Game Day Is Finally Here!

Last night we had our Awana registration and game night. It is what I lovingly refer to as controlled chaos or herding cats! It was so loud and crazy and yours truly got to lead the games. I say got to because the guy who led games last year moved up to leading the 7-8 grade group for Awana, called Trek. So i took note of what our "greatest need" was, leading games, and I jumped in. You may be surprised to know this about me, but I really don't like game time. I like games of course, basketball, soccer, and of course football, but these crazy games and me... It's good that there are kids in jr. high that are a part of Awana, and I'm glad the John's heart is all for them, it's very exciting. But it also means we need more volunteers! Sound familiar? The church is always looking for people to love on kids and small Blackfoot Christian Fellowship is no different than big churches. To some degree Awana for us is like VBS in Anacortes. We have a really nice facility and families and churches from all over the community send their kids here. In fact, our three kids are the only kids from this church involved, for now. There are two other kids that are part of the church, but they are 4 and 18 months old respectively. I'm hoping to have a couple of child dedications soon! FYI, we've got 41 kids registered for Awana after last night's registration event, but there are more to come. You may be wondering how our concert of prayer went last Sunday night, well, it was really cool. Karl, the worship pastor from Pocatello FBC, came up to play the piano for us and lead our singing. We had between 15-18 people show up including some folks who were in real need of prayer. There were some folks who don't attend church regularly, but someone invited them to come and pray with us. We went through the ACTS format. Adoration: We adored God for who he is and what he has done. Confession: We confessed where we have fallen short in our lives. Thanksgiving: We thanked God for his blessings, including the trails that we are facing or have faced. Supplication: We asked God to give us our daily bread, to give us what we need to advance his kingdom here in Blackfoot, and for boldness. It was a good night. A funny thing happened when we got home. As we were trying to get the animals fed and the kids in bed, the doorbell rang and guess who was at the door... If you guessed it was the Publishers Clearing House folks to tell me that we are now millionaires, then you'd be wrong. Yup, it was the wonderful sisters front he LDS church. Two young ladies and a mama bear to guard them. There was a lot of small talk as I waited for them to get to the point. Right after I told them that I was the pastor of the Blackfoot Christian Fellowship, one of them asked me if I had ever met with Mormon missionaries before. I said yes and she asked how it went. I told them that we had to agree to disagree. She then asked me if I ever met with one again and believed their testimony, would I get baptized. I told her that my understanding of our beliefs were pretty far off from theirs and the likelihood of me doing that was nonexistent. I think she was a little taken back, but said, at least you're honest. I told here I didn't want to give her false hope and I really needed to get in for bedtime prayers. Hindsight is 20/20 and there are so many things I wish I would have said, but in the moment that's what came out. Next subject: The floors in our house should be finished today! That means that we can finally move our furniture to a set place and get set up for school and everyday life. I will need to put new baseboards on, but at least we'll have our furniture in place. The guys working on our floor are Mormons and today I plan to invite them to church this Sunday. Pray that the Holy Spirit would move them to come. Those of you who know me, know that I what I really really meant in today's title is that Aggie Football officially begins tonight! The first game of the season is on ESPN at 4 PM MST. We're having a football pizza party and we're dressed in our Aggie gear. The Ag's aren't picked to win, but that'll never change how we root for them. I pray that my heart and your will get as or more excited for church on Sunday and for the things that God is doing in our midst. That's a real prayer request for me. Well friends, this Sunday we complete our Strategy series with Serve - For the glory of God. The scripture passage is John 13:1-17 and the big idea is that hearts and lives are transformed when we humbly serve like Jesus. The Southern Baptist group is still with us and is still trying to figure out what they need/want to do. You can pray for them as well. In September we begin Spark: The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church. In this series we'll take a look at the book of Acts and the way God via the Holy Spirit transformed a bunch of scared guys to fearless and bold leaders of a movement for Christ. Thanks for reading and praying for us. We love and miss y'all.

Fast and Furious

Fast and furious is what I tell anyone when they ask me how things are going. Where should I start??? How about at church… Our leadership team is moving forward in trying to breathe new life into our facility. Before I go any farther, I want everyone to know that even though we are spending a lot of time trying to give the facility a face lift, that is not the focus of the church. We view the building as a tool to help facilitate spiritual growth, and we want to put our best foot forward as we reach out to bring new folks in. On Monday night our leadership team met to prioritize the facility updates. Now that the list is in place, we are getting bids from people to do the things we don't have the expertise to address and soon we'll begin to make the changes!! Did I mention that we landed on a logo to go along with the name change? One of my former students who is also a pastor created a great logo for Blackfoot Christian Fellowship. Take a look -

