First Day of Preschool...

I can't believe this is happening already. We started Luke in a preschool/"mother's day out" this week. It meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8am - 2pm. The teacher said he did really good from 8-12 and then had a major breakdown from 12-2. Anywho...here's some pics from the first day. Enjoy.









































Luke and Juliana at the preschool entrance.













I loved the lighting on this picture (click for bigger image).

Sabbatical Day 4...

Hey everybody. Great day. I got the September series half finished and am looking to completely finish it by the time I leave Camp Linden. This series is going to be awesome. You're not going to want to miss a single Sunday in September.

I spent a good amount of time talking with the camp director here. He's a great guy. Camp Linden is an awesome place. If our church or any group in our church ever wants to take a retreat, the facilities here at Camp Linden are really great for hosting something like that. That's actually one of the reasons the TBC built this conference center and the one at Camp Carson.

See ya soon...

Luke Pic

I think this is the one of the best Luke pictures Emily has ever taken...


This was at the beginning of 2006 when he was only a few months old.

Sabbatical Day 3...

I have a short update tonight...

Today I made the drive to Camp Linden. I finished reading Treasure Principle this afternoon after arriving and spending a little time talking with the camp director. I went to FBC Lobelville for service tonight.

One other note...I met with Brett for a little while yesterday and we decided to push the Oil Change Outreach back a couple of weeks to Sept. 8th to give us enough time to be fully prepared and enough time to advertise it.

Sabbatical Day 2...

Today was a fantastic day. I got big things done.

• I met with a missionary who works in Romania. Hopefully FBC will form a missions partnership with this organization and make regular trips to Romania. As I have thought and prayed about how the local church is to go about fulfilling the great commission to the ends of the earth, I have landed at the idea that forming long-term missions partnerships with missionaries who are regularly on the field is the best approach. This allows us to go to the same place and minister with the same people over a long period of time. I think this is much more effective than going on random short-term mission trips to places you'll never go to or see again. The missionary I met with was Bob Ward. Bob was our speaker at FBC in July when I was with our mission team in Arizona and Mexico. You'll be seeing Bob again as we pray about forming this partnership.

• I got a lot of the legwork done for our September sermon series. This 4-week series is really going to impact your life, as my studying today really impacted me. I hope the rest of this week to really work hard on this series and have it mostly ready to go by the end of the week.

• I read almost all of Randy Alcorn's little book Treasure Principle. Great read.

Two other notes...

• I leave tomorrow for Camp Linden tomorrow. I'm assuming they have internet down there. If I don't post the rest of the week it's because I can't hook my computer up to the internet.
  

• I want to direct your attention to Eternal Perspectives Ministries. Good stuff there. I'm also going to add them to my side bar.

• If you go to FBC Smithville and you're reading this, tell members of the church who don't know about my blog what the web address is so they can keep up with me this week.
  

Sabbatical Day 1...

Thank you FBC Smithville for this sabbatical week. It's Monday evening. Here's a some of things I did today...


I read and meditated in the Psalms. I love how the emotions of the psalmists come pouring through their writings. It's beautiful.


I read a big chunk of Ed Stetzer's book Comeback Churches. I look forward to finishing this book and reading / discussing it with the staff.





















I spent time in prayer. I prayed through about half of the prayer requests that you gave me last Wednesday. I prayed for the church. I prayed for the staff.

And speaking of the staff...I'll leave you with this pic of the 3 of us at our July 4th cookout gathered around the grill doing what men do.













I feel like God has really blessed FBC and created a great ministerial team.

Until tomorrow...

LEC Finally Rolling

Here's some pics of the beginning of site prep work for our church's new Life Enrichment Center.

These signs were sitting on the lot where the building will be built.














Here's a before shot that I took back in January. This building, which was sitting on the lot where the LEC will be built, was torn down earlier this spring.














Here's the current view (7.25.07) after a couple of days worth of dirt work. They've still got to build the lot up a bit b/c it has a lot of slope in it.

Stand: A Call for the Endurance of the Saints

That's the theme of the Desiring God 2007 National Conference. I really want to go to this conference. It's going to be incredible. But considering that I'll have a 2 week old baby at the time, I feel that the best choice is definitely to stay home and listen to the podcasts as they come out. :)

The theme, as you can tell by the post title, is endurance in the Christian life. The goal is a life devoted to testifying to the greatness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the reward is Christ himself as he says to the faithful, "Well done good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master."

The speaker lineup includes:

• Randy Alcorn of Eternal Perspectives Ministries
• John McArthur of Grace to You. He's also the pastor of Grace Community Church and president of Master's College and Seminary. He also squeaked in a little time to write over 100 books.
• Jerry Bridges
• Helen Roseveare
• and of course...John Piper

Here's a video about the need for endurance in the Christian life...





Here's a video of John Piper answering the question, "Why did you choose these speakers for the conference on endurance?".

6 Years

Yesterday (July 14th) Emily and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary. Yesterday was also my parents' 34th wedding anniversary. (When Emily and I chose our wedding date I didn't even know it was my parents anniversary.)

We went to Ristorante Volares in the Opryland Hotel last night. Nice place. The Opryland Hotel is really awesome. I'd love to stay there, but rooms are about $400 per night.

Today is day number one of our 7th year of marriage, we've got a 21 month old son and we've got a daughter who is due to be with us in 2 months and 1 day. God has blessed Emily and I much.

Like Father, Like Son (100th Post)

I'm celebrating my 100th post with a couple of pictures from a swim party earlier this summer. Can you see the resemblance? Who looks like who?

Arizona/Mexico Report

Here's the entrance to the community where we served all week. The community is called Cuauhtemoc. There's about 400-500 people who live there. There's only one Christian church in this community. We helped to work on the building that the church is using. The only other church there is a Catholic one. They only have services about once per quarter. The catholicism is very cultic in Mexico. They have a lot of mini-shrines with statues in them on the sides of the road where they go and pray to different people.















