I'm Back!!!

A lot has changed for me and my family since my last post. For instance ,we no longer live and pastor in Georgia. This past summer we moved to Jacksonville Florida to pastor our new church Faith Temple Assembly of God. Our transition to FL has been amazing! Although we terribly miss our friends and family in Georgia we are loving our new city and our new church!!! So now that we have settled into our new life in Florida I was thinking it was time to start blogging again.

Just so you know what to expect on my blog. I'll be writing about all kinds of stuff like...family, being a husband, a daddy, and a Pastor, ministry, movies, sports, leadership, church, Jacksonville, my dreams and goals, hobbies, the beach, books, food, and every once in a while I'll repost others leadership articles or blog posts.  

So hope you enjoy my random rants and thoughts as I live in the moment here in Jax FL!

New Sermon Series Starts This Sunday

“Does the brand of faith you live by produce the kinds of results in your life that you read about in the biblical stories of men and women of faith? Chances are, not even close.” But it doesn’t have to stay that way. My goal throughout this new sermon series is to challenge you to believe that the audacious faith that we see in the Bible, the faith that caused a man to pray and see the sun stand still in the sky, is the same faith we can claim for ourselves today.

In week one we're going to discovered how Joshua prepared for the longest day of his life. So I hope you don't miss this brand new message series as we dare to begin to ask God for the impossible! 

Final Week of Sermon Series

Just wanted to invite you to Dahlonega Assembly for the final week of "the litmus test of love". I promise you will walk away from DAG feeling inspired and challenged! Hope to see you this Sunday morning at 10:30AM!  



running thoughts: press through the crap

FRIENDLY NOTICE if the word "crap" offends you, you probably don't want to read this. Sure I could use different words to describe "crap" like "poop" or "mess" or "stinky stuff" and well I won't type it but I'm sure you know what I mean...the bad word version. But I think once you read this you will understand why the word "crap" is most appropriate for this post.

Anyway...I started running again today. Actually I don't even know why I stopped because I really do like to run. I'm pretty sure it's because I'm not looking forward to the aches and pains during the first couple of weeks. Never the less I got my out of shape self out of bed, got my running gear on, stretched, walked out the door and ran/walked for about 2 miles.

At first it felt awkward. It's been a while since I had been on a good long run. It took a moment or two for my body to understand that this was going to happen whether it liked it or not. After the first mile and a half and getting into my stride I was running up a hill when the strong smell of cow manure filled the air. Then I looked down on the road and realized there was dry manure scattered all over road. Right then a strong gust of wind came out of nowhere and suddenly I find myself running into the wind, running on top of dry cow crap, while the smell of cow crap attacked my sense of smell.

My first thought was to run faster and get past this crappy situation. Right then the Holy Spirit thought it would be a great teaching moment for me. The Holy Spirit reminded me that throughout life we will be faced with "crappy" situations. The reality is that there will be times in our lives that we won't be able to out run them or avoid them. So what do we do when we are facing one of these moments...you press through them.

The problem is many of us won't press through because the price is too high, it's too messy, it takes too much time, the pain will be too much, and the list can go on and on.

The Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 3:13-14 "Brothers I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and STRAINING FORWARD to what lies ahead, I PRESS ON toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

It doesn't say SKIP...it doesn't say HOP...it says STRAINING FORWARD! In other words you have to put some effort into moving forward. You see if I stopped running at that moment I would have never gotten past the crappy situation. Sure I was tired and my muscles were sore but I knew I didn't want to stay there so the only option I had was to strain forward.

The moment we apply some effort and press on toward the goal we will get past our crappy situations. At the end of my run I was so thankful for the smelly reminder that crappy situations don' last forever! Looking forward to my next run! Hope you were encouraged with this running thought.

Sunday Rewind

• Sunday was AMAZING!
• In fact every Sunday since January 2 has been AMAZING!!!
• I mean it's been good in the past but God is definitely up to something at Dahlonega Assembly right now!
• Every Sunday our worship team is taking up another level.
• Thanks KT, Brent, and Laura couldn't do it without you guys.
• One of the things that I'm lovin' right now is the caliber of people visiting DAG.
• The folks visiting are not just satisified with sitting on the pews.
• They want to get involved and change the world!
• LOVE IT!
• I love to preach but lately I've been having so much fun sharing God word!!!
• It never gets old to see how God's Word inspires and changes lives.
• Mark your Calendars because April 23rd is the day of North Georgia's Biggest Easter Egg Hunt!
• We had our first community Easter Egg Hunt meeting after service.
• This year we're doing 30,000 eggs!
• THAT'S RIGHT 30,000 EGGS!
• It was a great brainstorming/planning session.
• I'm meeting up with some folks this week that are going to help us take our event up a notch.
• This year's event is going to be BIGGER and BETTER!
• Get ready North Georgia you are about to experience AGAPE LOVE at a whole nutha level!
• Another great thing happening at DAG is KAIO Youth Ministry!
• Our Youth Pastor Darryl Prince has been doing a fantastic job.
• It's never gets old see teenagers fall in love Jesus.
• Like I said God is definitely up to something in the mountains of North Georgia!
• Just putting this out there if there is anyone out there that has a portable basketball hoop that you don't need or want our Youth Ministry would love to take that off your hands:) Just let me know. THANKS!

New Series starts Sunday!

Want to invite everyone to church this Sunday the 20th as I start a brand new sermon series. Before we can ever share or show love we need to understand what really is love. Hope to see you there! Come early and enjoy some donut and a cup of joe in our missions cafe!

NO SERVICE ON WED NIGHT

Hey DAGer's just wanted to let everyone know that we are cancelling all activities on Wednesday January 12th. I know that y'all are probably having a serious case of cabin fever and would LOVE to come to church but the road conditions are still dangerous. So although I would love to see y'all your safety is more important to us. Don't worry we'll see each other on Sunday! Until then enjoy this time with your love ones and if you have to go out PLEASE be safe. See y'all Sunday at 10:30am!!!