New Year - New Plan

I don't know of a single New Year's resolution that I have ever kept,

and yet I have decided to make one for this new year!

I printed out a Bible reading plan for 2010 today.

I've never really used a structured bible reading plan before. My plan usually consists of picking a book of the bible to read through or I use a lectionary type guide (Old Testament reading, New Testament reading, Epistle reading, and a Psalm). I'm looking forward to this reading plan though.

The plan is set up to read from Genesis 1:1 through Revelation 22:21 between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2010.

In the past I was never a big fan of the whole bible in a year thing. I would argue that it becomes more about saying, "I did it!" than about engaging God's word. I would also argue that a person might...actually I don't really know why I was against it! I probably was lazy and just didn't want to commit to a structured plan! But now that I'm married I'm not struggling with that whole commitment thing as much!

I've also felt motivated to form a more structure and disciplined time of prayer and reading of scripture. I've had this longing to know God in deeper ways, to engage the mystery of Him more, to get closer to his heart. The things we plan and prepare are the things we get done. So I'm planning and preparing for these times in the new year. I have no idea what this next year will bring, the last one sure brought me some surprises both good and bad!

If your looking for a plan of your own click here and browse through some of their 20+ reading plans.

Pray for me as I enter into this time of reading. Especially February 2-12 as I read through the book of Leviticus!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, from the Goode's!

Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity

I received an advance copy of Primal a few weeks ago in the mail to review as part of the Primal Blog Tour. I have read both of Mark Batterson's previous books,In a Pit with a Lion on a snowy day, and Wild Goose Chase, and was looking forward to receiving Primal. Batterson's previous books were engaging, thoughtful and fresh and I was expecting Primal to be the same.

Primal did not disappoint!

In the book Batterson explores what he calls the "Primal Commandment," Mark 12:30 - "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." The book then examines the heart, soul, mind and strength of Christianity. Batterson tries to strip away many of the things that hinder us from the pursuit of God and the clunky rigidity of religion and free us to pursue the Primal call to love God with all that we are.

The book is a pretty quick read at around 175 pages but it will spur you into hours of conversation and reflection. After every chapter I felt challenged to examine and evaluate what matters most in my relationship with God. The challenges and thoughts of Chapter 2 A Drop in the Bucket are alone worth the cost of the book.

I also think this would be a great book if you are searching for a book to use with a small group this year. The challenges from each chapter naturally lead to discussion. In my home my wife Kara and I have been discussing several ideas and discoveries from this book.

I don't know that the book was "burning bush" in my life but it has caused me to evaluate several areas in my life. I would challenge you to make Primal one of the first books you read this year. You can pick it up by visiting RandomHouse.com clicking HERE or wherever you buy books.

Let me know what you think once you pick up your copy!

Rejoicing in the Presence of the Angels of God

"I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." Luke 15:10

Christmas is Coming! The Advent of the Messiah is being celebrated and anticipated each Sunday and week at Canton First Church of the Nazarene. I am so excited about the way in which God is working this Advent season.

We have been reflecting the past few weeks on the coming of Christ as a baby in Bethlehem but also his return at the second Advent.

On the first Sunday of Advent we looked at the idea of Waiting and how it can sometimes be extremely difficult.

The second Sunday of Advent we looked at the hope of God entering into the world. We said that Advent is a time when we realize that God has not given up on the world.

Yesterday we explored the joy of Christmas and made commitments to make this Advent season a time of Joy. We are actively seeking was to remove stress from this season, and also ways to bless others so that this Advent can actually be a time of Joyous Celebration.

God has been working in some powerful ways. Two weeks ago we had several people respond to our message about hope. People gathered around our altars and prayed that God would work through the pain, disappointment and fear in their lives.

This past week I received a phone call from a guy in our church, his name is Tim. Tim and I met a few weeks ago at my house. Kara and I had ordered some new furniture and a guy, Jay, from our church helped me to pick it up and bring it to our house. When we arrived back at the house Jay had his nephew Tim come over to help us unload our new couches and bed.

As we were bringing the bed into the house Tim told me that he and his wife also just moved into a new house the week before. We formed an instant bond - he too shared in the pain of moving!

As Jay and Tim were getting ready to leave I asked them if they knew of anything we could do with our old bed. Tim got excited and said, "You're really wanting to get rid of it?"

I said, "Yeah, do you want it? I could load it on the trailer now. We have a love seat we need to get rid of too. Do you want that?"

He said, "Yeah!!! We just rented some furniture for $130 a week. I'll go cancel that and we will just use this for a while!"

Our friendship just got a little more solid - He was going to save $520 a month!