These are some of the kids who came to our VBS. We had about 50 kids each day.




























This is our team with the pastor (Roberto) of the church in Cuauhtemoc and his wife (Chayito).















This is Tim, Jennifer, and Christian Scarbrough. They are the founders of Living Water Ministry, based in Naco, AZ. Naco is a border town between Arizona and Mexico. Cuauhtemoc is about a 20 minute drive into Mexico from Naco. They have restarted the only church in Naco, AZ that had previously been closed down for the last few years. The Scarbroughs hosted us for the week and allowed us to stay in their church in Naco.

Home

We made it back from Arizona/Mexico last night. The internet was down for the whole week after my first post so I didn't get to put any pics up. We had a major lightning storm that knocked it out. I'll get some pics up tonight.

Arizona Update 1

Hey everybody. It's Wednesday morning in Arizona.

Flights were good on Monday although we did have a cancelled flight. But we made it on the next plane. When we got here Monday afternoon we drove down to Cuauthemoc, Mexico to see the church we would be working on and where we would do Bible School. Tuesday morning our big van had some major problems which were finally fixed after 5 trips to the parts store, so we spent the morning doing some work here at the church in Naco, AZ where we are staying. In the afternoon we went to Cuauthemoc and did our first day of Bible School. We had about 50 kids show up. I'll try for some pictures in the next day or so.

Well Said...

Everybody...

You need to watch this video. This is Ed Stetzer at the SBC annual convention yesterday. Stetzer is the president of LifeWay research, the research division of the SBC.

June Blog Break

I'll be taking a blog break for the month of June. It's going to be a crazy busy month. We've got VBS at church starting next week and I'm leading my first ever mission trip that leaves on June 25th. I've been on a lot of mission trips, but I've never led one. It's a lot of work to get it together. We're going to Naco, Arizona and Cuauthemoc, Mexico. We're partnering with Tim and Jennifer Scarbrough through Living Water Ministries.

I might have an occasional post, but for the most part I'll be back in July.

Things Kids Say

Luke is really starting to talk and be able to understand what we are saying...to a degree. Today was our long trip back from Orlando. (good vacation)

Emily asked Luke while we were riding, "Are you awake?"

Luke's answer, "No."

I asked Luke, "Do you know what 'awake' means?"

Luke's answer, "No."

Lost Season Conclusion

Well...I would give the 2 hour conclusion of Lost an overall positive rating.

Negative

1. too many commercials...during the second half of the first hour the commercials were coming about every 4-5 minutes...i know, i know, that's what DVR's are for
2. they killed Charlie...boo...he didn't have to lock himself in the flooding room when he could have walked out the door and closed it behind him
3. how many lives does that crazy one-eyed guy have? they've killed him twice in the past few weeks and he keeps coming back...give me a break
   

Positive

1. the flashback with bearded Jack totally had me going...it was actually a flash forward...very nice
2. they are really developing John Locke to be Jack's nemesis...he's practically a superhero the way his body heals itself
3. the overall storyline of the show is developing nicely
4. the ending with future Jack and Kate was great, but you know that they're not actually going to get rescued from the phone call to that boat off the island anytime soon b/c there's 3 seasons left, so...can they change their future???
   
5. Emily wanted me to note that she disliked the ending b/c she wanted Jack and Kate to get together
6. It was cool to see Ben get beat up and to see the girl embrace her real mom

Guesses

1. John and Ben will return to the others and John will become the leader of the others
2. it will become Jack vs. John
3. Desmund will be the real hero of the story...he's just too cool
4. Ben was actually right about the boat...something bad will come from it

What do you think???

Luke, Balls, and Water

Luke has always had a love for balls and water. Well he really went crazy yesterday. We played mini golf. The lady at the desk told us to take some extra balls with us. I guess she had seen her share of parents have to come back for extra balls after their kid chunked it in the water. Well...she was more than right. Em and I made 3 or 4 saves and Luke actually got 2 tossed in the water.

Yesterday afternoon when we were at the pool Luke decided to take up his hobby again. There is a small lake right next to the pool we were swimming at. Luke decided he needed to toss a ball in that lake also...only we didn't take a ball to the pool. So Luke grabbed another kid's ball, ran to the rail, and chunked it over. Nice touch.

Live from Orlando...

We're hanging out in Orlando this week. We've had some fun times already. I thought I'd post a few pics from the first two days.


The two most beautiful people I know...













Swimming time...













Watch out for the dragon...













If you've never been to Downtown Disney...it's pretty neat. The dragon in the picture behind me and Luke is made out of Legos. It's impressive.

It's All about You...

Emily and I had a great Monday and Tuesday at the TBC new pastor orientation conference. The conference was at the Linden Valley conference center. Nice place owned by the TBC.

On to the point of this post...

One of the devotionals that I heard there hit on a theme that is so dominant in American Evangelicalism that we don't even know it exists. It is the very air we breathe. No one thinks about breathing. It's just a part of life. So what is it I'm talking about???

Individualism.

The devotion was from Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."

If you notice I highlighted the words "for you." The speaker at the devotional time really keyed in on these words. He talked about the importance of those two words in the verse. He talked about how God has all of these specific, individualized plans for each one of us.

I hate listening to this type of stuff. God does not have a billion personalized wills for each and every Christian out there. God's will is not all about you. God has one will and each one of us is to find our complete fulfillment by aligning ourselves with God's will.

Folks, be careful about ripping verses out of context. Jeremiah 29:11 read in context would never produce an individualistic interpretation. If you read Jeremiah chapter 29 you would find that verse 11 is part of a letter written to the whole Jewish community in the Babylonian exile. So in verse 11 the words "for you" are referring to the entire community that is in exile.

Bringing that up to today would mean that God knows the plans he has for us as the community of God. It's all about God, his will, and we are fulfilled when we find ourselves in his will.

Dollywood

Okay, I can't handle the pink any longer, so this is my new look.

