SOMEBODY BIT ME!!!!

About four weeks ago, I was playing with my oldest son Cross in the backyard. He's only two years old and he hasn't quite figured out that everything outside isn't edible. For just a brief minute I took my eyes off of him and then it happened.

He was squatting down and eating the grit from the shingles on the roof that the rain had washed down one of the spouts. So I rushed right away to rescue him from the grit. I stuck my fingers in his mouth to get the grit out before he swallowed it, and then . . . . WHAM!!! It felt like the jaws of a Great White locking down on my thumb. Ouch!!!! Cross bit me!!

Here's my takeaway from this wonderful little incident.

1. Sometimes, our worst pains come from those we love the most.
2. Sometimes, people don't really intend to hurt us. They just want us out of their business.
3. Sometimes, the pain is only temporary, but the scars remain for a long time. (Remember that this pic was taken 4 weeks after he bit me!)
4. Sometimes, we have to just get over the offense and choose to love and forgive.
5. Sometimes, the ones that hurt us need us the most. 
6. Sometimes, our love for others should overlook the pain they cause us. 

I still love you Cross!!! I always will!

Reflections On The Last 5 Years

Over the last 5 years, I've been on staff at First Baptist Church Saltillo, MS as the Worship Pastor. As of last Sunday, I have officially finished my service there to begin planting a church in Montrose, CO called CHURCH180. Here are just some brief reflections on these 5 years of ministry at FBCS and how God has used these years in my life:

1. God has grown me more here in my ministry life and personal life more than any other place of service. 
2. As a general rule, "church people" are much kinder and nicer than sometimes given credit for. Over the years, I've saved "nice emails" which totaled around 104 and "nasty emails" which totaled around 12.
3. When people disagree with me, I shouldn't take it personally. Disagreements can be some of the most powerful learning tools in life.
4. When you leave a place of service, you really don't leave 100%. You will always leave a piece of your heart and hopefully a piece of your legacy.
5. God is always preparing you for the "next thing." That may be staying right where you are but stepping it up a notch but it may be a new calling. Learn to listen to what the "next thing" is that God has for you. Prepare for it and don't waste time!
6. It's easy to say nice and meaningful things to people when you're leaving. Things like "I love you" and "You've meant a lot to me" and Thank you for what you've done" should never be limited to our departing language. These types of phrases should always be on our lips.

Thanks to all of my friends at FBCS. God has used you in my life and I love you!

Making The ETERNAL Difference

            These days it seems that it's more common to hear about churches that are fussing, fighting, and dividing rather than churches that are united and focused on their mission. This saddens me! Now I know that no church is perfect, but isn’t it refreshing to be a part of one that’s seriously making an eternal difference in the life of the world?

            One such church for me (and my family) has been First Baptist Church Saltillo, MS ( www.fbcsaltillo.org ). Just a year after Rachel and I were married, we became part of the pastoral staff here at FBCS in January of 2006. Over the last five years, we have experienced a pretty comprehensive list of ups and downs and God has blessed us to be a part of an incredible family of Christians.

            Through the last five years, the FBCS family of believers has welcomed us, loved us, been patient with us, taught us, corrected us, loved us some more, provided for us, appreciated us, honored us, believed in us, and supported us. This opportunity of service has provided an incredible place of spiritual growth and personal development for me as a leader. Without a doubt, my most profound and deepest times of growth have happened here. In what they’ve done, they’ve not only affected our lives but also the eternal lives of those who have been and will be affected by our ministry.

            Just this past Sunday night, FBCS collectively made a decision to partner with us and our new church plant in Montrose, Colorado (CHURCH180 . . . www.church180.net website to go live in the next 1-2 weeks we hope). They’ve agreed to help financially support us and even before that, they’ve made it known that they support us in their prayers and encouragement. What a blessing!

            What’s the point??? The point is this . . . When it comes to making an eternal impact and eternal investment into people’s lives, the Church (big “C” for “Church” universal) is the only organization that can do this. Notice I used the word “eternal.” Sure, there are clubs and organizations that make a difference in the here and now, but the Church is the only group of people that has the power to affect the eternal destinies of people.

            So what about your church? Is your church making a difference or just marinating the status quo? What about you personally? Whose lives are you impacting on an eternal level? Can you name just 2 people? If you can name only 2, then ask yourself why it isn’t 3 (and so on and so forth).

            Thanks to FBCS for investing in us so that we can eternally invest into others! You guys are our family and we’ll love you guys forever!!

Montrose Or Bust!!

Some of you may know, but last week Rachel, Kip, and I flew out to east Colorado for a church planting "boot camp" and it was great! Cross stayed with Rachel's parents so we missed him a lot. After the training was over on Wednesday, Rachel and Kip flew back to Memphis and I traveled west to Montrose with a friend of mine for a few days. The drive was five hours of sheer beauty!!

Just being in Montrose for a few days was great. I had the opportunity to meet some people face to face I'd corresponded with by email and I also got to meet some others for the very first time. If you're wondering, the people of Montrose are really friendly and really down to earth. The main question I kept getting was, "Where are you from?" Obviously they think I have an accent! Sometimes you just don't blend as easy as you'd like. Ha!

One of the highlights was the Blue Mesa Reservoir. Everything was pretty much frozen and we were told that you could drive a car on top of the lake. Needless to say, we didn't try that! Here's a pic of the area we saw there at the reservoir. Yeah, I know . . . it's a tough life but somebody's got to see this!

Bottom line . . . we're excited about going to Montrose! We're excited about meeting people there and starting CHURCH180! We're excited to see how God wants to use us!

If you'd like to be a strategic prayer partner, please email me at bryan@fbcsaltillo.org and I'll forward you a daily prayer list to be praying for us. We need a lot of prayer support as we make this step of faith.

