Catching Up

Hello Friends! I'm sorry it's been a while since I posted anything, but it's for good reason. Perhaps the biggest was due to the crud running through our house. My wonderful mother-in-law, and I truly mean wonderful, was here visiting and brought a little bug with her that liked it here so much that it jumped on Daniel, then me, and Jolee. So far, Kate and Claire are unaffected, but on;y time will tell. The bug took a lot of energy out of me. There is soooo much to update you on. First, Robert Turner went home to be with the Lord last Thursday. When I first met him he was still very coherent and was given about a month to live, but from there he went down quick. I visited with him most days between when I met him including the day he passed. Up until he lost consciousness, he had quite a sense of humor. One day while I was visiting, his dad stopped at his bed and said to him, " You know son, last night when I couldn't sleep, I came out here and sat with you for a while," to which Robert replied (mumbled out), "Oh, that's what that smell was." I hope and pray that when my time comes, I have a sense of humor like that. May we all take things a little lighter and laugh more! Second, the SBC church officially voted to join with Blackfoot Christian Fellowship! Times are crazy when churches are merging not splitting! What does this mean? There are all kinds of logistical things that we have to figure out, but we're trying to keep things simple. For now, we will simply give a 5% tithe to the SBC and a 5% tithe to the ABCNW and use the rest to cover salaries, maintenance, ministry, and all the other stuff. The SBC has a building that they are looking to sell to a Calvary Chapel that meets here in town, and a parsonage, that they may just gift over to the Four Square church here in town (currently the Four Square church's pastor lives there). Yet another sign of crazy times. Our tow churches will combine assets and function as one body for God's glory in Blackfoot and the world. We have been telling our people that we want to be a sending church, one that send missionaries and plants churches. I already have my eyes on a young couple that I think might be able to move to another community with a core team to plant a church in a couple of years. Have I mentioned that I like God's math? He took two groups, both somewhere between 25 & 30, mixed them together and last Sunday, we had nearly 90 people in our Sunday service. There are new faces coming each week including some young families!!! God's math 30+30=90ish, makes no sense to me, but it sure does feel good. The other day in our leadership team meeting, our custodians were asking when was a good time to clean the church and how to keep up with the trash that is being generated by all the activity. I simply said, "What a great problem. Praise God and we need to buy bigger trash cans." There are now bigger trash cans in strategic locations! We went from a church with Sunday services to a home school group of 30-35 people using pretty much the whole church on Tuesdays from 9-noon, Wednesday nights Awanas (a whole lots of people all over the building including outside), an older ladies Bibles Study on Tuesday afternoon, a possible girl scout troop on Fridays, and it looks like finally the Spanish church will join us this coming Sunday evening. Awesome!!! Last Thursday night our family went to a group that does local outreach to lower income folks here in town. I may have mentioned them before. At times I felt like they were interviewing me to see if they felt like we could work together, which they kind of were. We knew one family from both Awana, and the home school group, and we spent Labor Day at the park with them. We really like them and they've been to church couple of times. The group is very eclectic when it comes to their church affiliations, from charismatic to Cowboy church. Ultimately their goal is to walk out their faith in everyday life. After all was said and done, they asked if perhaps they could come under the banner of Blackfoot Christian Fellowship for a bunch of reasons, one being financial. Since they are not officially a 501c3 they can't receive funds to do the ministry. I know some folks are thinking that they are just using us to get money, well, yes they are and I'm totally okay with that. Here's what I told them they had to do for us in order for this to work. Tell us where our people can get plugged in serving right now, and second tell us about awesome stuff happening so we can celebrate what God is doing. I went on to tell then that I hope and pray that one day the ministry that they do will become part of the church's DNA and budget! One last thing before I sign off for the night. This Sunday after church, I'm headed to Post Falls with a couple of other people for a Pastor's conference put on by the ABCNW. This will be my first official ABC and Senior