We're going to Dollywood tomorrow. I'm pumped. I think I was in high school the last time I went. That's been 11 years.

Why the PINK?!?!?!

We found out today that we're having a GIRL!!!!!

To celebrate I'm temporarily changing my blog to a lovely pink color.

Congrats to Anthony and Jackie

This morning, FBC Smithville voted overwhelmingly to bring Anthony Rosolowski onto the pastoral staff as the pastor of music and worship. I'm really excited to have Anthony coming (he won't start till end of June). He's going to bring a great dynamic to the church.

As a congratulatory blog present to Anthony and Jackie I'm adding a sidebar link to their blog.

We have a really young church staff (which I think is good). I'm the old man around the place at 29 years. Brett and Anthony are both young kids at only 27 years.

Please pray for FBC Smithville that our church staff will gel, and that we can proclaim the greatness of God's name in our city and county and wherever else God leads us. I'm excited for the future to see how God works.

A Day in the House

I went to the legislative session of the Tennessee House yesterday. I was the chaplain of the day...a nice honor, but completely ceremonial. Anywho...I enjoyed the day. It was my first time to ever go to a Senate or House session. It was complete chaos on the floor. It took me forever to figure out what was going on.

I'm sure I'll be hearing from President Bush any day now so that I can be on his spiritual advisory board :)

Don't Waste Your Life

There's a fantastic little book called Don't Waste Your Life written by John Piper that I would like to recommend to everybody. In the end you don't want your life to be wasted. This book does a good job helping you see the right perspective on living this life so that you don't waste it.

Here's the website by the same name. On the website you can order a paper copy of the book or you can download a .pdf of the book for free, and they've got some great little video podcasts that come out about once per week.

Happy reading. If you've already read this book, what do you think???

Dove Awards

Chris Tomlin won 6 Dove Awards this week. Here's a quote (from Baptist Press) by Tomlin about all his awards.

"I am overwhelmed by the whole thing," said Tomlin, who deflected the praise. "I am grateful for the honors, but at the end of the day that's not what impresses God.... He must increase and I must decrease. I know this is nothing that I do; I just know that the presence and favor of God is with me."

Let me stir the pot a little bit.

I'm really glad for Tomlin's remarks, but still, I've never really been a fan of the Dove Awards b/c there's nothing like a bunch of Christians getting together on national TV and awarding and honoring themselves.

Let's just try one passage on for size, Luke 17:7-10 (ESV)...

“Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

Any thoughts??? Don't be too hard on me.

Praying for the Rosolowski's

FBC Smithville has been looking for a music and worship pastor. We've found a fantastic couple...Anthony and Jackie Rosolowski. Could I ask you all to be praying for them as they begin to make their way in our direction? They live in Raleigh, NC right now as Anthony is finishing up at Southeastern Baptist Seminary.

They'll be spending the weekend of May 4th-6th with us, and our church will vote to call them here on Sunday, May 6. I remember how nervous I was during the time Emily and I were doing the same thing last summer to come here and pastor.

So, pray that God will work all things out smoothly for them and that this will be a fantastic time of joy and peace for FBC Smithville.

Between Two Worlds (ch. 2)

Chapter 2 – Contemporary Objections to Preaching

Stott lists the 3 primary objections to preaching in today’s world…the anti-authority mood, TV, and a contemporary atmosphere of doubt

• The Anti-Authority Mood

• Thesis of this point is that we live in a time with an unprecedented level of questioning the authorities that be. I agree with this. Stott offers a Christian response to the anti authority mood. Here are a few…

• We need to remember the nature of humanity. We have always been in rebellion. That does not mean preaching is useless.

• We need to remember the doctrine of revelation. He writes quoting another author, “A sermon by its very nature is a revelation, not an exhortation.” I could not disagree more. I think the Scriptures are the complete revelation of God, and our sermons are based on the revelation of God but are not themselves revelation. The purpose of a sermon is life change, exhortation.

• We need to remember the locus of authority. Preachers themselves are not the authority…the Word of God is.

• We need to remember the dialogical character of preaching. Preaching should be a silent dialogue between the preacher and congregation. As the sermon raises questions in the mind of the congregation the preacher should know his audience well enough to be aware of those questions ahead of time and attempt to answer them.

• TV’s ill affects on listening to sermons. Two of his main points about TV and its affect on preaching…

• TV tends to make people intellectually uncritical. This is the critical point…the inability to engage by thinking. I think this is so true. TV is too easy to consume. You only need the intelligence of a lump of mashed potatoes. On the other hand, it takes hard work to dive into the Scriptures. Speaking about the preacher’s need to reckon with their audience, Stott writes, “We can no longer assume that people either want to listen to sermons, or are indeed able to listen.” Wow.

• TV tends to make people morally disordered. Stott writes, “…our understanding of what is ‘normal’ begins to be modified. Under the impression that ‘everybody does it’, and that nobody nowadays believes much in God or in absolutes of truth and goodness, our defenses are lowered and our values imperceptibly altered.”

• Contemporary atmosphere of doubt
  

• Stott writes, “The contemporary loss of confidence in the gospel is the most basic of all hindrances to preaching.”

• He compares the current situation to the apostle Paul’s statement about the gospel in Romans 1:14-16 (under obligation, eager, not ashamed) by writing, “At present the church’s attitude to evangelism might be summarized in exactly contrary terms: ‘no enthusiasm, little sense of obligation, and considerable embarrassment.’”

• Stott offers a handful of solutions. His first is that we need to distinguish between the terms assurance, conviction, presumption and bigotry. I think this is critical b/c it is a good and right thing to speak up when you have done your research and are indeed speaking the truth (assurance and conviction). That being opposed to presumption (speaking w/o truly researching or knowing) and bigotry (blind and obstinate opinions).

This is Hilarious...

I said in the previous post that Emily had been sick for a while...that included a lot of throwing up. During the daytime when I was at work Luke would follow Emily into the bathroom and watch her throw up. So the other day Luke and I were in the bathroom and he walks over to the toilet, bends over, makes a big throw up sound, and then looks up at me and laughs.

