Terrorist Strikes Again

May 31, 2008

Winterville, NC

The turtle may have been released from the grip of it's "terrorist" tormentor, but don't think for a minute that the "terrorist" is resting.  No, the "terrorist" has redoubled her efforts and found a way to distract and draw attention away from more important things (like breakfast).  She's a sneaky little one too.  She was able to complete this mission only a few feet away from her completely oblivious brothers and sisters (who were watching cartoons rather than their sister).  While nobody was looking she opened up a supply line of mascara and put it to good use before knocking out communication when she presented herself to a speechless high-level detachment (her parents).

Beware of this "terrorist" - we're tracking her and believe she'll be making her way west as the week wears on.

Turtle Update

The lost turtle has been found! And guess where? Hanging out with our Bibles and Bible study books. Apparently, in his short time living here so far, he's discovered that when you run to wherever Jesus is, the lost are found.

Color Explosion

Around here we jokingly refer to our youngest as "a terrorist."  There's pretty much nothing safe when she's around.  As I type, her brothers and sister are scouring the house searching for a little turtle that she's been accused of either losing or maybe even flushing!  Just a little while ago, I went out to the van and found this scene.  It was a color explosion!

Apparently when I got home yesterday and was unloading, she climbed in.  I knew this.  But she must have found the box of Nerds (obviously), dumped and ate some, and then climbed back into the back seat where I found her and brought her inside when I finished unloading.  The "terrorist" strikes again.

Oh well, that was a whole lot easier to clean up than the liter-sized cup of Dr. Pepper that fell out of the refrigerator and sprayed ALL OVER EVERYTHING this morning.  But at least the fridge, floor, cabinets and Lora are super-duper clean now!

Going National

In just over a week, Discovery Church will join with over 1,200 other churches and over 750,000 other people for four weeks to focus on answering the question.....What would you pray if God would answer One Prayer for the church at large?

We'll be testing some new waters with this one as three out of our four messages will be given by guest speakers - great guest speakers - from around the country. And they'll be doing it via video! My One Prayer is that God would make us Committed. You'll want to be a part of this.

Feelin Pretty Good

I'm a chronic procrastinator by nature, but it's something I'm aware of and working on. Sometimes I'm on the ball like I should be and other times...well, let's just say I don't even know where the ball is. But this week has been pretty good to me. I was pretty well finished with my message for the weekend before Tuesday was over and I'm pretty well done with next week's as well. Excited and already working on the next few series and I'm finally - after 2 years - feeling like I'm getting a little bit ahead of the game.

Add to that the fact that I haven't caught what's been going around my house this past week and I'm feelin pretty good.

Sick Update

5 down and only two to go. Tyler and I are the only ones who haven't been attacked by the evil puke bug. Sarah was doing so well, but succumbed to it yesterday. The amazing thing is that it's just of the 24 hour variety, but man those 24 hours are NASTY.

I told the kids at dinner last night that they better wash their hands, be careful what cup they drink from and stop sharing tooth brushes (ok, they don't do that anyway) - because we're still going on vacation. If we're sick, we bring bags and buckets and puke in the car, but we're going.

Hope I don't have to eat those words. Ah, even if I did, I guess I'd be in a state where I couldn't keep them down anyway.

Looking Ahead

To say it was an odd weekend would be a bit of an understatement.  Already filled you all in on the sickness that swept through on our trip to DC.  It apparently followed us home as Saturday night, Lora got sick-sick.  But since she was scheduled to speak with me in our Living Room series, she sucked it up and headed to church.  She tells me she almost barfed three times before the service and was struggling with whether or not to even go through with this, but God was good and Tyler, Tanner and Lora shared the stage and some insights into our family and communication with those that were there.  I think they did great.  Loved Tanner's line about "spankings a-plentiful."

Did some work on Memorial Day since Claude and Sheila headed out for the rest of the week this morning, and then spent the late afternoon and evening with some friends grilling and playing games.  Good times.

