verse.  We split into groups and taught them the story of Zacceaus, and discussed how we could apply the principles of his transformation to our lives.  We had lunch and then came back to the hotel for ministry training which was an excercise for us to tell one another our spiritual story in 7 minutes. 

We set out to tour around our hotel and went for ice cream and a small shop with only ice cream.  We walked down to the beach which was cluttered with liter and the water resembled the brackish water of the beaches of South Carolina.  Nice palms everywhere and a man throwing a cast net into the water to try to catch bait. 

Mattison and Grady purchased a coconut from a man riding a bike.  He sliced it and they drank the coconut milk out of it.  They pretended to like it and tried to get others to drink, but I didn’t buy it.  They finally admitted that it was pretty bad and put it down.

Tonight we worshipped with the church.  It was a packed house of about 75 adults and children.  Full of Spirit.  No air conditioning.  I wondered if we would still conduct services in America if there was no air conditioned building.  They spent an hour singing, sharing testimony, a few students sang Reggae Christian. 

Then we did a skit that the students put together.  Grady gave a testimony, and Mike led in worship.  Bert sang a song and I preached on being a missionary to the community using the story of the good .  The founding pastor of the church was there.  He led Pastor Wayne to the Lord 16 years ago.   

The congregation sang a birthday song to me.  I can’t think of better way to spend my 35th birthday. 

We embarked on our trip to Belize this morning.  The day started at 5:15 am with Ren taking a shower and Grady talking constantly.  We then hopped on a van to the airport and met a sharp young man named Abou from Liberia.  He talked to me about his muslim faith and his understanding of the differences between his faith and Christians.  I encouraged him to seek out the validity of the resurrection of Christ, because that is the corner stone of our faith.  I also encouraged him to seek out if the book of John spoke truth.

We made it to the airport and Ren got stopped at security and was interrogated in “the room”.  We then got on the plane and took off.  Kirsten squealed like a pig the entire lift off and was extremely excited.  The flight was smooth and we touched down in Belize at noon.  We went through customs and had 11 bags full of stuff that we were donating.  We thought we may have to pay a tax but Ren, Ashley, and I made it through.  Next thing I hear is Belinda yelling my name across the customs area saying they need the key to check her bag, which causes a chain reaction of all the customs people noticing all of our bags being the same.  They then summoned us all together to ask us to give an itemized list of everything in the bag, which K had all ready for us!  Then they said we would have to pay a customs tax unless we had a letter stating we were exempt…which I pulled out that K had ready for us.  Then he said, “No.  It needs to be from our Prime Minister of Finance.”  I said, “Really.”  I then found myself in front of the counter paying a $100 tax, which was actually good because we should have had to pay 5 times that much with the stuff we were bringing into the country. 

We met our missionary guides Mike and Sarah outside.  Burt was our bus driver.  He is native to Belize, a preacher’s kid, and cool as ice under pressure.  We will get to that in a minute. 

We had lunch at a pizza place and our students talked with a crippled beggar, and also fed a child who was on the street.  They were able to share their faith with him as well.

We headed to a children’s home and I was so impressed with our kids.  The home was depressed by American standards, but was a haven for children.  Our kids jumped right in and started picking up children and loving on them.  Even those with special needs and chicken pox!  It was so encouraging to watch them.  Over half of our group already shared their faith.  I am so proud of them.  I met a cool guy named Aaron.  He had been there for 11 years.  I told him he was going to be a preacher some day.  Solid athlete.Nick Williams held the hand of a special needs girl who was mute for over an hour just because she wanted him to and needed some attention.   

We then traveled two hours through the mountains to Pomona Christian Community Church.  This is where things started to get interesting.  We had  a tire blow out on our luxury school bus.  Bert then went to change the tire on the duelly system.  No jack.  Decided to find a rock and run it up on the other tire.  This jacked it off the ground enough to change the tire.  The spare had the radials sticking out.  We then proceeded through the mountains at record speeds, and then we got to our first bridge going 60 mph.  It was one lane and Burt never took his foot off the accelerator.  As we are passing someone on a bicycle, the spare exploded.  I thought we hit him.  I know he is cleaning out his shorts. 

Finally we pulled up at the church, and were greeted by children and youth.  Pastor Wayne was so inviting and we were brought in like royalty.  They treated us to fried chicken, mashed potatoes, noodles, and chocolate cake.  We felt at home.  

Home sweat Home

We then rode to our hotel in Dangriga and settled in.  We are exhausted, but excited to start our mission tomorrow.  We will be leading children’s Sunday School in the morning and I will be preaching tomorrow night for their service. 

• Pray for us to be faithful to the Lord in our actions.
• For sickness not to slow us down.
• For Grady to make it through customs
• For every one of our team to share the gospel with at least one person from Belize.
• For us to be able to distribute 200 soccer balls with the message of the gospel spelled out through colors.  We plan to present the gospel each day at the camp.
• We are leading services at the church.  Pray that we are able to share our stories with them.

Check out our progress at www.prayingpelicanmissions.org.  Click on trip in progress/Belize/First Baptist Church Barnwell.  Leave us a comment.

She said, “We never stop going to church.”

He got a worried look on his face and with horror he exclaimed, “You mean we have to go to church even when we die!”

The horror. 

First of all, the church is a who not a what.  Second of all, have we reduced church to a one hour, boring event that we endure in order to check off the religious silo of our lives.  My prayer is that at First Baptist Church every Sunday is a revival where we celebrate what God has done through our lives during the week, encourage other believers to press on, and hear a Word from the creator of the Universe!

I’ve met some cool friends.  Amy, Corbin, Kye, Bobby, Julie (who I keep calling Laura and who got saved tonight!!), Lauren, and a ton of other teenagers.

But the coolest thing this week was that tonight we celebrated over 25 students who came to know Christ.  Some of them came to know Christ in their church group devotion time last night after being confronted with their sin in the message last night.

I feel priveledged to be a part of their spiritual story.  Every time they tell their spiritual story to someone, I will have a small part.  My prayer is that they will be the spiritual story of someone else…and someone else…and someone else.  God continues to rock my world.

My prayer is that as they go back to their communities that they will be missionaries on the largest mission field in North America.  If people do not come to know Christ by the age of 18 there is only a 20% chance that they will.  College students are leaving the fellowship of believers in the droves.  30% of those active in church ministry will remain.  That is not including those who are not even a part of the church.  Statistically, parents are not raising their children in the Lord and are not impressing the truths of the faith on their children.

So WHO is going to take the message of the gospel to them!  Jesus used 10-11 teenagers (his disciples) to change the world (there is evidence to believe that John was as young as 13).  I believe that he can do it again.  Don’t let your life be a Christian Walk…Run, Set the Pace, Be the Church to the Community and allow God to transform the World through you beginning where you are.

Monday we challenged the students to train themselves and put forth effort into what they believe.  I Tim. 4

Tuesday they were challenged to nail down what they believed about the Bible and why.  Then they were urged to read it, if it is they believe it is the very breath of God.  II Tim 3

Wednesday was heavy.  We talked about the doctrine of sin.  Ephesians 2:1-3.  We had several students come to know Christ during their church group devotion times after the worship and message.

Tonight is going to rocking.  Pray that students will come to know Christ tonight!

By the way, Whiteoak has had a face lift and it looks unbelievable.  Roger Orman and Tim Hughes led the charge in building a high ropes course, covering the basketball area, and a new cool lounge and snack bar.  It’s awesome!

My pastor, mentor, and friend Stephen Burnette, the Dr. has accepted a call to be the senior pastor at Sumter First Baptist Church.  I am very excited for that church because they will be receiving a leader who will help them transition to a vibrate, missionally minded church.

Steve has been the type of pastor that student ministers dream of serving under.  I came on board 6 months after he started at First Baptist Church in Barnwell 13 years ago.  I was fresh out of college at Clemson and single.  Steve allowed me to make some stupid mistakes in those first few years, and always lifted me up in front of the leadership.  In fact I remember times where we would have a fifth quarter and students get saved, but would also leave the campus a wreck.  As adults would complain about coke cans on the lawn, Steve would say, “Did you hear about what happend.  We had 200 students here Friday night and 10 students came to know Christ.  Isn’t that exciting?  Now what were you saying about the coke cans?”

He did not micromanage.  He let me lead.  He let me take risks.  He provided leadership and vision and suttle hints, but he always has allowed me to be the student minister.  Steve, as busy as he was, always took time if I needed him to listen and provide insight and direction.  I will miss him greatly.

Since I have been in Barnwell, he has married me to my high school sweetheart Leisa and counseled with us, presented my children Caden and Connor to the church family and prayed for them, and championed me to begin and finish my Seminary degree including two 6 week sabaticals to complete it during the summer.

Thanks Steve, I will miss you; and I promise to continue to bug you for advice!  Have fun Sumter!  Be the Church.

Daddy:  Who is Jesus?

Connor:  God’s son.

Daddy:  Why did he come here to earth?

Connor:  To die on a cross.

Daddy:  Why did he die on a cross.

Connor:  To protect us.

At this point I was thinking.  I haven’t ever heard that one before.  I wonder where he is going with this one.  So I ask,

Daddy:  To protect us from who?

Connor:  God…

Wow.  Connor just took it to another level.  I’m thinking he is a theological genius.  Jesus died to protect us from the wrath of God.  Precisely the point.  Many times we throw around terminology like, Jesus died for our sins, and people do not understand the why.  They think it is simply eternal life.  But in order that we might be made righteous, he died in order to protect us from just and righteous punishment for our sins.  In essence he protects us from God and takes on the wrath himself and pays the penalty in order that God might be both a merciful God and a just God.

So I ask, “Why was he protecting us from?”

Connor sucked his teeth and did this funny things with his eyes he does, and then shook his head and said,

Connor:  Just don’t worry about it, Dad.

I thought, that is precisely what Satan tries to convince the world. 

Just don’t worry about it.

We found the sign and we conquered three dozen donuts.  What is it about that sign?  The sign lets us know that something fresh is in the works and it is hot and you need it now.

God reveals signs all around us that he is active in the world and his creation even today.  Have you seen a sign lately or have you just passed on by?  Don’t miss out on something fresh and divine!

Wednesday night we looked at the story of the Good Samaritan.  If find it quite comical that Jesus uses a preacher and a worship leader to be the two that passed by the beaten man and some guy (probably didn’t even go to church!) helps this dude out.  A Levite was the tribe that produced all the preachers and it was also the levites that lead in the people into singing if I am not mistaken.  They were probably late for church or something!

In reality, I heard of a seminary class that sent young preachers out to preach on the good samaritan at a church and planted a homeless man en route.  A very high percentage of preachers did not stop and nearly all of those who were late to preach did not stop to help. 

Reflections on the night.

• Kenneth had the swine flu and still led in worship!  Well, maybe it wasn’t the swine flu but he had a fever and was sick as a dog but still made it through the singing.  He’s a warrior!
• Low crowd because many students were out supporting the softball and soccer teams.  I find it disturbing when people say, “Nobody is here!” especially when they are talking to me.  I’m thinking, “So I am nobody.  What about those 65?  Are they no bodies too?” 
• I’m glad we don’t make students feel guilty for not being at church on Wednesday nights because they are off doing something else.  I just hope that they are being the church where they are!
• About 15 students fasted last Thursday!  Wow!  That is awesome.  That was the homework assignment.  Even more practiced the two cookie principle.

Parents, here are a few questions to ask your teenager.

1. What did you feel when you watched the video of the people just walking right past the 78 year old man who was hit by a car?
2. Can you think of a time when you didn’t help someone because it would be inconvenient to do so?
3. Do you find it hard to have compassion for people that you do not know?
4. One of the points this past Wednesday was that a missional life will cost you?  How has it cost you recently?
5. Encourage your teenager to give $10 to purchase a soccer ball for a child in Belize.  We are personally taking them in July.

Homework assignment this week was to do something fro someone that you do not know that will be an inconvenience for you.

Quick Facts about the US

• US produces twice as much food as is needed by Americans.
• 25% of the food that enters your home is thrown away.
• 40% of all food produced in America is not eaten
• Average American wasted more than half a pound of food a day.  That’s a quarter pounder for lunch and dinner.
• Every day restaurants throw away 6000 tons of food.  That is 12,000,000 pounds of food.
• Costs Americans $100 Billion annually

Yet 1 out of every 8 children in American go to bed hungry, and in our community there are 65% of the students on free and reduced lunch at school which means that there is a possibility that some of them don’t have more than a jug of milk and ketchup in the refrigerator.

Your child’s homework assignment this week was to 1) practice the two cookie principle.  2) Fast on Thursday. (You can guide them in this especially if they have diabetes or something that they take medications for that requires food.)

Here are a few questions to ask your teenagers.

1. What is the two cookie principle?
2. What was the story about the ice cream cone?
3. What is one fact you learned that really stood out about food waste in America?
4. What was it like to fast?

1. A missional life requires effort
2. A missional life is powerless without Jesus.
3. A missional life ends in amazement.

I looked at him in the emergency room and told him to thank his mother.  He asked, “Why?”  I said, “Because if it weren’t for your mother, you would have a battle scar for the rest of your life.  As it is now, we have called a plastic surgeon to get out of the bed and stitch up your face.” 

At school, his preschool teacher Rebecca asked him about it.  He told her, “Next time, I guess I’ll just be a rotten egg.”

