Obamaburger

This blogpost has nothing to do with the church or Christianity, and I am not going to try to add a spiritual application...it is just something funny I heard. A local restaurant here in the upstate of South Carolina has a new item on the menu. It is a burger called the "Obamaburger". The burger is about the same size as their standard burger and costs just as much. The funny part is that if you order one, the waiter or waitress brings out the burger and then cuts it in half in front of you. You get half but the other half is given away to a random customer at another table. You don't get to choose who gets the other half of the burger you paid for. As far as political satire goes, I found this one quite creative! Have an awesome day!

Updating on Year Goals...

For those of you who have followed my blog...Hi Mom. Just wanted to update you on the progress of my goals I set back on my birthday in November. On the goal of reading through the Bible twice, I just finished the first read through this morning. On the professional goal of presenting at at least one conference; last month, I presented a workshop at the SCFLTA (South Carolina Foreign Language Teacher's Association)Conference. The third goal was to have the Home TEAM ministry representing 50% of the church or more. We have three new Home TEAMs, but our church is growing faster than the Home TEAM ministry, so I need to do more on that goal! Please keep me in your prayers on that one!

Easter Egg Drop

As April 4th comes closer and closer, it is amazing to me to see how many people are stepping up to volunteer time, money and possessions to help make the event happen! One of the things that really is amazing is that people who just got saved and/or just started attending our church are jumping in with two feet and signing up to help out! This morning, I got an e-mail from a man who saw the ad in the paper and wanted more information. He is new to the area and is just looking for something for his 5 year old daughter. I look forward to meeting him. And even if I don't get to, it is great to know that he will get to meet many of the wonderful people from our church and I pray that he will feel the love of the Lord as he has a great free day with his daughter. For all of you who are volunteering, I can't thank you enough!

Reflections on Sunday

This last week we had over 600 again! It is great being a part of a church that is growing by leaps and bounds! People are giving of their time and money which is allowing this church to do some crazy things for God! As we gear up for the Egg Drop on April 4th, it is great to see how the church pulls together for an event. Everything from stuffing eggs with candy to picking up supplies to doing advertising campaigns. At last count, we have between 150 and 200 volunteers signed up to help with the event!If you think of an old saying that 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work, it is great to see about 40 percent doing the work. (If you remember that 200 of the 600 people in our church are in our children's ministry.)Wherever you are reading this from, if you aren't involved in your local church ministry, I encourage you to do so! It is amazing, even in a small church how much it will encourage your pastor to find he has someone volunteering to help out before he even has to ask!

Incredible Week

Ok, some would say my brain doesn't work, but, here is a glimpse as to how it functions....

This last week has been an incredible week of positives and negatives. One friend got saved! Three young men at a camp I worked last week got saved! Six were baptized! One friend from church died. One student died in a car wreck. Girl Scout cookies came in, so I and my work study have enjoyed those! A friend lost his job. I picked up some more work for this summer. My wife and I paid off one debt! The April 4th egg drop is really coming together! The city is changing their mind on some of the things we had agreed on. My church office was repainted while I was gone, and it looks great! Home TEAM ministry is growing like crazy! Need some new leaders and hosts! Sunday was incredible! 8 people accepted Jesus into their hearts! Started New Believers class Sunday night!

Back from Honduras!

I am back from Honduras! It was a wonderful trip. God is awesome! While there, I and a group from North Greenville University ended up running a youth camp for a region where most of the people are Lenka Indians. Three youth accepted Christ as their savior and some more were baptized. It was truly a blessed week!

Mission Trip

I want to thank you if you check my blog every day! Thanks for being faithful. I hope I don't lose to many readers, but I am heading out in about 8 hours for Honduras and am not sure how often I will be near a computer between now and next Saturday. Pray for me as I, and a bunch of students from North Greenville University are working with a bunch of kids at a kids camp representing 15 churches in the region.

Ad Clicks for Missions

To the right, you notice that I started another blog. What is 5 Point Missions all about? I had a thought today. I love blogging, and I am beginning to understand how the advertising payout works with google adsense. I thought (((What if I create a blog where people can support missions simply by clicking on the ads. I would give 1/2 to missions, and the other part could pay the taxes.))) So that is what that blog is. I plan to write about mission trips. Hopefully people will see this as a way they can help support missions even if they don't have the cash to help out. Just clicking on an ad could send 20cents or even 50cents to missions! Feel free to actually use the services advertised. They are paying for you to actually look at their page when you click through from mine. Thanks for helping out!

