Lyrics Of The Day

"Crucified
Laid behind a stone
You lived to die
Rejected and alone
Like a rose
Trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all"

This morning I was able to sit in on my first official Elder/Minister meeting. I love to sit in with wise, God-loving men and soak up words of counsel and knowledge. It is also a treat to work alongside Jim Gardner once again and to get to know and glean insight from Allan Stanglin. I know that we will make a great team here in Marble Falls!

This afternoon, I will be sitting down with Allan to learn more about the youth composition and innerworkings. He will be handing over the reins, so to speak.

This evening, I am blessed to have dinner with the Stanglins and catch the Lady Mustangs battle it out on the basketball court.

My days here have been filled to the brim with breakfasts, lunches and dinners. But most of all companionship while my sweet wife finishes things up in Arkansas. I miss her so much.

Quote Of The Day

"We don't need to bring people to Christ; we need to bring Christ to them." - Jonathan McKee

Right To Work

I am tired right now. But it is a good, no great, tired. Yesterday, I was able to teach the 9-12 youth in the morning; lead the morning worship; eat with Care Group 1; lead some songs for the devotional at the Gateway Assisted Living Facility; sit in on my first Education Meeting; and I finally wrapped up the day at the Gardners' house for the youth Super Bowl Party/Devotional. Yesterday was a big day for me and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I am so excited to be here and to be used as a servant in God's Kingdom.

Everyone here has been so good to me. Maybe a little too good...my waist is expanding at a rapid rate!! Thank you for all the invites, meals, desserts, cards, calls and warm smiles. I have been truly blessed by all of you-my new family. May God continue to bless you as you seek His will.

New Friday Plans

There is a slight change in plans. I will be going out to the fine city of Austin with Jim, Mandy, Trae, Tori and our dear friend Tara Tate. It will be good to get together with the family and Tara, a friend that I have not seen for a long time.

Quiet Time

This morning is very quiet. Shelly Wenmohs and I are the only ones here this early in the morning. I am just excited to be here in a new office and spend some morning time in prayer with my God.

One of the many great things about our God is that He is always there to hear us. He waits patiently for our 'alone time' with Him. He loves us and will take care of our every need in His omniscient way.

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This evening, I am tempted to go see the Lady Mustangs play some B-Ball. I will report on the sport scene around here when I blog again.

God Is Good

I need to workout even harder and more frequently than ever! So many people here have already started bringing food and taking me out to eat. It is so nice since I am all alone, but my waist line could expand too fast if I don't keep it in check. Thank you all for your kindness and hospitality.

The youth group here is awesome!! On Monday, around 10 of the teens showed up at my office to welcome me and Elizabeth to our new home and to help us out with anything that we might need. They have been so helpful.

Wednesday evening I was given the opportunity to sit back while Allan Stanglin led the singing and Jim Gardner broke the bread to us. I also got to meet more teens, parents and chaperones. The teens were pumped up and excited about things to come. I guess it was that energy that propelled the huge beanbag fight and the showing off that got started after class. It is great to see their excitement and share their joy.

This morning, I met with Jim, Trae and 15 of the youth for a great breakfast at Super Taco, the breakfast of choice for many in Marble Falls. I am so happy to be warmly welcomed in this way. And I suspect that over these next few weeks, I will get to know them even better!

;I have been blessed with this new family and I pray that I can give to them the leadership that they deserve. To use a favorite phrase of Jim DuBose, I will say: God is good...All the time!

New Beginning

Where do I begin?

I am finally settled down in my new work for the Marble Falls church of Christ in Marble Falls, Texas. I am sorry for the lack of blogging. The computer in my office will not access the internet and I am using the other office computer. I also have been running around trying to get settled here in my new home.

Sunday morning was my last morning with the family in Hot Springs Village, AR. Thank you all for the potluck, nice words, money tree, prayers and send off. I am forever grateful for you all and your loving hearts. I miss you already!

That Sunday afternoon, Elizabeth and I drove out of town and headed toward Texas. We arrived around 12:20 at the home of Jim and Mandy Gardner. Thank you, Gardner Family, for putting us up for the night!

We awoke at 8:30 the next morning and got ready to move into our new place across from the church building. We unpacked the U-Haul into the house and my new office and took it back before lunch on Monday. We were able to eat at the Blue Bonnet Cafe (a celebrated, historic restaurant in this area). We both had a nice slice of pie for dessert. The rest of the day we spent getting my office in order.

