Sonic Aliens

I'm pretty pumped. I had the opportunity to preach in our main services this weekend. We wrapped up our series titled MySpace, and my weekend was titled MySpace MyConcerns. I've taught and preached many times before, but never here at Springcreek. And honestly....it's much easier to teach, preach, sing or whatever in front of people that I'm not around all of the time. The bar for teaching has been set quite high here at Springcreek and I'm here every week. But I think it went well. Everyone was very encouraging and I had a blast.

We had The Net for the first time in a couple of weeks last night. I love being around our students. They're awesome! Afterwards a bunch of us went to Sonic and ate, then went back up to the church for a game of Aliens. It was stinkin' awesome! We had so much fun. Check out the pics.

Today we had a little Memorial Day cookout with the inlaws. Burgers, hot links, and the inlaws....mmm mmm. Really...my inlaws are great. They provide us with lots of laughs...many times unintentionally. After they left....I made some homeade ice cream. I hurt myself.

You know what I remember about Memorial Day the most? I used to watch war movies with my dad quite often, but more so on Memorial Day than any other time. And today.....AMC had a war movie marathon today and my son, Beaux, wanted to sit and watch a few with me. "Flying Leathernecks," "Patton," and "Tora, Tora, Tora." Good stuff! I remember those times with my dad....and I couldn't have been happier today when I got to sit on my chair with my son and watch some of those old war movies.

Summer starts next week. The kids are done with school Friday and we kick things off Sunday night with a cookout/swimming party. It's going to be a great summer. I'm out....

Team....Work

Things are going good here in Canyon, TX. It's nice to get the chance to get away and just look at and talk about the ministry of Springcreek, where we're going and what needs to be done to get there.

I've been involved with lots of teams in my life (coaching staffs, faculties, bands, worship teams, etc...) and I can honestly say that this staff is the second best team of which I've ever been a part. I am excited about each of the individual ministries and how we're working to make sure we facilitate growth in each others area of responsibility. It's exciting.

We had some good mexican food last night...Leal's in Amarillo. Good stuff. After that, a little trip out to the Cadillac Ranch. Not sure why it was done, but it's kind of cool.

We're gonna wrap things up today and head home later this evening. It'll be nice to get back home to Kelly and the kids. That's the best team. I'm out....

The Big Texan

Went to the Big Texan Steak Ranch tonight in Amarillo. Watched these two boys actually finish off the 72oz. steak with baked potato, salad, shrimp cocktail, and a roll. If you finish it in an hour, it's free. If not...it's $72. They did it.

My 22oz. strip was plenty. I'm out....

Interesting flight

Well....I had an interesting flight to Amarillo Sunday night.

This was one of the tiny, American Eagle jets. Anytime I fly American Eagle I pray to sit by someone small, or someone I know because of the close confines. I found my seat next to this tiny young lady and she gladly let me have the aisle seat. We struck up a conversation, and i asked her "so what do you do for living?" her reply......"I dance at a club." I'm not sure what my face looked like, but i know it couldn't have been as shocked as hers looked when she asked me...."what do you do?" and i replied..."i'm a pastor." you think i sweat bad when i'm leading music........

After we both came to grips with the situation, we had a great conversation. She's a 27 year old mother of a 10 year old, and 9 year old. She's been married twice (4 years each) and is currently living with her boyfriend with no intentions of marrying again. I asked her what she would be doing if she wasn't dancing. She begin to share with me the things that she had always dreamed of doing. She said she feels like she will probably quit dancing in the next two years, so that her kids are not ostracized because of her.

She then told me about her 10 year old daughter. In her words....the kid is a "religious freak." She said she reads her bible constantly, is always sharing with her mom, goes to church with friends, etc...

This led to a great conversation about the love and grace of a God that created us and has an incredible plan for our lives. I told her that even when we use the gifts and talents he's given us for things that He did not plan on....his love doesn't stop. She was quite relieved. She shared with me some stories of negative church experiences that she had experienced. You can imagine the looks she gets when walking into a small town church. And you can imagine the anger she has of being judged by these people, but yet "working" for several of them every week. It was really a cool conversation, and as we were finishing she told me that she had never really felt like God loved her before, but maybe she was wrong. I told her that sometimes it pays to listen to our kids. We said goodbye and left the plane.

As I was standing at baggage claim, another lady came up, introduced herself and told me she had been sitting in front of me and prayed for me the entire flight. Her husband was sitting with her, but he was sleeping. He is a pastor here in Amarillo. Isn't it cool that in a plane full of assigned seats. This young lady who never really felt like God loved her, was surrounded by people who love the Lord, pray for each other, and recognize that we're all jacked up and that God loves us anyway and can use us in spite of who we are, not because of who we are.