Chris is an amazing young man who loves the Lord and is obviously very creative. Currently he is the Worship and Missions Pastor at Aspen Grove Community Church in Denver, CO, however, in March of next year he will launch Fathom Church in Littelton, CO. I"m so proud and excited for he and his wife on their adventure. Back to Blackfoot. We have had more rain here in Blackfoot than I ever imagined that we would, and while it is very different than the typical Washington rain, it's rain none the less. One good thing about it though is that our pasture has lots of grass for Blaze! Speaking of grass, on Monday, we bought, moved, and unloaded 4 tons of hay for the winter months. That day just happened to be in the 90's, but it was fun for the whole family. All three kids were out "working," to unload and stack the hay. They actually did a pretty good job of helping. We were making memories as a family, sweating together. This Sunday morning at church we'll be talking about how we need to grow to love like Jesus. He must increase in our lives and we must decrease. John 3:30 Sunday night we are going to have an "Hour of Prayer" at church. As I was reading in Acts 2 earlier this week I read this: "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." (vs42) Right then I decided that we need to pray more as a church. I know we've only been here for three weeks, but I feel it's so important for us to pray together as a church, so we'll use the concert of prayer format, that will allow us to be very specific and directed in our prayers. I know it'll be a great time and I know God will hear and answer our prayers. Finally, on Monday, our house will be in disarray as our floors will be getting updated. On the upper level of our house, there are four different kinds of flooring and a couple of them have seen much better days, so we decided that we'd go ahead and make them all the same as del as make them dog friendly. Once the floors are finished, hopefully by Thursday, then we'll finally be able to unpack the rest of our stuff. I know Kate can't wait until we are put everything in it's place. I'll let you know how things go on Sunday morning and night and don't forget to pray for our church as the Southern Baptist congregation continues to meet with us. We love you and pray for you all.

Yesterday I bled for the church

Yesterday I bled for the church…okay, that's a little misleading, I actually bled at the church. We had a workday to spruce up the facilities and grounds, and to do some re-arranging around the church. We had a really good turn out, people mowed the grass, trimmed the bushes, primed and painted door frames, and the biggie, pulled out the 5 back pews in the sanctuary. That was a big step for many in the church, but on the whole it was very positive. Moving the pews accomplished two things: 1. It makes people sit closer to the front. 2. It's step one in removing the pews in favor of chairs!! It also gives us the opportunity to congregate at the back of our worship space before and after service. It's really cool. I mentioned in an earlier blog that the Southern Baptist Church was going to join us today because their facility flooded last week, well it was a really good morning. By joining together, we had both children's and adult Sunday school classes and after music in our service, we dismissed the kids to children's church. It was very lively as the folks from the SBC church talked back a lot during church (this is a good thing). If you're wondering, joining together brought our grand total attendance to 66 give or take one or two. At the end of service I took a picture, but due to back lighting it's hard to see. I'll upload it anyway.

Finally, tonight we had an event at church called "Shake it up with the new boss." It was for people from the Awana ministry to come and have milk shakes and meet me and he family. It was a great time with a lot of loud kids and Awana games. We got home late, but it was worth it. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I believe that something big is happening here in Blackfoot, God is moving. I know we've only been here for two and a held weeks, and I know there will be tough times ahead, but right now we feel very blessed to be part of what God is doing. Here's how you can pray for us: 1. That the church would continue to embrace the opportunity that God has put in front of us. 2. That our church leadership would listen to what God is saying to us and then have the courage to act. 3. That our family would continue to meet people and invite them to church. 4. That home school would start to come together for this fall. 5. That we would enjoy, love, serve, and play together as a family. It's so easy to get caught up in all the things that we still have to accomplish to make our house our home and of course there is a ton of pressure as the new pastor. Things are going fast and furious. Thanks to everyone for the kind words that you sent with us on our final Sunday as well as the financial gifts too. Moving can be real expensive and y'all helped to ease the transition. We miss y'all and today as I was praying to close the service, I said something about Anacortes when I meant Blackfoot, You guys are always in our hearts and minds. Until next time!

