This Old House
 
Hebrews 10:35-36
So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
 
This past Saturday morning I was sitting in the den with my husband drinking my coffee and watching This Old House.  As I watched they discussed all the plans for restoring a home in Roxbury, Boston, they showed the house in its current state which was terrible, it looked as if it had caught on fire at some point and had clearly been abandoned for quite a while as the windows and doors were all boarded up.  The drawings looked awesome, I was anxious to see how in the world they were going to make this dilapidated old house new again.  Norm Abrams is like a magician where these things are concerned!!!   As the show went on they talked about how they had to pour new footings and how the foundation was going to have to be re poured, they were putting up supports so that the floor joists wouldn’t collapse when they removed the old foundation and poured the new one.  There was all sorts of stuff that I didn’t exactly understand going on and quite frankly the house still looked terrible!  I finally looked at my husband and said “at this point I think I would just say forget it and go buy a whole new house!”  You see, I am more of an HGTV girl.  I like to repaint, buy some new accessories and voila a pretty new room!
 
At my church we have been doing a series on “Staying in Love” and as the day wore on I thought about that statement and I started thinking about my own marriage, and about friends that we have that are struggling.  My heart ached for them and I felt the need to thank God for the fact that in my own marriage He was our “Norm”, He was willing to put in the effort to rebuild our foundation, He was willing to work a miracle in our marriage and restore it.  You see when I look at my husband today, I see an amazing, Godly man, he is strong, smart handsome, caring, loving.  We have a wonderful relationship and I can’t imagine my life without him.  Not all that long ago though I didn’t see any of that, my marriage was that sad broken down house that needed more work than I could do but God was ready and able to restore us.  When I look at our marriage today I see something close to that artists rendering that they showed at the beginning of the show.  It is new and beautiful but it still has the character that you only see in and old restored home.  I know that we still have to do the work that it takes s to keep up our marriage.  Just like an old  home, once that home has been restored, there will be cracks in the plaster that must be repaired, eventually they will have to put on a new roof or repaint, having a beautiful home takes work but it is worth it.  In my marriage I have to keep my selfishness in check, I have to put Lee’s needs/feelings before mine.  I have to choose to hear his side rather than shouting mine.  I have to over look his faults and remind myself of my own sometimes.  I have to forgive as I have been forgiven even when Lee is wrong and some Saturday mornings I have to watch This Old House instead of HGTV.  You see having a good marriage takes hard work and sacrifice too but the rewards amazing!
 
I thank God that He restores what everyone else has given up on, that He specialized in resurrecting that which was dead!  If you are struggling in your marriage you have the very creator of marriage on your side, God sees what is possible if you will just submit to Him and allow Him to work with and through you.  Trust Him, after all, He is the expert!

• I love her unashamed passion for Jesus Christ!
• I love her unwavering commitment to God’s Word and living it out in her life.
• I love the way she serves and loves me unconditionally.
• I love the way she mothers and invests into the lives of our children.
• I love the way she laughs. (Loud)
• I love her commitment to the local church, the body of Christ.
• I love her passion for building relationships with people in need of a relationship with Jesus.
• I love her hospitable spirit toward the people with whom she crosses paths.
• I love the way she sings.
• I love her legs.  (I have to be honest)
• I love her passion for educating our children.
• I love how she overlooks my shortcomings and hardheadedness.
• I love her beautiful smile and perfect teeth.  (That happened to be in braces when we dated.)
• I love to go to bed and breakfast inns with her.  That is where we are now! June 24, 2009.

Steve’s twin brother Scott passed into eternity a little over a year ago after a lengthy battle with cancer and in honor of Scott friends and family have launched a yearly bar-b-que fundraising event for raising funds for the purpose of supporting families needing help with their medical bills. 

If you can be a part, I encourage you to drive down tomorrow (Saturday May 16, 2009) to the Social Circle North end bypass between 11am and 2pm for some great bar-b-que and to support a great cause.  The Scott Williams bar-b-que is for a good cause and worth your time.

I actually took the day off and spent some great time with the kids.  In the morning, I was able to work on cleaning out the basement with Jill and I took a huge load to the land-fill.  By the end of the day Jill had totally cleaned out and organized a major portion of the basement.  It was so refreshing to have cleaned out so much in just a day.  It felt good at the end of the day. 

