Lighten Up!

Okay... I just realized how deep that last blog was so I figured I would give you guys a lighter blog to balance it out.

So here's the deal... I completely obliterated my toe this past weekend! Let me paint a picture for you. A heroic husband, a damsel in distress wife, Tulsa Zoo with Lions and Tigers and Bearts (OH MY!) Yup, it was that good! I leave the rest to your imagination. hehe...

For reals though, I know I am a grown up and I should be mature in my actions, but on the flip side we must also remember that I am a children's pastor! ; ) So we were at the Tulsa Zoo with our dear friends James and Donna Gragg. As you all know, my wife is pregnant so I went ahead and got her a wheelchair so she didn't have to be on her feet all day at the zoo. Well, it was coming towards the end of the day and the park was about to close. It was super hot and I was getting pretty tired of pushing this beautiful pregnant lady around. We began to head out of the park, but we were on the entire other side of the park so we had to go all the way back through. Erin said, "well, look at the bright side babe... now all those uphills will now be downhills". These were her fateful last words. I told her that sometimes the downhills are harder than the uphills. Well, we are just about out of the park and we come upon our last hill. It was pretty big so I figured, instead of fighting gravity the whole way down, why don't we just use the momentum of the hill. BAD IDEA! So I hold myself up on the handles and graze my flip flops on the ground as we begin to pick up speed.

Well, the thing I didn't realize was the grade of the hill changes and it got steeper. This was not a good thing. When we hit the grade change my 8 month pregnant wife began to tip backwards!!!! I tried to do everything I could to stop us, but with flip flops on it was to no resolve (or whatever that word is) So all I could do is use all the stength in me to lower her down as softly as possible as we burn down this hill at like 80 miles an hour! I take her down as slowly as possible until about 3 inches from the ground... this is where gravity took over. I let go of the handles and toppled to my destruction! Flipping over my wife and rolling down the hill. Not a pretty sight!

The first thing I do is immediately get up and check up on my wife as I am apologizing a million times. Well, to my surprise, as I run up to her she is now laying in her chair CRACKING UP!! She said, "that must of looked hilarious!" So as we lift her up, I now know she will be just fine so I begin to look over my own damage. As I look down, I realize that I no longer have a second toe, but an object that looks like a grounded piece of meat and is bend a weird way.

So the last 150 yards ends with me in the wheelchair as we head to the first aid where an incompitent security guard tries to clean me up and put some bandaids on. James ended up taking over the patch up job. Thank God for James!

So you may be thinking that was the end of the day... lets head home. NO SIR! We had to make me feel better so we went to Texas Roadhouse and had steak and ribs! YEAY!

So weird...

It is so weird to be counting down the days when you know your life is going to change FOREVER! We go through these seasons all throughout our lives from graduation to marriage, but I don't know that there is any more extreme than HAVING A BABY! Its UNBELIEVEABLE to see this new life develop before your eyes and know that in a few weeks it will change your life foreve! There is so much EXCITEMENT involved in it yet so much NERVOUSNESS as well. What is God's plan for this precious child?! Will I raise him in a way where he embrasses that plan? What awesome things will he do and what will he become?! Do I have what it takes to get him there? I know that by God's wonderful grace and mercy He will lead and guide us to raise our family to honor HIm!

Every so often, as the baby is rolling all over the place in her belly, my wife will say "it is so weird that I have this human inside of me!" As we sit there astonished at the wonder of birth I look over to my wife and say "Baby, you are holding ou LEGACY!" I have come to the relization more than ever before that my life is no longer my own. Everything I am is now committed to developing this young child to become all God wants him to be. Josiah will be my ACCOMPLISHMENT in life. He IS my legacy.

Emotional in my old age

well each and every day I become more away of how old I am. I just can't believe it! All these kids growing up around me! It makes me sad, yet makes me proud. Kids moving on to youth and other kids coming into mainstreet. Before you know it, I'll be attending their high school graduations! Even kids from Masters Commission. We are in recruitment season and I am blown away that I now have students that were born in the '90s!!! Its like we keep getting older, but all our students stay the same age! It is quite an amazing and weird feeling.

