Convict of Christ

Bro.Paul, N.India

2010-03-06T18:11:00.003-05:00

Please pray for Bro. Paul, our overseer in Northern India. His wife sent and email asking for prayer as he has not arrived home as planned from his mission trip. She has been unable to reach him by phone as well. The area he was going to is dangerous for Christians.

Update

Bro. Paul has returned home, but was injured in an attack. Please pray for his healing and continued encouragement.

Milk of the word

2010-02-26T08:00:00.000-05:00

As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye ma grow thereby.
1 Peter 2:2

A whole lot to say on this, but simply want to thank the Lord for a renewed desire to be in His word more and more.

Love not the World

2010-02-24T08:00:00.002-05:00

And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honor thy father and mother. And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth. Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.
(Mar 10:17-22)

This young man seemed to be full of great zeal to do what was right. After all, he came RUNNING to Jesus. And as Jesus begins to remind him of the commandments, he acknowledges that he had observed those things since he was a youth. But then Jesus points out "One thing thou lackest".

We must be careful in feeling good about "following" all the commandments. Serving Christ is not about checking things off of a list, but about serving Him with all of our heart. One small part of our heart not sold out to Him means we are lacking. I don't want to be found falling short of His desires for my life. Lord help us not to coming running, eager with zeal, but to have to go away in sadness because there is something in this world that we love more that our Saviour.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
(1Jn 2:15-17)

Not Understanding

2010-02-22T08:00:00.002-05:00

And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ. And he charged them that they should tell no man of him. And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.
(Mar 8:29-33)

Peter is found here in a situation many people find themselves in, not understanding God's plan. He had just stated that he believed Jesus was "the Christ". Peter's view of who the Christ was to be, as with many of the Jews, was totally different than what God's plan for Christ was. The Jewish people were looking for a political-military deliverer. Someone who would make them an independent nation once again. God's will was to send someone to deliver them spiritually!

How often do we look for God to do one thing, when He is really wanting to do something else? We pray and read our Bibles, and are just sure that God is going to do "A", when His will is that "B" happens.

To avoid this, we must do what Peter was not doing in the passage above. We must LISTEN to the Master. Jesus, in describing what would happen, was trying to clear up their misconceptions on what He was there for. Yet Peter, the very one who had just stated that He was the Messiah, rebuked him ?!

Let our prayer be, Lord help me to listen to You!

We must not stay

2010-02-20T08:00:00.002-05:00

And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it;
(Mar 7:32-36)

Above is one of the many instances where Christ touched someone's life, and told them not to be telling anyone, and yet they could not contain themselves because of the wonderful things that had been done for them. It seems that all too often Christians find themselves in the opposite situation. Christ has come set us free from the burden of sin and from the despair of this life. He has commanded us
Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. And yet we contain what He has done for us without telling others like we should.

May God help us to be as Jeremiah and sayBut his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.

Traditions

2010-02-18T08:00:00.001-05:00

Mar 7:1 Then came together unto him the Pharisees, and certain of the scribes, which came from Jerusalem. And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is to say, with unwashen, hands, they found fault. For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not. And many other things there be, which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups, and pots, brazen vessels, and of tables. Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands? He answered and said unto them, Well hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.

Tradition, the thing that is so often upheld by the past and disdained by the future. Not all tradition is bad, but when we are talking about serving God, we must be careful how we approach tradition. We must not simply throw it aside, for often there is some principle or reason behind it. Unfortunately, over time even some of the best principles and reasons behind things, do not keep the traditions from being twisted and distorted into something never intended in the beginning. As well as the fact that many times, traditions have simply formed out of someone's preference for one thing over another.

We must be careful that we do not judge others by our traditions. Secondly, we should examine our traditions and make sure that they are biblical, not making commandments out of man's opinions and ideas, no matter how well intentioned.

2Co 13:5 Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

We should prove those things that we hold most dear, lest satan turn it into a snare somehow.

New Lens

2010-02-16T20:43:00.001-05:00

Click Here

The above is something new I am trying out in an attempt to gather various media and information about TCOG across the web into one place. In addition, over time it will help generate some income which I am intending at this time to direct towards our World Missions. So, stop by and give it a look. There are links to podcasts and videos from various of our ministers and churches. Eventually, I plan on having different pictures from different events across the country and hopefully globe, as well as links to every website that any of our churches have up and running. Check back often as I hope to have it updated frequently.

Let not your hearts be hardened!

2010-02-16T08:00:00.001-05:00

And he went up unto them into the ship; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered. For they considered not the miracle of the loaves: for their heart was hardened. Mark 6:51-52

We find the disciples in a situation where Jesus had just fed over five thousand people with a few loves and fishes. The food had multiplied dramatically so that there was quite a bit more left over when everyone was done eating, than there had been when they began to eat! And yet the Bible tells us that the disciples hearts were hardened! They were amazed that Jesus was able to walk on water and that the wind obeyed Him. I am sure that none of us would think that we would ever be in the same situation. That is, God performing a wonderful miracle before our eyes, and then being amazed that He has the power to do an even greater miracle. Yet, if we are not careful this is the very situation we will find ourselves in. Praying and receiving a miracle, and then not being able to comprehend how He can do something even greater.

Eph 3:20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,

He has the ability to go so far beyond what we can think that it will blow our minds! Let us trust in Him to provide whatever the situation.

Signs

2010-02-14T08:46:00.002-05:00

And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Mark 16:17,18

And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign from heaven, tempting him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation. Mark 8:11,12

Contrast the two passages above. In the first, Jesus describes to His disciples the signs that will FOLLOW those that believe on Him. In the second, we see where those SEEKING a sign(for their own personal reasons) were denied a sign. In doing a simple concordance search for the words- sign(s)- you will find that this was not the only place that those opposing Jesus were searching for some sign to verify His authority and power. We should not seek for signs to validate our anointing, ministry, etc. Rather the signs should follow us as we labor for Him. When we believe on Him, follow after His will, and seek Him then the signs follow.

Let us seek Him rather than seeking signs.

Balance

2010-02-13T12:20:00.003-05:00

The Word demonstrates that we must have balance in our lives. One instance that I came across recently that spoke of this to me is in Mark 6.

And they went out, and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them. Mark 6:12,13

The preached against sin and also went about healing and casting out devils. It seems that too many in Christianity tend towards one extreme or the other. They want to preach the Truth, but fail to enact it. Others want to show love by physically being in the community and doing works, but fail to tell them the truth or repentance.

As The Church of God we must make sure that we do BOTH. We must preach the Word unwavering, but the preaching must be backed up by God to confirming it, i.e. signs of His anointing, working. Otherwise, we are just preaching the letter of the law, with no Spirit to convict and compel the people.

Created for HIS pleasure

2010-02-11T10:37:00.003-05:00

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Revelation 4:11

God created EVERYTHING that ever has been, that is, and that ever will be. He is the almighty creator. Just as importantly, it is for His pleasure that things are created. Think about it, Gen. 1:27 tells us that we are created in His own image. We are created in the image of God.

So, we are 1)created in the image of God, and 2)created for His pleasure.

When the world around seems to count as of little worth, remember how you were created and why.

Early Dec. Update

2009-12-06T20:08:00.002-05:00

Well, we had a good month of November. We rounded out the end with our church Thanksgiving dinner. We had a wonderful time of Fellowship. Afterward, the wonderful people here cleaned up everything, even washing all of the dishes before they left. It was a real blessing to Kelley and as a result to me as well. I am truly thankful that the people here love us so much. It makes pastoring here much easier than it could be otherwise.

Unfortunately, we have had to cancel our revival. Bro. Walters was/is having some health problems and is able to make it. Please pray that he would get better. We are planning on rescheduling after the first of the year.

We are now getting ready for a Christmas dinner next week at church. After that, we will be looking forward to our Christmas Eve Candlelight service.

Pray for us that we can keep working faithfully for Christ and His Church.

His blessings are greater

2009-11-06T20:43:00.002-05:00

I find that often, as God pours out His blessings, Satan strives to fight back, to steal our peace, to kill our joy, and destroy the advances that have been made. Yet, as hard as he(Satan) fights back, our God is greater. If we will trust in Him, he will continue to do the same as He always has, bring us through. I thank Him for the blessings that He continues to pour out upon us.

Sickness .....

2009-11-06T14:11:00.002-05:00

This week has been a week of sickness around the Peters household. Kelley started feeling under the weather Mon. night. I then stayed home Tues. to watch the kids as she didn't really get out of bed very much. I started coughing quite a bit on Tues. as well. Then when Wed. morning rolled around both Anna and I were running fevers. Anna's finally broke sometime Thurs. and mine is on the verge of going away, just very very low grade right now. Kelley was doing much better Wed. thankfully, because I sure couldn't be taking care of Lydia as sick as I was. Lydia eventually started running a low fever, but it disappeared sometime in the middle of last night. We are all feeling better and thankful to the Lord that it wasn't any worse. He has helped us through it all. Now time to get back to being busy for the Lord.

REVIVAL!

2009-11-03T18:12:00.002-05:00

The Church of God
Franklin, IN
Dec. 10-13th
Evangelist - Larry Walters, Sr.
7:00 pm on the 10-12th
6:00 pm on the 13th

If you are in the area, stop by and be in service with us.
If not, please keep us in prayer. We are looking to see a mighty move of God. He has been blessing us in many ways here and we are believing that the revival is just going be a continuation and an expansion on what He has been doing.

May God stir revival in all of our hearts!

Sheperds for sale!

2009-11-03T07:43:00.002-05:00

"The church in a sense has lost its mission to go out and love the people," said Steven Mayo, pastor of Elm Street Congregational Church in Fitchburg, Mass. "We've become useless in a society that desperately needs us."

How to become useful again, however, is a matter on which there is no consensus. Cornelius Plantinga, president of Calvin Theological Seminary in Michigan, urged pastors to talk less about fulfilling personal potential and offer more from the likes of Old Testament prophet Joel, who warns God's people to wail and repent before the Lord scorches the earth.