Tuesday, we opened a bank account, joined the Marble Falls Athletic Club and looked the town over. I took my sweetie pie to the airport that afternoon to see her off and start my 2-3 weeks of bachelorhood. After that I spent 4 hours at Barnes & Noble, Borders and Best Buy to get my mind off of her leaving. It is very lonely here without my better half.

I will be back shortly to tell you all about the wonderful family here in Marble Falls.

Last Day

Today is my last full day to be here with my friends and family. Elizabeth and I have been going nonstop this last week trying to say our goodbyes, pack up, get the Uhaul, clean out and clean up my office and thank my colleagues for all they have done.

I have just today seen my Dad, Mother-In-Law and Sister-In-Law. We are going to spend some time together before I head out tomorrow.

Tomorrow is a big day. After class and worship, there will be a potluck and then we will say a final farewell and head down the road to Marble Falls, TX. There we will start a new work with a new youth group.

I love and will miss everyone in AR greatly!

Clean Up

Today is the designated office clean up and out before I leave. It is really a bittersweet day for me. I am really excited about beginning a new work and continuing a strong relationship with my friend Jim Gardner. At the same time I am sad to leave the family and youth I truly love and cherish in my heart.

I will be taking a group of 7-12 graders out to lunch today for the last time and I am praying that I will get through without bawling my eyes out. They don't know just how much they mean to me.

Keep me, Elizabeth and the family here in your thoughts and prayers.

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Thank you, Diane! Our talk this morning means a lot to me.

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Mama Milligan, hang in there. I will miss being able to talk with you every day. It was a joy to work with you. God bless you and Johnny.

Quote Of The Day

"[S]ome...think that God is a Wizard-of-Oz or Sistine-Chapel kind of being sitting at a location very remote from us. The universe is then presented as, chiefly, a vast empty space with a humanoid God and a few angels rattling around in it, while several billion human beings crawl through the tiny cosmic interval of human history on an oversized clod of dirt circling an insignificant star. Of such a "god" we can only say, "Good Riddance!" - Dallas Willard

Letting Go

Think you're in control? Think again. I can't stand it when someone thinks they are in control of others lives, let alone their own. I get mad at myself when I have the gall to believe that I am in control of others or myself. The hard truth of the matter is we are not in control of much in this life.

God is!

When we finally stop spinning around from the backlash that comes from our desperate attempts to do things our way, we will settle down and see that He, and He alone, is in control of everything.

He molds.
He shapes.
He leads.
He calls.
He guides.

Why? Because He is the only omniscient being and everything would just go to garbage otherwise. When we think we know best, we don't. Our heavenlyFather needs to be given the reins. Folks, it is so much better that way.

Salt Bowl

Yesterday, I was given the honor and privilege to lead 500+ teens and adult chaperones in worship. It was the first of many Salt Bowl Ministries formed by Northside church in Benton and Bryant church. 37 from the Village church drove over last night to the brand spanking new Northside Family Life Facility to worship and fellowship with other Central Arkansas teens and tweens. Mike Knappier spoke to us about the life of deditcated, celebratory Christians. The Sandstone drama team S.W.A.T. brought some great Christian skits and the singing groups Free Indeed and One Spirit put on an awesome concert. And, of course, Pizza was provided at the end. Here are some pics of the night.

Funny

Just a little something funny that most of us can relate to:

"Recently, I was diagnosed with A. A. A. D. D. - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.
This is how it manifests:

I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing.

As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full. So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first.

But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first. I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only 1 check left. My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking.

I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over. I see that the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need to be watered. I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning.

I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers. I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table.I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor. So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill. Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:
----the car isn't washed,
----the bills aren't paid,
----there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter,
----the flowers don't have enough water,
----there is still only 1 check in my check book,
----I can't find the remote, ----I can't find my glasses,
----and I don't remember what I did with the car keys.

Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired.

I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail."

Unforgivable?

Last night, we tackled a subject that is not only difficult for the teens in the group, but for me and many adults as well.

The forgiveness of sin.

More specifically, the forgiveness extended to abominable people. People that our society has written off or deemed beyond forgiveness. People like Jeffrey Dahmer whose sins/crimes include murder and cannibalism, to name a few.

The question posed was this: Can people like Dahmer, Hitler and Manson be offered the same forgiveness by God as you and I? After all, we are "normal" and they are not!

