New York, New York

So I knew that I would love the opportunity to go to spread the gospel in NYC, but I couldn’t believe how much I loved NYC itself. I LOVED IT! I loved the subways, the bus, the beautiful buildings towering into the air, I loved it all. I know I was in tourist mode so my goal is to back a few more times so I don’t love it so much. I’d go back tomorrow if I could. I could not believe all the people! The opportunity for street ministry there would be endless.

Anyways…With all the wonderful maneuvering that God orchestrated to allow me to go on this trip, I was excited to see what He was going to have me do down there. I really wanted to preach in Times Square, I wanted to pass out all my tracts, and I wanted to have some great one-on-ones. I really wanted to be used of God down there, but I soon found out what I’ve heard from many of my friends who have gone on short missions trips…the trip was more for them that for what they could do. Really it’s almost funny the arrogance of it all. God doesn’t need us, we need Him.

So I didn’t pass out all my tracts, and I didn’t preach in Times Square. I did have a good witness opportunity with a bunch of girls from England on a school trip, but it ended when the rest of their group called them back. God brought me down there to speak to me, and to encourage me. He used the preacher at Times Square Church, Carter Conlon, he used the preacher at Brooklyn Tabernacle, Jim Cymballa, He used the images that I saw walking down the street, and he used the people He sent down there with me. It was a wonderful time of worship and fellowship and ministry.

I would like to (in my free time) post a quick blurb about different parts of the trip as I can, even for me so I can go back and remember well, but free time has been hard to come by. I have a 5-7 page report to write, and a few tests to study for.

OK...I know this is dangerous ground to tread, but I am looking for your comments here concerning the comments of one of my heros, William Booth. Please leave your comments anonymous if you will.

The theatre in Worcester was crowded for the visit of William Booth on January 22, 1882. Even the General himself 'had great difficulty in getting in'. The door was smashed by the crowd still trying to gain admission after the place was full.George ' Sailor' Fielder, the Commanding Officer, had been put up to sing. He had been a sea captain with a voice that had often been heard above the roar of the waves. (Forty years later he still had ' a voice like thunder and gloried in open-air fighting'.) He sang his testimony in the words, ' Bless His name, He set me free.'

'That was a fine song. What tune was that? ' inquired the Army's Founder later.
'Oh,' came the reply in a rather disapproving tone, General, that's a dreadful tune. Don't you know what it is? That's " Champagne Charlie is my name".' That's settled it,' William Booth decided as he turned to Bramwell. ' Why should the devil have all the best tunes?'

An early pamphlet made the Army's position clear by saying that it' considers all music sacred when used with holy purpose'. For his Christmas message to War Cry readers of 1880 William Booth had already written: ' Secular music, do you say, belongs to the devil? Does it? Well, if it did I would plunder him for it, for he has no right to a single note of the whole seven. . . . Every note, and every strain, and every harmony is divine, and belongs to us. . . . So consecrate your voice and your instruments. Bring out your comets and harps and organs and flutes and violins and pianos and drums, and everything else that can make melody. Offer them to God, and use them to make all the hearts about you merry before the Lord.'

Getting There is Half the Fun

I guess the easiest way to do this is in little bites. First of all I want to praise the Lord for getting me to NYC, and I want to boast on Him for how He did it. When the trip was first offered, there was a man who offered to pay for me to go, but he has also helped me out so many times before that I didn’t feel comfortable with that. I fully planned on going to the Rochester parade to pass out tracts. A few weeks ago the man leading the trip explained that someone had to back out last minute so there was a train ticket and hotel already paid for if I wanted to go. OK, Lord! I’m going…well the guy who backed out had another change so he could go now. Did God still want me to go? Sure enough, as he came back on the trip someone else had to back out, so again train ticket and hotel provided by God! Just think of how that all worked. What a God! Then with ticket and hotel paid for I got the time off of work, and was all packed when at the last minute I had what was probably the worst toothache in all my life. Honestly my last post was written in such pain that I really didn’t think I was going. I e-mailed a few friends and took some Tylenol and finally around 1am went to sleep. Praise God I woke up and the pain was gone. It was sensitive, but it didn’t hold me back from going. Thank you for praying. God hears! From where I’m sitting it was just amazing to see God work out the details, and solve all the problems. He is a wonderful God.

Psalm 103:1 - Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

Off to NYC...

OK… so here’s where I’m at. I’m leaving for NYC in about 5 hours! You’d think I can’t sleep because I’m so excited, and that I’m just restless because this will be my first time going away on a smite trip, and its St. Patrick’s Day in the Big Apple, so I just can’t sleep, but you’d be wrong. I can’t sleep because I feel like someone has hit me in the face with a baseball bat.