• 85 teenagers welcoming JB Usher back in the Merge and having an electric worship time.
• Matt Elrod challenging us to have a proper perspective of God.
• Teenagers joyfully serving our school district with a variety of service projects at three schools.  They were awesome and finished more than was expected.
• Girls going all out in the flag football tournament.  I saw girls playing quarterback and catching touchdown passes.  The eighth grade girls/sophomore and junior guys took home the Toilet Bowl.
• Receiving a text from one of the leaders at 11 pm that a student got saved after the leader shared the gospel during one on one time.
• Parents being challenged on Sunday morning to pray with their teenagers, have God conversations with them, and read the Bible with them.  This must occur if we are going to raise up a generation that loves God.  Students recognize that parents are their number one influencers.
• My son (6) singing out during the worship.  He got to hang out with the big boys. 
• Kayla proclaiming to the church that she wanted Christ to be the Lord of her Life!

Thanks adults and leader for making this weekend a huge success!  Our students continue to amaze me.

1. A missional life requires effort
2. A missional life is powerless without Christ.
3. A missional life ends in amazement.

Reflections

• Jesus always meets our needs in priority.  He first healed his spiritual need, and then his physical. 
• I wonder what Peter was thinking.  I bet he wanted to jump up and look at the Pharisees and say, “Bam!  Now what do you think about Jesus!  I’m on his team.  I wasn’t good enough to be on yours and had to fish.  But he chose me!  Who’s next?”
• If Jesus would have just healed his legs, he would have walked out of the house; but in 50 years he’d be dead.  Then what.
• I bet he is still dancing right now.
• Don’t waste your life.
• If he got up, he no longer could have been considered disabled!  He would not have been able to have others take care of him.

Parents, you could ask your child these questions to have some God conversations.

1. Tell me the story of the parayltic.
2. Why did Lee lay down on the stage?
3. What can you do to put forth more effort in bringing your friends to Jesus?
4. How can I pray for you?

1. A life unwasted listens to the Word
2. A life unwasted focuses on relationship not ritual.
3. A life unwasted repents.

This week we begin a new series with our teenagers - Don’t Waste Your Life/Live Missional.  We began the year with a similiar theme and plan to close out the school year talking about how we can live a missional life.  Our text for this Wednesday was Isaiah 1:10-17.  Check it out.  God told his people through the prophet Isaiah that he desired for them not to waste their life with rituals but to live in relationship with Him.  They were going through the motions of what we would call “doing church”, sacrifice, and offerings but their hearts were far from God.  The students were challenged with a story of BJ Higgins, a 15 year old who died after being on a two month mission trip to Peru.  He had lived out his life missionally at his school and over seas.  In this passage we saw three things that an unwasted life looks like. 

1. An unwasted life listens to the Word of God.
2. An unwasted life seeks a relationship with God, not ritual for God.
3. An unwasted life repents.

Thoughts from the night.

• The Fairfax FBC praise band did a great job leading us in worship. 
• Their drummer was in the second grade and had a mohawk.  When I grow up I want to be as cool as him.
• Got to hang out with a youth minister who is starting out in Augusta, Brandon.  He has a heart for students and a desire to serve God.  Dangerous combination for the future in student ministry!
• We had a great turnout of adult leaders.  We are so blessed to have adults that want to make a difference in the lives of teenagers!  Especially those who are over the age of 60 and 70!  It does well for our teenagers to spend time with those in other generations. 
• Kenneth was on vacation this week.  I had to do what he does.  Whenever you walk in someone elses shoes you appreciate their work that much more.  I’m  looking forward to him being back in the saddle next week!

Questions for Parents

1. Tell me about the boy who died for his faith.
2. What can you do at your school to live a missional life?
3. What is hard about living a missional life at school?

We then traveled to the Watchtower at Desert view.  Truly unbelievable.  Best view of the Canyon from the South Side in my opinion.  Great view of the river and the cloud cover provided a dramatic backdrop as the shadows cascaded over the canyon from them.   I became a photographer for other people from around the world.  There was a man from Italy and we talked about where I should visit in Italy.  Then there was a group of teenagers from Holland.  They were enquiring about South Carolina.  I told them it was a land that was very green, rolling hills, pines, beaches, and mountains.   It was also a place where gentlemen opened doors for women and said yes sir and no mam.  They got a kick out of that.  Then I jumped in the picture with them and took a photo.

We traveled back west and stopped at a view lookouts.  As we were leaving I called another helicopter company.  They said they were the only ones still flying and had one flight left.  We booked it against better judgement.  As we boarded the aircraft, the pilot asked us if we were scared.  He said that he was not, and that he had been flying for the past 30 years and had never had an accident.  I was thinking that’s every fallen pilots claim the last time they flied.  The copter went up and the wind whisked us from side to side.  Daddy was freaking out which was quite funny. 

We then flew over the canyon at 500 feet.  Unbelievable!  Couldn’t catch my breath.  Truly something that will be remembered for a lifetime.  The sensation of flying up to this great chasm and then over was overwhelming.  Then the pilot began to take cameras from us and take our pictures while turning around.  I was thinking, “You fly the plane, we’ll take the pictures!”  It was very nerve racking especially for Daddy.  I was laughing out loud!

We landed successfully allowing me to write this post and it truly took about 5 minutes to catch your breath.

We then traveled to Sedona, AZ to shop a bit, and eat our final dinner at the infamous Cowboy Club, an old saloon that has fed a countless number of actors including John Wayne.  Quite an experience.

Our journey out west is almost over, we head to the airport in Phoenix tomorrow.

We stepped onto a bus in Page and traveled down to the Glen Canyon Dam via a tunnel and when we emerged from the tunnel we were surrounded by shear cliffs at the base of a dam the size of Hoover dam.  We then stepped on board our raft with our fearless guide David Devries, who was quite a character.  He commented on my Clemson hat and said Gator Bowl…Go Huskers.  I’m  a Nebraska fan.  I responded with, “Sorry about 1981.”

Our journey through the Glen Canyon enroute to the Grand Canyon was indescribable.  The raft ride was serene and slow in pace, but it allowed you to really grasp the dramatic cliffs that rose above you.  Now imagine.  Man attempted to construct an amazing building that rose to the heavens at 1400 feet with the world trade centers.  We built not one, but two.  Now imagine one trade center after another side by side for 14 miles on either side of a torqoiuse river.  That’s a little something God designed.  The red sandstone towered above us 700-2100 feet high.  The width between the walls was about 100 yards.  It was quite impressive. 

We also saw Ancient indian petroglyphs.  They were etched into the side of the canyon wall.

After the trip, we headed back to Flagstaff and saw the sunset over the little painted desert and the full moon in the red glow of the sunset.  Pretty awesome day.

We saw a herd of deer, a couple of elk eating on the side of the road, and toured most of the lookout points along the south rim toward the west. We plan to hit up the desert view tomorrow on the way back from rafting.

I sat listening to a park ranger explain to me how the canyon was created millions of years ago through erosion and plate shifts, and I thought, “Why try to complicate this piece of art with science? I see a masterpiece from a creative sculptor that created the minds of the great artists of the renaissance. What if this was simply a work of art on display for us to experience the glory of God?

I asked him, “How do you know how old the canyon is?” He looked at me puzzled and said, “Geologist have looked at the sedimentary rock formations, calculated the erosion and how much time the river took to carve through. There have also been sea animals found here that must have been here when the sea was at this level during the blah blah period.” I said, “What if there was a flood and the sea animals drifted here? What if God caused something awesome to happen that created this great canyon? Carbon dating and other forms of dating assume a constant over time. What if the world was drastically different before and after the flood? A flood after the waters receeded would reak havoc on the desert.” The park ranger said, “I don’t think God would try to fool us into believing that this canyon was this old?” I thought to myself, “Who’s fooling who? God could have created this in a couple of minutes. Left it here with the intentions of us finding it later on in history just to show off his Glory. He’s not trying to fool anyone. He would be just showing you he’s God. We sometimes think too much and in our wisdom become fools.”

Sometimes we are too smart for our own britches, and we diminish awe inspiring things to theories that if told long enough become truth.

The Red Rock formations in Sedona were awesome.  We went up to the Chapel of the Holy Cross.  Then we rode up to a lookout to watch the sunset.  It was a beautiful view but a little over rated as there were not an array of colors, just a very bright star you couldn’t look at until it was gone.  alt=”" />

Sedona is known for its New Age influence.  I saw a guru walking down the road, but was not enlightened.  There are also these vortex’s everywhere that you can experience some kind of energy field.  We’ll have to do that another day.  Finally we rode the winding road to Flagstaff where we are staying for the night.  Tomorrow, the large hole.

• The resurrection is the crux of our faith.  Without it we are idiots for worshipping a “good” teacher who decieved us into believing he was God.
• Jesus appeared to a variety of people.  Check out 1 Cor. 15.
• You can fool a lot of people…but you can’t fool your mama!
• Mary was at the foot of the cross, and she was at the gathering of believers at the beginning of the church along with Jesus’ brothers.  She would know if he was an imposter and was not raised from the grave.
• The disciples testimony for me seals the deal.  There have been men that have died for noble purposes, but to die knowing that what they were dying for was a lie.  I think not.
• 10 of the 11 remaining disciples died a martyr’s death including Peter who was crucified upside down.  John’s the only one that made it out  alive, and even he was put into a pot of boiling oil!
• Two students talked to me afterwards about being saved from their sin.  Pray for Emmit and Katy.
• Whoever said Salvation was free is not telling the whole truth.  It will cost you everything.  It will cost you your life.  Give your life to Christ and die, and he will give you a new life.  One that is transformed.

Parents here are a few questions to ask your teenager.

1. Read 1 Cor. 15 together.
2. Why do you believe the resurrection is true?  (Because the Bible says so is too easy.)
3. Why is the resurrection of Christ so important?
4. Pray and thank  the Father for sending Jesus to the earth to take sin on his shoulders, pay the debt of death, and defeat death in the resurrection.

• It makes me sick to my stomach to watch The Passion. 
• I think everyone should endure watching The Passion by Mel Gibson during Easter.
• The Passion is actually G compared to the real thing if you can imagine that.
• Why did he have to endure great suffering and pain?
• Because your sin is deserving of death, he loved you, he endured the cross for you and to save you from that sin in order that you could become children of God, adopted into his family, your penal substitutionary atonement (google that one and find out what it means.)
• You can have the reaction that some students had, turning around in their seats and talking to those behind them, laughing and cutting up with their friends after watching something so repulsive…
• …or you can repent and believe and be born again.
• People wear the cross around their neck as a fashion statement. Madonna crawls up on one on her tour a few years ago.  I don’t think people understand the torture and humiliation that the cross was.
• I’m glad we have solid people around The Mix to not skip a beat when I am gone on Wednesday.  It was a joy to be with my children and supporting the preschool ministry for family night.  Trina and the gang did a great job to let us join in with them to see what they do each Wednesday and also challenge us to read the scripture to our children.

Parents:  Here are a few questions to ask your teenager about last night.

1. What is something that made you think last night at The Mix?
2. Why did Jesus have to die?
3. What does his sacrifice mean to you?
4. Have you repented of your sin and believe in or trust in God through Christ?

Have a great week!

1. Birth
2. Rapid Construction and Development
3. Preservation
4. Moral Deterioriation
5. Collapse

So where is America in this stage?  Can a nation repent in stage 4 and move back to number 2?  Ninevah did.  Will America?  I believe it begins with leadership.  Who will rise up in the next generation and lead us? 

 ³⁰ “I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. ³¹ So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done, declares the Sovereign Lord.” Eze 22:30-31.

Early in Scripture as he brought his people out of slavery he instructed Moses to tell them to diligently teach their children about the Lord and to love the Lord.  Deuteronomy 6:7. 

Many of you may not have a spiritual legacy to continue.  But don’t come down so hard on your parents, because chances are their parent didn’t teach them, and their parent didn’t teach them.  You may not have a spiritual legacy, but you can start one.  For those of you who are beginning a legacy, don’t just stop with your family.  1 out of every 2 children are growing up without a father.  Dad’s take one more on.

It is hard to break the cycle because children learn a pattern from their families and then repeat.  You can be a chainbreaker.  You can break in and release the chains that hold down the next generation and allow them to soar.  But it isn’t easy.  It will take work.  Are they worth it?

Be a Chainbreaker.

• Students (and us adults too) do not really understand what it means to sacrifice.
• The economic times calls for us to sacrifice in order to survive the upcoming years, but the reality is that our sacrifice in America is very different to the sacrifice that people around the globe have to do in normal times.
• Even the poor in our community have more than the average in other countries.
• There was rich meaning in the passover meal that Jesus participated in with his disciples the night before his crucifixion.
• It is not by chance that all of the events of Jesus death transpired around the Passover.
• What is the passover you ask?  google it and read about it.
• Instead of being overwhelmed at the depthness of the New Covenant that Jesus was establishing the night of the Lord’s supper, the disciples immediately began to argue over which of them would be the greatest!  Isn’t that just like us.  When the attention needs to be drawn to God, we redirect it to what it is going to do for us.  We are very selfish creatures.
• A lot of students disappear from The Mix during the Spring because of spring sports.  My prayer is that they are being missionaries on their teams and being intentional about showing their teammates that they play differently and treat opponents differently than the norm.
• There were a lot of new faces tonight!  Great to see everyone.
• Parsley dipped in salt water is not very good.
• Saw about 15 adults and students afterwards at McDonalds hanging out.  I wish I could have been in there too, but I had two little boys waiting on me to tuck them in at home.   Wednesdays are long days for me, but I love them.
• See you Sunday!

We call it multi tasking now, but it is becoming more and more impossible to stay focused on one task to completion.  Cell phones, internet, streaming video, twitter….It causes you to constantly be connected but is a huge source of distraction.  To be the most connected generation, we are disconnected to the creator of the universe.

Try this for a day… Put your phone on silence and check it at lunch and at the end of the day.  Now everytime you think about texting someone, talk to God.  I know what you are thinking, “How can I talk to God if it is not dinner time?”  1 Thessalonians teaches us to ^pray without ceasing.  We have no problem texting without ceasing.