One of the teens spoke up with the right answer: Yes! He later followed up by stating that "people like that shouldn't be given" that same forgiveness.

Isn't that how we feel sometimes? Not everyone is as good as me or my friends. We should be offered something better. Our slate should be wiped fully clean while the others should still have tally sheets with some sins remaining. They don't deserve to be made white as snow!

Guess what, none of us do. The apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." We are all sinners in the same boat. God offers the same forgiveness to us all whether we cheat on a test or commit heinous crimes.

All we have to do is seek His offered forgiveness and do His will. Isn't that amazing?

Clay For The Potter

"Change my heart, O God
Make me ever true
Change my heart, O God
May I be like You

You are the Potter
I am the clay
Mold me and make me
This is what I pray

Change my heart, O God
Make it ever true
Change my heart, O God
May I be like You"

The words of this song resound to me and were imprinted on the minds of several youth that were able to give themselves over to God to be shaped and formed by His loving hands this past weekend at the annual Set Your Sights Retreat in Hot Springs. It touched my heart to see many young hearts open up to their youth leaders, their friends and God for renewal and reshaping. Several from my group had tears in their eyes as they professed their love for Jesus and their determination to be fully back in His loving arms.

Ahh, the openness of youth! If somehow we could never lose the soft hearts that we had when we were young. Guess what, we are never too old to be changed and formed by our Maker. They say that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I strongly beg to differ. At any age, one can let go and let God do His beautiful work within us. Pray that we will always remain clay for the Potter.

Back In The Game

Yesterday I was down for the count with sickness. Today, after plenty of rest, I am back in the game. This evening, I will be taking 13 kids over to the annual Set Your Sights Retreat here in Hot Springs over by Lake Catherine. The theme this year is "Pass the Salt." It is there to remind us that we are the salt of the earth and that we must hold on to our God-Flavoring to reach the lost world.

How is your seasoning?
Are you God flavored and set apart?
Or are you going with the flow of this world?

As Christians, we must always be seeking to better ourselves through constant Word study, prayer and fellowship. By doing so, we 'up' our salinity levels for the preservation of the lost in the world.

Procrastinating

The following is the beginning excerpt from Paul Graham's work on good and bad procrastinating. This is a must read for all teens and parents out there that like to put important things off to the last minute.

"The most impressive people I know are all terrible procrastinators. So could it be that procrastination isn't always bad?

Most people who write about procrastination write about how to cure it. But this is, strictly speaking, impossible. There are an infinite number of things you could be doing. No matter what you work on, you're not working on everything else. So the question is not how to avoid procrastination, but how to procrastinate well.

There are three variants of procrastination, depending on what you do instead of working on something: you could work on (a) nothing, (b) something less important, or (c) something more important. That last type, I'd argue, is good procrastination.

That's the "absent-minded professor," who forgets to shave, or eat, or even perhaps look where he's going while he's thinking about some interesting question. His mind is absent from the everyday world because it's hard at work in another.

That's the sense in which the most impressive people I know are all procrastinators. They're type-C procrastinators: they put off working on small stuff to work on big stuff.

What's "small stuff?" Roughly, work that has zero chance of being mentioned in your obituary. It's hard to say at the time what will turn out to be your best work (will it be your magnum opus on Sumerian temple architecture, or the detective thriller you wrote under a pseudonym?), but there's a whole class of tasks you can safely rule out: shaving, doing your laundry, cleaning the house, writing thank-you notes-- anything that might be called an errand."

If you would like to continue on in the reading, go to www.paulgraham.com

Just A Little Talk...

This morning, I was blessed to have one of my mentors, Rick Northen, visit with me in the office and spend some quality time in prayer with our Father. How great it is to be able to have someone(other than a spouse)to share, vent, dream and talk to God with. Before Jim Gardner left for Texas and Rick left for Cambodia, we would meet together early every Sunday morning to talk with one another and God. This morning all the great memories came flooding back as we bowed before the throne to bring words of praise and supplication. Rick, thank you for stopping by and lifting me up!

How many of you out there have a prayer partner? If you don't, I encourage you to find a confidant that will kneel with you in communion with God through Jesus. Start the year out by building a relationship with a brother or sister in Christ and refreshing/renewing your life conversation with God. There is no better way!

Quote Of The Day

"God wishes to be seen, and he wishes to be sought, and he wishes to be expected, and he wishes to be trusted." - Julian of Norwich