Pastor thing. I'm excited except that I'll be leaving Kate and the kids here for three days. Pray for Kate's sanity. I just thought of one more thing... Last Saturday, the two older kids and I got to go glean potatoes. Even though I was under the weather, Claire, Daniel, and I loaded onto our four-wheeler, hooked on our little ATV wagon, and road over to a nearby potato farm. The potato harvest has just ended up around here, and one local farmer, I'm sure there were more, allowed people to come and gather potatoes. We had a good time and filled our wagon up part way with potatoes and partly with trash. I told the kids that since they were kind enough to let us pick the potatoes, we needed to help them by picking up the trash where we were. The potatoes came in so many shapes and sizes. Of course all the super big ones were gone, but every now and then we got a good sized potato. The coolest shaped potatoes were shaped like hearts, we found two like that. Here's what need prayers for: Perseverance in homeschool Finding time to exercise, both Kevin and Kate Health Making good friends that we can do life with Balance between ministry and family, we'd like to go camping before it turn too cold. For the church: That we would stay on track, put people in the right places, and continue to honor God To identify a couple of major needs that the community needs addressed that we can immediately address That our merger would continue to go smooth and that our blended families would love each other and the community well. As always thanks for your prayers and don't forget: "3 We thank our God every time we remember you. 4 In all our prayers for all of you, we always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. 7 It is right for us to feel this way about all of you, since we have you in our hearts and, whether we are in BLACKFOOT or SOMEWHERE ELSE, all of you share in God’s grace with us. 8 God can testify how we long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And this is our prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God." Phil 1:3-11

Sunflowers

I'll leave you guessing why I titled this post Sunflowers while I fill you in on other stuff. Where to start??? How about a non-ministry related topic, the Eastern Idaho State Fair! Last Friday we braved it and went to the fair and I remembered why it's good that things that that only come once a year. I'm not sure I could handle the crowds and I definitely couldn't afford going more often than that. It was a pretty cool to show the kids around and try out some of the Fair fare (ha ha). I'd have to say the highlight of the fair was watching my kids big smiles as they got to experience a couple of carnival rides. Daniel rode his first roller coaster and Jolee and Claire had a great time on the Carousel. I'm attaching a few pics from the Fair for your enjoyment: 1. Awana began last night. It was a great time by all, I know my kids loved it, and we had an abundance of volunteers as well. Nice problem to have. Currently we have 53 kids registered and 45 kids showed up last night. We know that more will come and we're excited for that. Games went mostly well (that's my job). We had a little communications issue and not all groups got to do the games, but it was still a lot of fun. Pray that God will bring more kids and families and that we'll place the right volunteers int he right places. There is also one significant volunteer issue that I was made aware of this morning and i will unfortunately have to fire a volunteer, so if you'd pray for me on that I'd appreciate it. 2. Yesterday I spent some time with a young lady who is taking online classes from Liberty University, where Eric got his Master's Degree, to talk about a paper she is writing for class on Signs and Miracles. This led to a deeper discussion about her past growing up in Blackfoot and then leaving to live and work in California where she work in a large youth ministry. Unfortunately something didn't work out and she left California to come home to "heal," and discern God's call on her life. In the time that she has been back nothing good has happened at the church that she grew up in (this church). There was at least one split and many other issues which led her to be angry, bitter, and jealous for others opportunities. As I listened to her story I was saddened by how common her story is. The church will chew people up and spit them out when the focus isn't on the gospel and reaching people for Jesus. Churches that put something other than "Making disciples/followers of Jesus" as their primary purpose end up making more people frustrated and disillusioned with Christianity. At one point she said I'm against organized religion but I love Jesus to which I said, "people can't love Jesus and hate his Bride the Church." Maybe it's semantics, but she said "religion," not Christianity. I personally think this is one of those idealistic young people arguments as they are trying to work out real life and relationships. As I thought more about it last night, what came to my mind was that the church is and has to be organized whether you like it or not. If you look at the Bible, you'll see that God brings order from chaos, the Church is organized like a body, and we know that when body parts in the wrong place (I know you can work out what I mean) things don't work too well. At the end of our time, we prayed for healing and a season of rest and renewal for the Holy Spirit to show when, how, and where to serve. FYI, we were in my office with both doors open and lots of people around. 