Frankenmuth Weekend

What a wonderful weekend this has been. My wife and I are in our home away from home, Frankenmuth, MI, to enjoy a time of relaxation and fun. We usually come here once a year to get away from the mind numbing pace of normal life. Life for us has been running at the pace of the Indy 500.

Our time here usually includes shopping for the clothing that we need for the rest of the year at Burch Run’s amazing outlet mall, but we also spend time hanging out in our hotel room just relaxing. Most of our friends and family don’t understand why we put ourselves through this preserved boredom. The simplest of reasons lies behind this trip.

We have to recuperate from the demands of life. Renee and I have learn that nothing should stand between us as a married couple and that nothing should stand between God and us. However, if we do not take time for one another we will gradually move away from God simply because we have not spent time with one another.

I realize I wrote about this same thing just a few days ago, but I write about this again because it is so important.

Now I must say I love spending this time with Renee. She is an amazing woman who I rarely get to spend quality time with. I am always reminded of the reasons why I chose to love Renee. In the setting that we are in we can relax and focus on one another with the time like we used to when we were dating.

So I need everyone to know that if you are having relationship problems with your spouse or God, simply do what Jesus did in the bible and get away from the business of life to pray and relax with the ones you love. Remember Jesus would get away with his disciples and then He would go off on His own for a while to get reacquainted with His Father.

We need to do the same. Take time to spend quality time with the ones you love and with God.

Who Am I, Really?

I as I am working today I keep thinking about my life and how I got to be who I am today. I’m not talking about the general stuff we think of when we think about who we are, but rather how I became who I really, truly, am.

I was talking to another worship leader at church the other week and I told her that I like to watch other worship leader in action so that I can lead worship the way they do. However, after thinking about this for a good while today I realized that before I started doing this watching thing I learned how to lead on my own. There were people who help me somewhat along the way, but for the most part I learned how to lead worship on my own.

After considering this matter even further I discovered that I in my own strength did not teach myself anything, but rather it was a divine teacher that taught me what I know. However, beyond simply the outward things I turned to looking inward to ask myself “who am I and how did I become who I am today”? I know that our experiences shape us into how we are, but it seems that there has to be more.

I taught myself how to play guitar, but who gave me the desire to learn? I taught myself how to play the drums, but who taught me how to keep a beat?

I am not sure that there are easy answers to these questions as some may think. Most people would say that your life experience has taught you how to do most of these things, but I’m not so sure.

I may never truly know how I learned all the things that I know and can do, but I do know that our Creator has imparted may things on us that we could never learn on our own.

So it could be simply boiled down to human nature and this is the way things are or it could be more than that. I don’t have all the answers to the mysteries of life. love and happiness, but I do know that no matter what, I am His.

You asked for a sign...

(This is the first blog post from Renee)


I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me… (excerpt from Matthew 25:31-46)

When issued this challenge last Sunday, an image of a stack of clothes came to my mind. These clothes have been sitting in a heap for a year now, gently used, and generally unused for this past year since the sizes on those tags don’t match my physical needs. Almost immediately another image flashed in my mind. A woman’s face. It wasn’t just any woman, but a woman on my street who has fallen on hard times and is unable to provide for herself those simple things we take for granted. I resolved in my heart to go home that afternoon, pack up a bag of those items (since I could readily see the sizes on the tags would work for her), and quietly hang them on her doorknob the next morning on my way to work. It was a good plan...no - a great plan, except for one minor hitch: my selfishness.

Sunday came and went. Monday and Tuesday too, and soon, it was Saturday. I had spent my week focusing on my own wants, needs, and superfluous whims that I pushed aside the one thing God asked me to do: provide clothes to the shivering. That Saturday, as I came and went from our house, running my errands – my eyes would shift ever so slightly as I drove past the woman’s house. Under my shame and embarrassment, I would take a peek at the house, hoping for a sign that God provided for the woman's needs and that He really didn’t need me this week after all. When I glanced at her front window, I found the answer to my pondering question. There, hanging on the back of a chair was a dark t-shirt with bright lettering: NEEDED YOU.

In that moment, my heart stopped.