Like I said... in my old age I have realized how emotional I have become. But God has shown me something so cool in the midst of this realization. I just returned a week ago from my brother-in-laws wedding down in south texas and I found myself tearing up at the wedding. As you all probably know, our dear friends Chris and Whit, just had their beautiful baby boy the week before that and as I held that wonderful gift, I couldn't help, but get all choked up. I began to ask myself why I had become so "emotional" in situations like this. And God softly spoke to me that it was because it reminded me of Him! These have got to be the two best relationships we as humans can experience and they are a beautiful representation of Him. The relationship of a father to his son and a husband to his wife. There is so much selflessness, honor, respect, and a whole bunch of other really cool words like that. There are moments in life where you get a glimpse of God's beautful love for us, His precious children/His lovely bride. So next time you find youself in that moment. Just thank Him for allowing you the opportunity to experience His love.

Anyways... if you capture that, it is powerful. With that said, I am so excited about this new season in life. With the baby coming, our life is about to change like never before and I am excited about it. It will be a season of selflessness and love. Which I guess are one in the same. I can feel God preparing me for just such a season.

I can't hardly stand it!!!

By this time tomorrow I will know the gender of our baby!!! The anticipation is killing me!!! Its crazy because when we first went to the doctors they told us the date for when we can do the ultra sound and I thought it would take forever! HERE WE ARE!!! I don't care either way as far as the results. I just want to know! I'm a little nervous because I hear that once you know the gender, thats when the money starts flying all over the place. Lord, help me. I think it would be great to have twins... one a girl, and one a boy... so that Erin and I can have one each!

Anyways, we had another great conference this year thanks to all the hard work of the people of Journey Church! We have been showered with compliments from the churches that were able to be with us. It truly is a testament to the grace and mercy of God because by ourselves, it would be nothing!

The day after conference, I left with the MC team to do ministry at Daytona Beach during spring break! It was an awesome experience! It challenged us, not only there, but to have a "God-sharing" heart every day of our lives. We basically joined up with like 7 other MC's and threw a huge deck party at one of the beach front hotels. Everything was FREE! That obviously got a whole lot of attention. As it brought people in, we were able to love on them and tell them about the saving love of Jesus Christ! It was pretty powerful! So basically, we got to enjoy the beach by day and save souls by night. Thank you Jesus!

Now it is off to the next thing. We have our very first easter play to get ready for as well as our second annual city-wide easter egg hunt. Pray for our staff as we make preparations to make this easter great!

CLOCK IS TICKING!!!

Holy Cow... conference starts tomorrow!!! By God's good grace and mercy we are going to make it through this week. Its pretty crazy hosting your own conference. But it is going to be so worth it! To build relationships, inspire people, and equip them to do even greater things for God... completely worth it. We have 13 churches coming as of right now with 43 registered guests who do not attend Journey Church. That number will probably go up before tomorrow, but even without it... that is a great response. Please keep the entire conference in prayer and all who are involved; that the churches coming would have safe travels and would be impacted through the ministry of this conference; that the staff of Journey Church would not loose their minds over the craziness of getting everything ready; and most importantly that this conference is a sweet aroma unto the Lord. That He is pleased with what we are doing and how we are stewarding all that He has given us. Lord... be glorified.

2nd Trip

Oh yeah... and we just got back from our second big trip of the year a couple of weeks ago. It was awesome! The students did an AMAZING job ministering to people! We also had a whole lot of fun. We were able to have a couple of free days where we visited the Grand Canyon, the Hoover Dam, and the Las Vegas Strip. It was a cool, and first, experience for a lot of them. We ministered in Payson, AZ/ Indian Springs, NV/ and El Paso, TX. Then we ended the trip with our annual Masters Commission Conference where all the MC's get together and love on God and each other. It was a great way to end the trip! Words cannot express how proud I am of our team! They set such a great example and continually allow God to do awesome things in them and through them. Great job guys!

Oh yeah.... I forgot to tell you!

