Sheds & New Plans For The Church

• It was great this morning to have Dr. Baxter share his vision for the future of our church. Now that everything is public, let me tell you- I’m pumped about the new service. It is EXACTLY what our church needs. I think it will bring a breath of fresh air into our church. I think it will bring new people. I think it will bring new volunteers. Most importantly, I think it will bring new people into the kingdom of God.
• If you haven’t heard, we will be begining a new service in our church on Sept. 7. It will be totally contemporary in style, with it’s heartbeat being engaging the unchurched and disconnected in our community. The service will be at 11:00 in the gym. We will have our own worship band, greeters, av team, etc. The blended service will be happening simultaneously in the gym. We will tivo in Dr. B from the blended service when it comes time for the message. This is going to be great for our church.
• If you would like to help serve, please let me know ASAP! This will be a very volunteer-heavy service. We need greeters, hospitality people, audio-visual people, etc. Just shoot me an email if you are interested in serving.
• My father-in law and I put together a 10x8x7 storage building in the backyard this weekend. We started Friday afternoon, worked all day Saturday, and worked after church until about 6:00 p.m. Sunday evening. I knew I was in trouble when I picked the building up Thursday afternoon fom Home Depot. This 10x8x7 building was in a box that was about 6 inches tall and could easily fit in the back of a pickup truck. BUt we got it put together. I am proud. Here’s a picture of the building we put together.

 

 

Wednesday Night Highlights And Church Update (as promised!)

• Before I get to the “meat” of today’s post, I wanted to post a video of our worship team playing Everlasting God last night. I am so blessed to have a faithful team that is not only committed to leading in worship every week, but they are also really good!
• Our set list last night was All We Need by Charlie Hall, How Can I Keep From Singing by Chris Tomlin, My Drink by Charlie Hall, Majesty by Charlie Hall, Everlasting God by Brenton Brown/Chris Tomlin, and Forever King by Todd Fields. I just realized we had a very Charlie Hall-heavy set list last  night. That’s interesting, because we don’t play that much Charlie Hall stuff.
• My message last night was called Together. I talked about the importance and Biblical example of walking through life and the Christian journey “Together” in a small group.
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• And now, the reason you’re really here. As mentioned yeaterday, it’s been a LONG week. Since I’ve been at First Baptist, I’ve been on 3 staff retreats. We’ve gone away and talked about the health of our church, and things we needed to improve on. And to be honest, we’ve never really done anything about it. That all changed several weeks ago when our staff went to the Drive Conference at NorthPoint Community Church in Alpharetta. My comment to Katie when I got home was, “I think we’ve finally been knocked on the fence.” God began to move among our staff and give us clarity.
• By that, I mean God made us painfully aware of our shortcomings. The biggest shortcoming being we are not reaching the unchurched, hurting, and disconnected. And because of that, we are not seeing families joining our church. We are not seeing baptisms. We are doing what the church was created to do. Once we had clarity in that area, then God was able to give us clarity of vision.
• Our staff met Thursday night. After many prayers and discussions, the staff reached an uninanimous decision on the next page in the history of our church. One that hopefully will make an huge impact on the spiritual climate of our city. The Thursday night meeting lasted 3 1/2 hours, by the way. 🙂
• The staff took the proposal to the deacons on Monday night. Our pastor umcompromisingly shared with the deacons what he thought God’s direction for our church was. And they responded. The positivity and excitement was great. They really seemed to embrace the true Biblical concept of what being a deacon is all about: following the staff’s vision and making ministry happen.
• There are many proposed changes in this plan. The biggest is adding a third worship service specifically designed to welcome the unchurched and disconnected. I’ll give more detials about the service after Sunday. Dr. Baxter is sharing the vision with the church Sunday morning, so you definitely want to be here. But just know this service is gonna stinkin’ ROCK.
• According to Thom Rainer in The Bridger Generation, 96% of 13-30 year olds are unchurched. I want to change that. I want you to be a part too- be here Sunday!

