...and so the adventure begins...

We are in Florida!!! Even our stuff is here. That was one of THE craziest experiences I've ever had. I'll have to share the details in person with any who want to know but suffice to say Nationwide Relocators are not our best friends.

In any case, we are here and excited about what God has in store next. The people of West Jax have been soooo gracious towards us all ready and we are soooo thankful. They have made the transition a great deal smoother than it could have been. Thank you WJACC!

I'm back online at the office and will try to keep updating my blog. We do not have internet at the house yet so Allison is not able to keep her blog updated as of yet...hopefully soon.

Grace to all...

Fans

Fans make participating in sports worthwhile. Even if you are having a tough time getting a hit, making a shot, or scoring a touchdown a true fan will still cheer you on. A fans job is to cheer, encourage, and let you know that they are behind you 100%. Fans can be your biggest weapon against your opponent. They are your biggest ally against an enemy. Fans can help change the momentum of a game in your favor. Without fans the game doesn't always seem winnable. Without fans motivation tends to run low. Fans give that little bit of energy when you didn't think you had any left. Fans give you that spark that enables the game to be won. This week I want to be a fan. I want to cheer. I want to encourage. So here it goes...

GO VIRGINIA TECH!!! YOU CAN DO IT!!!! WE'RE ALL BEHIND YOU!!!! LET'S GO HOKIES...LET'S GO HOKIES...LET'S GO V TECH!!!!!!!!

We're cheering for you. The game is winnable.

Now I lay me down to sleep...

Babies are amazing. At least mine is. We go through the same bed time routine every night. We start with cereal. Then bath time. Story time comes next. Then one last bottle and then… to bed, to bed you sleepy head. Yet every night she reacts differently when we lay her down. Sometimes she goes right out. Some nights she cries herself to sleep. Some nights she's just mad that she has to go to bed. Isn't that the way it always goes. Even though we don't like things to change when they stay the same for too long we start finding something to do differently. Cry, laugh, scream, sleep...etc.

Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is our ultimate source of consistency. Even when we do things differently His love, grace, mercy, faithfulness, friendship, lordship, and holiness is still the same. Thank goodness that even though the times they are a changing…Jesus never does.

James Dobson-Seriously????

Some of you may have heard the recent news that Dr. James Dobson of "Focus on the Family" and other evangelical leaders have called for the resignation of the VP of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). Their reasoning is he focuses too much on "global warming" and not as much on other hot button issues (ie. abortion, gay marriage, etc.) Dr. Dobson even went so far as to call the VP's views "demoralizing".

I have really tried to keep my thoughts and opinions neutral in this situation. While I'm not totally sure where Dr. Dobson is coming from I can see that if you are the VP you should probably promote the views of the organization you represent. Then I read something interesting today.

Dr. Dobson is NOT even a member of the NAE!!!!!!!!!

Then keep your nose out of it!

Don't get me wrong...I have a lot of respect for Dr. Dobson and the work he has done in the field of family and children...however, this does not make sense. Why go so far as to ask for the resignation of someone from an organization you don't even belong to?????

That makes as much sense as having people on the board of the church that are not even church members. I've got one word for that....STUPID!

If this offends anyone I apologize...NOT for what I said but for how I may have said it.

Every one have a great day and try to watch some of the NCAA tournament today.

UNC

Just in case anyone was wondering...tomorrow the NCAA men's basketball tournament starts!!!!! I filled in five free brackets on ESPN.com and had UNC going all the way in 4 of them. Georgetown was the pick for the 5th bracket. I know what some of you are thinking...aren't you moving to Jacksonville soon?...shouldn't you throw U of Florida a bone? The answer...

Nope. Not in basketball. I'm sorry. I might feel different when it comes to football or any other sport but basketball is a whole other story. I know they are the defending champs but I mean come on...how long can they last? :-)

Home Buying

One of the greatest books ever published is "Home Buying for Dummies"! We have looked at several houses in Jacksonville via the internet. It always makes me giggle a little when homes in Florida have fireplaces. Especially after living in Iowa for five and a half years.

This book has guided us through several steps that we were clueless about before. Allison and I both knew enough to be dangerous. We knew enough to get ourselves into trouble. However, after reading this book we have side-stepped several land mines that were waiting for naive people like us. It is amazing how much one book can change your present reality.

Anyone read the BIBLE today? Talk about changing your present reality...

she asked me...

So Allison asked me..."How long will it take to dig the car out?"...I stared...that's it just stared.

March article

The following is an article I wrote for our March church news letter. Enjoy!

