Are you fully $TUFFED?

Wow! Today has been an incredibly fast moving day. I just feverishly returned from a staff outing to a local evangelism conference. I wanted to get back in time for tonight's "Well" meeting. God really spoke to me in some amazing ways. That's amazing in & of itself. Seeing as many of these conferences have turned out to be...let's just say...less than wonderful. As soon as I take some time to process it, I will post what I learned.

Here's a few clips from yesterdays final service in the $tuffed series. It has been pretty incredible to see how God has been moving through this series. Whoda thunk that talking about money wouldn't have to hurt. It was actually about much more than money. Check out the FBC clip in the sidebar to get the podcasts. 

The first audio clip is of our choir singing "Let Me Be A Sacrifice of Praise" written by Regi Stone & Jeff Ferguson. The soloist is Miss Sarah Curlin. The second clip is our very own Richard Rogers wrapping up his message... "There is more to this life than this life". The band finishes with Matt Redman's song "Now To Live The Life". Enjoy! I'll be back in a few days with conference thoughts.

Let Me Be a Sacrifice of Praise

There is more to this life than this life

Vertigo...great movie, not so great condition

For those of you that know me well, you know that I'm a big Hitchcock fan. I'm also a big Jimmy Stewart fan. My wife & I got engaged at an old art deco theatre called The Paramount Theatre in Abilene Texas. That's where we cut our teeth on old classic films. Do yourself a favor and get an old Hitchcock film. Saddle up on the couch with friends & a big bucket of popcorn

Vertigo is one of my favorite films of both Hitchcock & Stewart. However, for whatever reason, It's my pleasure to really experience vertigo today. I woke up today & the room was spinning. It really hasn't stopped much since I got up. Please keep me in your prayers. This is a crazy feeling.

So, who knows, maybe I'll go watch Vertigo in 3-D. Maybe those scenes will look even better now.

Weary, yet ALIVE

As I awaken this morning, I am still feeling the weight of an incredibly exhausting day yesterday. As the day progressed through the normal Sunday routine, more & more sad news began to come my way. A good friend had stumbled the night before and was now suffering the consequences. Another good friend lost a close loved one that, unfortunately did not know the Lord. I was really having to live in the words..."You give & take away, BLESSED BE YOUR NAME!". Please keep these two situations in your prayers. My weariness doesn't even begin to compare to what they are going through. As in Acts 2, we are called to be there for one another. No matter the cost! That's the extent of my exhaustion.

So, as I arrived at the office this morning, I was reminded of a favorite song of ours around here. Yes, a song. That is what I do ya know. I can't help it, my heart always gravitates towards the healing that can be brought through a song. Anyway, the song is a Tommy Walker favorite called "When I Don't Know What To Do". It was recorded at the Kaleo Fair last October with our very own Docta Leeds leading us. As I listen & weep, the words definitely ring true for me this morning. I pray that they will for you as well.

Remember...when we fall he will pick us up, and when we bow he will lift us up.

To Trust or Not To Trust...

...Apparently that is the question. Since posting the last two videos I've had more than a few people tell me that they were praying for me, or ask me what was wrong, or any number of other questions. Not knowing what the deal was, you can imagine I was a little concerned. As it seems, one of my statements during the prayer was taken a bit out of context. In case you missed it, here was the statement:

"Right now I'm just in that moment where I'm having trouble leaning completely & trusting".

As I often do in my corporate prayers, I was putting myself in the shoes of the many different people that come to worship with us. I always hope & pray that someone will hear my words & see them as their own. 

So, to put my dear loving friends at ease, I am not presently having trouble trusting in God. However, (you knew there was a "but" coming), I have been there & suspect will be again at some point. Today I have finished studying Leviticus & believe that God has been speaking one strong word to me throughout the study. That word is OBEDIENCE. There will come a time in all of our lives when our faith may waver a bit. It actually may waver a lot. But through it all, I've learned & am continuing to learn to, as the words of the great old hymn says..."TRUST & OBEY".

Are you the one that I was speaking for in my prayer? If so, know that we serve a GREAT God who will be right there waiting for you when you are ready to reach out fully to Him.

Blessing to you this day!  

Two $TUFFED Videos

Morning friends. Actually, it's now afternoon. Before stepping out to Monday morning staff meeting, I wanted to post a couple of video snippets from yesterday's service. As you can see, I didn't quite get it done before the meeting. Anyway, the first video is of a familiar song by Chris Tomlin called "Not To Us". I really felt like God wanted us to have all the kids come down front. There's a line in the song that says..."Your children dancing". In many ways, they should be teaching us. You know how it is. Us adults can get so wrapped up in the "how-to's" of life, that we forget when Christ said we must have a child-like faith.

TO HIM BE ALL THE GLORY

The second video starts towards the end of the message as our pastor walked us through a wonderful "hands on" lesson. I encourage you to take some time today & not just listen to it, but really let God speak to you through this act of surrender. As a responsive song, we sang Darrell Evans' classic song"You Are My Portion", with a tag of the great old hymn "Tis So Sweet To Trust in Jesus". 

WHAT STUFF IS KEEPING YOU FROM HIM? 

A few morning thoughts

Just a few thoughts from my study this morning. 

God decided to remind me first thing of who He is. Multiple times in my reading this morning, He declared..."I AM GOD, YOUR GOD". How many times do we live our lives as if that is not true. In fact, by my actions, I am often times saying...MARK is god. Just this last Monday, at The Well, we were discussing the act of refusing God's forgiveness. Basically what we came down to is that every selfish act on our part is essentially the refusal of His love & forgiveness. Have you ever thought of it that way? It was good for me to put it in those terms.

