The Blog Idea

Broken-hearted ministry

2011-05-26T08:28:00.002-05:00

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" - Psalm 51:17

Having your heart truly broken by God is the most essential pre-requisite to being an effective minister of any kind. To the inexperienced, ministry can seem so blissful, even romantic. We often dream of our own effectiveness and how great the rest of our lives will be.

Then comes the first heartache. It is often a significant disappointment - not as many people came to the event as expected, the church leadership did not give approval, too many details were forgotten and it all fell apart - these are often difficult to take for the first time. They cause us to doubt our idealism, "Maybe ministry isn't what I thought it was going to be..."

The true heart-breaker comes when our ministry ideals hit the wall of disillusionment. This pain is of a greater weight - getting fired by someone you respect, betrayed by a confidant, even realizing you're not as good in ministry as you hoped - they come with a driving force into your gut and leave you breathless. You are brought to the point of despair. All prior dreams feel paper-thin. You feel unqualified.

It is here that the LORD can forge us into the person He is calling us to be. Right here, in this despair and pain when all seems ruined, is when the LORD walks with us through the unimaginable.

On the other side of this heartache is the road prepared for us. We are sober-minded, maybe a little jaded, toward ministry - knowing that we are all just fragile and sinful people. We know the road won't be easy, but we are ready for the storm this time. Instead of battling against our idealism, we fight to stay hopeful. We don't wonder how large the number of people will be, but how many of them will stick around.

And in a funny way, the LORD uses this to teach us that ministry has everything to do with Him. Our hopes and dreams in ministry revolve around Him and His plan. We can no longer get caught up in how things look or feel within our church; the disillusionment has set for too long. We are smarter now. We can do our best and trust God to move how He sees fit.

It is here that we can begin to increase our effectiveness, precisely because we are no longer concerned with it. How our church is doing doesn't reflect our identity anymore, and it is the pain that reminds us to stay this way.

Let our hearts burn with the pain of past lessons. Let us watch as fear and pride melt away to reveal a mature passion for the LORD. It is only the trial that can burn us this way, and we can embrace them as the LORD's blessing.

Sermon Audio from St. Timothy CPC

2009-09-01T11:03:00.007-05:00

I had been asking Jesus for an opportunity to preach, and out of nowhere St. Timothy Cumberland Presbyterian Church called me because my pastor (who has never heard me preach) recommended me. I almost said no because of time constraints (I was learning Greek this summer), but remembered that I'd been praying for this opportunity, so...

After meeting with a committee, we landed on preaching for six weeks through the Book of Galatians. Not exactly light fare, but the challenge was going to be fun. After the second week, I asked the sound guy if we could record the services. He agreed (thanks, Frank).

For all interested, here's some preaching on Galatians.
ht: Sermon Cloud

Galatians: To Christ Through Abraham - 3 of 6 | listen or download
Galatians: Why the Law? - 4 of 6 | listen or download
Galatians: Resisting Slavery - 5 of 6 | listen or download
Galatians: 6 of 6 | coming soon

The Caperton Family Newsletter

2009-01-05T18:14:00.003-06:00

Happy 2009 from the Fort Worth Capertons!

We're doing well, but didn't get the Christmas card done in time, so it turned into a New Year's email. Here's a little bit about how everyone is doing:

ALL OF US

We love being a family of seven. The big family atmosphere and the friendship that comes with it is a testament to God's grace, and we're thankful. We're active in at 121 Community Church in Grapevine, TX, and we've just started (along with two other families) a Life Group there. This past year has been a great time of new beginnings and healing.

DREW AND KRISTY

Kristy is enjoying life at home with five kids. Somewhere between the twins spitting up, the dirty diapers, and the whirlwind of the older three kids, Kristy maintains great composure and is a grounding force of all of us. Thanks to some help, Kristy gets relief for a few hours a week and spends time giving our children each some special attention. Sometimes she takes the girls out to lunch; other times it's a coloring date with her boys. Additionally, Kristy has found great friendships among some of the seminary wives.

Drew is working full-time in graphic design for the seminary and loves his job and his co-workers. It's been a real blessing to get to know other seminary students and to hear how God is directing them. Right now, he's taking a winter term course which brings the total to 16 hours completed over the first year (3 A's and 2 B's). With 10 hours planned for this Spring, the course is set for three more years at seminary.

THE KIDDOS

Jedidiah Brooks will only be 5 this January (21st), but he's as tall as a first grader. He's also growing up in other ways- taking on a few house chores, changing diapers, and being a terrific big brother. Lately, Jed has shown an interest in super-heroes and wild animals, and it's not unusual to see him flying around the corner or growling at his little sisters. He's also found a creative outlet in drawing and he draws everything from family portraits to animals to monsters to buildings. He's really very good at it and we hope to encourage it in any way we can.

Riley Ember is 3.5 years old and blossoming into a lovely little girl. She loves to pretend to be a princess, opting only for dresses and jewelry. Riley also is starting to help around the house with cooking and helping with Cash and Canon (whom she calls "her babies"). She's becoming more able to share her thoughts, and a funny one that came out recently was, "God is the best keeper of the whole world."

Story LaRue just turned 2 and is learning quickly. She is using sentences, improving her articulation, and is in the middle of potty training. The "terrible 2's" have set in as she can be quite independent and defiant, but overall, she's pretty obedient and likes to help in any way she can. Story likes playing with Cash and Canon, and spends most of her time singing, running around, and eating random ground objects. Her affinity for dirt is astounding.

Cash Urban is 5 months old and is all smiles. He's been having trouble getting sleep lately, but overall he and Canon are getting good at sleeping all the way through the night. Cash is a little bigger than Canon (14.5 lbs to Canon's 12.5 lbs) and has a deep baby voice (imagine a man saying "goo goo" and you're close). He's also learning to lift his head up, hold a bottle, and pretty soon he should be crawling.

Canon Gabrielle is the daintier of the two twins. She is very mild-mannered and entertains herself well by rolling around and reaching for her hanging toys. When you talk to her, Canon will open her eyes very wide as if extremely interested in what you're saying, and it's very cute to watch her move her eyebrows up and down while smiling. When she's eating, she will sometimes reach out to grab Cash's hand. They already seem to have a very cool connection.

Thanks to all who have prayed for us and helped us. Our family is blessed for it and God is honored in it. Have a happy new year.

Love,

Drew, Kristy, Jed, Riley, Story, Cash, and Canon Caperton

Prophet and Poet

2008-12-30T16:00:00.000-06:00

I've been dreaming lately. It's probably because I've been on The Island for a little bit now, but in any case, I've been considering what life after seminary will look like. So when we were able to take this assessment during class yesterday, I jumped on it.

This particular assessment laid out four leadership styles: Pastor, Apostle, Poet, and Prophet. It turns out I'm a Prophet first and a Poet second. I was a little surprised by the "poet" tag, but it made me think. Here's a description of each one:

PROPHET

The prophet wants to see the church shaped by God’s kingdom vision for the world.

They are drawn to the speaking the Word into the cultural context.

Hearing what God is saying about being a biblical people is of the highest importance.

They want the church to recognize its captivities to our culture and discover a more radical, biblical way of life.

The prophet wants to move people toward a vision of how God is shaping them in the midst of transition.

The prophet brings that Word that comes from the outside and addresses the people with a fresh sense of direction.

They thrive in the world of vision and a big picture of the future, they find it hard to spend much energy in the here and now.

Planning and strategy are secondary to vision and creating new futures.

They are future directed, the immediate is a gateway to tomorrow.

POET

They love to connect people’s confusion and struggle with the stories of God’s purposes in Scripture so that they can see things differently.

Poets call forth that which is hidden.

They listen, giving words, images and experiences that help people see things differently.

They don’t criticize nor judge but bring God’s story into the reality of people’s longings and pain.

Poets listen beneath the surface levels of the attractive and trendy changes in the culture and the church.

They focus on people touching the feelings and inner drives forming their lives.

Poets are not strategists with solutions or plans.

Poets take time, they immerse themselves in the multiple stories of the culture understanding their power and critiquing their claims.

They use words with reverence, get immersed in everyday particulars, spy out the glories of the commonplace, warn of illusions, attend to the subtle interconnections between rhythm and meanings and spirit.

They work with the question: How can I help people to see differently?

They stimulate, give hints, paint pictures, and create imaginations that run counter to the dominant ideologies.

The Island

2008-12-29T16:19:00.005-06:00

While Kristy and the kids are in Arkansas and I'm busy studying and working in Fort Worth, I thought I'd conduct a little experiment and observe the differences between living with my big family and living on The Island of Constant Solitude.

Everything seems frozen in time. Without the constant movement of big family life, the world around me seems to move in slow-motion. The peace and quiet of The Island is nice, but I have a feeling I will tire of it soon and begin to go stir crazy. In this way The Island is like Vegas in that it's a nice place to visit, but living there doesn't work out so well.

My brain moves at half-speed. This might sound strange to some of you who are more thorough in their thinking, but on The Island I am much more aware of what I'm thinking about. Usually, I'm so busy doing and saying that I'm barely aware of my thoughts before I act on it or say it. It's like watching something happen right before it happens. Right, I'm weird, I know.

Inspiration knocks on my door. On The Island, I become very inspired. I'm not sure why, but a lot of new ideas begin taking shape when I'm alone. Right now I really want to reorganize the entire house, complete with pictures on walls, a chart for the kids, and a couple of bookshelves. Ideas like these come in droves.

Nostalgia is at its height. Memories from yesteryear come flooding in on The Island. I am often reminded of people I haven't seen or heard from in years (speaking of which, has anyone seen Pete Smit?). And the slightest thing will throw me back to the significant events of my formative years (like the time I fell in front of Brad Olivier's Volkswagon Bug). Usually a photo album or old video will make its way out during these times.

My surroundings get ignored. On The Island, the thermostat is lower, the lights stay off, I forget to eat, and the trash piles up. I think this is mostly a bachelor phenomena that hasn't made it out yet, but it really has nothing to do with saving money. I simply forget about them. I've heard many bachelors talk like this, can I get an amen?

I go to bed earlier. Kristy is a night owl of the most tenacious kind. Our entire family (for now) is made up of morning people and she is still undeterred in her efforts to stay up late. But consciousness stops around 9 or 10pm on The Island.

More tomorrow.

If your husband hates Christmas...

2008-12-23T22:22:00.007-06:00

The only time I've really written on Christmas, it was full of complaints. A re-write is in order.

CHRISTMAS PAST
When I was younger, Christmas was one of favorite holidays. We'd either be in New Orleans or Thibodaux with a set of grandparents and other assortments of extended family. We had the staple of presents, football, decorations, drinking, and food that is typical of most white, suburban American kids. My family did a bang-up job making Christmas special.

What I loved the most was seeing all of these people coming together. And it usually was not just five or six people getting together, it was a ton of people. By the time we began opening presents, the party had reached its zenith and it was sometimes difficult to squeeze through. I can vividly remember 20 or 30 people on several occasions.

CHRISTMAS PAIN
It made me very comfortable to know that I was a part of this big family, and never thought that this seemingly endless stream of people would dry up. But when my parents split in 1985, and then all my aunts and uncles divorced before 1990, Christmas shrank and became much less comfortable. Before long, I didn't like Christmas that much.

In college and early adulthood, I would often tell people I didn't like Christmas because it was over-commercialized and hollow. The underside of it was that it hurt to think about what Christmas had become for me, and how I wished I could go back to the big family parties of my childhood. As the disillusionment and frustration set in, I became more content to despise Christmas and blow it off.

Bigger than all that (and more than I can adequately discuss here), Jesus wasn't really in Christmas for me. I just never saw the connection between my walk with Jesus and how my family celebrated Christmas. I honestly didn't know if Jesus cared about Christmas.

CHRISTMAS JESUS
Fast-forward to now, with more than ten years of the Bah-Humbug pattern in my wake, and I'm tired of my Christmas ritual. I'm looking forward to Christmas again, but my hope is not in toys or even large families. It's in Jesus.

The greater portion of my spiritual walk this last semester has been to understand what God intends for my family and how I fit into that equation. From God's Word (including Deut. 6:4, Ecc. 3, Eph. 5) I have been shown how God intends for families to embody a culture that will both point my children to Jesus and prepare them to live in a real world (a lot like a church, really).

Specifically relating to Christmas, my gift as a father is to show my children the gospel story and celebrate it with them in a way that is fun and instructive. Through the way our family celebrates Christmas (and a myriad of other family "institutions"), I can display God's love for us in Christ and our response to His great Love.

So, if you're the wife of Christian Christmas-hater dad, take heart and pray for your man.

And if you're a Chrisitian Christmas-hater dad, wake up and smell the eggnog (yum). Christmas might be jacked up and commercialized, but it's an opportunity to display to your family Christ's gospel story in the midst of the hollow gift-giving and well-wishing of the season.

Merry Christmas.

Hiatus

2008-12-19T12:56:00.006-06:00

The hiatus is ending soon. But first, an explanation.

I haven't blogged in seven months because I've been busy. Busy having more children, busy at home with my great family, busy learning at seminary, and busy working.

Also, I haven't been able to put my insides into words. Either I had something to say but couldn't quite figure it out, or I couldn't even figure out what to say.

So, the hiatus is ending soon with a redirection and a redesign in the works. I want to blog and I think I'm ready to put things out there again.

Of course, I've been wrong before.

Galveston

2008-05-25T16:07:00.015-05:00

Possibly the best vacation I've ever had, definitely the best I've had in my adult life: Galveston. The Capertons, Kristy's immediate family and their former (German) foreign-exhcange student from 10 years ago, Christopher Klein. Good times.

For more pictures, check out our family's blog.

Confessional-historical

2008-03-01T16:11:00.009-06:00

I know, I know, it's a seminary textbook, but it's fascinating stuff. To submit the Scripture as God's authoritative revelation and also hold to its historical facts is great for me to read. Christian Hartlich says it like this:

The fundamental theological axiom at work here can be understood in one sentence: Without an objective, ontic grounding for Christology in the resurrection event Christian faith has no basis. At the same time, however, there is also the desire – so far as possible – to proceed in a historical-critical way, in order to make the event of the resurrection of Jesus historically plausible.

In short, I believe that Christ imparted grace to me by defeating death in the resurrection, but I also believe that Christ's resurrection was an actual historical event. It might not sound like a big deal, but it's a big deal.

The fact that this guy said it in 1978 is also humbling because I am just now coming to these realizations. Slowly.

Knowing and being certain

2008-02-16T21:30:00.003-06:00

As my Dad flew through town a couple of months ago, we briefly got on the subject of certainty and relational truth. As always, the debate was very respectful and fun. In the middle of it, I happened upon a really great truth and now I'm attempting to process it a little.