Great Changes Coming & New Charlie Sayings

• Thanks so much for praying for our staff meeting on Thursday night. After meeting for 3 1/2 hours, I believe that God is truly bringing some GREAT changes to our church. If you’re a deacon, you’ll hear about them Monday night. If you’re not a deacon, then give them $5 and I’m sure they’ll spill their guts. 🙂 Just kidding, the whole church will hear next Sunday.
• We had a great Sunday afternoon. We had our senior graduate recognition service at 2:00. We had a great group of seniors- sorry to see them go, but excited to see them minister in the new locations where God is sending them.
• After Charlie got up from his nap, we had a fun afternoon and evening.  Here’s some new Charlie sayings from today:
• At dinner, Charlie wanted more watermelgon (watermelon).
• Charlie will scream all of a sudden, then smile and say, “I scream!”
• Charlie asked for a bicycle (popsicle) after dinner.
• Charlie was playing in his pool with his toys and called his plastic alligator an alli-duh-gator.
• What a mess! We had such a great day. I am blessed with a great family!

Lessons Learned From Drive (Part 3) and Wed. Night Stuff

• This will probably be the last of my comments on Drive. And this comment may be more directed towards North Point than their Drive Conference. One of the things I love about North Point is their strategy. Everything they do has structure and vision behind it. How many Amerian churches have a strategy for making disciples? Most churches just hope it kind of happens somewhere along the way. I would encourage you to sit down with your staff today and “map out” strategic processes in your church. Start at the end (the goal) and work your way backwards. Thank you North Point for daring to lead with razor-sharp vision and strategy.
• Pray for our church today. Our pastor is having a staff meeting tonight to introduce some changes that we can use to reach the lost in our community.
• We had a great service last night in spite of the fact allergies had wreaked havoc on my voice. I sounded like a 7th grade boy going through puberty. God spoke even through that, though. OUr message last night was called, “Read the LARGE PRINT,” and I spoke about the cost of following Jesus.
• Our set list for last night was All Because of Jesus by Steve Fee, Let Me SIng by Todd Fields, Inside Out with the Came To My Rescue tag by Hillsong United, God of This CIty by Chris Tomlin, and We Shine by Steve Fee.
• To any students/parents who read the blog, don’t forget: whitewater rafting money is due immediately!

Lessons I Learned At Drive: Volume 1 (and Wednesday night stuff)

• One of the big takeaways the Drive conference promoted was healthy staff cultures. Do you have a healthy staff culture at your church. Andy said that whenever there is a gap between what you expect from someone and what they actually deliver, you have to choose what you place in that gap. There are only two choices: trust and mistrust. Staff members have to trust each other and be trustworthy. Often times in church life, people come to you with complaints about other staff members. We must choose to defend and trust in the rest of our team.
• To end the first message, Andy posed this question: “Are the relationships around the staff table worth exporting to the rest of the congregation?” Wow. That will make you think.
• We had an awesome service last night. Our set list was: Happy Day by Tim Hughes, Here Is OUr King by David Crowder, Spring of Life by Kristian Stanfill, The Wonderful Cross by Chris Tomlin, and God of Wonders.
• Our message last night was called Remote Control and focused on the beauty and signifigance of the Lord’s Supper. The message will be up on the website later this morning if you want to check it out.
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Thursday Morning Update

