Anyone Seen My Girls?

The house is a bit too quiet. My girls, Ashli and Haley, left for a week long camp yesterday. I know they are going to have a ton of fun, but I already miss them. Dawson, my 6 year old son, said "Well it's just the guys now." So I asked him "What about Mom?" He replied "It's just the guys and 2 girls... Mom and Daisy." Daisy is our Golden Reteiver puppy.

For those of you who are very used to having certain people in your life every day, it is a very empty feeling when they are suddenly gone. God has done an incredible job of wiring us for companionship. I feel very blessed to have such a great family. I can't wait for my girls to get home!

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God and People with every word and every action.

Good People

Think about all the people you connect with every week. I'm sure some of them may make you snarl.... others may make you smile..... others may generate very little reaction. Be careful.... our whole purpose is to love God and love people! (It seems I've seen that printed somewhere else......)

I was thinking about people in my life and several of them make me smile. There is a guy named Brandon who is a worship leader at LifePoint church. I'm finding that Brandon is a guy who thinks thoroughly through everything he does and is willing to do whatever it takes (sometimes on very short notice) to help people connect with God. There is a lady named Kate. She is my boss at AT&T. Kate is a great leader and takes very appropriate control of situations and projects. She is very positive in her daily approach to business. Bob is a guy who appreciates a good scooter. He also happens to drive LifePoint Church and is a catalyst for helping people step toward God. There is a guy named Lee. He is my dad and has taught me so much about life. Phyllis is my mom. She did anything she needed to to keep me in line.... including whoopin' me with whatever happened to be handy (tennis rackets, sweeper handles, etc....) Dan is a guy I trust to give me spiritual guidance and general life advice. He is also fun to hang out with at Applebee's. I do have to teach him a few things about mowing grass though.... :-) Rick is a guy who made some contacts that enabled me to get my job with AT&T. Sam and Jodi are friends and neighbors that are great people in general and help shuttle my kids to school and swimming. Vange is my sweetheart. She is my soul mate. She is the balance for me in life. A man named Jesus became God wrapped in a normal human body and came to this Earth to teach me about life to the fullest. He gave it ALL for me.

CONNECT with people - it is the legacy you will leave.

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God and People with every word and every action.

Big God Stuff

YEAH BABY!!!!! (Imagine a screaming cheering crowd... maybe at a football game and our team just scored in overtime to win...) God just scored HUGE... kickin' some disease butt! Here is the basic scoop:

We have some friends (by friends I mean a family that we met a year or so ago and have been steadily building a very meaningful relationship with them) that have had their share of adversity in life. Most recently, one of them was faced with a potentially life threatening physical issue. After a few anxious days waiting for test results, the doctors confirmed God's handy work - All is well!

Psalms 103
103:2
My whole being, praise the Lord and do not forget all his kindnesses.
103:3
He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases.


Isaiah 53
53:4
But he took our suffering on him and felt our pain for us. We saw his suffering and thought God was punishing him.
53:5
But he was wounded for the wrong we did; he was crushed for the evil we did. The punishment, which made us well, was given to him, and we are healed because of his wounds.

I can not explain all of God's decisions about healing. Honestly, I get frustrated by good, Godly people suffering from disease. Here is what I know... God is able to heal... period. Sometimes He does it supernaturally, sometimes He uses medical professionals that He has blessed with the gift of healing, sometimes healing takes place when He takes us home to Heaven.

Today is a day of celebration! God, You are magnificent! Thanks for wrapping your arms around us!

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God and People with every word and every action!

Fast Cars

Man, dem sum faast cers! Translation - Man, those are some fast cars. Saturday night, Haley and I went to the Nascar Nationwide race in Madison. (We drug Kyle along with us too.) It was very cool. I found myself wanting to drive a fast car...... That may be a problem since I don't own a fast car... I don't even own a "peppy" car... Rats! The night was certainly entertaining. The knucklehead next to Kyle wanted to pick a fight over who was sitting in what seat... (I don't normally bet, but I would have bet a LOT that Kyle would not have lost his seat.) That situation fizzled quickly when the knucklehead looked at his ticket again and saw his seat assignment. Then there was the girl in front of us who apparently had just got some new tattoos strategically placed on the top front of her body. She felt the need to show them off to everyone. Another girls in front of us was lying down across the seats.... apparently the heat was too much for her.

