Jesus is Coming to Texas!!!

This just in: Jesus is coming to Texas. 75,000 people strong. Amidst pain, suffering, hunger, tears, chaos, rape, looting, finger pointing and blame, 75,000 homeless people are coming to the Lone Star State. No home. NO clothes. No food. No job. And many with no Savior.

Matt 25:37-40
37 "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

40 "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' NIV

Father, please empower YOUR church to see YOUR SON. Please bring beauty out of the ashes.

My Family

I am trying to get back into the BLOGosphere... posting more thoughts and learning to add photos... Here is a pic of my family!!! Rachel and I, Madeline (age 5) Samuel (3) and Lee and Tomlyn (2). I am a blessed man...

Good Summer

It has been a good summer. Our kids have moved to the "non-stroller" era freeing us up to go more places. God continues to grow our marriage and family towards His ways. I got to experience two days with our Youth Group in Mexico with our new youth pastor. What an amazing group!! God has shown me how much I need Him!!!Our church family(www.crossroadsdecatur.com ) has been able to experience a permanent facility. We have added several new faces to our church family. I have got to play golf more than once and play in a scramble with Cody Wadsworth, Jim Reynolds and Stephen Bailey!!! In fact- I got reconnected with Stephen after a long spell. I learned to play 42. God has worked miracles in the lives of the people I serve. I found a deer lease that I get to hunt on with my good old Friend Eric Fleming. Madeline and Samuel got to drive (with their dad) a CAT DC-6 bulldozzer with Bobby Mayfield. We celebrated the 4th of July in our back yard sending fireworks over our (and our neighbors) back pastures!! Listening Samuel scream with excitment when the "Texas Screamers" went off was worth every bit of the $50 I spent. God has broken areas of pride off my heart- still a long ways to go - but progress. I got to help teach Madeline and Samuel how to swim. Rachel and I finally established a pretty routine date night!!! I learned how to really pray for my family. My church has continued to let me learn how to preach... and not shot me. God has delivered me from strongholds I have had my whole life!!! I have grown very close to two leaders in my church: Todd Parks and Bill Sandford. Our staff has come together!! What a team!!! I am learning to live in the present. Judging people and other churches is looking more and more stupid to me. On our family we have started a new tradition of eating breakfast at the Cracker Barrel...comfort food baby!!! Our church has seen 40 men get into discpleship groups and meet weekly with two of them: Donald Willis and Jeremiah young- two pilgrims who want God 90 proof (inside joke). How can I be so blessed!!!

Our whole family has been illness free for over 2 months, we have food on the table and the riding lawn mower for our ranchette has run like a top. What more could you ask for?

God is so good. It has been a good summer.

Holy Moments

I love Holy Moments.

Those unplanned seconds that grab your heart and imagination and don't let go. Watching grandparents gaze at their grandchild saying, "Till death do us part" at a wedding with tears rolling down their cheeks. Knowing that each tear could tell a story of great times and hard times and everything in between. Experiencing the moving emotion in a movie like "Braveheart" when William Wallace yells "FREEDOM" and gives his life for it or in a musical like "Les Miserables" when grace gives Jean Valjean freedom. Maybe you've had one of these moments lately when one of your kids crawl up in your lap and spontaneously say, "Daddy, I Love You." Your heart swells and your eyes water and your soul wishes you could push pause for about two years. These moments grab us, shake us, stir us, but mostly remind us what really matters in life: Living for a King that many can't see and loving our family and friends with a love that is beyond words.

I had one of those moments coming home from church this past Sunday. And, like most Holy Moments, it caught me off guard and surprised me with an experience I will not soon forget. As I turned of the highway going towards my home a huge banner caught my attention. It was professionally made and printed with very large red letters that said "WELCOME HOME!!!" On the side of the sign was a United States Marine Corps emblem- obviously a soldier coming home from the War. As I drove along the road there were more printed signs. "We missed YOU!!!- the Bransons"We Love You"- the Brazier's, hundreds of them-spaced every 10 yards- for miles. As I read these words from the hundredss of friends and family I found myself overwhelmed with the emotion the soldier must have been feeling as he turned down that highway towards His home; thankful to God that he is still breathing, able to drive a car- and then to be greeted with such a beautiful expression of love, thanks, and appreciation. I have long had an affinity for going home to were I grew up and experiencing that feeling of safety, warmth, and good memories. I can't imagine how much sweeter it was to that Marine who many days wondered whether he would ever make that drive again. I have never been to War. He has. The last sign I read will forever assure this moment a place in my memory. It said simply "Semper Fi". The Marine mantra which means, "Always Faithful".