Ice Age

This has been an interesting week. I feel like I'm going to say that a lot in the upcoming weeks and months. It started with Kate going back to WA to pick up Blaze, our horse, and it is ending with family movie night around the coffee table. Most Friday nights we have pizza or some variety of Mexican food (tacos, chalupas, or nachos) and watch a movie together; tonight's movie is Ice Age. Often we have the chance to talk about the movies we watch and what we believe as Christians. Sometimes we (Kate and I) have the opportunity to breathe for the duration of the movie. Tonight I'm trying to update you, our family and friends. It was great to have Beth and her girls bring Kate and our horse to us. Their second day of travel was long and they had to go through some crazy rain storms, but by God's grace they made it safely. So far we've had more rain here than we did the last couple of months in Anacortes, crazy huh. The biggest difference is thunder and lightning! It was really fun to see Beth and the girls and the kids had a great time. If you don't know the Pruiett's they are amazing people and friends, and whenever our three kids and their three kids get together it's chaos! They left this morning and we prayed for them as they headed to visit some friends in Montana and then back home. There were so many things that happened at church this week too. I had the opportunity to spend some time with an older couple who left the LDS (Mormon) church and just a few weeks ago got baptized at our church, their story was very interesting. They were also having trouble with the idea of changing the name of the church, but as we talked, they warmed to the idea and before they left they were giving me all kinds of ideas about changing the sign in front of the church. In case you're wondering, our leadership team met last night for a couple of hours and we talked about all the things that we have going on from the name change, to giving the worship space a facelift, to a possible merger. Oh by the way, we have a new name: Blackfoot Christian Fellowship. Now we're in the process of getting a logo, and new website going. Our new web address will be www.blackfootfellowship.org and will hopefully be up in a couple of weeks. Tomorrow we have a work day at the church to do some of the things that we need to do for the facelift, and just help maintain our facility. I think (hope and pray) it will bring some good unity and fellowship to those who come. I know our people are excited for all that God is doing here! Here at home we're still unpacking, but we can't get totally situated until our floors get done, which will be in a couple of weeks. We finally decided on a specific type of laminate floor (something the dog can't scratch) from a local company here in town. It will be nice to have that done and then to get our home in order right before school starts! School, holy smokes, that's coming quickly and there is much to do to get ready for it. I'm so thankful for Kate and her energy and determination to home school our kids. She is a beast, in the most feminine way possible : ) It is pretty cool that there will be a home school group meeting at our church this year, the support will be nice. I could keep writing, but the movie is almost over and we need to get the kids ready for bed. Until next time, "I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." Eph 3:16-19

