Painting

Well, last night we taught Yogurt (Rachel Gluesenkamp the Master's student living with us) how to paint Bob Ross style. We told her at the beginning of the year that by the time she left she would have done a painting. So last night we walked her through the process and she did an awesome job. Painting is so much fun, I just started about 8 months ago and I'm learning more and more and enjoying it more and more! Check out her picture!

In The Zone

Tonight we are ending an awesome series we have been doing called, IN THE ZONE. The first week we talked about living in the zone with Christ. We talked about not being consumed with the land of ING meaning datING, sportING, playING, doubtING, survivING, BLING, BLING, BLING! We need to live in the zone white hot for Jesus! Then the next week we talked about the O-Zone the OBEDIENCE zone! Jesus said if you love me you will OBEY what I command. So we talked about the umbrella effect! When you are obedient to God you live under the spiritual umbrella where God's protection and blessings are. But when you step out from the umbrella (obedience) you start to get rained on, dumped on, and pounced on by the enemy and life!

Tonight we are talking about the Cal-Zone! I will have a piece of dough with all kinds of good stuff to stuff it with and some nasty stuff like worms, dirt, etc... I am going to talk about what are you filling your life with? God wants to fill us with His awesome plans. When we open our heart up to God we get filled with the right stuff. But when we allow and give in to temptations in our life then the enemy starts to empty us of God's BEST and fills us with junk and nastiness! It is going to be an awesome night!!!

Rock Band Highlights & Magazine

Here is the video highlight from the Rock Band Tournament last Friday night! Also, is a magazine cover we are making and framing for each of the winners!!!

Rock Band Tournament

Well, we had our Rock Band Tournament last Friday night and it was awesome!!! We had a bunch of bands and tons of students come out to play and support their bands!!! We took the video game Rock Band and had teams sign up for a competition to see who the real rockers really were! We also had a panel of judges who critiqued the bands and judged the results for us! Each band was judged on creativity, skill, crowd involvement, and stage performance. By the end of the night we had a winning band called, Big Tim and the South Side Boys. Each band member won many gifts like, School of Rock the movie, candy, toys, a photo shoot and a real rock band t-shirt with their band name and cool photo. It was a great night of hanging out and building community within our students. Many parents were there hanging out and watching the concert it was great! The kids were asking when the next one was right after we got done! We will have a video up tomorrow from the night but here is a sneak peak at the photo shoot of the winning team.

HUGE Weekend!

Oh my goodness! What a huge weekend it was this past few days!!! Saturday we had our HUGE, Arts & Crafts, Swap Meet festival in the parking lot of Journey and it was AMAZING! We had over 50 booths set up from people in our church selling, crafts, garage sale items, candy, food, etc.. We had the children to adults set up doing all kinds of stuff. Teenagers were doing a carwash, getting eggs smashed on their heads for money (which actually worked well) crafts and all kinds of great things! I set up my painting and actually sold 15 of them! I set up my easel and did some live paintings and that seemed to really draw people in. I was so blessed to be able to use a talent I have just learned to help out in this event! ALL the money that we raised went into our first offering for the great investment which will be for our new land and new church!!! Everybody did their part and worked so hard all day! I got fried out there in the sun, my face is peeling off right now as I write! Then Sunday morning Chad (our worship leader) got sick and I had the opportunity to fill in for him! We had a great service to end our series, MY OFFERING.

Then Sunday night we had our vision night where Pastor Jeff shard the future vision of our church. We had 200+ people there for the service. When we took up the offering for the great investment we raised $25,000 that night!!! What a testimony of the faithfulness of God's people stepping up and using their time, talent & money for the Kingdom of God in Sallisaw, Oklahoma!!!

Haircuts & Late Nights

Well, today Erin gave me my first haircut! We We decided that getting some clippers and just doing it ourselves is a much better investment of money, time &efficiency. So I got some clippers and Erin went at it! She did a GREAT job. She is so good at figuring things out and doing them well! She is a natural at oil painting with Bob Ross and now a master hair cutter! She picks things up fast and well, I am so proud of her! She really is the brains behind so many ideas, ministry and creative things that we do. Sometimes when we talk about stuff I just overwhelmed with ideas because she has so many stinking good ones. I know I can always count on her to help me out when I am stumped or not sure what to do!

Right now I am watching baby Allie while Erin gets some rest! I have been listening to one of my favorite speakers, Ed Young. Fellowship Church (which Ed pastors) does a monthly leadership training called Leadership Uncensored! It is an amazing resource that any one in ministry should receive. Ed is one of my favorite communicators of all time! When we went down to his church in Texas for the C3 conference a few months ago we were blown away with the church and the level of creativity they have! Anyway, I have been sitting here on the couch with my ipod taking notes and writing down so many thoughts as I learn from the best! I LOVE learning and growing in the calling God has called me too, the local church! I have heard it said that pilots have to under go strict training every year again and agian no matter how long they have been flying. Someone asked why they have to keep doing training and the response was, "Because lives depend on my skills." I believe that as Christians and as leaders in the church lives depend on our skills to reach out and challenge people to become ALL that God has called them to be!!! If it were simply up to God to reach people don't you think EVERYONE would have been reached? Of course they would have, but He chose us to be His ambassadors and servants to go unto all the earth and share the good news! I don't know about you but I want my skills to be sharpened by the Holy Spirit as I press on to the calling God has for me!!!

By the way, Zion took these pictures! Isn't she the smartest 3 year old ever?

JSM & Allie

Man tonight at JSM was great! We had 55 middle schoolers and over 80 people in the zone for service tonight! Daryn Crawford spoke about not just living the normal American dream but to live the dream God has for you! He did an awesome job communicating! We are getting more and more students every week! The service was fun tonight too, we did our own American Idol game tonight that was pretty fun!

Here are some more pics of little baby Allie! Things are going great! Erin's dad and step mom were in town here for a few days and left early this morning. It was great to be with them and show off baby Allie. Zion had a great time with her grammy & papaw too. Right now I am watching Allie and letting Erin try and get some rest! We are a little lacking in the long block of sleep stuff. We or more so Erin only get a few hours of sleep at a time then it is up with changing diapers or for mommy feeding Allie! It will be nice to get back to at least a 5 hour chunk of sleep, but we are cherishing every moment of this season. Well, I just got done watching American Idol and I am going to read a bit and study then hopefully try to lay down and get SOME sleep.