It came up that someone could know God, but only in a personally interpreted way, the same way I know my friend, Dallas. In this case, I could not make absolute claims about this friend like "Dallas is a gracious person." I could only truthfully say, "Dallas is gracious to me." It would always center on my perspective, and not on Dallas himself. In terms of knowing God, it was said that I can know God personally, but I cannot be certain of who He is. That's where I had a problem.

Stuck inside the cage of our own perspective, we can never know anything about God. We cannot be certain because we can never have all the facts about Him. I do not believe either of these statements because of one word: revelation. And even though I know it's not that easy, it is the beginning of understanding that we can make know God [and things about Him] outside of anyone's perspective, including our own. To illustrate this, I'll use a simple, three-person relationship consisting of Ann, Ben, and Cal. This is their [fictional] story.

Ann and Ben are great friends. Ann and Cal are also great friends. Ben and Call don't know each other as of yet. One day in a chance encounter, Ben and Cal meet and discover that they both know Ann. This is where the trouble begins.

Ben declares, "Ann is one of the mildest people I know. She wouldn't even hurt a fly." Ben then tells a story to illustrate his declaration. Cal interjects, "Really? The Ann I know is extremely violent and everyone is constantly fearful of her." Cal then shares a story about one of Ann's violent tirades. Ben and Cal go back and make sure they're speaking of the same person, and that the stories they told were recent, and they were.

The questions arises for both of them, "Who is Ann?" This is not merely one mood of Ann, but a totally different persona. Relationally, this is a problem that only Ann herself can rectify. Either she is an impostor to some degree, or one of her friends is wrong. There is no other option.

Back to reality. One person might say something like, "God would never let someone hurt themselves" while another says, "God just allowed my mother to commit suicide." Either God is an impostor to some degree, or one of them is wrong about God. There is no other option. The answer begins with revelation. Relationally, God is the only one who can clear His own Name, and He has... in revealing Himself to us through Scripture.

I know this isn't a complete treatment of this problem, but it's a beginning. The road I go down from here involve questions like: why is Scripture so difficult to interpret? What has God revealed about Himself in Scripture? Moreover, what about those who don't believe Scripture, what are they to understand? All really good questions. Hopefully, I'll get some good answers.

Clean Cars of the Future... for California

2007-12-11T09:03:00.000-06:00

I saw an ad for this today on Time.com and got very excited.

Dubbed as the "Zero Emission Sedan of the Future," the Honda FCX Clarity [website] is something I've been hoping to see for a while, but it might be a while longer because they're only being released in Southern California. Dangit.

They have good reason for only letting the residents of Torrance, Santa Monica, and Irvine use it: no other cities have places to refuel the cars.

Here is the ad I saw - "Waterfight"

More videos after the break.

Here is the Kelley Blue Book review of the FCX Clarity

And for more digging and good ads, here are some more Honda FCX Clarity ads.

Mark those calendars for 2009!

I got the job!

2007-11-28T21:49:00.000-06:00

I would like to announce a few things on the blog because so much has been up in the air about where we're going, what we're doing, etc. Today, things got solidified and it feels so good.

I got a job at Southwestern Seminary as a production artist [graphic design] and will start January 2nd. I accepted it today [after I turned it down about 10 days ago, long story].

This means we're moving to Fort Worth right before Christmas. We don't know about the living situation just yet, but I'll be looking for houses/apartments in Fort Worth while Kristy and the kids are in Northwest Arkansas [hey Browns!] over Christmas and a little while afterward.

This also means we need to sell the house very, very soon. If you know someone looking for a 4bd/3bt 2,100 sq ft house right in the middle of Lafayette, you just let me know. Also, if you are an able-bodied person who would like to help us clean up and fix it up, we need you pronto. Give me a call or email me.

OK, consider yourself informed and please help us inform others. Hey, it's not gossip if I give you permission, right?

Anniversary

2007-11-25T15:52:00.000-06:00

Today, Kristy and I tied the knot 7 years ago... and she's still got it.

Here she is as a cute little girl...

...a foxy lady...

...a faithful mother...

...and a loving sister.

Baby, you do it all. Thank you. Happy Anniversary.

Songs for a Funeral

2007-11-21T15:00:00.000-06:00

Every once in a while, I consider what my funeral would be like [don't worry]: what Scripture would be read, what songs could be played, who would give the eulogy?

I don't know about Scripture or speakers, but here are a few songs I'd like to be played at my funeral. Am I crazy or do other people think about this?

Read on for songs and related videos.

"Come To Jesus" by Chris Rice

"I Will Wait For You There" by Phil Wickham

"Daylight" by Brave Saint Saturn
If you get tired of this one, just fast-forward to around the 4:00 [or -1:50] mark. Simply moving.

My Next Inspiration

2007-11-17T16:34:00.000-06:00

The cool thing is that these kids are lying on the ground. The artist's name is Jan Von Holleben and his latest work is Dreams of Flying. Very creative and fun.

Just looking at them made me laugh and think of how much fun it would be to shoot pictures like that. Maybe we'll try it sometime. More pictures after the break.

ht: Reformissionary

October's Top 7

2007-11-16T09:11:00.000-06:00

Presenting the top Blog Idea posts from the month of October. Courtesy of Google Analytics:

7. Steve Horn and Sean Payton. Both run large South Louisiana organizations [FBC Lafayette and the Saints respectively], and both have the same exact face. Strange.

6. Sixed: Perry Sanders. An interview with a great preacher. The funniest part about this is where Dr. Sanders does the word association with "rap music" near the bottom. Classic.

5. Like, you know, it's Taylor Mali. Still funny, and I've watched it a few times. More videos by comedian Taylor Mali on YouTube.

4. Let's go to the Caperton's house! Don't know why this is #4.

3. My son is an artistic prodigy. When Jed is older and his tire sculpting is in the Museum of Modern Art, I can sell this post on eBay!

2. Alcohol: Should Believers Drink? I've refined this post a little- easier to understand and a little more culturally apt.

1. Triple X Church. A fun video to watch and a great work these guys are doing for freedom in Christ. Their work among the women coming out of porn is awe-inspiring.

Writing Right with a Dragon

2007-11-15T22:08:00.000-06:00

My friend Paige Gmaz is a teacher, a really good special ed high school teacher. She's so good that she's helping one of her students get to college. Here's the story and how you can help him go to college.

Paige's Proposal: Writing Right with a Dragon
[same proposal as an event on Facebook]

Right now [as of 10pm on 11/15/07] his need is down to $290.

Paige is going through DonorsChoose.org, an organization that tries to be "a simple way to provide students in need with resources that our public schools often lack." One obvious route is helping great teachers [like Paige] get special funding for their students.

So, take the plunge all you people that read this blog with some extra cash. All you have to do is click the link. You could even give a mere $5 to help Paige out. Think about it.

Seminary-ing at Southwestern

2007-11-14T23:44:00.000-06:00

I've spoken with many of you personally about this already, but I wanted to put it there for everyone to know: the Capertons are going to seminary and we've chosen Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.

It was either going to be Southwestern or Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, and after visiting both, our choice was clear. Here are some highlights from those trips.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM SOUTHWESTERN IN FORT WORTH [in order of occurrence]:

1. Aunt Patti and Uncle Lee. I have an uncle I'd never met until this trip and Lee Cooper is his name. It turns out he's a great guy and he loves my dear Aunt Patti very much. I'm excited he's part of the family. I stayed with them while I was there and Aunt Patti's charm and hospitality was so needed.
2. The Admissions Staff. I know it's their job, but these people are just downright hospitable to the core. By the time I left, I felt as though three or four of them were really good friends of mine. Somebody deserves a raise.
3. Lunch with Sean Walker and Tori. Besides Sean's amazing beard, it was good to catch up with Sean and sit in on a class with him. Too bad the class was a tiny bit boring.
4. Meeting Catherine Garner. Joe and Rebekah Garner had me over for dinner one night and I got to meet their daughter Catherine. She is a sweetheart and made an already-excellent dinner a lot of fun.
5. Getting a job interview on the spot. I didn't plan to interview for jobs while there, but it just unfolded for me. It is a position with the seminary doing graphic design, which is something I do on the side.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM SOUTHERN IN LOUISVILLE:

1. The Legacy Center. Compared to many hotels I've stayed at, this was a very swanky and very roomy place. Everyone at the front desk was very cool.
2. Sojourn Community Church. After one service [and multiple trips to their website] I am thoroughly impressed with the gospel-centered / community-minded approach to church planting that Daniel Montgomery and the guys at Sojourn have taken. If I was going to Southern, I'd definitely be going here.
3. Saints win three straight! With a win over the hated [at least by me] 49ers, the New Orleans Saints are one game out of first place in their division after an 0-4 start. Good times.
4. Josh and Tracy Mauldin. I stayed my last night with Josh and Tracy and we had a really good time with dinner [asian], dessert [pies], and many late-night laughs. The bed was also very nice, which was an unexpected surprise [foldouts aren't known for their comfort].

In the end, the LORD led me to be wise with what He's given me, and Southwestern was the wise choice for very many reasons. Thank you to all who have prayed.

InCarnation Instant Breakfast

2007-11-08T22:14:00.001-06:00

InCarnation Instant Breakfast is possibly the best title of a blog I've ever seen, and it's "the unofficial weblog for new types of missional communities in Canada." Anyone looking for the last frontier in missional church planting can find it blogged here.

Get on their site, give them some love.

No more Vox Church

2007-10-31T20:28:00.000-05:00

Over the last year or so, I have undergone one of the most painful and revealing times of my adult life. Our efforts to plant a church have proven only temporarily fruitful. We planted a church, but the church did not survive.

I guess this is what most church planters feel when their efforts do not produce a church that lasts longer than a few months or years. It's difficult to put into words, but one phrase that captures a lot of it is second guessing.

"Is there something wrong with me?"
"Did I really receive a call to plant this church?"
"Is this mostly my fault?"
"Is this what the 'minor' prophets felt like?"
"How in the world does this fit into God's plan?"

The list goes on and on. In fact, I'm thinking about writing a book filled with just the questions that are in my head at this given moment.

I'll leave you with what I wrote at the end of my last newsletter:

Two and a half years ago, two men and their families came to Lafayette with a dream and a calling for a church family. Through heartaches and jubilation, I have journeyed through the process of church planting with no church and fewer friends to show for it. I know the LORD has done great things in the lives of others and has transformed things that I cannot see, but it still seems like such a loss. Even in that "I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death." Even though Paul wrote this from prison and I'm far from that, this is one of the hardest things I have walked through. Thank you to all who have walked it with me. I am better because of you. The LORD is glorified because of you.

By the way, could one of you Photoshop-ers make me an image of a nice gravestone with "Vox Church RIP June 1, 2005 - May 9th, 2007" on it? I'd like to post it here, but don't have the means to make it.

UPDATE: Kent Caperton has come through for me. It's a little spooky, but I appreciate it, thanks bro.

My son is an artisitc prodigy

2007-10-14T15:03:00.000-05:00

OK, so I know a lot of people think their children are super-talented and super-smart, but when Jedidiah did this

and then said, "Hey Dad, come here, look I made a pig soooooie!" I was pretty amazed. Take a closer look:

And then compare it with the old Arkansas icon [still used in some logos]
Pretty cool.

And for those distrusting souls out there, this was not coaxed. I'm not even a fan of the Razorbacks, he saw the icon on a jersey his Uncle Nate gave him.

Next time you see Jed, ask him to draw a picture, you might get a surprise.

Man sues God, God responds

2007-10-08T13:50:00.001-05:00

So, a man sued God to "make a point" but I don't think he guessed God would respond. The man filed a "permanent injunction" against God, but I don't know if he thought through the ramifications of that.

CNN: 'God' responds to legislator's lawsuit

ht: Aaron Stewart

Changing it up

2007-10-07T20:15:00.000-05:00

I'm going for a different look with the blog, and I'm in transition for the time being. So, if there are broken links or things don't look right, just know I'm working on it. You can also drop me a line of encouragement or chiding, either will do. Since I got this template from Mexico, I'm thinking of keeping everything in Spanish for my bi-lingual friends..

By the way, I'm looking for some more sixed candidates, got any ideas? I've only done three so far, but I'm interested in doing more. Here's who I've sixed already.

BKing the fun

2007-10-06T12:33:00.000-05:00

Today it was just the boys for breakfast and Jed and I headed out to BK for some morning man time. Lately, Jed and I haven't gotten much time just by ourselves and we were both due.

Since Jed has an insatiable urge to do things by himself lately [he's such a firstborn], I asked him to carry our food all the way to our table, which he did without a hitch.

We began taking pictures of each other randomly and I have to admit Jed is quite the photographer for only being 3 years old. After his first shot of my face didn't pan out, Jed got it dead on with his second attempt.

The only problem was that I happened to have a drink straw nearing my nose when he got the shot right.

After downing a couple of croissanwiches [by the way, I don't know why Burger King did not win the Nobel for coming up with the name croissanwich; regardless of where you fall on the like/dislike continuum, croissanwiches are here to stay and BK gets all the cred for entering them into our vocabulary... and mouths], Jed and I decided to go outside and play on the playground.
There was only one problem: when we walked outside the only thing we could see was the plot of cement where a playground once lived.

At this point, Jed became sad [yes, this was staged].

But we eventually found some good times at a nearby car lot. We took jumping pictures.

Would you make it as an immigrant?

2007-10-02T10:14:00.000-05:00

"Officials have released updated questions that are part of the naturalization test required for immigrants to become citizens." And here's the 25-question quiz.

Quiz: How well do you know the United States?

I got two wrong [#4, #18] and I hang my head in shame... I wouldn't make it as an immigrant.

Let me know how you did. No cheating, I'm serious.

ht: Relevant Magazine

To Boston and Back - Day Two Afternoon

2007-09-19T13:39:00.000-05:00

With a niece being born and a brother-in-law getting married, the Caperton family is going to be hitting the road and the air for 13 days.

Well, I was wrong. I didn't get to check the wifi at O'Hare in Chicago, but the Philadephia airport has the same pay-as-you-go system. Why are airports so over-priced? This is so sad...

By 9pm today I will have traveled during 26 of the last 35 hours, all the way from Lafayette, LA, to Cape Cod, MA. Crazy, just crazy. I don't think I've ever traveled this much in one day. On top of all that traveling, it might not stop. If Kent and Jessica have their baby tonight, I'm driving from Cape Cod to Boston, MA, another hour on top of the craziness.

OK, enough whining, I've got food to eat and a flight to catch. By the way, the Philadelphia Airport [PHL] absolutely stinks. I think Lafayette Municipal Airport [LFT] looks much more inviting and professional. No wonder people are moving away from Philadelphia.

update: Kent and Jessica have had their baby... more coming soon.

To Boston and Back - Day Two Morning

2007-09-19T07:03:00.000-05:00

With a niece being born and a brother-in-law getting married, the Caperton family is going to be hitting the road and the air for 13 days.