After meeting, I've got to say that I'm really looking forward to a few things.

• My week long vacation starting on Sunday after service
  
• Our next few series on prayer for the church (OnePrayer), how to get something out of your Bible (Fool or Full), and how to create time for real rest (still working on a title)
  
• Father's Day
  
• Opening the swimming pool
  
• Doing some remodeling projects around the house
  
• Finishing the table I started building a year ago
  
• Loving Jesus more recklessly than ever
  

What are you looking forward to?

Whiteboard Sessions #2

Here's a few quotes from yesterday....

• everybody who walked in here today probably did so underestimating god by 13.2 billion light years
  
• every one of us was once a single cell - that's how dreams start
  
• we underestimate god by 13.2 billion light years...we need to confess our dreams are too small
  
• Will you do whatever it takes to seek and save God's lost children?
  
• We get the honor of being the answer to Jesus' prayer
  
• if we're not close to non-Christian people then we're not really as close to God as we think we are
  
• Man EXCHANGED the glory of God - we don't FALL into sin, we EXCHANGE what we worship
  
• You're ruled by what you worship
  
• Idolatry is the sin that leads to sin
  
• People today are Unaware, Unmoved and Unimpressed with our churches
  

Whiteboard Sessions pt 1

Plenty to share and enjoyed the speakers, but have been having a few "outside" issues like one kid throwing up in the middle of the night - on the white carpet of the house our hosts are leaving in a month.  Being late to the conference after not sleeping well for obvious reasons.  Being distracted while at the conference while discovering that the midnight puker has a 103 fever and another one is now throwing up at regular intervals.  Then my phone kept locking up when I was trying to answer it, close programs, dial or pretty much anything and customer NO service tells me they can't do anything but replace it again (already did that 2 or 3 times - it hasn't helped).  I'll share some of the wonderful quotes from that conversation later.

Right now, I'm going to eat.

To The Capital

In less than a couple hours Lora and I, Claude and Randy will load up and begin to make our way to the Washington DC area for the Whiteboard Sessions.  I'm looking forward to it.  I know Randy had to rearrange band practice and his wife is watching my two girls.  Claude will probably go through withdrawal from being away from Sheila for a couple days, but I'm pretty convinced without seeing a thing or hearing the first word, that this trip will be beneficial. 

I'll try and blog a little from up there but we'll see.  I may be busy consoling Claude and assuring him that he'll be home soon.

Planned Rebuttal

My guess is that sometime during out planning/brainstorming meeting today, Claude will release a timed-post that says something like "I'm being tortured" "call for help" "I tried to chew my arm off" stuff like that. Don't believe me? Read for yourself here, here, here and here. This post is only here to rebut those accusations and I'm timing it to post so I don't waste valuable meeting time.

It's Close To Summer

Haven't been posting much....don't really know why. I've got plenty to say, more than enough opinions, but just haven't been sitting in front of my computer long enough (or with time enough) to type some stuff out. Oh well, I guess it's good to be busy.

A few things. Really looking forward to heading to DC tomorrow for The Whiteboard Sessions. I think it's a great idea - more good speakers, in a shorter amount of time. Each speaker is limited to 30 minutes. Claude's skeptical, but I bet they pull it off. We're staying with some friends from Florida who live up there now. Nice of them to open their house to most of my family and a couple of staff people (but they know Claude and Randy too). Thanks Zerkles!

After that, I'll be looking forward to a week long break. Our whole family is hooking up in a million dollar mountain home with 3 other families that were accountability and support for us when we were in FL. Only one is still in FL, the others are coming from Texas and Tennessee. Oh, and us adults will be extremely outnumbered - 8 of us to 17 kids I think. (for those who may know, it's Ebelings, Gentzlers, Dawsons and Councils)

Then we'll be kicking off a new series along with about 800 other churches (at last count) called One Prayer. I'm excited about that. It'll be an experiment for us as I'll speak the first week but the next three we're bringing in 3 other top-level speakers via video. I love the idea of sharing resources though and I there's some stuff coming together that will help us make an impact here and internationally. Starts June 8th.