A few days…er…weeks ago I lost a filling. Not Fun! It has been on and off troublesome, but not “the cost of getting it taken care of” troublesome. Well…today it is “Grown man crying” troublesome. Yes, I know I should have had it taken care of days …er…um… weeks ago, but I didn’t. I put it off and put it off, and now I’m in so much pain I can hardly think. Oh did I tell you I am leaving for NYC in less than 5 hours?

Why am I telling you this? Well… I need prayers, and I figure this may an easy way to get the 5 people who read this to pray for me. I so do not want this to ruin the trip! I know I am supposed to go. This would be kind of neat if it didn’t hurt soooo bad. I mean think about it. I’m at a point where I can’t do anything, which is just where God likes us because the only option it leaves is for Him to show Himself in mighty to get me through.

Please pray for our team as we head down to NYC to sow the gospel seed with Little Red Book. Pray that tracts would get into the hands of some seeking sinners, and find some soft hearts. Please pray that God would be honored and glorified with everything said and done. Please pray for my tooth that this pain subsides, and pray for the families of the team. Thank You SO Much!

I will do my best to post about the trip when I get back.

When I consider thy heavens

Psalm 148:3b - ...praise him, all ye stars of light.

I know this is going to sound silly to some, and like I am searching for an experience to others, but believe me, the only reason I am sharing this is to glorify God.

I just got home from church, and missionary Ken Pitcher preached to us a message on glorifying God. He demonstrated through multiple verses that God is glorified, when we ask. Not when we ask for ourselves, but when we ask in order to glorify Him. That’s probably a very simple explanation of a great truth that Bro. Pitcher was teaching us, but it will suffice for my story.

On my way home from church after this message, I noticed how beautiful the stars looked. My eyesight is pretty bad and I don’t have glasses, but I can see the stars on a clear night. I get mesmerized by stars, and I often spend time looking up. The heaven do indeed declare the glory of God, and as I got out of my van at home I began looking up again. I reflected on Bro. Ken’s message, and even though it’s silly, I felt at liberty to ask God for a shooting star. Yes I know it sounds ridiculous, but forgive me for that. I am opening my silly self up here! I stared into the sky and quietly glorified my Lord for His work in creation, and for few minutes I just stood under the sky looking up amazed. I asked God in light of the message to show me a shooting start only so I could glorify Him for it, and I stood there…I probably started into the sky for five minutes, until the silliness of my request began to creep up on me. I started walking in to the house, and periodically peeked back at the sky, I began to silently speak to God and praised Him for the stars that I could see, and right before I turned to walk inside, where I was looking a shooting star streaked across the sky.

So what if it sounds silly! You call it what you want, but it was God answering a silly request in order that He might be glorified. Remember I know it sounds all sappy, but tears began to come to my eyes, and I praised Him for being Him!

I know that what I saw was from God to me, and that it doesn’t really translate well on a blog post, but I had to share.

Psalm 40:5 - Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.

Fun at the Dentist’s Office

If you’re anything like me even the thought of the dentist’s office is enough to make your stomach turn, and your brow sweat…no…OK…it’ just me then… really I’m bad. Even your standard cleaning appointment is enough to make me white knuckled in the chair. I hate the dentist’s office! The one positive is that everyone there is pretty cool.

Well Thursday I had my 6 month check-up…about 2 years, late (but that’s beside the point) and they were running late. I sat in the waiting room for a half an hour before they even called me back. Then after 16 or so x-rays gagging on the film that they cram into your mouth, my hygienist scraped and polished my teeth…what fun! As she had both hands in my mouth she asked your standard “chit-chat” questions like “what do you do for a living?” How old are your kids?” and in between mouthfuls of sharp metal hooks I was able to tell her about school, and my desire to go into the ministry. She continued scraping and prodding and polishing, and humming to herself between questions, and in a few very long minutes I was done. So I thought…

After the cleaning the Dentist is supposed to come in and look at the x-rays, and inspect my mouth, and give me the future game plan, but he was in the middle of a procedure, so we had to wait…and wait…but anyways. My hygienist asked me why I was going into the ministry, and that allowed me to explain to her my testimony about getting saved in September of 2000. After I gave her my testimony she asked, what made me come to decision to be saved! Wow! My hygienist opened the door for me to witness to her for over a half an hour! It was fantastic! I was able to share with her my love for Jesus, and His love for me. We talked about sin, and the cross, and salvation. Glory to God!