WE ARE HAVING A BABY!!!! We went to our very first doctors appointment last week and it was great! We got to hear the heartbeat! It was perfect at 145 beats/min. It is active too because it kicked the mic like 4 times which is a great sign. Erin is absolutely healthy and she is doing a great job at keeping herself that way! She has been eating very well and excercising very safely. She hasn't had any of the typically extreme sicknesses that come with pregnancy. It has been an absolute blessing... for both of us. She just started her 16th week and the baby, last I heard, was the size of an avacado at approximately 4.7 inches. We go back to the doctors on March 26th to have the ultrasound and find out what the baby is!!! I can't wait. It is real easy for me to get emotionally worked up when I begin to think about it! I'M GOING TO HAVE A BABY!!! If it is a girl, we are going to name her Madison Nicole Velasquez. The boys names are a little bit harder. It is a lot harder than I thought it would be to name your child. there is a lot of pressure that comes along with it. This kid is going to have this name for the rest of their life!!! Anyways, for a boy, we are thinking about naming him Anthony Jose Velasquez. Then I can call him AJ! I love it, but my wife is not too sure about the AJ part. Anyways, that is what's going on in the life of Tony right now and he loves it!!
ps - NEXT Generation Conference is coming up next week so be praying for the staff as we getting everything ready for another great conference! YEAY!!!

First trip of the year!

Praise the Lord. Keep us in your prayers as Masters Commission heads out on our very first ministry trip of the year. The students are super stoked and we can hardly wait. It is going to be a great experience. We will be going down to Texas this first week and enjoying a regional Masters Commission Retreat. Then we will be doing ministry at a couple of churches down in south Texas. The following week we will spend in Mexico as we help the missionary down there with construction projects as well as ministering at a soup kitchen, a dump, and a couple of spanish churches. May God be glorified in us! I'll tell you more about it when we get back. Thanks for the prayers!

Praise-the-Lujah!!!

Praise the Lord... we didn't mess everything up while Pastor was gone this weekend! Services actually went real smooth. I'm telling you what though.... I love our pastor. I had a small taste this past weekend as to the massive responsibility he has every week to lead and disciple this awesome body of believers! Continue to pray for him and his family, that God will continue to give him the strength and the vision to shepherd this congregation into the great things God has for us. We are so blessed to have the Allred family here. The problem comes when people have sureal expectations of perfection from him. He is human just like you and me and we need to constantly be covering him and his family in prayer. Rebuke the attacks of the enemy and pray God's grace and mercy to be abundant in their lives. Praying over their lives daily is the biggest blessing they could receive. Lord only knows all it takes to lead a life-giving church with God-given vision. Thank you God for the leadership you have put us under... may we coninually pray for, believe in, and support with our love; our pastor and his family! AMEN!

Big Weekend...

Well, we just got back from our super awesome staff retreat in Branson, MO. We had such a great time. The only thing missing was the super awesome Ms. Donna Gragg. She wasn't able to come. Sadly, we found out the last day that we were there that Ms. Stephani's Uncle had passed away. Please keep her and her family up in prayer. They ended up leaving the very next day to be with the family. They have asked us as a staff to cover the fort while they are gone, including asking me to preach on Sunday morning! I am super excited, but please pray that God will give me a fresh word to minister to the hearts of His people. It is such a great honor to be given the opportunity to do so and I feel very humbled. Pray that God will help me to present His message clearly as I communicate the heart of God. Another huge thing happening this weekend is my parents are closing on their house here in Sallisaw, OK!!! They will officially be home owners in Salllisaw as of this upcoming Monday. I'm not too sure what their moving schedule is like as of yet, but they will definitely be here before thanksgiving so 2 to 3 weeks at the most before they are completely moved!! YIPEE!!! We sure have been waiting a long time to see this come to past. I have to get back to writing my message now, so have fun being CRAZY for Jesus!

Grand Slam Sunday!!!