We can now ask Luke, "What does mommy do when she gets sick?" and in response Luke will look at you and make the throw up sound. Yes...our son now walks around the house making a pukeing noise.

Don't ever believe that your kids aren't learning as they watch you.

I'm Back for One Post

I haven't posted for a while b/c there has been a ton of sickness in our family lately. Luke is actually doing better. You can pray for Emily. She's doing better but she's lost 12 pounds in the past week from her sickness.

I'll be out for about another week b/c Emily is going to a pastor's wives conference in Dallas, and I'll have Luke for 5 days by myself.

Quick NCAA Question

When the NCAA tournament started a couple of weeks ago I had 63 of my favorite teams in the tournament. When the Final Four started on Saturday, I had 3 favorite teams remaining. Now, 62 of my favorite teams have lost and only one remains. So here's my question...

Will somebody please beat Florida???????

I will be pulling hard for OSU (even though they beat Tennessee).

What Cars Have You Driven???

What are all the cars you have driven in your life, what color were they, and which has been your favorite?

I got my driver's liscense in 1994. Here's the list of cars I've had since then...

1989 Mazda 626 - maroon
1994 Nissan Stanza - gray
1997 Saturn sl2 - forrest green
1999 Ford Ranger - deep red
1995 Volvo 850 - green

My wife and I now have...

1999 Ford Ranger (same car as above, we traded the Volvo back and forth with my parents)
2006 Honda Odyssey - gold

Along the way, since we've been married Emily also has driven...

1996 Honda Accord - silver
1998 Toyota Avalon - white

That's 8 different cars in 13 years of driving. That's a lot of stinking cars. My favorite has been my truck, the Ranger.

Between Two Worlds...

Okay folks...I read a lot of books and I'm gonna start writing some small interactions (reviews?) about some of them. The reason I'm writing is to help me think as I read (this is important). I just finished chapter 1 of John Stott's Between Two Worlds. This is a book about preaching.

Between Two Worlds
The Challenge of Preaching Today
written by John Stott

Chapter 1 – The Glory of Preaching: A Historical Sketch

The goal of this chapter was to take a survey of the preaching of the Word of God, its high regard and great importance, throughout church history. As such, there was not much argument to this chapter since it was an introductory survey.

Let me list a few notable quotations from the chapter:

• From Chrysostom (4th-5th c.) bishop of Constantinople speaking about the healing of the body of Christ, “[the] only means and one way of cure has been given us…and that is teaching of the Word…without it nothing else will avail.”

• From Martin Luther speaking about the power of the Word of God in combating against the papacy during his trials, “I simply taught, preached, wrote God’s Word: otherwise I did nothing. And when, while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip and my Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a Prince of Emperor inflicted such damage upon it. I did nothing. The Word did it all.”

• From Stott, “It stands to reason that every recovery of confidence in the Word of God, and so in a living God who spoke and speaks, however this truth may be defined, is bound to result in a recovery of preaching. This must be why so many great preachers have belonged to the reformed tradition.”

• An observation from Stott, “So we come to the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The tide of preaching ebbed, and the ebb is still low today. At least in the western world the decline of preaching is a symptom of the decline of the Church. An era of skepticism is not conducive to the recovery of confident proclamation.”

• This book was written in 1982. I wonder what Stott’s evaluation would be 25 years later? I’m sure he would be very proud of Joel Osteen’s expository sermons.

Latest Luke Pics

Here's some recent photos for your enjoyment. I can't seem to rotate the images.












































At the Chattanooga Aquarium













Em and Luke with the giant crabs.

What Is the Deal with This?

So I read this article on the Baptist Press News (Southern Baptist news agency). It's a rant about some newer churches (some SBC) in the Acts29 church starting network that don't preach total abstinence from alcohol.

But here's the curious part. I found the following paragraph near the beginning of the article, and I feel compelled to comment on it.

"The emerging church movement is diverse and difficult to generalize. However, the mix of influences includes: postmodernism (a focus on sense-making through the various mediums of culture); Calvinism ala John Piper; and for some, Christian liberty, as granted by their scriptural interpretation, to drink alcohol and engage in other cultural activities that many Southern Baptists eschew based on opposing scriptural interpretation."

So the author is trying to give a loose definition for a Southern Baptist audience about what an emergent church is (that's a really big task to undertake, as the author notes). The 3 major influences he claims that make up emergent churches are: 1.) postmodernism 2.) Calvinism 3.) Christian liberty.

What?????

1.) a church cannot adhere to postmodernism b/c Christianity is directly opposed to postmodernism. Christianity and Christ claim absolute truth while postmodernism denies all absolute truth claims. Postmodernism and Christianity do not mix. If a group of people hold a postmodern ideology then they cannot call themselves a church.

But to clarify and comment on what the article seems to say in it's parenthetical statement about postmodernism...Engaging the culture does not equal being postmodern.

2.) Why is the author equaling Calvinism with emergent, like Calvinism is a bad thing? Did he know that many of the SBC founding fathers held to a Calvinistic theology and that we currently have traditional SBC churches that are Calvinist?

Calvinism is a solid theological position grounded in the absolute truth of the Scriptures. I am not a Calvinist, but I recognize it's conservative nature and I appreciate the lives of many of the great men in church history who held this theological view.

Here's the big deal...First the author says emergent churches are postmodern (denying absolute truth) and then says they are Calvinistic (claiming absolute truth of Scripture). Somebody help me figure this out.

3.) So the author would deny that we have Christian liberty to drink alcohol? I don't drink alcohol, but this drives me crazy. Why in the world is this always a recurring battle in Southern Baptist circles? I want people to stop fighting over this issue. We're not getting anywhere and nobody is ever winning the battle. We just fight and fight and fight, slaughtering our own while the world is going to hell.

Okay...so there's my rant. What do you think?

Luke's Stunt...

