Wisdom Please

I believe that I have come a long way in my life. I have overcome some pretty crazy obstacles in my life. I over came running into a parked truck with my bike when I was five. It was a painful experience. Ok that wasn’t that big of a deal, but I have truly overcome some crazy things. The thing is I never did it by myself. First I had the help of God. I know I would be lost without the help of God in every life situation. God has given me wisdom, peace, strength, and endurance to overcome a lot of different things. I can’t thank God enough for the way he has rescued me in so many situations. I also can’t thank God enough for the people that he has put in my life that have help shaped me to be the man I am today.
There have been a number of people that have come along side me and helped me reach my full potential. These men have mentored me. I have been blessed by godly men who wanted to invest in me, wanted to see me grow. I think of my Dad, my youth minister Cody, my high school small group leader Bruce, my college small group leader Jason, and my previous co-worker Nick. These men helped to grow me into a man that I needed to become. Where would I be without them? What would my life look like? I know I wouldn’t be where I am now. I’d still be an idiot. Mentoring is such an important process in the life of a Christian. We need someone to take us under their wing and help us grow. I have always said, try to progress forward every day. Be a better person than you were the day before, and mentoring helps us to do that. I’m glad I had men invest in me. If you don’t have someone investing in your life, you should try to find a person that can invest time for you.

Technology

I want to blog today for two reasons. One I'm sitting in a lobby of a surgery center, waiting for a former student to get out of surgery, so I'm bored, and i just found and app that is for my blogging website. So really I want to talk about technology. Technology has changed the way I do a lot of things. The way I communicate. The way I watch television (DVR is awesome). The way I listen music, to countless other ways. I'm interested to see what the next 15 to 20 years have in store in the are of technology. I also wonder what would happen if our technology was suddenly taken away. Would people go crazy? Would people not care? Would I cry because I wouldn't have an iPhone anymore? I think people would realize including myself what is really important. What really gets us through life. I don't think technology is bad. I think its great. It helps me do a lot of things for ministry. I'm just curious if we rely on it to much.

Don't fall down

If you didn’t know fall is right around the corner. Summer is winding down. This time of year gets me excited. Fall is by far my favorite time of year. For some people I’m sure this is there least favorite time of the year, most of them probably kids in school not ready to end their summer of sleeping until noon and doing nothing all day. For me this season as become my favorite time of the year.

Here are the reasons that make this my favorite time of the year.

1. Football!!!!

I like football season. A lot! I can’t get enough of this amazing sport. I love to watch the NFL, college, high school, and little league. My wife is scared I will ignore her Saturday s and Sundays this fall. Also the great thing about football season is fantasy football. This is an extremely fun game to play with my college buddies. We talk trash, make trades and try to find sleepers, all in hope to be named fantasy football champion.

2. Jacket Weather.

For some reason I really enjoy wearing jackets. I’m not much of a fashion guru, but I do like the accessory of a jacket. Not only do I enjoy wearing jackets I enjoy the fact that it is cooler outside. The weather definitely makes football season that much better.

3. Changing Leaves

This one is self explanatory. I mean a red and orange leaf is cooler than a green leaf.

4. Fall TV

Fall is a happing time for TV shows. You have been waiting all summer to see what happens next in your favorite TV show from the season finally in the spring. This fall I’m excited to see who will be the new boss for the show “The Office.” Also new TV shows start in the fall, so you may get a new favorite TV show. The summer is reruns so it is exciting to finally get some new episodes of your favorite shows like: Big Bang Theory, The Office, Community, Biggest Looser, and I’m sure I’ll find some new ones this fall.

5. Fall Programming

As a youth minister I’m excited the summer is over and the fall has begun, because really the summer is our really crazy time of the year. Going to camp for three weeks, CIY, mission trips, and countless other activities make the summer crazy. So fall is a great time to get back into your normal routine, and I love our fall through spring program “Encounter.” It is a great time of worship, teaching, and interacting with my students.

6. World Series

This one is a good one only if the Cardinals are in it, which they probably won’t.

7. Thanksgiving

Amazing food! Stuffing, pumpkin and pecan pie! It is awesome!

Those are my reason why I think fall is the best.
You got any?

