ARE YOU READY TO WORSHIP!

5:15am quick shower shave and COFFEE, HAVE TO MAKE THE COFFEE!

5:30am I got the truck loaded:
– keyboard….okay!
– bass….dont need it, I am not playing today
– gig bag…okay!
– Bible….okay!
– Me….well, maybe okay

PIC: That’s Shawn on the drums (oops, can’t see him in this pic), Greg on the guitar, Laura on the Keys, Dave on Bass, Phil on acoustic (when he’s not playin’ his Tele) and Becky on BG Vocals. Oh man, PJ’s hidden behind Phil in this Pic….He play’s a mean Les Paul!

And’t it’s off to see the wizard…er..Phil (Who’s idea was it to get this stage anyway?)

6:00am We arrive at the YMCA. It’s cool out, still dark and, the YMCA Gym is huge, ominous and empty……soon it will be transformed into God’s house! We start setting up the stage. Tim, Grant, Phil and I….one of a few teams that lead this transformation each and every Sunday!

6:30am Hector arrives with a smile (where does he get that thing so early in the morning?) LOL

6:45am The rest of the “crew” begins to show up. We gather in a circle, hold hands and slow down to pray and thank God for each other, this wonderful day, safety and….please, God, let everything work!

7:45am All the equipment is up, the lighting is still going up, we start to get ready for line checks…check the mics, check the instruments….where’s the other band members? The drummer has his drums up and ready to play. Wow, allot is happening!

8:00am SOUNDCHECK! The band is there, behind their instruments and ready to play. James, Zack we need more Phil in the Monitors…Phil says, “James, Zack, I need more ME in the monitors”, no….. more bass….no……more keyboards…more vocals….more BACKGROUND VOCALS……..LET’s DO IT! Thanks James….the monitor mix is AWESOME! Nikea, Joel, ya got the media ready to go? Great! let’s go!

8:15am RUN THROUGH…….awesome…when I’m not playing I get to be an “audience of one” and just sit there in praise and worship before anyone else even arrives. Hector and his crew are putting the finishing touches on the lights…focus center stage….blue and red back lighting…..AWESOME job Hector!

(PIC: LEFT:That’s Joey, Steve, Nikea and Hector, RIGHT: Zack)

9:15am Prayer with the whole band and worship crew. I have to stop a second here and say this: We have the most awesome worship crew on the planet! I see over twenty people with hearts that shine for God! Who dedicate so much time and effort to Him! Who really care about creating an environment that might just open the door a little to a heart that needs God! WOW! Okay… our prayer is full of smiles, humble hearts and a genuine attitude of servanthood and worship…Amen….we all place our hands together in a circle….1….2…3…..WORSHIP! You can hear or words echo through the gym.

9:45am The YMCA (now God’s Sanctuary) is ready to go, the stage is set, everything is in place. There is a sigh of relief as we take a moment for reflection before the sevice. God will do the rest.

10:00am The first chord sounds as arms raise, hearts race, and voices lift in adoration to our Father! Song after song of sincere worship. I here clapping, beautiful voices…I see arms lifted in the air. Bodies gently swaying unison, and hearts lifetd up. I know that God is smiling!

10:20am Steve, our Pastor begins to speak. I see a transparancey, a relevant heart with a relavant message as he speaks to our hearts about the love of our Savior. Today’s message is number two in the series, “The Incredible Marriage”. God has raised up a powerful man!

11:00am The service is over, hearts gather at the Stir Cafe in the back of the sanctuary for fellowship. The room is abuzz with smiles, hugs, and a sincere love for each other. What a powerful day and what fun it is. I feel each Sunday like we are having a big family get together.

11:30am We tear down, and have allot of fun doing it. We are still putting the last remnants of the stage and “God’s House” when people start arriving to throw hoops. The basketball courts are open! I can’t help but feel tired, yet refreshed, it’s been a great day at home with our Father. What is wonderful, at least in our church, is that we all commune with our Father all week. Sunday is just the picnic we throw for Him!

12:30am I am home, have unloaded my truck…..I sit in my easy chair with a smile, often drift off to a nap so I can get up and start all over again. Another week of 24-7 Worship! Thank you God!

I am told often by new people coming to LifePoint that they are so glad they found us. I know that we are a church that thinks out of the box……most of all, I know that we are just a bunch of folks that love God with a tremendous passion.

They have finally found a diagnosis for my condition. Hooray!! I have recently been diagnosed with A.A.A.D.D.! Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder…

Let me explain, tell me if this isn’t familiar:

I decide to work on a new song! I start toward the JamminStation and notice the mail on the table. Ok, I’m going to work on a new song. But first I’m going to go through the mail. I lay my pic and capo down on the desk, discard the junk mail and I notice the trashcan is full. Ok, I’ll just put the bills on my desk and take the trashcan out, but since I’m going to be near the mailbox anyway, I’ll pay these few bills first. Now, where is my checkbook? Oops, there’s only one check left. My extra checks are in my desk. Oh, there’s the bottle of water I was drinking. I’m going to look for those checks. But first, my water is warm, oh, maybe I’ll pop it into the fridge to keep it cold for a while.

