I Love this Place!

I love being a part of NewPointe. This past Sunday we celebrated the end of our Go '08 Food Drive and Community Impact Day. It was totally awesome. I'm so excited that our church is outward focused and making a difference in people's lives who don't even attend our church.

NewPointe is a happening place!

• We raised over 1700 boxes of food that will supply 5 local food pantries for a month!
• We had over 1400 people go out and serve our community last Sunday doing everything from health screenings, to delivering food, to cutting hair, to washing cars, to cleaning up school properties, to even picking up the trash along the road.

Check out this video to see our amazing team in action! Man I love being a part of this!!!

Pruning the Good Stuff

This past week at our First Wednesday service, Blake spoke on John 15:2 which says

He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

It is very interesting to me that God would cut or prune something that is fruitful. In our own carnal way of looking at things, we have trouble understanding this as we apply it to our ministries. If a ministry is bearing fruit, why would you ever "cut it".

As I listened to Blake expound on this, it really became clearer to me. Sometimes we need to cut a ministry or abandon what appears to be a good cause so that we are freed up to start or move to another ministry that will bear even more fruit.

This is often a very, very hard decision to make. We can rationalize that there are good things happening in our ministry and for that reason alone we should not change it. However, the bottom line is that we do not know what God has up His sleeve. To hear God telling you to make a change but not doing it because there are "good things happening" is a cop-out.

YES it is very hard to make the cut and YES people will not like it and YES you will take some hits for it. However, if you don't you risk the chance on missing out on something great that God has in store for you and his kingdom.

Blake shared that had he not given up his fruitful ministry in leading a growing church in Florida, there would not be 15 new churches started in the middle east. Friends, you don't see something like that coming when you obey and "make the cut". But, you can trust that God knows what He is doing!!!

Be close enough to your Father to hear Him clearly and then move forward with confidence with whatever He is asking you to do!

(Blog posts are supposed to be short so feel free to stop reading at this point!)

When I was a kid I tried my hand at gardening. I really didn't know anything about it. Tomato plants were cool because they grew like mad. I was so impressed when I first started growing them. They grew so big and bushy.

However, I soon became discouraged because my monster plants did not produce any tomatoes. Then one day my great grandmother came to our house and spied my gigantic tomato-less plants. She quickly grabbed a knife and told me to follow her. When we got to the garden she started cutting the branches away. There were even a few branches that tiny little green tomatoes on them that she cut. I was in horror.

When she was done my huge plants looked like just a few strangly branches. I couldn't believe she ruined my plants like that.

Of course I realize you are an astute person because you kept reading this post and you certainly know the end to this story. In a few weeks my strangly plants started bearing the biggest, reddest, ripest tomatoes I had ever seen. I had to put stakes in the ground and time the branches with strings to withstand the weight. Pruning the low producing branches provided much more food and energy for the remaining branches.

The ironic ending to this story is, "I don't even like to eat tomatoes!"

Adventure in the Smokies!

I'm on vacation this week in the Great Smokey Mountains. We rented another awesome cabin with two other families (Lee's and Weaver's). It has 4 levels with an elevator, 12 TV's, a movie theatre with leather recliners, and a refrigerator big enough to park a car in it! Yeah, we're really ruffing it! The best part is that Jeff, Katie, Zach (my nephew), and I flew down on ConnAir and got here in less than 2 hours.

We've been doing a lot of hiking. I love the mountains. God is such an amazing creator. I love to worship him through hiking and admiring is handy work! Yesterday we went on a strenuous hike to the "Chimney Tops". We got there early in the morning to avoid the crowd. The trail was steep and hard! It was 2 miles to the top and an elevation rise of 2000'. Here's a shot from the road. That highest point is where we hiked to! Do they look like "Chimney's"?

When we got to the top we saw these huge rocks.

As you can see from the picture above, it was quite a challenge to climb to the top of these rocks. About half the way up I couldn't find anything to grab hold of. I made the mistake of looking down and started to get really, really scared. This rock was basically a cliff with nothing around to break your fall that wasn't hundreds of feet down.

I looked up and saw my nephew, David, ahead of me. So I knew it was possible. So I said a quick prayer and kept going. Long story short, it was a very daring climb and one of the most adventurous things I have ever done.

Here is a picture of Braden at the top. Its one of my favorites. Of course he's "Mr. Cool". Not scared. Just having a great time.

Now, here's a picture of Jeff. Yes, he made it to the top, but he's being anything but cool. He is basically laying horizontal on a rock hanging on for dear life! This is not a joke. He was scared to move!

Its hard to tell from these pictures how high and how little room there was on the rocks. But, man!, what a rush! The view was a 360 degree panoramic scenic masterpiece.

Have any of you ever been there?

Here are a few more pictures.

Braden and Katie

(My nephew Zach Lee)

My Neighbor the Movie Star

Did you know that my neighbor, Nate Torrence, is a Hollywood movie star? Well he is! Check out the movie cover in the picture above. He is "Lloyd" from the movie Get Smart. The movie above is a spin off from Get Smart called Bruce and Lloyd which features Nate as one of the main characters.

