Notes from the Trail

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I don’t know how I got out of it, but Carolyn wrote the Christmas letter this year and did a great job! Make sure to tell her! (That way I can get out of more letters in the future.) It’s been a year of growth, learning and discovery. We’re grateful more than ever for friends, family, and most importantly, for the all-gracious presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. He has been our Rock this year in some difficult times.

We are hoping that you too, whoever you are and however you might have stumbled upon this little blog, will seek to discover for yourself the tender might of the God who announced good news of great hope for all people. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Jeff has been blessed by two great gifts (or toys) this year. A good friend gave him his white Honda moped. Everyone loves it! When you fill it up with gas each month for $2.91 you suddenly do not care what people are saying about you. “Ghost,” as he proudly calls it, has been a blessing.

His pride and joy gift from his dad was an Apple iPhone. Sam and Carolyn stood in line for 3 hours on the day it was released. He literally has not put it down since he received it. It has made him proud once again of Apple and all of it products.

Journey Church is still going strong. Jeff’s prayer this year was for Journey to see God work throughout the nations. Prayers have beeen answered. One of Journey’s families surrendered their life to missions and moved to Alaska to be bi-vocational missionaries. Journey has also partnered with a church in India where we have sent them letters, books and even a bicycle. We also have had mission teams travel to Denver to help in the Operation Christmas Child distribution center and to Memphis to help an inner city church with a live nativity.

Once again, God has proved himself faithful. We continue to follow.

Carolyn has enjoyed our travels this year. In February, we all played hooky and spent a week at Walt Disney World. We went the week of the Superbowl so Sam and Jeff got to see Tony Dungee and Dominique Rhodes. That made things smoother when Adelyn and Carolyn drug them to eat at Cinderella’s caste. The week really was ‘magical’.

Jeff and Carolyn also traveled to Washington DC with a group of Monticello leaders. We were honored to be in such company and loved seeing our nation’s finest. This summer Carolyn and a good friend met up at Schlitterbahn in San Antonio, TX. The two crazy friends and SIX children enjoyed every soaked minute of the world’s largest waterpark, and no one drowned or got lost. It was a miracle considering the amount of water and people there! In October, she and a group of ladies from Journey
walked in Race for the Cure in LR. The quantity of people alone was incredible, even so, the quantity of money raised for breast cancer.

Carolyn continues to take photos. She did not get an iPhone this year, but opted for a new camera lens she found more practical!

Sam is ten years old and has had quite a year. In January, he joined the Drew Co. 4-H Shooting Sports Club. He practiced shooting archery, shotgun, 22 &
Muzzleloader twice a month which prepared him for two state competitions that he attended in June and July. Being part of such a great group prepared him for Arkansas Youth Hunt in November. Sam killed his first deer. It was a doe. Although, he didn’t have antlers to show for his hunt he had an incredible experience. He not only killed a deer, he helped skin and clean it, he packaged the meat and we all enjoyed the yummy deer steak dinner he prepared.

Sam is in the 5th grade and on the honor roll. He still enjoys playing baseball and came close several times this season hitting the ball over the fence. He has his own
fantasy football league. He and Jeff spend Sunday afternoons watching football and keeping up with their players’ stats. He is growing into a young man, and we
are very proud of him.

Adelyn is eight years old, and her signature this year is Converse tennis shoes. She is quite the free spirit and we never know how she will be dressed each morning for school. Her claim to fame this year is her role as a little angel in the Arkansas Ballet and Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s Nutcracker. On a whim in August, she tried out for a part and made it. That experience alone was a great but the whole production is something we all will cherish, even though her time on stage was
only one minute long. Many family and friends were there to see her and she hopes to try out again next year.

She also swam for the Monticello Swim Team this summer where she was awarded, for the second year, “Most Points Swimmer” for her age division. She loves her weekly dance class where she learns tap, jazz and ballet. She has a new love for the piano. Her teacher has started teaching her chords and how to sing along with the music. She is a great student in all areas and we love to watch her grow.

I’ve been playing fantasy football since 1992. I’m still in that same league with some friends from Ouachita and a few others who have joined in the past 15 years. About nine years ago, I created another league that has guys who were mainly from Monticello, but it too has grown and expanded to include others. Finally, there’s a kids’ league that was created last year, mainly for Sam and some of his friends, and this year, it is just our family and another family, with a total of six teams (1 team for me and another for the other parents and the other four teams for kids).

Long story short… I’m in the Superbowl in the Kids Rock League and in 15 year-old Stink Baby League tomorrow! Also tomorrow, I’m playing for the division championship and the right to represent my division in the Superbowl in the mainly local Weevil League. So three championship games in one Sunday!

Already, the fantasy football gods have sought to smite me. Pittsburgh Steeler running back (and NFL rushing leader at the time) Willie Parker broke his ankle in Thursday night’s game. I owned and started him in two different leagues.

