Another day of preperation

A vast majority of today was spent in sermon preparation for this Sunday. Today I feel much more confident about the message God has given me. It is all about following Christ in humility. By being humble we should seek to follow others who will point us toward Christ. We also need to humbly help other grow in their relationships. I believe that is the true test of a disciple, he multiplies himself so that he is a disciple that makes disciples. As I studied for my message the book of Philippians really opened my eyes to new truths about the humility of Christ and Paul. It was amazing to see how much Paul was motivated to impact the lives of others. One more day of preparations and I should be ready to go. Keep praying.

Message Preparation

Today was a crazy day! It started out spending time with my new friends and fellow youth workers from around our area. It is encouraging to share with one another and pray for one another. The rest of the day was spent working on my message for Sunday. This Sunday will be my first time preaching at Bridgeway on the main stage. Today I finished the general outline and the closing illustration. It is going to be great I am doing a message called "Walk this Way". From the passage that where the apostle Paul says follow me as I follow Christ. I am going to illustrate this by showing a discipleship family tree that starts with my great grandmother who came to Christ in the early 1900's to a child in Bridgekids (our children's ministry) who came to christ this year. I still have a lot of work to do and I am a little stressed and nervous so please keep me in your prayers.

The calm before the storm

Today was a good relaxing day. Spending the first part with Amie without the kids was a good way to celebrate our anniversary. Now as I watch the Yankees play the O's I am looking forward to a very busy week. Tomorrow I meet with our newly formed Youth Leaders Network and then I will work on my message for Sunday. Pretty much the rest of my week will be spent working toward the first time that I will speak on the main Bridgeway Stage. The message is called "Walk This Way". Any one who wants to check it out can watch this Sunday at 9am or 11:15am on www.bridgewayonline.org. I would appreciate any prayers!

8th Anniversary

It is hard to believe that 8 years ago today I married my beautiful bride Amie. Time has gone bye so fast. God has blessed us with so many good things over the past eight years. I cannot wait to see what God will do in the future.

Day off

It's good to get my normal Monday off. I have been without it the past couple of weeks because of ministry trips. I just got done mowing the lawn and watching an episode of Caillou with the boys. Tonight a friend is watching the boys while Amie and I celebrate out 8th anniversary which is tomorrow.

Up and downs of mininstry

This morning was another great morning of ministry. Service was great as always. I also had many great conversations. People are excited about the upcoming camp, and still recovering from last weeks service projects. Many parents were very pleased with the opportunity to have their child serve over the last week. Among all the good stuff that was going on it is amazing how one negative comment can seem to erase all of that in my spirit. In one of the conversations that I was having a person mentioned that they did not think our students did not do much at all. My immediate reaction was to be offended, because my life is about discipling students and we run several programs and activities that help us do this. I have been amazed over the past several months at how God has used student ministries to bring significant spiritual progress in the lives of students. So after i picked my jaw up off the floor I asked this simple question. Have you ever been to any of our activities? The answer was I peeked into one once and it was not what I thought it should be. As the conversation continued I became less and less offended as I realize that this persons statement about the ministry that I run was based on assumptions and lack of facts. I did my best to express that our ministry is about making disciples and all our programs work toward that one goal and they are designed with that one purpose in mind. I am not sure that I was completly understood, but I felt secure in the mission that God has called me to. I also feel secure in the mission that God has called me to pursue with student ministries. The challenge is communicating the vision and mission so that people do not look at what we do and say that's not as good as what my old church use to do. Instead they say, it is clear that God has called us to make disciples by connecting students to God and eachother, building into the students through community, worship, Word, and service, and equip students to do the ministry God has called them too.

Saturday

After a busy week it is nice to finally have a day to relax with my family. We all went for a walk together and went down by the stream near where we live and threw some rocks. We had a good lunch and now the boys are going down for a nap. We are looking forward to going to the pool this afternoon.

Final Day of Building Bridges

Today ended the final day of our first ever week long service project. We served 5 days in 5 different ways. Today we split into two crews. Matt's crew fixed up an apartment for a lady in our church. My crew cleared out and cleaned up the outside of our missionaries house. In the afternoon we passed out water at Centennial Park.

Building Bridges Week

This week has been a great week as I have had the opportunity to lead a group of students in serving God by serving others. We had the opportunity to serve in a variety of ways. Monday we did landscaping at the church. Tuesday we went gleaning just like Ruth and Naomi did in the Old Testament. I did not even know gleaning still existed. Gleaning is where a farmer leaves a portion of his field up picked so that those in need of food can come and pick from it and live off of it. Tuesday morning we picked 34 bags of collard greens and kale. In the afternoon we had the opportunity to deliver the produce to 25 homes in our area. Wednesday we had the opportunity to serve by assembling toys for the toys for tots program. I now know what a Christmas elf feels like. Today we had the opportunity to serve for the Garden a church that is being planted by my friends Matt and Joel in the Bolton Hill area of Baltimore. Hopefully I will be able to share some photos of all we did soon.