Here is the part where I’d love to tell you that she saw her need for the Saviour, and we both bowed at the dentist chair and prayer, but that’s not what happened. All I know is that I was able to do what the Lord commanded us to do. I’ve been reminded many times. It’s not my job to win them, it’s my job to tell them, the rest is in God’s hands.

I wonder what (if any) questions popped in her mind after I left? I wonder if she has thought about what I said?

Thank God, I probably need a root canal, and some teeth fixed so I will be able to see her again pretty soon, and maybe have further opportunity. Pray for Maria! Now if you don’t mind I’m going to go and cry and tremble in fear that I may need a root canal.

The Sixth Love Language

I just wanted to quickly share with you about the "sixth" Love Language - Food!

I LOVE my wife, and she loves me. One of the ways she demonstrates this is having me come home to this. This my friends is Aussi Chicken, a copycat recipe of Outback Steakhouse's Alice Springs Chicken. It's cooked in a honey mustard sauce topped with bacon (and bacon only makes things better) and then smothered with colby jack cheese, and garnished with green onions. Yes, She loves me! All this after taking care of the house that all eight of us live in, and doing the laundry for all eight of us, homeschooling two kids with an infant crawling around trying (like it's treasure) to get into the toilet, or into the dog dish. What a woman!

I appreciate my wife. She is better by far than I deserve, and I after dinner I spoke to her in the sixth "female" love language - Dishes! ...take note men.

Memoirs of Black Friday Blitz 07’

I don’t even think the leftovers had a chance to chill in the fridge and the alarm was going off. It was 2:45am which is a painful time for your alarm to go off, but even more so when your 8 month old keeps you up until 12:45am… kids are so cute….(when they are sleeping!) Anyways, I was up and out the door by 3am and ready to head out and face the greatest shopping day of all year…

If you’re shaking your head in disbelief thinking that’s too early to shop, I agree! We were heading out for our second annual Black Friday Blitz. As hundreds upon hundreds of people line up to wait for the doors of their favorite store to open up, we sow the seed of the Gospel with Little Red Books and a smile. If you’re shaking your head saying that’s too early to go out tracting, Shame on you! People trying to get their hands on earthly treasures were out far earlier!

Anyways…

3am - I drove to Tim Horton’s and found to my great dismay that they had yet to reopen after their Thanksgiving break… Didn’t they know we’d all be up way too early? Anyways I drove to Hess for a Cappuccino, and did a quick drive through the Super Wal-Mart parking lot to see if my prediction was true…Sure enough about 30 people lined up in the cold, and snow with only 2 more hours to go before the doors opened.

3:15 - I drove the Tim’s house and we caravanned to Kohl’s to see a beautiful sight of about 200 people lined up ready to shop. We loaded up with tracts and together handed out about 150 before 4am. People were very nice for waiting in line since 1am and most people took the tracts with a smile.

4am – Tim and I arrived at Church to meet Derek, and wait to see how many responded to my request for soldiers. Aaron showed up to pick up some tracts, and even though he wasn’t going out with us and had to go to work he passed out about 250+ out at the Henrietta Toys-R-Us. Praise the Lord! Alex and Peter showed up, and then Rachel, Christina, Jordan, their cousin, and Kim, and we were set to go.

4:30am – Sent out the teams. Kim took Rachel, Christina, Jordan, and their cousin to cover Wal-Mart, Sam’s and Office Max. Alex and Derek went to Toys-R-Us, and Peter, Tim, and I went to Best Buy.

4:45am – Tim, Peter, and I arrived at Best Buy to see tons and tons of people lined up almost to K-Mart. It was wonderful! The cops were there to keep the crazy shoppers under control, the Best Buy guys were out there pleading with the people to be civil and try to not kill each other…it was a sight to behold. I went up to the front of the line and started wishing people a Happy Holidays, and putting a tract in their hand. People were pretty tame, but all of a sudden I hit an area of people that already had tracts. It was the Mission’s Pastor from another church, Charlie. Amen! He was going shopping, but he brought tracts with him! If only the many other brethren I met in line had done the same.

Anyways…

We finished off tracting the line, and moved on to Circuit City. Alex and Derek had finished Toys-R-Us, and the other group had covered their stores. We all headed to the mall, and covered Circuit City, and left to head back to K-Mart. Kim, Rachel, Christina, Jordan, and their cousin stayed to cover the growing line at Target.