But church leaders responded to Plantinga's prescription with a reality check.

"For pastors, it's very easy to lose a job by taking your advice," said Rachel Stahle, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation in Carteret, N.J., after Plantinga's 45-minute lecture. "It's even harder to find another one by taking your advice. So what wisdom do you share with us to take what you've said back to the churches?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/23/AR2009102303674.html

Easy to lose a job by obeying the Lord? Please help no one in The Church of God ever take this approach. We are to preach the Word, regardless if the world likes it or not. We are called to preach His Truth as He leads us. Lord please help me to speak your will regardless of the outcome.

New Website

2009-10-11T17:11:00.001-04:00

Our local church has a new website

www.realhopetcog.org

Welcome!

2009-10-11T16:57:00.002-04:00

We would like to welcome the Castalia, OH church back to our region and the Church. Also, welcome to the churches and members in Michigan that have been added to our region. I look forward to seeing everyone at the Minister's Convention here in a few weeks.

We are experiencing many people looking towards the Church in the region and expecting to see great growth this year in churches added, as well as people added to our already existing congregations.

Grandparents Day

2009-10-11T16:53:00.002-04:00

We had our Grandparents Day a little late this year. But we had a pretty good time and a good turnout as well. Bro. Riggs, our district overseer and grandparent as well, was our guest speaker. We had a lot of visitors and a little over double our normal attendance. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures taken to post though. I was running around with everything else. Maybe better luck next time. Our next event for here at church is a trip to Apple Works in Trafalgar next weekend. Hope to have a good turnout and a fun trip as well. Hopefully, the weather will be like this weekend, nice and sunny!

Lydia finally arrived!

2009-10-11T16:46:00.003-04:00

Almost a month ago that is! Man, I am really behind! We are really glad that she finally got here. Anna especially! She is proud to be the big sister and is glad to help out most of the time. Lydia came into the world at 7 lbs. 5 oz. and 20 and 3/4 in. long. Kelley had a rough time at the hospital but is doing much better now. Her blood pressure is still a little high though. We are settled for the most part with having two little ones around the house. She is awake for quite a bit during the day and her eyes are wide open. Most of the time she is not much of a crier either!

Quick Post

2009-09-13T17:50:00.002-04:00

Wow, it has been over two months. Things have been busy around here. Just finished watching the Assembly a little while ago. Thankful to have the Jernigans back in the region and welcome Michigan to the region. We, sadly, didn't make it to the Assembly this year, but we're thankful to be able at least to watch it on the internet. Kelley wants this baby out. Well, gotta go, it's almost time for church.

Thank the Lord for His Blessings

2009-07-12T19:38:00.003-04:00

Thank the Lord for a good day. We had good preaching this morning with our regional overseer visiting and giving the message. It is always good to see them. He touched on a number of things that we have covered here in the past number of months without even knowing it I believe. Just goes to show how the Lord has everything lined up if we just listen to Him.
Tonight, the preaching/teaching wasn't that great(it was me after all) but there was a very sweet spirit present. I taught on Communion tonight. It is so important that we realize the point of communion and that it is not just a ritual or religious observance. The whole reason we have communion is to remember how Christ's body was broken and His blood poured out for OUR sins. We didn't deserve it, but He loved us enough anyway.
If you have the time watch thisvideo. It was played tonight as part of the service for us to reflect on.

Had a good time yesterday as well seeing many old friends.

Remember, His body was broken for YOU.

1 saved last night!

2009-07-05T08:06:00.000-04:00

Thank the Lord for one saved at the mission in Indianapolis last night! Please pray for this young man as he faces many battles ahead. Our God still delivers!

Diaper Free(for a few months)

2009-07-04T11:05:00.002-04:00

Anna has finally decided that she doesn't want to wear diapers any more!! We have been waiting for this for quite a while. So for the next few months we will be diaper free. For Kelley it is even better than for me because she is the one that changed them the most, being at home and she had to wash them. Anna keeps growing more and more all the time, mainly in personality. Right now she keeps dancing around in her underwear in the living room. For some reason, she decided to get out of her PJ's and neglected to put clothes back on. Well, we are getting ready to head outside. May God bless you as you work for Him.

IL(S),IN,KY,OH Regional Convention

2009-07-03T16:33:00.003-04:00

We met for the first service on Friday night. From the very opening, the Spirit was present in a mighty way. We were blessed by wonderful singing, preaching, and outpourings of the Holy Ghost over and over again. It was wonderful to see the many visitors that we had present as well. We had some from Texas, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Alabama as well as the rest from our region. We are also thankful from the visitors we had from within the region. One brother from TX, we went to BTI with. It was great to see Bro. Wolf again. It is even greater to know that we will be seeing him more frequently. He is moving to the region in the near future. He will be our new regional BTI Booster. We are also glad to welcome Bro. Anthony and Sis. Amy Dyer. Bro. Anthony will be the new pastor for Sellersburg, IN. Anna will be glad as well, Jackson Dyer and her like playing with each other. It was great to have some from our new church in Somerset, KY. The Lord is really blessing them. Someone has donated land for a new building, and according to my understanding they have already gotten some work done on the land. I am excited to hear about the things that are taking place in our region. There are many encouraging signs of things on the near horizon. I can't wait to see what God is going to do throughout the next year. If our convention was any sign of the outpouring of the Spirit during the next year, we have much to look forward to. We had 115 in attendance about a 40% increase over last year. Please pray for our region as we continue to spread the message of the gospel. We currently have a couple of missions operating that it would be great to see become full fledged churches over the next year.

Camp Report

2009-06-30T18:47:00.003-04:00

We showed up to camp on Thurs. morning to rain. But, the rain did not dampen our spirits. We were glad to be back at camp after about 6 years of not attending. Everyone else seemed to be excited as well. As the day rounded out I ended up have 4 boys under my care, with my brother Jeremiah as my staff in training assistant. My boys ages were 8,9,10,& 11. By the end of the first night we had determined that one of my boys had arrived at camp with ring worm. The Spirit was there from the very first service. The second day was filled with the normal camp stuff. Classes, food, fun time, swimming, and church. In Friday night's service, the Spirit began moving very early, during the song service. On Friday and Sat. nights we never got to our planned after church activities. Friday night right next to the chapel a softball game was going on. Some were worried that they would be a disruption to service, but I can't recall ever hearing them. In fact, those that were still there, were probably more disrupted when the Spirit hit Bro. Anthony and he took off running out the door. I felt the Spirit telling me that we needed to pray for the boy that had ringworm, so I went to him and asked if he would like to be prayed for. I believe I asked him if he believed that Jesus could heal him as well. We prayed for him and it was all I could do not to rip his bandage off. After we prayed for him, he went back to the camp nurse and said "when we take this band-aid off the ringworm will be gone because Jesus healed me right?"(paraphrased) He was completely trusting Jesus that He had healed him. The next day while swimming, his bandage came off and I got a look at his neck. The ringworm was almost completely gone!! You could still see the mark, but it was greatly reduced and looked like it was new skin healing up. Thank the Lord for His healing power. Sat. night the service was wonderful. There were several that did not leave the chapel until 2:00 a.m. The Holy Ghost was moving and working in a mighty way. Sunday we finished off things with a baptismal service. I can't recall exactly home many we baptized but, I believe three of my boys were baptized. Two of them claimed getting saved at camp. Camp was a wonderful time of rejoicing in the Spirit as well as getting to fellowship with our brothers and sisters in the Lord. This is just the tip of the iceberg of all that happened at camp, but only time will tell all the blessings the Lord poured out. We are looking forward to next year.

Wonderful Camp!

2009-06-10T17:12:00.003-04:00

We just returned back Sunday from a wonderful Spirit filled Youth Camp. The Holy Ghost came down in mighty ways repeatedly. A number of the children professed salvation and were baptized as well. One of the campers in my cabin was healed as well. I will post something more detailed later concerning the camp, but I was blessed tremendously.

Sanctification

2009-05-17T20:01:00.002-04:00

We have started going through the Prominent Teachings on Sunday evenings and tonight we were on Sanctification and Holiness. I preached about holiness and purity a few Sundays ago, so we didn't go too much into that as a subject on it's own, but mainly with it's connection to sanctification.

An analogy that seemed to become pretty clear is that when thinking of the shadows in the OT three things had to happen before a vessel was used in the temple.
1) It had to be made
2) It had to be purified
3) Then it could be filled.

In our spiritual walk we must go through the same steps if we want to be fully used.
1) We have to be born again
2) We have to be sanctified
3) Then we can be filled with the Holy Ghost

Sis. Tammy Washburn has another wonderful analogy here concerning sanctification. It also made me think about the fact that though Lazarus was alive, his hearing would have been muffled, the extent of his vision would have been to possibly be able to tell the difference between dark and light, and his speech would have been muffled, besides not being able to move around, until his grave clothes were removed. We are the same until we are sanctified, we cannot hear clearly, see clearly,speak clearly, or move adequately just being saved. We have got to go deeper!

Additionally, Sis. Washburn has another analogy concerning being saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost here.

It's a . . . . . .

2009-05-15T21:54:00.002-04:00

Well, Kelley had an ultrasound yesterday and everything seems to be good with the baby. Thank the Lord. We found out that it does not appear to be triplets, or even twins for that matter, just one little one. We didn't really think that there were multiples, but you never know. But I guess the big news is that we found out it is supposed to be a

girl! I guess that gives me two little girls and hopefully at least two more to go to have my little group of girls like those at the end of "O Brother Where Art Thou" I always thought that those girls were cute walking along singing and said that I would love to have a group of girls like that as well. Truth be told I would be happy with whatever God sends our way though. Whether it be girl or boy. It looks like I am starting off like my grandpa with girls. He had to have four girls before he ended up with a boy, and then ended up with two girls afterward. I think Kelley is pretty settled on four total children being the final number though. But I guess for now that is just left up to God.

