Friday, August 31, 2007



We have had a great week here...heading back soon but we will miss one more Sunday at GCC...looking forward to being back in C-ville. Just wanted to put some pics up of our girls! God blessed us with a wonderful week.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

really live from Surf City...

Another great day on vacation...yes you know you are having a great day when the only big plans for the day is to go out for dinner! Yes, dinner was good, we ate at Sears landing...wow it was great and they had diet sundrop. Today the kids played at the beach again and Kozbi even wet out into the deep part with me and Chelsea. She was stoked to "practice swimming" and to jump waves with her mom and dad. Kelyn likes to eat sand, sand does not effect her, she just eats it. Not sure what is up with that but she seems ok. Took a nap with kelyn today as I feel asleep to some new music rom Shane and Shane and Robbie Seay Band! 2 GREAT ALBUMS. It is so amazing to get to hear new stuff from 2 of my favs on vacation. I both them both on itunes this morning and have been blown away. Both bands took several years to put this work out and it paid off. It is great to see creative spirits that honor God in their music. These are 2 bands that i support because they chart their own course and set tends, there is just too much copy cat stuff out there that hits the radio, this is original. Go out and buy both cds, or download it, GET IT!

Monday, August 27, 2007

vacation - live from surf city!

Howdy from vacation, it is a great part of vacation, all the kids are a asleep and we are about to play cards...what else is vacation for but to play cards. We have had an incredible day one and two here in Surf City NC...koz and kelyn love the beach, they have played hard both days...got to grill fresh, caught yesterday grouper tonight - WOW...I have had my phone off all day, did turn it on to check messages and send a text but OFF all day, I had no idea what time it was all day. Good times...hope to get some pictures up on Tuesday, I left the camera in the car today BUT hey, I am off so it is no big deal. Big plans for tomorrow, same as everyday. We go to beach, eat and sleep...that is about it. Maybe i will post a pic of me eating. I did run yesterday, just wanted to let Chad know, my pastor and my health trainer! YES!

I did miss church yesterday - it is so amazing to be on vacation and miss CHURCH. This is a first in ministry. I usually am so stressed I need to run from church but I missed it this week. Just seemed funny to be bummed about missing, HA! Chelsea and I both laughed about it, we love connecting with folks at GCC way too much. Maybe we are making things too much fun, better get SERIOUS quick. I did hear it was an amazing day back home and that Ron hit a home run. We had 400 people sign up for operation serve - WOW

Monday, August 20, 2007

ready for some BEACH time...

It has been a great summer, getting here to GCC has been amazing, but I am ready for little down time! It has been wild to watch us work through our first summer at Rossview High as our gathering location, getting to know our staff, and launching our student ministry at Grace but my brain needs some time to slow down. Chelsea and I are getting stuff ready for vacation next week...the week before vacation is kind of weird in that you work hard to get ready to be gone so you can shut down! HA kind of funny to work hard to be gone but it is so a must in my life. Really it is a must in all our lives. We were made to take time to rest, to take moments to turn it all off, to discover that we can step back and life will move forward without us. I am stoked - I am sure I will get to blog some while away just to get some of my vacation thoughts in writing so I do not loose them or at least can look back on them later, BLOGS are great for that.

We had our second week of REMIX and the teen actually came back! Thanks to all of you who have prayed for this adventure. It has been fun to watch God work. We are getting ready to launch our life{groups} at REMIX which is our student version of community groups. I can not wait for our team of adults to begin to invest in these kids. God is gonna use it in a huge way. Teens simply need to know God and be known by others and we get to help in that! I am kind of living a dream being able to luanch one of things from the ground up, it is fun and scary at the same time but Chelsea and I stoked to get a shot at it.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

REMIX launched!