Don’t allow distractions to lead you to destruction!  Take time this week to focus! 

Here are a few reflections

• During the praise time, it was difficult for some to think of 5 minutes worth of words to express their praise to God.  This is difficult unless you are thinking about this all the time.  In the church we have been guilty of minimizing the greatness of the God we serve.
• Sometimes we treat God like Santa Claus.  Someone we talk to occasionally and the only reason we talk to him is to give him a list of things we want.  Like God didn’t have anything to do and was waiting on a list from us.
• God is already at work, we have the priveledge of joining him.
• Students wrote their prayers on the walls on butcher paper.  Some of the prayers were very transparent.
• www.poverty.com blew our minds as we were thinking about our own daily needs.  Teenagers in America include ipods and cell phones in with their daily needs!  While we prayed over 500 children died of hunger around the world.
• There is a fear of praying out loud for many people.  I believe that fear spawns from the fact that many of them are not praying silently and don’t even know what to pray for.
• Parents are you praying with your teenagers??  52% of our teenagers said that you never pray with them!  Our teenagers need you to teach them how to pray.
• ⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.^a ⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.  Dt 6:4-9.
• Could we be raising a generation that does not know the things of God nor how to communicate with him? 

• It is not good to be slow on the dodgeball court
• I did not have the opportunity to smash a high school student in the face as that was against the rules. 
• For some reason the only teams that ever believe that the contest was judged completely fairly are the winners.I enjoyed my talk while watching the dodgeball games with one of our female students who is having a struggling time with their family.  My heart goes out to teenagers who have families that are not exactly modeling Christ like behavior.  The cool thing is that if we are adopted into God’s family, he is our father, and he never leaves us nor turns his back on us.  WOW!
• You don’t always have to have a formal Bible study to teach about God.  In fact, sometimes the best conversations happen in the informal times when you are hanging out and in the lives of others.  Last night I gave a mini sermon on forgiveness.  Lawson happened to hear it so she has to repreach it to you!
• Every Wednesday night I ride by McDonalds on my home and see in the window adults hanging out with teenagers and laughing!  These adults are having more fun than the teenagers.  I’d love to be there too, but my little boys are waiting on Daddy to tuck them in and tell them Tommy and Johnny stories. 
• I love our students.  They are awesome!
• I love our adults just as much.  They are mostly parents, normally have put in a 10 hour work day, and invest in the lives of teenagers when they could be watching Lost.
• Rhett Sapough was a beast in his teams first match as it was three on one, and he was able to dodge and smash his way back to a victory.  The Sexy Men ended up the winners and claimed the belts.

Imagine.  The superintendent calls a faculty meeting at the beginning of the year and says,

“Things are going to change around here.  We want to be successful so we are going to start measuring our progress a little differently.   We are going to teach, but we are not going to track whether or not they are learning.  We are going to assume if they are present, they are “getting it”.  Therefore, don’t waste time giving tests.  If we are going to move from good to great we are going to have to have more kids to educate and the ones we have are going to have to be present more often.  We need to track their attendance.  Are they showing up for our classes?  We are going to give incentives to students and prizes for those who show up everyday.  If you see them at Walmart, ask them if they are coming to school that next day.  If you see them at the ball park, encourage them to come to school.  

Here is something else innovative that not a lot of schools are doing.  We are going to set a goal to increase our attendance by 7%.  How are we going to do this you ask?  Well there are a lot of students in private schools and home schools around here that we can attract.  We are going to start having some very large events that those students will want to attend.  We are going to have games and give aways.  We’re going to hire some very famous people to come here and speak to them.  In fact, we might even get Miley Cyrus to come and do a concert. 

At school, we may have the parents of these kids visiting to see our school so we need to be perceived as being as friendly as possible.  I’m going to need a few of you to serve as greeters at the front doors with a smile on your face.  I need a few of you to volunteer to be in the parking lot directing them to the front entrance.  I am also going to need some enthusiastic teachers in the hallways getting them fired up and cheering as they walk in.  Everyone in the state will be talking about us.”

At the end of the year, he calls his people together and says, “Congratulations!  We grew from 800 students to 1000 students in average attendance.  We had 50 new students come into our school, and we  created 5 new classes.  Our back to school concert with Miley Cyrus had over 2000 students and parents at it.  Job well done.”

Someone in the crowd asks, “How were our test scores?”

“Guys we had some of the lowest scores in the state.  But guess what, everyone in the state is talking about us.” 

I wonder why? 

If this is so absurd, then why does the church keep doing this?

We need a new scorecard. 

Go pick up a copy of Reggie McNeal’s new book.  Missional Renaissance

http://www.pursuantgroup.com:80/leadnet/advance/feb09s2.htm

Today we were challenged to look at 6 areas in our church (Prayer, People, Time, Money, Facilities, and Technology) and see how these areas change when we move from internally to externally focused.  We then developed measurable scorecards for each one of these areas to determine if we are “winning” in our efforts as a church.  Many churches scorecard consist of Baptisms, Butts, and Budgets.  Our desire is not to necessarily eliminate these measurements (Baptisms are important if they symbolize transformed born again believers) but to add to these other measurable objectives.

Included in these were objectives such as measuring the number of families that were praying and serving together, the amount of teachers who had a prayer partner, the amount of missionaries deployed to the local business, plants, and schools; and the amount of money that is earmarked for blessing the community. 

Looking forward to another challenging day tomorrow.

Poor Bear

Three girls told the bachelor last night that they were falling in love with him after knowing him six weeks.  [Pause for gag]  What is Love?  We have been moving through 1 John this year with our students.  One theme of John’s has been pretty constant…Love is more than words.  The word “Love” is thrown around a lot. 

“I love those Shoes!”

“I love this song!”

“I love me some Walmart!”

We talk about falling in and out of love like it is falling into a mudpuddle.  The reality is that love is something we choose to give.  It originates with God.  We love because he first loved us.  In fact in and of ourselves we don’t even have the ability to love.  But because of his great love for us, we are transformed and are able to love others.

It is an action, not a feeling.  

Anyhoo, January was a wild month.  We first hit the slopes on our teen/parent ski weekend.  Over 15 families and 50 people converged on Winterplace, WV in subzero weather.  It was awesome.  Families had a great time reconnecting and the slopes were awesome.  We couldn’t have asked for better weather. 

The next weekend I had the priveledge of speaking at my good friend Charlie Swain’s church, North Augusta FBC.  Their DNOW was awesome and they have great teenagers.  Charlie Hall was our worship leader and did a great job.  My prayer is that the students are striving to be All Stars on a team that matters and that God is using them in a phenomenal way. 

The last weekend, it was off to Conclave in Atlanta.  This is a leadership conference that is sponsored by the SC, GA, TN, KY, and NC baptist Conventions.  It was well done.  I was a breakout session leader for two sessions:  Building a strong Leadership Team and Stop Going to Church - Be the church to the Community.  I was able to go to one breakout session led by a church in NorthStar in Kennesaw, GA.  They have got it rolling on being the church missionally to the community.  Their website is www.northstarchurch.org   The three speakers rolled out some strong points.  Francis Chan challenged us with how Jesus reacted to the crowds.  He was constantly throwing out parables and then retreating and those who followed were taught what they really meant.  Challenged us with how the church designs their ministries to cater to the crowds rather than the disciples.  Chap Clark talked about the great hurts that teenagers are facing today and their disconnect.  Emir Canner talked about the need to love on, and include those students who are disenfranchised who are a part of that crowd that Chan was talking about.  They were not neccessarily in contradiction to one another but it did bring balance to how we should minister and teach. 

Finally the last breakout session I went to gave me my biggest challenge.  It was with a youth leader named Steve Gervasi and an initiative called SHOUT.  http://www.shoutpmi.org/ It was a call to do a paradigm shift in our ration of adults to students.  We are currently content in ministry to have a 1:5 ratio of students to adult.  He suggested according to Richard Ross, to flip that ratio to 5 adults to 1 including 2 parents, prayer partner, youth minister, and small group leader.  The first thing he challenged us with is to have  a day when we rally prayer partners for our teenagers.  He said that in the 30 churches they had 100% of their students assigned a prayer partner in their congregation with over 70% of the adults agreeing to pray for the individual teens. 

We plan to begin this in April.

Teachable moment…In order to have teachable moments, you have to have moments. 

 I took the opportunity to tell him that money on earth fades away.  We spend it on stuff, then that stuff eventually breaks, and finally it all fades away.  But when we give to others, we store up money in heaven that never goes away. 

He then asked, “What is heaven like?”  I said, “It is a party.  Better than anything you have ever imagined.  God is there and walks with man just like in the garden of eden.  There is singing, it’s energetic, it is far better than anything on this earth.”

His five year old mind processed for a while and then he said, “Is Disney World there?”  I guess that was the best he could muster up. I said, “Disney world would be like your backyard.” 

We then went and delivered the toys to the home of the child I mentor from Barnwell primary school.  You should have seen the little children playing with the toys that my children had simply written off.   Caden was passing out the toys and playing with the children there at the low rent apartment complex.  As we drove, he said, “They didn’t give us any money for heaven.”

Yes they did, Caden.  Yes they did.

 Let me give a shout out to the girls flag football teams.  They were balling.  It was wet and nasty on the field, and they were diving all over the place and going all out.  That is what it takes to be an All Star, going above and beyond the competition.

 Let me give a few shout outs.  Logan sprained her knee and bruised it all up during the final game.  Had to be carried off the field.  She really did leave it all on the field.  She was a trip this weekend.  Caroline and Rachel were intense on the field of competition.  Kaleb learned about his name sake on the side lines.  Andrew was intimidating and talking junk to a wide receiver who on the next play burnt him and scored a touchdown!  He was a stud.   The twins Alonzo and Fonzo were smooth operators. 

About 10-20 students confessed Christ as Lord, and others obeyed God’s direction in being obedient to the question What is God calling you to do? 

I made a lot of new friends over in NA and look forward to seeing what God does through their lives in the years to come. 

That is what was said to one of my former students who went on a mission trip to New York City.  She was under the impression that they would be feeding the homeless and talking to them about Jesus.  Instead she found herself standing on a street corner with a bright red apron with praying hands on it doing surveys and asking people if she could pray with them while they were scurrying to work in Times Square.  They were trained to do the surveys in such a way that would lead them into a presentation of the gospel.  The first four questions served as a switch and bait to get to the real reason they were stopped.  Many “seeds” were planted they were told as the gospel was peddled, but ironically no one came to know the Lord. 

Back to the man.  He had been watching them for a while and asked her what they were doing.  She said, “We are from South Carolina and we came here to love on the people.”  That is when he said his line that has been ringing in her ears ever since.  He then began to ask her questions she didn’t know how to answer so she called in the reinforcements….the trained professional who began to debate him over the existence of God.  Afterwards they probably got together and patted themselves on the back for the arguments they refuted.  At any rate she was discouraged with the entire week.

We are training people to evangelize in a world that does not exist anymore.  A forgotten world where people are sitting on their stoops waiting for company with a warm pie they baked just in case someone stopped by to talk with them.  A forgotten world that is not so busy.  A forgotten world that is not skeptical of strangers.  A forgotten world where it took more faith to be an agnostic than a believer. 

Allow me to offer a different strategy.  Love first, serve first, tell second.  Several of our ninth grade girls did an extreme makeover on children’s rooms in an apartment complex.  They then during christmas used their own money to buy clothes for the girls and a dress for the mom.  The girls burst into the bathroom to try on their new clothes.  They came out and had a beauty show for them.  The girls then sat them down and told them the Christmas story for the first time in their lives.  Guess what?  They listened and they trusted them. 

That’s the new world.  Maybe it has always been there.  Of course it is easier to knock on doors and not get dirty with the lives of those who are hurting. 

Allow the love that God so lavished upon you in Christ to be poured out on those in the world.  Then when they ask you why…pull the trigger and tell them about Jesus. 

Sometimes I fell like I am standing on the river bank.  In front of me is an array of people swimming, laughing, playing on innertubes.  It’s a slow moving river. 

They can’t see it, but I can.  The dam has broken a mile away, and a flood of water is bellowing down the hill towards them. 

I shout from the bank, telling them to get out.  Waving my arms to get their attention.  They begin to wave back.  I shout louder, they shout back and tell me to calm down.  I even take a risk and jump into the river with them trying to pull them out.  They think I’m trying to take their inner tube for myself.  Some get mad…others laugh about it.  A few get out but not many, because everyone else is having so much fun. 

There comes a point when you have to get out the river, and let them take a ride.  

Leadership is sometimes discouraging. 

Our family was interviewed for the ABC Christmas Parade.  Leisa had strategically gotten us to wear matching shirts, so they spotted us and got us to say Happy Holidays from the Clamp Family!  Maybe we’ll make it on Christmas morning.  We were right at the stage watching Miley Cyrus sing Santa Clause is coming to Town for the Christmas morning broadcast.  I think Caden likes Miley!

Of course we were able to see tinker bell fly from the top of the castle and I positioned us so that she would fly right over our heads.  Connor was amazed so much so that he wanted a Tinker Bell light up figure.  My rough and tough 3 year old studying and staring at his new toy was a trip.

We found a nativity scene at Hollywood Studios.  It was quite ironic that all of this decorations and lights at the Ozbourne Family Light spectacular was put because of the celebration of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords birthday.  There right around the corner was a nicely done nativity scene.  I watched as one person took a picture in front of the scene and then I turned around to see 1000’s of people waiting to watch the lights light up and dance on the City Street.  It is a picture of our society today.  Don’t allow the glitz of Christmas cause you to be blinded about the reason we celebrate.