I really didn't get a proper good-bye with Kristy or the kids. We were so dead walking in, unloading, and preparing to leave super-early tomorrow that I didn't even think "I won't see them for seven days and I won't get to tell them good-bye." Kristy's mom, Denise brought me to the airport this morning. What a blessing that was. I was dead when she woke me up, but I slept in my clothes, so all I had to do was grab breakfast and roll. Could not imagine driving after so little sleep and so much driving the day before.

I'm sitting in the Northwest Arkansas airport waiting for a long day of flying to begin. Check-in goes smooth and I have about 45 minutes until I actually get on the plane so I ask someone if the airport is wireless and they are. Score. All is well until I try to check my email and I get a page that asks me to pay $7.99 for an all-day pass. Seriously? I immediately begin to think that this is a small-town phenomenon and that Chicago, Philly, or Boston will not have such money-grabbing complications... the metropolitan people would not stand for it. We'll see.

To Boston and Back - Day One

2007-09-18T01:30:00.000-05:00

With a niece being born and a brother-in-law getting married, the Caperton family is going to be hitting the road and the air for 13 days.

The first leg is complete: a 12-hour drive in the Odyssey with the whole family. Kristy and I have a plan for times like this: I drive with the goal of getting there as fast as we can and she concentrates on taking care of the kids' needs. There's definitely overlap on each side, but that's pretty much how it goes. She does an incredible job of getting everything laid out for them: snacks, movies, pillows, etc. all ready to go when we need them. She does a great job at this.

Kristy and I did a lot of praying on this trip. It's just so easy to lose your cool in a confined space where kids screams seem like they're going to cause your ears to spontaneously combust. We knew we needed God to keep things calm.

Time for bed, more traveling later.

So, I'm an M & M now...

2007-07-11T16:35:00.001-05:00

Here's what I look like as an M & M. You can do it, too. Fun times. Thanks to Beth for the inspiration.

My Brother...

2007-07-06T14:14:00.001-05:00

My brother, Kent, is one of the dearest friends I have. I mean, he's family, but he's also a friend, and I count that a great privilege.

Most of you know what's been going on with Kent and Jessica and their baby coming in September. They've set up a blog with more information about their baby daughter, Julianne. If you don't know the whole story, just start from the beginning and work you way up.

Alcohol: Should Believers Drink?

2007-06-25T21:29:00.000-05:00

I just get tired of having the same conversations over and over, especially about alcohol consumption:

Person: "Christians who drink are a bad witness to the world."
Drew: "The only people who think drinking is a sin are Christians."
P: "So."
D: "A Christian's witness is to the world, not other Christians."
P: "What about the weaker brother? I don't want to cause them to stumble."
D: "True, but you eventually want them to mature, right?"
P: "Yeah."
D: "So the plan to help them mature is to teach them not to drink, too?"
P: (confused silence)

So, I've outlined some Scripture, made some observations, and set a plan of action. Please let your silently confused friends read this.

Alcohol: Should Believers Drink?

Please download the .pdf of this essay for better formatting and an easier read.

In any discussion about how God interacts with us [what we call theology], two givens immediately arise.
#1. The Bible is the authoritative breath of God. Everything else is subject to what Scripture says. It stands over church history, denominational resolutions, and papal law among many other things.
#2 God wants us to have a clear understanding of how to deal with alcohol, not linger in ambiguity and confusion. This understanding will line up with God's character and will. If there is disagreement in those two areas, reading the rest of this is pointless.

All verses used are English Standard Version, except where noted otherwise.

I. THE BIBLE AND ALCOHOL USE
1. Abusing alcohol is sin. [Pro 20:1; Pro 23:20; Rom 13:13; Eph 5:18]
- Alcohol abuse impairs judgment and causes damage, addiction, and death.
- When we allow ourselves to be controlled by anything but the Spirit, it is sin.
- Alcohol abuse can be linked to scores of divorces, broken relationships, and lost lives.
2. Consuming alcohol is not sin, but is actually partaking in a celebratory gift from God.
- Israel used wine in many capacities, including blessings and holy offerings.
- Melchizedek blesses Abram with wine. [Gen 14:18]
- Wine was used as a drink offering to the Lord. [Lev 23:13]
- Feasting and drinking wine was considered a tithe to the Lord. [Deu 14:24-26]
- God gives us wine to gladden the heart. [Ps 104:14-15]
- Jesus said that what comes out of our mouths will defile us, not what goes in. [Mat 15:17-20]
- Jesus seemed to drink wine*. [Mat 11:18-19; Luk 7:33-34]
*While specific incidents are not recorded, he was accused many times of being a drunkard. He also
contrasted himself with John the Baptist who fasted and didn't drink alcohol.
3. In wisdom, there are times and places believers should not consume alcohol.
- If we have a young believer under our care who is confused about alcohol. [1 Cor 8:7-13]
- If we have a young believer under our care who struggles with alcoholism.
- If others at our table have vowed to God to abstain from alcohol.
- Overall, we are commanded to use our freedom to lovingly serve one another. [Gal 5:13]
4. We do not take what seems wise to us and make a law for others to follow.
- Every believer is given the Holy Spirit to guide and teach and lead in all aspects. [Jn 16:5-15]
- The Pharisees made more laws so others would follow God's Law better, this leads to death. [Mat 15:1-6]
- Sometimes what seems wise to us is something that leads to death. [Pro 14:12]
5. God sometimes commanded people not to consume alcohol.
- Samson and John the Baptist were commanded to totally abstain from alcohol. [Jdg 13:7; Luk 1:15]
- Similar to fasting, abstaining from alcohol has to do with obedience, not because alcohol is evil.

II. COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS
1. "Drinking alcohol is a bad witness to the world."
- Those who erroneously think consuming alcohol is sin are believers, not "the world".
- Believers should give up rights to win souls, not to fit in other believers' idea of spirituality. [1 Cor 9:19-23]
- Believers who think they should avoid "all appearance of evil" are not in line with Scripture.*
*The King James Version's poor translation of "all appearance of evil" is actually "every kind of evil".
2. "Abstaining from alcohol is necessary for the 'weaker brother'."
- If our consuming alcohol misleads a young believer under our care, we should abstain, but not forever.
- Eventually, we must teach them how alcohol is truly a gift from God to be enjoyed [see pt III, 2-4].
3. "Abstaining from alcohol is my way of being set apart from the world [what the Bible calls 'holy'] ."
- Our holiness is declared by God [Lev 11:45], we do not "set ourselves apart" more than God already has.
- Our command to "be holy as {God is} holy" is obeyed when we act out of the holiness God gives to us.
- Tying to "set ourselves apart" is sinfully trying to attain more "holiness", which is folly.
4. "Drinking alcohol is too risky, so believers need to abstain from it completely."
- Consuming alcohol can be risky for some, it is still an issue of wisdom and specific conviction.
- And as stated above [see pt I, 4], making new laws from what seems wise is not the way of Christ.
5. "Wine in Biblical times had less alcohol than today so we treat it differently."
- The content of alcohol doesn't matter because people in Biblical times were still getting drunk.
- Debating the exact nature of first-century wine [i.e. water to alcohol ratios] is unnecessary.
- The sin is drunkenness, no matter how much wine it took.
6. "Those in Christian leadership need to stay away from it to be above reproach."
- First, being "above reproach" is the same having a "bad witness," but in a different from.
- Second, leaders are reproached according to God's heart in the Bible, not extra-Biblical rules. [Titus 1:5-9]
- Third, the Biblical mandate to leaders is to set an example for others to actually follow [1 Tm 4:12].
- Standards don't apply to leaders only, but to the whole church to live the same way.
- This suggestion warrants a hierarchy with "better" believers in leadership, "lesser" ones out.

III. HOW BELIEVERS SHOULD HANDLE ALCOHOL
1. Believers must never become drunk.
- We are free in Christ, but no one is free to sin.
- Our freedom is to serve Christ freely. [Rom 6:15-23]
2. Believers must walk in the freedom to obey God regarding alcohol consumption.
- Learning how to consume alcohol in moderation is every believer's free choice.
- Every believer has God's Spirit and must learn to rely on Him concerning this free choice.
- Teaching abstinence as a rule only attempts to strip believers of this freedom to choose.
- Teaching abstinence as a rule only attempts to usurp the Spirit's power to help us follow Him.
- For each of us, God has something for us to see in how we should handle alcohol.
- For some, abstinence is obedience to God.
- For others, moderation is obedience to God.
3. Believers must enjoy alcohol to the glory of God. [1 Cor 10:31]
- Our command moves beyond "not getting drunk" to learning to use alcohol as a tool for God's glory.
- This includes building others up, being thankful, and aiding in saving souls. [1 Cor 10:23-33]
4. Believers must occasionally consider young believers in their care.
- As stated above [pt I, 3], believers use their freedom in loving service to others.
- At the same time, we do not live by other people's standards, but in obedience to Christ. [1 Cor 10:29]

IV. ALCOHOL AND THE GOSPEL
1. Abusing alcohol is sin, making it an issue of the heart.
- Abusing alcohol is taking God's gift and disobeying Him with it; this is sin.
- We sin when we put our sinful desires above God's righteous desires, and sin leads to death. [Jam 1:14-15]
- Our hearts cannot produce God's righteous desires on their own; our hearts are enslaved to sin. [Jhn 8:34]
- Trying to "fix" alcohol abuse any other way than dealing with the heart is folly. [Scrip]
2. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to give people new hearts.
- God, in His grace, offers us a relationship with Him by offering us new hearts. [Jer 31:31-34]
- When we turn from sin, this new heart is born within us, and we are made new. [Jhn 3:2-15; 2 Cor 5:16-19]
- Only this new heart is free to please God by walking in obedience.
3. Ultimately, a new heart is the cure for alcohol abuse.
- People who abuse alcohol are enslaved to it, and need to be set free.
- A new heart would set them free to deal with alcohol in obedience, whether moderation or abstinence.

V. ALCOHOL AND THE CHURCH
1. The Church must encourage each other to rely on the Spirit, not prescribe new laws.
- Jesus lived out and taught a life dependant on the Spirit and obedient to the Scriptures.
- We can trust the Spirit to bring about repentance and obedience in people's lives.
- In this trust, we can resist the temptation to control behavior through coercion and/or intimidation.
2. The Church must model how to deal with alcohol in a way that proclaims the Gospel.
- If we follow through on a decision about alcohol, but not in obedience to the Spirit, we have failed.
- If we freely obey the Spirit, but don't give credit to God for freeing them, we have failed.
- As in all things, believers walk in Christ's redemptive power in the Gospel, bearing witness to all. [Scrip]
3. The Church must teach each other how to use alcohol for God's glory.
- For most churches this begins with developing a culture that openly discusses alcohol.
- For everyone this begins with finding new ways of using alcohol for God's glory.
- As leadership sets an example, they would need to step out first, and then teach from that.

APPENDIX
"Akin on Alcohol" by Joe Thorn - http://www.joethorn.net/2006/07/01/akin-on-alcohol/
"Alcohol, Abstention, and Redemption" by Steve McKoy - http://www.stevekmccoy.com/reformissionary/2005/09/alcohol_abstent.html

A Catholic and a Baptist Walk into a Church...

2007-06-22T16:33:00.000-05:00

I'm thinking of writing treatises concerning serious issues within the Church and Culture, primarily within the local area of Lafayette. My hope is to shed light on recurring problems that continually plague most people [both believers and unbelievers]. Here's a working list:

The Gospel of Jesus Christ: Freedom, not Behavior Modification
Alcohol: Moderation, the Spirit, and Our Permission
Evangelism: Fishing with Nets, not Poles
The Church: How People Gather
Speaking in Tongues: Abuse and Freedom
Catholicism and the Gospel

I would like everyone to weigh in with comments, suggestions, and other snide remarks.

Books for the pastor?

2007-05-23T16:36:00.000-05:00

During this replanting phase of Vox Church, I'm making out a list of books I'd really like to read over the next three months. I'm wondering if any of you guys have any of these books [and if I could borrow them]:

Church Planting: Laying Foundations by Stuart Murray
Simply Christian by N. T. Wright
Overcoming Sin and Temptation by John Owen
Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? by Philip Yancy
The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards: A Reader
The Careless Society by John McKnight
Leading With a Limp by Dan Allender
The Emotionally Healthy Church by Peter Scazzero and Warren Bird
The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard and Richard Foster

Let me know if you guys can let me borrow some of these. Also, if you want to suggest some reading, you can.

So, what's up with Vox?

2007-05-20T20:50:00.001-05:00

I've gotten this question a lot lately. Naturally, I'm going to use my all-but-dead blog to relay the important details of some big decisions that have gone down with our Vox Church.

After a few months of stuff just not working**, I laid it out before God and asked Him to help make sense of what was going on with the church. He let me know that I needed to step back from the situation and cancel all that was going on.

So the quick story is that Vox Church in its current form has been shut down. We're not doing anything organizationally as a church.

The long [and more confusing] story is that I'm still a church planter and that Vox Church will be replanted sooner or later.

This situation has brought about some necessary questions:

#1 - What are you doing for money? There is not complete answer to this one yet. I'm still continuing to raise support for the church [and thus, me and my family] and being funded in part by the Southern Baptist Convention as a church-planting missionary. We're at about 60-65% support right now.

#2 - How long will it be until things start up again? I'm still not sure. To immediately try and jump back in and start something else feels a little forced. So, as hippie as it sounds, I'm waiting until it "feels right" with the Spirit. It seems like the first thing we'll do is start a home Bible study somewhere and grow it from there.

#3 - What are the people of Vox Church going to do? Well, everyone will do something different I suppose. The Capertons are going to be settling in at East Bayou Baptist Church for a while, as they are our "sponsoring church" within the SBC stuff, but we'll probably be all over.

#4 - How are you doing? I'm in pain. It deeply hurt to do this, and I'm dealing with feeling like a failure. I've shed some tears over this privately and have confided in people that I trust and respect. I know I need to grieve this thing, and I'm doing that. I've even thought about taking advantage of some free counseling.

If I missed an obvious question, let me know and I'll edit the post. Thank you for reading.

** If you want the details of why stuff was not working, call me or email me.

Land of Broken Hearts

2007-03-08T20:25:00.000-06:00

To the peeps at Land of Broken Hearts, a very cool Switchfoot fan site, thanks for sharing my Switchfoot musical series with your readers. Two more are coming soon, I promise.

Switchfoot musical - fourth movement

2007-03-03T14:44:00.000-06:00

I've determined that my life is a Switchfoot musical. It sounds completely insane, but every time a new Switchfoot album comes out, it's very reflective of things that I am going through at the time. These are the various movements of my life through their six albums...

The Beautiful Letdown
release date: 2/8/2003
when I discovered it: 2/7/2003

This was the first Switchfoot album I get as a pre-released because I was anticipating it so much. Since it came in the mail, Kristy got to it first and she had the first song playing right when I walked in the door. After a moment or two to realize what was going on, I laid down on the floor right there and listened to the entire album while looking at the lyrics.