Easter Egg Drop

In case you read this blog, and not my Home TEAM blog, I want you to be in prayer for our April 4th Easter Egg Drop. It will be a huge event for our church. (If you don't know about it, we are dropping a bunch of plastic eggs onto the soccer fields at the J.B. "Red" Owens fields in Easley, SC on April 4th between 3 and 6 PM.) We need volunteers! If you can come help either before that date or on that date, your help would be greatly appreciated. We currently have about 100,000 eggs that need to have a piece of candy put in each one, and then the seam taped so that the egg doesn't come apart when dropped. Please pray for me, as I am the one putting it together. There is much more to "Event Planning" than I ever dreamed possible. Here is a link to the sign up sheet: http://files.me.com/ttimw/s52sly We will be passing them out in church, but feel free to download it and hand it in to Ann or Burl on Sunday at 5 Point Fellowship. It is going to be a great time!

Desert Times/Transition Times

I was just thinking about Moses wandering in the desert. I have heard pastors say they feel like such and such a time was their time in the desert. So lets look at the bright side of desert wandering. Look at the desert as the transition time between where they were, Egypt, and where they would end up, Israel/The Promised Land. It took some work to get the people out of Egypt! Remember the plagues?! Then, as Moses and the people of Israel are out in the desert, there are those church members (Oops, I mean Israelite people) who want to go back to the way things used to be. However, even in the desert, some of the greatest experiences took place! God gave Moses the 10 Commandments in the desert, not in Egypt or the Promised Land! Please, as a pastor don't take this example to far and think (((Great, so my job is to lead through the desert, and then God is going to need someone else to take my congregation to their promised land.))) However, It probably does mean that you will need to make changes in your leadership style! Doing things they way they have always been done tends to give you the same results you have been getting...or worse, not better. Just remember in any change out of Egypt, there is some transitioning desert time of struggle and complaining before you get to the Promised Land. Where ever you are in this journey, praise the Lord that He is allowing you to lead a group of people there!

Staff Meetings & Event Planning

Yesterday we had our weekly staff meeting. In addition to the normal stuff, we were planning this years Easter Egg Drop event. It is beginning to dawn on my why people hire event planners and party planners. I used to think that was code for "un-employed". I am learning however that event planning is a lot of work! Mostly, hours on the phone trying to track down stuff and making sure it is available for the day it is needed. Micro-hitches come up. Just an example, we have the venue, but found out that while there are power outlets, there isn't nearly enough power to run all the inflatable rides! So, tracking down generators begins. (If you live in the Easley, SC and have a big generator, feel free to contact me and let me know that you would love to let us use it for a day!) All in all, it has been a rewarding experience, and I am sure that when it is done, it will have impacted people in our city with the Love of the Lord in a very tangible way that they will be able to remember when they hit a point in their lives that they realize their need for God.
The staff meeting went wonderfully, and the great part was realizing that I am not having to do this alone! Having a great team to work with on staff and with the volunteers, it will all get done and we will have an exciting day!
PS. Thanks to all you volunteers who are helping out! We couldn't do it without you!

Fun Times!

Yesterday, we baptized 34 people! It was a great service! The number 34 isn't necessarily important, but it represents people with souls who have now publicly declared their allegiance to the one and only God, The Lord Jesus Christ! That number represents people who are growing in their faith and contagiously telling others about how God has changed their life for the better! Some of them were serious sinners, and others were fairly good people who just didn't know Jesus as their Savior, but all of them have turned from the sinful life they led and have connected with Jesus, asked for His forgiveness and want everyone in their lives to know about it! One really cool example is that we had two couples that wanted to get baptized together. I don't mean one after another, I mean together....at the same time! So, as they linked arms, two pastors dunked them. They proclaimed together their new faith in front of family and friends and the whole world, (Since you can watch our services online.) It was an incredible day as people from retirees to kids told their testimonies and made a public declaration of faith! God is doing awesome things!

Jeremiah and the Megachurch

My friend Kase recently commented on my blog that Jeremiah didn't have a mega-church, yet he was walking in Gods will. I happen to be reading Jeremiah right now in my devotions, so I thought I would make a comment on that. Kase is 100% right! Jeremiah's ministry was not that of a pastor. He was a prophet. As such, though he was beaten, imprisoned, put in a cistern of mud...he never gave up on his call, even when he wanted to. He did however influence the king. He did make God's case before all the important people of his time in his region. He stood up for God's message when that message was not popular. The message that we pastors in the United States of America have is not always popular either. It isn't often that we are beaten or imprisoned like Jeremiah though. We are called to risk everything for our Lord, and we can't do that unless, like my previous post alluded to, we are CRAZY IN LOVE WITH JESUS!!!!
On a completely different note, if you haven't checked out Kase's new blog, you are missing out on some very well thought out posts on faith!