WOW!!! God is awesome! We pulled off another great Friend Day/Party at Pastors! Every single ministry did a phenominal job this weekend! From the front of the building where people walked in the doors to the very back where we had our elementary service. People were definitely feeling the Love of the Lord through the Body of Christ! I just can't even put it in words! I am so grateful for the grace God has given our pastor to not only have the vision and heart for the ministry of Journey Church but to be able to share it with the body and teach them how to capture it! Every person who served this past weekend was a great representation of that heart. I'm just so proud of the people of Journey Church! Not to mention the numbers... wow! We had at least 80 salvations throughout the church and probably almost 100 recommitments! It was powerful! and we had over 90 kids in Mainstreet and a total of 80 kids in the preschool hallway! Praise the Lord for He is worthy of ALL our praise! Life is being given at the Journey Church and it is only by the grace and mercy of God!

the "Journey WARP"

I've come to find that there is a special space in time at the Journey Church. It is as if everything is at time and a half! I have already been here over two years and we are just about over with 2008! We are already coming up to the next Party at Pastors!!! This is CRAZY! Its like God is doing something so special that He has created this weird time warp. Before I know it, I'm going to be going to one of my students graduation and then their wedding and then grey hairs and then I'll be joining the "Primetime" group as we watch the next generation become all the God created them to be as we continue to proclaim, prepare, and praise them!
God help us to enjoy each season of life and make the most of them all. The good, the bad, and the ugly! Thank you for your promise of being with us through them all.

His Goodness is overwhelming!

Okay, okay... here I am 3 months later getting back in the routine of blogging after that crazy summer! Sorry that it has been so long. After I had accidently deleted all my children's ministry emails off my contact list it really threw me into a whirl wind of chalupas and I kept putting my blogging off until I fixed my contact situation. Anyways, we are now in Sept. which is 3/4 of the way through the year. I would like to take this blog and use it to review all that God has done this year:

Next Generation Conference
We had 10 different churches attend this conference. All of them completely blown away by what God is doing here. (It came out to almost 30 different registered guests) That is a great number for only promoting it for 1.5 months. They were blown away by the servanthood, willingness, and energy of our children ministry teams. all the way from birth to 5th grade. Way to represent team!!!

Kid Craze!!!
We had a count of 215 kids, 141 adults, and 72 salvations!!!
WOW!!! Those numbers blew away our expectations. It sure was an amazing night!!!

Easter Sunday Services
We had a record attendance all the way across the board! We had a total of
614 people walk through our doors Easter Sunday! 160 of those people were in the care of JourneyKIDS!!! We had a whopping 86 kids just in Mainstreet.
The week before we had a record number of 70 kids and we completely blew that out of the water Easter Sunday! (keep in mind both these dates were during spring
break) Is that not awesome!!! Our Preschool classes all had an awesome craft that they took home. I had parents commenting on how great they were.

Easter Egg Hunt
It was flawless!!! There were so many hands involved in making it great! We had people doing everything from stuffing eggs, organizing prizes, making signs, setting up, tearing down, and creating an environment during the event. We had nearly 500 kids there and an estimated 2,000 people total at the football field that day. There wasn't a single kid who left that field unhappy. We kept the energy high and had it all done within 30 min. We began to tear down and had everything back at the church by 3:30. Is that not awesome or what!!!

Our very first VBS!
We had an average attendance of 117 kids and 70 kids with perfect attendance the entire week! unheard of, especially when you don't do any promoting at all. (We were scared to because we would run out of room!) We had an average of 40... I repeat, 40 leaders who made it an event to remember! Absolutely AWESOME!!!

KIDS Sunday
This was the Sunday after our VBS where Pastor Jeff gave us the entire service to show off all that God was doing in the children's ministry! It was unbelieveable! I was so proud of those kids that day as they proclaimed their position as the next generation. We as adults we make sure they reach even greater heights as we proclaim, prepare, and praise them! The house was packed with around 550 people coming to church that Sunday and at least 80 of them were from our VBS week!

Summer Events
We rocked the community as we reached out every chance we got. We were a huge part of Diamond Daze and Freedom Fest this year as we proclaimed llife over our community. We definitely were a shining light in the city! Great job body of Christ. You sure did pull together well and our community recognized it.

