Blog Picture

So I decided to post a picture of my family at the top of my blog. I thought it would help anyone who comes across this page and doesn't know me help put a face to who's talking.

I picked this picture especially because I like the way Megan and I look. The kids have hundreds of pictures where they look better than in this one, but I figured this picture was the most fitting of any because it portrays reality for us. :-)

This pic was taken at lunch on a Sunday afternoon. Our kids were exhausted and had been screaming their heads off at church all morning. They just wanted to go home and take a nap, but we forced them to take a picture. haha

Combat Training

Have you ever been able to just feel that you were under spiritual attack? As if the evil forces in this world have given up the element of surprise and are just coming at you head-on?

This past couple weeks have been very long!

We are preparing for RESTORE 2011, which is our fall retreat to Myrtle Beach, SC. This is my favorite retreat. Part of that is because I get to play such a major role in putting it on. I've been meeting with youth ministers from across the Carolinas since last October in order to put this thing together. Lots of time and prayer have gone into this weekend.

When you put so much energy into a single event, you are really putting yourself out there. If the event does well, it's a great feeling. But of it tanks, you have to live with that burden for an entire year.

So basically, I have set myself up as a prime target for Satan. And he has been hitting me hard. For me, it always starts with lust. He has hit me harder than usual by tempting me to lust. Everywhere I turn, there's an image of a beautiful woman who doesn't have much on.

Then his next blow comes with laziness. He tempts me to watch tv all night long instead of go to bed and read my Bible or other spiritual book. He tempts me to feel too busy to pray. He fills up my week so that I don't have time to fast. He basically has done his best to block every spiritual discipline I've tried in the past couple weeks. And he's been quite effective at this one.

Then he moved on to my self esteem. This has taken place in several different ways but the biggest is that almost all of our youth group has backed out of the fall retreat. We normally bring around 25-35 people. This year, only 14 signed up. Out of that 14, we are now down to just 6. And one of those 6 wouldn't be coming if I would have let him have a refund, but his parents won't let him back out without a refund.

As a youth minister, it is always discouraging when you put effort into an event and no one shows. But this event is my baby! Like I said, I've worked long and hard at putting this thing together and only 6 people (2 of which are myself and my wife) are coming from our group!

It has taken me till just now... a day before the event... to realize that Satan is coming at me head on, full blow. And now that I realize that, I can fight back.

The best way to fight back is to realize that if Satan has given up the element of surprise and is attacking in obvious ways, it is because something big is about to happen that he wants to prevent. That is encouraging to me. I can't wait to see what God has in store.

The next way to fight back is to push through the dull, boring times of spiritual disciplines. I'm fasting today. It is 10:00 AM and I'm starving already. But I need to push through this day in order to fight the evil in my life. My prayer life has been very stale lately, but I need to keep praying and push through the distractions. My personal study times have felt more like a boring waste of time than a time of growth, but I need to do them anyways in order to get through this attack.

Finally, I can fight these attacks by once again, coming to a dependence on God. The past couple weeks, I've struggled so much because I've tried to depend on myself. But when I am weak, He is strong... I need the power of God to rescue me from these attacks. I need to call upon God's spirit, who is living in me, for strength to stand firm.

I want to close with a prayer. If you've felt these attacks lately, please join me in this prayer:

Father,

I come to you weak and broken. My enemy is attacking me from all sides and I have no strength left to fight on my own. I call upon your holy spirit to take over this poor soul and rescue me from the hands of evil. Make me aware of these attacks and where they are coming from. Shield me from the blows of Satan's sword. Push back the battle lines of evil. Take me off the front line and bring me into fellowship with my allies. Grant me a time to rest and recover.

And then, Father, fill me with your strength and might so that I will be prepared to fight once again for your kingdom. Make me stronger than I was before.

Stand behind me so that the enemy will tremble in my presence. Stand in front of me so that I will know where to go. Stand beside me so I can lean on you for comfort. And stand within me so that I will be righteous as you are righteous and holy as you are holy.

In Jesus Name,

Amen

I am NOT a Preacher

Well, yesterday I had an
opportunity to preach a sermon at church.
I get this opportunity about once each year. I used to avoid it at all costs, but over the
past four years, I’ve been able to get a little more used to it. Part of that, I believe is personal growth
and part of that I believe is the Holy Spirit convicting me of the messages that
I have had a chance to give. If I teach
or preach on a message I am convicted by, it’s easier to have confidence in it.

But let me give you a little taste
of the experience that I went through yesterday. I woke up early and got myself ready for
Church as usual. On the way, Megan
shared a verse with me that I frankly can’t remember right now. It was very encouraging at the time and I
appreciated it. In fact, it helped me a
lot! But my mind was so distracted that
I didn’t have much time to reflect on it for very long.