Thank the Lord for another day

And her favorite book is . . . . . .

2009-05-15T21:50:00.002-04:00

A reporter came last week to interview us about the flood last year and our experiences. They are doing a one year anniversary edition. A photographer was supposed to come today to take some pictures, but he was booked up, so the reporter came back. During the course of his time here he asked Anna what her favorite book was. Her reply was "Jesus, Bible". I am glad that her favorite book is her Bible story book. I thank God that He has placed that love in her heart and pray that we can continue to help nurture it as she continues to grow. I also hope and pray that it touched the reporter's heart as well.

Please pray

2009-05-10T20:37:00.001-04:00

Please pray for Melissa Hacker. God knows this dire need. She is in serious need of prayer. Please pray for her and her family.

May's off to a good start!

2009-05-03T15:43:00.002-04:00

Well May has gotten off to a good start.

Saturday, we had our Youth Convention in Elizabethtown, KY. Attendance was less than what I had hoped for, but there was a decent mix of attendees there. We even had some VLB's from our newest Church in the region which was organized about 4 1/2 months ago. The Spirit was really moving in the services. I was blessed especially during the afternoon service. It was good to see many of our dear friends as well. We had a good time of fellowship during lunch in the fellowship hall area.

This morning we had a good service as well. Our two new visitors were back this week and we are hoping and praying that they will be regulars. There are some good signs there, so keep praying for them.

My grandmother is doing quite a bit better now. She is still not up to her full strength though, last time that I talked to her.

Please pray for Mary Smith. We received a message yesterday that she is in need of prayer.

Let us go on to perfection!

Good Sunday!

2009-04-26T20:37:00.002-04:00

Well, we had a good Sunday. We started off by having two brand new visitors for Sunday School and morning worship. Then we had a lasagna/spaghetti dinner with Boston Creme Pie and Banana Cream Pie for dessert. We topped things off by having a baptism! All in all a good Sunday. Looking forward to youth convention next weekend.

We found out the grandma had a mini-stroke. She got to leave the hospital today. Please continue to pray for her and grandpa.

Pray for my grandmother

2009-04-25T18:15:00.002-04:00

Please pray for my grandmother. Apparently, she had a stroke this morning. Please pray for the family as well.

I Love You Too Much! Part 2

2009-04-21T14:41:00.001-04:00

As mentioned previously Anna has recently began saying "I love you too much!" When she says it, she says it in a singsong voice as if actually meaning to say, I love you very much. It has made me think about a few things.

The second thing that this statement made me think was the fact that some people begin to think that they in fact love Christ too much, thinking that they are too involved with church and His work. In trying to balance their affairs of this life, they begin to think that He is taking up too much time and start cutting back on their spiritual work. We can never love Him too much. We must never work less for Him. Sometimes, we get involved being "busy" without really working. Let us cut out the "busyness" and get on with the work.

Praise Report and prayer request

2009-04-19T21:39:00.002-04:00

Praise the Lord! We thank that Lord that Joe's, here at church, dad got saved. We had been praying for him for a while and Joe received the call tonight telling him that he had given his heart to the Lord!

Please pray for Mary Smith. God knows this urgent need.

What a week!

2009-04-19T14:56:00.003-04:00

Man, what a week. I had Monday off because of rain, but the rest of the week was packed. I didn't get home until 10:30 p.m. one night and 9:00 p.m. the next and then had to work Friday. That meant my day yesterday was crammed with trying to get everything done. It is incredible to think of the work load some in this world has and the things they are put through. I am blessed to live when and where I do. Just need the Lord to give me the strength to make it through some weeks. At least I had a productive day yesterday and was able to get quite a bit done. And I got to spend time with Jobi. I put her car seat in my truck and she rode around with me most of the day on the different little trips I took to get stuff. She loves riding in "Papa's Big Truck." I try to explain that it is not a big truck, but I guess to a two year old it is. She loves riding around in it though. Hopefully, I'll get the garden going the pretty good by the end of this month. Worked on various parts of the yard a bit throughout the day. It is nice to have yard big enough for trees again. So far we have a cherry tree and plum tree, along with some grapes vines and raspberries. I am hoping to get some blueberries planted before summer begins as well. Anyway, guess that is all for now.

I Love You Too Much! Part 1

2009-04-18T21:52:00.003-04:00

Gotta make this quick cause someone is calling for me. But this is Anna's newest saying. I told her today that she couldn't love me too much. Then I thought about it and decided that she could love me too much. I told her that she could only love me too much if she loved me more than Jesus. I then asked her if she did and she promptly responded "No Way!" Then she said something to the effect of "I need/want Jesus."

Unfortunately, many people love many things in this world more than Jesus. We must strive to make sure that we love nothing too much, to the point that it gets in between us and Jesus. I love my family and friends, but must never let them be in the middle of Christ and I.

Courage for Christ

2009-04-14T09:25:00.001-04:00

During our Sunday Morning Service, our mission leader shared deeply from her heart. What she shared took an amount of courage as it involved relating something personal and in the near past, to tie in with the point she was making. This is what we must have in our local church and in The Church of God across the world - courage. We must be determined to not be ashamed of what God has put on our heart, even if it may cause some uncomfortableness on our part. God has called us to reach out and win the lost to Christ. There will be times that God will call us out of our comfort zone and require us to be courageous for Him.

Ok!

2009-04-13T08:23:00.001-04:00

Anna seems to provide endless analogies to what our relationship with Christ is supposed to be. Another one of her favorite things to say right now is, "OK". Quite often whenever we tell her to do something she responds promptly and says "OK" and then quit whatever she is doing! Now I would love if she would do this from now on, but I have this feeling it is just a phase she is going through. But this is how our heavenly Father wants us to respond to Him EVERY time that He tells us something. If you are a parent you can readily empathize with what I feel whenever Anna does this. That means you can also empathize with how Christ feels when we obey Him without question or hesitation. Let us all strive to respond with "OK" to our Saviour.

I Need You

2009-04-11T08:18:00.003-04:00

One of Anna's favorite thing to say right now is "I need you". "I need you, momma" "I need you poppa". It is sweet to hear her say these things, but then I began to think of the spiritual application that this has in all of our lives. Most of the time when she says this, nothing highly critical is happening, she merely wants us to be there beside her. But the important thing is she views this as a need. We should feel this same way toward our Father. We should "need" Him at all times, even when nothing highly critical is happening. We should want Him near us so much it should become a need. Do you need Him, or do you merely want Him?

Politics and Christ

2009-04-04T08:45:00.002-04:00

Many conservative Christians are either active in politics or vocal about their feelings in the political realm, especially the issues that they feel are the most prominent or important. The question is how involved we as Christians should be. Many who profess to be Christians will, without hesitation, attack political leaders and basically wage war on some issues, not thinking about the consequence of their actions. I myself have been guilty of this mindset in the past. However, the Bible compares those that attack leaders with those in Sodom and Gomorrha in Jude. Also, Paul in Acts 23 immediately apologizes for speaking harsh words after he finds out the man he was speaking to was the high priest. In this instance, Paul was correct in what he was addressing, namely the hypocrisy taking place. This speaks to me that we should be careful of what we say and think of our leaders.

Many people will be careful in what they say of their spiritual leaders, but not so in what they say of their political leaders. We should readily pray for any leader, spiritual or political that we feel are getting off track, rather than attack them. After all, the best that we could ever hope to do is influence them, while God can change them. If we can influence someone, somebody else can influence them as well. But when God changes them, that is different.

Another companion issue, is when people go to war(Figuratively) over various issues, i.e abortion, homosexual marriage. Those seem to be the two big ones. I have seen many rail against these, proclaiming God's wrath on these issues. I wonder though, what if we spent as much time in prayer for these issues, and on the politicians that make laws concerning them, as we doing railing against them. Would it not be time better spent? After all God can move much more mightily than us. Would we not be better in striving to win people to Christ, than in trying to get sinners to vote, or rule on issues God's way? Seems to me that the more people in a nation that are won to Christ, the more the civil laws are would closely resemble laws that God would approve of.

Let us, instead of complaining about the direction of our country, instead pray, that God would change hearts and help us to lead people to Him. It will be of much more effect.

Reaching people

2009-04-03T18:38:00.002-04:00

Is what your doing going to reach the people that you want to reach for Christ?

It's Spring!

2009-04-03T17:53:00.002-04:00

It's finally Spring around here, but the weather still can't decide what it wants to do. One day it is warm and the next day not quite cold but very chilly. It was almost 70 yesterday and I heard someone say that it might snow tomorrow. I am trying to get some yard work done as I can. We have gotten a cherry tree and plum tree. I am also working on getting our garden set up. Started several different vegetable seeds earlier this afternoon.

I have to say that I really do like having Fridays off. I always plan on getting a bunch done, but usually it seems that I just kind of rest and relax, while usually getting a little bit done. Oh well.

We are in the process of transitioning over to using a digital display for our songs in church instead of the songbooks and printed sheets. We use a number of different songs that are not in the songbook and the papers we are using definitely contribute to clutter and mess. Also, we are now able to add new songs much easier. We are still in the process of getting all of the hymns transferred over. We had a good district convention last week as well. We are looking to hopefully and prayerfully, have a good turn out for Easter. Which reminds me, I have some work to do out in the yard before the egg hunt.

Jobi is growing more all the time. Her vocabulary is expanding fairly rapidly as well. Hopefully, we will get some new pictures sometime soon.

Update on Diane's nephew

2009-03-04T21:02:00.001-05:00

Apparently, he is just anemic. They think he had a nose bleed that went down his throat and that is the blood he threw up. Thank the Lord it appears to be something minor.

"I'm a princess"

2009-03-02T20:23:00.003-05:00

Those were Anna's words as she is going down the hallway with an apron on! Little does she know what this world thinks of as "princesses". But she, in her little apron, is my princess. And in my humble opinion, much more of a princess than those of this world that try to be. And the thing is she knows that she is my princess, even without me telling her.