As we were loading the couch and mattress onto the trailer Tim told me that he and his wife were going to come to our church the next Sunday and were looking forward to possibly getting more involved.

The showed up that Sunday. I said hi to them in the hall way and they asked if we wanted our remote back. Apparently the remote to our DVD player that had been missing was discovered in the couch we gave them!

Two days after the service, last Tuesday, I received a call from Tim. We kept missing each other and leaving voicemails, but we finally got in touch with each other on Wednesday night. Tim told me, "I've been trying to get ahold of you all week. My wife and I have been talking about Sunday a lot. We loved the church. Everyone was so nice and welcoming to us. And your message about hope has had us talking too. We've been talking and we want to set up an appointment with you in your office and ask God into our lives. We want to do it right!"

I set up a time for them to come in on Thursday and we hung out at my office for a while and shared our stories of how God was working. Then Tim and his wife and daughter all prayed and received the forgiveness and new life that Jesus offers. It was a pretty powerful time here in my office. The three of them will all be baptized here on Sunday morning as part of our Christmas celebrations!

After the service yesterday Tim and Melissa waited around to talk with Kara and I. The gave us this cross as a gift,


and told us, "Thanks for helping us start our new life together."

We are so blessed to play a part in the life of this couple. I can not tell you how excited I am to baptize them on Sunday morning. God has done a great thing in their lives and we are going to celebrate!

Yesterday we added some new flowers to the 30 poinsettias that were already decorating our sanctuary.

I have a close friend in Indiana who shared with me a tradition that his church has in celebrating new lives in Christ Jesus. Every Sunday there is a vase on the altar in the front of the church. Each week they put a white rose in the vase for every person that accepts Christ into their lives. Every Sunday I usually get a text message from my friend with how many white roses they had that morning. I was thrilled to place our three white roses on the altar yesterday!


We are praying for more roses! We are praying for more changed lives. We are praying that God would continue to do great and amazing things!

Christmas Party

We had and awesome weekend with our church family!

This being our first Christmas in Canton, Kara and I wanted to have a special time of celebration with our church board. We hosted a party on Saturday night for our church board and Sunday School Ministries board in our church fellowship hall. Kara made some awesome invitations,



that also informed our guests that we would be awarding a prize to the person with the best Christmas outfit. I went to Goodwill and bought the most disgusting jacket I could find. But I was not match for some of the couples. Most actually thought my jacket was serious (even though I look like a used car salesmen!) Here are a few of them:





But the winning costume from the Island of Misfit Toy's was:



How awesome are those costumes!

The party also included a white elephant gift exchange that was extremely entertaining. Kara left with some old school cookie cutters, that remind me of ones my Mom had when I was younger. And I opened the only box that was for a woman! I came away with some sweet Avon candle sticks, a book about hugs, some coaster, and "Country Home Decorations" book. I was overjoyed to say the least.

Kara did an awesome job preparing for the party with decorations and feeding all of the people. One person said after eating the Greek salad she had made, "I paid $10 for a Greek salad once, and it was half as good as this one!" She also made over 100 gingerbread men for the party. I have an amazing wife! Here is a shot of her in the kitchen:



And here is a shot of me in my used car sales men jacket that actually doesn't look to awful in this picture, our children ministries worker Brian is next to me:


We had a great time celebrating together with our new friends and feel so blessed to be a part of this church. Kara and I are confident of God's call on our lives to Canton First Church. He is doing great things and we are looking forward to the future here together!

Alabama

After the stress and work of planning our wedding we returned from our honeymoon and unloaded our moving truck and then decided we needed another break! Kara and I loaded up our new car and drove to Montgomery Alabama to visit my brother and his wife and daughter for a few days. They had recently moved into a new house and we wanted to see it and spend some time with them.

We ended up going to an Auburn Football game on Saturday afternoon. It was their homecoming game and they won by a landslide. We had a great time at the tiger walk and hanging out in Auburn after the game. Below are some pictures of us at the game.



My Brother Brad and his daughter Caroline enjoying the game!


Kara and I at the Auburn Game



This is the last photo to be taken on my camera. Soon after my brother took this picture the camera fell to the floor. I hope to get it fixed or get a new one soon! Its a pretty nice shot for the last one. Two of the cutest girls I know!

Thanks Brad and Rachel for a great time of relaxation before we started at our new church.

The Move...

Home Sweet Home


After an incredible 6 1/2 years of service at the North Vernon Church of the Nazarene God has opened the door to a new church and new ministry for me. About three days after we returned from our honeymoon Kara and I loaded up our house and moved to Canton Illinois. I accepted a call from Canton First Church of the Nazarene to be their Senior Pastor.