New Land!!
HOLY COW!!! We purchased nearly 22 acres of land for the vision God has given Journey Church to be the light on the hill. The entire church headed out there that following sunday and made an ugly, overgrown mass of land look like a beautiful park! It gives me chlls down my back as I think of all the lives will be changed on that very land! I can see it in my dreams! We plan on breaking land before the year is up and having the our very own elementary and child care facilities up and running by the beginning of the next school year. And a few months after that we will break ground for our new state of the art Worship Facility! It is going to be the greatest thing Sallisaw has seen. But the people of Sallisaw sure do deserve it because God has a plan for this community!

TeamKID
We ended the TeamKID year in May with a bang!! Running a consistent 40+ kids every week. As we have begun the '08-'09 year they keep on coming! We have been up and running for 2 weeks and we have already reached new hights with a high attendance of 47 kids and growing! Ms. Teresa took over TeamKID this year (due to Ms Kim having to finish her teaching degree) and she has done a marvelous job!

3 Services!!!
ANOTHER HOLY COW!!! This week we start running 3 service because we just simply do not fit! We are heading into the fall season and making huge strides to a consistent 600+ attendance and we just do not have the room! God's people have really stepped up to take care of all the extra work to make another service happen. Wow... where are we headed next.

Now keep in mind... these are simply just some of the main highlights... God has been working and rockin-rollin'. He has been changing lives and using them to do great things for Him and I am simply glad to be a part of such a

What a weekend!!! and we all survived!

Diamond Daze.... Masters Commission Graduation! (oh, and not to mention the moving of all the playhouse equipment!) WOW... what a week! All of these events take up a huge amount of multiple people's time and they just so happened to fall on the exact same weekend! It was pretty intense. There were definitelymoments where Masters and I were running off straight adrenaline! We had early mornings and late nights full of different situations that took a whole lot of physical strength and a whole lot of mental strength. But boy, did God honor all our hard work with each event working out super great awesome! Diamond Daze was awesome! Journey Church represented so well starting Thurs afternoon all the way up to Sat night! It almost seemed like a Journey Church festival as appose to a diamond daze festival! Well done Journey Church, well done! I want to give a special HUGE THANK YOU to Jimmy Bartholomew who was my right hand man the entire time making sure the event went well! I definitely owe him lunch. Thank you Jimmy. Obviously there were so many hands involved, from helping the chamber with parking, to judging different events, to running the journey booth. Great job guys.

Also, what a service it was on Sunday with the MC Graduation! The students made me so proud! They did the entire thing without a single glitch! They are absolute awesomeness! PJ hadn't seen the service at all which shows that he was really putting his trust in us to pull through because typically he would need to see every drama, hear the points of the message, etc. etc. etc. The students did an excellent job at making sure he wasn't let down. He was blown away by the smoothness, quality, and passion the students brought to the table. Great job guys! I also want to say a big THANK YOU to my mainstreet team that allowed me to be in the main sanctuary the entire time. I didn't even have to think about or worry about what was happening in the children's hallway because my leaders and ministers are awesome!

The move on Sunday afternoon went super great awesome as well! I was pretty worried about who was going to show up and what trailers we would use, but the church really pulled through and I'm glad they did because we couldn't do it without them. Great job guys! There were so many people there it was awesome!

All in all, I'm glad super proud of this weekend and how everyone did their part. But I am sure glad it is over. I can now breathe and relax, at least until the next big weekend.

We are family...

Well, praise the Lord... The baby has finally come. My brother and his wife Nellie just had a baby yesterday, June 2nd around 11:20am. He is a beautiful 7lb. flat, 20.5in. super cool baby. It was so great to have most of the family here and to be a part of such a momentous occasion! I missed that with Baby Joey. Having family is so awesome! I think it was very appropriate that my Dad was here that same weekend to speak on family. I was so proud of him (and my famiily for that matter) as he brought God's word and principles into our practical lives. If you missed it, you can check it out on our website at www.journeychurchLIVE.com . I truly pray that message ministered to everyone's heart because I know its important to God. Continue to ask God to help you cultivate your relationships. Who knows... with all this family talk going around, I might have to start one of my very own! YIPEE!!! (Soon enough my friends... soon enough) I'll let you know when my wife gives the thumbs up, until then I guess I'll just have to love on the 100-150 kids in our ministry! Praise the Lord!

