Here we go!

Last night I, with the help of my wife and John, folded, addressed, signed, stamped, and stuffed a ton of letters. This letter is not just an ordinary letter, but is my first support letter for the Australia church plant. This is kind of a big deal for me. Up until now, all that has happened for the move to Australia was talking. This is the first actual step towards getting to Australia and planting a church. I'm super excited to get the wheels rolling and can't wait to see how God is going to bring people alongside us as we journey on towards the works he has prepared in advance for us to do. I am so very thankful for all of the people who have come alongside me and supported me through all the growth that has happened in my walk with God, and am equally thankful for those I haven't even met yet who will help me grow more and more. Australia gets me excited. Not just because it's Australia, but because God has called me and a small group to bring the Gospel to those he will redeem in Geelong! It's amazing being a part of what God is doing in the world!
On a side note, I got up at 5:30 today and went for a swim. I am really tired and a little sore and disappointed at how out of shape I am.

Life in Pearland

We recently moved to Pearland, just outside of Houston, where we will be learning as much as we can about church planting, then we are off to Australia to plant a church in Geelong, just outside of Melbourne.
So far, Pearland has been rough on us. There are many reasons that being here is so difficult, but the hardest thing about being here is the people we miss back in central Texas. I miss my small group. I miss Grace Bible Church. I miss my old pastor, Dave Mac. I miss people at my old job who became friends of mine. I really miss my old Chris.
Being away from people who genuinely love me and know how to really love me makes life difficult. Even as I write this, there are tears in my eyes. I miss having a best friend. I miss lunches that are too short to talk about all we wanted to say.
I have definately learned from all of this. I can't do it alone. I cannot chase after God without someone chasing next to me. Maybe there are people who can pursue God on their own, but I'm not one of them. My relationship with God has suffered recently. I'm not blaiming it on someone else, but my relationship with has taken some hits lately.
I guess this is just an encouragement to find someone who will come alongside you as you attempt to journey towards God and worship Him. If your relationship with God matters to you, and you wish to see that relationship grow, find someone who will be willing to speak harsh words when they need to be spoken, and who will hug you when you need a hug. I understand why Barnabas was so important to Paul. I can see why Jesus immediately grabbed 12 guys to do this thing with him. We are built to be in relationships with other believers. We are made for community.

It's A Boy!!

My wife and I went to the doctor today for an ultrasound and found out we're having a son in October!! When the lady told us, Laura cried and I got super excited. I almost shouted. I am so happy to have little girls, and I would've been pumped to have another one, but I am amazingly stoked to get a little boy. About 5 seconds after I almost shouted, I started to realize what had just happened. I have to raise a man. I am going to raise a son who will one day lead his family. I don't really know what to do with a boy. I have learned a ton about how to parent daughters, but I don't know anything about parenting a son. I have a lot to learn. Luckily, God is in control and is going to help me raise this little one, and He is hopefully going to pull this little boy out of death and destruction and into the family of God. My biggest prayer for this new one, as well as for the ones who are already here, is that he will be redeemed. I pray that God would snatch him out of death and bring him into life. I also am praying that God would teach me how to raise a son. Boys are very different than girls, and I am praying that I will be able to parent my kids accordingly. I don't really know what to think right now, but I do know that God is in control and is going to teach me how to love the crap out of this little man.

Stress

This last month has been absolutely crazy! I finished my classes at the university, so we are now looking for a job and a home in Houston. I have been to Houston once a week in my search and have so far been unsuccessful. Houston is expensive. To get a similar house in a similar neighbourhood as the one we're in now, I am going to have to pay $400 more each month! And that doesn't include the fact that electricity is more expensive in Houston. In my search for a home and a job, some faith issues surfaced. Turns out I don't trust God as much as I thought I did. For me, it's easy to say I trust God when everything is relatively stable, but when things start getting crazy, my true level of trust comes out and I am ashamed to say it's pretty miserable. I spent a day praying over the whole situation and that I would trust God more. It helped. At the end of the day I really felt God saying that he has always got me through everything and he's not going to stop now. I am beginning to gain some trust, but still nothing has happened. I still don't have a job and I still don't have a house, and I will still be moving in 3 weeks, but I know that God has everything worked out just right.

P.S. We could really use some prayer that we would find a house and I would find a job and that we would continue to trust God more and more.