If Anna can know this, can we not know as well that we are God's chosen, without Him repeatedly telling us so? And yet He does, to reassure us in His love for us. Thank you Lord.

Diane's nephew

2009-03-01T07:35:00.001-05:00

Please pray for my sister's nephew. He has vomited up a lot of blood at once. They believe that he possibly had a stroke. I believe he is only 15.

Keeping our eyes on Jesus

2009-02-22T12:52:00.002-05:00

Anna was incredibly sleepy after church this morning. But she refused to go to sleep. She was screaming and crying insistent that she wanted something else. Funny thing happened though, every time I could get her to look me in the eyes she quit crying. Every time her attention strayed from me and whatever I was trying to get her to focus on, she started crying again. Eventually, I was able to get her to go to sleep. I guess the moral of the story is, if we just focus on what our Father wants us to focus on, we will be a lot better off. Just keep your eyes on Him.

Rough Week

2009-02-07T14:34:00.003-05:00

We have had kind of a rough week around here. Kelley had a muscle in her back that was giving her a lot of pain. So bad that she couldn't walk by herself, and that she passed out a few times. I stayed home from work one day to take care of Anna. Praise the Lord she is doing better now. We are thankful that it turned out just to be a muscle and nothing more serious.

We had a good service at church Thurs. night. The Holy Ghost came down and touched us. I am thankful for the work He will continue to do in our hearts if we will just seek Him. Please be in prayer for our church as we continue to strive to reach our community with the gospel. We are working on making our church more user friendly to new people, and making sure the ways we are reaching out to people meet them where they are.

Strive to walk in His Way.

New Baby on the Way!

2009-01-18T16:25:00.002-05:00

Well, we had a trip to the ER Friday due to Kelley experiencing very sharp pains. During the course of trying to figure out what was wrong(nothing, or if there was something God answered the prayers and healed her)they ran blood work tests, one of which was a pregnancy. So they promptly(as prompt as an ER waiting on lab work can be I guess) came back and told us that the pregnancy test was positive! We were planning on waiting another month or two to not interrupt our General Assembly plans. However, we had also just decided to leave things up to God. So, God had different plans than we did. Kelley is only about 1 week along. So, I think we are shooting for around the end of Sept. beginning of Oct.

In other news, I think we are seriously considering going to Youth Camp this year. Even though Kelley will probably be about 5 months pregnant, since it will possibly be in June, it will be somewhat cool still hopefully.

Please continue to pray for Terry.

Terry Martzall

2009-01-11T19:36:00.001-05:00

Please continue to pray for Terry. He and his family need your prayers very much.

Prayer

2009-01-06T21:16:00.002-05:00

Please pray for a lady named Janice. She needs each of your prayers.

Great Revival So Far!

2009-01-02T22:30:00.002-05:00

We have been having a good revival so far. We started last night and had a good time. Tonight the Holy Ghost came down at the end of the service and moved and blessed. I have been recording the services and will try to get the recording up and available sometime after I can get the dead spaces edited out and probably some of the audio adjusted as well. God is really helping and blessing us. If you can go to our website, www.thechurchofgodamity.org and check the service times for the rest of the revival and join us. If you are unable, please be in prayer for the rest of the revival with us. After tomorrow's service we will be going to conduct our monthly service at Wheeler Mission in Indy. Please be in prayer for the many souls there.

How Great is our God!

Urgent Need!

2008-12-30T21:25:00.001-05:00

Please pray for Terry Martzall. He is in urgent need for his body. Please pray for him and his family at this time. God's intervention is needed.

Good news from around the region!

2008-12-14T22:18:00.002-05:00

The Church of God was organized in Somerset, KY today with 10 members joining the church. In Corbin,KY the church mission which was just started about two months ago, if I remember correctly, had 9 in attendance. Greenup, KY broke their previous attendance record with 30 in attendance. Please pray for our region as God continues to move and work.

Revival! Jan. 1-4, 2009

2008-12-14T20:33:00.002-05:00

Our church here in Franklin, will be in revival with Evangelist Terry Flora on Thurs. Jan. 1-Sun. Jan. 4, 2009. We invite you to attend if at all possible. If not please be in prayer with us as we look to God to do mighty things.

Are you just ironing the front?

2008-12-07T13:30:00.000-05:00

Oftentimes, I am in a hurry while dressing in my "church" clothes. Somehow, I frequently need to iron my shirt as well. A lot of times, if I will be wearing a jacket, I will just iron the front of my shirt. I think, hey that's all anyone will be seeing anyway right? And if I have to take the jacket off, everybody knows that wearing a jacket will just wrinkle the shirt anyway.

It's fine to have that attitude when it comes to clothes, but I have to make sure that that attitude does not intrude into other parts of my life, especially the spiritual part. While it is fine to only worry about what people will see with clothing, worrying about only what people see with the spiritual is very dangerous indeed. Because it is not just what people see that matters, but what God sees. And He sees it all. Every little last piece of us.

We've GOT to have it.

2008-12-06T22:17:00.002-05:00

Tonight, while I was at the mission, I noticed a man "walking" with great difficulty. I put walking in quotations, because it was not what anyone would normally call walking. He had crutches and it was a great struggle to move INCHES. That's right, I said inches. My heart welled with compassion. I really wanted that man to be healed. I wanted to just walk up to him and say "Be healed in the name of Jesus." Yet, I hesitated. Why? Because I didn't feel spiritual enough. I didn't feel like I had enough of "it" to be this bold.

The question is, are we ever really spiritual enough? Or, do we just need to step out in faith. My hesitation was not in the fact whether or not God could do what I would be asking Him to. But rather, was I being moved by His will that He was ready to do it right then, or was that just my human emotion overflowing with compassion. Lord help me to know!

Imagine the revival that would have taken place in MY heart, in that man's heart, and in the rest around, if he would have been healed tonight. I believe it would have been just like the lame man laying at the gate, that Peter and John, through the power of Christ, healed. He went shouting through the temple, giving praise to God. My desire is not that anyone would think that I healed him. I just want to see God's power demonstrated as He has time and time again in the past. I can, and you can, if we just simply be obedient to Him. Lord help us all.

Update on N. India

2008-12-03T22:44:00.002-05:00

Please be in prayer for the saints in N. India. Following is two excerpts from information I have been forwarded about the work in N. India. Please note, excerpts are from Bro. Paul, therefore the grammar may be slightly difficult to understand.

____________

By the Grace of God , I return my home from mission trip and many hard ships on 26th morning. Praise the Lord. God did great miracle in the mission trip. We faced some trouble. As you know I don’t know their language , they don’t know my language, I make all my lessons in English and I began prayer for translation. By the grace of God , God gave me a translator miracle from our place. Praise the Lord, when we reached the destination when we began to start class some village elders came and object us. They suspected me , we came to convert of the religion. We told them that we are not came to conversion of any religion. After several discussions we conducted secretly.

I visited a place called safdon. To reach this place I traveled tree days by train, By Taxi, By bus, by Three wheel auto and by walk. As per the village custom if anybody visit the village the whole village will spread this news within minutes that somebody new people visited someone.

In these areas there is more persecutions for the Christians. They will pray and worship secretly. Any have God did great miracles. God has given me a great opportunity to share the truths of The church of God with them. Totally 14 persons are attended for the classes. 7 people were accepted the 29 prominent teachings and take word covenant and I organize 7 Churches. Praise the Lord . Please say loudly Halleluiah , Halleluiah. God is able. Amen.

When I teach about agnist gold and ornments one pastors women cried and she took off all her ornments gave to church. Praise the Lord. Halleluiah. Praise the Lord. I believe God will do great miracles in near future. Amen

In the evening we conducted a gospel meeting in a room 18 people were attended and five people were accepted Jesus . Praise the Lord. We tried to give baptism but there is no facility to give baptism, because it should be done secretly. Kindly pray to have one movable use and pack plastic baptism tank. If we have that tank we can fix it in the room and after baptism we can pack it.

They are very much eager to listen the word of God and seven persons are attracted for the 29 Prominent teachings. God touched them. They asked me to stay some more days. I told them God willing I will come in the month of December. They really hunger for the word of God and truths. They are stand for the Church of God truths.

Please pray for the baptism and development and growth of the churches. There is a dire need to go there often to share the truths to encourage them in spiritual way. It is very expensive, I believe God will do great miracle to go there.

I was sick because our food and their food is different, not only that there is no proper sanitation and purified water facility. Please pray for me.

Once again I’m very thankful to you for your kind prayers and Love.

_____________________________

What wonderful news!

Here is the latest update that I received yesterday

_____________________________

Dear brother and Sister, As you know I went a mission trip and accepted 5 persons Lord and saviour Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour. To day I heard that three of them threatened and beaten by their families to leave Jesus and do not pray to Jesus. It is a terrible thing. I beg you to pray for them. God willing I would like to visit them once again and I need to encourage them in Jesus Christ way and spiritual way. I beg you to pray for these people and new mission fields. I never fear to go there. I am ready to go there and encourage them in spiritual way. Praise the Lord.

Philip 1:21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain

I Corinthians. For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!

_________________________

Let us pray for these dear fellow Christians that the Lord will uphold them during this difficult time.

Thanksgiving again already?

2008-11-28T19:40:00.003-05:00

Wow! This year has flown by! It seems that the older I get, the faster time goes. Things have been going pretty good around here. It has been almost a month since we moved, and we are pretty well settled in. Jobi about got really settled into the floor last Sunday. She got to the top step of the stairs before church Sun. night, and suddenly fell backwards. Jeremiah and I raced from the top, while Kelley was racing down the hallway downstairs. She was rolling sideways and then somewhere in the middle began rolling head over heels. Needless to say, Anna made it to the bottom before any of us. She was fine, thankfully. She only cried for maybe 10-15 seconds. Kelley on the other hand was affected much longer. It didn't, however, make Anna any more afraid of the stairs. All during the service she kept saying, "I fall" in her own dialect. Later in the week when she was getting in trouble, she tried to change the subject by pointing out that she had fallen. After which, she was informed that her fall had nothing to do with why she was in trouble.