Eight months! It has only been eight months since Natalie was born. Today she has two teeth showing, she is crawling none stop, she can pull herself up to a standing position, she is waving bye-bye, and the other day she actually said “Bye-Bye”. In eight month she has accomplished all of this and so much more. We have discovered that she is not a big fan of thunder and lightning. However, as soon as Mommy or Daddy picks her up she calms down and is able to sleep again.
How long have you known Jesus? How far has He brought you in that time? What are you able to do now that you were not able to do before knowing Jesus? In all that time there may be things that still spook you and make you shudder and the very thought of. Hopefully in the time you have known Jesus you have also learned that whenever the thunder roars and the lightning flashes you can climb into his arms and fall asleep again in the safety of His embrace.
How many storms has Jesus brought us all through? How many sunny days has Jesus helped us celebrate? How many more adventures does He have ahead of all of us? I’m not sure but I do know it will be exciting. We serve a Savior that refuses to be boring. Let us look with anticipation at what He has ahead for each and every one of us.
God Bless,
pastor chris

Sunday night thoughts

Today's Sunday School class led to a discussion about expectations. The question came up..."What does God expect of us?"...Several answers came up including...
1) Love God/Love People
2) To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Then one quiet lady in the class said..."God expects us to be human."

The more I've thought about this the more I agree with her. If you look up the word "expect" one definition you will find is "regard as likely to happen". Likely? There is absolutely no security in "likely". God is always sure. God knows everything. If He was expecting something then there would be a chance that He did not know what was going to happen. Which brings us back to that last answer.

As God expects us to be human He provides the sureness and security that only He can give. We have know idea how we will respond to different stimuli tomorrow but God does. So in saying all of this would it be fair to say that God truly expects "nothing" of us because He already knows?

reminders

I do want to remind readers that anyone can feel free to make comments on my blog. I know I haven't been the best at updates lately but I'm working on it so feel free to make comments and I'll do my best to reply also. Thanks for taking time to be interested in my blog. You are awesome 'cause God created you for a purpose. Have a great day!

day of the dead

This has been some week. Monday I had a funeral for a 61 year old man who was a strong family man but did not have much to do with the church. However, his obituary stated that he was a lifelong member of our church having been baptized and married in the church building. Tuesday I had another funeral for a man who left his wife years ago for another woman who he lived with for 30 years without even the thought of marriage. (side note-the ex-wife and the "significant other" were sitting across from each other during the service...interesting)

Yesterday Allison and I attended a conference in Des Moines on Grief and Grieving. It was interesting and offered some practical helps for both of us. Then on our way home Allison got a call telling her that the husband of one of her clients had died and the funeral would be today. So Allison is going to that service this afternoon.

After all of that the lead story on the "Today" show this morning was the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Granted her death does not impact us directly but after a week like we have it seemed appropriate that the morning news would start off with a story about someone dying.

Such is the life of a pastor and social worker. Seeing as these have all been very diverse settings I have caught myself saying "Well, we do know that God knows exactly where ________ is." I wish people would get it out of their heads that people are in heaven or hell or somewhere else right away...I'm just not finding that in the Bible. Oh well...

Dedication pics

This is the WHOLE gang at Natalie's dedication.
Below=Allison, Me, and of course Natalie.
This picture is a four generation picture we took on the same day.

New Year

The holidays have been good and my belly is showing just how good they were. We spent two weeks in North Carolina and West Virginia. It was great to be able to breathe without the assistance of allergy medicine. We had Natalie's dedication on Christmas Eve. All four of Natalie's grandparents and all four of her living great-grandparents were able to be there in addition to several other friends and relatives. It was a great Sunday.

Now it's a new year and I'm trying to get my back into the swing of things. We have our church annual meeting on the 17th. I'm excited as I see different people in the church become more and more involved in things. I'm excited to know that more people will fall in love with Jesus this year. I'm excited to think that I could be a part of that. I'm excited to see people grow in their daily walk with Jesus. I'm excited to know that Jesus never fails even when we do.

I'm excited to see what Jesus has in store this year. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Nat and Me

Here's a pic of me and Natalie. She's trying out one of her first Christmas outfits. Have a Merry Christmas!

flu season

So when is the best time to get a flu shot? I spent a couple of hours at the high school today and found out that half the school was out with the flu. Several others left feeling sick while I was there. What did I do? What any other self respecting germ-phobe would do. I came home, changed clothes, washed my hands several times and used hand sanitizer on top of that. Now I sit here typing with dry cracked hands...but hopefully germ free. Hopefully I won't get sick before I can get a flu shot for the season.

coming and going

I've been thinking lately about evangelism. For years I heard people encourage others to invite their friends to church so that they may hear the word of God and respond to the Grace of Jesus. Then in recent years I've heard a lot of individuals encourage other believers to "go out" and tell others about Jesus and the hope and salvation He brings. As I ponder these two approaches to evangelism I am finding myself not really caring about the method. I don't care if you bring them to church or if you take the message out to the non-believing world. The fact of the matter is there are many, many, many people out there who need hope, faith, love, joy, assurance, purpose...in short they need a SAVIOR! Some of us are great at inviting others to come in and here about THE savior while others of us are great at taking that good news outside the four walls of the church building. Whatever you are good at use it to glorify God and spread the message that hope and salvation are real and His name is Jesus.

