What is Our Reliance Costing Us?

Yesterday, the Supreme Court had a major ruling on how the Government can or cannot tax you regarding having health insurance.  If you havent' heard anything about it, just got to any news website and check it out.  This blog isn't about that specific case but about how we as Christians have fallen into a trap that started a long time ago.

The American Dream

Is the American Dream a part of God's plan?


This thought started with a conversation on Facebook about telling our kids that 'they can do anything they want as long as they put their mind to it'.  The conversation bounced from it is healthy to inspire our kids to we shouldn't be making our kids to expect they cannot do things that they just cannot do.  I began to wonder about this because for me personally, I have tried to keep my kids grounded in the belief of what they couldn't do while encouraging them to strive to be more than what they are currently doing.  I want my kids to be great but I don't want them crushed when they aren't nor do I want them to expect that everyone who just thinks they can be great, will be.

What is Going On - Part 3

We have had a rough 7 months and we still aren't sure where we are going.  I landed a part-time position at Epworth UMC as their Director of Family Ministries.  I am working under a great pastor named Bill who, funny enough, isn't Methodist but is leading a Methodist Church (that is a post for another day).  He has great knowledge of the church and is my mentor in the UMC Licensing process.  He has a heart for reaching the lost and doing justice.  He has brought this church through some major tough times.  I am glad to be working with and learning from him.

What Is Going On - Part 2

Yesterday, I brought everyone up to date on what has been going on with us over the last 18 months.  It has been a roller coaster ride of life.  In those 18 months, we had resigned from two positions and moved to a new city.  Our life was a mess and there didn't seem to be anything in site.


After we left Newburgh UMC, we had no idea what God wanted from me.  I thought this would be the perfect church but now I wasn't sure.  We were financially strapped from just moving and my wife was only making $120 a week, not enough for us to live on.  I immediately began looking for local and regional positions.  I thought maybe a new job would come fast but it never did.  


I kept questioning God about why He was allowing this to happen.  I kept thinking of what I could have done better or what I did wrong to be tested in this way.  Didn't I follow where God had called me to?  Was I supposed to move to Newburgh or was there another church that God wanted me at?  How in the world would I pay our bills on what little was coming in?  What was God really wanting me to do?


In all these questions, I began to think harder about becoming an ordained pastor.  I had thought about the move from youth pastor to lead pastor before but didn't feel ready for it or that this was were God wanted me.  I still felt called to youth ministry, so making the move didn't seem to make sense.  The more doors closed on us moving to another ministry position, the more I realized that God was asking me to make the decision.  I wasn't looking forward to the long road ahead to become an ordained pastor.


The path would take years and will require me to go back to college and get a Master's of Divinity degree.  All I could think was ugh...  But God continued to push me in that direction, so I made the move.  I spoke with our district rep regarding the process and filled out the paper work.  I had officially entered the process and was ready for what needed to be done.  I hoped this move would lead me to a new ministry position, and it kind of did...

What's Being Going On - Part 1

I know, I know, it has been a long time since I have blogged on this site.  My life has been super crazy and I just haven't felt the need to write anything.  I have a ton of ideas saved up and I am hoping to take another crack at this blogging thing.

I wanted to use this first blog to catch people up on what has been going on in my life.  This will probably take a few blogs, so please be patient.  The focus of this blog will probably change also.  I will talk more about that later.


So what has been going on....

Over the last 18 months the life of our family has been a very crazy roller coaster.  In March of 2011 we resigned from our position from Platte Woods UMC after almost 5 years of ministry.  This is a decision that we felt God was asking us to make and after some needed push we did it.  In our arrogance, we thought finding another position would be simple, unfortunately it wasn't.  We looked for 7 months before we made the move to Newburgh and accepted a position at Newburgh UMC.  

We were super excited about this move because we believed the church and staff were a good fit for us.  We saw huge potential in the youth group and knew that this could be a long term position for us.  Unfortunately, after just 3 months we were asked to resign for what was told us as "chemistry" between the leaders and I.  I was floored.  I had no idea this was coming and never expected it from this church.  We knew that 3 months isn't long enough to get started much less make any significant progress but we accepted the reality of it and decided to move on.


So once again, less than a year later, we were on the look out for a new position.  Again we thought there would be a quick resolution and we had a few bites right off the bat, but nothing came of it.  We looked for youth ministry positions as well as secular work because we weren't sure that we wanted to move our kids after being here only 4 months.

We began to question God and how he could move us to a new location only to lose our job in 3 months.  We had no idea what the plan was or where we would end up.  The idea of moving again scared us because we had no financial means of doing it.  We had already uprooted our family once that year and didn't want to do it again.  We had no idea what God was wanting from us...