Lots more has gone on, but unfortunately, by the time I get around to posting anything, I cannot hardly remember. Maybe one of these days I will get better.

Please donate to a family or food bank during this difficult time in our economy. If God has provided enough for your needs, remember those who don't have enough.

Do you want to go to bed?

2008-11-12T19:28:00.003-05:00

You never ask this question to my daughter in the evenings. MOST kids when you ask them this will straighten up and act right, and cry and beg to keep from going to bed. We tried asking Anna this when she gets a little fussy in the evenings and we want her to behave. Big mistake. If you are not ready right then to take her and put her in bed, don't ask. She whines more trying to get you to put her in bed than most kids do to stay out of bed! She is the only child that I have ever known of to be GLAD to go to bed in the evening. I guess we can just thank the Lord for that. Now if she will just learn to go to bed by herself.

I guess I could have just titled this all about Anna.
She has gotten very good about helping out around the house with cleaning and keeping it cleaned up. She loves to takes clothes out of the washer(the new front-loading washer is great for this), and taking dishes out of the dishwasher(now to wait until she is tall enough to reach the cabinets!), and putting things up in closets. When I get home from work, when she realizes I am taking off my jacket/coat, she immediately runs to the coat closet and opens the door and says "Mon", the closest she gets to Come on right now, while motioning with her hand. Since this house has lever handle doors, she can usually open any of the doors. We have got to get a new door handle for the guest room as it has no lock on it and she will be prone to trying to open it when guests are staying here.
She also love our office. Right now it basically just has the childrens Sunday School stuff in it, but it has double doors and she loves going in there and closing them. She did so many times Sunday and after realizing it was awfully quiet in there I began to investigate, the first time I found a little girl taking a bottle of glue out of a moving box so that box had to be moved to the garage. Next I found a little girl climbing on one box to get to an open box stacked next to it, so that box had to go as well.

Ok, one last thing about Anna. Praying is very important for meals and before she goes to bed. One time she ended praying for supper three times. She prayed for her food. Everyone else a short time later prayed. She didn't realize they were praying until they were almost through I guess, because after they were done, she insisted they pray again. When putting her to bed she often starts trying to pray before we get all the hugs and kisses.

We finally have most things unpacked, most light fixtures up(having to replace 9 that were taken),(back now after we took a little break for finger painting) and all of our furniture. We had someone give us a sofa, loveseat, and tv to replace those that were lost in the flood. Those were the last items to be moved in. We have one more desk, but will not be getting it until Joe, our former neighbor and current church attender, gets moved. I have most of the curtains up now as well. We are getting settled in pretty well.

Well that's all for now.

Strive to be all that He has called you to be.

Finally!!

2008-11-06T22:05:00.002-05:00

We finally moved to our new house. Praise the Lord! Most things are in order, but still have a lot of little things to do. Hopefully, I will be able to get back with more info soon. Today is our first day with internet since we have been moved, so I have a lot of catching up to do with reading.

God bless

Bonfire Pic's

2008-10-19T22:32:00.001-04:00

My lil' punkin playing with Mr. Murray

I guess the fire was still too warm so Joe decided to cook inside
Gotta finish with a good photo of myself!

Try to get some more pic's uploaded later. With 21 people we had a lot of different pictures taken. Just got to sort through them and figure out which ones are the best. Also, with it being dark outside it was kind of hard to get any wide shots with everyone in it, especially with half being inside and half outside. Hope you enjoy this little taste.

Catching up

2008-10-19T15:30:00.002-04:00

Well, we didn't get to move in on the 15th. Our closing date, if nothing else causes delay, should be Oct. 31! We are ready to be back in our own house. Grateful that we have family that are so generous, but ready to go.

We had a good ministers' convention last weekend. Good preaching by the guest ministers. We topped it off by dedicating our new regional parsonage. We are glad to be able to provide a parsonage to our overseer. Which, please pray for Sis. Jernigan's mother. She fell and broke her hip, necessitating a quick trip back to OK for them.

Our church had a bonfire/cookout Friday night. We had a good turnout with 21 in attendance. We had 7 that had never been to our church before. There was a lot of good fellowship. The fire, after it got going was about 20-30 ft high and 15 ft wide. Way to large to roast anything on. But finally, it burned down enough to roast dogs on while still leaving the skin on your hand. We had a couple of cameras taking pictures, so hopefully, after they are uploaded, I will get some on here.

After the bonfire, Kelley and I left for the weekend. Today is our 6th anniversary. We just left for two nights and a day, but it was good to get away and do pretty much nothing, even if just for a day. We ate at the Cheesecake Factory yesterday. The prices there are in the higher range, but since you really get two meals with one order, it is worth it. I can't eat all of the lunch size portion of what I got, and they gave me the dinner size. I also got a Chinese massage afterward. At the mall there is a Chinese massage place in the middle of the walkways. Man, you better be ready for some pain. Those guys press HARD. The guys kept saying my shoulders were tense and that I really needed the massage. The real problem was I was in pain and I was tensed up because of that. But all in all I felt pretty good after it was all over.

We had a good turn out for church this morning and are going to have a fellowship time after.

Keep looking up.

Almost at the end!

2008-10-05T14:10:00.002-04:00

We received word this week that our loan has been approved from the SBA. One more person has to sign off and then we should know for sure what our closing date is! As far as we know it should be Oct. 15th.

Please pray for the other people in this community that flooded. We had a meeting Thurs. about the city buying our flooded house and many people expressed some pretty difficult situations that they are having to endure. The Lord has really blessed us and we have not had to deal with many of the problems. Some are paying for their old house as well as renting a place to live. Some have been dropped by their insurance and they are still required to have it on the flooded house. One lady had gotten estimates for work and her insurance had given them $75,000 LESS than what the estimates were! I could only sit and just thank the Lord that we have not had these problems. We have had a place to live. The insurance has not fought us at all on our claim. And our agent has worked with us to get whatever we needed.

We will be leaving for Ministers' Convention sometime Friday. I am looking forward to seeing everyone and worshiping with them. We are glad the region has purchased the Jernigans a parsonage. It will be great having them closer. I know it will make things easier on them visiting the local churches as well. I hope to hear how things are going in the new fields in our region as well.

We had a fun day yesterday. Tried out the new donut shop. It was good! We then spent a bunch of time downtown Franklin at the Fall Festival. Checked out the booths. Saw a few people we knew. Got a bunch of free stuff for Anna. Then we watched the parade. I wasn't thrilled about most of the parade. A bunch of it was just Shriners riding around in their little vehicles. People who don't realize that Masons are their own religion should easily be able to see. One of the vehicles had Potentate on it and another had High Priest & Prophet. One good thing about the parade was that one local church had a lot of people in it. They were passing out flyers for their church. After the parade, we walked to our flooded house so that I could mow the grass. I guess the only good thing I can say about mowing grass at a house you can't live in is 1) The mower I use doens't use gas(it's a reel mower) so it doesn't cost anything other than time, and 2) It is a pretty small yard so it doesn't take too long(about 15 min.).

We had a good service at Wheeler Mission last night. It was pretty full. I guess with the nights getting colder, more are showing up. No one publicly accepted Christ, but the service went well, and a majority seemed to participate.

Keep looking up!

Moving day and other updates

2008-09-28T13:50:00.002-04:00

As of right now, we planning on closing on our new house on Oct. 15th. It will be great to be back in our own house, even though we will miss spending a ton of time with our family. It will be nice to have some room to stretch out. My brother Jeremiah will be glad to get off of the couch. Right now we are just stockpiling the stuff we need for the new house. We have had to buy some light fixtures and ceiling fans because the people who lived there before took 11 of the existing ones. We also had to buy all the blinds and shades as well. I am hoping it will still be warm enough to plant some trees. The yard has no trees, bushes, ect. and there is plenty of room for some. We would like to have some shade in the yard. Whenever I get our laptop hooked back up to the wireless, I will try and get some pictures on here. God has really blessed us in a mighty way with this house. A lot more room and much newer for lower or the same payments every month. Having an plenty of space for the church to use is great as well.

We went to AppleWorks, our local orchard/attraction last Sunday afternoon. The girls had a lot of fun feeding and petting the animals, as well as just running around. And PUMPKIN donuts were available! These are my favorite. Thankfully, Kelley planned on getting 1/2 dozen, but accidentally order 1 dozen. The girls and I didn't mind at all. Also, while I am thinking of donuts, we noticed today on the way home from church, that another bakery opened up here in town. The one that we used to go to on Sat. mornings, got flooded when our house did and never opened back up. So, I suppose we will go for a taste test soon, and if it passes, it will probably end up our new Sat. morn. destination.

Things are going pretty well at church as well, here locally, and pretty good throughout our region from what I here. Looking forward to ministers' convention here in a couple weeks.

Be faithful to Him that has called you.

Bro. James Anders

2008-09-08T18:38:00.001-04:00

Please pray for Bro. Anders. It is my understanding that he is having very serious health problems right now.

A House at Last

2008-09-03T21:00:00.003-04:00

We finally have found a house! Praise the Lord!! We got word today that the bank accepted our offer on a house we have really been interested in. Hopefully, we will be moving in before our ministers' convention next month. It is about 90 years newer than our old house. With plenty of room for our family to grow in the future, and with plenty of room for the church for now. There is a bonus room that is bigger than what we have for a sanctuary right now where we are renting. God has finally worked things out for us, much different than we expected, but very wonderfully as well. Thank the Lord for His perfect timing.

Lean on Him more and more

A house hunting we've gone, and gone, and gone, and gone ......

