HE'S BACK!!!!!!!! (me)

So I haven’t written a real blog since June 24th. But don’t worry you’ve only missed the most eventful moments of my life… :)

Allow me to summarize. Here’s what’s been going on in my life:

• Graduated high school
• Moved across the country
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• My best friend moved across the country at the same time and to the same place as us! :)
• Stayed with Grandma for a month
• An old friend got married
• The first week we were went all over the place visiting old friends.
• My dad started his new job! He loves it and he’s awesome at it!
• We went white water rafting with the new church.
• Found out that I’m not considered a resident of GA until I’ve been here one year. Therefore College is $3000 dollars more expensive. Therefore I will be taking a gap year.
• I had a great opportunity to serve at our new church’s family camp. Family camp is like youth camp, kids camp, men’s retreat, and women’s retreat rolled into one! This past week I’ve seen this camp make a HUGE impact on families! I’ve seen families brought together, marriages strengthened, and families having a blast at the same time! I had the great opportunity to be a leader there. I helped serve with the 3-5 year olds and they were Awesome! I’m so excited about how God used Family fusion, and I can’t wait for next year!
• 
• Upon my return we moved in to a temporary house we can live in rent free for six months! That’s an awesome blessing!
• 
• 
• Downside: an hour from the Church! Oh well… it’s FREE! :( However I REALLY wish we could spend more time with the folks from the church!!! I feel sort of disconnected. :(
• I’ve started playing the church band recently which has probably been the most fun I’ve had playing in a band. Not to mention it’s awesome to see these people being lead in worship and learning more about what worship truly is!
• I hope to start volunteering in the Ridge kidz or Ridge Kidz Jr area soon. But my band schedule is busy right now. Hopefully I can start in Sep.
• I really love the people from the Ridge church. Hope to hang out with them more.
• I also really miss my Vegas friends! Yes, You! Don’t think I’ve forgotten y’all. I have absolutely no clue when I’ll get to see some of y’all again but I know it’ll not be super-long
• 
• Ummm yep that’s all I can think of. I’ll let you know if I think of anything else…
• Hey wait a sec… enough about ME how have YOU been????

Mario, Transormers, and GA

One week to go. It's getting crazy busy round here. Got a few things on my mind:

1. Zach's New Blog post is awesome!

2. Went to see Transformers 2 the other night. I don't think I have ever been more ashamed of mankind. It was a packed theater. Everyone whooped and clapped and whistled when Megan Fox appeared with hardly any clothes on. Encouraged the main character to cheat on his girlfriend by applauding. Laughed at all the perverted Jokes and NONE of the sincerely funny, and clean ones. (Which were few, I might add.) And Somewhere down the Road it seems Megan Fox decided she wasn't pretty enough unless she dresses skimpy. I hate when women do that. How bout looking at her eyes for a change? Just a thought. Don't forget the awful racial stereotypes! What the junk has happened to America? Transformers 2 is the most morally jack-up movie I've seen in a while. I wish i would have read reviews before hand and avoided it.

3. We are moving cross country in... how many days? Well it's now up in the air. Could be as early as Monday or as late as Wednesday. The moving truck is coming tomorrow and we are having a moving party saturday. This is so weird. lol. But I can't wait!

9 Days...

Uh oh.... only 9 more days till i leave. "Something is about to give... I can feel it coming.... i think i know what it is.... I'm not afraid to die... I'm not afraid to live... and when I'm flat on my back I hope to feel like i did!"

...sorry random lyrics.... where was i?

Yeah, I can feel the hardest part coming. The part where I have to say goodbye to all the Awesome people here. I know I'm totally copying Zach's earlier blog post but i made a Collage of all the awesome people who've impacted me in some way. I'm sorry if i left one of y'all out. I'm not good with the pic editing program and it kept leaving some pics out.

Anyway... yeah this is gonna be tough but I know that we're all gonna have a BLAST in Heaven one day. I can't wait for that. It's gonna be more amazing then any of us can possibly imagine!!!

But until then I'll miss y'all.

13 days

I can't believe I only have 13 more days to spend in Vegas. I'm going to miss everyone here sooo much!! But i can't say i'll be sad to leave desert landscaping behind... :). I'm really excited to be moving forward in God's plan for my life. I believe He has great things planned for me and my fam in GA! This reminds me of that day 7 years ago when i was in GA going west... the only difference is this time I'm putting my trust in God COMPLETLY.