I head towards the kitchen and the flowers I recently got Kelly catch my eye, they need some water. I set the water on the counter and uh oh! There are my glasses. I was looking for them all morning! I’d better put them away first. I fill a container with water and head for the flowerpots – - Aaaaaagh! Someone left the TV remote in the kitchen. We’ll never think to look in the kitchen tonight when we want to watch television so I’d better put it back in the family room where it belongs. I splash some water into the pots and onto the floor, I throw the remote onto Kelly’s recliner and I head back into the kitchen trying to figure out what it was I was going to do?

End of Day: The song isn’t even started, the bills are unpaid, and the bottle of water is still sitting on the kitchen counter, the flowers are half watered, the checkbook still only has one check in it and I can’t seem to find my pic or my capo!

When I try to figure out how come nothing got done today, I’m baffled because I KNOW I WAS BUSY ALL DAY LONG!!!

I was on another blog today and this question was asked  (thanks Deana):

IF YOU WERE TO EXPLAIN TO A FRIEND WHAT IT MEANS TO KNOW GOD PERSONALLY, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY?

To know God personally is in many ways like knowing any person personally only much, much greater. Our earthly friends and family are prone to human error…God isn’t (thanks Dan for that thought today). To know God personally is to talk with Him and to listen to Him. He is our Father, and so very wise. It means that I also seek His wisdom in my life and do my best to apply His wisdom (obedience). The more I do these things the deeper and more robust my relationship with Him is. When I don’t do these things I feel distant, like I am away from home. And when I am away…I can call Him 24/7 and He always answers (no phone bills to worry about!). When I am away too long without calling, He’s disappointed. When I come back or when I do call, His arms and His heart is there to welcome me back. I want everyone around me to know God, my Father, to have a relationship with Him. The greatest thing is, He can be a friend, mentor, Father, and everything to all of us at the same time. We don’t have to worry about sibling rivalry….there is none.

What would YOU say?

God……..Our Father

Whew! What a day! I started this new book today by Donald Miller called, “Blue Like Jazz (Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality)”. I really enjoy Donald’s style. Listen to this short paragraph on page 4:

“Today I wonder why it is God refers to Himself as “Father” at all. This, to me, in light of the earthly representation of the role, seems a marketing mistake. Why would God want to call Himself Father when so many fathers abandon their children?”

I was blessed with a wonderful mother, but my father, well, he loved but, but he was to busy in business for me and we were semi estranged most of my adult life. In my early childhood he was a railroad man, those were great years, but when I was about five he became an executive and it wasn’t until after I was in the Gulf War that he ever even visited my home (at that time I was 35 years old with two children). So, I didn’t have a great “father figure”. However, my driving desire in life has always been to raise my children in a loving and nurturing environment. My wife, Kelly, and I have raised our children from day-one using the Bible method. We raised our children to prepare them to leave our home when they are ready and to be responsible and loving. We have been blessed.

Anyway, back to the God as Father thing. I see how easy it is to see God as Father because of my relationship with my children. But not everyone has that experience. I recently spoke to a friend of mine who came to me upon losing his dog for comfort. He was visibly upset and shaken and hurting deeply. We sat out in the JamminStation (my studio) talking, and he confided in me that he had often had a hard time understanding the concept of “unconditional love” because his father had never treated him that way. But, he said, that this day he began to truly understand it because of the unconditional love that his dog had for him and he for his dog. His dog had died of old age after many wonderful years in the family. He fought back tears, but they fell, we talked and we prayed. I could not help but think that God put dogs on this earth for a reason. Come home…they can’t wait to see you…..sit down….they want to be near you……lay down…they want to snuggle…go out… they want go also. What a wonderful example of unconditional love. Then it struck me…….dog spelled backward is God….hmm……who named these wonderful creatures?

Though most of my life was distant from my father, I always had a love for him and I did have some good memories. In 1996 my father was terminally ill, a heavy smoker and an alcoholic who had been abandonded by my stepmother, the woman he truly loved in his lifetime. My sister and I talked him into flying from Florida to Colorado to live with me and my family. He told me that at this time in his life, all the people that he expected to be there for him (my stepmother and her children) were now gone, and those that he had treated badly and distantly, (my mother, me, my sister and my brother), were the ones that were there for him. This attest to the ties of unconditional love that bind us through Christ love for us. My father lived 5 more months. Those were the absolute very best months of my life as we got to know each other, laughed and joked and really lived life together. He was also agnostic most of his adult life, and at this time realized that he was wrong about God. When he died, he came back tyo the Lord. At that time I was still wandering a little aimlessly in  my spiritual life but was concerned about his salvation. What would follow was truly amazing, what followed was a voice that could only be from God.