In that moment I pictured the great cloud of witnesses that will one day line the streets when you and I come home. Signs of love, thanks, and appreciation, all signed by friends, family, and heroes of the faith that have gone home before me. I can't wait to see the signs for me from my NaNa, Don Phillips, Ryan King, and Justin Raburn, just to name a few. As great as those signs will be, they will lead to a greater reward that has captured my heart: To fall down before my Lord and My King, and to hear the words, "Semper Fi."

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Hebrews 12:1 I love Holy Moments.

Holy Moments

I love Holy Moments.

The unplanned seconds that grab your heart and imagination and don't let go. Watching grandparents gaze at their grandchild saying, "Till death do us part" at a wedding with tears rolling down their cheeks. Knowing that each tear could tell a story of great times and hard times and everything in between. Experiencing the moving emotion in a movie like "Braveheart" when William Wallace yells "FREEDOM" and gives his life for it or in a musical like "Les Miserables" when grace gives Jean Valjean freedom. Maybe you've had one of these moments lately when one of your kids crawl up in your lap and spontaneously say, "Daddy, I Love You." Your heart swells and your eyes water and your soul wishes you could push pause for about two years. These moments grab us, shake us, stir us, but mostly remind us what really matters in life: Living for a King that many can't see and loving our family and friends with a love that is beyond words.

I had one of those moments coming home from church this past Sunday. And, like most Holy Moments, it caught me off guard and surprised me with an experience I will not soon forget. As I turned of the highway going towards my home a huge banner caught my attention. It was professionally made and printed with very large red letters that said "WELCOME HOME!!!" On the side of the sign was a United States Marine Corps emblem- obviously a soldier coming home from the War. As I drove along the road there were more printed signs. "We missed YOU!!!- the Bransons"We Love You"- the Brazier's, hundreds of them-spaced every 10 yards- for miles. As I read these words from the hundredss of friends and family I found myself overwhelmed with the emotion the soldier must have been feeling as he turned down that highway towards His home; thankful to God that he is still breathing, able to drive a car- and then to be greeted with such a beautiful expression of love, thanks, and appreciation. I have long had an affinity for going home to were I grew up and experiencing that feeling of safety, warmth, and good memories. I can't imagine how much sweeter it was to that Marine who many days wondered whether he would ever make that drive again. I have never been to War. He has.

The last sign I read will forever assure this moment a place in my memory. It said simply "Semper Fi". The Marine mantra which means, "Always Faithful". In that moment I pictured the great cloud of witnesses that will one day line the streets when you and I come home. Signs of love, thanks, and appreciation, all signed by friends, family, and heroes of the faith that have gone home before me. I can't wait to see the signs for me from my NaNa, Don Phillips, Ryan King, and Justin Raburn, just to name a few. As great as those signs will be, they will lead to a greater reward that has captured my heart: To fall down before my Lord and My King, and to hear the words, "Semper Fi."

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Hebrews 12:1

I love Holy Moments.

I need help...

I can't get all my blogspot pages to look the same. WHen I look up my blog on the blog spot address it gives me my old template and does not list my new renderings. Help...

I cannot BLOG well...

I changed the template on my blog and cannot pull up my most recent posts... this thing is driving me nuts...

Breakin the Silence

I wrote this two days after I had not seen my first attempt published..excuse the repetitiveness...

NOT that anyone would notice. But I am breaking my silence in the Blog world. Between family and church I have not made time for this adventure but here it is...my quote for the month..

"We need to take our lives more seriously and ourselves less seriously. Seriously."

I am amazed how hard it is not to get sucked into our culture of entertaining, inebriating, numbing, or blaming. We take our selves way to seriously and our lives way to lite... To quote a famous Theologian...whom is so famous I cannot remember his name... we need to be asking the question: "How then shall we live?" God move us from existing to living. From surviving to celebrating. From avoiding to facing, conquering, and praising!!! May the approval issues that chain us in fear be broken to peaces with the realization that it is about HIM, HIS PURPOSES, and HIS GLORY being made manifest in our lives. He must become GREATER, I must become less...