Happy Holidays!  whatever… MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

There is a country song that Kenny Chesney sings with these lyrics,

Everybody wants to go to heaven, Have a mansion high above the clouds

Everybody wants to go to heaven, But nobody wants to go now.

Why aren’t you ready to go to Heaven?  I believe that it is because of a few things.

1.  You don’t know Jesus.

2.  You don’t understand what Heaven is.

3.  You don’t know Jesus.

The first reason is because you are lost.  Jesus has not permeated your life with transforming grace.  You have not admitted that your sin is condemning you to Hell, you are totally separated from God, and your attempt at good works is filthy rags before a Holy and Righteous God.  Deep down you believe that you are not that bad.  You look around and see people that are worse than you.  I mean you even endure your church’s attempt at a worship service every week.  Come on Somebody!  The reality is, if you don’t think you need a savior from your condemning sin, you want desire a Savior.  But if you realize your sin is separating you from God, and repent from your sin and confess Christ as your Lord or Boss he will save you, tranform your mind, and give you something to live for.

The second reason, is that you are a confessing Christian but you honestly believe that you are going to be on a cloud somewhere singing a hymn that is in 4/4 meter with about 1,234,645,867,345,867,234 stanzas.  Come on somebody.  Honestly.  God is going to establish a new heaven and a new earth.  Gone will be aches and pains, sleepless nights, people talking about you, meaningless work, deceitful politicians, greedy businessmen, and the gamecocks.  Well maybe not the gamecocks.  It says in scripture that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.  That means in your best efforts you can’t even imagine it.  In Revelation it’s one big family reunion where you actually know everyone who is there.  You all have a common bond.  Tony Campolo said “The Kingdom of God is a Party.”  Satan would deceive you into thinking he has the market on the party scene.  Please!  Satan distorts every good thing of God. 

The final reason is someone who confesses Christ as Lord, but doesn’t know him, know him.  He is still sipping on milk and hasn’t even begun to get to know Jesus.  You are missing out on life if you don’t deepen your relationship with him.  Dive into the scripture and feel the heartbeat of God.  Serve others that know one else will serve and look into the eyes of Jesus.  Begin to do obey the things of scripture and experience a freedom that only God can bring. 

Why wait until heaven?  Start revealing heaven to those around you today.

Next they went to the apartment.  Cassie played with the girls all day and took them to McDonald’s.  It was their first trip to McDonald’s!  The girls got to work painting the walls and getting out the old furniture.  One of the girls was sleeping on a box spring on the floor and when they picked up the box spring roaches went flying everywhere.  There was a stillness that was in the air with the girls as they began to realize how blessed they were.  They brought in the furniture and set the room up.

Then the fun stuff.  They brought the 7 and 9 year old girls into the room.  When they opened the door the girls just began to weep.  They were speechless.  The ninth grade girls started to cry too.  As they left one of the girls latched onto Kayla and begged her not to go.  One of the leaders said, “This is like Christmas.” and Kayla said, “This was better than Christmas.”

Our girls put feet with their faith this past Saturday.  I promise, if they talk to those girls about Jesus, they will have a captured audience.  They have earned the right to be heard.  They will continue to minister to them in the months to come.

You go girls!

Her daughter works at IHOP.  I was talking to her about tips and she told me about a story of impacting a man and him strengthening her faith and in the process got a pretty large tip.  She said she has enjoyed working in that environment because she is able to show people Christ and what it means to be a REAL Jesus follower.  She then said something that other waiters of mine have echoed for years that really disturbs me.  She said, “Lee, I fight against one thing as a Christian in my witness.  The lowest tipping time in all of the week is on Sundays at 12:00 pm!  My colleagues dread working on Sundays when all the church going “Christians” come in to the restaurant.  They are the sorriest tippers in the week.”

 WHAT IS UP WITH THAT!!!

Cheap, non giving, Moochers drive me insane.  Christians are supposed to the be the most giving people on the planet.  They are supposed to be servants themselves and recognize others who serve.  YOU ARE GIVING JESUS A BAD REPUTATION!!  You carry the title of Christian and then stiff the very people that are serving you.  That’s Rediculous or as Maher would say Religulous.

CHANGE YOUR TITLE OR CHANGE YOUR TIP!!

Caden and I went searching for shark’s teeth and I found the largest shark’s tooth I had ever found.  We plan to make a necklace out of it.  While we were looking Caden found a broken shell that used to be a conch.  My five year old says many deep theological thoughts.  He walked up to Leisa and said,

“I know this is broken, but it once was part of something beautiful.”

Wow!  The young Billy Graham.  We all our broken in our sin, but we were once part of something beautiful before the fall of man - perfect communion with God.  We will be restored one day through Jesus’ death and resurrection.  Confess Christ as Lord and start your journey toward being a part of something beautiful again.

This past Sunday, I preached on the question, “Is Homosexuality wrong according to scripture and is it OK to have same sex marriages.”  For a transcript of the sermon click here.

In 30 seconds or less let me answer that.  Yes and Yes.  Let me answer another, “Are homosexuals going to hell?”.  I answer that with a questions, “Do you mean someone who is practicing homosexuality but claims to be born again and blatantly disregards the scripture teaching on that lifestyle OR do you mean someone who has been born again and has temptations of being attracted to the opposite sex but flees that sin because they have confessed Christ as their Lord?”  The first person probably is not saved according to passages such as  ⁴ The man who says, €œI know him,€ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 1 Jn 2:3-4.  The second is simply a sinner who has been transformed.  

⁹ Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders ¹⁰ nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Co 6:9-11.

At any rate, if you are blatantly living a lifestyle that is contrary to the teachings of scripture and claim to follow Jesus, you are deceiving yourself.  Whether you are practicing homosexuality or having sex with your girlfriend or living with your girlfriend. 

What started as a conversation between Reggie McNeal and I at Longhorn has taken our church to Dallas, TX and back on the start of a journey to be more missional in our community.  We recently got back from a leadership community sponsored by Leadership Network in Dallas, TX.  Our church was invited because of our desire to move beyond our walls into the community in order to be a transforming agent to our county and world. 

It was a very challenging two days and stretched us a bit as we began a journey to help engage our community.  We quickly realized that it was bigger than our church staff and our church.  Our desire is to be a catalyst for the leaders in our community to move forward toward trying to pin point specific areas that we can serve in with the greatest need.  Our initial efforts have lead us to realize that we must move do our part in helping the young children of our schools read on grade level.  We look forward to seeing how God might move in this effort to serve those in our community.

We are meeting with community leaders who desire to move with us in this effort in our town media center on Monday, November 10th. 

There is a generation that is growing up absence from a father.  So many children and teenagers grow up without a father.  Many of them do not have one that lives in their home others have a father that is so busy with work, that they rarely have a conversation with him.  In the community I live in it is very prevalent in the african american community.  In fact the statistic is about 70% of these students do not have a father in the home.  The great tragedy is not only that these children do not have  a male role model, disciplinarian, or father figure.  The great tragedy is that the church turns a deaf ear. 

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

This fatherless generation of teenagers and children need a male role model especially our young men.  How can they know how to be a man and lead if they have no role model.  This is why it is so important for men to rise up and begin to life coach this younger generation. 

One of the reasons that I coach middle school football is to build relationships with these young men.  Many of which will not have a father in the stands this season watching them play.  May god bless our coaches and help them to be the role model that these young men can emulate. 

Psalm 68:4 Sing to God, sing praise to his name,  extol him who rides on the clouds ^[a]€”
       his name is the LORD€” and rejoice before him.

 5 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.

“Where you get a Daddy?  How did you get one of those?  Where can I get one?”

His name is the Lord.  A father who loves unconditionally.

We landed on Wednesday, July 30.  After a $45 taxi ride, we checked into our plush hotel, Fairmont Southhampton.  Very luxiourious overlooking the turquois waters of Bermuda.  We set out for dinner that night at Mickey’s beach restaurant at Elbow Beach with Len and Nicole.  That night we enjoyed a romantic dip in the huge whirlpool outside and then called it a night.

On Thursday, we proceeded via our rented scooters to the Cup Match.  This is a once a year cricket match between Sommerset and St. George.  It was an experience with the locals that was so cool.  Imagine a two day tailgate party Bermuda style.  The stands were filled with Bermudians.  The stands were scaffolding where families would cook out and almost watch the cricket match all day.  We tried our luck in a game called Crowns and Anchors, a dice game that dates back 200 years.  We then enjoyed the afternoon on the beach at the Southhampton and dinner that night at the Waterlot Inn.  I dropped $120 on dinner and that was splitting an entree and salad with my bride. 

On Friday we set out to discover a new beach.  We found a secluded spot at Warick Bay.

This was the spot we found.  Unbelievable.  All we could hear was the waves, no voices.  Seemed to be all alone in a recessed cove.  It was unforgetable.  I snorkeled in the water you see and also jumped off the rock in the water.  I collected some sand from this beach which was very pink from crushed coral.  That night we went to eat at the Swizzle Inn, the oldest English Pub on the Island and had a seafood platter.  Cool experience, but a little noisy compared to the cove.

On Saturday, it was raining so we went into Hamilton.  Strolled around in the shops and then ate at Hog Penny Pub.  It was the inspiration for one of my favorite TV shows growing up, Cheers.  We went snorkeling in Church Bay for about 5 minutes.  Thought I was going to drown because it was so rough.  We then went back to the hotel and went to the pool.  An 80 year old man shimmeyed out on his balcony high up.  He was in a shirt and looked to have on very little underwear.  We he turned around to go back into his room, his exposed rear end proved that he was in the buff.  It was quite the belly laugh.  We ate at Lido which was an upscale restaurant on the beach at Elbow Beach. 

On Sunday, we ventured out to tour the Crystal Caves.  In 1907, two boys were playing cricket and lost their ball down a hole.  They started to dig it out and noticed it was a 100 feet sink hole.  They tied a rope to a tree and descended down to discover a cave with a 50 foot deep water hole that was crystal clear and stalagmites hanging from the ceiling.  Unbelievable site.  We then went to the Grotto Bay to check out their resort after the tour guide told us that they had caves you could swim in.  And swim we did.  Leisa and I went into one of the caves and took a dip.  Unforgetable experience.  We headed back to our secret cove with Len and Nicole that afternoon and then went to an Italian restaurant Bacci.

Monday was our last day so we headed out to the Royal Dockyard to check it out.  We shopped a bit and then headed back to our beach at the Southhampton.  After hanging out at the beach until about 7 pm we got ready and went to the Ocean Club which had seating out on a terrace over looking the water at sunset.  An unforgetable end to such a wonderful vacation together.

I was so impressed with the people of Bermuda.  They were so friendly and never once did we feel unsafe.  There were no slum areas and the island was very clean and beautiful.  They are family oriented people and have an English class that is very charming.  It was a wonderful week.   

I encourage you guys out there to take your wives off for a week away from the kids every so often.  We had such a great time hanging out together and talking about life.  You don’t have to fork out the cash it takes to go somewhere like Bermuda, but you need to turn off your cell phone and go off for at least a long weekend every year.  Your wife may give you grief about missing the kids.  So what, let her call them and take a few pictures along if she starts missing them.  If you have parents like ours that love to see the grandkids, they will make memories with them that will last for a life time. 

At any rate, he calls and says he is right outside of Barnwell.  No one ever just rides through Barnwell.  In reality he was about an hour away from Barnwell going to vacation.  His family took a side track of about 4 hours to come to Barnwell and see my family and eat with us.  We had a good time of laughing and hanging out.

Fellowship in the Spirit is a beautiful thing.  We have a common bond in Christ that seems to allow us to pick up where we left off in conversations even if we only see one another every year or so.  Anyhoo, cool family.  Kevin is an idiot.  I mean that in a nice way.  Not sure how he produced such beautiful girls.  I guess Peggy had to pull all the weight in that.

Here are a few highlights.

• Launching my son Caden 15 feet in the air on the blob in the lake
• My son Connor falling asleep in my wife Leisa’s lap during everyone of my messages.
• Meeting new friends like the triplets Maggie, Bailey, and Kelsey (all got saved during the week), Jason and Steven (cool guys who continued the worship service after the worship service), CJ (caught an 8 foot shark with a rope and his bare hands), Cati Lee (caught the game winning TD, had to be there), Daniel (I licked his foot), and 100’s of others from all over SC.  There were 600+ while I was there the two weeks.
• My youth group tackling me the last night with hugs.  I serve the best teenagers in all of SC.
• My niece,Kelsey, hanging out with us and bringing a friend that got saved the second week.
• The maturity of the staff and the silliness they had as well.  Steven Lester I will get you soon you scary man you.
• Johnny Pack making me laugh out loud on several occasions and filming my intro for my survivor application video.
• Defeating Andrew and the crew on the volleyball court.  Maybe next year boys.
• Cory and Steve’s encouragement.
• Singing God of this City with the names of the churches flashing up the last night.
• Changing the end of the message on the last night to talk about Mephibosheph (2 Samuel 9) and Steven Rutland playing Carried to the Table.
• Watching 15 students boldly stand up to confess Christ as Lord the first week and 6 students the second week.  It wasn’t easy…no music, no prayer, every eye on them.
• Dozens of students confessing sin and repenting at the altar.
• Climbing the Rock wall and Fischer and SaraLynn belaying me.  I outweigh them by a few pounds.
• Watching three of my former students lead as staffers and teach in a PIC that I learned from.  I was like a proud father.

That’s to name a few.  It was an awesome week and a great opportunity.  Thanks to Steve Rohrlack and the crew for the opportunity.

The first day we spent on Lake Jocassee which is a beautiful 1000 foot deep lake in the valley of a mountain that was dammed up.  We putted around on a pon toon boat, explored 3 waterfalls that go into the lake and caught 0 fish.