"fumbling his confidence and wondering why the world has passed him by... hoping that he's meant for more than arguments and failed attempts to fly" -Meant To Live

Fighting with laziness has been a recurring theme in my life. Before this time in my life, my laziness really didn't affect anyone but myself, and that worked just fine for me. This season served as a turning point for me when I became a lot less lazy, mainly because I had a lot more riding on my actions than before.

"we are a beautiful letdown, painfully uncool, the church of the drop-outs, the losers, the sinners, the failures, and the fools ... oh what a beautiful letdown, are we salt in the wound? Hey, let us sing one true tune" - Beautiful Letdown

2004 was a year of dismantling for me. Upon the birth of my first child, Jed, I found a new freedom to critique what I adhered to. I took apart many things to see what was inside of them, including the Church, myself, family, the whole bit. This quote gave me such hope, knowing that "easy living" wasn't the end goal and that God used letdowns all the time was life to my bruised soul. This quote still gives me hope. 2004 was the year I began thinking about the church God wants. It wasn't until a couple of years later that I ventured out and started something. When I lose my way on this journey, I can hope that Vox Church is a beautiful letdown, striving to sing one true tune.

"twenty-four finds me in twenty-fourth place ... twenty-four voices with twenty-four hearts, and all of my symphonies in twenty-four parts, but I want to be one today ... and I'm not who I thought I was twenty-four hours ago, still I'm singing, 'Spirit, take me up in arms with You.'" - Twenty-Four

The feeling of being unwanted goes with the territory of leaving an establishment. It's painful and feels somewhat like betrayal - not for the faint of heart. Although I didn't technically leave the Grove until March of 2005, the separation had already started in my heart, and this song was my dirge, my farewell speech, and my heart's cry all in one. So much change happens so fast when you're in that kind of transition. Most times, it was all I could do to say, "Spirit, take me up in arms with You" and not lose myself in the madness.

"I have no generation, show me my motivation, one world, one desperation, one hope and one salvation... we've been blowing up, we're the issue... we're ammunition, we are the fuse and the ammunition." - Ammunition

Social commentary is one of the strong suits of Switchfoot lyricist Jon Foreman. I believe he nails our Western culture in this song. I began to see some of the same things, even among the Christian culture, that did not stand in line with Jesus' teaching. I saw so much of our [my] own problems stemmed from sacrifices I was unwilling to make and stand I was unwilling to take.

"yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead, yesterday is a promise that you've broken, don't close your eyes, don't close your eyes... this is your life, are you who you want to be?... is it everything you'd dreamed that it would be when you were younger and you had everything to lose?" - This Is Your Life

Upon hearing this song, I made a promise to myself that I always wanted to answer this question, with all honesty and integrity, with "Yes, this is my life and I am who I want to be." Growing up without a mentor / hero usually made it hard for me to stand on my own. So approaching my life with confidence wasn't my norm. 2004 was the year I grew a backbone and began standing for what I believed, even if I was the only one. It's still scary, but I'm so glad God matured me in this way.

Ten O'Clock Rant

2007-02-28T22:23:00.001-06:00

As I get older, I'm beginning to feel more overwhelmed every day by the widening gap between what I am able to do and what I want to be able to do. I just don't have enough time. Maybe it's my life stage [I'm 29, a young father, a church planter, and insane], maybe it's because I had a strange day, but in any case I'm feeling a little incapable tonight and I wanted to put it out there.

Sometimes I get so disillusioned, I wonder what I've gotten myself into with my life. Like I'm always going to be a little too small for my britches, a little too unfit for what I have or a position I hold. Maybe this has everything to do with Dad not being there or Mom starting over when I was 10. Maybe this really is just me, and I'll never get over it, which would be the worst possible fate.

On top of everything else, I'm feeling the need to not say these things out loud. I simply cannot tell anyone how I'm feeling inside because how I'm feeling about something greatly affects the brittle future of whatever I'm thinking about. I might regret this tomorrow. This might be unfitting for a pastor to publish, but that is exactly my problem.

I'll just have to live with those consequences, because it's 10:23 and I'm exhausted. More Switchfoot muscial posts to come.

Like, you know, it's Taylor Mali

2007-02-28T22:04:00.000-06:00

Ran across this video on Joe Thorn's blog. A guy named Taylor Mali does some excellent cultural exegesis on the art of speaking without conviction. It's, like, funny or whatever, you know?

Switchfoot musical - third movement

2007-02-18T17:55:00.000-06:00

I've determined that my life is a Switchfoot musical. It sounds completely insane, but every time a new Switchfoot album comes out, it's very reflective of things that I am going through at the time. These are the various movements of my life through their six albums...

The Legend of Chin
release date: 06/17/1997
when I discovered it: early 2002

Even though this was their first album, I didn't dig into until later. Underwater was the very first song I'd ever heard by Switchfoot, but I didn't realize it was them until much later. My first impression of this song [and of Switchfoot] was that their lead singer sounded like Kermit the Frog. Funny.

"nothing but a chemical in my head, nothing but laziness, 'cause I don't wanna read the book, I'll watch the movie, 'cause it's not me, I'm just like everybody else my age" - Chem 6a

"I can see the stars from way down here, but I can't fall asleep behind the wheel... it's a long way from the shadows in my cave, up to Your reality to watch the sunlight taking over" - Home

I always pictured this part of the song, coming from a cave and being engulfed by the sunlight rising. During this time in my life, so many things changed: Jed was born, I switched jobs, Kristy and I considered buying a house in Fayetteville, I started blogging, and I was exposed to the emerging church for the first time. I had many moments where I was having trouble figuring out who I was in this new life that was growing in and around me.

"take away from me, this monstrosity, 'cause my futile thinking's not gonna solve nothing tonight ... ask me for what am I living, or what gives me strength that I'm willing to die for" - Life And Love And Why

I overthink many things, and that's usually followed by overtalking many things. This is a great reminder to me that Jesus is a person who loves me, and not a concept to be thought through and expounded upon. To me, "life and love and why" seems to sum up so much of what I think about. That's why I put it at the top of my blog.

"I pray to be found... grow, grow where you are, anchor your roots underneath, doubt your doubts, and believe your beliefs" - Ode To Chin

I don't know who Chin is, but it seems like Switchfoot lost a bet and had to name their debut album after him.. and include an ode to him in the song list. The simplicity and direct nature of the chorus always struck me as perfectly sound reasoning, and that was at a high premium during the winter of 2003 when my life turned upside down.

Switchfoot musical - second movement

2007-02-15T21:34:00.000-06:00

I've determined that my life is a Switchfoot musical. It sounds completely insane, but every time a new Switchfoot album comes out, it's very reflective of things that I am going through at the time. These are the various movements of my life through their six albums...

Learning To Breathe
release date: 09/26/2000
when I discovered it: October 2000

When I worked for East Bayou, this album was played underneath a slide-show that the youth put together as I was leaving. This was a time of great transition for me, both in life and in vocation.

"welcome to the fallout, welcome to resistance, the tension is here... between who we are and who we should be, between how it is and how it could be" - I Dare You To Move

I got married two months after this CD came out. And like any newlywed couple, we had our moments of tension between expectations and reality. And like any newlywed couple, making the first move toward reconciliation makes a good groove in a young marriage.

"in the economy of mercy, I am a poor and begging man, your currency of grace is where my soul begins... where was I when the world was made? I'm lost without you here... you know my name when the world was made" - Economy Of Mercy

As I was trying to understand my place in the world, this song helped to shape my worldview: God is first and foremost among anything I could ever conquer or deliver. For a guy who battled to stay humble, this was a good reminder. These words are ingrained in me to this day.

"is this fiction? is this fiction? Hope has given himself to the worst, is this fiction, or divine comedy, where the last of the last finish first?" - Living Is Simple

This album was a downer of sorts. There weren't that many songs on it that just grabbed me like the previous album, and it would be three years until they released another album. During this time, living was hard and I had a lot of growing up to do.

"oh, Erosion, would you wash away my sin? oh Erosion, I need a second start again, oh Erosion, would you break my heart again? oh Erosion, I am a broken-hearted man" - Erosion

Throughout my engagement and early part of my marriage, I struggled with pornography. There were many times where I was calling to Erosion to wear me down and break the calcified sin around me.

Switchfoot musical - first movement

2007-02-14T22:01:00.000-06:00

I've determined that my life is a Switchfoot musical. It sounds completely insane, but every time a new Switchfoot album comes out, it's very reflective of things that I am going through at the time. These are the various movements of my life through their six albums...

New Way To Be Human
release date: March 23, 1999
when I discovered it: Summer 1999

As I was a summer missionary in Deer Trail, CO, I picked up a random CD sampler disc called "Simply Excellent" that had "New Way To Be Human" as its first song, and the rest is history.

"under the floor, between me and the door, there's a presence I cannot deny... and I'm certain that He's near me, He listens even as I sing my song..." - Under The Floor

My life was consumed with major choices: graduating college, getting engaged, moving out, getting a promotion. I can vividly remember understanding that God was near me in a significant way, protecting me and guiding me with amazing clarity.

"sooner or later, you'll find out there's a hole in the wall, sooner or later, you'll find out that you'll dream to be that small... I gave it all away and I've lost who I am, I threw it all away with everything to gain and I'm taking a leap with dreams of shrinking..." - Sooner Or Later

I began actively rejecting other people's plans for my life, even the American Dream as I knew it. This song, along with Company Car became my anthems for this period of my life.

"it's my birthday tomorrow, no one here could know, I was born this Thursday, 22 years ago, and I feel stuck watching history repeating, yeah, who am I? just a kid who knows he's needy..." - Let That Be Enough

I also turned 22 in the Fall of 1999... on a Thursday no less. And at many points during that Fall and Winter, as I struggled to leave behind the ghosts of my past, I often felt stuck watching my mistakes on repeat.

"with all of our fashions, we're still incomplete, oh God of redemption, come break our routine... redemption begins with a new way to be human" - New Way To Be Human

Healing and redemption were major themes for me during this time. I had a major breakthrough in my walk with Jesus, and these lines rang with my victorious days.

Triple X Church

2007-02-07T10:35:00.003-06:00

If you struggle with porn, this is the place to go. It sounds scary, but it's honestly one of the best ministries out there at truly helping people with porn addictions.

Quick Hits: [from their site]
+ Technically a ministry and not a church, but they are starting one.
+ Began in 2002 with Craig Gross.
+ Give away free anti-porn software called X3Watch.
+ They attend porn conventions and give people Bibles that say "Jesus loves porn stars."
+ They have many programs/companies to accomplish their goals: Porn Sunday and Difted are good examples.
+ They educate society at large about the dangers and exploitation of women involved in pornography. [see the video below]
.

surgery... on my face

2007-02-01T21:59:00.000-06:00

For those not in the know concerning my strange facial infection, this update is for you.

Here's the short history: I got my wisdom teeth pulled on November 10th, and everything went fine. I began to have some swelling on the left side of my face just underneath my jawline. Eventually I saw a specialist and he recommended out-patient surgery to remove whatever was infecting my face.

So, today the surgery results are so-so. They drained the infection, but didn't see anything that was causing it directly. They're sending some of the fluid collected [from my face!] to a lab to see what the big deal is. For right now, they're going to wait and see if the swelling comes back. I'll keep this blog posted [get it?] to let everybody know.

In the mean time, please pray for this infection to go away and my swelling to go down.

In other news, Kristy is now beginning to have tooth problems. Did I mention that we needed prayer?

Steve Horn and Sean Payton

2007-01-31T23:32:00.000-06:00

Have you ever noticed how much Steve Horn, senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Lafayette [shown in the picture above] looks eerily similar to Sean Payton, head coach of the New Orleans Saints [shown below]?

All I'm saying is that it's a little scary. I mentioned this in passing to FBC of Lafayette's Minister of Music and he said, "Yeah, Steve gets that all the time." Classic.

What Vox Church is about

2007-01-30T00:02:00.000-06:00

Five Streams of the Emerging Church by Scot McKnight

In my brief time leading an emerging-missional church, I have come across many stereotypes, both of me and my church. I have also come across some sabotage from other believers [and some pastors] in the form of slander and false gossip. I need to address this issue, but sometimes the rumors spread faster than anyone can cover.

For all those interested or mistaken or lied to about what exactly the emerging church movement is, please take a few moments and read this article. It is scholarly [in a good way] and respectful in its approach and dead on with its content.

Besides dispelling rumors, I also found it very helpful in explaining to my father that I'm a Christian, but not like many of the ones he sees on TV. Thank you, Scot.

How old are you?!

2007-01-26T20:45:00.000-06:00

So, lately I've had so many people asking me how old I am. My usual range of guesses are between 19 and 23, which makes this 29-year-old very happy. What really makes them freak out is when I tell them I've been married for six years and have three kids.

So, anyone else out there get guessed for the wrong age? If so, what?

time moves quick: [re] thinking part four

2007-01-24T22:53:00.001-06:00

So, I've been quiet lately. "Lately" meaning a couple of months. I've been quiet on the blog and quiet with those closest to me. I've been processing a whole lot, and I'm almost ready to open up again. Here's a sample of what I've been [re] thinking:

[number four] - time moves quick.

Maybe this is one that most people go through as they move into adulthood, and especially into parenthood, but my life is really moving faster than I thought it could.

For a positive spin on it, it's helped me get things done a lot faster. I feel it deep inside that my time on earth is fleeting, and with almost every act, I feel time slipping away that much quicker.

There's a line in Switchfoot's "Burn Out Bright" off of their latest release Oh! Gravity. It says

If we've only got one try
If we've only got one life
If time was never on our side
Then before I die
I want to burn out bright

Listening to that song brought some clarity to the fact that the thought of having all the time in the world is a complete myth. And I'm not sure if I've ever been convinced of this until now.

So, I'll spare everyone the "do everything you've ever wanted to do right now!" speech, because I don't believe it either. But I will say that hitting my late 20's / early 30's has proved to be a huge kick in the ass, and I'm a better man for it.

leading identity: [re] thinking part three

2007-01-23T09:00:00.000-06:00

So, I've been quiet lately. "Lately" meaning a couple of months. I've been quiet on the blog and quiet with those closest to me. I've been processing a whole lot, and I'm almost ready to open up again. Here's a sample of what I've been [re] thinking:

[number three] - leading over teaching.

I ran into this thought as I was having a discussion with someone I would consider a gifted teacher. As he spoke of learning and teaching others and reading and mastering information, I understood clearly that this isn't my passion at all. In fact, I find excessive research boring.

I think this might be why some people who plant churches get out of the church after a couple of years and do something else- they want to lead out, not sit and teach. What teachers do for the gospel is incredible, but appreciating something and having a calling are different things.

