Saturday, January 21, 2006

Florence for a Day.....

I said I was going to post about my trip to Florence, which I have been really slack on, but here goes for the highlights:

Tuesday:
  • Ate lunch with my former pastor, Kevin Qualls; Barry Moon, my good friend and cohort in crime, and Johnny McDaniel, new minister at FBC Florence. It was a great lunch and time of fellowship. I spent a good bit of time with Barry talking about all the things that were going on at the church and with his family. Deanna and I are very close to his whole family, Donna, Brittany, and Kara. It is always a blessing to spend time with him because I always walk away with a smile on my face and encouraged!

  • Spent sometime with Danny Meetze, Youth Pastor at Calvary Baptist, and Brian Timney, Youth Pastor at Southside Baptist. These guys were “My Crew” for my time in Florence. We partnered in ministry for many different events! Solid Guys doing some solid ministry in Florence! Keep it up guys!

  • FMU BCM…..What can I say? What a blast! The food was great, the fellowship even better, worship was awesome! Got to spend time with Kendal Danford, who has to be the best BCM Director in the state of South Carolina. Also spent some time with some of MY BOYS, Grant Lyerly and Cam Shepherd. (I drove 3 hours to hand out with them and Cam punked me for some girl he is hitting on! WRONG!!) These guys are solid and are going to make a huge impact on the world!! I always enjoyed being able to preach to that group! I spoke about living the UNSAFE LIFE. Going to where Jesus calls, doing what Jesus says, and saying what Jesus tells you to! God worked through the whole night (7 students accepted Christ! PRAISE THE LORD!)

Wednesday:
  • Slept a little late got up and ate breakfast with my mom! She is the best!!! It was an awesome time to just hang out with my mom! I am so thankful that I have such a good relationship with my mom and dad, that we can just hang out and spend time together!

  • Visited with Mammy, my grandmother on my dad’s side! My grandmother is the definition on Southern belle. Loves her husband, her children, her grandchildren, and loves life!

  • Ate lunch with Warren, Kristie, and Chandler Merck at Redbone Alley! (Side note: if you are ever in Florence got to Redbone Alley, you will not be disappointed! Great atmosphere, great food!) I love this family! They have a son named Chesley, who is a royal pain in the b%#t, just kidding, who is an awesome young man! Chandler is the young lady that I posted about in HELPLESSNESS!?!?!?!? This lunch was someone of the lunches that just puts your life into perspective. I got the full story of what happened, the events leading up to the accident, the events afterwards, everything! To hear all of it and then to look on the faces of the family and see them smile, blessed my heart! They could not stop praising God for the miracle of saving Chandler! I heard a father talk of his love for his children, a mother talk about how precious time is with her children, a daughter talk about her thankfulness for her brother! WOW! Warren and Kristie, you are an example to me of how much I should love my children and how I should try to raise them! Thank you for your example and allowing Deanna and I to be a part of your lives and family! We love you! I spent sometime encouraging Chandler and telling her how excited I was that God performed this miracle in her life. I told her that God had something special planned for her and was going to use this event in her life to reach people in an amazing way. Needless, to say, this lunch changed my perspective on life! God allowed me to spend time with this family to be blessed! I wanted to be a blessing to them, but I got so much more than they got from me!

That is about it! What a great day and a half!

God, thank you for allowing me to experience some awesome stuff (salvations, miracles, blessings)! Use my life that I might be a vessel of hope and praise to others!

Friday, January 20, 2006

My Pastor......

Do me a favor and head on over to PerryNoble.com to check out this post!!

By the way, I love the fact that he communicates with his staff in such a clear way.  I am so thankful that Perry is my pastor!  

Monday, January 16, 2006

MOVING DAY.....

Today was awesome!  It was move in day at the new offices for NewSpring!  That place is amazing!  I love it over there!  What a great place to be a part of!  

I am going to be posting about my trip to Florence a little later!  Too busy to get my thoughts down!  One highlight of the trip was I got to eat lunch with the young lady, Chandler, that I posted about in my post titled HELPLESS!?!?!?!.  Tell you about it later!  It rocked my world!

Monday, January 09, 2006

Tomorrow.....

Tomorrow, I get to travel back to Florence, SC.  I have been invited to come and speak for the Francis Marion University Baptist Campus Ministry!  I spent a lot of time pouring into some students there and I look forward to getting to see some of them again!  Please pray that God would speak through me to them in a clear and relevant way!  I also look forward to spending time with Kendal Danford, the Campus Minister at FMU.  This man has a passion for college students and seeing them grow in their walk with Christ!  I am always encouraged by my time with him and always seem to learn a few things as well!

Also, I am going to catch lunch with my former pastor!  Should be a great trip to Florence, SC, although a little short!  I will post how it went a little later!

Friday, January 06, 2006

HELPLESS!?!?!?

Tuesday, I received many phone calls letting me know about an accident that one of my former youth was in while on a ski trip. Of course, my heart went out to her and her family! As it is with most situations, the story always gets a little messed up and I am sure that there were “many” different versions of the story floating around. Regardless, when I heard, I felt helpless!

Needless to say, I feel that when something goes wrong, I want to find the quickest solution and “fix” the problem (I am a guy and that is the way we think)! Well, I could not do a thing in this situation! I could not do anything, nothing, nada (you get the point)!

That was until I realized that I could ask my heavenly father to intervene. I could actually pour my heart out to God! WOW! I could do something, I could pray for the young girl and her family, the doctors and nurses!

**By the way, I was in a meeting when I received the call, I went back in and told the people about the situation. Their response was amazing! They stopped the meeting and we prayed! We collectively asked God to intervene! Thank you Michael, Sandy, and Meredith for being an awesome team to work with! You rock!**

Needless to say, the young lady is doing fine and it going to recover! Was it because of anything tangible that we could do? No, it was the wonderful working power of our Lord and Savior.

God, thank you for being the God that is totally in control. Thank you, for being the God that desires for his children to pour our hearts out to him! Thank you, for being the God that listens! Thank you God that we are NOT helpless in any situation, we can pour our hearts out to you! You are amazing!

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

New Year’s Resolutions.....

We make resolutions because we recognize a need, but it requires action and commitment!

If you made a New Year’s resolution, take action and keep the commitment!  If you know that you need to get in shape, don’t just join the gym and never go.  Commit to getting in shape, by going and working out!  (Can you guess what my resolution is?)