Breathe In... Breathe Out

Well, after all the climatic events of this past week (particularly Pastor John's announcement to leave and Pastor Jeff's announcement to bring Jarred on board as the new youth pastor), it is time to breathe in... and breathe out. It's kind of like Jack said on the first season of LOST: "You let the feeling of being overwhelmed (or fear) in for 5 seconds and then you just breathe it out and get to action."
There has been a whole lot of changes this year in my life. I believe I have blogged about it before. With these changes come opportunities to grow. We can and should learn from each new season. I pray that we see through God's eyes. Through the good seasons and the bad seasons; through the awesome situations and the horrible situations; there is always an opportunity to learn and grow.
This is another opportunity for us to grow. It will be different for all of us. Some of us will grow in our ability to trust God. Others will grow in our church involvement. Just ask God in each new season: what do you want me to learn and where do you want me to grow?
I believe this new season for Journey Church and its staff is going to stretch us. And as we are willing to be stretch we will find God "enlarging our boundaries". As He sees our faithfulness in stewarding what He has already given us, He will provide the means of wisdom and abilities to be able to steward even larger boundaries.
Pastor Jeff taught me this analogy many years ago. He said we are like a rubberband. It isn't useful for anything if it is not being stretched. It is when it is being stretched that it is making a difference and fulfilling its purpose.
In every season, let God stretch you. Be willing to learn and grow where He directs. As you do so, watch and see the great things He has in store for you.

Its time to get fit!

YIPEE!!! I got a brand new bike! It is awesome! It is by far the nicest bike I have ever owned! I love it! Thank you to all of you who helped to make it happen for me. I rode around for 2 hours yesterday just cruising the streets of Sallisaw. It was so much fun and I got a good workout. Summer is coming and I have to look fit for my wife when we go out to the lake and stuff like that. We have both started a natural cleansing of our bodies for the next couple of weeks so we can keep our bodies healthy. It is a new idea to me, but my wife loves it. We are probably going to run a 5K here pretty soon with the end goal in mind to run a full marathon which is 26 miles!!! All I know is that God has a lot of things for me to do in my lifetime and I don't want to hinder any of them due to my health. It really isn't that hard to stay healthy. It just takes a little bit of discipline.

On another note... be praying as some big events are coming up:

• Masters Commission Graduation - the students are working hard to put on a great service for Masters Commission Graduation. I'm sure you will all be blessed. Be praying for them as they have opportunities and decisions to make as the year comes to a close.
• Diamond Daze - Once again, we are playing a huge part on Family Night. We will also have an entire huge setup of over 100 ft. throughout the rest of the festival. Pray that God really uses us to shine bright for Him. Not just on the Christian Night, but all throughout the weekend as plenty of people will walk through our booth.
• VBS - We are going to need a huge amount of help for this big event. It is going to be a blast. Pray for plenty of people to sign up and be a part and pray for my team as we begin to organize and structure the entire week.

Getting ready to lock down!

We are just about ready to dive into the summer and there will be a lot going on here at the Journey Church! I'm ready to buckle down for the crazy ride! Everything from VBS to Masters Commission Graduation! It is going to be great and lives are going to be touched.

The staff has been working hard to arrange things and plan well. As we were in our meeting today, I thought to myself... "there are people out there right now who do not know Jesus, do not have Godly relationship, and do not know purpose; and by the time this summer is over... their life will be forever changed partly through the things we are planning." Thats an awesome thought isn't it!? There are people existing right now that I don't even know exist, but by the end of the summer, we are going to be great friends. Lives will be changed. Thats what Journey Church is here for. Thank you God for allowing us to create an environment where lives can be touched by You. Continually help us to properly REPRESENT You in all we do in and out of the church!

Festival!!!

We are just about all set and ready to go for our "Area Wide Arts & Crafts Festival & Swap Meet". It is going to be a blast! I don't know if we are going to do this every year or not, but if we did, I'm sure it would grow into something HUGE! We have every bit of 50 different stations and then some. It is going to be a great day of fun! The weather is going to be perfect and....