One such waterfall was the last leg of Whitewater falls.  This is where I proposed to Leisa and she “happily excepted”.  That is an inside joke with my brothers that is another quite humurous story.  Not the proposal but the phrase.  Wish you knew the story.

At any rate, it was my desire to get up as high as we could on this waterfall because it kept bending to the right.  There would be a falls, a pool, a falls above it.  I could hear the rushing of water and I desired to make it to the top.  So final last words were, hey guys follow me.

I began to climb up a pretty steep rock face, wade across a pool, and then I saw a steep ledge that lead up to the vantage point of the next falls.  I secured my foot on the rock, and then took my other foot to see if the rock was slippery.  My “secured” foot gave way, and I planted my other on the slimy rock which also gave way, and I began my desent.  I first hit a rock with my forearm and it completely twisted the band of my brand new watch.  Then I hit the other rock with both shins.  I ended up about 8 feet down in the pool of water with my camera in my pocket.  I quickly saved the camera, and then checked to see if the brothers had seen what transpired.  Luckily that were still trying to make their way across the creek.  I hollered, “Go back.  Go back!”

I’m sure there is a spiritual illustration there, but I don’t have time to come up with it yet.  If you have a good one, let me know.  That will save me some time.

The next day we climbed table rock, with a bum leg and arm.  The highlights of this trip was the 50 year old man that ran past us and when we were half way up, ran past us again after reaching the summit.  The 65 year old lady that made it to the top the same time we did, that started 20 minutes after us.  And of course the view at the top.  It was quite spectacular.  Summit:  3000+ feet.  Close to that of Mt Everest I think.

On Sunday, I had a spiritual experience.  We went to a predominately African American church in Simpsonville, Bethlehem Baptist Church.  http://www.bbc1867.org/ It was unbelievable.  I say predominately because there were 5 brothers that were predominately white.  Let me say that the experience far out weighed reaching the summit of Table Rock.  Being a student minister I have had much experience in “white” worship, and let me say that I have never experienced the worship that I did at Bethlehem.  Their choir was unbelievable.  Everyone sang out and were on perfect harmony.  The men’s choir was 40 members strong and sang 5 selections and the gospel choir was fantastic and sang 3 selections.  The highlight was a 70 year old lady singing “I ain’t tired yet”  I can still hear the voices of the choir chanting that line as she sang.  The preaching was powerful and everyone was on their feet by the end of the sermon.  He walked through the passage of  Matthew 25 where Jesus challenges the people to love the destitute. 

The highlight of the day was when they introduced us during the welcome time as well as the other visitors and had us stand up.  It felt a bit akward, but the church erupted in applause.  Then the pastor said, “Welcome our visitors”.  Now in my church if we were to do this, it would take 2 minutes.  Shake the hands of those in front of you and behind you.  At Bethlehem this took 10-15 minutes.  Every person in the church came by to speak to us and not only that we had about 5 stay and carry on a conversation with us.  I connected with a guy from Blackville that played football against me in high school.

The service was 2 hours long, which was the quickest 2 hours I have ever been a part of.  A few things I thought about.

1.  Why is the most segregated time in American, during the AM hours of Sunday morning when there should be unity between the church of Christ?

2.  It is such a joy to be able to worship with brothers of another culture, not think of yourself as better than them, and appreciate their worship of God.

3.  If the church in America were somehow to come together, I would not want their culture to miss out on their worship.  I wonder if that soulful worship would be diminished.

It was a great weekend.  There is no one other than my immediate family that I would want to hang out with than my 4 blood brothers. 

At any rate, JB and I had a great time with the students from Lexington.  My brother, Luke, came over and hung out.  He is the Lexington Assistant Principal.  Sharp guy and loves the students.  He’ll be superintendent one day somewhere.  I taught him everything he knows and he has taught me how to interrogate students when they are suspected of a crime!

I preached about Gideon and encouraged the students to be Courageous.  To be leaders in their school and in the state.  Maybe there is someone in that group that will rise to the occasion and be obedient to God.  Maybe it will be Maggie Davis (I told you I would give you a shout out!) or Laura Grace (what’s up!). 

Ten of our students rose to the occasion and was blessed in the process.  A few of the students and adults that served were Justin Edwards, Nick Williams, Beth Clancey, Megan Armstrong, Nikki Montgomery, Kayla Black and her mom and dad, Ren Black, Taylor Hooper (sang and got a commermorative coin from the double apuntee Paratrooper) Ashley and Tiffany Black, and several others.  We were hesitant about going for the full day because we didn’t want to miss the Festival on the Round, but we ventured out there and was blown away at the event.  There was free slushies for the kids, ice cream, archery, pellet gun, face painting, and all the fish you could catch. 

It was such a blessing to see those with disabilities playing with their families.  An added treat was that my own Dad who has been legally blind since he was 33 attended with another disabled man that is his fishing buddy.  He pulled in a 3 pound bass (We didn’t have anything to weigh him, but he had scales on his back). 

The event climaxed with Channel 6 news interviewing my Dad and children, one of our students singing America the Beautiful, and an ex ranger parachuting in and landing 5 feet from the pond.  He had both his legs severed in a parachute demonstration and overcame his disabilities.

We stayed the entire time.  The coolest thing of all was that when someone needed something in the community they came to us to ask.  I thought that was a huge testimony that we are on our way to being a missional church.  One of the new things we are going to begin to track is how many people or organizations call us when they need something.  In the past people have been surprised when we volunteered services.  Their remarks, “I didn’t know the church would help” 

It was a blessing to help, and in the process I caught a couple of bass myself.  My last cast I tried to catch a squirrel, but was unsuccessful.  My worm is still in the tree.  As I was walking back there was a little girl balancing her self on one leg fishing.  I was amazed.  Her line was actually in the water.  She was more concerned with her ability than her disability. 

Caden’s favorite ride was the hot air balloons that went round and round and round and round.  It was the only “kiddie” ride that made me Nauseous.  The ironic thing is that he cried the entire time we were in line because he did not want to get on it only to find out that it was the best ride there.  Sometimes we are like that with God.  We fight, cry, kick, and scream when he gives us a task to do.  Then when we finally give in, it turns out to be an experience that we always dreamed of.

I thought about this quote after reading something Rob Bell wrote.  “What would happen if the church begin to serve without an agenda?”  I then ran it by Reggie McNeal and he changed my quote from “Service without an agenda is missional” to the above.

Here is what I find in most churches.  Most churches serve with an ulterior motive.  They serve so that people will know who they are, so that people will come to their church, so that they can be counted, so that we are successful.  There is the 3 B’s scorecard.  Buildings, Budgets, and Butts in the pews.  We serve because it is a youth event or a mission program.  We serve so that we can be nice respectable people.  We serve because we want them to love Jesus.  I think that the problem is that if they don’t come to our church, or if they don’t turn into us, or if they don’t come to know Christ…we eventually stop serving them and serve someone else.

I think that people sometimes see right through us.  We don’t serve because we love, we serve because we have a hidden agenda. 

What is your agenda?

Don’t be that church…

We enter the spiritual story of others when we share the love of Jesus with others and the need to repent from our sins and confess Christ as our Lord.  There are men and woman who are a part of my spiritual story that will forever be told.  My grandfather, Jeff Wheeler, Albert Long, and guys that showed me what a real Christian looked like:  Dow Welsh, Hugh Smith, Jeff Lopez, and Whitney Ross. 

There were some really cool times in the weekend.  First of all, students were given $40 per group and had to creatively come up with a way to serve others.  When we serve others as the agenda, we earn the right to be heard.

Service with an agenda is manipulation.  Service as the agenda is missional.  (More on that in another blog.)

The students came up with some awesome ways to serve others.  A special needs lady was given an extreme makeover, car windows were washed at the gas station, a child was given gifts, the nursing home was invaded with music, and a few widows were visited. 

Also, 8 students realized that they didn’t have a spiritual story and confessed Christ as Lord and want to be baptized.  The cool thing about these students is that 4 of them were my football players that I coached as a middle school football coach.  That’s right, we have been ministering to them since football season. 

How do I have time to be a coach?  That’s part of being missional.  In the past I would spend 8 hours in a week making a video for a Wednesday night in order for the “program” to be cool and funny and for the students to watch a 5 minute clip.  I now get a clip from a resource and invest 8 hours in the lives of young men who have little to no Christian influence and few have father figures at home.

8 more students texted me the name of a student that they wanted to pray for and share Christ with.  I will be texting them in a few days to remind them to talk to their friend. 

One final thing that was awesome.  Half of our 17 leaders came out of our ministry and are serving all over the state in churches.

It was an awesome weekend!

I met Perry when I was a sophomore in college and he was a student minister at North Anderson Baptist Church.  He was the first guy I had ever met that was a full time student minister (youth back then).  I would later find out that we share the same passion of teenagers.  I remember 2 things about Perry that has stuck in my mind.  One was when he talked about going to the local parking lot on the weekend when the students would hang out and he would tell them about Jesus, for fun.  The second was when he announced from his church pulpit that he had the best served the best students in South Carolina (I would argue him with that one now.  I’m a little biased to Barnwell.) 

Perry talked with me a few years ago when his church was running 1000 and he shared with me that he wanted to reach 10% of Anderson County.  That would be 17,500.  I thought to myself, “That’s a lot of people”.  They will have over 10,000 this Sunday in worship!  Unstinking, believable.

Perry has a heart of gold, and a passion for the lost like no other.  He gets a bad rap with other churches especially in his own county.  That is usually the case when something huge is happening at someone’s church that is not your own.  Sometimes we forget that we are all on the same team.  Sometimes we also sit around critiquing stupid things around the church or the staff and never even mention that 8000 people ARE IN WORSHIP THERE EVERY SUNDAY!!  Not to mention those getting saved on a regular basis.

Before I made it to the door 4 individuals asked if they could help me and engaged me in conversation.  AFter entering the door, 2 more people asked if they could help me.  I hadn’t even started the conference yet and was already blown away.  I felt like shouting out, “I don’t need any help!”  They were bombarding me with love!  What an awesome thing.  What excited me the most was to see one of my former students who is not plugged in at Newspring, Shelly Henshew Rutland.  She gave me a big hug and then I didn’t see her the rest of the day.  She was serving with a smile on her face.  It is encouraging to see students getting plugged in to a ministry.

Another thing I noticed was that I didn’t recognize too many people.  I looked to my right and left and I had people from Florida, Ohio, Texas, and the UK!  God is doing something amazing in Anderson. 

The one thing I kept thinking to myself was, “What would happen if this church went missional?”  I’m not saying that they don’t have an element of being missional now.  I’m not there to judge on a regular basis.  It is obvious that they are on mission and are doing a phenomenal job of bringing people to church on Sundays and those people are getting saved.  There are hints that they are moving more missional when I hear Perry leading his church to fill up a tractor trailer to stock the foodbank and they do it in one Sunday!  What a tremendous platform.  When I say missional I mean sending out the people into the community of Anderson to transform the community with specific things in mind. 

• Adopting the schools around and pouring money into the schools and volunteers into the schools.  With a mindset of serving the school and not just visiting the schools occasionally.
• Setting a goal to not have one 3rd grader in the elementary schools who can’t read on grade level.
• Having a regular “Service Sunday” rather than a “Sunday Service” and go into the community to help them
• Talk with community leaders and find out what the needs of the community are and then mobilize the volunteer force to tackle those.
• Take the vast amount of volunteers that serve on a weekly basis on the campus and send them off the campus to give extreme makeover to homes
• Use the campus as a catapult into the community intentionally.

At any rate, I believe that Newspring’s got it going on!  Keep up the good work and keep running wide open!

Beau has some awesome students and is doing a phenomenal job with the student ministry at FBC.  He has a passion for his students and for the Lord.  The mark of a good leader is when he is not around everything continues to work smoothly.  He brought his little girl home from the hospital on Saturday morning and missed the morning session, but everything didn’t miss a beat.  He has some great leaders who love teenagers.  I was very impressed with all of the adults I interacted with during the weekend. 

As for the students, You guys rock!  Miles, William, Brandon, Sweet T, Joshua, Michael, Mary Grace, Mary Bennett, Kaitlyn (who beat me on the pop singer game and then rubbed it in my face, Jerod, and who could forget Chip! 

Keep up the good work in Sumter.  Be the church to your school this week.  It is more important that the world see an authentic Christian at your school than marking your attendance on Sunday morning. 

Hope to see you guys again sometime…

Stay posted on the results…

Joshua said to say, “Can I have yo number.”

Scott said to say, “umm.  Have a nice day.”

I had the pleasure of leading a breakout session entitled “Stop Going to Church” where I urged student ministers to begin to transform their student ministry from a “Serve Us” mentality to a “Service” mentality.  It was well attended with about 80 student ministers and everyone seemed to be in tune with the exception of one guy who slept through 30 minutes.  Quite comical being that we were in a very small room.

I got to spend some time with my buddies JB Usher, Justin McAlpin, Cory Singleton, John Swindler and Charlie Swain.  Steve Rohrlack and the crew fed us dinner on the house at Sticky Fingers and it was excellent.

As for my buddies JB and Justin, they blessed me with their presence in my room as their’s was canceled and then while I was at the worship service which they slipped out of to watch Lost (that I wanted to watch as well) they changed our room. 

So this is how it went it down.  I arrive at our room while talking to my wife and I then kick the door and say open up.  Some random dude opens the door.  I then look at him and say, “Uh, I think I have the wrong room”  He then shuts the door and I look at the room number and it is my room.  So I call my trusted friend JB and say “where are you?”.  And he says I am in room 332 which was my original room.  And then I said “No you are not.  Step into the hallway.”  He emerges four rooms down in our new room which I didn’t know we had. 