3. Last week (Thursday) I met a guy named Robert in the ICU because he was very sick. He was told it was some sort of cancer that was making him ill, but they weren't sure what kind or how far advanced. On Tuesday the doctors came in to tell him that he has about a month left, he has stage 4 Pancreatic cancer. I've visited with him each day since and will be going by again today; He has taken the news remarkably well. Robert is 44 and he looks like he's 90+ years old. He's a good and simple guy who has lived a pretty simple life. He got married two years ago and has no kids, but he has a lot of family around including a bunch of nephews and nieces. Yesterday he went home on hospice care and is now in his parents breakfast nook. We've had a few good talks including about what he'd like at his funeral service. He has trusted in Christ, so he'll be okay. I was hoping to do some baptisms and dedications before a funeral, but it looks like that won't be the case. Would you pray for Robert's family, his mom & dad, and especially his wife Laura (I'm sure she's in denial). FYI, we did and still will pray for a miraculous healing from God. 4. For those of you who have asked, we've almost got the online giving set up. The website is coming along and will hopefully be up next week. I'll let you know when it's ready. 5. Sunflowers. Kate and I went for a morning jog a couple of days ago with Jolee in the stroller and our dog Hunter (the big kids stayed at home with Papa and Gram, Kate's parents). While out on our run, which is on a nice paved trail (think Tommy Thompson) that runs along the Snake River, there were lots of Sunflowers growing. Jolee asked for a Sunflower, so of course I stopped and picked one for her. She was so cute sitting there waving it like a flag and singing her sunflower song. At one point she sniffed it and turned to tell me it smelled like chocolate. I personally didn't smell the chocolate smell, but Jolee had Sunflower pollen all over her nose, I had to take a mental picture because I couldn't take an actual picture at the time; she looked so cute! Finally, things are progressing with the possible merger. The SBC church will vote this week on whether to join us or not. All indications are that they will. I had one couple tell me last week that no matter what the vote is they are on board with our mission and vision for Blackfoot. Please pray that the Spirit would give us divine appointments and opportunities to connect with people and in turn for us to connect them to the gospel. I look forward to the day when we celebrate how God is transforming hearts and minds and making his family bigger. As always, thanks for reading, for all your prayers and support. We miss y'all and pray for God's continued blessing on Anacortes FBC!

The Fair, Dust, and Busted Lips

I always try to think of eye catching titles to draw you in. I imagine that you read the title and think what's happening there now? Well I'll get to the subject of the title in a bit, but for now, here's what I'd love for you to pray for us about. Sunday was a great day at church, we had full house and there were 9 kids in Children's Church as well as several teenagers in the crowd too! I continue to meet people that I haven't met before and it's exciting and confusing. I still don't have a great grasp of who's from the SBC congregation and who's from here, and who's a visitor. The SBC congregation met after church last Sunday to vote on what to do next. The original agreement was that they would be with us through August. Well, the vote was for them to continue to stick around. This is exciting because, as I'm sure you know, when the church is full it feels better than when there's fewer. This now really also adds some complexity to my situation. I went home to take a nap on Sunday afternoon and my subconscious woke me up earlier than I wanted to because I began to think about how to move forward not really knowing who's who. Well, yesterday I met with the pastor of the SBC church for two and a half hours to determine if there really could be a merger. We agreed that there is a lot of complexity, but it's only trouble if we let it be trouble. Tomorrow morning we'll meet to put a plan on paper so that both