Archive for December, 2008

At the outset of this, I need to say that if you have voiced any sort of prayer on our behalf during Carolyn’s health trials, we are deeply grateful. I’d also like to request your continued intercession. It is only through the strength of prayers that we’ve been upheld and sustained in recent weeks.

However, we want to celebrate with you some significant news that Carolyn received from the doctor’s office on Christmas Eve. The needle biopsies that were taken on Monday all came back negative! There was no sign of lymphoma or Hodgkins. We were relieved and astonished. 

This entire ordeal that began in early November has been based on some assumptions that the activity the PET scan showed would most likely come back positive. Of course, we didn’t anticipate encountering breast cancer, but we also didn’t expect to be receiving good news at this stage.

Carolyn’s doc still may suggest surgery to remove one of the nodes in her groin area to be 100% confident with the needle biopsies. However, at this point, we are counting this as Christ’s gracious work through His people. 

We ask that you continue to pray. Her next surgery to remove more tissue in the breast is January 2. 

We are supremely grateful for how Christ has revealed Himself through our intercessors.

After a chaotic day of kitten hunting, cell phone struggling, drum playing, Mario Kart driving and entertainment system deconstructing, we’re pooped. The picture below describes it well. I thought I’d post our Christmas letter for this year as an easy blog entry…

Truly, best wishes for a wonderful, merry Christmas! May the joy of knowing Christ as the Savior of all humanity revive your heart and devotion.

Dear Family and Friends,

“Glory to God in the heavenly heights,
  Peace to all men and women on earth who please him.” Luke 2.14 (The Message)

Can one moment define a whole year? Or better asked, can a series of small moments obscure sight of the broader horizon? Only if you let them.

Such is our perspective this December as we try to communicate with you all the myriad wonderful, surreal, laughter-wrenching, tear-drenching moments of this year. 2008 has been such a wonderful journey for us; however our reflections are tainted right now by the circumstances we’re currently facing. May this exercise of looking back in review serve to encourage us all as we see the forest instead of the trees.

2008 included amazing new developments in our kids’ lives. Adelyn loves fourth grade and having the elementary school to herself now that Sam has moved up to the middle school. She made the All Star team in softball her first year. She also continued her swim team career, accumulating quite a collection of blue ribbons. She danced in December in Ballet Arkansas’ performance of the Nutcracker for her second year. Her music career continues in dramatic fashion behind the doors of her room and in the shower – usually at the top of her lungs. She’s been devastated twice this year with animal losses. We gave Fancy the chihuahua away after it bit another child; then our cat Smokey was run over one day while she was at school. Thankfully, some great friends who rescue dogs had the perfect dog for her and us – a beagle/lab mix that is loveably mellow, named Bailey. Adelyn was especially excited recently when Sam announced after the first middle school dance that he “has a girlfriend now.” She was dying to get all the details and help her brother out.

Sam played baseball again this year (when has he not?!) and then this fall returned to playing peewee football after a year hiatus. His team went undefeated. He and Jeff are playmates whether it’s outside throwing the football or inside on the Xbox. Jeff finally let him get his own Xbox Live membership in which he can play online against his friends. He participated in 4H shooting sports again this year and showed great improvement. He was especially glad to be able to use his own bow, which he got for Christmas last year. He has been deer hunting several times this fall with our friend Tim Chase, who we’re very thankful for. He also got to go hog hunting for the first time with our friend Ralph in Texas.

Jeff & Carolyn finally attended Passion again – a collegiate worship event – with the BCM at UAM. Carolyn loved it, though Jeff got sick and spent all day Saturday in his hotel room. Carolyn’s photo business has really become an extremely full-time job for her. In addition, she began working at a local gift shop this fall to make some extra money. She loves the folks up there and really enjoys being around people instead of behind a computer all the time. Over the summer she and the kids got to spend quite a bit of time in New Mexico and Texas in July and August. She has also enjoyed discipling one of the college gals at UAM who she’s become great friends with. She started a “cooking club” again so that she really only has to cook one night a week, while we enjoy home-cooked meals by someone else another two nights a week. Carolyn went in for a routine PET scan on November 3. The results were disconcerting. Three areas of activity were revealed. To make a long story short, we are currently facing known breast cancer and are still in the dark as to whether lymphoma is back.