• It has been a while since I’ve updated. So much to write about.
• Yesterday morning, we went back to the school in Sucre. Our purpose yesterday morning was to pass out the pictures we took Monday morning. As I mentioned in an earlier post, nobody in Ecuador has pictures of themselves or their kids. Yesterday morning was a parent/teacher workday. Many of our team played in the courtyard with the children while the rest of the team went into the classroom and passed out the pictures to the parents. You would have thought it was Christmas morning. They had the biggest smiles and were so excited! They were showing the picture to all their friends. We gave a gospel tract to every parent along with the picture. I can’t wait to hear about the fruit that comes from that.
• We went back to Sucre yesterday afternoon for the VBS. It was amazing! We had another 250-300 children. Yo tengo un orto hijo ahora. (I have another son now). His name is Guillermo (pronounced E-air-mo) and he is 7 years old and is so sweet. The kids have defintely latched on and are excited about us coming. They run down they road after the bus as we are pulling into their community. We will share the plan of salvation this afternoon. Please pray that many ninos (children) will accept the Lord as their personal Savior today.
• Last night we went to a small Baptist church in Poatug. (pronounced Poh-ah-tug).
• Poatug is out in the backwoods. We had to take our bus as far as we could and then get out and load up in the back of pickup trucks. We even crossed a stream in the trucks. Being from South Georgia, I felt right at home.  
• Right before we went, the missionary here (Steve) asked me if I wanted to preach. Wow! The Lord gave me a word and I was able to share God’s Word with the Poatug church. I gave my introduction in Spanish and they thought it was hilarious. Steve translated the rest of the message. It was my first time preaching with an interpreter. It was really neat. It was incredible to see how God’s Word trancends culture and language. It never returns void. Our God is awesome!
• The church service itself was incredible. We sang songs in Spanish that we knew in English. It was great to celebrate God together in worship. Then we had a share time. Many of the Ecuadorians shared about what Jesus did in their life. It was powerful. One lady shared about how she had a bad infection in her leg. She had tried every antibiotic in Ecudaor and nothing worked. She then asked God to heal her leg and He did. There were so many great testimonies.
• Dogs are everywhere here and go everywhere people do. There are always 2 or 3 dogs in every classroom at the school. There were several dogs in the church last night. After I preached, a couple of them got saved. 🙂
• I mentioned that the girls pranked us good the other night. All I have to say is that revenge is sweet. Yesterday, we got Steve the missionary to purchase several chickens for us. We then borrowed the cabin keys from some of the camp staff. At 3:00 a.m., we snuck over to the girls’ cabins, opened their doors, and threw the chickens in. It was pandemonium. I never knew chickens could fly high enough to land on a top bunk. 🙂 It was sooooo funny. I will definitely share the video when I get home.
• This morning when we got to breakfast, our Ecuadorian bus driver (Hector) said his first English word: Chicken! He laughed really hard. I then asked to say the blessing, and made clucking noises. We have definitely one-upped them!
• This morning we are working around camp and then going back to Sucre.
• Random notes: Sucre is 10,000 feet above sea level. Quito (the city we flew in to) has a population of 2.4 million people.
• The volcano is spewing black smoke this morning. (Don’t worry-it is not erupting!) I am including some pictures of the volcano.
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Bueños Dias!

• Bueños Dias! It is 10:30 here and we have already worked hard this morning. We have finished up our prep work for the Vacation Bible Schools that will start today at 3:00. Be in prayer!
• God continues to reveal His glory and plans to us. How cool is this: we had no idea what our translators were going to teach on before we got here. All we knew was that we needed to prepare crafts. One lesson is going to be on Noah’s Ark. Guess what our craft is about for that lesson? Animals. Another lesson will be the plan of salvation. Guess what craft we had for that day? Necklaces that remind the children of the plan of salvation. God is so amazing!
• I can’t believe I forgot to tell you that our group was served guinea pig on Sunday Night. These are not the cute little guinea pigs you keep in the cage in the States. No, these are about 2 feet long. They just rip the fur off and serve it skin, teeth, and all. Suprisingly enough, just about all the group sampled it. And even more suprising, it tasted pretty good. Like every thing else in the world, it tasted like chicken. Some of the boys took it too far. My brother Corey and Drew Moody ate the brain. Collin Montgomery ate the tongue. El Grosso.
• Last night the girls pranked the guys really bad. We are about 5 miles from an active volcano. Last night about midnight, they had the camp staff sett of the alarms and tell the guys that the volcano had gone on red alert. So the guys jumped out of their bed, packed their suitcases, and ran to the bus. The girls had all their suitcases by the bus to make it seem real. Even our Ecuadorian bus driver named Hector (that speaks no english) came running out and cranked up the bus. April Fools! All I have to say is that we have several nights left. They made the mistake of pranking the guys too early in the week. We have a plan that will rock their socks off. Payback is gonna be fun.
• Speaking of Hector, the dude is my hero. He can drive a bus in any conditions, anywhere. The gate to our camp in very narrow. The bus has about 2 inches of clearance on either side. Hector drives us in there like it is no big deal. He also weaves on the road to see how many chickens he can run over. He is a trip!
• Well, it is getting close to lunch time. God is moving in mighty ways. Pray that our first day of VBS is fruitful. We love and miss you all! I will try to update later tonight, but we’ll see.