After his passing and after the funeral, one day as our family was traveling home in Colorado Springs, we were driving toward the mountains as the sun was going down. A long, winding freight train was going down the track in fron of the sun. My oldest daughter, then just 11, startled us, and told us to look ahead at the sun. There before us, as the train was crossing the horizon and the sun was going down, was a perfect cross, a glint in the sun, not an “X” or a star, but a perfect cross. We all immedietly made the connection that “Papaw” (as my children called their gradfather) was with God. I immedietly knew that my father was with “the Father” and my fears were washed away. God talked to us that day. My children still talk about it. We watched that cross in the sun the whole way home for miles and miles.

I know that this was a little rambling, but reading the first pages of this book brought back a flood of memories. Something else about that unconditional love……my father was semi estranged from his real family most of our lives……..but the memories that stand out the most are the good ones. Is it that way with The Father? Does he love us so much, so unconditionally, that His arms and heart are always open to us, despite all those times that we were “estranged”? Yes….I think so….in fact……YES….I KNOW SO!

“Be still…and know that I am God”   — Psalm 46:10

It’s not easy to hear God speak to us in a world that is fast paced with so many images and sounds blaring from every corner of our existence. Sometimes I really have to listen, I am constantly reminded of Psalms 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God”.  I look for opportunities to “be still”, to hear God’s gentle whisper in my heart. How do we know when God is speaking to us? Listen for the gentle and loving voice. Close your eyes and “be still”.

The other part of this is “and know that I am God”. It’s not always easy to trust in someone other than ourselves in a world in which we are taught to stand on our own two feet, do it “our” way,  take charge of our own destiny, and on and on. I have found it so refreshing to ask God to let me do it “His” way, to ask Christ to lead me, to follow God’s voice in my heart and in all that I do. Of course there are times I insist on doing things “my” way. They usually lead me back to “His” way (beacuse “my way” wasn’t the “right way”).  I have found that this trust is something that has developed over time. As I look at the times I have done things “my way” and compare them to the times that I have listened for God’s gentle voice in the sea of voices bombarding me each day and been obedient, I see the path that is clearer, sometimes less traveled….but I recognize it as the path that leads to my destination……..home…..and God is on the porch with His arms wide open and a smile on His face, dinner is on the table. I have learned to trust in God’s leading because no matter where I am……He leads me home.

Take the time to listen….and listen for the gentle voice in the distance…as you listen and obey God’s gentle voice, as you see His path before you, trust….because the path always leads home and God is always on the porch with open arms and a warm smile.

THE BAPTISMAL POOL IS DONE!

Four weeks….hot…..digging….but now…..WE’RE SWIMMING! We purchased this baptismal pool online and I thought, cool, we’ll have it up in a weekend. Hello! Boy, were we in for a surprise. I had to take a day off work just for them to deliver it! Then I looked at the pages and pages of instructions. We spent two weekends just digging in the hot sun. Then Pastor Steve came by and helped us with the final assembly. We had a blast inside the empty pool marking our favorite Bible verses all over the inside walls under the liner. We want to swim in God’s Word! Awesome!  (I want to let everyone in on a secret….Steve is quite an Artist!) I figure we can baptize 5 or 6 people at a time and swim on the weekends 

My Wife kelly Wrestles With God:

Not long ago my daughter (Jessica, a college student) and my wife (Kelly) were talking at the dinner table. Kelly told me that Jessica had a question concerning the bible. The question was: “How can we be sure that the bible is true and inspired by God”?

Kelly didn’t know quite how to answer and they continued to chat. Over the next few weeks, Kelly told me that she prayed, asking God to give her the words to pass on to Jessica.

Fast forward to our Wednesday night Bible study. We were studying the Gospel of John. After our study and after everyone left Kelly turned on the TV. She told me that she heard a voice in her heart saying the word, “Galatians”. She thought this was odd as she had never read Galations. She continued to watch TV and again she heard a voice say “Galations”. She resisted again and said, ” I want to watch my show!”. Again she hears “Galations”, but doggone it, the show was getting good! Still again, she heard the word “Galations”. Okay, she thought and and she picked upo her Bible and turned to Galations, this is what she read:

Galations 1:11-12
11 I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Kelly heard the living God! After a small wrestling match, not realizing who she was wrestling with, she obeyed and recieved the answer to the question that Jessica asked.

When we know Jesus, when we know God, we can hear him speak to us, sometimes in an audible voice, sometimes a voice in our heart, often tiimes through His written Word and still other times in the voice or presence of someone that He has made an appointment with to cross our path.