Jeff was asked to be a judge at the district quiz bowl that was hosted here in Monticello. In April, he went to Orlando by himself to get away and attend the Exponential Conference for church planters. It was at a real low point after an extremely difficult 2007. Jeff was renewed and blessed but returned to face some hard decisions. One special event that happened this year occurred a few months after Jeff’s moped “Ghost” was stolen from our carport. The church, family and friends collaborated and raised enough money to buy him a new one; it’s black and was promptly named the “Batmoped.” Jeff and the BCM staff went to Glorieta together in August where he taught a seminar on Using the Internet for Influence. When school started, he agreed to serve as the “Top Dog” in the WATCH DOGS program at Adelyn’s school again. He was thrilled to travel to Poland on a church planters’ Discovery Trip in October, and he has already begun making plans to lead another team back as he seeks to help mobilize people for ministry in Central & Eastern Europe. He attended the Arkansas Baptist State Convention in November, he said “for the first time voluntarily” and enjoyed getting to meet some new church planters as he helped organize a lunch with author and leader Ed Stetzer, whom he met on the Poland trip.

Journey Church has had a great year, though not without some growth issues. The last two years of our lives have been extremely difficult to walk regarding ministry and relationships. Without going into details that might be hurtful to others, suffice it to say that we’ve learned more about people in the past two years than in the many before that. Journey aligned itself with the Southern Baptist Convention in January, and in March, we got to attend a wonderful marriage retreat hosted by the State Convention for free. In addition, late this fall we began receiving some supplemental income support from the state convention and the North American Mission Board which has allowed Jeff to essentially “shut the doors” on Noble Design. He’s been yearning to focus for so long. Journey will be six years old in 2009. We’re so grateful to have witnessed so many people forsaking religion and embracing a love relationship with Jesus Christ. Jeff and others in our church were privileged to baptize seven just in the past few months.

It’s really amazing to consider what has happened this year. Our calendar has been extremely full, but it’s what has been going on in our hearts that has taken up more room. From the stress and strain of trying to lead a growing church to new health issues that hurt the heart more than they affect the chest, it’s only on paper and through dragging our eyes back across a full calendar that we can see broader brush strokes. Right now, however, we are caught up in this very hour of struggle.

We simply choose to lift our eyes above this present darkness. We have met and fallen in love with Jesus Christ, and it is His birth that always catalyzes our reaching out through cards and year-end letters to share life, joys, and struggles. It is He that we are clinging to, and it is because of our great certainty and hope that hardship with Him is better than treasure without that we can honestly, fully, and joyfully wish you a very Merry Christmas indeed.

With love,
Jeff, Carolyn, Sam, Adelyn

Several weeks ago on the way home from somewhere, I had a “vision.” Essentially it was of what might happen in everyone in our community were to jointly read through the New Testament in a year together. Considering that it describes the life of Jesus Christ and how a few boringly mundane men and women suddenly became fugitives from religious persecution in Israel by Jews and in short time enemies of the emperor in the Roman Empire, how could reading it not change someone’s life?

Our church gave New Testaments to moms and dads for Mother’s and Father’s Days which had a reading plan that took one through the NT in a year. So all this year, I’ve been reading bite-sized portions of the NT in addition to my other readings. It’s been so refreshing.

And that was the idea… what if a bunch of people were doing this? So Tracy, Jeremy and I went in together and bought 250 NTs to distribute. It was all we could afford. Today was the day, and while Tracy could not participate, Jeremy and I and my kids all headed out and met some incredible neighbors in the area around Journey.