It was quite comical.  Good times were had by all. 

Then the distraction came.  Donald Duck came walking by and Caden began to follow him.  I was about to call out to him to keep walking with us, but I decided to see what he would do.  He followed the big stuffed Duck all the way to the picture taking area. Then he began to wonder back to where we had come from and he continued to keep his eyes on the quack.  

Then the moment came.  You know the moment.  When you realize that you are all alone.  Separated from your Father.  Lost.  Panick set him for him as I watched him for just a moment.  Then fear swept over him and he began to run screaming out our name in desparation.  It was at that moment that I hollered out for him, only 30 feet away from him.  He ran toward me, and embraced me.  I scooped him up and held him as his eyes began to well up in tears.  I reassured him that I had been watching him the entire time and reminded him where to go if that happened again.  Then I told him it was OK.  He was safe now.

Have you reached that point in your life.  When you feel all alone.  Desparate in your own sin.  Lost.  God is much closer than you may think.  He calls out your name.  He speaks to you through scripture and prayer and says, “I’m right here.”  Do we react though the same way.  To scream out in desparation to our father in our desparate sinful lives and say, “Father!”  No normally we go back to what distracted us and find ourselves spending time with some Quack. 

The Father’s Voice is calling for you to come to him.  What are you waiting on?

 In the past months since I have written, life has been a whirlwind.  The ministry at the Merge student center in Barnwell is exploding.  We have seen close to 50 new teenagers each month.  We are reaching teenagers from all walks of life and culture at the Merge.  Our adults have done a fantastic job at beginning to minister to the needs of the teenagers God has entrusted us with.  Several of our GBMS football players that I had the priveledge of coaching came to know the Lord this season.  We were 6-1 if you were wondering.  I met a fine young man that I am life coaching right now that is making great strides in improvement in school. 

In the Fall at The Mix we discussed the 10 commandments.  More than half of the teenagers could not come up with more than 1-2 commandments before we began.  After the 10 week time, More than half could name 8-10 commandments.  Now all they have to do is live their life in line with them!

We had a couple of Overtimes after football games.  Danny Buggs,former Washington Redskins Wide Receiver, came and spoke one week and 20 students came to know Christ.  He did a wonderful job.

Many of our small groups have done some great things.  They have collected money to buy toys for Christmas for fire fighter’s childern that perished in Charleston.  Some have provided Thanksgiving meals.  Others have cleaned up yards for those in our church that need assistance. 

Our adopt a school program has gone well so far this year.  We have 7 individuals in the school so far volunteering over one hour per week.  Two coaches, Lee and JB, have served as coaches for GBMS middle school.  JB is currently the GBMS boys basketball coach.  They won their first game last night!  My boy, Rokeem had 13 points last night!  Go War Ponies. 

On a personal note, my two boys are growing up so fast.  Caden is learning a great deal at school and his mom has almost taught him to read.  He is sounding out words.  He also is learning a lot from the Bible.  The other day he told me that he learned about Elijah and how the raisens came and fed him.  He clarified by saying, “Not the Raisens that you eat, but the Raisens that fly.”  Caden played Micro-Football for the first time this season and I coached him.  He scored a few touchdowns! 

Connor is quite the ladies man as he kissed each of the princesses on the Disney Cruise we went on last week.  He also said something funny the other day.  He said that he wanted to go see Uncle Jesus.  I didn’t understand what he was talking about.  I questioned him further.  He said, Uncle Jesus where you eat pizza and play the games.  I clarified for him and said, “Do you mean, Chuck E Cheeses?”  He said, “Yes.  Uncle Jesus.”

Leisa is a week away from finishing her Master’s in Educational Administration and Leadership.  She will be certified to be a principal of a school when she is done. 

We just got back from Disney World and a Disney Cruise where my Mom and Dad went as well as my older brother Calvin and his children.  We had an awesome time. 

Wow.  There is a lot more to tell, but I will try to keep up to speed as time progresses.  Sorry for the long delay. 

Anyway, the rest of the day, I had no cell phone.  No numbers (I had 500 in my cell phone) No way for anyone to get in touch with me.  I was unavailable. 

What was at first a terrifying thing, all of a sudden became a burden that was lifted off my shoulders.  No one could get in touch with me.  I could randomnly call someone when there was 10 seconds of dead time. 

When was the last time you made yourself unavailable.  Made yourself stop what you were doing and talk to God, uninterrupted.  You should try it.  It’s terrifying, but freeing.

By the way, I got a phone the next day at 9 am.  Bad habits are hard to break.

The one thing that I am sure of is how meaningless my life has been compared to what he accomplished in 33 years.  I will try to expand on this later this weekend, but thought I would throw that our there.

Now I have to go check on Mattison W.  He was put in the sleeper hold and by some ninja code he can not get up unless the original person that gave him the sleeper comes and awakens him.  He is laying on the sidewalk out in the quad.  I’m sure he is OK.

So we chilled today, heard Bill play his guitar and a few songs from the 80’s, and watched a pretty cool drama.  Looking forward to hanging out with the students and old Bill tomorrow.  Bill is a legend.  He is an extremely creative thinker. 

I have been going through withdrawals recently because I have been away from the teenagers so long as I have been on sabbatical, so it has been a breath of fresh air hanging out with them all day.  I’m going to sleep now.   

It was cool to hear their vision of reaching the city and experience the very laid back, emo style worship, and down to earth biblical teaching.  There was about 100 college students in the service with 400 that met that morning. 

My prediction.  They will be running 2000 in about 4 years if they maintain their missional focus. 

An odd thing they do, especially for conservative baptists, is Theology on Tap.  Check it out and tell me what you think.  Heresy or Hey, not bad.

We have been at Wake now for about 5 weeks.  I am so ready to get back home.  I found out today that our fish died.  For some reason his head fell off.  No lie. 

Shouldn’t we all be homesick as a Christian.  This earth is not our home.  We are awaiting a home with Christ.  We are aliens here.  We tolerate this life and make the best of it, but the best is yet to come.  4 more days and we will be back in the promised land. 

And I say, “Yeah, I got a final tomorrow.” 

He then proceeds to talk with my about my class and I begin to get the impression that this guy has taken Hebrew at the Seminary as well.  He then asks me this question, “So what is your goal in the learning the language?”

and I say, “My immediate goal is to get out of the class.” 

The look on his face let me know he was disturbed with this answer so I pressed him, and said, “So are you studying Hebrew?” he says, “I know 4000 words and can read the pentatuch (The first five books of the Old Testament). 

I felt like I need to buy him a coffee or something.  He says, “You should press on because we need to be true to the text as we teach others about the depths of the Word.” 

So I say, “Well, my priorities are not to invest a great deal of time studying the ins and outs of this language so that I may check the translations of the past 2000 years to make sure they are accurate.  I value the education because I do see a need to be able to look up a word in a lexicon (Hebrew dictionary) that somebody like you wrote. 

He says, “You are not checking the translations, but staying true to the text.  You could check Numbers 24:7 and see the word ‘Magog’ and then check the textual apparatus (he looks at me and says do you know what that is), and I nod, and see that the word is used here and in various other places such as Ezekial.” …

And I cut him off and say, “Will knowing that in Hebrew compel me or others to serve more?”

He looks at me with a blank stare and says that he would love to talk further but his wife is in the car, who at that specific time walks in, looks at me, doesn’t speak, taps him on the shoulder, and walks out.  I was thinking, “Did the definition of the word make any difference to her and compel her to speak or at least smile at me a stranger? (that wasn’t fair was it.  It was funny though.)” 

So thinking to myself, “Has this guy ever actually DONE ministry, I say”  Are you a pastor? 

He says, “No I just graduated from Seminary (then it all starts to make a little bit of sense) and then he says he hopes to pursue his PHD in the fall so that he can teach from the pulpit or the seminary.  He then spends a bit of time explaining that he sees pastor and teacher as the same role… yada, yada, yada.  (which means “know” in Hebrew by the way)

So he then leaves and I didn’t get to say this last thing, so I thought I would write it here in case he reads it someday.

“Well, Prof.  Remember this.  If you are teaching from the pulpit to the “rest of the world” or if you are teaching preachers who will be teaching to the “rest of the world” then understand that there is this guy named Bubba sitting out in the pew who worked 50 hours this past week laying pipe while you were in your study conjugated the verbs of this text.  He has a buddy, John Boy, who drinks a six pack a night and frequently has an affair with his wife who desparately wants to know how he might be a witness to John Boy and how he might be able to serve him and show him the gospel so that his friend may have a better way of living.  A life with purpose, meaning, and eternal security.  And here is a flash bulletin, John Boy doesn’t care what the conjugation of that verb is in Hebrew! 

So here is my question…If you want to go deep with Christ and grow spiritually would it be better for you to spend years learning an ancient language in order to dive into the Word deeper OR serve people more. 

I would suggest serving people more with what you already know before trying to go deeper in the Word.  What good is study without service.

He said, “Well.  Jesus was tired.  And he went to this woman who was standing over this rock wall.  And he said he wanted something to drink so she took her bucket and lowered it down to this whale that swimming down in the water.  And it spayed water in her bucket and she brought it back up and gave it to him.”

Now that my friend is solid theology.

Well, it takes some time to time to detox duting a sabatical.  Allow me to explain.  “The Ministry” is consuming.  Always someone to see, something to plan, meeting to attend, students to save, power lunches, and sub zero conversations.  While I am at Seminary here is a typical schedule.  8-12 Class, lunch with the family, 1-5 study then family time.  no meetings, no church services other than a local church we will attend on Sundays, no TV (the house we sublease has no cable!  no ESPN!), no power lunches (I don’t really know anyone up here except a cool family across the street James and Misty.  He finished seminary in May and lays asphalt for a living.  It’s good to see a seminary grad working with his hands for a living. 

So what do we do.  Well, we go fishing.  Caden just caught his first fish from start to finish.  Threw in the line and reeled it in on his own.  We go to the park.  We sit in the hammock and talk.  We have 2 meals a day together.  We play games.  We read.  We fish.  We go to the lake to a swimming area (Free entertainment!)

The simple life. 

It’s funny.  We live in a town with people just like those in Barnwell. They are scurrying around to ball games.  We see them scrurrying to and from school.  We see them doing projects outside cutting grass, gardening, washing cars.  Rushing.  Rushing.  Rushing.  We are on the outside looking in.

Our lives are a bit rushed.  Would you agree?  So many places to go.  So many people to see.  So little time for meals, so little time for talk, so little time to be a family.

Church doesn’t help this sometimes.  We require people to be at church so much they can’t be the church to the community.  And when they come to church we separate them from their families!  I’m glad FBC Barnwell is on the edge of seeing this trend in most churches and are beginning to do something about it. 

You should try a sabatical yourself.  You don’t have to go away.  Just cut off the TV.  Cancel some meetings.  Take the phone off the hook, turn the cell phone off.  And go fishing with your kids. 

Maybe you will catch something…The passion for The Simple life. 

In reflection it has been a growing experience for me.  I have not agreed with everything that was taught to me, but it has challenged me to learn theology, formulate convictions, and be challenged in my thinking. 

So what’s my schedule for the next 6 weeks.  8-12 class, 1-5 study, 5-9 hang out with my family, 9-11 study.  Go to sleep.

I’d much rather be hanging out with the students in Barnwell!  JB Usher is running the show, and will do a great job.  If you haven’t heard of JB Usher yet, you better get on the band wagon before his band Anacey hits the charts.  Here is his link http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=6337201

or just click on his Myspace page from my myspace page.  www.myspace.com/leeclamp

I’ll let you know how things are going.

Stuff like a clock that a student made me in high school that doesn’t work.  Or a plaque that says I was a good cheerleader at Clemson.  Or books that I have not read in 10 years and don’t plan to read.  or an oscar meyer weiner hanging from the ceiling from Hardees where we began a student prayer group.  or a box full of pictures.  or a picture that a kid drew me 8 years ago. 

Yes, I am a pack rat.  I’m trying not to be in my new office but they are slowly starting to pile up.  10 cards from a small group that were saying “Thank you” for what you do.  or a spongebob stuffed animal.  or a dozen picture frames with no pictures in them. 

 Why do we hold on to stuff?  Sometimes it is a reminder of the past.  Sometimes it is security.  Sometimes it is because we don’t want to wasteful. 

 Spiritually speaking we hold on to things.  Sometimes it is sin that we think we can’t live without.  Sometimes it is a memory of a time when God spoke to us in a fresh way.

What are you holding on to?  Some things you just need to let go.  And somethings you need to hold on to.  What do you need to let go?

The individual stood up among their peers and said, “Guys you may have heard about what I did.  I wanted you to know that I am not proud of it, and that I wanted you to know that I do not want to go in that direction.  I am asking you to hold me accountable and to help me to grow in Christ.  I’m sorry if I offended any of you.”

I can’t imagine having that kind of courage.  To stand up and say that I was blatantly wrong and did something immoral among my peers in high school.

Christians are the only army that are known for shooting their wounded.  When someone messes up they begin to stab them in the back, turn the other way, and talk negatively about them to others.  Rather than going to the individual and praying with them, encouraging them, and helping them to walk in the light. 

The next time you hear of a Christian brother or sister that is in sin, talk to them.  Not everyone else.  Encourage them.

And don’t use prayer time in a bible study as a gossip session session to aire out other’s dirty laundry.

 Our goal was to “Be the church” to Guinyard Butler Middle School.  We also had one project at the Primary School and another helping one of our Senior Adult small group leaders move.  In the process we invested $1500-$1800 in the renovation project and logged about 680 man hours of labor.