Monday Morning thoughts

The Apostle Paul encourages us to let the "peace of Christ rule" in our hearts...and be thankful. (Colossians 3:15)

There seems to be a close connection between thankfulness and the peace of Christ. The more we experience peace the more we notice the things we are thankful for. The more diligent we become in giving thanks the more peace we experience in our daily lives. This seems to be an ongoing cycle. I think we get so caught up in searching for peace we forget to be thankful. Once we remember all that we have to be thankful for we begin to acknowledge a small part of what we have in Christ.

The more we realize all that we are and all that we have in Christ then the more we can respond with thankfulness.

What if I can not think of anything to be thankful for? Well let me suggest a couple of things.
When you believe that Jesus died for your sin and He forgives you and you have found new life only in Christ then you are...
Accepted
Secure
Significant
Free
God's Child
Complete
Free from condemnation
God's workmanship
Chosen

There's a very short list. Let's start there today and realize what all we have to be thankful for.

pastor's life

So the past week and a half has included the following:

3 major surgeries (one of which was an hour and a half away)
2 funerals (one of which was 6 hours away)
1 trip to New England to speak to 70 teenagers for the weekend
1 trip to Katherine Hepburn's grave (pretty and simple)

There has been more but my mind is blank at the moment.

Now it is 8:30 on Friday evening and I'm really not sure what all I'm going to preach on Sunday. I should probably figure it out since I will have to preach it at the Nursing Home on Sunday afternoon also. Of course then there is the community Thanksgiving service Sunday evening also. Must figure out what I'm supposed to do there. mmmmm maybe I'll do something about being thankful...that seems to go over well this time of year. Even people who are not thankful for anything will still say "good sermon pastor" at the end of the service. Kind of funny actually. People say things so often without thinking. I know I'm one of them but at least I try sometimes. There are some who I think they complain and say mindless things because it gives them some wierd sense of validity for their existance...like if they don't cause me stress then their lives have no meaning at all.

Well I should actually work on Sunday now...we'll see what I can stir up this week.

November 8

Today is November 8th!!! Yeahhhhhhh! Do you know what this means? No more stupid political ads that don't really tell me anything. No more stupid campaign phone calls that try to convince me how not stupid their candidate is. Now I can silence many conversations with the question "did you vote?" If not then quit whining. Now I can have a little bit of peace from all of the "yahoos" who try and tell me how to vote because I'm a Christian. The last time I checked the Holy Spirit was still doing his job and through research and prayer I think He is leading me in the way He wants me to go. I do hate that millions and millions of dollars are being spent on stupid, and I mean STUPID, political ads that do not inform me of anything while we could be reducing the national deficit, feeding hungry people, building homes for the homeless, or many, many other things that would make a real impact.

Also, the last time I checked Jesus did not register as a Republican or a Democrat so quit telling me how Jesus would vote...you don't know.

Sorry I just had to get some of that off my chest. I did vote yesterday. I think we should all vote. I'm just tired of not having any real choices...but it doesn't stop me from voting...why? Because it is a priviledge and not many people get that priviledge. So I pray. Think (which apparently not many politicians count on these days)...and then pray some more...then vote. I just hope that some day I have a real choice to make and not some superficial person telling me that things will be different and never telling me how.
Ok I'll stop the rant for now...God Bless Wednesdays.

whole life

The following is an article I wrote for our church news letter this month.

“I am learning from Jesus how to lead my life, my whole life, my real life. My discipleship Jesus is, within clearly definable limits, not a matter of what I do, but of how I do it. And it covers everything, ‘religious’ or not.”-Dallas Willard

Recently, we have discovered there is never a bad time to praise the Lord. Through ups and downs God is still God and is always worthy of all praise. As I was pondering this notion I came across the above quote from Dallas Willard. It reminded me that life itself is a gift of God. It is God’s breath. He gave it and we should treasure it. How do we treasure it? It will look a little different for each person. Some may devote their time and energy to preaching. Some may use this life to teach children. Some may pour all of their energy into communicating through multi-media sources. Others may work the land to grow food. While these are all noble causes they only take on eternal characteristics when done for God’s glory and by His grace and power.

How do you spend your days? Being a disciple of Jesus is a life-long learning process. As He leads us through each day we begin to discover who He really is and who He is making us to be. Not who others say we are but who He says we are. He chose his apostles from several different professions and backgrounds. He wants you to not just believe in Him but to be His life-long disciple learning what life in Him is all about.

Let’s be intentional today about following Jesus and allowing Him to teach us what life really is all about.