And “then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me — you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:45)

I went home, packed a large tote overflowing with items, and thanked God for his incredible mercy. After all, I wasn’t doing this for me - or even for the woman – I was doing it for God.

There are times in my life when I simply get really impatient. I get impatient at work, home, school, church, and even with my marriage. My wife and I are so great together. We love spending quality time together. If fact for the last few weeks we have been putting our favorite t.v. shows on hold just to spend time together reading. These are some of my most treasured times with Renee. We read and then we talk a little and then we talk some more.

However, there are times when I just want to scream, not because of Renee but because of things in life that aren't going according to my timeline. Renee and I want to have kids pretty bad. We have been "trying" for the last little while to get preggers and it just doesn't seem to work. I have told many people that I "simply do not want to be 50 years old and still have kids in the house". So I'm thinking we need to get started with this baby makin' thing before its too late. Well, it simply hasn't happen yet and we are starting to get frustrated. We both know that God has a plan and that His plans are always better than our own.

I find it so hard to wait on God sometimes. It seems that He just takes His good old time and leaves me to deal with the long wait, because after all, a thousand years is like one day to God.

It has been hitting me so hard lately that God wants us to believe. I am thinking about a passage in the bible that says, "I do believe, but help me in my unbelief". That is so good. I do believe that Renee and I will have children some day, but God help me in my unbelief.

Going, Going, Gone

In the past year Renee and I have had a hard decision to make when we had to leave a church. I am not trying to say that this church is doing things wrong or unscriptural, but we did leave because of personal reasons and burnout.
Burnout is one of those things that doesn't just happen all at once, but it happens over a period of time. We helped to plant this particular church and we had a very hard time leaving, but we simply couldn't continue on with what we were going through. I loved the people at this church and still love them, but burnout is so potent that is effects every part of your life.
Around this time my wife and started fighting more and more, and we thought it was simply because we were newlyweds, but it turns out it was the burnout talking.

We finally stepped down from everything that we were doing in the church and still felt like we couldn't breathe. We finally left and took a brake from church altogether. Once we took this step we finally felt like we could breathe again.

So, how can we prevent burnout in our lives? The best way that Renee and I found was simply saying NO to some things that we didn't have time to do. The word NO sometimes can make some people upset or angry, but people should respect your "yes" just as much as they respect your "no". Also spending time with the Creator of the universe on a daily basis will help to stay burnout free.

So, to prevent burnout, just say "no" to some things.

The Crazy Life

You all may have seen the hit TLC show Jon & Kate Plus 8. Well, for the past year and a half this is what my life has felt like. In 2007 Renee and I made the choice to send me back to school. However, not just school, but also working full time. For the past year and a half I have been able to deal with the stressfulness of the work load of working full time and going to school full time. Add to the mix that we recently left one church that we helped to plant and moved to a new town with a new church and add even more to the story I am also a part time worship leader at the new church (Imagine This LLC).

Don't get me wrong I love learning and I love leading worship, but work is just one of those things that I could do without. As I have been studying the Psalms with the worship team I have found great joy in the busyness of all of this. Not because I love to be busy, but rather because I know that God is sustaining me through it.

There are some days when I want to throw in the towel on everything, but there is something that keeps saying inside me "keep going, you can do it, just a little longer". I find myself wondering what God has in store for my life. I find myself asking God on a weekly basis "is this all there is to serving you, or is there more?" and I am beginning to think there is so much more that God wants from me.

I would like to think that God finds my feeble attempts to worship Him pleasing (and I know He does), however there is another part of me that thinks "maybe I am doing it all wrong". Somewhere in the craziness of life, love, and the pursuit of happiness there is something more to live for. Maybe this is not all there is. Maybe God wants not just my praise and worship, but maybe he wants all of me; the good and the bad, the happy and the sad, the light and the dark.

See I think God loves me for who I am and not who I should be. So if I come to Him in all of my brokenness He will meet me there. How awesome would it be if we could do the same for other people we come in contact with. In essence "Love them like Jesus".

So I challenge you to go out and be Jesus to someone because you may be the only Jesus they ever meet.