2008-08-30T14:19:00.003-04:00

There is NO real estate slump in this town! We have been looking for close to 2 months now. We have found several houses that we have liked. Many of them have sold before we could get an offer on, or someone else put a better competing offer on. We then found two houses that we like as well, but neither owner would budge on the price, both of which were priced about 10,000 + above other similar houses. We finally had thought we found the house that we wanted, and the night we went to see it our realtor took us to see another house as well. We looked at both, and had some trouble making a decision. One was an older(50 years or so, stone house practically downtown, just what we were looking for. However, that house needed many updates and was only two beds, and one bath on the main floor. The basement had some potential but need a lot of work. The second house was in a subdivision on the edge of town and is huge! The house was foreclosed on we believe, and is selling for approx. 2/3 value. It has about 900 more sq. ft. than our old house, but the utilities are almost even, if not a fraction less. It has plenty of room for our family to grow, and to house the church for now with no competing space. After so many houses, and so many dead-ends, we are hoping that this will be the end of this journey. It is more house than we wanted, and newer than what we wanted as well, but if it is what God has for us, we will take it. Kelley measured the distance in the van and it is only two-tenths of a mile farther, one way, for her to walk to the post office and bank as well. We put our final offer on it Friday, and are now having to waiting until after the holiday is over, and the bankers are back to find out if they are going to accept it or not.

May God bless you as you strive to follow Him.

Back from the GA and house hunting

2008-08-16T14:22:00.002-04:00

Well, we made it back from the Assembly. It was great to be there and worship with and see all of our friends. We really enjoyed the services. The Spirit was there in great measure. I did get a little tired of the stairs to the balcony, but I guess that is what you get when you have a little girl who doesn't do well sitting in service for a week straight. I went back and watch/listened to part of the service I had to preach in. Man, I have too much of a southern twang while I was preaching. I have a bad habit of picking up speech habits of the locals after I have been in area for a day or two. Also, apparently, I have a tendency to preach with more of a southern twang when in front of a crowd. I have no idea where I picked that up. Anyway, enough about me. There was a lot of good preaching. Some of which I am going to have to go back and watch since I spent a lot of time out of the auditorium whenever Anna couldn't handle sitting still any longer.

Our house hunt is continuing. We put an offer on a house before we left for TN. We found out while we were down at the GA that someone else offered cash for the house and the bank took that deal. That is 5 houses that we have looked at, 4 that we definitely wanted, that have sold. The real estate market definitely is not slow around here, at least in the price range we are looking. We have an offer on a house right now that we are waiting to hear back from. The first offer wasn't accepted so the person made a counter offer that was only $400 less than the asking price. There is no way that we are going to pay that, so we made another counter up $1,000 from our original. We will see how things go. We are hoping and praying to get things settled soon.

Strive for the prize

New home soon(hopefully)

2008-07-31T23:26:00.002-04:00

Ok, here is the deal on our housing situation. We are definitely not moving back to our old house. It is going to cost much more than what the house is worth to put things back how they were, plus do the additional things(filling in the basement and raising the house possibly 2-3 feet). We had found a house we really liked, but is sold before we could put an offer on it. We have now found another house and our offer will be forwarded tomorrow morning. We should know by Tues. whether they have accepted it. So, hopefully, we will be moved into a house by the middle of Sept. if everything works out. The best part of it all is that our mortgage will be under 3% interest rate! Kelley could tell you exactly, but for some reason I can't remember. We are trusting God that He will help us get the house He wants for us.

Things have been pretty busy at work and it will be nice to get away, even though still pretty busy, to the Assembly. We are planning on leaving Sunday morning after church. It will be great to see many of our friends, and to worship with all of them.

Continue to fight the good fight of faith.

Another update soon

2008-07-28T23:17:00.001-04:00

I will let everyone know how things are going soon. We are still getting things ironed out, but hopefully will know more in detail, including when we will be a new house by the time we leave for the Assembly.

Update

2008-06-28T19:13:00.003-04:00

Well, we are stilling trying to get everything sorted out with our house. We currently have all of our quotes and are in the process of getting things hashed out with insurance. We got things settled with our car and ended up getting our replacement vehicle, a van, today. We ended up going with a Navy blue, Chrysler Town and Country. It is going to be hard for me to get adjusted to looking for a blue van instead of a black car. Thankfully, we were able to get a great deal on it. It is very nice for the price we paid.

The Lord is continuing to bless and help us and we are thankful to Him for that.

Hopefully, things will get settled with the insurance soon and we will be able to get started working on the house. If we can just get things fixed with the foundation, electrical, and HVAC, then I can get started to work on the rest of the house. Hopefully, when everything is done, it will be better than what we started with. The house will be insulated(at least on the first floor), and some other things will be done that we have wanted to get done. I trust that some way I will have the time. Thankfully, that will all start after Conv. and the Assembly.

Which, if you are reading this, please pray for me as apparently, I will be preaching at the convention and the Assembly and I definitely need the Lord's direction. In fact, pray for me every week because I need the Lord's direction just as much if not more here, as I preach here every week.

Continue to strive for the crown

Flood pics.

2008-06-09T07:35:00.003-04:00

Here are some flood pictures. In the first one our house is the white house in the middle. I am unsure if this was during or right before or after the crest.

Our house
This second one is where Kelley almost went under when the firemen were bringing her out. As you can see the current around the truck is coming down the alley very strong.
Alleyway
There were a number of guys locked arm in arm across this alley trying to block the current so that the firefighters could get Kelley and the kids across.
They got across at the back end of the blue truck in the picture.

Unfortunately, during this I am on an island on the other side of the brick house in the first picture. I was headed with the firefighters to get Kelley and the girls but they were worried because I didn't have a life vest. I wasn't home when the flash flood happened and had already waded through quite a bit of water to get almost to them. I was to remain stranded for about seven hours. I could of got on one of the earlier boats but I figured everyone else should go first. Thankfully, someone took Kelley into their house and found a way to get them to my mom and grandpa's. I wish I could of been with my girls but it was better for them not to have been with me as I don't know how well the two little girls and Kelley would have handled the boat ride. Especially since the most they could fit were two at a time. Katherine, the other little girl at my house Sat. is 5 almost 6 but would have still been pretty scared riding in the boat in the fast moving water. Thanks for all the prayers. Maybe if I remember to get our camera cord tomorrow I will upload some pictures.

God bless

Flooded!!!

2008-06-08T07:13:00.001-04:00

Just to let everyone know, we are flooded out of our house right now. We are unsure when we will get to go back. I am going to try and assess the damage today if the water has gone down enough to get to it.

Keep looking up.

Nice Weekend

2008-05-27T22:45:00.002-04:00

We had a nice weekend around here. Saturday we got up and went to the bakery downtown for breakfast for fresh donuts. I am glad we have a little bakery now. We know(sort of) one of the owners and they seem to be really nice people. I then spent most of the rest of the day getting some stuff accomplished at church. We had pretty good services Sunday, with a very good worship service Sunday night. Monday, Anna spent almost the entire day with me. Most of it outside. She just had to be with me. We worked in the garden for a good while. I tried to let her help me plant some seeds. But she just kept trying to eat them! We also went on a long walk, a good majority of which I let her walk. Normally, when we take walks, she is in the stroller or wagon. I thought she might be worn out when we got home, but no, she was ready to go. Later, I addressed some different plumbing issues, fixing a leaky faucet, shower, and our upstairs bathtub faucets. A little of this and that, just what a three day weekend is for.

We are going to be having a breakfast at church Sunday morning, and a kids day on Sat., June 7. Please be in prayer as we want to touch these kids hearts and minister to their needs.

Seek not to have inspiration, but rather revelation.

Going Good

2008-05-19T17:28:00.002-04:00

Things seem to be going pretty good around here. We had a great service Thurs. night. Then after work Friday I was able to work some more on the front of our house. I was out there until 10 pm. but was finally able to get some more done. Sat. I got up a little after 8:00 a.m. and went and got Katherine and then we came back to the house and got Kelley and Anna and took the wagon and walked down to the bakery downtown and got donuts for breakfast. We are glad that we have a little bakery close to our house, especially one that is close enough to walk to. Of course, for us, "close enough to walk to" is a relative phrase. Kelley regularly walks a couple of miles or so a day. And we have no problem walking to Burger King, which I believe is about a mile away. The bakery is much closer. And fresh donuts are great! I spent the rest of the morning after we got back talking to our neighbor and then playing with the girls in the backyard. I set up the tent and they played in that for a while. Later, I took care of some stuff in the garden, and then scraped the paint/paint remover, off of the section that I got done the night before.
We had a good Sunday as well. I preached Sunday morning on Universal Health care. The Bible outlines the ultimate universal health care plan. His name is Jesus! After church, we walked up to BK for lunch.
Today I finally got off of work at 4:00 pm for once. I came home and Anna is dying to go outside, but it is raining and cool so it will not be happening. She loves being outside, but sometimes it just isn't possible.
Hope that you are doing well, where ever you are at.

God bless

Great Youth Convention!

2008-05-10T22:42:00.002-04:00

We had a great Youth Convention. There were 50+ people there the best that I could figure as we had some that only made it for some of the services, and then others left early. There was great preaching, anointed singing, and wonderful fellowship. I took the whole day off Friday as Kelley was/is having back problems(keep her in prayer please) as got some new back tires on my truck as one had been consistently flat for about a week, and I kept having to work late. While Kelley was at the chiropractor's office, Anna and I stopped by and saw a couple of friends where I used to work. I thought we were stopping by to see one, but lo and behold another had started working there that I didn't know about. It was good to see both of them. We were able to leave for conv. about 2:00 pm. after a stop at the school where mom works. Of course she had to take Anna around and show everyone. We got to E-town about 4:30 pm which is much nicer than our normal work all day and then slide into service right when it starts or late. Right now it is about 10:50 p.m. on Sat. night. Anna and I just finished off some reheated cheese pizza. It was just going to be my dinner, but she had to have some. Apparently, she is figuring out what those teeth in her mouth are for. It is a little difficult typing with hands and feet, alternately, being shoved in the way. Thankfully, she is mainly sitting here without interfering too much.

