Monday, June 23, 2008

VBS and Summer's 30

VBS is this week. Summer and I are the MC's and singers. She is cute up there leading the songs. We are having fun. We made up moves to two songs that we have been teaching. We laughed a lot today when each of us would miss a move or two.

Summer's 30th birthday was this past weekend. We had a blast. We went to Nashville and I dropped her off with her best friends that live in Dallas, Fort Worth, and Elizabethtown, KY. They all met in Nashville and had fun for a couple of days. I picked her back up on Friday evening and we went to eat and see the movie "Get Smart." It was an awesome and very funny movie.

We then spent the night at her mom's house. On Saturday we had a surprise party for her with all of her family which was really fun and we actually had her surprised. (Ok, it wasn't that hard to surprise her. She is very gullible) The coolest thing was her uncle from Illinois and his wife who is in a wheelchair drove down for the occasion. It was that aunt and uncle that was responsible for Summer and I getting together.

After that we started our journey home and stopped in Nashville for her last surprise which was having Crysty Kimberlin, one of her best friends meet us at a gas station that we stopped at and get in the car with us. She has spent Sunday and today with us. Summer is taking her to the airport this evening.

So Summer is 30. make sure you rub it in and yes, I still know I'm older than she is.

Monday, June 16, 2008

First Sunday to Preach

Yesterday, I preached for the first time at Vaughn Park. Everything went really well. Part of my family came to visit for the weekend. My mom, my youngest sister and her hubby and kids came to see us. It was good to be able to visit with them. They left yesterday and we are keeping 2 of their 3 children until Thursday. On Thursday I'm dropping Summer off in Nashville with 3 of her close friends and then going on to Paducah to see the rest of my family.

This week, it is myself and the children's minister in the office. Our senior minister and our involvement minister is in Mexico on a mission trip and both of our youth ministers just left this morning for a mission trip in Miami.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Family

I'm so excited about my family coming to visit this weekend. They are coming tomorrow night and then they will have to leave on Sunday afternoon. My sister has a new job and she can't miss work for the first several months. I'm excited to see them though.

I preach for the first time at Vaughn Park this Sunday. I'm excited about that as well. It is not something I don't think I'd want to do weekly at this point in my life, but I enjoy preaching occasionally.

4 of our ministers will be gone on 2 different mission trips next week which will leave me and the children's minister to take up the slack in the office for the week.

I'm still missing being at camp this week at Palmetto Bible Camp. I was a camper and staff member for 15 years. I so badly want to get back to going. I'm hoping next year will be the year of my return to PBC Superweek. I'm only 4.5-5 hours away now.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

iPhone 3G

Have you seen the new iPhone 3G that is coming out? It is going to be a great product. I thought the iPhone was a great product already, but they have improved the speed, the 3rd party support, the way it works with things like exchange, and best of all they are dropping the price by $200. It isn't often that you can get the newest model for half the price. I just might have to purchase one when they come out. I've been wanting one for a year now, but I wasn't about to pay $400 for one, but for $200 it just might be worth it. I've always wanted email on my phone and GPS would be nice as well especially when I'm out of town.

It looks like I'm going to have to take my new iMac to the shop. I think there is something wrong with the power cable. It will occasionally just shut down. I worked with technical support on the phone and we did all the diagnostics and it looks like it is the power cord. The unfortunate thing is that I have to take it to the store for them to check it out and make sure that is the problem. The store said it could take up to 5 business days to get it tested and get the right part in. I know it isn't Apple's fault, we just don't have any Apple stores around here, so the only one that works on them around here won't have the part on hand. Oh, well. I'll just schedule it for a time when I'll be out of town for a few days.

Friday, June 06, 2008

Am I getting old?

It is days like today that you start to realize your age. I started out ministry as a youth minister. When I started youth ministry, Josh Lee was a little wild 12 year old that drove everyone nuts. Of course, over time he matured into a great leader in our youth program. Fast forward to today. He is getting married at 6:00 tonight.

My family and I will be traveling to witness this great event. Thankfully, it is in north Alabama so I only have to drive 2.5 hours to get there. It is awesome to see people that you love grow up and succeed in life. Josh has grown to be an awesome guy. No thanks to me of course. There are so many that I worked with that I'm so proud of the things they have done in their lives. Josh is definitely one of those guys. He and his bride to be are praying about what mission they want to serve together on. My job tonight is to pray about that specific thing in their wedding tonight.

If you know Josh, take a moment and pray for him and his bride to be that God will give them opportunities in missions to serve together.

I love you Josh and I'm proud of you and may God bless you and your new wife.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

My First Alabama Post

It is official. I'm an Alabamian. I never thought I'd ever live in Alabama, but so far it is great. The church here in Montgomery is wonderful. The people here are some of the most loving people we have ever met.

In just 5 short weeks, we are already starting to love the people here. This has definitely been a good move for us. We have already seen all of Summer's family twice since we've gotten here and that doesn't include her parents helping us move. My family is coming to visit next weekend.

Next weekend I will be preaching at Vaughn Park for the first time. I'm kind of excited about it actually. It is kind of funny that the first week my family get to see the church, they won't even be seeing me do what I do which is lead worship. Oh, well, I'm sure they will visit again sometime when I am.

The staff here is great. There are 6 ministers, including myself. We have 2 youth ministers (a guy and a girl), our senior minister, a children's minister, and a connections minister (small groups and involvement).

I will be taking Outreach as well as Worship. It looks like one of my roles will be to co-lead the Upwards program at Vaughn Park. That should be fun since I love to play basketball.

On Fridays, one of the other staff members and myself go and play basketball with some guys at Faulkner University at lunch. This has been good because I need the exercise.

I'm running a new iMac 20" with 4 GB of memory. I love it. The Entourage email client is not as robust as Outlook, but it does everything I need it to do.

I hope everyone has a blessed day.