Jill and I took the kids to a “Seder” meal on Thursday and we were led through the “Seder” experience by a Messianic Rabbi named Derek Leman.  The “Seder” always takes place during the celebration of “Passover”which takes place during the yearly festival called “The Feast of Unlevened Bread”.  Passover initiates a seven day period where Jews would not eat any bread with yeast and would only eat unlevened bread.  The Unlevened bread initially was a reminder of the original Passover experience where the Jews would not have had time to put leven in their bread because of their hasty departure from Egypt following the night of the Passover.  Leven has also become a symbol of sin in the lives of Jewish people and is representative of the fact that it only takes a little leven (yeast) to impact the whole and similarly it only takes a little sin in our lives to impact our entire life and relationship with God. 

Jews have been known to sweep up every crumb of levened bread during this festival and take it out of their house and burn it as a symbol of getting rid of sin from their household.  The apostle Paul referred to the impact of a “little” sin in our lives in his letter to the Corinthian Church.

1 Corinthians 5:6 (NIV)
⁶ Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough?

As we approach Easter, it may be good to remember the Jewish feast that is almost simultaneously taking place.  It may be a good time to do some “Spring Cleaning” in our lives and make ourselves available to God in a new and fresh manner. 

It may be refreshing!  What are your thoughts?

The first Thursday morning of the month I get to spend my time with about 15-18 crazy guys who have either started churches or are looking to start a church.  They are insane!

It is an honor for my friend Chip Wheeler and I to help plan and lead these Church Plant Network Coaching events.  I love hanging out with guys that want to reach people and transform a community utilizing the best strategy that exist today on the planet–Church Planting!

We meet at FBC Conyers, GA and spend time in prayer from 7:30am-8:45am.  At 9am we have a guest speaker that leads us on a specific topic related to church planting and pastoring.  After our speaker leads us in a Q & A time we break out into coaching groups where we can apply the learned lessons to our specific context.   It is a blast and another way to broaden CATGrove’s Impact in the world for Jesus!

Circus

Thursday evening Jill and I took the kids to the Big Apple Circus that was showing at Stone Mountain Park.  I know it may seem funny to mention church planting and the circus in the same blog post but they do have a lot in common especially when you think of how church planters and clowns……………..well, I won’t go there!

It was a blast!  The clowns are my favorite part of the circus!

Here is the deal!  We all need to laugh.  Life is just hard at times and the recent pressures in our culture necessitate us find an outlet to relieve the pressure.  Church planting is a lot like the circus!  The Pastor and staff could possibly be confused with the ringmaster and some clowns.  The circus tent is always full of a bunch of hungry animals and people waiting to be entertained! Ouch, did I just say that!  Yep!  I’m sorry, I just needed to relieve some of the pressure from running a circus. 

I don’t know why I thought of writing a post on church planting and the circus, but somehow they just seemed to go together! 

Be Blessed!  And laugh a little this week.

I came across this blog post by Mark Batterson.  You can find the post here and I have also cut and pasted the post into this space below.  What a challenge to leave a legacy!  WOW!  May we all have a desire to leave a godly legacy.

285 Years Ago Today

In his new book, Wild Goose Chase, Mark Batterson warns against one of the greatest dangers we face spiritually.  It is learning how, but forgetting why!

One of the keys to spiritual growth is developing healthy spiritual disciplines, but one of the dangers to our spiritual growth is going through the familiar motions but forgetting why we do it.  Batterson calls it “familiarization, habituation, and routinization. 

Batterson teaches that we tend to think and act in patterned ways and states that “the tendency to think the way we’ve always thought or do it the way we’ve always done it is called Heuristic bias.  It is an incredibly complex cognitive process, but the end result is mindlessness.” (pg. 59) 

We end up doing things without thinking about them. 

With Thanksgiving being a national holiday where we gather with family and friends and eat, is it possible that we do this routine without literally thinking about what we are thankful for?  I hope not! 

As we enter this holiday season, do something different!  Change the routine in a way that will help you think about what we celebrate and who we worship. 

Don’t be guilty of heuristic bias or simply “going through the motions”!

• Marriage is hard and there will be challenges in every marriage.
• You can’t have a successful and growing marriage without outside help.  Parents, friends, and in my opinion, a church family offer needed support. 
• It is hard to have a great, long-lasting marriage without faith in Jesus.  Doing marriage without God makes the challenges much harder to overcome. 
• Unconditional love is necessary for both parties to make a marriage last.
• Never Give Up!
• Successful marriages that last long do so after resisting temptations.
• Individuals must be willing to see their own faults first in order to make the marriage grow. 
• People are watching and when a great marriage overcomes trials and troubles, people will see Jesus as a result.  God uses marriages to shine His light. 

Fireproof was a great movie and I recommend it to anyone.  My friends at Sherwood have something special going in their ministry and God is using them in a great way.