Normally on DNOW weekend our students play some game during those 4 hours or have a scavenger hunt or competition.  This year since we our theme was iServe and our teaching was on servanthood, we decided to learn by doing.  What a blessing it was to see them working on the school. 

In four hours time they

• painted horseshoes on the road where the students are dropped off for school
• Landscaped the front of the school and planted plants in two planters at the entrance
• painted a mural inside the entrance to the school and redid the trophy case with updated pictures
• completely made over the teacher’s lounge to turn it into a warm and inviting place for teachers to relax
• made a movie night basket complete with popcorn, candy, and video rental for the staff.
• Built Lockers for the Middle School Football team
• Dusted all the lockers in the school
• Picked up trash at the ball field and playground area
• Painted a mural in the primary school bathroom of the third grade (we have some talented artists!)

The only problem we had was that our students finished too quickly! 

I am convinced that if the church changed the focus on getting fed to feeding then a revival would break out among our nation.  IF the church changed their focus from being inward to being outward, that the gates of Hell would not be able to stand.  If the church changed their focus from being a club to being a change agent, we would see lives transformed.

I would so bold to say that God is more concerned with us being the church than us being “At” church. 

Dr. Bass was a source of encouragement all day to us and his vision for the improvements to his school were great.  We look forward to working with him in the future.

There should be no reason that the churches of our community shouldn’t be able to drum up enough volunteers to donate 1 hour a week/teacher in the school to help make copies, tutor, or other forms of service.

 Be the Church

1.  JB Usher

JB’s our new youth ministry associate and worship leader of our Wednesday night student service.  He is doing a phenomenal job.  He is originally from Florence, SC and served at Springwell in Greenville for a while.  He is in charge of the Merge and the worship.

2.  Meghann Williams

Senior at JDA.  Had the vision to do a student led revival.  It’s called the Movement.  They had 75 in attendance and 3 talke with a counselor about deepening their relationship with Christ.

3.  Lt.  Adam Bennett

One of the first youth I ever had here at FBC.  Currently flying Black Hawks in Iraq.  What can I say about the myth, the legend.  West Point Grad, Army officer, Sold out for the Lord, Batman.  God used Adam as one of a few students who stood up for the Lord back in 1997 to begin a movement in Barnwell First Baptist Church.  Because of students like him, we needed an 11,000 square foot student center to house the students that are active at our church.  Watch out for stray bullets my friend and fly fast. 

Tonight we had our first scrimmage.  Everyone seemed to know where to run after they hit the ball which is a huge accomplishment.  They also seemed to know that they needed to stop the ball when it was hit to them.  We have a team of all stars and we have a team full of 4 year olds.  Which is great!  We are building for the future. 

The coolest thing is the children could care less if they win or lose.  In fact they don’t even know what that means yet!  They just want to have fun and they want to play hard.  A funny thing happens when you start playing for keeps as you get older.  It isn’t fun anymore.  It’s like a business or something.  I watch the high school sports and they never seem to be smiling when they are losing.  Of course we all know that winning ball games ultimately ends in state championships, which ultimately ends in a medal around your neck, which ultimately is forgotten about 5 years from now by others, and which ultimately ends up in a drawer some where in your house. 

Lighten up a bit in your life and don’t take things so seriously.  Unless of course you’re worrying about the lost souls of those you are playing with.  But who cares about that anymore?  Who really thinks abut that?  Who puts much effort into talking to those they are around about Christ?  Who actually practices sharing their faith?  Who actually studies the playbook of life to understand more about God to share with others?  Who actually spends time serving others to give weight to what you are talking about?

Wow.  That got serious all of a sudden.  All I am saying is take seriously the things of this life that are eternal. 

They don’t keep score in T-Ball.  Everyone scores.  That’s why we will win.  We have more children than any of the other teams.  But who’s keeping score? 

Calvin is the second in the litter.  He has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Clemson.  He does top secret stuff out at the Savannah River Plant.  All I can tell you, is that he can tell you how a nuclear bomb is put together.  Well, most of it.

There’s me, BS in Chemical Engineering (What was I thinking?) and MDiv from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (well almost.  I have two more classes).  Well you should have figured out by now I am the youth minister at the greatest church in the western hemisphere (we are western aren’t we?) FBC Barnwell.  Then there are my two younger brothers.  They have the same DNA, literally.  They are identical twins.  Len got a BS from Clemson in Finance.  He is a 27 year old Vice President at Bank of America in Charlotte.  Luke has a BS in Science Education  from Clemson and a MA in Educational Leadership and Administration from USC.  He is an assistant principal at Lexington High.  Pretty good.  He is also currently a general contractor as he is building his own home. 

So we have this pact that we are going to get together once a year for a brother’s weekend.  This year, “destination unknown” All the brothers came up wit a weekend destination and we drew out of hat whose we would use.  Some of the one’s that didn’t get chosen were an RV trip to Bristol, TN to see NASCAR (that was me), camping trip to Table Rock and Golf, Trip down the Edisto River in a canoe and overnighter in a tree house, and a trip to Charleston and Folly Beach.  Len’s itinerary got picked and we headed to Charleston and Folly. 

We hung out with the fam on my Dad’s side for the weekend.  Quite entertaining to say the least.  Cousin Danny was sitting on the steps of our Folly Beach Beach house when we got there, ready to make some noise.  Some of his one liners will not be published but were priceless to say the least.  We cooked out some Alex Clamp steaks that were the size of a small roast.

Friday was consumed with hanging out with Uncle Bubba on his boat in the creeks of Folly Beach and trip to the Morris Island Light house.  We were traveling 50 mph in 3 foot of water before we realized we took the wrong turn.  We headed to cousin Jennifer’s wine and shoe shop in Mt. Pleasant.  Very impressive place.  We checked out cousin Joelle’s home in Mt. Pleasant she just bought.  After seafood in Charleston we headed home to watch the NCAA’s.  We were awakened briefly at 1:30 am by cousin Danny.  He needed his sunglasses.

On Saturday we chilled in uncle Dr. Joe’s 47 foot boot previously owned by Ernest Hemingway completely restored by the Dr.  We put 180 gallons of gas in it and headed out chillin in the harbor of Charleston where the Ashley and Cooper merge to form the Atlantic Ocean.  It has a cabin in it with a love seat and a couple of chairs and a fireplace and kitchen and bathroom and 4 beds.  Pretty impressive vessel.  Aunt Jane loaded up the frig with snacks for us and cousin Jamie hung out with us.  It was quite a day.  Highlight would have to be pulling up beside the Norwegian Cruisline as it headed out to sea. 

I won’t go into all the stories, but I will say that my brothers are the real deal.  I don’t know about them, but I can honestly say that there is not another group of guys I would rather spend the weekend with other than them.  We are blessed to be so close and not to let trivial things of life come in the way of our relationship.  Family will be there when no one else will.  Make it a point to reconcile relationships with your brothers, and young people.  Think twice before you do something stupid to your younger brother or sister.

Wish you were here.  I’ll holler at you later this week and let you know about my weekend with my brothers.

Peace

Birthdays are big deals around here.  Any time we get a chance to celebrate, we do.  Those who think it is ridiculous to make over your kids can stay home and read a book or something.  Any chance I get to make my kids feel like they are the number one priority in my life behind God and my wife, I’m going to take it.  It kind of reminds me of how God lavishes his love on us.  Freely gives and gives too much.

So when is your spiritual birthday.  When were you “Born Again”.  Check out what Jesus had to say about that in John 3. 

Celebrate!

It’s me again.  I know you have been wondering if I fell off the face of the earth.  I have been swamped with trying to find a youth ministry associate.  It’s funny how God works.  I don’t try to figure him out anymore.  Hopefully this will work out in the next week.  If not, we are back to the drawing board.

Anyhoo, I did find time to go to Disney World.  I love this place.  I appreciate the commitment to detail and excellence in the resort and theme parks more than anything.  It is phenomenal to see how the vision continues after the man who started the whole ball rolling has been dead for over 30 years. 

I am amazed every time i go.  Connor (2) and Caden (4) had a blast.  My mom and Dad went and enjoyed the grandkids. 

Our favorite ride.  Dumbo.  And I guess for Leisa and I it would have to be Mount Everest or whatever it’s called in the animal kingdom.

A quote I picked up from Walt Disney is this, “It’s fun to do the impossible”

When his daughter was told at the grand opening of Disney world 3 years after his death that it was a shame that Walt never saw Disney World, she corrected him.  “Disney World is here because he did see it.”

 Vision is a powerful thing.  Do you have it?  Can you see what is not there.  Because until you can see it, you will never be able to lead others to the unknown.

When I walked in the place there was a gigantic 3 story tall boy sitting on the floor.  It was quite impressive.  There was actually a playground inside the kid.  His stomach was a bouncy trampoline and his intestines were a series of tunnels. 

I’m not sure if you know Caden, but he has quite an imagination which sometimes has him very skiddish on new things.  He imagines all kinds of things.  Who knows what is all going on in his mind.  When we hit the front door he was like, “I don’t want to see the giant.  I don’t want to go in here.”  and I was like, “I just paid $30.  You are going in and you are going to have a good time.  His fears were keeping him away from having a cool time. 

So we walked around and saved the giant for last.  It was cool to hang out with them and play.  We did the fireman area where they dressed up and road in a moc fire engine.  There was the snow land where you put on skid skates on the carpet and slide around and play hockey.  There was also the sounds of Africa where you could be on a video screen with Africans playing a drum.

 Finally it came time for the giant.  Caden kicked and screamed as I drug him inside this kid.  After he got in he thought “this isn’t too bad.”  Pretty soon he is sliding down the slide with his mom.

Our fears of the unknown keep us from doing a lot don’t they.  Fear of failure, Fear of ridicule, Fear of rejection.  It keeps us from taking new challenges, answering God’s call on our life, and sharing the gospel with people that we love.  It also keeps from experiencing a thrill. 

Don’t be afraid of the Giant. 

The measure of a man can be determined best when the heat turns up.  What they do in the blaze is who they really are.  Character seems to rise to the top during such times. 

I did not know Defren.  I knew his Dad, who is a hard worker and deep thinker.  I got to know Jason through his funeral. 

What struck me most was not the 70 plus Patriot’s Guard Bikers who were there to stand on his behalf or the governor of South Carolina who came to the funeral or the general in charge of Fort Jackson or the pomp and circumstance that surrounds a military funeral down to the fly by at the grave side. 

What struck me most was the picture of him in high school.  Long haired, mischievous grin.  Unassuming. 

You never know what these young people will grow up to be.  So many times we judge them too quickly because of the music they are listening to, or the shirt they are wearing or lack there of, or the hair style.  Sometimes that judgment keeps us from getting to know the individual below the surface.  Keeps us from building a relationship in order to engage the teenager in converations that are sub-zero (below the surface). 

This happened to me my first year on the job in Barnwell 10 years ago.  A long haired, bleach blonde guy started coming to our student ministry.  It was the first guy that looked different than the rest of our students yet he was accepted.  My first thougths were, “who is this guy.”  We developed a strong relationship, and I quickly realized that there was something different about this young man.  He didn’t do well in school his first semester and hung around Barnwell for a couple of years before leaving for the Navy.  He served well for four years and then got highly involved with a church in San Diego.  He has since accepted the call to missions in some capacity.  When you see him now, he is a sharp, clean cut, genuine young man that others are drawn to.  I thoroughly enjoy spending time with him when he comes home.

There are countless others.

So the next time you see a teenage with long hair and alternative clothing, try to see what God sees:  One of his children.

Who knows.  You may get to cross paths and impact a hero.

Exert from Feb. 1 blog of www.stevenfurtick.com

The title of this year’s session was “Empowering Leaders to Lead”  We focused on developing students and adults to lead others.  I am so blessed to have an adult team back home that gets it.  They get the fact that ministry is not about them, or recognition, or fun and games; it is about pouring their lives into a generation that has the potential to change this world.  Pouring their lives into teenagers and have a small part in their journey to Christ. 

I was wondering how we do it.  Other student minsters struggle with adults who will not get engaged in ministry or who are more concerned with their own agenda.  I finally figured it out (of course it was after the breakout session).  We have allowed our leaders to taste what it is like to be used by God and when you get a taste of that you are forever changed and empowered.  Student ministers sometimes rob adult volunteers and students from tasting what it is like to lead others or lead someone to Christ by stepping in and getting out of the way.  Let adults and students be active in ministry and take ownership of ministries so they can experience what it is like to have God work through them. 

Thank you adult leaders for staying focused on ministering to teenagers and less focused on what’s in it for you.  You are my heroes.

• Over 300 people waiting with anticipation as we cut the ribbon to walk in.
• The look on individuals faces as they walked into The Merge for the first time.  Sandy calls it the Wow factor.
• My four brothers standing in support.
• Students sitting in the booths hanging out with friends drinking a Red Bull.
• The energy in the room when Johnathan Elrod was leading us in worship with Rachel’s lightshow in the background.
• Bob Hundley sitting down with a student after school who needed help with Algebra.  Bob’s a retired Chemical Engineer.
• Terry Dosier’s 6′9” frame towering over a group of students as he prayed for them.
• Students laughing and playing on the volleyball court.
• Having to run out the adults after the second night as they continued to talk with one another in the Merge.  I don’t think they would have gone home!
• K Epperson scurrying behind the scenes.
• Don Sanders making yet one more lap up to the sound booth.
• My Dad clapping to the music.
• Hardee Sanders standing up with his 3 Carolina Football player teammates and speaking all grown up!  I’m proud of Hardee.
• Daniel Harper running around the stage.
• The look on Travis Hooper’s face when I said, “I need you to counsel.”
• Gary Harpers engaging presence.
• Bob Dixon hanging out in the loft
• Donna Walling checking the roll to see if all the volunteers were in place.
• William Johnson getting one more refill of capuccino
• Our praise band rocking it out
• Steven Furtick counting to 3 and 51 students standing to their feet in obedience to follow Christ out of hypocricy
• The look on Travis Hooper’s face after talking to a student by himself for the first time about their spiritual life during counseling.
• Sandy’s statement as I walked back into the worship center, “The stage will hold up.  We just had 50 students jumping on it and it didn’t buckle!”
• The look on Jeremy Creech’s face across the stage from me when Libbie Boyleston was about to crowd surf.
• Eleventyseven.  Enough said.
• The simple question after over 200 students filed out of the concert from an out of town guest, “How many students do you have?”
• The drummer of Eleventyseven’s statement when he exited the worship center, “Those kids are crazy.  I underestimated the students from Barnwell.  Where is Barnwell anyway!”
• The quietness of the building when all was said and done.