When I got to church, I made a few changes to
the PowerPoint and then locked myself in my office. During class time, I went through the sermon
one last time to make sure I had all of my thoughts collected. Then I began to pray for the Holy Spirit to
take over. When I walked to the auditorium,
my parents met me and pulled me to the back of the room, placed their hands on
me, and prayed over me.

Then church began. Maybe it was just my nerves, but it seemed
like everything took FOREVER. The
announcements were really long, the part where we honored our children was very
long, and communion was very long.

In our church, the last few things
we do before the sermon are communion, scripture reading and prayer, and the
offering. Those three things were taking
forever and I could feel a knot building in my stomach. It seemed to get larger and larger as the
time went by. Just before I got up to
preach, Megan whispered the verse to me again.
It was once again, reassuring and encouraging but once again I can’t
remember what it said or where it was from exactly.

Finally, I got up and delivered
what I had prepared to say. I felt like I
did a pretty good job. I felt like the
Holy Spirit was at work. I noticed on several
occasions that it seemed like the congregation was fixed on what I was saying. When I finished, I went back to my seat where
Megan met me and whispered, “That was AMAZING!”
Then after it was over, I was bombarded with compliments. Lots of people told me what a great job I had
done. I had several conversations about
specific points I had made and how those points impacted certain individuals. I felt great.
What’s more, my father-in-law showed up to church for the first time
since his childhood and he really enjoyed it.

But what stood out to me was how
many people came up to me afterwards and said something like, “I’m so glad you
said what you said, these people really needed to hear that!” Someone even told me about a specific person
who needed to hear what I said. By FAR,
I got more people who told me that someone else needed to hear what I said than
I did people that told me “I really needed to hear that”. Now, a lot of people told me that also. But the ones who were thinking about how
others needed to hear it outnumbered those ones.

I don’t like that. Don’t ever let that be you!

But anyway, here’s my real point
for this post. The first thing I did
when I came into the office this morning was watch the video of my sermon. Know what I found? I stuttered throughout the sermon. I said “umm” and other vocal pauses a LOT
more than I remember. At the beginning,
I took lots of deep breaths, showing my nervousness. The parts where I wanted to talk much faster
and much louder to emphasize my points… I talked a tiny bit faster and a tiny
bit louder. The parts where I wanted to
talk slower and softer… I talked a hint slower and a hint softer. The big finale where I wanted to end with one
last impact was anti-climactic. I also
discovered that I’m not very animated on the stage, I read way too much, and I
even have a weird way that I say my “S” sounds which can get obnoxious at
times.

I am NOT a preacher. I would have gotten a “C” at the very best in
a public speaking class.

But I am convinced that the
experience we had in that room yesterday was powerful and impacted lives. I believe that the Holy Spirit was at work in
a supernatural way yesterday morning. I
believe God was able to use my willingness combined with his ability to convict
people to further his kingdom yesterday.

God can use you. You may not be the most talented person in
the world. You may have a lot of
insecurities about certain areas of life.
But God doesn’t require you to have abilities or confidence in
yourself. God just requires willingness
and confidence in him!

Are you willing to place your confidence in
him? Will you join me in this fight for
God’s Kingdom?

That was fast!

Well the teens are back in school this week and summer break is officially over! It was a crazy summer that flew by so fast! We crammed a lot of stuff into the past three months. I felt like I was going non-stop. But I think it was all very good. We were able to serve a lot of different people and I believe God was at work in my life as well as the lives of those around me.
Unfortunately, there is no rest for the weary in this land. There's a lot coming up to plan and get ready for. Our Men's Retreat is in a week and a half and I am preaching that Sunday, which is also the day we have selected to recognize our Children's Ministry and honor our teachers and life group leaders.
I am also in major planning mode to get ready for Restore 2011, our fall retreat to the beach on September 23-25th. It is lining up to be a great weekend again, as we are bringing back David Skidmore and Jordan House for the third year.
On top of all that, my family is getting pumped up for our "Celebration Week". That's the week of our anniversary (9/29) and three birthdays (9/30, 10/1, and 10/5).
With all of this going on, I will try harder to keep this blog updated. I didn't expect to be able to in the summer months because my office hours were very limited. However, even with the busy schedule this time of year, I should be putting more office hours in now so I will have time to post.

God Bless,
JD

Penn Gillette gets a gift of a Bible

I came across this video today. I think it's about a year old. I typically don't like to listen to Athiests because they usually have a lot of negative things to say about Christians and take low blows, take scripture out of context, and use other tactics to say them.

But I really respect Penn for the point that he makes here and I like his tone. I think we as Christians could learn from not only the man who gave Penn the Bible, but also Penn himself. We often get so caught up in dividing ourselves into sides. We do this in every part of life. Do you drink Coke or Pepsi? Are you a Ford or Chevy person? Republican or Democrat? American or non-American? Christian or non-Christian? NSYNC or Backstreet Boys? NBC or ABC? Apple or Microsoft? Need I go on? Big Ten or SEC? Ohio State or Michigan?