Two hours beating the pavements and knocking on mobile home doors (predominant housing in the area just north of our church), and we’d not had one negative encounter. Rather, on the whole, everyone was very receptive. A few told us they had Bibles already but asked for the card we were handing out that had the reading plan on it. One lady even graciously gave us $5 (though we tried to turn it down). We’ll use this toward the purchase of more NTs.

We’re hoping that the idea catches among others in our church and even in other churches in our community. There’s nothing like going door to door (rather than doing a mass distribution at Wal-Mart – we considered that too). We think it communicates that we cared enough to come to their door. On top of that, we know exactly what parts of town we’ve already covered as we prepare to go out in the future.

Every street… every door… every word... That’s the vision of the New Testament Project.

We went yesterday for another consultation and were encouraged by the visit with the doctor. He assured us that a mastectomy was not urgent nor essential at this stage. So we will be opting for breast salvage, and a surgery is scheduled for January 2. 

The main issue at this point is discovering what we are dealing with regarding the cell activity the PET scan found in the groin area. We’re hoping to schedule a needle biopsy for next week, before Christmas. If we cannot get a discernible answer from the needle biopsy, she will have to have surgery to remove one of those nodes, which are deep, so it will require a significant surgery. We’re praying that the needle biopsy tells us what we need to know.

First of all, if you’re reading this and have never considered who Jesus Christ is, you may not grasp what you’re going to read here. It may seem strange or otherworldly. In fact, much of what you will read below is a testament and tribute to our very real experience of Jesus’ presence and peace. That may come off as strange, and well, whacked. However, I would encourage you to continue reading because in spite of our current bout with breast cancer (and possibly lymphoma on top of that), we are rediscovering that Jesus is the only Way, only Truth and only Life. A love relationship with Father God through Him has been more than an opiate for us. It has been our refuge. It has also launched us from turtle living to purposeful living.

So… if you are a skeptic or simply haven’t honestly considered Jesus’ words and identity as revealed in the New Testament… and you’re still reading… away we go:

We went for Carolyn’s consultation yesterday with the breast oncologist. It was a cold, dreary day, and before we had left, it began sleeting in West Little Rock. We were the only ones in the waiting room. The strange thing is that we spent more time talking about life callings, hopes, and ministry yesterday before the appointment than we did about cancer. It wasn’t simply denial. It was that the cancer was minimized compared to our other searchings.

Dr. Hagans then explained in depth to us all of our options. Because Carolyn received such high doses of radiation back in 1992 with her first bout with Hodgkin’s, we learned that radiation was not an option for her. It would be toxic to her system in the amount that she would have to receive for this treatment.

It was strange to hear him say that if she was a normal breast cancer patient with the tumor she had, that it would be a rather simple treatment of tumor removal and radiation treatment that would result in a cure in 95% of patients. However, Carolyn is not a normal cancer patient, this being the fourth time we’ve battled the disease and its effects.

So our options basically involve a mastectomy which he termed “breast removal” in case we didn’t get the gravity of the surgery. He also plans on taking some lymph nodes around the armpit to test them for incidence of breast cancer to determine if it has spread in the lymph system. Included options with the mastectomy are “reconstruction.” There are several options there, but essentially it means building a boob, to put it bluntly.

Our other option is “breast salvage.” It involves removing tissue around the area of the first tumor just to make sure that any invasive cancer ”shoots” from that tumor are removed as well. There would be a 40% of more tumors appearing in that breast, he said.

Of course, the reality is that since the breast cancer is radiation-induced from her treatments back in 1992, the other breast could just as easily produce tumors as well. We will need to be extremely vigilant for the rest of her life – and we have been anyway since she’s had Hodgkin’s three different times. She receives CT scans and PET scans regularly each year.

That’s the facts. That’s what we know. We ask for your continued intercession for wisdom and faith as we make treatment decisions from this point.

Even as we face these decisions, we sense that God is present and up to something so much more in our lives than just our bout with cancer. Carolyn’s fight with cancer, with my strong support, is not the only place “where we’re at.” It doesn’t consume us completely. Rather, “where we are” is in the loving hands of Jesus Christ. 