4 DAYS LATER...

It went awesome!!! Wow, what a perfect day! There were so many cool things out there. It was so cool to step back and see all the people of God enjoying each other, loving on people, and being excited about the vision God given us for the next step of Journey Church.

We had our Vision Night the following night and it was amazing! God was there and He was igniting us with a passion for all He has in store for us! That night we took up our very first offering for the new great investment and by the end of the night we had over $25,000! Testimonies were shared, hearts were touched, and God was glorified. HE IS THE GOD OF THIS CITY AND GREATER THINGS HAVE YET TO COME AND GREATER THINGS ARE STILL TO BE DONE IN THIS CITY!

Ps -

Sorry that last blog was so long. I'll work on that for next time.

Expelled...

Yesterday I went and watched Ben Stein's new movie "Expelled". It was very interesting, and in a humor only Ben Stein can bring, funny. It is basically a documentary about the persecution scientists are experiencing because they believe in "Intelligent Design" as appose to Darwinism. The movie is not about this one is right and this one is wrong, but about allowing the opportunity to maturely discuss the facts. I had never seen a documentary in the movie theater before. Its was cool because instead of just pointless entertainment, it was very stimulating to my mind and to my spirit.

The whole thing brought my mind back to maturity on many different levels. It is crazy how full grown men and women can act like little children in their bickering. You see it all the time in politics, science, and even churches. It's kinda funny because they look like grown ups, but they act like children.

We are emotional beings. I praise God for that. I love to feel emotion: love, anger, sadness, joy. The problem arises with the fact that are emotions are always going up and down. That is natural. There is nothing wrong with that. It is the way we were created. We have good days and we have bad days. Sometimes we have bad days on good days and vise-versa. That is the way our emotions work. Up and down, up and down. Immature people live their lives by their emotions. As Christians we need to be basing our lives on His Word! You see, even though we are inconsistent, His Word is solid and consistent. As we begin to live our lives according to His Word, we handle things differently.

That is why you can see people who were raised in church all their lives, but they are very immature when it comes to their walk with God. Or you could see someone who has been saved for just a year and they are mature beyond their years because they have allowed change. The change comes when you build your life on the solid foundation of His word. If we don’t, we continue to base our lives off of our emotions which are naturally up and down all the time because we are emotional creatures. But the word is constant and never changing.

Last thing... back to the movie (sorry about getting side tracked). My favorite part was when a leading darwinist is having the hate out on God. At the end of his spew on God, he says the reason he is an athiest and the reason he encourages others to do the same is because there is such a "liberating" feeling when you come to the realization that there is no God. At that very moment he lost the arguement in my mind. In a very smart way he was saying a very childish thing. He does not want to answer to authority! It would be very "liberating" if I just decided that there was no law and I could steel and kill and everything would be okay. Or I would feel a "liberating" feeling if I decided that I'm not going to man up to any of my responsibilities. Forget the people that were counting on me. I'll just leave them hanging! It is nonsense!

God I am so thankful for Your authority in my life. I wouldn't change it for the world. Without it, we would destroy ourselves. Thank you for keeping me in line. I submit to you.

Just a quick reminder!

I just want to remind you all that I am deeply in love with my super awesome, beautiful wife.

If you have forgotten some of her characteristics... you can refer back to my blog on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007.

Now we return to your regularly scheduled program.

continually growing...

I had the opportunity to speak to the youth group this past Sunday and I will also be speaking this Wed. I had a great time! It was an opportunity to challenge and inspire these kids with God's word. The series is Reality TV and I had the show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" which was great because it is like my favorite show. It basically led us into the topic of TRANSFORMATION. It was awesome! Pretty simple, but powerful as well. We talked about the transformation we have when we ask Jesus into our hearts. It is just like the transformation on the show. There are a bunch of cool analogies, but anyways, we talked about how we must continue to grow so that we can mature. The only way to do that is through our daily relationship building time with God in His word and in prayer. Fear and Pride keep us from change, but we need to continue growing on purpose.