We both had a difficult time leaving a town, church and friends that have such a special place in our lives. But we are looking forward to our new ministry in Canton. The church has been such a blessing to Kara and I already. Our new home is beautiful, the people are loving, encouraging, and kind. We are really looking forward to ministry here.

Below are some pictures of our new church and home. If you are ever in Canton Illinois we would love to have you stop by! Or you could even plan a special visit, we like those too.

Thank you to everyone that helped us with the move! We would have had a tough time without you!



David Sharp doing some heavy lifting!



Bill Beville and his family were a huge help to us my entire 6 years in North Vernon and the continued with our wedding and our move. There are so many things they helped with along the way. They watched our dog (no easy task! and for 2 weeks straight!) stored some of our boxes at their home, provided a listening ear and so much encouragement! We are blessed to have friends like the Beville's in our lives.



Sheila was a big help on moving day too! I miss our office chats and having a person to solve the worlds problems with!



One Last hug before we lock the door behind us in our sort of (2 days) first home together!



We arrived at our new home to a crew of 20-30 people ready to haul boxes. We unloaded the entire truck in around an hour! We were so blessed to have such a loving church family welcome us into our new home!




The new house! It has three bedrooms (plenty of room if you want to come visit!) a huge living room and a newly remodeled kitchen with all new appliances and floors and a newly redone master bathroom. We love it! It also has a nice backyard surrounded by cornfields which Claxton loves. We have plans and help already lined up to put in a garden this spring.



Here is a shot of us eating our first breakfast together in the new place. Kara made us waffles on a new waffle iron we received as a wedding gift. We also got to use our new plates for the first time!



This is our new church. Inside it has a beautiful newly remodeled sanctuary with plenty of room for a large worship service.

Thank you again to everyone that helped us move. We appreciate so much the love and support we received as we began our new life together. If your ever in or near Canton stop by!

Honeymoon

Kara and I had an amazing honeymoon in the Dominican Republic!

We didn' want a big fancy hotel and we didn't want to go the all inclusive route so we opted to rent a house off of homeaway.com. We were a little nervous because we would have to rent a car and drive 2 hours to our home once we landed and we would be on our own for food and figuring out our way around and other things.

I was really nervous and stressed when we rented our car and I first hit the road to our house! I quickly relaxed and we had a great time. The roads were rough and had some pretty big pot holes at times and you had to always be on the look out for scooters and people in the road!

The home was beautiful and the view from our porch was breath taking. It was the perfect place to spend our first week of marriage together! We could not have dreamed of a better trip. We hope you enjoy the pictures below.



The side view of our house when we pulled in the drive way. We didn't have any neighbors! Although we did have a security guard at night and a grounds keeper during the day!





A view of our house looking to the right. Notice our amazing pool and the incredible view!


Our awesome car for the week! It had so many dent's and scratches on it. And every time you tried to stop the front wheels would scream! The front bumper would sometimes fall off too. And yes we paid a couple hundred dollars for the privilege of driving that thing all week. It was pretty fun though!



A view from the inside. At the foot of our bed are french doors that lead out to our porch. And of course the amazing view of the ocean.


A picture of us on the beach!




My Grandma suggested we take this picture. We took it at a beach name "Playa Grande." There were restaurants on the beach where they would cook your meal and serve it to you at a table on the beach. That was pretty nice.

We had a great time! Hope you enjoy our pictures!

2 Weeks to go...

Kara and I get married in just 2 weeks! We are so excited but still have so much to do. So today after lunch we took a break to relieve some wedding stress. Hope you like our little video!
And for the record Kara was terrified of Claxton 3 months ago! Aren't they so cute together!She's still a little afraid when he barks!

Unlovable

Who do you love that is unlovable? Do you have someone in your life that God has given you a burden for? Someone who others look at and say why are you spending time with them?

I saw this video today and it made me think a lot about the comfort level of my life. Does my relationship with Jesus make such a difference in my life that it even changes the lives of the people around me?

You might not know this about me but I've completed all of the courses to be licensed as a foster parent in the state of Indiana. I'm not licensed because I withdrew my name right before my last home visit check. I removed my name because I wasn't in a healthy enough place in life to take on this responsibility just yet. But during the process I learned so much about the foster system and the struggle these kids face. Are you living a life of love? A life that is making a difference?

Check out this video. Maybe God's calling you to love on some kids that no one else wants to love.

Foster Care Video from Cornerstone Church on Vimeo.

If you are bored...

I Just came across this article. Thought some of you might enjoy reading it. It made me laugh.