We’ve had so many phone calls, Facebook messages, emails, Tweets, texts, letters, and visits with the people of God – literally around the world – that we are at rest. Truthfully, I wish that you, the reader, could experience for one week the prayer focus, support, and love from the followers of Christ during their finest hours as we have. Yes, I know that there are more times when the church stumbles than when it shines. But right now, through His grace, His people are bearing us up.

Yes, this time is exceedingly hard and difficult. I understand when people remark, “I just don’t see how one family can bear all this.” We don’t either. But we are. And it’s not us. It’s Him. And His people. 

Yesterday as we drove home, avoiding several wrecks on I-630 as the sub-freezing temps coated bridges with cold treachery, we were listening to Christmas music via my DLO Transdock Micro, Casting Crowns song “Christmas Offering.” We sang our hearts out, together in worship. The chorus says…

We bring an offering of worship to our King
No one on earth deserves the praises that we sing.
Jesus, may You receive the honor that You’re due.
Oh Lord, I bring an offering to You.

And that’s where we are. Even if the only offering we have to bring is our tears right now, we will spill them before Him freely. We know He values those as precious as gold (which we don’t have to give).

You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? (Psalm 56.8, ESV) (All of Psalm 56 is precious to us right now.)

Where are you? If, as someone who has not fallen in love with this person we know as Jesus Christ, you wonder about why, how, and where we are, I’d love to hear from you. Perhaps I can introduce you to Him.

This is the final promotional and summary video from my recent trip to Poland:

Come, Join us in Europe from CEE Admin on Vimeo.

For more information, check out hope4cee.org.

Since beginning this new health journey several weeks ago, we’ve been in discovery and learning mode. All the PET scan told us back then was that there are three areas of activity in Carolyn’s body that may indicate cancer in some form. The first biopsy attempt was a failure on the part of the lab. 

Carolyn went in this Monday for surgery to remove one spot and possibly another for testing. It’s been a long, drawn-out experience so far of simply not knowing what we are dealing with.

Today, however, we received “the phone call” from the doctor stating that the node removed from her breast tested positive for radiation-induced cancer. We were told that the tissue they tested was 70% noninvasive but 30% invasive. The doctor said that he will need to study how much radiation Caro received way back when to determine if this breast cancer can even be treated with radiation. In fact, he said that we may be looking at a mastectomy as the main treatment.

Unfortunately, we were told that the testing of the other nodes was inconclusive, so we may be back to square one there and still will need to determine if there is any kind of lymphoma present. 

It has not been a fun day around the Noble House, as you can imagine. Yet… we are confident in God’s protection and peace. In fact, just yesterday I learned of a former campus minister friend who is battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma… again. He wrote something on his blog that echoes the very desires of our hearts as well and did so eloquently:

Ultimately, our hope does not exist in Chemo or gifted doctors. I am thankful that these exist but we do not find any rest in either. Rest is a by product (lifeline) of where our affection and faith are attached. My recent understanding is if rest is to be had, then it must be chosen as an act of trust. (Jeremiah 6:16, 2 Tim 1:12, Matt 11:28). Said another way, anxiety has a way of quieting in the face of the Almighty who is sustaining, holding and allowing all. So pray that I will choose REST in the midst of this and worship Him through it all.

There are still so many things that we don’t know. It’s early in all this, and recommendations from doctors change frequently. We also do not know why God has chosen us, once again, for such an experience. Yet what we do know is greater than what we don’t know. Of that, and in Him, we are confident.

There are so many questions we have for the doctors… and for the Lord. In rational and faith-filled moments, we choose hope, strength and trust. In emotional ones, we are crying out to God with why’s, complaints, and in helpless frustration. Please be praying that the former moments far exceed and outweigh the latter. 

In the middle of all the health stuff, life continues to happen on other fronts. It’s unkind in that way, really. It simply will not pause long enough for you to manage one crisis or stressor before handing you another. 