It feels like forever since I posted on this thing, it has been a great week. WE LAUNCHED REMIX our student gathering here at GCC and WOW, God blew us away. We spend last week getting the room set up, video installed, sound up, practice, set up clean up, all that kind of stuff! On Friday the last of the video stuff was done and we still did not know if it would all work. After running it all in practice and trying to find a place to hook our light system up we came to Sunday night and simply hoped it would all work...we prayed, we spread the word, we prayed some more, we gave away t-shirts and our students invited folks and we had 90 students and 50 adults show up on Sunday night for the launch! I am still in shock; God really did a great thing. It was one of the most amazing moments of my life. For years I have dreamed about launching a student ministry from the ground up with the resources needed to do it and God is making it happen. It is so amazing to see God bring the pieces together...I am so thankful for Duke Boles who leads this thing with me as my worship leader and guess what, KATRINA WATTS is our remix director! It is so good to be working with her again. Chelsea was such a huge support last week, I felt like I was away all week and my mind was in one place that is for sure, I dreamed every night about REMIX stuff last week. God answered our paryers and allowed us to see Him work. It is going to be wild to see how God uses this thing...

I think I have said this but go check our www.relevantstudents.com to see our web site...our podcast will be up this week from Sunday night! YES we are pod casters! We hope it helps parents know what we are talking about so they can talk with their kids about spiritual issues and life!

Monday, August 6, 2007

collaborate...

If I do not type this thought now I will forget...this is why I BLOG here we go...

Collaborate, collaboration - what ever word suites your fancy - just a word, a thought. a process that has been invading my thought life today. Why is it that so many people in ministry do CHURCH, live life, work on projects, in a bubble isolated? I am finding that the more I collaborate on projects, ideas, etc. the better what I am working on gets. There is no teaching environment (HERE AT GCC) that goes off during a week without some kind of collaboration, teamwork, team thought. It is making us all so much better, it is making us understand that tow or three minds working on a message, a teaching time, a project could be better than one holed up in a study. SURE we know the key teacher or speaker has to be the one to formulate the central part of the message, it must flow from within, from God's WORD in our context. The speaker must believe that what he is speaking on Must be shared but after that other minds can help give guidance to how that info is communicated to the people listening. Every week someone on our team gives the speaker a good idea, a perspective they had not seen - IT WORKS. I was not taught this at seminary, wow imagine that, I know it is hard to believe but trust me, I am a better leader, speaker, human, dad and husband because of the people I collaborate with. Life was never meant to be lived alone, why should work be any different.

With no collaboration staleness enters our space, BUT that is another blog for another day, goodnight!

Thursday, August 2, 2007

go braves...

yes it is august, I can not believe it but it is August and the trade deadline has passed and yes I am a Braves fan and yes I am stoked that the Brave traded for Mark Tiexera..not sure if I spelled it right. I know some reading this do not care about baseball and do not care that I care but it is fun to know that my team has one of the best lineups in baseball and that we are gonna chase down the mets and start a new divisional champ streak! The braves do it right, they build with young players and this addition is so good to help bring all the pieces together. GO BRAVES...

This week we continued on our "get the house done" mission and had Chelsea's mom finish the curtains. They look great. Last weekend my dad and I built the kids swing set. It only took 12 hours, it was only 1,000 degrees outside. We have finished all the major projects and we are starting to feel like our new home is home. We love the house for sure. God blessed us with a great neighborhood and great house.

Rissa Larson's mother passed away this week and I went to the funeral today. Rissa's and the Larson family have been such a blessing to my family. We are friends for sure and today I was so proud of their daughter Carrie...Carrie was close to her grandmother but was not at the funeral because she is in Bolivia on a mission trip. She decided to stay in the field and miss the funeral to do the work God called her to, that is an amazing choice for a college student to work through. She did the right thing and her choice honored her grandmother. check our Carries mission trip blog at... http://www.carrielarson.blogspot.com/

We launched our new student ministry web site this week, go check it out...

www.relevantstudents.com

Our design team hit a home run with the web project and Doug Russell got it live on the web, it was so exciting to see it launch this week!