Yesterday Emily was in our bedroom cleaning up for a few minutes and she thought after a few minutes that she hadn't heard Luke doing anything (usually he makes a lot of strange noises as he plays). She found him sitting on the kitchen table eating cake (all over his face) and holding a kitchen knife in one hand.

We had no clue he had the ability to climb up on the kitchen table.

I think life's about to get interesting.

More Luke pics coming soon!!!

Flying High

I got to fly an airplane yesterday. I went with a friend who has a private pilot's license. We were up there and he said, "It's all yours," and just let me take it. That was pretty fun.

I took some aerial photos of the lot where the church's new Life Enrichment Center (LEC) is going to be built. You can see the church building on the upper right of the picture. The gray building across the street from the church is going to be torn down today, and that whole lot is going to be where the new building goes.

Foto Phun 2

We had another snow last week. The first pic is with a long exposure and no flash.

Baby Bass 2

Emily is pregnant. Due date is Sept. 16th. That's 3 days before Luke turns 2.

Desiring God Pastors Conference Recap

I just made it back to the metropolis of Smithville a few minutes ago. I have been at the Desiring God 2007 Conference for Pastors since Sunday. It was a fantastic time of worship, and hearing encouragement from the Word of God, and buying books, and a million other things.

I got to meet and talk with John Piper. He's the preaching pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church and the founder of Desiring God ministries. I've read several of his books but it was cool to get to meet him.

Okay...it was really, really, really cold in Minnesota. It got down to -20 degrees at one point while I was there in Minneapolis. And during the day when the sun was out warming things up...the temperature rose all the way to -3 degrees. When I got back to Tennessee tonight and it was in the +20's...I thought it felt rather tropical.

A Few Random Thoughts Coming Away from the Conference

- I really enjoy preaching. It is a great honor to be a pastor and have people give me 30 min. of their time every week. I don't treat that lightly.

- I really do deserve hell. Something inside us kinda feels like we were worthy of a little grace...that heaven wouldn't be quite as good if we weren't there...that we're not really THAT bad so that we deserve eternity in hell for our sin. God is obligated to give us a shot at heaven isn't he? Yeah right. We demand that God be fair and just with us. If God were fair and just we'd all be hell bound. These thoughts on hell come from studying about the holiness of God for the past several days.

- God is big. Exalt God in your life and watch what happens. God intensely desires that he be glorified. Live your life to glorify your big God!!!

Train Them Early...

Foto Phun

It snowed today in Smithville. All of these are near our house.

Latest Luke

Here's some new Luke pics.

Our son is really good lookin'...













Wearing Scout's Christmas scarf...













Latest big boy hair cut...

New Blogger

I have arrived. I just switched to the new blogger. It's very nice. Now I sign in with my gmail account instead of a separate blogger account. Everything's all together. You see, that way Google can track my internet use easier so they can advertise to me more effectively. Isn't that great...

Smithville Walmart Now Open

Smithville is moving on up in the world. Our Walmart opened today. Man, life is good. Emily went there this morning. I went there this evening. I must say it is the nicest Walmart I've ever been in. Very clean and no buggies all over the parking lot. I guess I should just wait a month.

Peyton is going to Super Bowl XLI

I can hardly stand to watch these playoff games b/c I want him to win so bad. Here's his chance. I'll be at a pastor's conference in Minnesota when the Superbowl is played Feb. 4th. I hope I can still catch a glimpse.

Some Pics...

"Is that your pastor and his wife in blue jeans?"
YES. I love my blue jeans.

The bottom pic was going to be our Christmas card, but we couldn't get a close up of us and still have the church name in the picture. Notice the snow.

On the FBC 2007 Horizon

Here's a few things on the books for First Baptist in 2007...

Vision Sunday, January 7th 2007 – I will be sharing what God has placed on my heart for the future of First Baptist. I want to give the people something to grab hold of and work towards.

Deacon Family Ministry – This ministry of the deacons will be a great aid to me and will help us close the “back door” of the church by keeping in better contact with our members. All the church members will be assigned to a specific deacon who will be responsible for maintaining the relationship and meeting any needs they may have.

Construction of the Life Enrichment Center – We will see the LEC completed by the end of 2007. This has been a long-term dream for our church, and it will be wonderful to see God bring it to completion. The LEC will be a fantastic way for our church to reach out to the community. It is a multi-function building with a gym, stage area, classrooms, and a kitchen.

Membership Discovery Class - We will be working towards the development of a membership class that would be a prerequisite for joining the church. In this class we would share our beliefs, what it means to be a church member (expectations), how the church operates, and how a person can be involved. I think this will be a definite plus for the church when it comes to the commitment and retention of new members.

I've got a few other things in the works that I'll share with you as the church works through them.

I'm signing off for this year...See you next year.

Christmas and Pastoring

You'd think these two things fit very nicely together. And they do. I only have one question though. How in the world do you go thru the Christmas season as a pastor and not gain 20 pounds??? I've really lost track of how many Christmas parties I've been to. Every group in the church has a party and they all expect you to be there. They also expect you to eat. A lot.

Let me guess...that's what new year's resolutions are for...

Church Signs

This page is really great. I've wasted hours just looking at all the really stupid messages and slogans that get put on church signs.

The church I pastor has a church sign that has interchangeable letters (so we could conceivable put those great messages out), but we only put the service times and pastor's name (like that's really important) on the sign.

Scout is here...

We got our new pup. We named her Scout. Here's some pics...

It's Snowing

Today is November 20th, and the snow is pouring down outside. This is fantastic. I haven't seen snow in a long time. We've lived in Dallas the last 4 years and I think we only had one snow in 4 years. Last year at Thanksgiving time it was about 80 degrees in Dallas. I love living in Tennessee where it snows at Thanksgiving.

Humanity never changes

I watched the 4th quarter of the Chargers-Broncos last night after our Community Thanksgiving service. As a side note, when Emily saw the team initials "SD" beside the Chargers' score on the TV she said as serious as could be, "What do all those football players do in South Dakota when they're not playing football?" I just said, "I guess they go hang out in San Diego."