Bubbling Crude

Funny title I know. There has been sooooo much going here since I last posted and I know that I mentioned in that post that I would tell you more about our adventures to that point. So that I don't run the risk of writing a novel, I'll hit some of the highlights. 1. After church on our fist Sunday in town, we got home to find that our pasture was flooded with water. That sounds bad, but is not that is how people irrigate around here. The problem was that we weren't irrigating! Quickly, Claire, Daniel, and I went to investigate to find that a small part of the canal had been washed away in a couple of places. The three of us got to work patching the canal with giant dirt clods and mud. Did I mention that it was 90+ degrees! So far things have held up well. 2. Our first week here, including our move-in party, was well into the 90's, and then the skies opened up. We experienced a couple of days of thunder, lightening, and rain that I think would have been similar to what Noah experienced. One afternoon I was in my office at the church when the phone rang, it was a reverse 911 call telling people not to come into town because many of the streets were flooded. A bit later Kate called and was stir crazy at home with the kids, she was also worn out from unpacking boxes for the third or fourth straight day, so she asked if they could "come in to town" (that sounds funny to say). I figured that it was fine and when they arrived at the church and I went to open the door for them, I noticed that part of our church parking lot was now a lake! We were never in any danger of flooding at home or at church. Since I was in the big truck we decided to make a short trip to our new favorite store, C-A-L Ranch, to look for horse stuff. On our way to the store we got to see just how extensive some of the flooding was. There was water bubbling up from the ground just like the Beverly Hillbillies intro song. 3. We traded some of the most sophisticated and noisy airplanes in the world flying over our house in Anacortes for the simpler and much yellower crop-duster variety here in Blackfoot. Still, though, every time I see one, I'm in awe and dream about flying, swooping, diving and turning, and then climbing again. If I could any animal in the world, I'd be an Eagle. 4. Due to the rains I mentioned earlier, the Blackfoot Southern Baptist church's basement flooded and long story short, it looks like their building will probably be condemned. I met their Pastor, Brother Dave, on our second night in town as we were leaving a restaurant with some of our new church friends. They quickly introduced us and I told him that I knew he and I needed to have a conversation or two. Before we got here, the interim at our church told me that Brother Dave had mentioned to him that he thought it might be a good idea for our two churches to merge. Since our initial meeting a couple of weeks ago, Dave and I have spoken several times and perhaps this flooding might be a real first step towards something like that, in fact, once I heard that they had trouble, I called Dave and offered our help in any way we could. Here's what we're gonna do: for the next 3 to 4 weeks, they are gonna come our and we're gonna worship together!!! So exciting for everyone involved. They bring some young families and Sunday School, we offer a nice facility and a group of people whoa re ready to turn their eyes outward. Some of you may be wondering how a merger would affect me as the new pastor here, well as it turns out, Dave and his wife are actually SBC (Southern Baptist) missionaries. Dave pastors three Cowboy churches, and has been the interim at Blackfoot SBC for a couple of years. He told me as we spoke about a possible merger, that he had no interest in taking my pastorate. He's more interested in doing discipleship and outreach type ministry. He even said that since they are missionaries (they have raised their salary elsewhere), the only thing that the church has been doing for he and his wife financially, is covering their insurance. Sometimes I wonder what God is up to. Oh yeah, there was an Hispanic church meeting in their building too that is now displaced, so naturally I told them come along and meet at ours as well. I can't wait to see what happens here. 5. Last Sunday was my first Sunday in the pulpit, and it was an interesting morning to say the least. We had a bunch of visitors and a good offering! I preached from Luke 4:14-30. We focused in on verses 18-19 where Jesus says, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” The big idea is that by the power of the Spirit, Jesus came to do these incredible things and that we can join him here in Blackfoot doing these same things. The congregation was small but very excited. If you're wondering how many people were in attendance, I didn't count, but probably 40. They all agreed that they were ready to join in with Jesus to reach out to a lost, broken, and hurting world. It's exciting. The next three weeks we'll talk about our strategy, that I know our Anacortes friends will recognize. Connect-Grow-Serve. Here's how it plays out here in Blackfoot: Our mission is to make follower of Jesus Christ. We hope to do this by CONNECTing people to the gospel, GROWing to love like Jesus, and Serving in a ministry for the glory of God. After that, in September we're gonna jump into the book of Acts. For those of you who asked about financially supporting our church, we're still working on electronic giving, but will hopefully have something going soon. 6. The name change. Blackfoot FBC's name will change soon, and here are a couple of possibilities: Blackfoot Community Church and Blackfoot Christian Fellowship. Weigh in and let me know which one you'd choose if you were here. 7. Last Saturday, I spent the entire day driving a Bobcat Skidsteer, it's a favorite pastime in Blackfoot. Not really, it was just something that I rented to clean out our horse stalls, and to fix the pasture so that our backyard wouldn't get flooded again. It was fun and it actually made it into the sermon on Sunday. If you've never used one of these machines, you haven't lived until you do. It was a great time. 8. Finally, Kate left Monday morning to go back and get our horse and a few items that we left in Washington with some friends. That means I've been mom and dad, and pastor, and project manager here at our house. I have no idea how single moms do what they do. I'm in awe of them and will explore options to see how we can serve them as a church. So far so good, the kids have missed no meals, they've had baths, and lots of fun too. Yesterday, I set up a homemade slip and slide in the back yard for the big kids and they had a blast! The worst thing that has happened so far was that Daniel lost a tooth, but thats because it was time for it to come out. We have a tradition in our house that whoever looses a tooth gets to choose dinner that night, and it is usually pancakes, so tonight we had pancakes. Go dad! I can't wait for Kate to get home!!! I'm going to try to post a pic of Daniel and his missing tooth for all to see. We miss you all and I hope that you can discern a few ways to pray for us from all thats going on. Don't hesitate to send an email or even call, we'd love to here from you. THanks for all your love, prayers and support! May the grace of God drive us all to our knees in worship and praise!

Blackfoot, ID

Hello Friends! Sorry we haven't posted in over a week, but as you can imagine, packing a home, traveling 900+ miles with three kids and a dog, getting feet wet, closing on a new home, and then beginning the unpacking process here can be a daunting task. The other thing is that we haven't had internet access or computers available to us until today. Yes we have our phones, but trying to answer a bunch of emails or post a blog via "thumbs," doesn't work for us very well. All that to say, we're still limited because our home internet won't be installed until Aug 11! That also happens to be the day that Kate leaves me with our three wonderful kids to go back to Washington and pick up our horse and some of the other things we left there. Did I mention that we don't have great cell service at our home either? Just some of the fun things about living in a small rural community. Let me give you a few quick updates: 1. We closed on the house Friday as planned, but moving in didn't start until much later b/c the sellers were still moving out!! 2. New friends helped us move in on Saturday. 3. We attended church on Sunday (I didn't preach, but I did administer communion). 4. We started painting and are scheduled to get the floors updated in our house. BTW, we really do love the house, it's pretty cool. 5. We've already been invited to a neighborhood BBQ by a couple of neighbors. Of course it is not an LDS (Mormon Church) sponsored event; big smile, wink wink :) 6. I quickly learned about flood irrigation (I'll tell more about this later), due to a breach in the canal berm. 7. Today I started unpacking boxes and setting up my office at the church. Prayer Requests: For Kate - as I start coming to the office and she has three tired kids and a dog at home who are still trying to figure out this new place. For the kids, that they would have patience with mom and dad as we try to figure out a new routine. That we would meet some new friends. For Kevin, that I would seek the Lord and lead both my family and this church in a godly manner. Thanks for checking in and we/I will update you more later this week.