If you happen to read this Ann.....we're praying for you and your family. And Ashley...keep talking to your mom. I'm out.....

For The Birds

There it was......a baby blue jay sitting in the back of my truck. Somehow he/she had gotten itself into the bed of my truck and could not fly well enough to get out. With his eyes, he pleaded for help....but it was a total set-up.

As I leaned over the side of the truck to get him I noticed momma sitting about head high on a branch 25 feet away. And she had friends....two of them. I felt like Dr. Grant in Jurassic Park...surrounded by raptors ready to pounce. The little one fluttered to the other side of the truck. I walked around to the other side, looked up, and the raptors had moved closer...and they were talking to each other.

I finally realized, with the help of my daughter Brooke, that I was going to have to get into the bed of the truck to get the stupid bird. After a few minutes of chasing this thing around the bed of my truck, I finally caught it. And for the first time...it spoke...loudly. The others closed in as I jumped out of the truck, threw the baby in the general direction of the yard and sprinted around to the driver side of the truck.

This is the second time I've been attacked by birds while trying to help. My family now lovingly calls me "the bird whisperer." I'm done with being nice. From now on...you fall out of the nest, wander into the bed of my truck, porch of my house, whatever......I could care less.

Well...things to do....going to buy a bb gun. I'm out....

aches and pains

For months I've been looking forward to the Brad Paisley Bonfires and Amplifiers Tour. The concert was last night and we had tickets for the whole family.

I've been working with kids for 20 years, so I'm not at all oblivious to the things that go on and some of the stupid decisions we all make as teenagers. This, however, went beyond the scope of bad decisions by kids alone and into the decisions of parents and some of the freedoms they give their kids.

In our service this morning, Keith spoke about parents forcing their kids to grow up too quickly and some of the lifelong effects it can have on their ability to handle choices and consequences. My heart hurts for some of these kids and their inability to realize their own vulnerability. Some of them try so hard to fit in with everyone else while claiming to stake a claim to their independence and freedom. The smoking, drinking, clothes, how they interact all scream...I want to be grown up! But yet, they are in no way ready to handle the things of the adult world. Evidenced by their inability to control their alcohol consumption, their hormones, their mouths, etc...

I don't know if it is their perception of what being an adult looks like is warped by the adults that are present, or conveniently not present in their lives, or if they're just following suite with all of the other independent, free-thinking, non-conformist conformists in their herd.

Kids look for and long for structure in their lives. They want someone to give them a story worth living in....a story they belong in and can star in as themselves. When not provided with these kinds of environments by their parents, they will create their own story. I pray that I am creating a story that my kids want to live, star, and thrive in.....and when they do make a bad decision, that their cast of supporting characters are ones who point them in the right direction.

There is so much more to say about this.....not enough space. My heart hurts.......I'm out.

Stories...

We're back from Atlanta. The Orange Conference was great. Good conference, good time, good company.....it was a lot of fun. I think of all the things we heard, Donald Miller was the best. I've heard him several times and read most of his books, but his message really resonated this time.

We are all living our lives within a story. If we don't like our story we look for another story. So do our families, our students, our congregation members, etc....

We have to provide these groups of people with a great story in which to live their lives or they will find one on their own. What kind of story are you providing for the ones you love? I've already started to try and re-write some of the stories that make up my daily life.

Looking forward to the new series kick-off this week....looking at parents and their students relationships.....helping them look at the stories they're writing.

By the way...the Cowboys play in 91 days. I'm out....

I'm Back....

okay, so it's been a couple of months. i'm sorry......thanks for the e-mails asking me to write something....anything. well....here you go..

i'm in atlanta right now. our conference starts today....but the adventure started yesterday. our flight was at 2:40 and we missed the luggage check-in. we ended up on a 6:00 flight, but all is well.

however.......the lady at our gate for american airlines is not well. I didn't even get her name, but we'll call her Grumpy McHaterton. The most unhelpful woman on the face of the earth. She was just mean. Sharon, however, was great. Once we stopped dealing with Grumpy.....things got done.

late night dinner at the waffle house.......awesome! Mel and Flo (not their real names) provided plenty of late night entertainment. waffle house is a 24 hour establishment right? you would have thought we walked in 3 minutes before closing. Flo was super nice.....Mel was just an angry individual. I'm thinkin' of trying to hook him up with Grumpy McHaterton.

our services this weekend were great. people made their commitments to the Imagine campaign and we had a great time of worship and celebration. after the last service we recognized our senior graduates with a lunch for them and their families. we're graduating a lot more kids this year than last and they will be greatly missed.

speaking of our students....check out the video from this weekend's services about what God has been doing in Meghan Strickland's heart. It had me teared up.......

as far as the consistency of my blogging goes.....i'll do better. i'm out....