So Chris tagged me on this thing.

The rules are:

1. Link back to the person who tagged you.
   
2. Post the rules on your blog.
   
3. Share six unimportant things about yourself.
   
4. Tag six random people at the end of your blog entry.
   
5. Let the tagged people know by leaving a comment on their blogs.
   
   

• I got my first Apple product 6 years ago (G3 iBook).
  
• I didn’t want a junior when my son was born so I we decided that we would both be tribes of Israel (Do you know which tribe?).
  
• I at one point I wanted to be a Contemporary Christian artist (think 4 Him meets Boyz to Men), way back in the day.
  
• Coffee is my friend and constant companion, especially coffee from Volcano’s Coffee Bar.
  
• I hated to read as a kid but now can’t put books down.
  
• I hate meme’s.
  

God is not short on the adventures and experiences that He has thrown in our path over the last few years and now we start on another.

Last week I resigned from my position as youth minister at the Christian Church at DeLeon Springs. We loved working with the people at the church and trying to help them figure out where God is leading them as His body in this community. But while working through that He revealed to us that where they are headed and where He is leading us are not the same path. We trust that God is in control and live our lives accordingly and when opens and closes doors we follow Him and that’s what we are doing.

Please pray for us as we seek where Gos is calling us to serve Him and that God will send this body of believers the person that will help them accomplish their goal.

Mike tagged me for this meme. Here goes…

Here are the rules for this fun little bit of Internet foolishness:

* Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more (no cheating!)
* Find page 123
* Find the first five sentences
* Post the next three sentences
* Tag five people

Book: Speaking To Teenagers by Doug Fields & Duffy Robbins

“And that’s often a good thing, but in the words of an old proverb, “Doers who do but do not think, tend to be do-doers.” And that’s not such a good thing. As this sections header amply demonstrates (HEADER: I Was Taught To Study… Not To Think), we’re both well-educated- thanks to four years of college and three years of seminary.”

I’m not sure what a meme is. But this is interesting concept to see what others are reading. I just start “Speaking to Teenagers” in a line of books that I’m reading to sharpen my skills as a communicator (the other books include: Made to Stick, Communicating for a Change, and The Big Idea”).

I tag Chris, Tony, Adam, Joey, Tim.

As I sat back and read the news of the tornados the ripped through the south east last week I knew that we as a church needed to do something about it. So I made some calls and got some info about a church in Jackson, TN that was working to help the students at Union University who lost their dorm (the whole thing). So we put the word out that we were collecting supplies to send up there and the response was amazing. We filled vacum sealed bags winter jackets and pullovers and boxes of tolitries to send up there to ship out tomorrow. God worked through our people and helped them see what they are capable of and we can help in more meaningful ways than just writting a check.

This coming Sunday we are doing all over again!

So last time we talked about equipping we talked about Ephesians 4: 11-13 and what many see as the churches lack of time, energy and resources put into actually equipping Christians for the work God has prepared for the them to do Eph. 2:10.

Ephesians 4: 11-13 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

So, some are given the gift to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. These gifts and offices range from God given authority to lead the church or a sent leader on a specific task (apostles of Jesus and apostle of the church), to those inspired by the Holy Spirit to speak and preach, those gifted specifically to reach the lost (evangelists), followed by those who specifically shepard the flock (pastors) and finally those male leaders who teach the whole church or small groups of Christians. These men lead and equip the church (the people) to do the works of service needed in their community which leads to maturity and completeness in Jesus Christ.

The problem is we sit around and wonder why we have such spiritual infants running rampant in our churches and the same servants burn out from doing all the work both of which occur because we have a misaligned focus. A lot of the time, we as church leaders have forgot our biblical role to equip the church body to do ministry. More discipleship is not the answer, more fellowship is not the answer, but aligning our churches with more service oriented ministry opportunities is.

When and only when we focus on equipping our churches to do the ministry/ serving (whether in or outside of the church building) and tie their passions (formed when God created them) with the works (which God created for them in advance) will we see maturity and biblical understanding grow in our church, which is what the Apostle Paul is trying to tell us in Ephesians 2:10.

Next time we’ll talk about equipping and training lapses.

At our last youth event on of my 8th graders broke his nose while we were playing in a youth touch football tournament away from home. After a few minutes the bleeding stopped and he seemed a bit confused so we called the parimedics just in case there was a concussion and to make sure his nose wasn’t broken to badly. We’ll the ambulance arrived and I hopped in (leaving the rest of our football team in the care of our great volunteers) and was asked to sit up front. I got in the driver asked if I wanted to put on the head set so we could talk and he asked the usual questions. What happened? What were you guys doing? Who are you with? As I explained who we are, what we were doing and what happened he told me his youth group never did anything like that but just went to summer camp. Now just a few days before I had sat in on a workshop about conversational evangelism and I decided to ask the question, “so do you attend church now?” and he said yes then said that we were on the main channel and everyone could hear our conversation. So thinking it was over and not wanted to push it I dropped the conversation and waited for a minute to see what we could talk about next when he brought it back up again. He began to tell me about the way the church he grew up in treated his mom after she divorced his father and how they continued to attend on and off for a while. Eventually his mom started attending a big church in the area and he and his wife started to go but but for awhile they were sporadic in attendance. And right after that he said the most profound statement a non committed Christian can say about God and marriage. He told me that for a while his marriage had been on the rocks and how since they have been attending regularly his marriage has been getting better and I could tell that meant a lot to him.

All of us want better marriages and stronger marriages but most people have a hard time figuring out what it takes to get there. Craig Groechels’s book brings the answer back into focus by realigning our number 1 and our number 2 and then pieces begin to fall into place behind them. With the business of life we allow all kinds of things to become our number 1, sometimes its our spouse, or our jobs, a lot of people put that focus on the children and a good number of us put it in places it totally doesn’t belong (ie. hobbies, friends, affairs) never realizing that for the relationship of marriage to work our number 1 has to be God, completely focused on Him and making sure that our relationship with Him is strong (by daily connecting with Him prayer and listening to Him through His word, commitment to His church and living our life every minute relying on Him to direct us) and then rightfully place our spouse as number 2 and make sure that we are strong in that relationship as well (taking time to talk, dating your spouse, praying together) and these practices build a strong marriage and it cannot happen any other way.

Going All The Way is great book that is easy to read, full of life stories that make it real, and Craig is funny and honest never ducking from tell us how he has messed up and how he has worked to make his marriage strong. I’ve already given a copy as a wedding gift (to my sister) and know of at least two more friends that I want to send it to as well. As a guy who has made mistakes in his marriage and at times placed the focus of my number 1 on other things than God and my wife I have been really encouraged and after reading this book we are working to realign our focus as a couple on God first and then each other.

As I we kept driving to the hospital that afternoon and the Fireman/ EMT told me that I responded by saying that I wish more couple realized that God is the answer to our marriage problems. Focusing on God is the only way to have and maintain a health marriage the way He intended it to be.

Available on [Amazon.com][1] and at your local bookstore.

[1]: a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590529383?ie=UTF8&tag=fusio07-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1590529383