To add to the declaration of who He is, God said, "Live a holy life, because I am God, your God". Holiness...to be set apart. How are we set apart from the world? Keeping in mind that God has also called us to be in the world, not of it. I ran across a great article in a website called gotquestions.org. Here's a snippet from it:

"It's not a matter of should or should not be of the world. Believers in Jesus Christ are simply no longer of the world; in the world, but not of it (John 17:14-15). What believers *should* do is to be set apart from the world. This is the meaning of being holy and living a holy, righteous life--to be set apart. We are not to engage in the sinful activities the world promotes, nor are we to retain the insipid, corrupt mind that the world creates. Rather, we are to conform ourselves, and our minds, to that of Jesus Christ (Romans 12:1-2). This is a daily activity; a daily commitment. We can enjoy the things of the world, but we are not to immerse ourselves in the world. Pleasure is no longer our calling in life, but rather the worship of God."

I leave you with this one last thought. In my study this morning, I finished with God stating in His Word, "I am the God who makes you holy". Did you catch that. Let's read it again...

"I AM THE GOD WHO MAKES YOU HOLY".

We can't do it on our own! We must submit to His authority to do this thing called life.

Joy in the journey!

LOVE OF MY LIFE!

A picture speaks a thousand words. However, I don't say it enough.

I LOVE YOU HUNNY!

Thanks for loving me...

-as they say-

...warts & all.

Prayer for the new year

Here's a snippet from yesterday's services. It begins with a prayer from our pastor as we go into a favorite song of ours, "Bless The Lord". It was written by an old friend, Chad Jarnagin, from our days at The People's Church in Franklin Tennessee. This song has been an incredible blessing as we've grown into a body that is able to ackowledge His blessings & then turn that blessing around to bless the Lord. My only request is that you worship as you listen. You may even find yourself singing along.

Levitical Journey

Blessings to you this wonderful Sunday afternoon. Today we started our new series entitled:

The corporate worship was absolutely incredible. As always, I pray that our offering was acceptable to God. Speaking of that offering, God has really been speaking to me lately through, of all books, Leviticus. The Creative Arts teams have heard reference to this a couple of different times over the last few weeks. So, I thought I'd share those thoughts with you as well.

First of all, I realize that we are no longer living under Levitical law...THANK YOU JESUS! Literally, I give thanks to God for sending His son as the ultimate atoning sacrifice. However, I still believe that there is much to be learned in the study of the old testament sacrifices. They were so incredibly specific about the ways in which each sacrifice was made. Rightfully so considering the "instructions" came directly from God Himself! Can you imagine if God spoke to us regularly like He did Moses? The very thought sends a multitude of emotions through my tiny skull. WOW, what it must have been like. I digress.

Anyway, God has really been speaking to me lately about how incredibly messy the Levitical offerings were. To put it mildly, LOTS OF BLOOD & GUTS! Check out the link above to read it for yourself. I mean, there was blood everywhere. Shouldn't our offerings today be at least a little messy. Can you honestly say that your offerings to God have been in any way a sacrifice? Instead, are we offering up half-hearted laughable "trinkets", that more than likely don't make it past the ceiling! Whoops, sorry for meddling. 

But here's where God really put the whammy on me. On several occasions God instructs the priests to "scrub the entrails & legs clean". Why, in the midst of such slaughter, were they to scrub the sacrifice clean. Now I know that I'm making a bit of a generality here, but God really spoke to me through this. In the midst of the act of sacrificial offering, God wants to bring purity. Once again, do we really want the "stuff" of our lives to be made clean through our offering? Or would we really rather throw up our little trinkets & be done with it.

To wrap up this Levitical journey, I wanted to share with you the best (in my humble opinion) & most frequent phrase in Leviticus...

A PLEASING FRAGRANCE TO GOD. 

This simple yet profound phrase comes at the end of each sacrifice. Can you imagine the stench each sacrifice must have had?! Not to mention that multiple sacrifices were made at a time. To man...a foul smell. To God...a pleasing sacrifice. 

Pretty heavy stuff from a book that most simply skim through. As He is still speaking to me, I pray that all of our offerings will forever be changed. May we all soon be lifting up a "pleasing fragrance" to the heavens. 

On a different note, I told several of you that I would hopefully be posting a video of last week's choir piece "Miracle". Unfortunately, for some reason, my macbook won't read the DVD. It has a little scratch on it & my fine-tuned machine is a bit cranky that way. I will continue to post videos & audio as they become available. Hopefully, I will be posting some audio from this morning's service soon. We shall see after I edit the service tonight for our podcast. Speaking of the podcast, don't forget that you can always download each week's service from the FBC website. 

Until next time...

Audio Test using "The Lord's Prayer"

Can I get a big HOLLA! I finally figured out how to post audio files on Blogger without using a paid online service to save my files. You might even call it beating the system. I said...you might.  After much googling I ran across the following blog, Skip's Tips. Thanks to Skip I was able to use the video uploading feature to post audio. HE'S A GENIUS!!

Anyway, here's a song I wrote based on the Lord's Prayer. For those of you that know me, you know I HATE self promotion. However, a wise friend of mine told me that I would be wasting a gift if it were not shared. So, here 'tis. 

My Christmas gifts

As I'm tinkering with my new design software, I'm reminded of the two best gifts this guy could ever have...MY GIRLS!

Whether or not you make resolutions (not sure I do), please take time for your family in '08.

This world will be a better place!

I LOVE YOU GIRLS!