Nate grew up across the street from me. He has always (and I mean ALWAYS) been an extremely funny guy. Even in high school he would do improv comedy shows around our local area and people would literally die laughing (okay, maybe not "dead" die, but you know what I mean).

He has a face that can do the most unbelievable expressions. He once was the entertainment at my company's Christmas party. Most memorable were the hula dance (without a shirt, of course) and the nose harp! My face hurt for days from laughing.

You may also have seen him in the Capital One commercials with David Spade. He would run around the office causing mayhem and then end with "What's in your wallet?".

So now he has made it to the movies. I'm really proud of him. He comes from a terrific family whom we love dearly. In fact, his family is so cool they recently rented an entire theatre in Massilon and invited all of Nate's friends and family to watch him in "Get Smart". It was like a premier showing. It was a ton of fun. We all cheered when he came on the screen for the first time.

Afterwards Nate surprised us by actually being there in person. He handed out autographed copies of his feature movie "Bruce and Lloyd". It was a lot of fun and a great evening. Below is a picture we took together that night! Good luck Nate, hope to see you in more Hollywood hits!

Big Storm Cancels Church

This is the sign everyone saw this morning as they drove into the parking lot at church. Unfortulnately, a big storm that blew through the valley on Saturday had knocked down a bunch of trees and broke a main trunk of the power grid. Our church was without power (aka "electricity").

Of course we received numerous comments about a church not having "Power". Hey it was easier to spell and write "Power" than "Electricity" and we were in a hurry when we made this wonderful sign.

It was an interesting day. Todd called me at 6am and gave me the bad news that we had no electricity and they were predicting it would take another 8 hours to repair it. As the early morning volunteers started to arrive, we pulled the trigger at about 7:30am and put operation "Cancel Church" into action. We called the radio stations, sent a church-wide email, and updated our web-site with the news. There were about a dozen staff people in the parking lot on cell phones trying to contact their volunteers to give them the news.

In spite of our best efforts to notify people, there were still hundreds of people who showed up at 9 and 11 for church. They drove up like normal, slowed down to read the sign that church was cancelled, got a really weird look on their face, and then started talking to the others in the car about where they were going to eat breakfast or lunch as they circled back out of the lot. (Bob Evans should give us a commision today!).

It was a strange Sunday morning. All-in-all it went well. I just stood on the corner and waved to people and encouraged them to come back next week!

Our "Big Give" Project

Our church is organizing a "Big Give" project the entire month of June. In case you don't know the background to this, several months ago Dwight challenged our church to trust in God with all our resources, including our money. He challenged those who were not tithing to try it for 90 days and see how God would in turn bless their families. To show that it was not a "fund-raising scheme" Dwight said that whatever extra money came in from the offering would be given right back out to our community.

Well, the people of NewPointe took the challenge and we ended up with $117,000 that we are now giving back to our community. Is that totally awesome, or what?

One of the ways we are giving this back is by giving a portion of this money to our small groups to go out in the community and do a service project (aka the "Big Give"). Lots and lots of cool things are being done right now all across Holmes and Tuscarawas counties. We are helping single moms, struggling families, homeless people, teenage moms, community outreach programs just to name a few.

This past Saturday our small group helped a small start-up church in Millersburg called "Living Hope Church". The church building was converted from the old Save N Serve store and needed some major cleaning. So our group got together and did some major cleaning. We:

• washed walls
• washed ceilings
• cleaned gutters
• Swept floors
• washed windows
• and lots more!

It was so fun to help another church. NewPointe is such a large church and Living Hope is such a small church. However, we are both serving the same God and part of the same body. It was a blessing to us to be able to help them and encourage them!

With our money we bought them a foosball table for the kids they are trying to reach. We also bought a Lowes gift card to help with an upcoming building project!!

Here are some pictures from our Big Give project.

A Close Call

Today at work I received that phone call that every parent dreads hearing, "Your daughter was in a car accident and is in an ambulance on the way to the hospital." You can't understand how that message shoots straight through your body unless you've experienced it. Katie had been in an accident.

Jeff and I jumped in my car and headed to Millersburg, Becky was on her way, too, and was about 15 minutes ahead of us. The one thing we knew was that Katie was coherent and talking to the EMT's. So we felt better when we heard that.

Jeff and I drove past the place we thought the car might have been towed since it was on our way. When we saw the picture (below) we didn't feel so good anymore!

When we got to the hospital we heard that Katie was going to be okay. She had a concussion, some cuts, and a lot of bruises. She was pretty shook-up. Here's a picture we snapped when she wasn't looking in the ER room.

It was so good to see her and talk to her. She was hurting, but was more mad that it happened and that the cop gave her ticket.

Lot's of people called to check on her. Her aunt, grandma, and grandpa all came to the ER to check on her.

Now she's at home and resting. She's so sad about her car. She loved her car so much.

Here's one last picture that we took at home.

It could have been a lot worse. It makes you appreciate EMT's, hospitals, family, and God's grace! Thanks for all of you who prayed for her!