There’s an old adage that “God will not give us more than we can bear.” It sounds good, but like this blog entry points out, that principle is in relationship to temptation, not suffering or hardship. In truth, God frequently gives us more than we can bear. Now is such a time for us, it feels like.

However, He never gives us what we can’t bear without also providing Himself.

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” (2 Corinthians 1.8-9)

And so there is our hope… in God alone. As we walk this path (again) with imperfect knowledge of what awaits, we walk it with our Messiah. We know that if we walk with Him, we will become more like Him. We also know that you can help us in our walk. According the the next verses from the passage above:

“He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.” (1.10-11)

We covet your prayers during this time for our ability to set our hope on Him. Please pray for us all around. There are several areas of this “life stuff” that we are helpless to do without His work at this time. As always, we thank you for your gracious and tender mercy toward us through your prayers and help.

Nowadays, many companies are discovering the immense application of using Twitter for direct and viral marketing. Most churches have not. Perhaps because their members still live in a 1.0 world. Heck, there are churches I know that still don’t have websites – or keep their existing one up. They’ve essentially stuck a color billboard out there on the internet announcing their existence, but that’s it.

I want to thank AJ Huffman for pointing me a new site that has incredible content about Twitter, consistently. It’s rare that I read posts in their entirety on any site. However, Twitip.com is setting the pace for the world of microblogging, specifically Twitter.

Other microblogging sites just can’t keep up with Twitter. In spite of all its downtime and fail whales, Twitter continues to grow and set the standard. It’s done so by refusing to get complicated. Where Pownce allowed users to send files and photos back and forth in addition to status updates, it has now announced it’s shutting down. 

With Twitter, you can only send 140 characters of text. No more or it cuts off your content. That’s it. No images, no files, nothing fancy. It’s even succeeded forcing the user to learn a little code for messaging. 

In a recent post, Twitip summarized the four basic ways of communicating on Twitter:

1. For general posts, simply either log in and type your Tweet in the message box on the Twitter website, or use the message box in your desktop app (140 characters is the maximum length of message).

2. To reply to someone, use the ‘@’ symbol, then their Twitter username, e.g.

eg: @ramskill your message, whatever it may be

Bear in mind that this reply can be seen publically, by your followers and the followers of who you are replying to.

3. To ‘Retweet’ / repost a Tweet from someone else, use ‘RT’, a space, the ‘@’ symbol, then their Twitter username, e.g.

eg: RT @ramskill your message, whatever it may be

4. To send a private direct message to someone, use ‘D’, a space, then their Twitter username, e.g.

eg: D ramskill your message, whatever it may be

For the purpose of instant communication with family, friends, organizations or consumers, you need to consider Twitter. Finally, here’s a great short video explaining the concept behind Twitter (also linked in the above Twitip entry.)

Carolyn had her surgery this morning at 6:00. The doctors removed two nodes, one from her breast and another from her groin. Initially, they told us that they would test one before removing the other. Today, however, they said they were going to remove nodes from both spots and do a thorough biopsy on each.

So… Carolyn is sleeping as I type (we just arrived back home), and that sounds good to me too! Whew, after her whirlwind of a Nutcracker photography experience (five straight days) and then surgery, I think I’m going to let her slide for supper tonight…. but not for dessert…. ;) JUST KIDDING.

We won’t hear back on the biopsies until later this week, so I’ll keep you posted here. Many thanks for the emails, Facebook messages, tweets, and calls!

So far this week, I’ve had the joy and privilege of participating in two worship services that were not at Journey but were highly significant. Briefly…

Sunday morning, our church was invited by Revival Center Church to worship with them. RCC is a predominately African-American church led by a good minister friend of mine, Michael Jones. Michael and I have met and have prayed a few times now for the Lord to grant us favor and wisdom as we consider what a multiethnic ministry might look like here in our Delta region town.