Monday Update

• It is just after lunch and it has already been an amazing day. God is doing some amazing things. Let me tell you some neat things we have done and how you can pray.
• Yesterday, we went to Sunday School before the main worship service. Sunday School was done in more of a “small group” format. They split the church (including us) into groups of about 10 people. The theme for Sunday School was “obedience” and each group randomly got a topic that dealt with obedience. For example, obedience in marriage, etc. They had to talk about it (in espanol) with their group and share with the whole church. There was a new family in town that are Christians but have never been baptized. Guess what? God orchestrated that thier family was in the small group that got questions about being obedient through baptism. After the small group, the dad said that he “was thirsty” to be baptized. How awesome is our God!
• This morning we went to Sucre to an escuela (school). Sucre is very, very high in the mountains. In fact, we were up among the clouds. It is a surreal experience being here. The landscape and the people are gorgeous.
• Sucre is an isolated community that is basically 100% agriculture. They’re basically Ecuadorian rednecks, so our Georgia rednecks fit right in. I bet they listen to George Strait up here. 🙂
• We went to the school to take pictures of all the children. In Ecuador, people rarely have pictures of themselves. Almost no families have pictures of their children. So we took pictures of all the kids. We will print them out and send them home as a ministry to their family.
• We divided our team into 4 groups to take pictures. My group had 3rd graders. They were the most precious group of children you have ever seen. They were shy at first, but when I started videoing and Leon started taking pictures, they came to life. They mobbed us trying to see the pictures of themselves. The little boys really made me laugh. They ran outside to the water trough, stuck their entire head in to get their heads wet, and then took a comb and slicked their hair straight back. They were looking muy guapo! I really want to bring back 3 or 4 kids with me, but Immigration might have issues with that.
• The mayor of the town showed up to meet us at the school. My favorite part was that there were no elections. He just appointed himself mayor one day.
• We will be back at the school for the next 3 days doing Vacation Bible School. The kids were super excited that we were coming back and wanted to see their pictures. We cannot wait to share the story of Jesus with these Latin American children who were created in his image. There is such a spiritual darkness here. People are grasping at straws trying to get God to have mercy on them. God has already had mercy on them through Jesus. Pray that we can effectively share the Gospel over the next three days and we will see many Ecuadorians come to faith in Jesus alone! (The Catholic Church here teaches that Mary is the queen of heaven and co-redeemer with Jesus. I still havent found that passage in my Bible.)
• Everyone is doing well. We are all a little tired right now. As I type, the students and leaders are working hard getting crafts and games ready for VBS. Everyone is planning on taking a nap as soon as that is over.
• I can tell God is beginning to really move in the hearts of our group. You should have heard our share time last night. You should have seen the tears in the eyes of our group today as they were the hands of Jesus and hugged children that materially have nothing.
• Pray that God will continue to not only use us to transform the lives of the Ecuadorian people, but will continue to transform the lives of our team as they experience Him on a more intimate basis.
• God showed me an incredible passage this morning as I was doing my Bible study that seems tailormade for our team as they minister high in the mountains of Ecuador. Isaiah 52: 7 says, “How beautiful on the mountains 
  are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation,        who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
• We love you and miss you. I love you Katie! I love you Charlie! Katie, tell Charlie that he would like all the animals over here. 🙂

Bueños Noches!

• Hola! It is 12:15 a.m. Georgia time, 11:15 p.m. Ecuador time and we have checked into the Howard Johnson in Quito.
• We had a great experience from the time we arrived at tha Atlanta airport. A representative from Delta named Al (who was born and riased in Ecuador-wow!) met us at the drop off point, got us checked in, and our luggage checked. Al is definitely the man and saved us at leaast an hour.
• At check in, there was a famous rapper that all the students recognized. His name was A-Con (A-Kon? Acorn?). They all got their picture made with him and thought it was really cool.
• Because Al got us checked in so quickly, we had time to eat “real” food in the airport. I ate at On The Border to get used to Latin food. 🙂 The cheese queso was DA BOMB!
• It was a great, uneventful flight. The played a movie, which I slept through, and then showed a television show. On a flight to Ecuador, they showed, “My Name IS Earl.” I guess they knew I had a big group of rednecks from LaGrange that would love it.
• We had to wait quite a while to get through customs in Quito. There were a TON of people arriving on flights late at night. They`re night owls over here.
• Quito is WAY bigger than I expected.
• When I got through customs, I had a good laugh. In the food area, they had a big sign that said, “American Food.” I guess we serve Mexican food in the US, they serve American food in Latin America.
• Everybody is doing great. No lost luggage, no lost people, and nobody lost their cookies on the flight.
• Time for bed. We´re going to have a big day tomorrow. We,re going to the equator!
• And yes, we do have several copies of the LaGrange Daily News to get our picture with. They might as well shut down that feature after we get our picture made at the equator. Nobody but nobody`s gonna top that!
• I love and miss you Katie and Charlie!