Thought to Ponder....

Just a quick note to any that peruse my BLOG. I have been snowed and haven't made the time to BLOG but was hit with a "Thought to Ponder" the other day.

"WE need to take our lives more seriously and ourselves less seriously."

As I pastor a church and observe our culture it seems that we spend way to much time thinking, entertaining, psychoanalysing, feeding, or inebriating our selves and less time taking seriously evaluating how we live. As a famous Theologian(so famous I can't remember him) said "How then Shall we live? The choices we are making by and large are destroying our families and culture. I have been convicted to take my life more seriously and my self less. Self-less. What a concept. God---I need your help!!!

Great Stuff!!!

I am copying this from Stephen Mansfields BLOG. You can read his stuff on his websight, "TheMansfieldGRoup". He is a fantastic writer and insightful historian. Here are his renderings concerning the presidential race:

"It was a bloody political fight. The two candidates wanted that Congressional seat and they wanted it badly. And one of the candidates was willing to throw the low blow to win.
This man had been a Methodist preacher, a tough, stout fiery pulpiteer of blunt opinions. He decided early in his campaign his opponent wasn’t a true Christian and that the largely church-going electorate ought to know it. So he opened fire. He told his audiences that his opponent denied Christ, welcomed drunkards as true believers, and never attended church. Perhaps worse, the man’s wife was an Episcopalian and therefore couldn’t be further from God. The voters had to choose, the preacher insisted, between a respected man of the cloth and a notorious infidel.
The preacher’s plan was calculated, well-executed and intended to strike the mortal wound. But it didn’t work. The former preacher, whose name was Peter Cartwright, lost the election badly. And we should be glad he did, for this bloody political battle took place in the Illinois of 1846. The name of the victorious infidel? Abraham Lincoln. Later, as our sixteenth president, Lincoln would summon the nation to faith and prayer more than all but a few of our chief executives have, his famed Second Inaugural Address ranking among the great political sermons of American history. Not bad for an infidel.
John Kerry would do well to learn from this episode in Lincoln’s life. On March 28, Kerry quoted James 2:14 to a St. Louis congregation, the scripture that says faith is of no profit without works, and then questioned aloud whether George Bush has genuine faith. Citing “our present national leadership,” Kerry said, “When we look at what’s happening in America today, where are the works of compassion? Because it’s also written, ‘Be doers of the word and not hearers only.’”
Mr. Kerry shouldn’t throw stones. He ought, first, to get consistent with his own faith. Kerry is a Catholic and by definition has affirmed the doctrines of the Church. Yet the candidate is at such variance with Catholic teaching on abortion and same-sex marriage that the Bishop of Kerry’s home diocese won’t admit the man to the Lord’s Table, the central experience of Catholic worship. Strange that Mr. Kerry feels the need to offer spiritual correction to President Bush.
What is more, while our current president is a man of deep and unapologetic evangelical faith, there is no record that he has ever questioned the faith of his opponents or doubted the sincerity of their religious opinions. In fact, though Bush is often portrayed by his enemies as a narrow Bible-thumper and pawn of preachers, the truth is that his administration has been graced with large-heartedness on religious matters. The president could not have been more affirming of law-abiding Muslims following the terror of September 11, 2001, and his administration is among the most religiously and racially diverse in American history. Like Lincoln and unlike Mr. Kerry, it isn’t Bush throwing religious punches in the current political fray.
Finally, it is odd to hear Kerry chastise Bush about an assumed divorce between faith and public policy. It is Bush who hopes to serve God in office while maintaining First Amendment boundaries. Mr. Kerry’s Democrat Party is notorious for candidates who believe one thing privately while urging another publicly. How many times do we hear a Democrat say, “Well, personally I’m opposed to abortion, but I will not vote my private opinions on the floor of the Congress?” If Mr. Kerry is going to start calling for a consistent line between private faith and public politics, he’ll have to switch parties first.
Religious attacks in politics are the refuge of the small and the insecure. Abraham Lincoln rose above them and won. President Bush will as well. Once again, Mr. Kerry is on the wrong side of history.