I invited Mark DeYmaz and Stephen Weathers, pastors of Mosaic Church in Little Rock down a few months ago to help us being that dialogue. Mosaic’s church DNA is wrapped around the concept of every people, every tribe. Their vision is a multisite, multiethnic church.

At RCC Sunday, I was blessed to be able to preach to both our congregations about “Thankful for Joy.” You can listen to the podcast here. However, greater than the message proclaimed was the message of the Gospel in the pews. We loved meeting with them and worshiping our Savior together. We’re looking ahead already to the next time.

The second worship opportunity was last night at the Baptist Collegiate Ministry at UAM. I served there from 1995-2003 as the director before resigning to start Journey. Last night was the final worship service of the semester. They call it “Refuge” these days. (We called it FIRE back in the day). What was significant is that it wasn’t just the last Refuge of the semester. It was the last Refuge in that building forever.

The BCM will be moving into a brand new facility built by love, faith, and vision in January. They will move in debt free after at least 10 years of prayer and fund-raising. Their current facility was built by Southern Baptist Churches back in 1954. In fact, the BSU (as it was known then) at UAM was founded in 1932.

It was deeply surreal for me to be able to stand in the back, listening to current director Tracy Reed teach and participate in the student-led worship time. I loved every minute of it and thanked the Lord for the generations of students that have been touched for eternity through God’s people ministering in that location.

As I reflect on both opportunities for worship, I’m confident of one thing in relation to each… it is not an isolated worship service that marks a ministry. It’s the overall direction of that ministry in relation to the teachings of Jesus Christ. In both cases I would say that the path ahead is bright indeed!

In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars

 
Mark Batterson is the founding pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C. Carolyn and I missed the opportunity to attend when we were there two years ago. It’s a unique church that has one of D.C.’s best coffee houses as its primary outreach ministry – called Ebenezers. NCC has chosen strategically to use movie theaters along the metro line as their worship locations.

In a Pit is a fantastic, easy-to-read book that is harder-to-digest. It’s difficult dining simply because Batterson packs so much challenge and encouragement into such a small book. You won’t put it down scratching your head, but you may put it down holding your heart.

He uses the little-known Old Testament passage about one of King David’s mighty men, Benaiah, in 2 Samuel 23. Batterson builds a bridge from Christian inactivity to faithful adventure. As you read, you’ll be inspired and encouraged to quit sitting on the bench and get into the game of hope, faith, life, and joy. He calls you into adventure that is promised and compelled by Christ’s love.

An early chapter challenges our view of God. So many of us think God is just about the “big stuff,” and the “small stuff” is ours to deal with. However, as he deals with another passage about the loss of an axhead, Batterson says,

He cares about the little things like wedding receptions and borrowed ax heads. God is great not just because nothing is too big for Him. God is great because nothing is too small for Him either. 

How does one quit cowering in a corner and embrace risk? Batterson’s short book may not tell you exactly how, but it will lead you to the edge of your seat wondering whether perhaps the life you’re living is only a non-life and the greatest experiences are out there… on the end of the high dive.

He makes an excellent point talking about sin avoidance in our lives. Too many “Christians” try to avoid sinful things… yet they excuse themselves for all the things they never do which they should be embracing as followers of Christ.

The servant who buries his talent and breaks even is called “wicked.” Why? Because he wasn’t willing to take a calculated risk. Maybe risk taking is at the heart of righteousness. Maybe righteousness has less to do with not doing anything wrong and more to do with doing things right.

And I would add that perhaps righteousness is not just doing things right but doing the right things. Batterson urges us to become lion chasers just like Benaiah. To do so requires a radical trust in a God that will have you in His hands – whether you die or live.

The real issue is not in chasing the lion or even in killing it. The real issue is in facing the lion. Facing the lions of life is much like facing our fears. They will retain terrible control over what we attempt and what we avoid until we destroy their power over us through faith in His Greater Power.

I can’t think of a book that I would recommend more to someone who has a limited reading attention span. Tell me what you think of it after you climb out of the pit. And leave the lion behind.