My son Sam and I are both addicted to fantasy football and usually devote our Sunday afternoons during football season to watching the games and keeping track of our stats and scores. (That is, unless I fall asleep on the God Couch).

Most of you won’t be able to appreciate this, but during the last game of the regular season, one of my team’s scored a league record 309 points. As far as I know that would beat any record in any of the three leagues I’m in.

So for all you fantasy coaches out there who are still in your league’s playoffs, good luck! Here’s hoping that this is my year… in more than one league!

You better watch out.

You better not cry…

Or should you?

I was spending some time in scripture reading and prayer the other morning when I happened to glance over at the end table where my coffee mug rested. My eyes were somehow drawn to the ceramic Santa perched proudly thereupon. When what to my wandering eyes should appear but two tiny children dangling helplessly from his clenched fist…

Aaaaaah!

Now that’s just downright spooky.

I haven’t said a word about it to my wifey yet. It’s probably some family heirloom that has never been at eye level. Now that it is, it’s sure to scar any impressionable mind. What the heck is he doing here? Carting off bad children to work in his sweat workshop?

Now I can’t sit in that chair without wondering about the sadistic Santa.

After a couple of months of weekend practices and much fru-fru buildup around the house, our daughter (8) performed in The Nutcracker at Robinson Auditorium in Little Rock yesterday. She was cast as one of the little angels (and it was such perfect typecasting…). Almost 30 folks from Monticello made the trip to Little Rock to watch the performance as well as my family and Carolyn’s mom and sister, from Hobbs, New Mexico and El Paso, Texas.

With all the hoopla going on, Sam and I were ultra concerned about missing the games. This weekend was the first week of our fantasy football playoffs. Sam and I were slated to play each other, and the winner moves on while the loser, well, loses.

So slow moments (and there were many) found Sam and me sneaking peaks at my iPhone to see who was winning. My brother-in-law James helped out as well with his Blackberry, especially during intermission.

Probably one of the funniest moments came on the way to Little Rock, when Sam asked Carolyn, “Mamma, will there be a concession stand there?”

Adelyn did great, by the way. She looked beautiful and was quite the budding ballerina.

All the guys who made the trip were ultra disturbed by the male ballerinas’ leotard bulge.

Oh, and as of Sunday night, I was 15 points up on Sam, but he has a quarterback left to play in tonight’s MNF showdown.

There’s a favorite expression making its rounds in the church today. It is a resurrection of St. Francis of Assisi’s quote (Founder of the Franciscan order, 1181-1226), which goes like this:

Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.

The reason it’s soared in popularity and practice is because many Christians would rather simply be “nice” and “do good” while remaining silent about why they’re being nice and doing good. It is a good, moral life lived well among neighbors, coworkers and family, but it is a life absent of the proclamation of faith and God’s glory as revealed in Jesus Christ.

Scott McKnight, in his commentary on 1 Peter says, “We have been easily led astray into following socially significant ministries rather than following the path of salvation as the road Christians should travel.”

In other words, it’s the age-old tension between balancing social ministry and preaching the gospel. In our country, conservative Evangelicals have tended to do well on the latter and poor on the former, while it’s the opposite for liberal Protestantism.

Many churches, including mine, emphasize the importance of serving others as an outlet and proof of our faith. After all, if Jesus washed His own disciples feet, then ought we not to serve one another? However, when serving others becomes an end rather than the means of gospel proclamation, disciples of Christ have gotten off track. The foot washing incident and other instances of Jesus’ physical ministry (healing, raising from the dead, feeding multitudes, etc.) all came in the overall context of His goal in ministry: to seek and save the lost.

Scripture reveals that signs, wonders, miracles, even when done by the apostles after Jesus’ ascension were done as proof of the Gospel message. They were never performed simply to relieve an isolated need. They were done with the Gospel in mind, with a view toward all the earth knowing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that only through faith in Him can one have ultimate salvation in God.

McKnight says, “The history of the church proves dramatically that when Christians get out of balance here, it is always the message of salvation that gets lost.”

It’s not that churches ought to do less social work or service (some are doing none). Rather, it’s that we do serve wholeheartedly, without losing sight of the very reason we serve. It’s to communicate the glorious, liberating truth of salvation in Christ alone. Service without proclamation of Jesus’ love does indeed meet needs, but a filled stomach without hope is a tragic paradox.

Perhaps one of the best books to urge a balance between service and proclamation is Lifestyle Evangelism by Joe Aldrich.  At the heart of it all though, seems to be an unfortunate reality… if someone has to tell you to tell others about the joy and hope of your salvation, then most likely you’re not currently living in it.

Maybe the most important thing is to continue to be burdened by the real needs of those around you. Continue to mobilize yourself, others and resources to meet those needs. And continue to dedicate yourself to communicating the life-transforming content of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Elton had a post the other day looking at Romans 10.17:

So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. 

Essentially, one cannot have faith in what one never hears about. Preach the Gospel at all times using words. Period.