SIDE NOTE: Dallas and I had a conversation once where he asked me if I could stick around for the long haul with Vox Church. I said that I could, and I still believe that. There's going to continue to be so much more to create as we move forward together with the gospel. With that said, the longest I've stayed with any ministry is a little over 2 years [and I've done that twice], and that makes me think very carefully about the future I contemplate.

Leading is always going to be my strongest asset. It always has, even when I've tried to make it other things. The scariest part about it all now is owning up to it. If I'm a teacher and have no one to teach to, I can blame that on someone else. If I'm a leader and have no one to lead, I just suck as a leader.

My resolution is to lead well, and now, at the beginning of the journey toward becoming a good leader, I've realized that I have so much to learn and so many issues to work on. I'm really a mess of a leader, and it's a daunting task, but I'm undeterred. If you think of me today, please pray that God would continue to grow me into a good leader.

sobering lives: [re] thinking part two

2007-01-20T21:50:00.000-06:00

So, I've been quiet lately. "Lately" meaning a couple of months. I've been quiet on the blog and quiet with those closest to me. I've been processing a whole lot, and I'm almost ready to open up again. Here's a sample of what I've been [re] thinking:

[number two] - people's lives are sobering.

Planting a church has been more relationally disappointing than I thought. Building relationships hasn't been hard, it's keeping them honest and open that has been tougher than I anticipated.

These past few months, I've seen everything from people missing meetings [minor] to friends lying straight to my face [whoa]. I'm not shocked that it has happened, but that I didn't think it would happen this much. I've also witnessed the effects of fear and disillusionment on people's lives and it's just plain hard to deal with. So much so that I couldn't even figure out how to talk about it, much less blog about it.

It's brought out a new honesty in me. Where I had been tentative before, I'm much more willing to call out something that seems off or wrong, both in others and in myself [hence this particular series of posts].

It's also brought out a sobriety in me concerning life. I may have been intellectually aware that people were sinful and the effects of that can be gruesome, but I didn't really acknowledge that in my everyday interactions with people. Much like drunk people can sometimes not be aware of what's going on around them, so I was not really sober to the fact that people really can be ugly, me included.

the darkness: [re] thinking part one

2007-01-10T21:31:00.000-06:00

So, I've been quiet lately. "Lately" meaning a couple of months. I've been quiet on the blog and quiet with those closest to me. I've been processing a whole lot, and I'm almost ready to open up again. Here's a sample of what I've been [re] thinking:

[number one] - life weighs heavy.

I've have always thought of myself as extremely optimistic: always looking at the bright side even if it meant ignoring the darkness. In that way it was a weakness for me, and I could believe falsely that life really was light and I could keep my mind worry-free.

I would often not face the ugly darkness, but the darkness has a way of sticking around. A while back, I quit ignoring the darkness and began dancing with it. What I've found is that the darkness, even though it's scary, brings impactful points of reality to bear. Dancing with the darkness has brought me to a place of comfort in pain and struggle, both others' and my own.

But the darkness has done something to me that I didn't expect, I'm even more hopeful than I was before, but the hope is different. Previously my hope wasn't full, it didn't deal with the darkness and couldn't speak to it. Now my hope takes more into account and speaks directly into darkness.

Pain doesn't scare me like it used to. The problems of others don't weigh me down because I've gone through some gut-wrenching things myself. I can identify with their pain and struggle and know that God sees it too, and know that the gospel speaks directly into it.

And the gospel is hopeful. Even in the face of this heavy life, Jesus is hopeful. As we grow into His likeness we become more hopeful. Not a blind, blissful hope, but a real one with all the ugliness of life and love and why.

So, I'm Quitting [finally]

2006-10-10T13:46:00.000-05:00

The short version: I'm leaving Big Brothers Big Sisters of Acadiana in exactly 21 days and will begin working full-time as a servant to Vox Church! Woo hoo!

The long version: About five weeks ago, God began sounding the alarm inside my soul that it might be time to quit. I'd had these feelings come up before and my first instainct was to ignore it.
Later that week, I'm still thinking about it and decide to talk about it with Kristy. While explaining to her what was going on inside of me [Kristy is a patient and gracious woman], it became evidently clear that I needed to treat this like something God might actually be calling me to do.
That weekend, during a time of prayerful meditation and pouring my heart out to God over this, I got the green light. I knew it as fact, God was calling me to do this. So, I put in my three weeks' notice yesterday and am working until November. More is happening with this, but details are still making their way to fullness.

I'm very excited about this change and the new season that's quickly approaching for our church. Please pray with me for Kingdom-building and Jesus-restoration to happen in Vox and through Vox for many decades to come.

One History of the Emerging Church

2006-10-03T11:39:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the Tall Skinny Kiwi [Andrew Jones] for putting this together. This first installmentgoes all the way through the 80's.

Even if you're not into the Emerging Church per se, it's still a great read and full of adventure. I hope to be telling stories like these one day.

TSK's My History of the Emerging Church. Part One

Highlights:

"In 1985 I sold my car and bought a one way ticket to Europe..."

"Some of the electricians were interested in learning about God so once a week, after work, we gathered and studied the Bible. They all cracked open a can of beer and the event got stuck with the unfortunate name of 'Beer and Bible'."

"...when i was overseas on a trip, the elders decided to pull the plug on the 'contemporary service'. That was the last time I tried to start a 'church within a church' structure."

Who Dat?

2006-09-25T16:53:00.000-05:00

So, tonight the Saints are on Monday Night Football, and it's a national story. I'm extremely excited about tonight's game, and believe it or not, this will be the first time I've watched the Saints all season long. For one reason or another, I haven't been able to watch them play so far, but I will tonight.

This game is going to be huge [just ask U2 or Green Day], and on top of everything else, we're playing the Dirty Birds. I have hated many teams and players as a Saints fan, and the Falcons and Michael Vick come in at about #2, so this game will be especially emotional for me.

If anyone wants to join me, I'm going to go somewhere to watch the game, even if it's with strangers. Just call me on my cell... and if you don't have my cell, email me. If you can't figure out how to email me, turn in your license to own a computer.

Fine Photography

2006-09-21T09:03:00.000-05:00

In case anyone is reading this and is in the middle of planning a wedding, head on over to the website of Jason Cohen. He is an experienced photographer, takes his work seriously, and doesn't over-charge [which is a very hard combination to find]. He specializes in weddings and portraits. Here's a sample of both:

Just in case you're wondering, he didn't ask me to do this, I just discovered his blog and he's that good.

Highlights from his website - a great wedding - an innovative groomsmen shot - his blog - a good non-portrait wedding shot

On "fishing"

2006-09-21T08:25:00.000-05:00

There is a well-known metaphor in the Bible that Jesus used to describe the nature of ushering people into the kingdom. As he called the first disciples, He told them that He'd make them "fishers of men." This is a terrific metaphor that Jesus used, but all to often I hear it used in ways that Jesus never meant.

Fishing is something that everyone knows about. First, you bait your hook, then you stick it in the water, then you waited for a fish to bite on the bait, and then you reel them in. This is a very accurate description of fishing... for the twentieth century.

During Jesus' lifetime as a human, fishing looked entirely different. No poles, no bait, no hooks. First, you got a net [and probably some friends to help because nets were pretty large], then you throw the net over one side of the boat, then you drag the net and lift it into the boat, and when the boat's full, you row ashore to separate between good fish and the rest of it.

To speak of evangelism as tempting a person [singular] to grab something that's harmful to them is not accurate at all. To speak of evangelism as a communal experience where people [plural] are gathered up into a web looks a lot more like the fishing Jesus was talking about when he said, "I will make you fishers of men."

Thanks to Michael Frost for illuminating the first-centurty fishing experience and contrasting it with the twentieth-century one.

Evangelism That Works

2006-09-18T21:19:00.001-05:00

My clothes still smell like his tears. It was an amazing evening, and my friend will never be the same. At 6:55pm CST, Bill became a believer, and I had the chance to be a part of that. What God started long before I knew Bill, God was calling him; stirring his heart.

And I don't say any of this to brag. I'm completely humbled by the entire experience. But I did want to put this revelation into writing for everyone to see.

About two years ago, I quit trying to evangelize people by manipulating conversation and using all these strategies I'd learned through the years. God began working in my heart, letting me know that I was sent here to love people and respond to what God was doing in their lives already. I learned to be patient- that it wasn't up to me- all I had to do was make myself available to those who did not believe and listen. As I got to know people, God grew a love for them inside of me. I would think of them in the middle of the day and pray for them. In conversation, I would listen intently to their hurts and needs, and I would care about them. God took me and changed me... as He was changing people around me.

This is the second person I've seen born into the Kingdom in two years. Amazing.

You think I'm CRAY-ZAY!

2006-09-13T09:50:00.000-05:00

OK, here's a little peek inside my head:

Ever since I was a kid, I have these little moments where every thought that I processed was being screamed inside my head. And not screamed in violence, just screamed loudly.

I know, I know, it's insane. And it's not like the screams make me nervous or anxious at all. In fact, I find that I'm usually extremely focused during those times.

They've only happened a handful of times in my life, but it's happening today [after 11 hours of driving through the night followed by 3 hours of sleep] and it made me remember all the other times it's happened.

Weird.

Strategery...

2006-09-12T10:31:00.000-05:00

When I was younger, I took every personality and assessment test known to man. It was almost to the point of obsession, and after a few years, I thought I had myself [and everyone around me] pegged. Whether it was the DiSC Profile [High ID], Uniquely You [Encouragement, Prophecy, Teaching] or Myers-Briggs [ENFP], I was completely over-fascinated with knowing myself during the teenage and early college years.

As I entered adulthood, I took a new kind of assessment: the Strengthsfinder. It threw me for a loop because of one word: Strategic.

Without getting into how it all works, your assessment results from the Strengthsfinder come back in five words: each used to describe how you specifically are strong. Mine [with a brief explanation] are:

Ideation [I can see simple themes through complex structures]
Woo [I can make connections with complete strangers quickly and easily]
Strategic [I can assess a situation and think ahead to remove obstacles]
Communication [I can communicate things clearly and effectively]
Activator [I am predisposed to action first and questions later; I learn by doing]

I was fine with the other four. In fact, I probably could have read all 32 strength themes and picked them out. All except Strategic. That was over 3 years ago, and I'm just now getting around to understanding how I can use it.

With Vox, there are many questions, uncertainties, choices, and overall directions we have to deal with... both as elders and as a community. As I look ahead and think through what's approaching, I can see we need to add to the efforts we have already established- efforts that serve and nurture and train and love and preach. More on this later, just had to get it out there.

It's exciting for me to look ahead, my prayer is that our community can get there in one piece and take others along with us.

Emerging Movement: Future or Fad?

2006-08-17T10:19:00.000-05:00

This is a thought-provoking article on the global emerging church movement. "The EM [emerging movement] is a missionally shaped ecclesiology that seeks to unite Christians for the sake of unleashing the gospel to change the world, rather than a theological movement designed to demand conformity on specific theological issues."

I think it describes well in theology, if not in practice, what we're doing over at Vox Church.

Download "Emerging Movement: Future or Fad?"

I found this article first on the blog of Andrew Jones, and saved it to read it later. Luckily, when the old site lost it, I still had it. Enjoy the read.

Gender is everything...

2006-07-19T20:28:00.000-05:00

So, we found out what the gender of our next child will be. As usual, we won't divulge the nomenclature until the birth announcement.

It's a ... [why don't you go to Kristy's blog to find out, she says things much better than me]

Sick for Bo Jackson

2006-07-17T14:21:00.000-05:00

Today is almost a complete waste of a day. I got a little work done, but I'm crashing this afternoon. I've even got the little headache-in-the-back-of-my-brain going on. Not good.

But, growing up as an avid Super Tecmo Bowl gamer in junior high, this video clip made me laugh out loud [and no, I'm not going to use "lol," I simply refuse]. Enjoy the clip, and remember, the most sacks you can record in one season with one player in this game is 174. After that, it just stops counting.

The True Nature of Bo's Tecmo Dominance [Deadspin]

gatherings...

2006-07-12T22:45:00.000-05:00

So I'm under a moderate amount of stress right now and it's 10:45 at night! I've got Vox Church on the brain, so I'm going to rant. You've been warned.

As I've been wrestling through current issues, I'm feeling a bit stuck on worship gatherings. I'm dealing with two immovable objects.

ROCK: My desire to not put on a show and further add gasoline to the consumerism fire that exists in American culture.

HARD PLACE: My desire to inspire, lead, rally, celebrate with everyone else in Vox Church. It seems like in order to do that, we need coordinated effort and common experiences.

Dallas and I are having more and more conversations where our clashing leadership styles come into play, and I think it's due, in part, to issues like these that we're wrestling through. We're getting a little bigger and more are collectively growing deeper, so the playing field has changed since it was 10 people in a living room.

Secondarily, I have this question in my head: what can a church do with a larger group of people [20-200] that it cannot do with a small group [5-20]? It's a pretty important question.

So, I threw it all to the side and closed my eyes with one thing in mind...

Everyone would come in, and feel welcomed beyond belief, like Cheers only more loving. There would be art on the walls to look at, music to listen to, incense and food to smell, and a warm feeling about the whole environment.

As we'd all sit down, we would pray together for our time to bless God and for us to collectively feel His presence. The conversation over communion breakfast is interesting and we're blessed to get to know each other a little better: making connections over common interests and experiences.

The music starts and we're invited to kneel at the presence of God, there's all the time in world for this. No hurry, just time to worship God however we desire to. The teacher comes in the same Spirit as the music that just ended to inspire, lead. He communicates as if we're all going somewhere together- somewhere towards a deeper obedience in Christ.

Jesus, how can we do this? Is this even something you want? Didn't it inspire me? It wasn't fake. It wasn't something I regret or look back at with contempt. I felt YOU there. I want to do the same thing with Vox Church gatherings.

All that's in my head is in Your hands...

Sixed: Andy Manning

2006-07-12T15:44:00.000-05:00

Born and raised in Acadiana, Andy Manning graduated in Business Administration at UL in 2002. And after marrying Lydia Marie Mann in 2002, he received a Masters of Divinity in Biblical Languages from Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, TX. In early 2005, Andy moved back to Lafayette to start a new church - Church Acadiana [website]. After working bi-vocationally for the first year as a full-time PE teacher at First Baptist Christian school, he now looks forward to ministering as a full-time pastor.