Family Fridays

Family Friday - a day to spend with the family just doing family stuff....since it's not the nicest day out, we might go to see Prince Caspian if we can find someone to hang out with Hannah. Even if we don't, we're headed to DC for a few days next week and the Whiteboard Sessions so that should be fun. Staying with some DC friends. I love knowing people in different places.

It's Already Thursday?

I'm gonna have to start doing some time-released posts if I'm ever going to be consistent in posting at least once a day during the week. I'll get right on that.

Found out that on Monday, Forrest Polluck, pastor at Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, FL had died in a plane crash with his son Preston. I came from Brandon, FL, met Forrest briefly a couple of times, and was reminded once again of the fact that there really are no guarantees. Gotta make the most of the time God gives you. Pray for his family (wife and 5 other children) and the church.

I might have discovered what part of my problem has been this week. Lately my kids have been setting out live traps and catching animals. First time they wanted to kill the poor little squirrel but I talked them into letting it go (told them they could spray paint it first to mark it). Of course that meant they had to paint the cat they caught in another trap later too - and I had no problem painting the feline trespasser. Well this morning they caught a raccoon. I went out into the woods to look (and set it free) and that's when I realized it. Just like the not-so-friendly raccoon, I feel trapped and now everybody is looking at me.
I'm caught in a rut, feeling like I'm just going through the motions somedays. Are we slipping into maintenance mode or are we still putting forth the same intensity to reach out to people who are far from God? Since we're actually already bigger than the average sized church, is that enough? We were asking these questions at staff meeting and that's what it feels like, but that's not how it's supposed to be. Jesus, open the cage and let me out!

At least Lora just got back from triple coupon shopping and saved about $160 on stuff we would have bought anyhow. $200 of groceries for less than $40 - I'm telling you I could get used to this.

Weekend Update

I'm about to head out for my GTO (God Time Only) but figured I'd post and share a brief weekend update.

Saturday had us split up - my parents headed back to MN/WI, Tyler and I went to a paintballing birthday party, and Lora and the rest headed out for our Mother's Day Second Saturday Service and helped deliver flowers to all the residents of about 5 nursing homes.  One lady called me this morning just to say thanks!  Tyler and I had a blast and the older folks loved Sarah and Hannah.

Sunday was frankly a little strange for me.  There were some good things....the band sounded awesome and had soundcheck wrapped up by 9:30.  We started a new series and I liked the look.  The new lights came in and got set up. But...

Attendance was way lower than I expected, the lights cause hum interference in the sound and are super, duper bright, most of my kids didn't treat mom like it was a very special day and save for one, didn't help to tear down anything.  The Mother's Day video never made it out of production and we forgot that we saved some flowers to give out so nobody got them.  And tear down was short a few folks.  Claude's mom came in for Mother's Day so he dipped, Randy and Laci had to drive to Tennessee for a family emergency so they dipped, and with fewer people, it just took longer.  Oh, and it was raining.  So when we got home, we fed the girls, put them to rest and I told the boys to fend for themselves, if they weren't going to honor their mother, I was.  So we left and I took her out for dinner myself.  Now I know why I miss and need date night back so bad.

Yep, everything was better when I got to spend some quality time with just my wife.  We even had our Outlet last night and after the video, we played Apples to Apples for at least an hour.  That's always fun with more people and with 12 it was a blast.

S3 and Paintball

Heading out this morning with Tyler to go to a father/son paintball birthday party while Lora and the rest of the kids are headed to church for our Second Saturday Service (S3) project. She'll be bringing 1,600 carnations with her and the people will bundle them in groups of three and then head out to all the local nursing homes - did it last year and it was great. I just think we need to work to honor those that are sometimes forgotten. So don't forget your mother.