Fear

I decided long ago that my priority in life is God and the pursuit of knowing Him, whatever that means. I am discovering that fear often takes over my decision making abilities. On the flip side, I am a passionate guy who goes all out or not at all. I believe that if something is worth doing, then I am going to give it all I got. If something isn't worth doing, I'm simply not going to do it. This has sometimes made my marriage difficult. I will decide that I am going to get involved in something, then I'll spend money and time I don't have on whatever it is I decided I'm going to do. I have spent too much money on things I don't even use anymore. For example, I spent about $150 on a bowling ball, a bowling ball bag, and bowling shoes, which I used for about two months and haven't touched since. I was into MMA, so I bought some nice MMA shorts, which I still wear because they are the most comfortable shorts in the world, some great MMA gloves, training gloves, mouthpiece, and a membership to the Grappler's Lair where I trained sometimes 5 days a week. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast getting beat up everyday, and met some good friends and got the chance to injure a cop, but this was all wants and desires rather than needs. Anyways, having decided that the pursuit of God is number one in my life, I am moving my two kids and pregnant wife to a suburb of Houston where I will hopefully learn a little bit about how to start a church. As soon as I have a good grasp on it, or after I've been there a year and a half, I will move my wife and three children half way around the world to a land we've never been to with people we don't know in order to learn as much as I can about God. The biggest difference between pursuing God and pursuing my own little interests, is that pursuing God has the authority to change everything. As I pursue God, I am willing to go where I need to go, do what I need to do, and change what I need to change all for the benefit of knowing Him more. As I pursue wants and desires, they do not have the authority to move my family, impoverish me, set me up for failure, or take away from my end goal in life, "To glorify God by enjoying Him forever." Not to say that this always happens perfectly. Being a selfish person, I naturally seek my own gain rather than the gain of the God I am seeking to know more. I constantly have to confess to God my lack of single-mindedness, and must take hold of the grace He has freely given me through the cross of Jesus the Christ.
Anyways, fear creeps in constantly in this journey to God-closeness, and I have to remind myself again and again how much He loves me and how He is molding my life into Christlikeness. I have to remember that even though circumstances might be difficult at the time, God is still here and still loves me and will finish the good work He begun in me. I am scared of moving to a country that is not my own. I am afraid of failure in another part of the world and no means of getting home. I am afraid of my own lack of faithfulness in this journey. I am fearful of being hated by people. I am terrified that in my own pursuit of God, I will unknowingly put my children in an unsafe place and something will happen to them.
I have to remind myself that God has called me to Himself and has a plan for my life and it is not for my bad, but His good.

Confession

I had the awesome pleasure of hearing one of my spiritual heros present a great talk on his new book, "God Next Door." The book, and his personal philosophy on ministry, is all about seeing your neighbourhood as a place of ministry and mission. His whole presentation focused on how we have decentralized community and no longer love our neighbours. In today's society, the home is no longer the center of our communities. Back in the day, the neighbourhood was the place of community and fellowship, and now we don't even know our neighbours.

This hit me in the face. I really want to be on mission in my neighbourhood, but I am extremely horrible at it. I have talked to my neighbours, but I don't really know them. I haven't tried to have my neighbours over for dinner, I haven't reached out to my neighbours, I haven't shared the Gospel with my neighbours. I have failed at community within my neighbourhood. I have failed at loving my neighbours. I have removed the people who live close to me from who I consider neighbours.

Father, put in me a deep desire to honor you by loving my neighbour. Help me to live as Christ and not care about anything else in this life. Teach me to love.

Good vs. Great

I had a discussion with a great friend of mine and I thought I'd share a little bit about what we decided.
He had brought up the idea of good vs. great a couple of months ago when talking about songwriting. He said that if we as songwriters get stuck on something good, like a good melody or a good guitar line, we will never find what is great. He was telling me that if I like a song and have something good, to throw it out and write something great. I took the principle and applied it to life as a Christian. So many times I settle for good when God offers me great. Let me explain what I mean. As a follower of Jesus, I have offered to me the greatness of knowing God. He reveals himself to me as I love and serve him and that is his desire for my life. John 17:3 says that eternal life is knowing God. The Bible says that God desires to give us abundant life, which is knowing God and walking in His grace and mercy and getting to be a part of His greatness and glory. As a weak, small little man, I often trade knowing God for doing good. I determine that rather than sinking into God and who he is, I will just be good and do the right things. That's fine, but it's not what God wants for me. He wants me to know Him and to walk everyday in his love and mercy. He wants me to delight in Him and in return he will give me the desires of my heart. He wants me to draw near to him and in return he will draw near to me. He wants his grace to be enough in my life, so that I don't need anything else.
We were applying this concept to our local church. How often we settle for good: nice Sunday morning service, good music, we look good from the outside, we are morally good, we dress up, we are growing in numbers a little bit, we have a few baptisms a year, occasionally a small group will get too big and have to split; when God wants GREAT for His church: people coming into the family daily, the love among us to be so great that people come into our body in droves, the city we live in to be changed by our love for God and his love for us, transformation in the lives of the church, the name of Jesus to be proclaimed boldly and gracefully, a deep and passionate love for the lost that Jesus' name might br praised louder in Killeen. We sacrifice going after greatness for staying in goodness. I'm not saying we're not doing things right, because we are doing somethings right. I'm just saying I want more. I want to have to plant churches all over Killeen because we can't find a building big enough to house all the new believers. I want the city of Killeen to be known for its love for Jesus. I want every new soldier that comes into Fort Hood to be totally and completely loved by this community. I want Killeen to grow because everyone wants to be a part of this community of love. I want God to be glorified and praised in everything we do.
Why settle for good when God wants great?