Work for the Lord like you never have before.

Always a reason

2008-05-03T22:49:00.002-04:00

Sometimes, we do grow weary in well doing. The Bible tells us to keep pressing on, but let's face the fact, we are human. In being human, there are times that we just get tired. Tonight was one of those nights. I have been sick and working a lot a hours lately, and really wasn't feeling much like going the Mission in Indy. Didn't really know what I was going to preach about. And I knew the singing wasn't going to go like normal since I am still sick. However, God, as usual renewed my desire to keep working for Him. Tonight, I got to see a man that had converted to Islam a few years back, come back to Jesus Christ. It was great. I am sure it was much better for him that me. And I know that he didn't require me to be there to do it. But, if I hadn't been there, I would have missed what God did. I would have missed God renewing me. In short, that man might have still gotten saved, but I would have missed out on what God wanted for me to learn, to experience. Thank you Lord that you don't let me wear out completely. That you always know the right thing that I need to keep on working for you.

Anna now has 5 teeth. After months of chewing and no teeth, she got two in one week, last week. She told me to "stop it" the other night at dinner. I know it was directed at me because she was pointing right at me when she did it! What will she learn next.

We had a good month this past month focusing on "Equipping Effective Evangelists" we covered some good ground in the morning and evening services on Sundays. We focused on things we need to be doing in the mornings, and in the evenings focused on some of the different people we will encounter when witnessing, and different things we need to keep in mind with each type of person.

We had a Pizza and Movie night at church last night. We watched "The Ultimate Gift" It is a pretty good movie. We had one new(well technically 3, but two were only about 8 months old) visitor. We were glad she was finally able to come. We hope to see much more of her in the future.

We are looking forward to leaving for youth convention next weekend. Please keep it in your prayers.

Home again

2008-04-20T20:56:00.002-04:00

Well, it is good to be back home. We left late Friday afternoon and went to Sturgis, KY. We spent the night there at Bro. Shane and Sis. Christy's. Anna had a lot of fun with the two boys, though, when they were wrestling with me, we had to make sure that she stayed away as they are a little too rough and tumble for her to join in. She kept making the effort though.
Sat. we got up and went to Henderson, KY for the service we were having there. It started out as a band service, and then several other people committed to showing up so they were planning on having a service and cookout. Since it is just across the river from Evansville, Bro. Shane invited us to come down. Unfortunately, the weather was pretty chilly, and it was raining/misting a little, so they decided not to have the cookout. There was a pretty good turnout of people with it being so cold, especially since the service was in a shelter house at the state park. There were at least six non-church members, besides some kids, there plus several from the Sturgis church, us, and most of the Loyas. The best I can remember there were right at 30 people there. It's too bad the weather wasn't better so that we could have had the cookout as well.

Anna seemed like she just kept getting hurt yesterday. At the service in Henderson, right at the end, she decided she needed to mess with the keyboard. So, I let her get up there and mess with it. Then she decided to walk down the bench and her foot slipped before I could grab it. To she hit the bench and then the concrete. Thankfully, no lasting damage. Then, when we stopped for lunch, she fell against a cardboard display at the gift shop. Everything seemed fine, until we went to leave and noticed she had red on her lip. It was blood. Evidently, she busted it when she hit the cardboard. She didn't make much of a fuss when it happened, so I guess it didn't hurt that bad. Then, we had decided to stay at a hotel part of the way back, just to kind of have a break, and she decided to trying walking in the tub. We had gotten the jacuzzi so that it would be like a swimming pool for her. We only had and inch or two of water, just enough for her to splash, and she decided to stand up. I got her sat down the first time, but the second she fell before I got her. So, she bumped her head again and started crying. She was over it by the time she got washed up though. Just running around the hotel room. We got up this morning and she was wearing an all white dress with a white sweater. Amazingly, Kelley was able to feed her without any of it getting on her closes! With Anna, that is a real feat, sometimes even with a bib on, which she didn't have one on this morning.
We had a good Sunday School, and Morning Service today. God is really helping us. I am looking for great things in the very near future.

Strive to be found faithful to the one who has called you.

Busy, busy, busy

2008-04-08T21:29:00.002-04:00

Well, I have been pretty busy since the last post on here.

The weekend after Easter we had District Convention. We attended the Sat. night service. It was very good. The Spirit was moving and working wonderfully.

Church has been going very well. We have been having good services, and I have felt very encouraged in the Lord. I am excited about the series that we are doing this month, titled, Equipping Effective Evangelists. During the Sun. morning services we are looking at things we need to be doing to be Effective Evangelists. During the Sun. evening services, we are looking at the different types of people that we encounter in our community and the different ways that they look at Christianity and things of the spiritual nature. We are hoping to have a revival later this month if things work out.

We also started redoing the outside of our house. I am ripping off the aluminum siding, stripping the paint, and repainting the outside of the house to return it, as close as possible, to it's original appearance. It is going to be a lot of work, but our house will definitely look better.

Thankfully, I have also gotten several more things done at the church as well. I hope to be able to get some things done to the outside this Sat.

May the Lord bless you like He has blessed me!

Anna egg hunting

2008-03-25T20:12:00.001-04:00

Note: When I posted this youtube was still processing the video, so if it doesn't play now, try a little later.

Safely there and back!

2008-03-08T21:08:00.002-05:00

Well, we drove through a snow storm for a good amount of the way to Evansville today. A normally three hour trip, took about 5 hours. But, thankfully, we made it there safely. We had a good time there and it was good to see everyone. Also, it was nice to have Kelley and Anna with me. By the time we headed home, the snow was over and the roads were almost(99.9%) cleared. Anna slept most of the way both directions and that helped out a lot.
I am looking forward to tomorrow and what they Lord has in store. He is continuing to be faithful to us here at Amity. We will be having a Missions dinner tomorrow after service to raise money for March Missions. Please be in prayer for us, that we can continue to reach the unchurched and lost.

Work faithfully for Him who has called you.

Going good.

2008-03-03T21:38:00.003-05:00

Things are going pretty good around here. Last Tues. night we had a District rally at the Sellersburg church. I think that there were 31 in attendance. I took Anna, as Kelley had been dealing with her all day and wasn't feeling the best when I got home. It was good to see everyone. On the way back home the snow was blowing really bad for about the first 20 miles. It was pretty hard to see, but after that things were better.
Saturday I went and took my CDL test. I passed so now I have my CDL license, which will be good for work. I failed the first time I took the test in January because I did one thing wrong. On a certain part of the test, you have to get every single part exactly right or you fail. I used two wrong numbers and failed. But, thankfully I passed this time, as it is not real cheap to take the test.
Saturday night at the mission in Indianapolis went pretty well. A man came up afterwards and talked to me for quite some time about his situation, which happened to be what a portion of the message was about. Please pray for this man as he is dealing with some unforgiveness towards a man in his past that has done a lot of damage to him.
Sunday we had an excellent Sunday School class. There was lots of discussion by everyone, bar one. The morning service went pretty well also. That afternoon I replaced the thermostat on my truck that went bad a little over a week ago. The first time that I had ever replaced a thermostat, but it seems that it fixed the problem, thank the Lord.

The Multitude or a Disciple

2008-02-21T20:53:00.003-05:00

Are you a part of the Multitude, or have you become a disciple?
People that were a part of what I call the multitude(people around Jesus) were the people being ministered to. The disciples, DID the ministering, along with Jesus. Take the story of feeding the four thousand + in Matt. 15. Verse 36 says that Jesus gave the bread and fish to His disciples, and then THEY gave it to the people. The disciples went out and healed people(through the power that Christ had imparted to them), the multitude were the people being healed.

In some cases the multitude brought people to Jesus. In John 4, we see the woman at the well, brought the men of her town to Jesus. Yet, the disciples took Jesus(in spirit) to the people.

I want to be a disciple. In fact, we all need to be disciples. We need to be SERVING rather than being served. And we must be taking Jesus TO the people. We can try all we want to bring people to Jesus. Some will come, some will not. There is no guarantee they will come. However, we can guarantee to take Jesus to them, every single time, to every single person. If Christ is dwelling in us, operating in us, then every person we come into contact with, we are taking Him to Them. They may not come to Him, but we can always take Him to Them.

Be a Disciple Today!

Wrapup of the week

2008-02-17T23:30:00.002-05:00

Well, Anna's birthday was this week. She is officially one year old. We had a very small party Sat. with family(and one adopted grandparent). Kelley wanted to keep things very small, since we don't have a lot of room inside at our house. She did pretty good at the party, and played with pretty much everyone.
Friday night we had dinner with our neighbor and his family. We had a great time. Anna really loved the kids. At 6 months, they are a little young for her to do much playing, but she talked to them and kept pointing at them.
Church was good today. We had a good turnout at church this morning, with good discussion during the Sunday School class. The morning service went well also. This evening we had our BTI Study and followed that with the evening service. The evening service went pretty well. I had accidentally fallen asleep on the couch after we go back from eating and didn't get up until right before we left. I didn't really know if I would preach or not. One of those kind of times were I was just going to read some scripture and expound a little bit, but I guess the Lord had other plans. The message took a slight different turn, and I know at least one heart was touched. It definitely had nothing to do with anything I did, but I thank the Lord that He is willing to take what I am, and add everything, to come up with something. Thank you Lord for taking us in the direction you wanted.

Believe in God for miracles,

What's new?