#1- How did you get your start in ministry? [If you didn't start locally, please include how you got to Acadiana.]
I grew up at First Baptist Church in Youngsville. In my sophomore year in High School I began to feel God leading me to pursue a career in full-time vocational ministry. After graduating from Comeaux High School in 1998, I spent the summer working on staff at Acadian Baptist Center. It was a wonderful summer, my first experience with full-time ministry. During college my home church called me to serve as the part-time youth pastor. The next three years were an amazing ride. I didn't know what I was doing, since I didn't have a youth pastor growing up and never saw a full-time youth pastor in action, so I just preached the gospel and challenged the young people to a life wholehearted discipleship (I know, "What was I thinking?"). Being young and naive, I threw tradition to the wind and decided to do whatever it took to reach kids for Christ. This got me in a lot of trouble with "older folk" in the Church, but the youth and their parents loved me for it. The main theme of my ministry was that you need to decide to follow Christ once and for all, and if you are a true believer, your life should be changing radically to look more and more like Jesus. Countless students gave their lives to Christ and I learned priceless lessons about spiritual leadership (mostly from butting heads with my boss, the pastor).

After three years as the youth pastor I left for seminary in Fort Worth. Three years later I graduated and moved back to town to start Church Acadiana (June 2005). The new church's first and most dedicated members are my old youth and their parents from FBC Youngsville.

#2- What is the hardest thing about leading a church/ministry?
The hardest thing about leading a church is that the Church will never grow beyond your leadership abilities. If the Church is ineffective, it's primarily my fault. If people aren't having a daily quiet time and tithing the blame falls on me. If the men in the Church aren’t stepping up and leading the way, it's ultimately my fault. If we aren't developing new leaders and equipping them to be more effective, it's my fault. If the Church isn't praying and if lives aren't changing and if people aren't coming to Christ, the blame falls on me. The hardest thing about leadership is taking responsibility for the ultimate success or failure of the ministry with which God has made me a steward. God has done His part, and He wants the ministry to succeed. If it's not succeeding, then I need to grow as a leader and as a man of God.

#3- What do you do to relax?
I like to soak in the tub with my wife as we talk and read. I like to watch tv and movies. I like to take long drives with my wife and look at beautiful homes. I like to read fiction and non-fiction. I like to play tennis, ping pong, and basketball with my wife. I like to sing and play the guitar. I like to have a long, quiet dinner at a restaurant with friends. I like to play with my children.

#4- How do you think the Church in Acadiana will have changed in 25 years?
I think many of the established churches that haven’t changed much in the past 25 years will continue to grow more and more out of touch with the people of Acadiana. I think the Churches that have embraced the core values of being missional and culturally relevant will continue to change with the culture in order to remain relevant and effective. I believe that Acadiana is in the beginning of the greatest spiritual awakening it has ever seen, and every church that has strong, consistent leadership over a considerable amount of time and that focuses steadily on fulfilling the Great Commission, using any means necessary without compromising the truth of Scripture, every church in Acadiana like this will see the greatest growth, both spiritually and numerically that it has ever seen. I also believe that more and more new churches will spring up at a faster and faster rate. I believe that the demonic spirit of territorialism that has so dominated the spiritual leaders of Acadiana for so long will be driven out completely. I see the Church being seen as more and more relevant and useful in the eyes of the community because the Church focuses not merely on getting more souls into heaven, but on SHOWING people how to experience the abundant, purpose-filled life that God has for them while on earth.

#5- What advice would you give to the next generation of church leaders in Lafayette?
1- Unless God writes it in the sky for you to minister elsewhere, assume that He wants you to invest your life and ministry right here in Acadiana. Don't leave Acadiana unless you are called to foreign missions, because anywhere else is another world. God raised you up here for a reason, and it's probably not so that you will leave and go minister at First Community Church in Po-dunk Kansas.

2- Only go to seminary if you will be able to commute from Acadiana. Don't uproot your family and leave your church and ministry to go study how to do ministry. Bad idea. Very bad idea.

3- More important than seminary, find a church and pastor who will take you under his wing and pour his life into you, teaching you everything he knows. Stay at that church and work your way up into a full-time position.

4- Be flexible. Don't get stuck in a particular church model or philosophy of ministry. Be changeable, teachable, adaptable. Do something until it stops working. Then try something else.

5- Treat everyone that you see just like they are one of your church members. The world is your congregation. I learned this from my friend Jeff Cook.

6- Never sacrifice your relationship with God or your family to get ahead in ministry. These two things come first. You have to be willing to leave the ministry for the sake of your walk with God and your relationship to your family.

7- Keep learning and growing. Read. Attend conferences. Meet with other pastors that you want to learn from.

8- Don’t let your critics get you down. And don't waste your time defending yourself. Any time you do things differently and try something new you will be persecuted. Stick to your convictions. People hated and criticized Rick Warren, Billy Hybels, Ed Young Jr. and Andy Stanley, and still do to this day.

9- Determine to stay in one town, in one church your entire ministry. Just about every great church in the world got that way because of a pastor who built it from scratch and poured his entire life and ministry into it. Don't fall into the current trend of church-hopping every two and a half years. You might get a larger salary up front, but you get a wasted life in the end.

10- Remember that raising a great family is the greatest legacy you will ever have, and the most significant thing that you will ever do in this life. I admire a man who has built great kids more than a man who has built a big church. Don’t ever allow your ministry to pull you from your family. Take this as a word from God: If God gave you kids, He is not calling you to an itinerant preaching ministry that decreases your effectiveness at home. Wait until your kids are out of the home before pursuing your dreams as the next Billy Sunday.

11- Don’t listen to young, naive pastors who are full of advice.

#6- In your walk with Christ, what has He been teaching you lately?
In order to change the world, you have to first learn to change yourself. If you can learn to change yourself, you can change the whole world.

WORD ASSOCIATION

Holy Spirit
Trinity

Cell Phone
Rude

Gospel
Unknown

Rap Music
Growing

Hymnal
Embarrassing

Pat Robertson
Friend

Prayer
Untapped

I think I'm back...

2006-07-12T10:32:00.000-05:00

A month-long hiatus was probably enough for me. I flirted with starting a whole new blog, but figure I can just incorporate what I wanted to write more about [local stuff and happenings] into my already established blog.

A new edition of "Sixed" is coming up soon, and speaking of that, if you know of any spiritually influential people that run in your circles, nominate them to be sixed. It's good times!

on blogging...

2006-06-05T10:09:00.000-05:00

Every time I think of a good post lately, I always come back with, "No wait, I want to tell this to someone instead of just blogging about it."

When I have a good thought, and want to blog it, I think, "I need to keep chewing on this," or "This is something I need to tell someone."

In truth, I'm not sure I want to blog anymore... maybe I'm just done for a while... we'll see.

Wells and Fences

2006-05-15T15:46:00.000-05:00

I'm reading The Shaping of Things to Come by Michael Frost and there are some really good thoughts on church in it. I'm only three chapters in, so my thinking on it is very introductory. In that light, here's some good stuff on wells and fences [p. 47]

"In some farming communities, the farmers might build fences around their properties to keep their livestock in and the livestock of neighboring farms out.
In our home of Australia [farms] are so vast that fences are superfluous. Under these conditions, a farmer has to [...] create a well, a precious water supply in the Outback. It is assumed that livestock, though they stray, will never wander too far from the well, lest they die.
Churches that see themselves as a [well] recognize that the gospel is precious, so refreshing that, like a well in the Australian Outback, lovers of Christ will not stray too far from it."

Indeed this has some huge ramifications for church-as-we-know-it, but I think I'm going to finish the book and have some conversations before I get too gung-ho.

I'll keep everyone updated.

On Dying

2006-05-11T09:44:00.000-05:00

We've started small groups at Vox Church. Without going into grand detail [and I want to] about the form of it all, one of our primary concerns is for each small group to be connected with some kind of service organization. It's a way to get into the community and begin to meet people, serving them in Jesus' Name.

So as I was having a meeting with a Christian non-profit organization as a potential partner for our small group, and our choices came down to two. Either we served once every 4-6 weeks in service to the organization [cleaning offices, painting, organizing events] or we served every 7-14 days in service to the children of the community [tutoring, playing, helping with homework].

Suddenly, it was clear. I was hit with the stark reality of death: This is going to radically change my weekly schedule and the schedule of everyone in the small group. This is going to greatly affect our lives and the lives of those around us significantly. It was a very uncomfortable thought.

Instead of pushing forward, I held off. I told the organization that I'd talk with the small group about it and see what they wanted to do. I'm still feeling queezy about the whole thing.

First things first, I need to listen to Jesus concerning my expectations of serving. We are called to die. To let ourselves be thrown in the ground and die, all for the sake of the Kingdom. That was never more real than yesterday at that meeting, and I'm still reeling a little.

Secondly, I'm a little twisted up about the organization we'd be serving. They're not horrible people or anything like that, I'm just wondering if our missions coincide - they want to indoctrinate these children for Jesus [among other very helpful things they do for the community] and we're more about building the relationship first. Like I said, I'm still not sure. If they don't really mesh, we might need to look elsewhere. Decisions...

Mother's Day Video

2006-05-11T09:24:00.000-05:00

So, I could imagine doing this with my older brother when we were younger. Good times. I'm considering sending this to my mother for Mother's Day, but I don't if she'll get it or not.

ht: Barets and Bereta - these guys are funny.

We're Getting a Van... for free

2006-05-10T19:24:00.000-05:00

Yes, you read that right, free!

Someone called some friends of ours [thanks Carrie] and asked if they knew anyone that needed a free van: a free 2000 Honda Odyssey! Carrie mentioned how we've been looking for a van, and the guy said he'd like to give it to us.

I called. He verified everything, got some contact info. By the end of this week, we should have a 2000 Honda Odyssey. I still can't really believe it.

It's exactly what we looking for. If someone would have come up to us and asked, "If you got a van, what kind would you get?" my answer would have been a Honda Odyssey. This is so unbelievable.

This is truly an answer to prayer. I am humbled. We are humbled.

Especially since... [drumroll] we're pregnant! Most have found out through either a conversation or through the Vox Church newsletter. So, if you're reading this and are surprised, we either haven't spoken in a while, or you don't read [or get] my newsletter [if you want it, email me]. We don't know the gender yet, but we'll find out in about 10 weeks. The baby is due November 30th, and as usual we're not telling anyone the name.

So, getting a van right now is perfect timing, if not early! Amazing.

God, You are good. Your are gracious and good.

Katie Couric Preaches a Sermon

2006-05-09T10:40:00.000-05:00

interview video here [you need IE6 to view it]

Joel Osteen was interviewed by Katie Couric on Today [5/9/06] and it was very easy to see him for what he is.

When Katie Couric finds the verses [and reads them aloud on TV] that show that your message contradicts what Jesus said about money, that should be a warning sign. Here's the best part of the interview:

Katie "How do you square your wealth with the tenants of Christianity?"

Joel-O "I think that God entrusts you with things to let it flow through you, to be a steward of it. I mean, you could have $100 and be stingy. To me, it's about your lifestyle. You've never done this for money, but you can't apologize that God blesses you, and through the Bible you can see that."

Katie "You know, you could see the other thing in the Bible as well. I looked up a couple of quotes [verses] which I found interesting and I was curious how, again, you could square these things.
This is Matthew 19 verses 23 and 24, 'Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.'
Um, here's another one [Luke 12:15], 'And Jesus said to them, 'Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions'
And then another one [1 Timothy 6:9-10], 'People who want to get rich fall into a temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.'
You listen to those and it makes you wonder about your claim that wealth is a positive thing."

Joel-O "Well, I don't think we just strive to get wealthy, but you know, the Bible right there, it says the love of money, what do you want to do.
My thing is that if wealth is a problem then everyone of us here in America are sinners. But you go to India, where I've spent a lot of time, and they don't have anything. So it's all relative to what's your heart issue toward it.
I mean, I can quote Scriptures too, it says, [I'm sure you could much better than I could] 'He came that we might live an abundant life,' I never even preached one sermon on money, it more about... when I say you need to prosper, it's having good relationships, having good health."

Katie quickly asked another stabbing question as to why Joel-O never takes on "political positions" such as abortion, gay marriages, etc.

My favorite part is where Joel-O really tries to differentiate between wealth in Jesus' day and wealth in America today. "If wealth is a problem then everyone of us here in America are sinners." Well, Joel-O, I think you hit the nail on the head by accident. And by the way, we are all sinners anyway, adding wealth to the mix just makes it harder to see it.

Joel Osteen is paper-thin in his understanding of Jesus, God's Kingdom, and preaching the gospel. He understands those things like I understand quantum physics. I know some buzz words and cool phrases, but I'm really out of my league. Joel, time to learn about Jesus, then preach him. K?

Oh, it was a classic interview. Six minutes long.

SIDENOTE: The quote that Katie introduced in the teaser was [something like] "Joel Osteen says if Jesus were alive today, he wouldn't be on a donkey, he'd be on a jet." So many things wrong with this sentence, it's really not even funny. Really. But I didn't want to go off on that sentence, because things like that are sometimes taken out of context.

Bonds on Signs

2006-05-08T16:38:00.000-05:00

Just in case you can't make out what it says:

[Babe] Ruth did it on hotdogs & beer. [Hank] Aaron did it with class. How did YOU do it?

That Bonds is in the picture [lower right] make this completely classic. It looks like 30-40 people are holding it... on the front row! Usually you see signs of this tone up in the bleachers. No, no, there is some large-group hate for Barry Bonds right now, very large.

[ht: DeadSpin]

Will-power

2006-05-05T10:15:00.000-05:00

Two thoughts on will-power and a little commentary:

Recently, I was listening to Christian radio and heard one of those cheesy one-minute teachings where a guy said [and I'm paraphrasing, but still trying to capture the heart of what he said], "If we follow the Spirit, we'll have more will-power to not do the things we don't want to do." His example was over-eating and how, if we listen to the Spirit more, we could have the power to will ourselves to not eat as much.

The other is a memory of an old dc Talk album Free at Last that is filled with tons of funny, short diddies. One of those entitled Will-power had these lyrics:

"Will-power, will-power, will-power, the power to will away temptation," along with a faint and quick "temptation sold separately, batteries not included."

Pretty funny for 1992.

The only problem is that I do not believe either of these reflect reality. It seems like the emphasis in Scripture is the Spirit giving us power to do what God asks of us, not the Spirit giving us the power to wall off temptation from ourselves.

I know, I know, nit-picky. But the difference that I've seen play out in my own life is not so nit-picky. When I understand I'm given power to do God's will, I also must know that doing so will often bring me closer to temptation. If I understand God giving me the power to "will away temptation," the focus is on me not sinning, which is not the point of the Spirit-life.

Yes, God commands us to be pure and holy, setting ourselves apart, but this is only the beginning, not an end unto itself. We're elected and chosen to be holy because God's wants us to build His Kingdom Reality on earth - in service, love, and koinonia with other believers. We're His ambassadors to this world, and how will we do this without being sent into the world?

This is the heart of what it means to be a believer. We are here to love, serve sacrificially, obey and echo God's call, and enjoy koinonia with others. We're not here to not sin.

OK, I feel beter. Thoughts, anyone?