I look forward to continuing to partner with the adults of this church as we engage students in conversation that drifts below the surface.  I believe we have just scrapped the surface with the potential of ministry that this facility will offer.  To God be the Glory.

My heart is to see this new facility serve as a place where students merge with God and adults intentionally merge with students in conversation that gets below the surface.  It is designed to create an environment that connects with students and promotes conversion in an informal an setting.  We are not a new church plant but an established 200 year old church that is intergenerational which provides a richness to our students.  The neat thing is that our senior adults down to our students have a heart and desire to reach people.  This is why two of my first two to sign up for Friday after school hang out were a retired Army Major and a retired jack of all trades story teller.  Both of 70+ years. 

The details to get ready and also to operate are overwhelming and people like K Epperson, administrative assistant of 8 years, are  working as diligently as they can in order to pull this thing off.  But I realize that through the vast sea of details there is the simple vision of reaching lost teenagers and impacting the world through them. 

God gets the glory in this one.  There has been a multitude of people that have sacrificed a lot in order to see this place get built.  There has only been one large donor of $150,000.  The rest of the money has been raised through families sacrificing.  Many of them gave a car payment a month for three years.  Pretty wise investment.  A new car would be about ready to be traded in, but instead a facility with a vision to reach our teenagers for Christ has been constructed.

My prayer is that the facility will serve as a catapult into our community as students are called out and challenged to minister and serve in their community and world. 

Thank you God.  We’ll be a good steward of what you have entrusted to us.

See you Sunday at 3 pm.

There was something tha wasn’t so funny this week.  We knocked on 175 doors and asked people the question “In your personal opinion, what do you understand it takes for a person to go to Heaven.”  Only about 10 individuals answered, “Faith in Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.”  The majority of the individuals answered “Be a good person.” 

Who’s fault is that?  Their’s for not seeking God, or ours for not getting the message out to them. 

Here is a hint.  The neighborhood is about 3 years old.  About 200 houses.  Most of the residents did not even know that the church was less than a block away.  We were the first to knock on their doors according to the residents.

During the weekend we discussed the myths of leadership and how God takes the ordinary and turns it into the extraordinary.  We looked at 3 profile leaders from the Bible:  Joseph, Moses, and Peter.  We then talked the second day about 6 roadblocks to charisma and influence and the B’s of leadership.  A few of the roadblocks included pride, moodiness, oversenstivity, and perfectionism.  That night we looked at being a leader like Jesus:  humility. 

 We had some phenomenal students this week.  I look forward to seeing what God will do through these students in the future.

Merry Christmas.

I got to the top of the ladder and had one nail.  Bad move.  Hit it once and it fell on Cory’s head to be lost in the bushes forever.  Steve then left his post at the base of the ladder to get a crow bar to pry my window open from the outside to try to open it from the inside and hang the wreath. 

I began to slip a bit and looked down and Cory had one hand on the ladder and the other on his cell phone talking to a friend. 

What’s up with cell phones.  I think in the near future they will surgically implanted in our hands or in our ear. 

Anyway, got the window opened and the wreath up. 

Looks nice Clark.

I tried to prepare Caden ahead of time and let him know that it may not be snowing in the North Pole just yet, and he assured me that it does snow at the North Pole year around.  Well, the little guy was right again as we made it to Asheville and it started snowing all the way to the Cabin in Bryson City.  Wow!  It was awesome.  We were in a little winter wonderland as the son never hit the Cabin so the snow didn’t melt all weekend.

We took the train ride to the North Pole (Smokey Mountain Railroad) and our waiters complete with the serving of hot chocolate were named Bubba and Earl (real names).  Santa got on the train and started up the aisle giving all of the children bells.  Connor screamed in his face when he leaned down to say hello but I guess that is better than him smacking him which is what it looked like he wanted to do. 

It was a great time to get away and hang out with the family.  God has blessed me with a beautiful wife and some beautiful children. 

I had a little Polar Express of my own the night we were about to leave.  You won’t find the details about that here, but it did involve some Mexican Food.  

I tried to prepare Caden ahead of time and let him know that it may not be snowing in the North Pole just yet, and he assured me that it does snow at the North Pole year around.  Well, the little guy was right again as we made it to Asheville and it started snowing all the way to the Cabin in Bryson City.  Wow!  It was awesome.  We were in a little winter wonderland as the son never hit the Cabin so the snow didn’t melt all weekend.

We took the train ride to the North Pole (Smokey Mountain Railroad) and our waiters complete with the serving of hot chocolate were named Bubba and Earl (real names).  Santa got on the train and started up the aisle giving all of the children bells.  Connor screamed in his face when he leaned down to say hello but I guess that is better than him smacking him which is what it looked like he wanted to do. 

It was a great time to get away and hang out with the family.  God has blessed me with a beautiful wife and some beautiful children. 

I had a little Polar Express of my own the night we were about to leave.  You won’t find the details about that here, but it did involve some Mexican Food.  

Leisa and I have a tradition of buying a Christmas Ornament every time we travel somewhere.  We have a good time hanging those and talking about where all we have been.  My favorites…The turtle from Hawaii, the angel from Puerto Rico, and the santa skiier from Snowshoe, WV.  The last was actually a boys weekend with my brothers.  Good times.  Good Times.

For the record on the paintball.  I got in one game and was in stealth mode all the way around the oposition and then began my trek on my belly sneaking up behind the enemy (Trey, William, and Tyler)  Needless to say when I was 20 feet from them and standing up running with their backs to me in a dog fight with Steve Walling, and started to feel guilty about shooting all three of them in the back at point blank range.  However, I went ahead and unloaded and got three direct hits.  Miraculously, Tyler was saved through an unbusted paintball and playing dead and ended up shooting me in the back after I slid down the hill while they all were rolling around in disbelief.

We’ve got some great young men that are ready to stand up and be a man in their schools. 

Since when did Chrisitanity mean that you went to church and believed about God.  Christianity means that Jesus is your Boss, Your Lord.  The one in charge.  The one that died for you.  The one that you have laid your life down for.

Our sin condemns us to Hell.  There is no other way to put it.  Jesus died so that our sin would not condemn us.  Why don’t we act like it.

Please understand…I’m not judging you.  I love sinners.  I am one.  I just hate the sin that so easily entangles you.

Here is a flash bulletin.  Satan hates your guts.   He hates you.  He laughs at you when you are making a fool of Christ.  He wants to do anything he can to tear you down. 

You want to be in control of your life.  Sorry.   You can’t.  Someone will be your Lord.  It will either be Christ or Satan.  So the real question is who do you want to put your trust in.  Someone who hates your guts, or someone who spilled their guts for  you.

So here is a challenge.  Check your profile page, your backgrounds, the comments left, the pics you posted, the music that’s playing, the blogs you’ve written, the little “so called” cute pictures of people kissing or half dressed people and ask yourself.  Am I acting like someone who confesses Christ as Lord.

Change your actions, or change your religion in your profile.

 It gave me an opportunity to think back on my life and share with them about my call to ministry.  It is hard to believe that I graduated from Williston 14 years ago.  Wow!  It seems like only 13. 

You know in high school the importance of temporal things are so exagerated.  Like the time you spend trying to conceal a zit on your face or the effort it takes to maintain the image that you want.  What exites me now is to see some of my students who do not get sucked into that way of thinking. 

There are some funny things that happen in high school.  I recalled a story while in high school in which we tied a desk to the mini blinds cord and then hung it out of a two story classroom which was directly over the front door of the school.  Yes, the teacher was in the room at the time when we doing it.  Yes, he never realized it was hanging out the window!  Also, there was the time that I bent a paper clip into a U and then dropped it from waist high to see if I could hit an electric socket on the floor.  I was successful and there was an explosion, burst of fire, and the lights and power went out in the classroom. 

Anyway, it was good to be back at my old Alma Mater.  Go Devils.

That night after we got home he talked to his mom and said:

“Mom, you don’t need to take me into heaven, my Daddy took me tonight.  And I don’t want to sit up in that chair in heaven.”

She said,”Are that Jesus will come while you are sitting in it?”

He said, “No, mom.  I’m not scared of Jesus.  Jesus is in my heart, mom.  But if he comes into my heart with that chair, then I won’t be able to breathe.  And if I eat a sandwich I won’t be able to swallow or anything.  I don’t have any room for that chair.”

Wow, insight from a 3 year old.  There is not room for that chair.  There is no room for anything, but Jesus.  Don’t let anything fill your life except for the overflowing power of the Holy Spirit.

The students and adults pulling this together are phenomenal.  I stand amazed at their good attitudes and hard work through this week. 

I was Jesus yesterday after the first and second string went down.  It was very, very difficult.  I am not worthy to be in the same ball park.  Luckily I am a good actor.

Keep up the good work.

Here are a few highlights.

Conversations with Lee and Kurt:

“Up top Kurt, (High Five as he was walking by).  So what did you think about the Hill?”  Kurt:  “It was awesome.”

“Kurt, who is going to help us with Boston College?”  Kurt:  “Miami is your only shot.  Thanksgiving night in Miami.  They’ve got a shot to knock them off.”

When everyone was jumping I looked over at Lee Corso and said, “Lee, let’s get it up”  and the old man rose to his feet , pointed to the sky, and began to go up and down on his tip toes. 

My brothers and I had a blast!  We fought over getting behind CJ Spiller’s head at the post game interview with Fowler and boys and became “one of those people” behind someone while they are being interviewed.  

Nothing like riding high, and then getting thrown back to reality after a dominating performance by V tech.  Oh well, so it goes with College football.

Do I sound like a proud father.  Next week we plan to beat Blackville-Hilda to call it a season.  I am blessed to have such great guys to coach.

Go Warponies!

You know if Americans were asked what the fastest growing religion in the world today was, many of them would say Muslims or some other world religion.  The answer…Christianity.  It is exploding everywhere but here!  We are in a complacent mode in our country when it comes to revival.  Why?  We have all the resources, tools, and technology to get the word out.  Why does God not explode here when he is exploding in other countries?

I think it is because we are relying on ourselves too much and not intentional about getting the message of the gospel out.  We can put on slick shows in our churches and call them worship, but cannot cross the street to talk to people that are different than us.  We can organize conferences and events with nice lights, sound, and donuts but not get off the campus and help those who do not have even a donut for supper.  We can go through and explosion of evangelism studies and know all the right words to say, but when it comes down to sharing that with someone that we know really well we talk about things that do not matter.

Why?  I think deep down, we in America don’t think that we need God.  Why do we need him when we have a selection of over 100 channels for entertainment on our TV, and a selection of music on our Ipod to avoid even 5 minutes of silence in our lives.  Why do we need God when we have everything we want at our finger tips?  In fact we seem to only need him when someone in our family gets sick…but wait, we’ve got the Grey’s Anatomy team to come into the rescue in order to heal.  And if they don’t, they did something wrong and we can just sue and at least get paid.

The reality of it is that we don’t think we need God, because we don’t think we are really that bad.  That a loving God would look at us and realize that there are people that are meaner than us and let us into his kingdom.  We don’t think that we really need God because deep down we don’t believe that our sin is sending us straight to Hell.  That God is so totally Holy that we cannot fathom being good enough to even be in the same zipcode as Him. 

Repentance is what is desired.  Repentence leads to Revival.  And in the great revivals of the past they always started with the young people.  This is why I am passionate about them.  I believe that if God is going to do something extraordinary in America it is going to begin with students that repent and turn toward him.  I want to be in the middle of it.

 These are  exciting days at FBC in Barnwell.  One of the contractors that just came on the sight to help with sound after looking at the interior of The Merge for the first time said, “Is this Barnwell?  Barnwell?  I thought I was in Atlanta or something.”  God has blessed us with a facility that will be as cool as the students who come into the place.  Well maybe not that cool.

The finishing touches are being placed on the facility and then we have some work to do ourselves such as the construction of the volleyball court, basketball court, and repainting a bit inside. 

On another note, we had a good practice at GBMS for football.  The guys are working hard and enjoy hitting one another.  In fact I didn’t have to holler too much today.

Closed out the day, updating the website and hanging out with my boys.  Doing a little swinging outside.  They are a trip. 

A lot of times we let our guard down for just a minute, and then we fall flat on our face.  It is tough being a Christian.  There are a lot of temptations that come our way.  For those who have gotten past the usual sins that plague Christians, have other sins that creep in right behind them.

My weakness constantly reminds me of how rotten I am, and how great God is.  It also reminds me that no matter how strong I get in my faith, it is not about me, but about God. 

 We broke ground on my birthday, July of 2005. 

 This church loves teenagers and they put action with their words as they agreed to construct this building first before a fellowship hall.  It will serve as a place for students to merge with God, adults to merge with students, and students to merge with friends.  It is designed to promote conversation in informal settings.  I’m looking forward to doing ministry in The Merge