Listen to His voice……recognize His presence and be obedient to His Words.

We want to hear about your experiences. Visit the website of my friend, Phil Ayers for more thougfhts about “listening to God”

Is Anybody Listening?

LifePoint Christian Church leadership Summit Topic, 22 May 2005

Tonight we discussed prayer and it’s importance in discerning God’s will in our ministry’s and our lives. We had quite a lively discussion. Much of the discussion centered around listeing to God. Listening to God begins with talking with God.

Prayer is such an important and vital relationship building tool with God. Just as “talking” with someone you want to get to know is a vital relationship building tool with them. In Romans 12:12 the Apostle Paul tells us to “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” And in Philippians 4:6-7 we are told “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Prayer, “talking with God”, leads to an intimate awareness of Him in your life. Think about that relationship with someone you know, family or friend, that your really cherish……..as you talk with them, you get to know them. As you talk with them, you become “aware” of who they are and they become aware of who you are.

Prayer is about listening. Communication with your cherished friend is more than talking, it’s about listening and sharing. Prayer is not only asking God for things, it’s about sharing our lives, our wants, our needs, our thoughts and asking for His wisdom (His advice), and His will in our lives. So, how do we listen to God? It starts with communicating with God, then looking for and and being aware of His voice in our life. I’ve heard His voice in my heart, nudging me on or nudging me away from something as the case may be; in the voice of others as I hear words that are a definate answer or comment on someting “we” have been talking about in prayer; sometimes in a situation and somtimes in a book. The key is, we hear a response to a conversation we had with the living God. In Colossians 4:2 we are told to “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.”

Prayer takes us beyond “should”. Have you ever known what you “should” do, but maybe you’re afraid or wary, or cautious of taking the chance to do what’s right. However, when we are in conversation with God, we go beyond “should” because we “know” what we are to do. We often feel “called”. God makes it apparent to us what we are to do. We have only to be obedient. Listen to Luke 11:28 “He replied, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.’ ”

Prayer leads to the unknown. We must trust in God. We don’t know the outcome, but God knows.

So, the burning question seems to be, how can we be assured that we recognize God’s voice? Practically, in my experience and the experience of many of my brothers and sister’s in Christ, the answer is in knowing God, having a relationship with Christ.
 1. Spend time talking with God daily. It might be on your knees, it might be alone, it might be with others, it could be as your driving with youir eyes wide open, it could be in the still of night or even the business of the day. It sometimes is a word of thanks or praise, or many words of supplication (asking for humbly and earnestly), it’s confessing and asking forgiviness for the wrongs we commit, it’s asking for help, it’s asking for guidance and wisdom.
 2. Spend time reading, and more importantly, understanding God’s Word, the Bible. Ask those you trust questions, ask God for understanding.
 3. Spend time in fellowship with other believers. We need the encouragement, the love of others, the accountability among friends, brother’s and sister’s in Christ. God often speaks to us through the lips and eyes of the hearts of His followers.

Do these things, not out of “an equation for success” or for any type of “ritual answer”, but out of love for Christ and each other. Just like that cherished friend or family member that you just enjoy being around because you are accepted and loved, as we build a relationship with God, we feel accepted and loved. A true friend, someone who loves us unconditionally, may not allways tell us what we want to hear. However, we know that what they would only tell these things in truthfulness and love. God would never lead us astray, He loves us unconditionally and will always be truthful with us, just like that cherished friend or family member.

Let me know what you think , what are your thoughts?

Thoughts from a recent morning in April……..

What a morning…what a beach. there I was, in many ways my life coming full circle. It was in Daytona Beach in 1982 that I turned my life around. It was here that I hit my lowest low and cried out to God to deliver me from a life of drugs and shallow relationships. I used to work at the Mayan In down by the boardwalk in the Aztek Lounge. I know Daytona, the parties the drugs, the alcohol, the broken spirits of those who live and work there and the temporary insanity of those who visit to party.

I ran a mile or so down the beach in the slow drizzle, the dark layers of clouds were slowly drifting out to sea. As I looked up and down the wide expanse of beach before me I could see only an endless stretch of hotels in either direction. The hotel that we were staying at, the El Caribe, is known as a Christian hotel as it host many Christian groups and events. As I looked back I saw a break in the clouds and a patch of shining blue sky allowing sunlight to shine through right over the El Caribe. I instantly was moved, felt emotions welling inside my heart and recognized that God wanted me to see the great number of lost souls that He yearned to have come to Him. Here was a lone hotel hosting groups of people in love with the living God amidst a seemingly endless stretch of people lost to God.

I realized that as God’s children, we were to gather together in love and fellowship, but ultimately we are called to disperse and to reach out in love to all those on that endless expanse of beach. We are called to go out into the world and share the love that we have so graciously received through our Lord Jesus Christ.