OK, aside from that nonsense, the race was sweet! Cars buzzing by at 160+ MPH is an adrenaline rush! There were a few crashes, one was bad enough to force a few cars to be towed off the track - noone hurt though. I really enjoyed the night. My favorite part was seeing Haley smile!

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God and People with every word and every action.

Lessons Learned

Have you ever had those AH-HA moments when the light flipped on in your head and there was a lesson learned. Come on... remember when you learned that sticking something metal in the outlet was a bad idea? Remember when you learned that your friends are not perfect... and they even tick you off sometimes? How about when you realized that your parents actually are fairly smart? Spiritual moment warning: How about learning what a huge sacrifice God made by allowing His Son to be tortured for us? (By the way, I'm not God - and if anyone ever comes after Ashli, Haley, Dawson, Griffin, or Vange, I will take them out!)

OK, OK... My big lesson for this week has been "Make sure you accurately evaluate the other Lifegroup's athletic ability in kickball BEFORE you talk trash about whoopin' them." Sunday night, 2 of the lifegroups (small groups) from LifePoint got together and played kickball and had ice cream. Sadly, after I trashed talked Dan's group, my group lost.... by just a run or two...... or twenty - who was counting..... It was a ton of fun, even with the loss. Kyle and Emily (LifePoint's Youth Pastors) came and hung out with us and brought some friends from Texas with them... Nick and Lacey were unfortunately on the losing end of the game.

Alright, enough of that... Next week we are kicking Dan's group's butts in DODGEBALL! Oh yeah baby... bring it on! (Apparently I'm slow to learn lessons..... and, I can't promise that we are actually getting together with them next week......)

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God and people with every word and every action.

Bad Driver

A few nights ago I went to a swim meet and parked my motorcycle in a a row with some other bikes. When we came out of the pool area, we found a few of the bikes had been knocked over. After a bit of investigation, it appears that some talent challenged driver hit the first bike and they "dominoed" from there.... mine was in the middle. Fortunately, my Shadow suffered very little damage. I'm going to another swim meet tonight in the same city.... please pray for my bike's safety!! :-) Paddlers Pirates ROCK!

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God and People with every word and every action!

Variety

This weekend at LifePoint we are going to spend a few minutes adoring God with an acoustic set of songs. We are taking a Rock-N-Roll breather. Psalms 150 says to praise God with all kinds of instruments.... so we are going to use everything we can find..... the message of Christ is worth all of our creative effort!

Check out Psalms 150 from The Message


Psalms 150

1 Hallelujah! Praise God in his holy house of worship, praise him under the open skies; 2 Praise him for his acts of power, praise him for his magnificent greatness; 3 Praise with a blast on the trumpet, praise by strumming soft strings; 4 Praise him with castanets and dance, praise him with banjo and flute; 5 Praise him with cymbals and a big bass drum, praise him with fiddles and mandolin. 6 Let every living, breathing creature praise God! Hallelujah!

Wherever you are, whatever day it is, praise God with all you got (borrow some if you need to... :-)

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God and People with every word and every action.

Holy Crap!

I've been going to church a long time. A few years ago, the Pastor of a church I went to asked if anyone had a testimony (open floor time for people to stand and tell something cool that God did.) A teenage girls stood up and told her story. She was very new to a relationship with God. She wrapped her story up by making the statement "I can't believe that God puts up with all my crap and loves me just the way I am!" All of the air was sucked out of the room as people gasped.... Several people made it very apparent that saying CRAP in the house of God was wrong. She was embarrassed and felt very awkward. When she left that day her primary thought was one of discomfort.