I have to admit 7 years ago I was not happy. I was leaving everything I've ever known behind. I didn't trust God then. But I'm so glad I followed him anyway. Vegas has been such and increadible blessing to me and my walk with God. I've learned so much from the people here and from Hope. I've learned so much about serving. I thank God for vegas because it was through Hope and my good friend Zeke that I found my calling in music. I want to touch people everywhere with music, I want to encourage believers and reach out to non-believers. I want to make music that it diverse, innovative, solid, emotion-filled, and most of all filled with truth. Bono sums up my call in this quote:


"If critics want me to stop going after the big subject or the deep emotion... they can forget it. For that matter, if another crowd of people wants me to only go after the 'safe Christian subjects' and the 'safe Christian crowd,' they can forget that, too."


I can't wait to see what God will do with the talent and calling he has given me and my partner in calling, Zach (aka "Mr. Casual" http://snapzach.blogspot.com/) I also see music as an oppertunity to reach out to poverty the same way U2 and switchfoot do. As far as musical style goes I have to lean toward something with the creativity and solid structure of bands like U2, coldplay, Switchfoot, and the Beatles.

Anyway, some would say that moving back to a place I've once lived is easier than coming to Vegas. I dissagree. Even though i have once lived in GA, I know that this in NO way will be returning to life there as it was. Our calling has changed, people and friends have changed, We'll meet new friends.... this is a completly new chapter in my life... and I'm stinkin' excited for it!!!!! God has greater things there for us than i can imagine. That's why i want to follow him completly and whole-heartedly.

I'm still going to cry about leaving Vegas though! You guys are Awesome!!!
Well I've run out of things to say... so bye.... :)

Alone?

Would You Try to Do This ALONE?
06/13/2009

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You awake to find yourself in the midst of a great and terrible war. It is, in fact, our most desperate hour. Your King and dearest Friend calls you forth. Awake, come fully alive, your good heart set free and blazing for him and for those yet to be rescued. You have a glory that is needed. You are given a quest, a mission that will take you deep into the heart of the kingdom of darkness, to break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron so that your people might be set free from their bleak prisons. He asks that you heal them. Of course, you will face many dangers; you will be hunted.

Would you try and do this alone?

Something stronger than fate has chosen you. Evil will hunt you. And so a fellowship must protect you. Honestly, though he is a very brave and true hobbit, Frodo hasn’t a chance without Sam, Merry, Pippin, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. He has no real idea what dangers and trials lie ahead. The dark mines of Moria; the Balrog that awaits him there; the evil orcs called the Urak-hai that will hunt him; the wastes of the Emyn Muil. He will need his friends. And you will need yours. You must cling to those you have; you must search wide and far for those you do not yet have. You must not go alone. From the beginning, right there in Eden, the Enemy’s strategy has relied upon a simple aim: divide and conquer. Get them isolated, and take them out.

(John Eldredge, Waking the Dead , 186–87)

A Journey toward Heaven

A Journey toward Heaven
06/08/2009

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Where do we go from here? “This life,” wrote Jonathan Edwards, “ought to be spent by us only as a journey towards heaven.” That’s the only story worth living in now. The road goes out before us and our destination awaits. In the imagery of Hebrews, a race is set before us and we must run for all we’re worth. Our prayers will have been answered if we’ve helped to lift some of the deadweight so that your heart may rise to the call, hear it more clearly, respond with “eager feet.” Our final thoughts echo the advice found in Hebrews 12:2–3:

Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! (Eugene Peterson’s translation from The Message)

Jesus remembered where he was headed, and he wanted to get there with all his heart. These two themes, memory and desire, will make all the difference in our journey ahead. Without them, we will not run well, if we run at all.

( John Eldredge., The Sacred Romance , 196–97)

Venturing Forth

I Read this in the daily devotional I get in my email. It really spoke to me about the whole process of leaving the familiar to follow God:

"It’s better to stay in the safety of the camp than venture forth on a wing and a prayer. Who knows what dangers lie ahead?" This was the counsel of the ten faithless spies sent in to have a look at the Promised Land when the Jews came out of Egypt. Only two of the twelve, Joshua and Caleb, saw things differently. Their hearts were captured by a vision of what might be and they urged the people to press on. But their voices were drowned by the fears of the other ten spies and Israel wandered for another forty years. Without the anticipation of better things ahead, we will have no heart for the journey. 