of us can present it to our leadership teams and begin to move forward. I should tell you about this other pastor. His name is David Kite, he's a former Sr. Pastor and he and his wife, Ms. Sue, moved out here two years to ago to plant Cowboy Churches. Picture a wrangler jean wearing with a shiny belt buckle, starched western shirt, and cowboy hat, now imagine the deepest southern drawl and you've got the Kite's. They have hearts of gold and are doing amazing work here in eastern Idaho. He has told me in no uncertain terms, "I don't want your pastorate, I'm here to do the Cowboy church thing," that made me like him immediately. As we have talked about the future, he has always said, you're the Senior Pastor, I could do missions and discipleship or something lie that. Did I mention that I like this guy. Anyway, please pray for our time tomorrow, that God would make us wise in blending two families for God's glory. The Eastern Idaho State Fair is this week and so Blackfoot is a very popular place. Our population doubled this weekend and traffic was terrible. Okay not really, and I'm not even sure I noticed bad traffic, we stayed away from the heavy areas. We're headed to the Fair this Friday, it should be fun, I haven't done anything like that for years! All the smells, the good (funnel cakes) and the bad (pig, horse, cow, lamb, goat, rabbit, chicken, etc...) will flood my mind with memories of my childhood. I can't wait to share this with my family. Speaking of family, did I mention that we're having our first visit from family this week? Tonight my in-laws arrive for a coupe of weeks. It'll be a good time and Kate and I will even get to go on a date or two, yay! Another God thing happening is the time that we got to spend with the Joyner family on Saturday at the park. The Joyner's (Jason, Becky, Nathan(14), Matthew(12), Caleb(10), and Makaya(5)) are from here and currently run a ministry to an area of town called Camas Street. This is a very poor area in need of a lot of help. For the past two years, this family along with some others have spent Sunday afternoons out doing ministry, loving on people, and serving this area. This family is also really involved in Awana and the homeschool group that we'll be a part of. Daniel and their youngest son Caleb were immediate BFF's, both the boys love sports and we almost couldn't get them to stop playing so we could eat lunch. Claire and Makaya seemed to get along real well too. Jolee just loves to swing, so find a swing and push her on it and she'll be happy for hours! As we got to know this family, it was really nice to hear their heart for outreach and my hope and prayer is that we as a family and as a church can begin to work together to turn our eyes outward. It'll be good for all involved. You can also pray for God's direction, that we, our family and our church, would resist the temptation to be inward focused and comfortable. Here's another prayer request: as we implement changes, pray that God would give me the grace and compassion to hear those who struggle with change, and the strength to continue to do what we came here to do, create a new kind of church that is a blessing to the community and the advances the kingdom of God in Blackfoot. I could keep on going, but I figured that I should get to the dust and busted lips. First the dust. Imagine, like Washington, a house that does not have AC, so the windows are always open to keep things cool, add to that a desert climate where there is a lot of farming, there are fields all around our home, dust is an issue. Now that we've got pretty laminate floors done in a darker wood color, we remembered a friend of our years ago told us that it's better to have light wood colored floors because it doesn't show dust and dirt as much, oh well, they still look nice. Finally busted lips. Poor Claire was in the wrong place at the wrong time when her wonderful younger brother angrily slammed a door, literally, in her face. I had just arrived at the office when Kate called to tell me what happened. To make a long story short, we opted not to get stitches, and Daniel got in major trouble because I had just told him the day before not to slam doors because someone could get hurt, err! I know, I know, I get what I deserve. I can hear my parents saying, he's just like his daddy, to which, I have to smile and agree, and then ask God for the grace to parent myself. Kids are gift from God to sanctify us and to show us how much we must frustrate him. Oh, one more thing... Did anyone catch the Aggie Football game on Thursday? I think I'm in for a good football year : ) As always we love and miss y'all, and are now taking reservations for the Team Overalls guest suite (a small dusty farm experience) in Blackfoot, ID. Until next time, may God grow in your heart so much that you can't contain it and Jesus spills out in your love and words to everyone around you.