From NY to PA from Blan to Chi-town

The last few weeks have been PACKED full of events, travel, lack of sleep, whiny kids (not mine), and plenty of other FUN in general!

First we took a much needed break to the mountains of Northern PA (although we hoteled in Southern NY). We got to spend the day at a private lake with just the most breathtaking scenery and more importantly ZERO humidity (ok there was a littler, but nothing like it has been here since). In case you missed all of the Facebook posts, it kind of ended up being a tough trip. While we were out there we learned that Austin's grandmother (on his Mother's side) was on life support and most likely would not make it through the next day, which she didn't. So Austin spent the last two days grieving off and on, and on the way home was so stressed we ended up having to take him to the ER in Ashland, Ohio. By the way if you ever have to go to an ER in that area, DON'T GO TO THIS ONE! Not the friendliest bunch in the world, and they took FOREVER!! Needless to say we ended up staying out at a hotel an extra night since we were out so late at the ER! It turned out that Austin was just full of poop! Tell me something I didn't know already!!!! He was fine, just needed to have a bowel movement, and/or release some gas. Thank God, he didn't do it in the car.

After the trip to NY/PA, I was scheduled to begin a new job as a courier for a company in Dayton. That Wednesday I left and went to go train for the job, and drove back up on Thursday to fill out some more paperwork that they needed for me to start the job.

More on this later!

Later on Thursday I was meeting up with Pastor Craig, Phil Nelson, Chuck Tabor, and Joel King for a trip to Chicago for a conference on Sticky Churches/Sticky Teams. I had been looking forward to this since the day I heard about it, and quite honestly after all of the other events of the past week I was in desperate need of some "downtime".

One word of advice, if Pastor Craig ever asks you to play "Six Degrees of Separation with Kevin Bacon" for money, RUN! He is KING at that game! LOL. Thankfully we did not play him for money!

The fellowship on the way to Chicago was truly special, everyone was just poking fun at each other and in general just having fun getting to know one another better! The crazy thing about this trip is the restaurant experiences I kept having (and have had since, the guys jinxed me). We had went to Olive Garden (no silverware for Scott), and everywhere else we went (and I have gone since) I have gotten some sort of crazy thing happening to me at the restaurants. Finally though we arrived in Chicago very late. It was almost 11pm our time. So Chuck and I went for a quick swim, and Joel passed out in one of the pool chairs. Craig and Phil were kind of wiped out and just stayed in their rooms.

The next day (Friday, for those of you keeping track) was the day of the conference. We got up early went to Panera, and had some breakfast. Then off to the conference just a couple of miles away.

Larry was an amazing speaker. He never once in the 5-6 hours he was speaking lost my attention which is very difficult to do and especially for that length of time.

What I got out of this conference the most was this: Do not count the #'s of people in the seats on Sunday's, but count the faces! Man that has stuck with me in a BIG way. He talked about how churches count their offerings to the exact penny, but yet we don't put that much time and effort into the people! I got to thinking about that a little more in depth, and came up with: If we count the tithes/offerings to the penny, do we not know exactly where every penny is being spent from the church? I mean, do we keep as much of a "budget" on what we sow spiritually? I know I want to. I want to know that when I am discipling someone, that I see the fruits of my work! I want to see the Kingdom of God grow, and more importantly how it is that I personally am impacting the Body of Christ.

Oh wait, I'm not done yet! There was the ride home! The ride home was a long, mostly because we hit 5 o'clock traffic in Chicago on the way out! It was a mess. It was a long drive just getting out of Chicago. Although, on the way home Craig was pretty tired so we decided to play a game they called Hot Seat, basically this is pretty much like truth or dare without the dare. It's a good thing we were not doing that part, because from the sound of Hot Seat it would of been a toss up between Joel and I as to who would win the dares..... LOL

Hot Seat, basically was an awesome way to get to know the guys. We asked some just general questions about each other, and then there were some very personal questions about each other too. It was a great time.