Back to what I was going to say...The Chargers were up by 8 points with a little over a minute remaining and Denver had the ball on their own 4 yard line, so they have to go 96 yards for the touchdown and score the 2 point conversion. Practically impossible, but the Broncos got a big play and move the ball out to the 40, and then one of the Chargers defensive linemen got man and started punching a Broncos player. That got him ejected and gave the Broncos another 15 yards on the penalty.

Who's team is this guy playing on? It's not about his petty revenge on some other player. It's about the team winning. When will we ever figure out that everything is not about us? For that guy it was about his team winning the football game.

For Christians out there...this whole thing is not about you. It's all for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Get over yourself and starting playing for the team. Let go of grudges and forgive.

Community Thanksgiving Service

I was asked several weeks ago to preach at the community wide Thanksgiving service this Sunday night (19th). I feel this is a great honor and opportunity. This will probably be about the largest group of people I've ever gotten to preach for, except for that time I filled in for Billy Graham during one of his crusades and the Sunday last year when Charles Stanley called me to fill in for him while he was on vacation.

You can pray for me. The Billy Graham and Charles Stanley things were no prob, but I'm a little nervous about this one.

Later folks...

Toilet Fun

You read that right. I found Luke hanging over the edge of the toilet today with both hands just splashing away.

Adventures in Home Ownership

Emily and I are about to finish our second month as home owners this week. Here's some of the joys we've experienced so far...

1. Our house has a built-in grill on the back porch. The first time I went to use it I found a mouse nest with a mamma mouse and 3 babies inside our grill. So I ran the mouse off (unsuccessfully tried to kill it) and gave the grill a good cleaning. A week and a half later I went to grill again and the mouse had come back in the grill and rebuilt the nest!!! This time the mouse did not escape. Victory was mine.

2. I use those glue boards in my garage to catch insects. Here's the list of things I've caught on the glue boards besides insects. 2 birds (they get in the garage and try to eat the insects but get stuck on the glue board), 1 snake (this was a nice catch), 1 mouse.

3. Our house is two stories. Luke has fallen down the stairs.

4. We've been rolled twice.

5. Life is great and God is so gracious. I'm glad to have a house.

Later folks.

Haloween Pics

Well...we didn't get rolled on Haloween...thankfully. Rolling season has officially ended in Smithville. I'm not kidding. They have a socially defined season running from Oct. 1- Oct. 31 where you can roll anybody's house.

Here's some recent pics of Luke. Enjoy.

Search Words...

I recently checked my website site stats. Here's some of the search queries that people entered into search engines (i.e. Google, Ask.com, Yahoo, MSN Search, etc.) that ended up leading them to our site...

"nature tithe doug stuart"
"computer basses"
"postexilic judean community/ezra prophecy ceased"
"4"
"st102 notes"
"joseph wiles bcm"

Go figure. How does the number 4 bring a person to our site?

Name My New Dog...

Emily, Luke, and I will be getting a puppy in about 4 weeks. Some friends of ours in the church have a dog that just had a litter of 9 pups. It's a pure-breed boxer pup. We're getting a girl.

So...what should we name our new dog? I like the name "Scout."

Tell me what you think.

Some Recent Pics

Em and I wanted to share some recent pics with you. As you can see the youth group has already showed us their "love" for us by rolling our yard, not once, but twice.

Funny Church Videos

This site has some funny videos that are short commentaries about the state of the church in the United States today.

Firefox 2.0 released

Firefox 2.0 has been released. Firefox is a web browser that is becoming a serious challenger to Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE). I use Firefox b/c it's so much better than IE. You can download the Firefox browser here.

However, on a similiar note, Microsoft also just released the next version of IE for download from their website. The new version (IE7) is a vast improvement over it's predecessor b/c of it's security enhancements. IE7 also has most of the cool features that make Firefox so good.

Getting' Back into the Blog

Okay folks, I've been incredibly busy starting this pastoring job. I've practically forgotten about the blog during this time, but I want to keep it up for the millions of you worldwide who thirst for the wisdom from this blog. Yeah right.

I'm going to shut down our website. The website is shutting down because it costs money but this blog is free. Also the purposes of the website were to publish photos for our family to see since we were living far away and to publish my resume for potential churches to be able to download it. Both of those things have changed now.

We'll post our pics on the blog from time to time rather than on the website.

I'm coming up on two months as the pastor of First Baptist Smithville. It's really incredible so far. Emily and I have received so much encouragement from the people, and I'm really enjoying preaching. God has been good to us. I'll post pics soon.

God bless friends....Mark

Gettin' Started

Well this whole blogging deal has fallen to the wayside in light of all that's going on in our lives now. This coming weekend is my first to preach as the offical pastor. Emily and I have signed a contract on a house, and we'll probably get to move in around the 11th of September. So, I'll be commuting for a week until we get moved. It's about a 40 minute drive, so it's not that bad. Hopefully by the end of September we can get set up in the house and I can get my computer out and update our website with some new pictures. I've also got some new heretical papers that I'd like to post:) You'll enjoy reading those.

We're Goin' to Smithville

First Baptist Smithville has called us to come and pastor the church. Our first Sunday is September 3rd. We are really and excited and can't wait to get started. If you prayed for us we really appreciate it.

Some dates for you to pray for...

Here's what Emily and I will be doing of the next couple of weeks with the church in Smithville. If you're praying for us sometime you can pray for these events. The purpose of all these events is to allow the church people to get to know us before they vote on the 20th.