The article is about the Mayor of Kiev, Ukraine. He seems a little crazy, as illustrated by this quote - “My voters are ordinary people, and I speak to them in one language, the language of ordinary people, even though, of course, I am not an ordinary person.”

or maybe this one - “Who sings better than me?” he asked. “Nobody does, besides God.”

And if you read the article you will be able to sound smart in a conversation today. Just think what people will think when they hear you say, "I was reading an article today in the New York Times about Leonid Chernovetsky the Mayor of Kiev and..."

You can find the article here.

Wedding Stress

Planning a wedding is a pretty stressful thing at times! There are so many decisions to make, so many peoples lives to work around to make sure everyone can celebrate with us! Do we serve a meal or just eat cake? Do we have camels at our wedding or maybe just the rehearsal? What caterer do you choose? What do you do when every hotel in the area is booked? How do you pay for all of it? These are just a few of the questions Kara and I have been wrestling with in the past few days.

I'm also having a lot of fun! I know that in 81 days I get to take the most beautiful and amazing woman in the world to be my wife! If you had a few hours I could type away about how beautiful of a person Kara is. She has such a big heart, so much joy, an intense passion to follow Jesus and one of the most amazing smiles you will ever see!

I hope all of our friends and family will be able to celebrate this amazing day with us. Invitations will be out sometime soon! (We still have to set the time...did I mention planning a wedding could be stressful?) If you haven't yet, check out our wedding website you can find it here

And to lighten the mood a little I thought I would share this video with you. We are tossing around an idea like this for our wedding. I think our parents and grandparents would love it! What do you think?

No One Kicks A Dead Dog...

I've had a pretty difficult few weeks learning to deal with criticism. Criticism is not something that I've really had to deal with to much in my life. But as situations and circumstances have changed for me I'm now available for all to critique and examine and sometimes people can be pretty cruel.

Last night I was thinking some things over and trying to figure out how to respond or not respond to several different criticisms that have come to light recently. For some reason I picked up a Dale Carnegie book that I had laying on the floor in my office and began to flip through it. He had a section on dealing with criticism and I turned immediately to it.

Now I know that criticism can be a good thing. Many times in the past I have had to deal with criticism that was justified. I messed something up, I did something wrong, I was lazy, I was uninformed; I learned from those situations and they helped to make me a better person. I've never had to deal with unjust criticism before. It's a little different, it doesn't benefit me, it doesn't encourage me. Then I read this:

"An event occurred in 1929 that created a national sensation in educational circles. Learned men from all over America rushed to Chicago to witness the affair. A few years earlier, a young man by the name of Robert Hutchins had worked his way through Yale, acting as a waiter, a lumberjack, a tutor, and a clothesline salesman. Now, only eight years later, he was being inaugurated as president of the fourth richest university in America, the University of Chicago. His age? Thirty. Incredible! The older educators shook their heads. Criticism came roaring down upon this "boy wonder" like a rock slide. He was this and he was that - too young, inexperienced - his educational ideas were cockeyed. Even the newspapers joined in the attack.

The day he was inaugurated, a friend said to the father of Robert Maynard Hutchings: "I was shocked this morning to read that newspaper editorial denouncing your son."

"Yes," the elder Hutchins replied, "it was severe, but remember that no one ever kicks a dead dog."

Yes, and the more important a dog is, the more satisfactions people get in kicking him..."

The next time you feel unjustly criticised, first consider if the criticism is true and see if you can benefit from it. But if you are criticised and it is unjust, if it is meant to simply tear you down remember, No One Ever Kicks a Dead Dog! You must be doing something right!

Engaged!

Just thought I would let all of you know that I am no longer in Hong Kong and I'm engaged to the most beautiful woman in the world!!! Here we are,

Hong Kong!

I'm in Hong Kong right now!

Who would have ever thought I would end up in this city! Its so amazing! The city is massive and the people are so cool. We flew business class last night out of Tokyo. (which was amazing! My seat turned into a bed!)

We are staying in a pretty shady Hostel. The hostel isn't too shady, its just the area outside of it that is.

We only have one day here. We fly out tomorrow morning around 10. My schedule is pretty hectic. On my original ticket I had a lay over in Tokyo so I thought I could just skip the flight from Seoul and get on my connecting flight out of Detroit. Boy was I wrong! It would have cost $500 to change.

So here is my flight schedule for tomorrow and Sunday:

I fly out of Hong Kong to Tokyo in the morning. I have to go through immigration in Japan to pick up my bags, I paid to store at the airport. Then I go through customs again to leave the county.

I will then board a plane to Seoul. Go through immigration and customs in Korea. Check in for my flight. Then go through customs again to board the plane.