Well after that Craig was still tired and we hadn't even reached Indianapolis at this point, and noone wanted to play the "Kevin Bacon" game with him any longer at this point, so we played an encouragement game. Basically just going around through the 5 of us and saying things that the other person did to encourage us. THIS ABSOLUTELY FAR AND AWAY WAS THE BEST CONVERSATION OF THE TRIP. I was not only blessed by the things that people said about me, but also the things people said about each other, and how everyone was in 100% agreement with each other about what was being said to someone else! I LOVED THIS! We all too often do not receive the encouragement we need in our lives, and this just lifted me up in such a way. The two that stood out to me the most that were directed to me were #1 Joel said that he loved seeing the bond that Austin and I have and that he hoped to have that kind of bind with his kids when they got to that age..... What a tremendous compliment, that blew me away. #2 Phil said that it was a blessing for him to see the impact my friendship has made on his brother Steve, and that he appreciated it. Wow, talk about warm fuzzies lol. All in all, I was just so amazed at how much of the love of God flowed in that little Ford Escape. Incredible.

The last two weeks!

The last two weeks have been marred by business! We went to the NY/PA area for a family reunion, then home to go train for a day at a job I ended up not gettin, and then off to Chicago for a quick trip turn around with Craig, Phil, Chuck and Joel!

What an impressive last couple of weeks though! God has taught me so much and on top of that Brent asked me to teach the Youth Group this Thursday and I will be doing that as well!

So to say the least busy, busy ,busy!

Just trying to keep you up to date with why I have not been blogging! Don't forget that if you are an avid reader of my blog please make sure you click on the follow button up at the top of the page to help me build a strong following so when I get my book finished, I can get it published!

I have plenty of good things to write about and will be back to doing it after I get my lesson for Thursday finished and another short project that I am working on done, so expect 2-3 new blogs later in the week if not more!

Thanks, and have a blessed week!

People who sin cannot get into heaven???

Ok, so I was out getting some tires in Wilmington the other day and came across some tracts from some publisher. This one caught my eye! It said "3 things God cannot do!" First of all there is NOTHING that God CANNOT do if HE wants to do it!

I open the tract and look inside and see the 3 things.

The first is "God cannot lie", while I am sure He can lie if He wanted to since He is God, but I think this would have been better approached by saying that God does not falter from His promises or something similar to that. I mean I get the idea behind these tracts but to me this whole scare tactic of this particular one is not going to get the attention of someone who has fear in them already! How many times does the Bible say do not fear? 365 times! Is that a coincidence to how many days of the year there are? I think not!

Numbers 23:19
God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?

#2 God cannot change! I agree that God does not change and He is the same God today that He has been since the beginning of time!

Psalm 55:19
God, who is enthroned from of old, who does not change— he will hear them and humble them, because they have no fear of God.

Alright now here is the one that got me in a little bit of an uproar while reading it!

#3. God CANNOT allow sinner into heaven.

Can I stop for a minute and say that God and Jesus must be awful lonely up in heaven! They would be all alone! My Bible doesn't say that if you HAVE sinned you CANNOT get into heaven! It does however say this:


Romans 3:22-24
New International Version (NIV)

22 This righteousness is given through faith in[a] Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Being redeemed sounds 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times better than being condemned! My God is THE redeeming God, My God is THE God of Salvation, My God is THE God of Love, My God is THE King of Kings, The Great Deliverer, The Alpha and Omega, Yahweh, The Way The Truth & The Life, Advocate, Prince of Peace..... I could go on and on!

It bother me that some random person is going to pick up one of these tracts and read that statement "God cannot allow sinners into Heaven" and read no further because of how condemning that will make them feel.

Shouldn't it read "God loves you enough that He gave His best just for you, and even though you have junk in your life He is SOOOO BIG that He will accept you just the way you are junk and all!" instead?

Am I wrong to be upset by this tract? Am I the only one who is strong in their faith and as a Christian kind of finds wording like this offensive?

Please any and all rebuttals welcome!