Stay tuned for the launch of the CHURCH180 website. We're working on some final things and hope to have it up in the next couple of weeks. You'll be able to read a bit more about the church, the vision and values we'll embrace, and how to get involved. Yippeeee!!

Into The "Unknown"

As many of you may know by now, our family is about to go into the “unknown.” In late 2008, God began to work in my heart and gradually direct me into something completely different in my life. After sharing this with Rachel, we began to pray and through prayer, we knew that God was calling me to be a pastor . . .  but also was calling me into missions. This didn’t make much sense but we continued to pray.

After going through the initial steps of application and interview with the IMB, it seemed that God was closing the door for us to serve as international missionaries. About the same time, we were contacted by Brad Cowger of the Uncompahgre (bet you can’t say that 5 times fast!!!) Baptist Association of Colorado concerning planting a church in Montrose, CO.

Initially we were like, “What??? Plant a church?? Us?? No way!” But God continued to work and put a calling on our lives to do this. Through several weeks and months of research, we learned that Colorado is an extremely “un-churched” state. Some have estimated that close to 80-90% of the population is not involved in an evangelical church in any way.

To be clear . . . “church” doesn’t save anyone. But Jesus does and the Church is His bride here on earth. We believe that if someone loves Jesus, they will love His wife. In human experience, the Christian Church has been a community in which people have come to know the real Jesus and by knowing Him, they have come to find genuine peace, forgiveness, healthy relationships, purpose, and most significantly eternal life.

This is our calling: to BE the church in Montrose, CO. We’re personally trying to take Jesus’ words in Luke 9:23-25 seriously:

Then he (Jesus) said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?

We look forward to starting a brand new church called CHURCH180 representing the life-giving “180” that Jesus can bring to anyone’s life. We plan to move to Montrose, CO in late May/early June this year.

In closing, we have three basic needs as we go into this. If you’re interested in helping meet the needs of this new calling and church, here they are:

1.     Strategic prayer. Without a doubt, this is the most important of all needs we have. We believe in the necessity of prayer and a total dependence on God. If you'd like a daily prayer list, we can email one to you.

2.     Funding for living expenses, church start up costs, ongoing monthly ministry expenses, etc. Checks can be made out to "CHURCH180" and sent to:

              Uncompahgre Baptist Association

                ATTN: CHURCH180

                6 Hillcrest Plaza Way

                Montrose, CO 81401

3.     Mission Teams to come and help us serve and reach out to the community of Montrose.

You can email me at bryan@fbcsaltillo.org if you have an interest or questions (new CHURCH180 website and @church180.net email address coming soon).

More to come in the days ahead. Pray for us! We need it!!

Generosity On Another Level

Like many of you, I’ve developed some life-long friendships that mean the world to me. One of those is my friend Todd Lollis. Todd and I were roommates in college and seminary. We played jokes on each other and laughed and cried together. I even came close to getting him arrested one night but that’s another story. He’s just that kind of friend. Currently he’s serving as the Executive Pastor at Freedom Church in Acworth, GA (www.freedomchurch.tv)

Freedom Church had their first service on January 27, 2008 and since then, they’ve seen hundreds of people give their lives to Jesus. Not a few . . . HUNDREDS!!! They’ve had baptisms in the HUNDREDS also. Currently, they’re averaging around 600 people on Sunday mornings and they don’t even have a “church building.” They meet in a school and do things very different than the way you and I probably grew accustomed to.

But success in the church isn’t just about seeing people saved and baptized. That may be the most important thing, but it’s not supposed to be the end of the story. That’s where the hard work of discipleship begins. One of their core beliefs is to “Put God to the test” because they believe that they can’t “outgive” God.

Just this last week, their church decided to put God to the test. Instead of taking up an offering during their worship service, Freedom Church gave away $10,000 to their church members. They divided up the money in several portions, placed different amounts in envelopes, and asked the church members to be generous by giving their new money away to bless someone else. Some got an envelop with $1,000 and some got envelopes with $10.

To get the full effect on this level of generosity, check out these links below. The first is a news story that an Atlanta TV station did on them. The second link is the actual giving stories that people posted up on their website. This is a church doing generosity crazy good!! Praise God! May we all be generous people and generous churches!

http://www.wsbtv.com/video/26783875/index.html

http://freedomchurch.tv/blessback/

Need Some Money??

Jack Whittaker won a $314 million jackpot. Since then, Whittaker has been involved in numerous gloomy incidents that included a couple of deaths, physical altercations, and court appearances. He was even knocked out by a local who stole half a million in cash from him.  He’s been sued a number of times and his last venture into court found him pleading poverty. 

This reminds us that money won’t really solve the problems of our lives. We can sing with the old 80’s group Calloway the lyrics, “I want money . . . lots and lots of money. I want the pie in the sky. I wanna be rich!” but in many cases it just brings heartache.

Here are common thoughts today about money:

1.      If I had another $1000 every month, everything would be fine.

2.      If we just had some money in the bank, things would be better with my spouse.

3.      Having more money would make me happier.

4.     If I had a nicer house (or car or clothing), I would really feel better.

After being involved in Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University for the last eight years, the biggest financial help for people is doing a monthly budget. Here’s a link to his website that calculates exactly how much you should be spending on each budget category depending on what you indicate your monthly income is. This is a GREAT TOOL!!! You won’t get spam mail for doing this either! Try it out and apply it!!

http://www.daveramsey.com/tools/budget-lite/

Do a new budget for every month. No two months have the same exact expenses. You’ll find that if you get a hold on this, money will begin to slowly appear because you won’t be blowing everything you make!

As Nike tells us . . . . “JUST DO IT!!!”