God is helping me to grow in a lot of different areas. He has been challenging me here a lot lately and I pray that I continue to step up to the plate. I want to make Him proud, but like I told the kids... it isn't going to happen on its own. You have to grow on purpose. Without change you cannot grow. Anyways... a practical way He is challenging me is organization. I think I will be challenged with that for the rest of my life. But I can look back and see the growth as I continue to push myself in what I am not naturally good at. I've been working real hard on it lately since things have slowed down. I realized that I needed to push myself some more when all the things were going on during the beginning of spring (ie - masters trips, kids conference, easter). There was a lot of stress and last minute work that was a result of lack of organization. I'm working hard at it. I have been doing pretty good this past 2 weeks. It feels good. Granted, I know there are going to be times where I mess up or drop the ball. But I am glad God is challenging me with His word and His Spirit to grow (or to change) as we get ready for the upcoming summer events. It is going to be great!

I know that God challenges each and every one of us. And if we are sensitive to His Spirit, we can hear it. I pray that He gives you the strength and courage it takes to step up to the plate and continue to GROW.

So many things...

Sometimes I have so many things that I want to blog about that I end up clogging my brain! I want to talk about MC, JourneyKIDS, my family, my own lessons from God... my life. But there is so much! Lets see....

Sunday I had a big pot luck at my house for all our elementary and preschool team leaders. It was awesome! We ate a whole bunch of food and my team kicked some tail in Cranium! I wanted to have it because I need my team leaders to understand the impact they are making. JourneyKIDS has grown for the past 2 months... and I accredit it to our leaders. They have really stepped up, taken ownership, and have helped us elevate the entire ministry to a whole other level. They are super awesome and I want to make sure they feel appreciated and loved.

My family is doing great! My brother Joe and his wife Nellie are loving it here which just makes my heart so glad. Ricky, Nellie's cousin, is really liking it to. He is working hard on getting some goals accomplished. He is doing a great job! I just want to thank all of you who have made them feel so welcomed. It has truly overwhelmed them. Thank you. My Mom and Dad are preparing to purchase a beautiful house on wildhorse mountain. I'm ready for them to be here. It is driving all of us crazy with anticipation.

MC is going great! God is charging us with new passion and desperation as we head through the final stretch of our school year. We will be graduating on June 3rd. We already have 5 students for next year and more to come. Be praying for these students as God directs them in which way to go and what their next step is.

Personally, God is continually teaching me through His Word and life experiences. I had to learn the hard way the other day when I ignored the Holy Spirit. Because of that, I drove all the way to duncan to pick up a new piece of furniture and ended up coming back empty handed. It reminded me to never allow the Holy Spirits voice to be numbed in my life. I always want to be sensitive to it. My wife said, "well, its just another opportunity to know what the Holy Spirit sounds like". In the realization of that I have been asking the Lord to keep me sensitive to Him. I want to stay desperate for Him, understanding that without Him I could really screw things up. Keep me humble Lord and broken. I want to offer myself as such instead of you doing it for me. Keep pride out and selfishness and help me to desperately seek you in every decision I make. We need Him in every choice we make. I challenge you to focus on hearing His voice this week. He speaks in different ways and if you ask Him, He'll teach you.

discipline...

Discipline has been on my mind a lot lately. To bring order out of chaos, there has to be discipline - mind, body, and spirit. I believe discipline and discipleship are interchangeable. My life is discipleship: discipling my family, the kids in my ministry, our masters commission students, families under my pastoral care, and most importantly being discipled myself. It is never ending. It is the circle of life, always growing; always learning; always changing; always challenging yourself in becoming better than you were before.

The crazy thing is that it becomes overwhelming at times in good and bad ways. There are high times where you look back and see how much you have developed. Then there are seemingly low times where you look ahead and see how much more there is to go! But it is the passion of seeing discipleship unfold before your eyes that keeps you striving. striving to grow, striving to learn, striving to change.

Lord, as an individual, as a husband, as a friend, as a pastor... help me to become more and more disciplined in your ways. So that I can then, go and make disciples of all nations as you have commanded. Help us all Lord, to bring discipline in all aspects of our lives so that we can truly bring order out of chaos. Amen.