Hurry Up and Decide

2006-05-04T20:49:00.000-05:00

"The percentage of mistakes in quick decisions is no greater than in long-drawn-out vacillation, and the effect of decisiveness itself ‘makes things go’ and creates confidence." - Anne O’Hare McCormick [1882-1954]. First woman to win a Pulitzer prize for journalism

When I came across this quote, I scratched my head a little. I'm still chewing on it [even though it says I should be more decisive about what I think], and I wonder if this is in line with God's Kingdom. I'm not asking rhetorically, I am really considering it.

In my time as elder at Vox Church, Dallas and I have made some decisions quickly, and some slowly. I wonder what would have happened if we made more decisions quicker. It's good food for thought anyway.

whole article here - [ht: World Changers]

Tags:

Dog Needing Love and Attention

2006-04-27T11:38:00.000-05:00

As many of you know, we got our dog, Aspen, in early February of this year. She's been great and loving and fun to play with, but we're hitting a crisis point with her. She's needing a lot more attention, and we just don't have the time to give to her.

So, if you know of anyone who needs a dog, please let them know about Aspen. Here's her specs:
Half yellow lab, half golden retriever
This breed of dog is great with kids
3 months old [born January 22nd, 2006]
Comes with her dog house, and even some food if you want it.

[picture coming soon]

Can you help find a home for Aspen?

Tags:

family

Sixed: Sean Walker

2006-04-25T09:17:00.000-05:00

Sean Walker serves as the Media Director at East Bayou Baptist Church and is a graduate of UL in Interpersonal and Organizational Communication. Currently, Sean is recovering from a Halo 2 addiction and has been sober for almost 2 months at the time of this interview.

#1- How did you get your start in ministry? [If you didn't start locally, please include how you got to Acadiana.]
My first time in [paid] ministry was when I was a freshman in college at East Bayou. Our youth pastor of like 12 years had left and a volunteer adult was the interim pastor and they hired 5 or 6 college students to help out during the transition time while we searched for a full time youth pastor. I don't remember much from it though. It was over 5 years ago.

#2- What is the hardest thing about leading a church / ministry?
I've got two. 1, having to make decisions that affect a group or a person that they won't like, but I know I have to make. i.e. telling a volunteer they aren't going to serve in that role/ministry anymore. 2, leaving a ministry that you don't want to leave, but that God has told you to leave.

#3- What do you do to relax?
Rent movies. Play golf. Get out of town.

#4- How do you think the Church in Acadiana will have changed in 25 years?
I don't know. I really have no idea what to forecast. I have put over an hour in to thinking about it. I honestly don't know and don't want to just throw out a lame forecast just to do it.

#5- What advice would you give the next generation of church / ministry leaders in Lafayette?
Here's what I would tell them, and this is HUGE! Learn to separate theology and methodology. [Download 'Methodology vs. Theology' message here] I don't care what denomination you are, how long you've been in ministry, or whether or not you like Andy Stanley. If you are in, or are going to be involved in ministry go download this message on leadership and listen to it. It's HUGE! Methodology and theology are 2 totally different things and as soon as you can separate them, the sooner you can impact people in a more powerful way for Christ. After you listen to it pass it on.

#6- In your walk with Jesus Christ, what has He been teaching you lately? [Please include prayer requests if you'd like]
Process. Go read it on my blog b/c it's too much to type. Entitled, "Put Me In Coach"

WORD ASSOCIATION

Holy Spirit
decisions

Cell Phone
texting

Gospel
job

Rap Music
bounce

Hymnal
boring

Pat Robertson
no thanks

Prayer
mysterious

Tags:

sixed

Shower Thought of the Week

2006-04-21T13:20:00.000-05:00

I have amazing thoughts while taking my morning shower. I usually don't remember them. Today, I did.

The scars I have on my body are many and varied. Some wounds are significant - like the time I fell in front of a moving car in 10th grade. Some wounds are insignificant - like when I scraped my hand on someone entertainment center last night. The interesting thing is that the wounds that leave the worst scars aren't neccesarily the most significant wounds, but the ones I don't take care of right away.

Tags:

Spirit-life

Late Easter thought

2006-04-17T09:11:00.000-05:00

A valiant painting from teenager, Sarah Brown. Her own thoughts on the painting reveal a stark freshness to the faith - inspiring.

Tags:

too tired to blog

2006-04-10T09:48:00.000-05:00

I'm very exhausted from the events of the past two weeks. I'm really too tired to blog right now, but I thought I owed my fans a post to let them know what's going on.

LIVE-IN
On March 16th, Tara came to stay with us. She is a great girl who's had a tough upbringing and a very tough last couple of months as she started smoking crack. While the first week was rough, she eventually became a part of our family. She helped Kristy with the kids, washed dishes after dinner almost every night and really opened herself up to us. I thought at first that she needed some short, three-month therapy and a strong support group and she'd be fine. After seeing a drug counselor who suggested otherwise, we started looking at long-term facilities.

On April 7th, Tara and I drove [to New Orleans], flew [to St. Louis], and drove again [to the middle of nowhere] to a ministry center where she'll be for 18 months. It was a great ride as we frequently blasted the radio as loud as we could stand, had some great conversation, and enjoyed each other's company all the way to the treatment center. When I "handed off" Tara to the lady at the facility, we all prayed and I knew this was going to be a good thing.

The sad part of this is that her dad, who has stage-four cancer, is expected to die before Tara gets out of treatment. Also, Tara is young and it's hard to be in treatment during the exciting times of your life. There's actually a lot more sadness here, but it's not mine to get into.

Please pray for Tara as she quits drugs, learn who God has made her to be, and learns to walk confidently into God's grace. She needs all the help she can get.

JUST VISITING
Kristy and the kids left the same day Tara and I did. They went to Northwest Arkansas where they'll be for about two weeks. That means good times with the kids for Kristy and her family, but it's bachelor time for me. Hopefully, I'll use this time to get some much-needed stuff done. However, I do get very lonely when Kristy and the kids are away, so you locals need to have me over for dinner or coffee or something.

It's going to be a productive, reflective, and perseverence-testing couple of weeks...

BROTHER
On my trip back down from the treatment center, I got to swing through Metarie, LA and visit my brother, Kent. We hung out, played a video football game that I smoked him at [OK, he won, but I can lie, it's my blog], ate po-boys [I had shrimp... so good], and toured the devastated parts of New Orleans. Just seeing the water lines on the houses was unbelievable.

GOOD FRIDAY
This Holy Week, I'm having a get-together at the house with some food, games, maybe a movie, but the highlight of the night will be an oberservance of Good Friday, Vox style. I'm excited...

Tags:

Who do you love?

2006-04-05T09:00:00.000-05:00

Shocker of the week: the American Bible Society didn't want to put this custom cover on a bunch of Bibles. Read the whole story here.

If you haven't checked out x3church and what they're all about, you're truly in for a treat. Dallas and I use their free p*rn filter software and I would highly recommend it.

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Checking in

2006-04-04T08:44:00.000-05:00

Well, Bob checked in, and he wants me to check in, so here I go. This isn't going to be pretty. For those interested in keeping their illusions of pastoral life being blissful, turn away.

What am I learning?
I'm finding my physical limits and how to say, "I'm done" even if there's still stuff to do. I'm learning how exceeding my limits is dangerous to me, my family, my co-workers, my church, and the reputation of Christ. I've had some close-calls lately, too many...

I'm learning how to find and take rest. It really is in the arms of God. I can be dead after a full night's sleep, but it's my spirit, not my body, that is tired. As I read Scripture, pray, read other stuff, meditate, connect with other believers, it all starts to sink back in.

I'm learning the purpose-driven side of organic church. With many, many things I can see the organic nature of a church coming together and working together, but there are some things that just need to be led through by the leaders, especially in the beginning. I believe Vox Church went too far in the direction of "everyone's a priest, do what you want!" and didn't lead anyone far enough down the road. Still in process on this one, and this has probably been the toughest part of eldering lately.

The differences between God's role and my role in relationships. The gist of it is my job is to love God [abiding in Him] and love people [by forming relationships with others], God's got everything else taken care of.

What is God forming in me?
God is forming a quiet resilience in me. In learning to be quieter, I'm understanding the use of introspection a lot more. In my introspection, I have found a deep drive to see Vox Church through until I'm in the ground. I guess this was always true, but now it's true in the midst of adversity.

God is also forming deep truths that will not go away for a while. When I was younger, I learn things, forget them, learn them, forget them. At this point in my life, I'm going through very hard things where the price paid for my forgetting is a lot higher.

What it really takes to live missionally. This would be my one area of headway in the last couple of weeks. God has been bringing me slowly along in the life of a missionary and now I'm beginning to see a little bit of fruit, but in my life and in Kristy's. And it's good.

What am I (pastorally) forming in others?
I don't know, pity? annoyance? indifference? nothing? This is probably the reason why I hate working 60 hours / week, I just can't stay connected to people, not like this. I'm probably being very hard on myself as usual, but I really must strain to see what I'm forming in others. It's probably a lot of stuff I can't see yet. What I want to be forming in others is a heart for the dying, broken, and confused. I want to be forming compassion, and a deep connectedness to God and others. I feel like I'm hitting a wall.

What is the practical outcome, the tangible benefit, to others of my life lately?
I seriously cannot think of one thing. Really, I'm trying and nothing. It's virtually impossible for me to have nothing to say, but nothing. Maybe someone in Vox could think of something, but I can't.

Am I paying attention to the most important things, or simply the most urgent things?
Important, but I'm actually trying to move toward urgent. I know, it sounds very strange, but it's the truth. Much of the beginning with the elders has been with trying to realize huge dreams without killing ourselves with the little details. The urgent details don't always get taken care of in order to focus on the important. This isn't really working, so we're regrouping right now.

Tags:

missional living

2006-03-29T16:19:00.000-06:00

As I have been thinking and re-thinking what it means to be on mission with God, I have begun experimenting...

I have used cuss words.
I have opened up my life and home to people who aren't believers.
I have entered into deep, theological/philosophical debate with people smarter than me.
I have listened to a guy talk about his religion and asked questions about it.
I have thrown off many old forms and old "missions" that used to be references.
I am working in a place with one other Christian believer.

In short, I have stepped out of the Christian ghetto to a place where Jesus-in-me can shine in darkness. I'm no longer surrounded by people who think like me or act like me.

In doing so, I've crossed some lines I never thought I would [cussing] and some lines I'd always hoped to [friendships with unbelievers]. So, now in the middle of my missional life, I have two observations about my journey.

#1 - Missional living is a delicate balance between living the gospel and building relationships. As recently as yesterday, I caught myself on the wrong side of that balance. I didn't speak up when I needed to, and it really surprised me.

#2 - The call, GOD's vox, presses me further in. There is so much more that I need to do / learn / hear / say / be in this process. Not too long ago, I thought I'd seen and done all I could have - that it would just be more of the same from here on out. Ironically, the new things I see on the horizon have to do with a renewal of vision and fire.

I don't know if this made sense, but I'm glad I got it out there.

Tags:

out...

2006-03-28T06:43:00.000-06:00

I've been out for a while, just really busy with life. Every time I consider taking a moment to blog, my brain freezes up and I just can't. Here's what's been happening lately.

Kristy and I have had a girl staying with us for almost two weeks now. She's quitting crack and on her way to rehab. It's actually a great story I'll have to tell another time.

Stuff with Vox is going OK, still figuring some things out as a community, but we have a lot of hope.

Dallas and Carrie had their baby, Deacon Jean Begnaud is their second child and second son. Shortly thereafter, Elias, their firtborn went into the hospital with asthma. They will all be home from the hospital at the end of this week. If you think of Dallas and Carrie, please pray for them. This is a tough time...

I cut my hair, so I look 22 again. It, along with my lawn, had become increasingly overgrown. Great metaphors for my life right now.

Kristy and I are both having some real great connections with people outside our church. Hanging out, going to dinner, etc. It's been great. I know God is working.

I'm starting to get up way earlier, like 6am, which might not be early for some, but it's where I'm at on my journey.

Tags:

running on fumes

2006-03-23T16:32:00.000-06:00

So, I'm going to start running again.

I ran from April through June of 2005 because Dallas told me to. He said that all of the stress of starting a church / moving / having a second child was going to need an outlet. And he was right, those times of running were points of sanity and clarity for me. I believe God used them to calm me down and center me.

I quit running after I began working a 55-hour work week with two jobs. Now that my hours are about to decrease [I'll drop to 32 hours a week April 1st with Big Brothers Big Sisters, but keep my Vox hours], I'm considering picking it up again.

Kristy took some pictures of me, the kids, and the dog recently, and one of the pictures was very telling. It was of me sitting there, petting the dog with a really mean look on my face. When Kristy and I reviewed the pictures about 2 minutes later, I stopped on that one and knew that this is the face that most people are seeing right now.

The stress is just starting to get to me, and those times of centering are proving themselves necessary...

Anyone got some good running tips?

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10 Keys to Planting a Church [redux]

2006-03-22T15:45:00.000-06:00

Bob Hyatt is among the people I watch very closely [in a good way, not a creepy way] and when he writes about church-planting, I'm usually nodding my head as I'm reading it.

Today's topic: 10 Keys to [Sane] Church Planting. This is a must-read for church-planters and a great-to-read for people who call Vox Church home. Here's my favorite part of the post:

"You don't have to have 'big money' to plant a church... In fact, you might be better off without it. [...] I've seen churches struggle because of that damned big money. They 'launch' with a full contingent of paid ministry professionals, the whole Kid's Ministry In A Box™ that they bought at some convention somewhere, and the people show up to see the show."

"And two years later, when their initial bankroll from momma church or daddy church-planting organization runs out, they fold because they have ministry jacked up to artificially high levels, that is, they have more programs and staff and equipment needs than their people can conceivably give for and support... and when that gap between actual giving and budget needs hits, they need to start laying off staff. And that's a spiral that the heavy-initial-investment, programmatic church model can't handle. When the staff starts going, that equates to a cut in services, and the people soon start edging out the back door for some place down the road with something new and exciting (and better funded!) going on..."

The post is more than just about money, that was just the funniest one. It has some really good thoughts on organic church planting and would love some feedback / comments.

source: 10 Keys to Sane Church Planting on bob.blog

Tags:

Baby Got Book

2006-03-21T08:49:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's hilarious. Yes, it's clean. And yes, my baby got book!

Tags:

christianity

funny

music

Sixed: Perry Sanders

2006-03-20T11:29:00.000-06:00

Rev. Dr. Perry Sanders currently serves as Senior Pastor at the First Baptist Church of Lafayette where he's served for 47 years. Earlier this year, Dr. Sanders stepped aside as Pastor and took on the role of Senior Pastor.

#1- How did you get your start in ministry? [If you didn't start locally, please include how you got to Acadiana.]
At age 16 as a sophomore in college in Tennessee, I remained in my room while my roommates went to class and prayed to the Lord. I told him I would do exactly what He wanted me to do if He would just reveal it to me, and it was as if Jesus spoke directly and personally to me. I immediately left campus for the weekend. My first sermon I preached was seven minutes long down in Tennessee. The seven-minute sermon caused several young teenagers who were in the pool hall to come forward and accept Christ. From that day until now, I've faithfully preached the Gospel for 62 years.