Sun. 6th - speaking to youth group in the evening
Mon. 7th - meeting the senior adults for lunch and a time they can ask me questions
Fri. 11th - cookout with a small group from the church
Sun. 13th - church's homecoming; will be there in morning and afternoon; preaching evening
Mon. 14th - meeting in evening with the brotherhood group (men's fellowship)
Sun. 20th - preaching morning service; church votes after service

A Little Road Map

Here's how the next month might pan out for us as we meet with the new church. I'm currently working on a short DVD movie about us that the church will play next Sunday in order to start introducing us to the congregation. We'll be going to preach on Aug 13th and spend the day with the congregation b/c that day is their homecoming service. Then on Aug 20th we'll go preach again and the church will vote after the service on Aug 20th. Assuming they like us, we'll probably start around the beginning of September.

Keith...don't you love suspense???





















































Smithville, TN

Job Offer...

Emily and I have accepted a job offer to pastor a church. Hurray!!! We will be going sometime in the next couple of weeks to preach and allow the church to vote on us (that's how Baptist's do it). So you can be in prayer about that for us. I'll let you know when we're going....

Hurray for 5 Years

Today is our 5 year wedding anniversary. God has been good to us for the last five years. We celebrated our anniversary by going to the Smoky Mountains and doing some tubing down a river, spending some time at Cades Cove, and relaxing a few other places.

Genesis 1 and Creation Timeline

I've been studying Genesis lately in my time off. As I was studying Genesis 1 a few thoughts occurred to me.

1. The reason Genesis 1 was written is explained in verse 1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." This is the summary statement for the whole chapter. Genesis 1 serves as a record of God's creative activity, and displays that our God is creative. But more than this verse 1 makes a clear statement of fact that God is the one who brought our world into existence, not any other power or force.

2. Genesis 1 does not exist to serve as a timetable so we can figure out the amount of time God used to create the world. First, Biblical Hebrew was a pre-scientific language. The Hebrew language was a very artistic and picturesque language. So, rather than describe exactly and scientifically the amount of time it took God to do his work, the activity of God was described and summed up by days.

3. In biblical interpretation we must allow the author's original purpose of the text to come though in our interpretations. That means we don't force the text to mean something in today's highly scientific world that it didn't mean in Moses' pre-scientific world.

So, what was Moses' purpose? To make a very direct statement that God is the sovereign author of all creation. He is bigger than his creation. So as the Israelites sat poised to take the promised land after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, when they read the account of creation it would cause them to know that God is over all. Also, they would see that other nations were worshipping the mere things (sun, moon, stars, trees, rocks, etc.) that had been created by the God of Israel. Therefore, the gods of the other nations were powerless while the God of Israel was in full and sovereign control.

Does Genesis 1 describe 7 literal 24-hour-days? Maybe, but what does it matter because that was not Moses' purpose in writing Genesis 1. Unfortunately we major on this one point when we come to Gensis 1. Can you see the Israelites as they're about to move into the promised land arguing over whether Moses meant literal days or figurative days? Doubtful. They knew that their God had created the land and so he had the power to give it to them as he was doing.

Okay...so I suppose that will stir you all up and get some fun comments. Don't be too hard on me.

Yard Sale

To keep myself occupied over the past week I've helped Emily's parents clean out the house so they can have a yard sale....and boy have they done a major job. This is literally the biggest yard sale I've ever seen, not that I'm an experienced yard saler. Anyways, tomorrow's the big day, and whatever doesn't sale is going to the dump (that was my one stipulation for doing this thing...you can't bring the leftovers back in the house).

Pictures of Luke

Some of you have wanted to see some recent pictures of Luke. Since I can't update our website now, I'll put them on here. Enjoy...

Decision Making???

Do you think the Christian community is valuable in decision making and discerning the will of God? How much should we seek the advice of others? I'm reading a pretty good book about God's will called The Mystery of God's Will.

Our Florida trip was really good. Nice break.

Sunny Florida

The sunshine state is really nice...except for the hurricane coming our way that blocks out all the sunshine. Going to the Kennedy Space Center today...

Tennessee Weather...

Hey folks. I can't say the least bit that I've missed the hot Texas weather. Here in Tennessee the mornings are cool and the afternoons just about perfect. Emily and I have slept with the windows open for the past two nights. Can't say we did that very often in downtown Dallas. Okay enough ragging on the hot Texas weather, where it cools to a lovely 95 degrees at night...

We've had a good first week in Tennessee. We pulled in last Tuesday and unloaded our truck into a storage unit. The two churches we preached for were both very kind and we had good conversations with both pastoral search teams. Now we have to wait as the churches consider some other people also. We need your prayers here b/c one of the churches was very interested in us, but they are a very elderly congregation (only about 5 people under 60 yrs old). This would be a major challenge, and so we need lots of discernment about this one.

On Saturday, Em and I are headed to Florida for a week for a much needed vacation. I'll let all you Texans know how the weather is down there also.

Peace

Preachin' Man

In the first week that we're back I'll be preaching at two churches who are considering us to be their pastor. You all can be praying for Emily and I to know if one of these churches is the place where God is leading us. This will probably be the last post for a while with our move coming on Monday, and visiting churches after we get back. See you later world...

I'm Feeling Boxed in...

Monday 29th is our move out date, and the boxes have replaced all the pictures on our walls.  We're now about 4 boxes high around the walls of the living room.

Follow Greg's Treatments

I've got a link on the right sidebar to Greg Fay's blog. His family set up this blog for family and friends to keep track of Greg's progress in treating his cancer. I'm the same age as Greg's son, Ian. We grew up together in the same church.

New Photos Up...

I loaded up some new photos to our website last night. Click here to see them. Happy viewing.

A Meditation on Faith...

I read Hebrews 11 in my devo this morning. Verse 1 says, "Faith is the reality of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen." Have you ever stopped to think about how faith could possibly be the reality or the proof of future things???

We don't understand so that we may believe. We believe so that we may understand. The Christian life is faith seeking understanding. As you read Hebrews 11 you find in verse 39 "All these (the people written about in ch. 11) were approved through their faith, but they did not receive what was promised..." The great giants of our religion had only their faith in this lifetime (how's that for you prosperity gospel people???). Their faith was reality and it became their eternal hope upon death.

