The Pastor’s Conference
We did not get an early start this morning so we didn’t make it to the Pastor’s conference as early as I would have liked. The theme of the Pastor’s conference was Building Healthy Churches. Mark Dever, Matt Schmucker, and Jonathan Leeman are all part of 9Marks ministies. At 9:00 a.m. Matt Schmucker’s message was “Display God’s Gospel by Listening to His Word”. At 9:40 a.m. Mark Dever spoke on “Preaching and Biblical Theology”. When 11:00 a.m. rolled around Jonathan Leeman spoke on “Conversion & Evangelism”. Those are the three messages I was most interested and also the three I missed. I arrived for Matt Schmucker’s message on “Membership/Discipline” and for Mark Dever’s message on “Leadership”. I also stuck...
A License To Preach
After seven years of school, training, being an intern, being an interim, and working full time at my church I am being licensed on January 21st. While my main job is working with the youth, I spent plenty of time doing hospital visits, preaching as a fill-in, and doing several other pastoral duties. While it is true that I probably could have been licensed a long time ago, I think being licensed right now in this period of my life is far more significant for me. There have been a lot of changes in my life within the last year. I married my beautiful wife Kendall about 10 months ago, I’m graduating from seminary with my Masters of Arts degree, and a few weeks ago I found out my wife is pregnant. With all of these changes in my life I feel I’m...
Today Is The Day
Today is the day that I take on a whole new stage in my life. After 27 years of bachelor bliss, today I am getting married. That being said, I am excited about this new period in my life and I look forward to what God is going to do through us as we start our lives together. Yesterday we spent all day getting ready for the wedding, doing wedding practice, and trying to finish up any last minute stuff. For awhile it began to get pretty stressful and just at that moment I looked over at my calendar, turned to today’s date and read this verse: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” 1 Peter 5:6 The sudden peace that filled me is hard to describe, and yet I realized that I was placing...
The Countdown: 4 Days Left
It’s hard to believe that in only 4 days I will be getting married. It seems surreal that the time has come after years of wondering who it would be, how it would happen, and dreaming of all the things I would like to do and then suddenly it is upon me. Everyone keeps asking me if i am nervous or stressed and I think people expect me to be nervous, but honestly I’m not nervous at all. I have no doubts, no worries, and I am so sure that this is right that I am at complete peace. The only taxing part of the deal is getting everything ready for the wedding ceremony. I do have a deep desire to continue in prayer for the wedding, our marriage, and all the things I believe God has in store for us in the future. The scripture verse I read today was found...
A Hard Day
Today was a hard day. Not necessarily a bad day, but definitely a hard one. I couldn’t get motivated, I didn’t prepare like I should have, I was distracted, and I felt like I was spinning out of control. I am normally someone who is extremely organized, however today I was a mess. Later in the afternoon I began to think about our Youth services tonight, the fact that I am the Spiritual leader of these students, that they deserve better, and I recognized my own weakness and wickedness. My flesh haunted me today and God dealt harshly with me. My heart was burdened and troubled for most of the day and my spirit was heavy. God wanted me to pray, he wanted me to admit my troubles, and he wanted to talk. I knew it. I knew God was drawing me to...