Church Planting - redeemer.com

Church Planting - redeemer.com

For anyone fascinated by church planting as I am, click on the link from Tim Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian.

Chuck Norris is the man

A few C.N. facts...

1. If Chuck has $5 and you have $5 Chuck has more money than you.

2.Chuck has counted to infinity...twice.

3.The last digits of pi is chuck norris.

4.If you can see Chuck he can see you. If you can't see Chuck you may only be seconds away from death.

5.Chuck Norris likes to knit sweaters in his spare time. By 'knit' he means kick. By 'sweaters' he means babies.

Too good

These are a bunch or rednecks from Louisville KY. They can get after it.

The lead singer reminds me of Meat Loaf.

Partying like it was 1989

This weekend was a Youth Group reunion for we who were part of the Landmark Baptist Youth circa late 80s.

As you can imagine there were some shiny heads, paunchy bellies and generous amounts of gray represented among those of us formerly known as 'youth'.

Gone are the rockin' mullets, the fly parachute pants and bangs that stood up so high FAA required beacons mounted atop them so planes would not accidentally fly into their path.

What was the takeaway for me on the other side of the Reunion? While running the risk of sounding politcally incorrect, what people were as a youth seemed to be what they are now as they enter the land of the middle-aged. The wild ones generally looked like they lived the wild life. The spiritual ones appear to have stayed in church and now are raising their children in the
'discipline and nurture of the Lord.'

Without doubt there is the exception on both sides of that equation. But it encourages me that raising my children to value the Scriptures and the God of the Bible appears to pay life long dividends. Also, as more than one of the 'wild ones' testified, after a long hard journey God also welcomes the prodigal to return.

Long live spandex and mesh tank tops!!

10 Year Anniversary as Pastor

Tomorrow (August 3rd) I'll celebrate 10 years as pastor at Alexandria's First Baptist Church.

Reflections on a decade...

1. Fun. We have had times to where church was fun. We need to re-capture that.

2. God is faithful. I feel like many times he has held the sun still for us so that we can fight our
way through the adversity.

3. Stress has revealed my own sin, which leads to the opportunity for sanctification.

4. It seems odd that anyone age from teens down only remember me as their pastor (if they have been raised in this church).

5. The great challenge is to keep the energy and optimism level high enough to keep pushing.

6. I love what I do and I love AFBC.

7. It really is amazing at the amount of things God has enabled AFBC to do and accomplish.

Mind Dump

A couple of times a week I run up to Mt Adams. My route is either across the People Bridge and up to Mt. Adams. Sometimes I feel energetic and go from Newport to Covington back into Cincy and up to Mt. Adams and back to Newport.


I have found the esv.org website invaluable as I plod my way from cover to cover in 2008. One helpful hint is if I am not in a reading mood I can listen to Max McClean read to me.

I have been enjoying our Gravity AM sermon series. It has been an overview of the Doctrines of Grace. The D.O.G. generally breaks down to Radical Rebellion, God's Free Choice, Success upon the Cross, Guaranteed Success of Grace, Following Jesus as a Result of Grace.
These doctrines are often considered 'Calvinism'. The thing about that view is Calvin did not originate 'Calvinism'. It was Waldensian doctrine 400 years before his birth. It was Augustinianism 800 years before the Waldensians. It was NT doctrine 400 years before Augustine.

Calvin did not give birth to the doctrines of grace. He systematized them. He was an organizer of the doctrine as set forth in the Bible.

This is odd... there has been no music, books or movies that have really grasped me lately.

Coming up on 10 years...

Alright, this may be a little early but lately I've been thinking of the changes pastoring for
10 years have made. For clarity's sake the anniversary date won't be until August 2nd. But, I became interim pastor on Feb 2nd 1998 and rolled into the pastorate uninterrupted in August 1998. For all practical purposes 10 years is about right.

So what tell all dirty secrets can now be revealed?
*I am glad I didn't know in the beginning how hard it could be. It can be brutal.
*I couldn't have imagined some of the things I have seen God do.
*All the pastor can do is lead people to the opportunity to grow. He can't be responsible for
how they respond to that opportunity.
*God has placed some incredibly gifted and faithful people in our church.
*In the words of John MacArthur there has been a time when, "I would have moved on if God
had provided some place to go."
*I spent about 6 mos being very angry. I'm glad that passed.
*With 10 years of hindsight I am glad God made me tough out the hard times. They have been
great lessons of friendship, leadership and commitment.
*Church and by extension church leadership is like baseball...a lot of waiting for something to
happen and then something exciting happens.
*I'm glad I have my zeal tattoo that reminds me of my family Zak, Eli, Alyson and Lisa. Too many pastors place their family low on the priority list. They are always on my left arm. In Isa God talks about having His people tattooed on His hands. In Rev. Jesus has a tattoo on His leg. Also it represents Isa 42:13.
*I am glad my children have been raised in this church among our people and not somewhere else.

Any other great confession you will have to wait for the movie.