Fast forward a few years in another church setting.... A five year old girl sat and listened to the story of Jesus feeding 5000 people with just a couple fish and few loaves of bread. In the middle of the story, after hearing the amazing details, his young girls blurts out "HOLY CRAP!" Everyone chuckled a bit, and the teacher reinforced the girl's reaction by saying "that's probably what everyone there at the time thought too." This girl left that day with a primary thought of amazement and trying to figure out how Jesus did that.

Here is the question..... What will it take - what does Jesus have to do for you to have a HOLY CRAP moment? Tonight, go out and look at the sky... all the stars.... He named every one. Think back and find a time in your life when something incredible happened and you wondered how it could be. Over the coming weeks, look for times in life that you know God puts His hand on the wheel and drives the situation. Be amazed!

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God and People with every word and every action.

Stunts Gone Wrong

How many of these have YOU tried??




Live loud, live intentionally, and love God and people with every word and every action

Paddlers Pirates

We belong to a swim club called Paddlers. 3 of my 4 kids swim for the club. Last night was our last home meet! Good stuff. Imo's pizza is always a tradition after a swimm meet.... What are your tradition? Hope you are building family memories - it is time well spent!

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God and people with every word and every action.

Simple Pleasures

Life is so busy and hectic that it hard sometimes to slow down and enjoy some simple things. This weekend was not necessarily slow, but it was very enjoyable. Friday night was guys night... I took my boys, Dawson and Griffin, to the pool and just had some fun.... of course we had soft pretzels and slushees. Saturday night some friends and I went to see Rush in concert.... wow - the boys can still rock! Sunday night our Lifegroup (a small group of LifePoint people who get together every week) hung out at Jeff and Jaime's house. Not only did we have some great conversation, but the kids all had fun in the pool.... Greg brought the "instigator" toys (squirt guns)... so the kids opened fire on us..... What a beautiful gift from God to have such wonderful friends and an incredible family!


James 1:17
Every good action and every perfect gift is from God. These good gifts come down from the Creator of the sun, moon, and stars, who does not change like their shifting shadows.

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God and people with every word and every action.

Water Everywhere

We live near St Louis, MO. With all the rain we've had, and the rain North of us, we are haviong major flooding issues. This morning on the news I heard another story of a levee breach. The community of Winfield is now literally running for their lives (they actually have a few hours to evacuate).

















The destruction is UGLY!











Water can be a source of so much positive... even a source of life. But it can also destroy. (Side note - our attitudes / behaviors have the same potential.) Please keep these families and communities in your prayers. It's a trying time - let's stick together.

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God and People with every word and every action.

Unity

u·ni·ty (yōō'nĭ-tē) n. pl. u·ni·ties

The state or quality of being one; singleness.
The state or quality of being in accord; harmony.
Singleness or constancy of purpose or action; continuity: "In an army you need unity of purpose" (Emmeline Pankhurst).

What can we do when we are united? The answer is CHANGE THE WORLD. Unity is very important and is addressed several times throughout the Bible. Check out this passage:

Philippians 2

1 Does your life in Christ give you strength? Does his love comfort you? Do we share together in the spirit? Do you have mercy and kindness? 2 If so, make me very happy by having the same thoughts, sharing the same love, and having one mind and purpose. 3 When you do things, do not let selfishness or pride be your guide. Instead, be humble and give more honor to others than to yourselves.

I unfortunately have been experiencing some lack of unity lately in some of my social circles. My goal is to be a catalyst for creating/maintaining unity.

This weekend at LifePoint ( a great place for winners and losers to connect with God) we are launching a new song from Sanctus Real called Sing. Check out the chorus:

Sing oh sing With one voice how sweet it will be When we sing oh sing One church under one King and we will sing

One! Unity!

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

Olympics

The 2008 Summer games will be starting in less than 2 months. I watch very little TV, but the Olympics is something I really enjoy watching. In celebration of the games, take a peek at these Olympic bloopers... some of these made me grimace...




Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

Shadow

Well I am pretty excited... I sold my Kawasaki recently, and about a week ago I bought a Honda Shadow Aero. All I have is the stock photo at this point.... But I'll take a bunch of pictures eventually. I'm on a mission to get all the guys at LifePoint to get bikes... there are about 7 or 8 of us that have bikes already. We are trying to organize a ride day in the next couple of weeks. I'll post details and if any of you live near us in the St Louis area and want to go, come on out.

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

Which Way

I heard something this weekend that really bugs me.... In a street interview, there was a guy who said something about a bunch of different religions and they are all right. Say WHAT?? Uhhh.... NO - they're NOT all right. Let me paint a quick picture... I live near St Louis, MO. Let's say God lives in Chicago... (probably not, because the Cubs are there and God and Evil don't mix...) But, for the sake of our story, God is in Chicago. There are several roads in St Louis... Int 55 will take me to Chicago, Int 57 will take me there too. But, if I jump on Int 44, I'm going away from Chicago. Int 70 won't get me there either..... Those roads will take you somewhere... maybe even some good places.... but they don't get to "God." If you want to connect with God, you must choose the right road... follow Jesus... period. Proverbs 14:12 says this: Some people think they are doing right, but in the end it leads to death. Be careful which road you take... make sure it leads to God.

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

For the Married People

How much effort are we putting into our relationship with our spouse? (OK guys, this is for us...) Take a look at what God says about wives...



Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.



Ephesians 5:28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they love their own bodies. The man who loves his wife loves himself.



Proverbs 18:22 He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.



Proverbs 31:10 A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.



Hebrews 13:4 Marriage should be honored by everyone, and husband and wife should keep their marriage pure. God will judge as guilty those who take part in sexual sins.




I just read a story about a guy named Michael Sweet, whose wife was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. The doctors basically had no hope for her. Michael has been evaluating and focusing on how much she means to him. The cool thing is that God has done what no one else could.... wipe her body clean of disease! I'm sure Michael placed very high value on Kyle (his wife) BEFORE this ordeal... but how much more does he appreciate God's gift of her now...... Guys, don't let a tragedy or a threatening time in life be the only thing that causes you to HAVE, HOLD, and CHERISH her until God takes you home! I gotta go - I need to express to Vange what she means to me!







Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

Good Tunes

I was searching for a song from Boston called Peace of Mind on You Tube the other day. I ran into this live clip featuring Michael Sweet (of Stryper) doing the lead vocals for this Boston tune. I also found out that Michael is doing this summer's tour with Boston as the front man. Check this clip out:




Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

God Doin' God Stuff

This weekend at LifePoint we are introducing a new song - Broadcast by Steve Fee. The chorus says this:

We're gonna broadcast all over the world

That You are God and You are good

It's great to hear reminders of how good God is. A good friend of mine told me this story Monday night. His wife had taken their daughter to a camp in Southern Illinois. On her way back, she had chosen to take a different route. The "normal" route that she would have taken would have put her in dangerous situation driving through a town where a tornado had touched down... she would have been driving through at the same time the tornado was "visiting".

You may see this as coincidence.... I choose to believe that God has his hand on this family and steered her from danger! So, maybe your question is why didn't God protect everyone in that town? Good question..... one I can't answer... (maybe they are all Lakers fans.... :-)

For me and my friend's families, it will be easy to sing this weekend.... You are God and You are good!

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action!

Dusty

I was moving my office today from one building to the building next door. It scared me a bit how much dust there was on the desk... you know, the places that you don't really bother to clean often.... under the PC, the back of the monitor, under all the cables that are piled on the desk.... I had a great physical revelation that could easily hold spiritual significance.... We can not afford to "clean" only the places that are highly visible. Those other places are real and important and the ugliness shows through when things are moved around or shaken up..... I'm going to think about that for a while.... Later Gators

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action!