Chapter 12 tells us that these great giants of faith are now a great cloud of witnesses around us as we make our trek through the world. Will you make your trek by faith???

I haven't dissapeared

Well, it's been a while since I've written. A lot has happened. Both my parents and Emily's parents came down to visit for graduation. I am now master of the theological universe (my degree says something like that). Our church also ordained me as a minister in the Southern Baptist denomination. I have not found the church that Emily and I will be ministering at yet. God will bring it about in his timing.

Close vote...

The church voted in the service this past weekend as to whether or not I should be ordained to the ministry. I had 50.3% of the popular vote but in the electoral college I fell short by a few votes...but they're going to ordain me anyways because I filed a lawsuit to have the hanging chads recounted and it ends up that I got 100% of the vote...close call.

Ordination is on May 13th. Same day as graduation. Same day as Luke's dedication. Geez...who's planning these events???

It is finished

All my classwork is turned in as of today. I can hear the applause. If I passed everything this semester then I'll graduate on May 13. (I hope that's a small if). Later...

Check out this setup...

I found this article on Apple's website. The group of scientists has 50 of the 30" cinema display monitors linked together for a total resolution of around 200 megapixels!!! Anybody want to donate to the Bass fund so I can get this setup in my house? Wait...I don't have a wall big enough. Nevermind.

Research Paper and Easter Pictures

I just posted my senior research paper to our website. You can download it from this page. It's the first paper in the list. If you're actually crazy enough to read it (25 pages) then leave me a note as to what you think. The topic is on divorce and remarriage in the church, and I argue for a certain position.

Elsewhere in the world today...I uploaded some of our Easter pictures.

Jack Needs My Help...

The last several episodes of 24 have been great...except for one little detail that I've thought of. How come Jack never pulled out his fancy little

"I-can-do-everything-including-blow-up-terrorist's-bomb-jackets
-and-program-memory-chips-to-spontaneously-combust"

cell phone in order to make a backup copy of the crazy recording between Logan and Henderson? If he had done that then the problem would have been solved, but I guess that's why he didn't do that b/c then the problem would have been solved...and by the way this is a TV show where they hook you so you come back and watch next week. (Good thing their tactics don't work on me).

New Pics Are Up

I tossed up some new pics on our website yesterday.  Click the link on the right side bar to go to our webpage.

Don't Click It...

I found this really cool website that is experimenting with a new User Interface that does not require mouse clicking. If you go to the site give yourself a few minutes to navigate and figure things out.

To visit the "Don't Click It" website, click here (how ironic is that?!?!?).

One Month to Go

Today is April 13th. I graduate on May 13th...but who's counting?

I have one question. All of these people who have taught me over the past several years are called Dr. This and Dr. That (real names withheld to protect the innocent...) because they have earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree. When I graduate next month, I'll have the degree Master of Theology. So here's my one question...since we are calling people by their degree title, will anybody be calling me "Master Bass"? I doubt that will be happening.

Although I'll have the degree Master of Theology, that's not a good description of who I am. As one of my profs told me recently, "When they declare you a Master of Theology...don't you believe it." Seminary has been a great road, and I've learned so much, but it's only the beginning of a journey..................

My Ebay Experience

Emily and I have been on ebay for a year or so now. We don't buy very much and it's always been a really smooth experience so far...until last week.

Emily bought a CD to give to a friend as a b-day gift. We won it for $5 + shipping. Came up to about half price of what we'd pay for it in the store. The CD was described as brand new and sealed in the wrapper...when it came a few days later it was not sealed, the case was scratched and had a hole in it. That would have gone over well as a b-day present.

So, I emailed the seller and he refunded all of our money. We got the CD for free to keep for ourselves, but still don't have the b-day gift.

I still like ebay b/c you can get some fantastic deals.

I'm Gettin' Old...

Today is my 28th birthday...quickly approaching 30...yikes. I'm watching the last round of the Masters tourney and Emily is cooking a big birthday dinner right now for us and some friends. Exciting, eh?

Oak Leaf Church

Many of you have asked about the new church plant in Georgia that we visited in light of possibly joining the staff team. Our visit was good, but Emily and I decided not to go there b/c they've already got the ball rolling and are doing a good job with the 3 guys already committed to the staff.

Here's the website for Oak Leaf Church.
Here's the lead pastor's blog.

Last Sermon in Seminary

My last sermon I'll preach in seminary classes will be on Malachi 2:17-3:5. I had to pick an OT passage with some amount of prediction in it. We go over our outlines tomorrow. I think this will be a good sermon to preach. Malachi is a really great book to read (and it's short).

Hangin' at Las Colinas...

Yesterday I got to go help run the AV at one of the seminary's big fund raisers. It was at the Las Colinas club and resort in Irving (near Dallas). The Las Colinas golf course is a stop on the PGA tour every year where the Byron Nelson Championship is played. This year's event will be played on my graduation weekend.

Can I say...it was crazy nice. Although I didn't get to play golf (that costs major $$$ at a donor event) I did sit and watch guys hit into the 18th green. The course was perfectly manicured. Inside the resort there were people everywhere who would serve you. I went into the internet business room to check my email and a tuxedo clad guy comes up to me and asks what he can do for me drink or food wise. At lunch I sat down after getting my food and the waiter immediately comes to pour my tea, and then he takes my cloth napkin and drapes it across my lap...that has NEVER happened to me before. Those type of things always freak me out because I wonder what they are doing.

Well...it was a fun day, and it makes me want to play a little golf myself. Alas...I shall wait until seminary is finished for those excursions.

A Fun Weekend...

The 3 of us had a really fun weekend. We went to Cici's pizza buffet on Friday night (I ate about 3 pounds of pizza). On Saturday Luke had his first swimming class, then we went to the park in the afternoon, and a Texas Rangers baseball game in the evening. Finally, Sunday we did some serious cleaning and throwing out around the house. If you'd like to see some pics from Luke's swim class and from the park, click here to go to our photo page. Later...