#2- What is the hardest thing about leading a church / ministry?
It's not really difficult if you love the Lord, love the people, and use good sense.

#3- What do you do to relax?
I read, I get a good night's sleep, I play golf, I go fishing and hunting, I go skiing, and I do other things that don't interfere with my activities at the church.

#4- How do you think the Church in Acadiana will have changed in 25 years?
Presumably, that' s a prophetic idea. I have an idea that it will change much for the better. We have a marvelous pastor in Dr. Steve Horn. He's intelligent, he's extremely knowledgeable, he has a good head on him, he knows how to deal with people, and he believes the Bible -- all of it. And he is a wonderful leader, so I feel like the church will probably double or triple in the next 25 years.

#5- What advice would you give the next generation of church / ministry leaders in Lafayette?
I'd give them the same advice that you see above -- walk with Jesus, pray every day, read the Bible every day, stay deep in the Word, be a man of absolute and total integrity, clear and unmistakable morality in every way. Cooperate, stay a part of the team in every way.

#6- In your walk with Jesus Christ, what has He been teaching you lately? [Please include prayer requests if you'd like]
It probably is patience. I've always been able to control my emotions, but it seems that with the passing of years, that I'm more able to understand people's difficulties and problems and so forth.

WORD ASSOCIATION

Holy Spirit
Constant guide and leader of everything I try to do.

Cell Phone
Yes, I've had a phone for years in my vehicle and now in my pocket.

Gospel
Good news.

Rap Music
Probably bad. The rhythm is bad. Most of the lyrics of the rap music are bad. They reflect profanity, vulgarity, and inanity in the public spectrum. Probably not very good.

Hymnal
Good. It has songs that are not only old and respected, but it has some new songs, also.

Pat Robertson
He's probably done a lot of good things, but if he could remain to be quiet a bit more, it would probably be better because he's getting a lot of flak and criticism for some of the off-the-wall things he's said.

Prayer
I pray every day and ask the Lord's leadership. When I wake up in the morning , I salute and report in for duty and try to do the best I can to serve Him.

Sixed

2006-03-20T11:07:00.000-06:00

Something I've been thinking about doing for a long time is interviewing ministers / priests / pastors / gurus / theologians / spiritual leaders and getting some perspective from them. I'm calling it "sixed".

In short, it's six questions, along with some word associations stuck on the end. If there's someone you think should be sixed, let me know.

Google Mars

2006-03-17T16:27:00.000-06:00

No, this is not a joke. It's actually Google Mars.

Happy Friday.

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culture

did someone say 'missional'?

2006-03-17T00:28:00.000-06:00

This was very inspiring to read as someone who grew up in western Christendom. I can identify with what he's talking about.

"What is it that keeps a church (people) from thinking missionally?
We have been raised with the idea that much of our life and our responsibilities as Christians are reflected in the weekly church service. It is how we think as Christians in Western cultures where 'going to church' has been an essential part of being a Western citizen. Our context has changed, Christendom is crumbling, but the shift to missional living is a huge shift for Western Christians. It might take the Western church fifty to a hundred years to make the shift, and many won't make the journey. In contrast, those Christians outside the west, who have never lived within 'Christendom', do not think of the church service as the connecting point. They have no illusions that those they are serving would be remotely interested in a church service. Instead, they embody the gospel through serving, both in deeds and words. This is a big, big, shift, and it scares a lot of people."

I can remember asking Erwin McManus once, "Erwin, I'm afraid of evangelism, what's my problem?" He responded quickly and kindly, "You probably don't love people." It hit me like a ton of bricks. Ever since then, I've sought to reconcile my western christian upbringing and my new understanding of missional living. It's been a slow, mistake-laden process, but I'm slowly beginning to see some results.

Because I agree that this is a major hurdle for most believers in America, I also see it as a major hurdle locally for our body. I'm confident we can follow Jesus through a re-thinking and re-imagining process with regards to evangelism and living out the gospel; I just think it will take some time. Hell, I'm not even sure about most of the ins and outs of someone going from unbeliever to mature disciple.

As a side note, I disagree with the last part of the quote about everyone that's grown up outside the "west" not having any of the same illusions as we do. I've heard stories from missionaries, it hits us all.

source: Marks of a Missional Church from SacMission

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a church is sent packing

2006-03-16T11:39:00.000-06:00

I'm not trying to people riled up, but I thought this was very noteworthy.

Last year the Supreme Court issued a wildly unpopular decision that enabled governments to seize property for no other reason than economic development. A recent New York Times article says that almost every state legislature in the country is advancing bills or constitutional amendments to limit the spread of this ruling. Despite the tenuous legal state that the ruling (Kelo v. New London) is in, a Long Beach, Calif., government is using it to replace a church with an apartment complex.

The Long Beach Redevelopment Agency voted 6-0 March 13 to condemn the Filipino Baptist Fellowship’s church building, ostensibly because it does not produce enough economic benefit for the city.

This is definitely something to keep an eye on. If you'd like to do something about it, read another version of the same article here, it's got some great action steps along with phone numbers, etc.

In my opinion, this is unbelievable and needs to be fought against. Spread the word.

source: Get Religion via Bob.blog

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Hope

2006-03-16T09:57:00.000-06:00

From Switchfoot's Stars:

"I've been thinking 'bout the meaning of resistance / Of a hope beyond my own / And suddenly the infinite and penitent / Begin to look like home"

It seems that this life doesn't really make sense without hope. Like the author of this song, I have also been thinking about the meaning of resistance - why we as believers resist things like sex outside of marriage, shortcuts through pain, or serving our interests ahead of others'. We resist these things because we have a hope for something better - the Spirit-life.

With the Holy Spirit is living and moving in us, we eagerly hope and await what God will bring into our lives. We await trials, joys, pain, and triumphs all because we know God will use these things for His Kingdom. More than that, it is the divine dance as we interact with our Creator God. Our hope is being formed in the likeness of His Son.

We do not hope to become "better" people, or really to make the world a "better" place. We hope for nothing less than God's Kingdom to be here on earth, both in the hearts of His children and for the redemption of a lost and dying world.

Quite simply, our hope is life itself. We wait on life to fill us, and for life to be breathed into every part of creation.

...and suddenly the infinite and penitent begin to look like home.

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is cussing a sin?

2006-03-15T13:54:00.000-06:00

I was asked many questions as a youth intern. My favorite one was always, "Hey, Drew, do you think Creed [the band] is Christian?" But if I was ever asked, "Do you think cussing is a sin?" I think it would have been my second favorite.

Then I came across a term paper someone had written in response to the issue of cussing and sin. It was a good read. I've had many discussions around this issue, but I've seldom seen it so well-addressed.

Read it [through this blog post] and let me know what you think.

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adjustments being made

2006-03-14T16:10:00.000-06:00

I'm currently revamping, but very slowly. So, stuff won't match for a while. I'm going for a little more unity in my blog's overall look.

Tags:

blog

Positions

2006-03-14T00:27:00.000-06:00

Three-Point Stance. After having that vision/dream about teaching a church-planter conference [beginning with Newbigin's Triangle] I decided to start hunting around for images of the triangle on the internet. I found one[!], and it was some bootleg rendition of it that someone made only to slam it and offer his own model. So, I'm making a triangle soon along with a full post about it.

Fetal. Voxers Dallas and Carrie Begnaud are on the verge of having #2. We don't know a lot right now, except that everything is fine considering the baby is 5 weeks premature. More on Dallas's blog.

Prostrate. Seeking and saving what was lost is part of call as believers. As a church, Vox is about to embark upon our first efforts toward that end. There is a girl who almost ran away to Canada. She spent the night minutes away from the border in North Dakota, but didn't go. God broke her. He arranged it so that I would call her soon after that and offer her a new life back home, she accepted, at least enough to come back home. I'll keep you up on the developments, but in the meantime, this girl and our church need prayer. She's driven from Lafayette, LA to the top of North Dakota and now she's coming back. She's currently on her way to Northwest Arkansas to spend the night, so we expect her here Tuesday evening...

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scared to run

2006-03-10T15:35:00.000-06:00

All I have to say is, "Jed, you wanna go outside with Aspen?!" He gets so excited, and immediately he yells her name [her calls her "Oh-ca"] as we all three go outside. But something funny happens as we begin to play outside.

It plays out like this: Jed runs and yells for Aspen. Aspen catches on and begins to run after Jed. When Aspen catches up to him, Jed begins to cry because he's half-way terrified of her jumping all over him. I say "half-way terrified" because he's also half-way excited to play with her. He likes it and he's scared of it. [notice in the picture how his feet are up on his bike, not near Aspen at all]

I'm the same way. With Vox Church, I want to run: I want to do well, see lives redeemed, grow spiritual families, and plant hundreds and thousands of churches through this movement.

But I also get scared. When other people start to run with me, I get very nervous. But I don't fear the usual things like failure, starting over, or even how it will be seen by others. I think I'm afraid that this won't actually work. The half of me that's terrified is due to the fact that I've never seen anything like this. I've never seen a church do this, much less here in Lafayette. I still sometimes doubt it will work. How's that for a confession...

Before everyone goes nuts on me, let me point out that if I doubt something, I also believe it. I strongly believe in what Vox is doing, but I have my moments of doubt, too.

Happy Friday.

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I used to not like Chuck Colson

2006-03-09T13:45:00.000-06:00

It's so easy for me to brush off the religious right with a scoffing, "they've just lost touch with reality!" Chuck Colson would be one of the first people in my brush-off line. But not today, maybe not anymore. Reading this article was comforting. It let me know that at least some of those in the religious right rank anf file are thoughtful, well-read, and well-intentioned people. They really do believe this is the best way to change culture, and to be honest, he speaks his position very well and very even-handedly.

From Chuck Colson 2.0:

"It's interesting that throughout history some of the greatest social reforms have come about in periods when Christianity had its greatest influence in culture ... the abolition campaign, civil rights movement ... I'm well aware of the other side of that argument, that some terrible things, like colonization, have taken place when Christianity had its greatest influence. On balance, however, as you look at how societies have been influenced by various worldviews, Christianity, from my perspective, scores high. But in the final analysis, I am driven by my view of Scripture and Scripture's application to life, largely influenced by Calvin and even more so by Kuyper."

Living in a post-modern worldview [worldlife], the trap is sometimes to lump everyone together. There are those that are cool, and those that are not. One of the biggest discoveries for me in the last five to ten years has been that uncool people often are surprisingly... cool.

source: Mark Driscoll's Blog The Resurgence

christianity Spirit-life culture post-modernism

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Going 55 in a 55

2006-03-08T20:11:00.000-06:00

These college students have done something pretty great. And even though they didn't follow the whole law [you're actually supposed to let others pass], they proved their point about a Georgia highway.

Nothing like a little civil disobience [that's mostly obedience in the first place] to point out that the law is just insufficient. Sounds a little bit like the life of Jesus to me.

Warning to those not wanting to hear profanity: I counted two or three instances.

Extreme Makeover Pastoral Edition

2006-03-08T12:45:00.000-06:00

Extreme Makeover Home Edition goes pastoral

This is a feel-good story that hits close to home. I always wonder what would happen to Kristy and the kids if I wasn't around. I mean, I know our families [the Vox family, and both of our extended families] would take care of them, but it would be very hard to deal with emotionally as you're raising small children.

source: Jason's blog

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nightmares and visions

2006-03-07T10:00:00.000-06:00

Even when I do have nightmares [five or six times a year], I hardly remember them. The night before our first Sunday in Cite' Des Arts, I had a very strange nightmare that's still in my head 3 days later.

As I laid down, I felt very heavy. I didn't feel like I ate too much, but like every part of me was weighty, even my hands and feet. I was very restless, couldn't even get to sleep for about 45 minutes. As I was drifting in and out of consciousness, I began to feel like something was pushing me down into the bed. When I tried to pray out loud, I couldn't because all the air was out of my chest.

I'm sure this sounds almost violent, but it was all very subtle and slow. I wasn't thrown around or anything, I just lost my ability to breathe for about 5 or 6 seconds. After I could breathe, I prayed, looked around my bedroom to see what I could see, and went back to sleep. Strange night that I'm not sure was an attack or not.

Something that occurs even less than nightmares are visions. I just don't get visions, hardly ever. I believe my grand total is 3, and I'm not really sure about one of those. This is the third time it's happened.

John, Jerry, Dallas, and I were praying about 9 or 10 days ago during our Sunday morning prayer time. Normally, during an hour of prayer, I will catch my mind wandering through all sorts of thoughts. My first reaction is usually to reign it in and ask to be centered and focused on Christ. But this time, I distinctly felt God telling me to let this one ride, to keep thinking on this one.

Here's what I saw. I was at Trinity Bible Church conducting a workshop or sorts. I was teaching other pastors about organic church-planting and how to reach a post-modern world. My mind quickly raced to what exactly I'd be teaching on and it started with Lesslie Newbigin's triangle of gospel, church, and culture. I'm not even that familiar enough with the triangle to teach it, so I guess I better get started.

But still, teaching at Trinity for a church-planters conference? I need some Daniel-type people out there to interpret this thing for me. If you have questions with the intentions to interpret, please email me.

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Our First Sunday at Cite' Des Art

2006-03-06T12:46:00.000-06:00

The Vox Email Newsletter is coming out soon, but I had to blog about that first Sunday at Cite' Des Art. In some ways it felt exactly like our first service ever, which I didn't expect. Here's the details:

Nervous. I was extremely nervous about our first time in this building and I'm still trying to understand it. It's not like we've never had a gathering before. Still, I was hoping that eerything would go well for our first Sunday in a new space.

New worship format. We were also trying something new with our singing / worship time. I'll go into detail about it in another post, but the short of it is that we wanted to give people time to pray out loud, share a song or poem, talk about what God's been doing, etc in and around the songs we sang. It went extremely well.

Children's area. Our biggest issue in this space is where to put the kids after they are dismissed to "children's church." We ended up using canvas, rope, and many other McGyver-type ultilities and "building" our own children's area. It was a hit and I'm very grateful to Rebecca, Matt, and Kristy for their collective engineering and faithfulness to seeing this thing through.

Bottom-line: It's a great space. There is a lot of room for growth, but also room for us to be the size we are now. The owners of the building are extremely laize-faire and don't care/mind if we alter a few things about the building so it suits our needs. We have indeed received the answer to what so many prayer were asking for: the pefect space for our church to have a home.

So, we met, we talked, we sang songs, we prayed, we took communion, we taught each other... we worshipped together. As Dallas read his benediction poem to wind things up, we knew we had something good on our hands, and you could see it on our faces. Everyone was proud of how far we'd come, and was excited about what the future would bring.

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