Great Stuff--

God Comes Near

Your life is today... You are living in the current state of what you said 1 year ago would be "When I..." You are living in your future. When I do this... then I will be doing what God wants me to do... then I will be fulfilled... The tragedy of "tommorrow thinking" seems to rob us of so much...primarily- walking with God today. James says, "..Come near to God and He will come near to You.." Wow. I don't have to wait until I have something paid off, or some career checklist checked, or family goal realized.. I can draw near to him now. I am always amazed at the difference between the days I am walking with Him and the days I am doing my own thing. Night and day. POwerful or powerless. LIfe giving or tiresome..

I want to take the plunge.. dive in.. go for it... Kingdom living is such the adventure. The past two days have taken a wild twist. For some reason (God's grace being one primary) I quit fighting for control and tried to let go some more. The results were astounding. It is so simple yet we make it so complicated. He bears fruit when he is in charge. So just do it. Take one minute. Remind yourself who's in charge and give Him the pleasure of hearing your heart. Who knows...He might just come near to you....

Politics

Not much time to write but must express one thought on the DNC in Boston.  Concerning the huge security attention at the convention: Why would any terrorist want to threaten the Democratic convention and 1)weaken their ability to take over the White House ?or 2)actually cause them to have resolve concerning anything outside their political endeavors?  If I were a terrorist, I would, along with Michael Moore, send the Kerry campaign a check and try to oust Bush. I was amused that Donald Trump joined in the celebrity Bush bashing party the other day as to why he would say, "You're Fired", to Bush. He stated one of his reasons was that he couldn't catch Ben ladin...note to Trump...put up a 30 million of your own money as a reward for his capture..just a small sacrifice.. and see what happens. 

I realize my conservative, Texas influenced, political slant, but have heard nothing of substance out of this convention. Just Bush hatred.  Come on, give us something, this is a democracy....

Babysittin...

I would like to meet the person who came up with the term...babysitting. Rachel is on a much needed two day mini-vacation and I am keeping our children: Madeline age 4, Samuel- 2, and Lee and Tomlyn 16 months. It is 2:15 p.m and this is the first time I have "sat" down in 6 hours. It has been a blast...but definitely tiring. My respect for stay at home moms continues to increase...er excuse me..Domestic engineers. God Bless all you out there raising your kids in the Lord...there is no higher calling.

Evangelism?!?

Well it is Sunday afternoon and the much needed nap was a great success. Getting over a 15 minute nap with 4 kids four and under is a small miracle so the I feel extremely blessed.

I am preaching through the book of Mark and was in the 3rd chapter were multitudes are trying to get to Jesus because he is healing people. I don't know how his ministry grew so fast without TV's, radios, flying banners behind planes, billboards, or the beloved internet. It seems that when Jesus is moving in people's lives that growth just happens- people are naturally attracted to were life is. He really did mean it when he said to "remain in me and you will bear much fruit." Our lives are filled with a continual fingerprints of God's presence and provision--we just need to open our eyes. Sharing our "faith" has become some fictitious futuristic event whereby someone sits in our office while we explain how God saved us...all the while noding in approval. This seems to me the reason we view evangelism as a bad word either a) because people don't seem to want to make regular appointments to hear our story or b)we don't feel like we can quite explain is like Billy Graham. It seems to me that the RX for such a view is in the realization that "sharing our faith"- which we are called in scripture to repeatedly do- is a sharing of one's complete life as it relates to God...how he is answering daily prayers..the revelation he is giving me from his word about my life.. the 1001 daily miracles he is doing in my life...the profound miracle of how he is changing someone who is full of himself to be full of someone else- Jesus..I am convinced that these little "t"testimonies lead to the "big" testimony "telling people how God saved you." By the time a person has seen the gospel on the canvas of your life...you are a more effective evangelist than anyone else. I must interupt this BLOG to go to our cell group...God bless any who stumble on these ramblings....

Let's Blog

I am so nervous. My first BLOG entry. I have been reading others blogs silently(as opposed to out loud), for several months now. It started with finding Mike Cope's by accident one day. He is such a wordsmith. I love a minister that engages culture. Speaking of which, I found an old school mate and friend- rather two of them- Joel Quile' and Grant Boone- sucked into the whole BLOG culture. I suppose all of us love anything that can prolong the start of our term papers. (insided joke to myseslf since I am the only person who will read this)...Anyways- I must get back to my kids- I am supposed to be babysitting...