I don't know everything

I’m sure at one time in your life you thought you were awesome. That there is no way that you could be in better at what you do. Well me being only a year removed from Bible College, and in my first full time ministry, I had that attitude at times. I thought to myself, “I am an awesome youth minister, I know everything.” The sad thing is I actually thought that at times. I didn’t want people to tell me that I don’t know what I’m doing, or I need to do things differently. Well I have tried not to be like that because, that thinking is stupid. I recently had my 1 year review with my senior minister and the elders of my church, and it was one of the most productive and humbling experience I have had in ministry. See I want to be the best youth minister I can be, and I can’t do that by myself. In my review they went over the things that I do well, but they also went over the things that they feel I can improve on. It was awesome to see these men care about me, and want me to be the best youth minister I can be. It was good to hear what I need to work on to become a better minster. I like people pushing me to become a better minister. We need that as minister, and as people. It’s good for people to open our eyes to things we can be better at, and to show us ways we can improve. We can push ourselves all we want, but it helps when someone gives you a boost. You might have the attitude I had and think that you have it all together, that you know everything. Well you don’t. Swallow your pride and realize that you can be better. That you don’t know everything and that other people can teach you something valuable.
I especially liked my review. It was an eye opening, and humbling experience for me. It felt good to see the leaders of my church care about the church and me.

Who is your daddy, and what does he do?

Last Sunday was Father’s day. I didn’t get to spend this Father’s day with my dad. This might only be the third time in my 24 year life that I didn’t get to spend Father’s day with my dad. I have lived away from my parents for a year now so I’m somewhat use to be apart from my family for special occasions. I might be use to it, but I won’t ever like it. Back from my tangent of being away from Dad on Father’s day. I really want to talk about dads. I recently was recommended a book by a friend that is about growing up without a father. I don’t know what that is like, and I don’t want to know what is like. Whether it was losing your dad from a death or your dad never carried enough about you to be in your life. All I know is that I’m truly bless to have my dad in my life. My dad has taught me a lot of things and has helped me become the man I am today. He probably made mistakes here in there in dealing with my brother and I, and the good thing is he knows that, but through those mistakes my dad learned to be a loving caring father to my brother Jared and I. Getting the attention of my dad and to receive love from him was so very important to me. Every boy wants his dad to love him to be proud of him, and I am so blessed to have a dad the loves me so much and his proud of the man that I have become.
I have dreamed of becoming a father for such a long time. My dream is to be a loving dad that teaches his children to be respectful God loving people, because that is what my dad taught me, to love God and to respect people. Dads are such an important role in the life of a child and I’m glad that mine fulfilled his duties as a dad. As a youth minister I know I will have and do have students without dads, and I want to show and teach them that they have a heavenly father that loves and cares for them like no earthly dad can. It breaks my heart to see student with parents or dads that don’t care. I always want to fill that need to be that person to love and care for them, because I know the importance of having a loving caring dad.
So thanks Dad.
And I love you very much too Mom.

Weird & Wonderful

I got married 19 days ago, and it has been as I like to call it “weird and wonderful.” First let me start by explaining why it’s weird. Before My wife Cara and I got married we lived 6 hours apart from each other for our whole relationship besides the first 6 weeks. So the only time we would see each other is on the weekends for short visits. Now she lives in Whiting Iowa with me and it’s weird because she’s not leaving in two days. She is staying, and it’s a weird feeling and its wonderful all at the same time. I have been in a relationship for one way for so long and it’s completely different. I like it. Living with the person you love the most is amazing. It is a challenge at time. I wish I could say the first 19 days of my marriage have been easy. Actually it has just been the last 10 days where it has been a challenge to learn to live with someone. The first 9 days was our wedding, honeymoon and travel back to Whiting. I have had roommates before, but I didn’t care about them like I do my wife obviously. If they got mad at me I didn’t lose sleep over it, but if my wife gets mad I care and want to fix my wrong. When your wife is your roommate you can be a jerk and get away with it. And when your wife is your roommate you learn about the way she does things. It is interest to see how the way we were brought up affects the way we do things in our home and how it will take awhile to get use to the way we like things. I do one thing one way and she does it another and we have to figure out how we harmonize it. It’s fun, frustrating, exciting, and challenging all at the same time, and it’s great. I’ve been married for a little less than 3 weeks, and I recommend it to all people.