What A Team!

Now that Randy is on board, we make one great team.  The funny thing is Marcus sent this to me before we ever hired Randy.  Gotta say, wherever he grabbed that photo of me, I look the best and have some pretty sweet moves too.

You Pay Me

I have got to say that I experienced something last night that I honestly haven't ever experienced before. Many of you know that I have what some would call a "large" family. There are 7 of us. And many have asked how in the world we can live - afford a house, food, clothes, etc - on a pastor's salary with 7 people? Good question. You have to be wise with your money and here's just one more way we try to do that....when you go grocery shopping tell them "you pay me"

See, we've got this great lady at Discovery who has been "couponing" for a while and taught a class to any interested ladies on how to get grocery items for pennies on the dollar or free. Of course Lora went, and has been at this for a month or so now. She took me with her yesterday and here's what went down.

We walked into Harris Teeter (local grocery chain), grabbed a hand basket and headed to the frozen section because Eggo waffles were on sale. No big deal yet right? We also have coupons - 9 of them. So we select 9 different boxes of Eggos and head to the checkout. The girl swipes the Eggos, then swipes the coupons and then, get this, tells us that we have $0.91 left to spend. So I grab a candy bar and she says there's $0.11 left. I said that's fine. She calls over a manager because she needs an override. He asks why and she says, "Because I owe them eleven cents." His eyes get wide, he swipes his little manager thingy and the register pops open. She takes out a dime and a penny, grabs the receipt and hands that, 9 boxes of Eggos and a candy bar over and says, "Now that we've paid you to shop here, have a nice night."

You bet I did. I could get used to this. Now of course you don't always get everything for free, but last night we did. And actually on the way back, we stopped at another grocery store (Food Lion) grabbed three dozen cookies because we had three coupons for a dozen free cookies, and got those too. Probably could have gotten 6 dozen since it was buy one, get one free, but we didn't want to be greedy. After all, we already had 9 boxes of Eggos and a candy bar!

Why Didn't I Know

Lately, I've been realizing it seems that I talk with too many people. Not that I don't like to talk with them, but the more I talk to the more I think I've told everyone what's going on. Unfortunately that's not the case. I'm learning (yeah, I'm a little slow) that when it comes to vision, direction, momentum and getting information into the hands of people YOU CAN NEVER OVER COMMUNICATE!

Guess what? I actually have heard that before....what's worse, I've probably actually even repeated that very same thing before. The issue is it's hard to put into practice. When you tell a story or share a vision a million times (especially if it's to a million different people) you feel like you have said it enough. But each of those people only heard it once. That means that they need to hear it 5-10 more times EACH before they actually even know what I'm talking about. Don't believe me? Just wait until Sept-Nov and though right now you might not know now what the political candidates think is important, by then you'll be so sick of hearing them, you'd be able to fill-in on the campaign trail for them. Why? Repetition.

Do you want to know why you might not know what's going on? Because we haven't told you enough - I haven't told you enough. I'm working on changing that. I guess that means, get ready to be sick of me.

Davey Update

As you know, Davey resigned as worship leader at Discovery in response to what he felt was God leading him that way. He didn't know what was next, just that he felt like he was supposed to resign. Well, "NEXT" just made itself known for sure. Davey and Janelle are officially going to be moving to Tampa, FL in July - free housing, free grad school, and a job. You can read it in Davey's words HERE.

What I think is the lesson in all of this for all of us is...whenever we believe we are hearing from God, it's best to follow Him and do whatever strange, amazing, exciting or scary thing He's asking us to do. Only after we agree to follow Him will He fill us in and what in the world is going on. Davey trusted first and now we know why and how it's all working out. That's why I believe if you can even get to 85% sure that God is behind it, that's as good as it's gonna get....God wants to see that we're serious before He burdens us with blessings we might not be able to handle because our hands are already full. Thanks for setting the example Davey.