5:30am – We all met up at Denny’s for some breakfast and fellowship. In all there were more than 1000 tracts passed out before breakfast. All Glory and Praise to God, it was a wonderful morning!

Some Concluding Notes:

Timing is everything! We missed the first line at Circuit City because we were a few minutes late. That may have represented over 300 tracts

Next year we meet somewhere with a bathroom before we go out. Old church parking lot may be strategically ideal, but Hess has a toilet!

If people had committed ahead of time we could have covered more ground. Apparently the words “Please…no seriously, Please respond and let me know if you can come” just doesn’t have enough umph!

Best Rejection Line: “Oh No, get that thing away from me” said a female in the line at Circuit City, as if the Gospel tract was a pit-bull with AIDS.

If you are a Christian and a brother tries to hand you a Gospel tract, just take it, and say thank you! Please don’t refuse it and try explaining to me that you are already a Christian, JUST TAKE IT! People who pass out tracts will all agree as soon as you get someone who refuses a tract, you get about 10 more who will not take one. TAKE THE TRACT, AND EXCLAIM “WOW I REALLY NEED THIS, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CARING ABOUT MY SOUL!” You will do more for the cause than if you say no, and then you will have an extra tract to pass out, we all win!

I never thought I’d say this…

I’m going to give Bill Hybels and the staff at Willow Creek a big thumbs up!

The guru of the “Seeker Sensitive” movement has come to the unsettling conclusion that their methods (although great for getting numbers) have utterly failed in developing people into fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Ouch! Millions and millions of dollars spent to draw seekers, and make them feel comfortable has left many growing Christians feeling unfed and stalled in their walk with God. Worse yet, hundreds and hundreds of churches that have adopted the seeker sensitive methods have been doing the same thing…so why am I giving them a big thumbs up? Because they are admitting it! They are coming out and declaring “we were wrong” and they are going about trying to fix it. Now the question is will the hundreds of churches following the Willow Creek methods change their direction?

You know this confirmed something that I have always believed about the “seeker sensitive” crowd. I believe that they truly and sincerely love Christ. It’s a matter of questioning the methods not the motives. Uzzah learned good motives do not always yield positive results. (2 Samuel 6:3-7) Sometimes we got to carry the ark God’s way even when statistics and surveys say it’s smarter to put it on a cart.

God said - For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)

I’m not sure about how Willow Creek is going to go about trying to fix the problem that they have discovered, and I don’t know how much they can. This philosophy of ministry has penetrated so deep, but I’m glad they are going to try. I can’t make up for a lot of things I’ve done in the past either, but Jesus has forgiven me, and washed me clean, and allowed me to serve him still.

I pray that this is indeed the wake up call that this movement needed to get back to the Bible. Here is a link to their site that they devoted to thee findings. If you have 13 minutes to watch the video by Greg Hawkins it is worth it! http://revealnow.com

Afterthought: Hybels and Willow Creek are coming to the same conclusion that Bible Believers had been shouting since this movement began. Why is it that it took so long for them to come up to speed? Could it be because that while we were criticizing some of their new methods, we were employing others in our own churches? I don’t have an answer for that, but perhaps Bible Believers have been guilty of throwing the ark on a cart a time or two also, while preaching “carry the ark” This is a good wake up to all of our churches to get back to The Book! *

After Afterthought: When is Rick Warren and Saddleback going to come to the same conclusion?

Psalm 119:59 - I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.

“The Book” is referring to the King James Bible

“The Book” is not referring to the following “Your Best Life Now” “Purpose Driven Church” “Purpose Driven Life” “Becoming a Contagious Christian” “Self-Esteem the New Reformation” “Beyond Church Growth” ect…

This Isn't What It Looks Like

NO, NO, NO, We do NOT Celebrate Halloween in this Family! I know a few of you guys just have written me off as a backslidder, Two Baseball post, and now this? NO, I want to be clear my family does not celebrate Halloween...We just carved these to scare off wandering spirits.

OK, now that I've lost most of my readers, please forgive the sarcasm. We sell Pumpkins, so of course my girls were just dying to have Daddy carve them, and Daddy caved. Well, it's not that I caved, but I decided that we were going to carve pumpkins this year. We have never done it, because as a family we do not celebrate Halloween. We don't...really I just wanted to roast the seeds...you had to know it had to do with food, right?

Really I'm not for Halloween, and I know plenty of reasons not to celebrate it...I even know there are some good reasons not to carve jack-o-lanterns, that's why I just carved a silly face into a pumpkin, It was just a special time for Daddy and His girls, and it made a cute photo.