College > High School

You know I might have talked about this before on here, but that’s ok. The other day I took some students down to Ozark Christian College for a college visit. I am an alumnus of Ozark and I just graduated last May. I still have friends that attend the school. While I was there I got to eat in the café, go to chapel and go to a class, it was like I was in college again. While my students were taking a tour of the campus I went and hung out in my old dorm, because I went to school there for 4 ½ years I know where stuff is already, I don’t need to take a tour. While I was hanging out with some old friends, it made me realize that I really do miss college. College was the best. I can honestly say that college has been the best 4 ½ years of my life. Why you might ask? Well I will tell you. I built great relationship with friends, learned about the Godly man I am suppose to be, and it was crazy fun. O and I was trained to be a youth minster, which is an awesome job. I lived in a dorm with 90 of my friends, and on a floor with 35 of my friends. You always could find someone to hang out. You could always find something to do (dumb or not.) It made me sad when people told me your friendships with the people you went to high school with fade away. After I got to college and establish new friendships with people I was perfectly ok with not having strong connections with my friends with high school, because my college friend I will forever have bonds with. College was a blast for me. It helped make me the man I am today. I also found my future wife there. (Added Bonus!!) So if you think you don’t want to go to college. Don’t be dumb and go. College is great. Was college awesome for you?

Mom Cleaning the House

I am a fan of music. I like music immensely actually. I have almost 3500 hundred songs on my iTunes. For some of you that might not even scratch the surface of how much you have, or it is way more then you have. Whatever your amount of music you have I feel that I have a lot of it. I have had a love for music since a very young age. My mom and dad both love music and them blaring the stereo when I was a young kid is one of my favorite childhood memories. I still hear songs now and again and I know the words only because my mom would play that song over and over again while she cleaned the house. Now my music taste has change through the years. The first CD I ever bought was Savage Garden. I was in to cheesy lame music in my opinion even though I still like Savage Garden. Then I got into hard rock and metal or as I like to call it angry music. Once I got to college it all changed. I wasn’t much into the heavy stuff anymore (even though I’ll listen to it from time to time) now I like to listen what I like to call chill music, music that you can just chill out to. It’s not to slow it’s not too fast. It’s just right. I now have this desire to always find new music. I like to find music that’s not exactly main stream. I will listen to main stream sometimes, but I like to find hidden gems. I sometime get down if I really like a song and someone else knows about it. I think discovering new music is like a new pair of socks. Who doesn’t love a new pair of socks? The most recent CD I bought is by a band called young the Giant. It’s been a fun ride between Savage Garden and Young the Giant.
The great thing about music for me is that I have certain music that reminds me of certain time of my life. For example: the band Parachute and Jason Mraz remind of summer that I lived in Arizona.
Now this post really doesn’t have major point besides me just talking about music. And I don’t care. I’m only here to write and that I do.

The Best Times

The other day I decided I would make a list of the top ten moments of my life. I decided I would make a long list and then pick out the top ten out of them. I decided instead that I would just share the whole list. Some of these you might think, what it the world? But I have my reasons why these are the top moments in my life.
Top moments of my life
- The day I got baptized
- Baptizing my best friend James
- Scoring my only high school touchdown
- Sacking the quarterback at the end of a game in high school to win the game
- Seeing Rome
- Getting lost in the smoking mountains with my Brother
- high school Graduation
- College Graduation.
- Spending a weekend on a beach in the Gulf of Mexico
- Getting a light bright for Christmas
- Getting Engaged to Cara
- Asking Cara if she dug my chili.
- My ordination
- Seeing my dad be the first person in the stands at my football games
- My mom crying the night of my high school graduation
- Seeing Shaquille O’Neal play live
- Winning little league football championships two years in a row
- Winning best hair in high school
- Late night talks with my Mom
- Preaching at First Christian Church (first time preached on a Sunday morning)
- The Rams winning the super bowl
- The Cardinals winning the world series
- Spending the day in Kansas City with Cara, and Mizzou beating Oklahoma the same night
- Swimming in the creek
- Getting my first full time youth ministry
- Living in the desert (Phoenix)
- Togo Party
- The first time I played the game Amazon woman

I’m sure there is more, but this is all I got for now.