One of the most poisonous of all Satan’s whispers is simply, “Things will never change.” That lie kills expectation, trapping our heart forever in the present. To keep desire alive and flourishing, we must renew our vision for what lies ahead. Things will not always be like this. Jesus has promised to “make all things new.” Eye has not seen, ear has not heard all that God has in store for his lovers, which does not mean “we have no clue so don’t even try to imagine,” but rather, you cannot outdream God. Desire is kept alive by imagination, the antidote to resignation. We will need imagination, which is to say, we will need hope. 

Julia Gatta describes impatience, discouragement, and despair as the “noonday demons” most apt to beset the seasoned traveler. As the road grows long we grow weary; impatience and discouragement tempt us to forsake the way for some easier path. These shortcuts never work, and the guilt we feel for having chosen them only compounds our feelings of despair. 

Faith looks back and draws courage; hope looks ahead and keeps desire alive. And meantime? In the meantime we need one more item for our journey. To appreciate what it may be, we have to step back and ask, what is all this for? The resurrection of our heart, the discovery of our role in the Larger Story, entering into the Sacred Romance—why do we pursue these things? If we say we seek all of this for our own sake, we’re right back where we started: lost in our own story. Jesus said that when a person lives merely to preserve his life, he eventually loses it altogether. Rather, he said, give your life away and discover life as it was always meant to be. “Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self ” (Matt. 16:25, The Message). Self-preservation, the theme of every small story, is so deeply wrong because it violates the Trinity, whose members live to bring glory to the others. The road we travel will take us into the battle to restore beauty in all things, chief among them the hearts of those we know. We grow in glory so that we might assist others in doing so; we give our glory to increase theirs. In order to fulfill the purpose of our journey, we will need a passion to increase glory; we will need love. 

Memory, imagination, and a passion for glory—these we must keep close at hand if we are to see the journey to its end. But the road is not entirely rough. There are oases along the way. It would be a dreadful mistake to assume that our Beloved is only waiting for us at the end of the road. Our communion with him sustains us along our path. 

(The Sacred Romance , p. 156-58, by John Eldredge)

Big News

I have news that some of you may interpret as good or sad, or you may just not care… To me it’s a mixture. For the past year or so our family have really felt God working in our hearts. We’ve felt that God was calling us to new ministry opportunities. As soon as we felt this familiar call we put our Yes on the table, and we waited for God to show us his plans. Finally God has revealed his will! My dad has been offered the job of Creative Arts Pastor at “The Church @ the Ridge” in Hiram, GA. After much prayer and wise council, we have decided to accept the offer. We will be relocating to Hiram, GA in June or July.

I am very excited about this church! This past week the church flew us out to visit. We had a great time hanging out with the pastors and their families. Really awesome people. My dad met with the band and he sang a song with them Sunday. He did an amazing job. If you want to know more about this church you can visit their website: churchattheridge.com

Like I said God has done a great work in my heart and he has given me a peace and a great excitement about this new chapter in our lives. BUT, this is NOT to say that I won’t be missing anyone in Vegas! I have met some of the most Godly people I know here and I will be very sad to leave you all. I will also miss Hope Baptist Church VERY much!!! It’s gonna be extremely sad to leave y’all. As Chris Tomlin says: “Greater things are still to be done in this city!” and I believe that God will use Hope will be a big part of these great things. I love you Hope! To my friends in GA, I can’t wait to see y’all again and this time stay for good. To my friends in neither of these places… I guess it doesn’t really matter for y’all so you can stop reading this now… lol!

So we are moving sometime in June or July… please pray that our house will sell and the whole moving process will go smoothly. If y’all have anymore questions feel free to comment…


Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
Proverbs 3:5-6

"Everyone Else is Doin' It!"

Ok so everyone and their dog (and I'm serious on this one) seems to have a blog now. So I thought... why not? I'll probably never post anything again... or i may go blog crazy and post everyday. so we'll see....

PS and sorry for the horribly uncreative name... i may change it later...