2008-02-10T19:45:00.000-05:00

Well, with Anna, it seems like everything is new all the time. Friday night she took her first real steps. She was taking off towards her "big sister". The rest of the night she kept trying to take off walking. One time while chasing big sister on her knees, she decided she should try to chase her standing up. It didn't work very well. But by the time I got home saturday from Evansville, she had taken nine steps in a row. She still has a ways to go, but it won't be long before she takes off. She already tries to go so fast it looks like she is running sometimes.
She has also learned how to say "more" with sign language. I am hoping to teach her a few more "words" so that she can communicate a little better before she gets her language skills.
Things in Evansville are looking pretty positive. I have to call about a place tomorrow to use for services. It looks pretty promising. It is about the size we need currently, and is pretty easy to find right on a main highway by the airport.
Everything here is going pretty well as well. Some positive signs for the local church here. I am looking forward to what God has in store for us this year.
Until next time, be faithful to Him that has called you.

God is moving!

2008-02-07T22:12:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to say that God is answering our prayers here at church. A couple of things we have been praying about for quite some time. This week, it seems that God is definitely moving and working in these situations. I am thankful for this.
We had a good VLB service tonight! We had a time of prayer, and then a wonderful worship time. Oh, what does God have for us next?

Headquarters Site

2008-01-27T13:31:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to say first of all that I really like all the news updates headquarters has been making. And secondly, if you have see them yet, get on over there to read all about it!

Catching up!

2008-01-23T18:24:00.000-05:00

Ok, so things have been pretty busy around here lately. The most recent thing was our district fellowship. Our district, those that could make it, got together and had dinner at the church here in Amity. Afterwards we had a good service. We only had 21 people, but considering the distances people had to drive, and the fact that it was a very cold(only in the teens and single digits) nasty day, that was pretty good. It was wonderful to see everyone that came. We had a pretty good service, with a wonderful spirit, good singing, and I will leave anything about the preaching out, since I was the one given that task. I would say that everyone enjoyed this good time of fellowship. Just please pray for those members we have in our region that are spread out and not close to any church.
Anna has been growing like crazy. Just keeps getting bigger and eating more. Work has been pretty busy. Normally, in winter things slow down, but not for us. The only real thing to slow us down at this point is a lot of really cold days in a row that would make the ground freeze down deep.
Well, got a lot of things that need done, so cya.

Fight faithfully, the good fight of faith.

Houdini

2008-01-12T19:54:00.000-05:00

We have discovered that we have a little Houdini running around. This morning Anna started out the morning by attempting to climb up one of our safety gates. She decided that the little holes in it would make excellent places for her feet to go in to climb up. Thankfully, I caught her before she got very high. Then later, she climbed out of her high chair and ended up in the floor. Non the worse for the wear, thankfully. She got out of the restraint belts and around the thing that goes on the top for her food! Yesterday she pushed the big pillows out of the way that we have blocking her in the front two rooms. And did I mention that she will take off like crazy up the stairs. We did have a gate at the bottom, but it was pushing out on our banister. We are going to have to figure out something else.
The good news is she has figured out how to safely get out of her bed. Kelley has been getting her to turn to the side and back down each morning and within about 3 days she figured it out. Now she does it on her own. Whether off the bed, the little exercise trampoline at mom and grandpa's, or the little 2-3 step down from the dining area to the family room at mom and grandpa's. Now if we can just teach her to make it down the stairs safely, we will be closer to being ok. The child is simply all over the place!
In other news, we will be having a district fellowship here in Amity next Sat., the 19th for the IN/OH district. If you are in our district, just go to our website at www.thechurchofgodamity.org for more information about it. We will be having dinner with a service following. If you are coming, please try to let me know through email(tcogpastor@gmail.com) or phone(317-403-4236) so we can plan for the meal. If you don't reach me, come any way. It would be great to see you.
Please pray for the Evansville mission. I was unable to go today, because I needed to take a CDL class for work. Pray that the people there would be encouraged and uplifted.

Continue to press toward the mark.

Pray for Kenya

2007-12-31T14:01:00.000-05:00

I just noticed that there are over 100 people dead in Kenya because of the current election turmoil. I would encourage everyone to pray for Bro. Mbogo and the rest of the saints there, that they would be kept safe, and be able to use this to the advantage of the Kingdom of God, leading people to Christ during this time. Pray that they will be able to show many the Prince of Peace during this time of chaos.

Almost a new year!

2007-12-30T14:17:00.000-05:00

Well, it's almost time for a new year. With a 10 1/2 month old around here, we experience new things all the time. Some great, some just interesting. Just yesterday she finally stood up on her own without pulling up on something else. She seems to grow constantly in that she is always learning or doing something new. Yesterday was nice as I didn't have to go any where. Of the previous 5 Saturdays, 4 were out of towners and the fifth we had our Kids' Day at church. So it was nice being able to take things a little slower, even though I did have a few things to do.
I am hoping during the coming months to be able to work more for the Lord, and to study and pray more. One of my blessings this Christmas, my Palm T|X, has enabled me to download a number of books onto it, including the Bible, which allows me to always have something to read whenever I have it on me. This is great, because I love to read, but often don't get around to it. Now all that I need is for someone to create PDF files of all the church books!!

May the you continue working for the Lord.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-24T12:44:00.000-05:00

I hope that all of you have a terrific Christmas. We have three days of Christmas here. Last night, after our candlelight service at church, which was pretty nice, we went to my mom and grandpa's house to have dinner and open gifts. Then, this morning we had Anna open her gifts up, because tomorrow, we will be going to open gifts at Kelley's parents' house. We figured Anna would get bored with things if she opened gifts here and there tomorrow.
I want to say thank you Lord for one gift especially. Not because it was the most expensive thing, but because it is something that I have been looking at getting for quite a while, and it just wasn't a wise financial decision for us to get. I got a Palm Handheld last night as a present. It came as a total shock. I had not idea whatsoever. I can say that I will definitely put it to good use. It will be great for me to keep track of things, and to read through documents and files, when I am away from the computer. And it has wifi and bluetooth so, I can read stuff on the net while kelley is busy on the computer, and communicate with my phone.
I am thankful during this year to be able to spend time during Christmas with most of my family. And I am thankful that our Lord and Saviour came to earth so that you and I might have life more abundantly. Let us remember the Saviour most of all during this time.

A while

2007-12-19T18:36:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a while since I have posted anything. We have been pretty busy.
Last Saturday we had our Kids' Day at Church we only had a couple of kids, but the weather was supposed to be bad and I think that probably scared off some of the parents in the neighborhood. We did have one new child that attended. Everyone seemed to have a good time. Taffee the clown was a big hit. I guess she was also a big hit at Walmart later, as they had to stop by there on the way home!
Well, I guess that's all for now. Please pray for the mission in Evansville, that we can get things set up and operating smoothly.

Let us lift up Christ.

Time Saver for Blogaholics

2007-12-14T18:36:00.000-05:00

As you may or may not have noticed, you can subscribe to this blog by clicking on a link and it will send you an email with whatever has been posted. When I discovered this on another blog, I thought what a great idea. So, a few of the blogs that I read, I subscribed to, that way I didn't need to go and check the blog to find out if anything had been post. Saving a lot of time depending on how many blogs you read. My problem was, the vast majority of the blogs that I check, friends and church members, don't have any kind of subscription service. So, I was still wasting a lot of time checking up on everyone to see if they had posted.
Then I switched to the Google Reader. It does the same thing as the email subscription, except you can subscribe to some people's blogs who don't have a subscription set up. You just search for it with the Reader, and when you find it you can subscribe. Now, it doesn't work with everyone's blog, but seems to work with most. So, if you read a lot of blogs, you might give it a try. With a look at one page, you can find who on your list has posted anything new since the last time you read, and it even brings up the post for you. Just one way I have found to save time, while still keeping up with everyone.
For the record, Google Reader is not the only service that you can use to read feeds, but I don't know if the others will let you subscribe to people's blogs that don't specifically have a feed set up.

Saturday Again

2007-12-01T23:28:00.000-05:00

Well it's Saturday again. Another busy week has just flown by. Can't really remember much details of the week, other than just working.
Mom's surgery yesterday went well. They thought that it would be 5 hours and turned out to be only 2 1/2 hours. She was able to come home today and seems to be doing well.
We had a good time at the Regional VLB Christmas Banquet in Elizabethtown, KY today. There was good preaching as well as good food. Kelley did a good job preaching, even though she has not been feeling very well. The only disappointment was that more people were not able to make it, for various reasons.
I preached at Wheeler Mission in Indianapolis tonight. The place was totally packed out. When it starts getting colder, there is hardly any room to move there during services. There was easily well over 100 people there. We had a good service. The men seemed pretty receptive.

Thank you Lord for taking us through another week, and keeping mom safe during surgery. And thank you for the healings that were testified about today.

Keep reaching out to the lost and dying souls of this world.

Good Week!

2007-11-24T20:32:00.000-05:00

Well, we have had a good week. Had a good Thanksgiving with the family.
We received a call earlier in the week about a young man that had just gotten saved in Evansville. A friend of his from Arizona, contacted us about working with him and helping him. After I visited with the Loyas yesterday, I was able to make contact with him. I was unable to visit with him, but we plan on meeting the next time I am able to go down there. Also, a family that the Loyas had been working with before is planning on moving back to the Evansville area. This, with the other members, and contacts we have in the area, means that soon we will hopefully have about 10-20 people in the Evansville area. Praise the Lord! Some, such as this young man and another family, are recently saved. Others are those that are established and can help feed these younger ones. I am looking forward to what God is doing in this area. Well, got other things to do so, guess I will post more some other time.

Continue to be faithful to Him who has called you.

New web address

2007-11-21T20:04:00.000-05:00

Our local church's new web address is www.thechurchofgodamity.org. The old one will work for the next few months, but due to the change in our location we decided to change this address as well.

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-21T20:00:00.001-05:00

May everyone enjoy Thanksgiving Day and let us all truly be thankful for what God has given us.
I am thankful for the many blessings in my life. Two of the biggest being my two girls. My wonderful wife and my daughter are so special to me. I am thankful that God has allowed them to be a part of my life.