Sometimes our divisions get so polarized that we start to think things like, "How could ANYONE be on THAT side?" That's what many Christians do when they think about Athiests and that's what many Athiests do when they think about Christians. So you have Christians looking down on Athiests for being blind and Athiests looking down on Christians for being stupid or uneducated.

As Christians, we should be leading the way in breaking this way of thinking. We should humble ourselves and approach Athiests as if they are higher than us. We should actually love them... not just say we love them. And we should humbly approach them with the message that we believe will save their souls. When they lash back at us with hateful questions that we know are pointless to try and answer, we should respond to them in love.

I respect Penn for his appreciation of that Christian business man and for recognizing that that man approached him out of love. I also respect that man for approaching Penn out of love and complimenting his show even though I'm sure there were some pretty non-Christian things said and done in that show. It's about time a sane Christian be pointed out in the media as opposed to the Quran burning, armageddon predicting, Haiti condemning, money stealing examples we see all the time. We should all (Christians and Athiests alike) learn from this interaction.

Trip to Isle of Palms

We took a trip to Isle of Palms and Charleston this past weekend. It was just a quick trip to get away as a family before summer hits and things get really busy. Let me point out that it was NOT a vacation! I've determined that you can't take a vacation with kids, you can only take trips with kids. Vacations are restful, relaxing, peaceful, and when you come back you feel better than when you left. This was none of that. However, we did have a great time. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from our trip. :-)

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This one is by far my favorite! I feel like I should be able to submit this picture somewhere and win a cash prize! It's amazing! lol

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Our best family shot all weekend. This was near Fort Moultrie.

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This was a cool shot Megan took of me and the kids walking on the beach. I just like it. Braden and I are walking in step. lol
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Mini-Me!

It's All About God

As I look back through my previous posts, I realize that they are all pretty much confessional in nature. They are all about me trying to work out the struggles that I have in my life. They are all about me and my faith and my battles with sin. ME ME ME! I have taken Christianity, something that is intended to be communal and focused on God, and turned it into something that is very personal and private and focused on me. Even this first paragraph is that way.
So this post is going to be an attempt at a different focus. Let us spend some time focusing on God and his greatness. But let's not focus on the things that we think make him great because they benefit us. Let's try to focus on things that make him great whether we benefit from them or not.
For example: God is in control. At first glance, this sounds like something that benefits us, but most of us like to have control of situations. We like for our plans to succeed. Try telling someone whose loved one was killed at an early age that God is in control. Try telling anyone in the northern parts of Japan that God is in control. Some of them might take comfort at that thought but most of them, I imagine, would go straight into questioning and blaming God if you tell them that. But God really is in control and whether we benefit from his control or whether we suffer from it, he is great and deserving of our honor, respect and submission because of that.
God knows everything and created everything. Once again, our first instinct is to try to praise him for how these facts benefit us. But these facts alone, whether they benefit us or not, are deserving of our respect, honor and praise. God, in his infinite knowledge of everything created everything that we see, hear, taste, smell, feel, and think. He did not just sneeze and accidentally created things. He thought through every tiny detail of how things work in order to create a universe that is so far beyond our comprehension that the best we can do is just sit speechless as we reflect on it. There's no point in trying to understand all of it because whenever we think we do understand it all, something comes up that puts us right back in our place as a limited, uneducated, small part of something much bigger. We would be better off just to understand part of it as best as we can so that we can marvel at the details of just that one part.
God is everywhere. Sure this brings us great comfort to think about. God is with us no matter what we are going through. He is experiencing everything along with us. But again, if we take our selfish hearts out of this experience, and just marvel on the idea that God is everywhere, for better or worse as far as it concerns us, this is an amazing feat. Nothing else in all of creating is everywhere... not air, not matter, not even time. But God is.
God is love. The best feeling our human bodies can ever experience is true love. There is nothing else that tops it. That emotion or feeling or action or however you might describe it... that is God! God didn't just create it. He IS love. This fact has limitless implications that affect our selfish lives and give us hope for the future, even in times of heartache. But all selfishness aside, the reality that God IS love, when you simply reflect on it, is something that should bring a smile to your face. The fact that God is love should call you to a state of worship. A creation without love is unimaginable. There would be no hope. There would be no reason to exist. We wouldn't even be able to be selfish. Because selfishness is caused by seeking after things that you love without considering how your actions might impact anyone or anything else. My mind hurts when I try to think about the depth of meaning that this simple statement has: God is love.
God is worthy and deserving of our praise regardless of what he has done for us lately. And it is important for us to realize that Christianity is more about God's greatness and holiness than it is about what God has done, is doing, or will do for us. Let's keep that in mind. :-)

What other aspects or characteristics of God can we reflect on that may or may not have any benefit to us?