Then I fly back to Tokyo. Wait 4 hours then board a plane for Detroit. So I have 4 flights in one day! And two of the flights are to the same city!

Pray for me!

I need to run. I can't wait to be home in 3 days!

See you soon!

Love, Joy & Peace!

Dragon Mountain

This past week has been pretty amazing! On Sunday Kendall and I got lost in some tiny town for three hours in the middle of no where. It was pretty cool. I don't have any pictures from it but I will try to tell the story on here some other time.

Two weeks ago I went into town on a Sunday and the sea was full of ships coming in or leaving the port. I told Kendall I thought we should go to this big cliff we passed and watch the sun rise over the sea with all of the ships out there. It never really worked out.

Well last Sunday I talked a few people into going for a bike ride to watch the Sunrise. The plan was to leave Sunday morning at 6:15 A.M. and ride for 30 minutes to a place called "Dragon Mountain." We woke up on Sunday Morning an it was raining! We all went back to bed.

On Monday morning we didn't start work until 11:00 A.M. so we decided to try it again. This time only one other person wanted to join us. We set are alarms and forced ourselves out of bed at 6:00 A.M. Kendall, Ian and I meet in the lobby and decided we were really going to do this. The biggest problem was that none of us had bikes. But we were told that we could just "borrow" some bikes from the bike rack in front of our building. So at 6:15 we were test-riding what bikes we would steal! We found the correct bikes and headed out for "Dragon Mountain." The first section of the trail is about 25 minutes through a rice patty! It was amazing. It was pitch black outside and we are on a tiny trail in the middle of a field. We had no clue where we were going only that we wewre heading for Dragon Mountain!

We left the field and ended up on a small road leading into a town. When we reached the town the sea appeared on our right. We rode for the remainder of the trip all along the cost! It was beautiful. We rode, and rode, and rode for a while. After about 1 and a half hours we were exhausted and decided to just stop. We had obviously missed Dragon Mountain. But we did find one of the most beautiful places I've been to in Korea. We were on top of a large hill and decide to climb down to the sea coast.

When we reached the bottom the sun was just starting to rise above the water and the mountains in the distance. It was beautiful. The colors were vived and bright! The location we watched from was covered in massive rocks. We spent time jumping around on the rocks out to the sea!

After the sunrise we left the beach to head home. The ride back was even more beautiful with the sun actuly in the sky. We could see where we were going and the beautiful coast.

We also had our eyes open for Dragon Mountain. By chance we stopped at a bridge looked to the right and saw this temple on the side of a mountain! It was Dragon Mountain. We approaced the Mountain and discovered that there was indeed a giant dragon on the side of this mountain. It was a large tunnel that went up the side of this mountain and ended on the ground in a giant dragon head! We were examining things when out of no where a Buddhist monk appeared and told us to go inside the dragon. We followed him and were greated by this sight:



It was amazing! The monk left us and we were inside of the dragon alone. We followed the tunnel all the way to the top. All of the walls were lined with pictures and statues and at the end there was a large statue of Buddah with a prayer mat. We spent some time there and left.

As we were getting on our bikes another monk appeared and motioned to us to follow him. He took us into a private building and offered us coffe. He couldn't speak any English! We figured out he was the dish washer for the monks! We spent a little time with him and then went to leave. He bowed and told us good bye. As we were getting on our bikes he again called ups back and this time invited us into a different buiilding. This time he gave us each a calander!

We finally got on our bikes and finished the rest of the ride back to school!

Well I need to run. I'm leaving for china in about 2 hours! I'll be in Hong Kong Tomorrow! I miss everyone back home! See you soon!

Love, Joy & Peace!

Temple:

Relaxing...

Coffee! My favorite way to relax no matter where in the world I am! This is a shot of my Latte at the Illy Cafe. I rode the bus into town on Monday by myself to read, write and spend some time alone. I had a really good time and I was able to get some good reading done! I'm just about to finish F. Scott Fitzgerald's "This Side of Paradise."

Camp ended on Friday at about 1:00 P.M. and I have had some time to explore and relax. The next camp doesn't start until Monday morning at 11:00 A.M. so we have plenty of time to do whatever we like.

Last night we went to a karaoke house as a group. It was amazing. We all paid 1,000 Won ($1) to get in and then they took our group to our own private Karaoke room. There were about 15 of us crammed in the room with a flat screen T.V. two wireless microphones, and about 6 tambourines. We all took turns singing our favorite songs for about 2 hours it was a great time! Its a pretty cool way to Karaoke!

Here is a video of our group rocking out to a Korean pop song:



Today we went to a place called Jukdo Market in the city of Pohang. It was amazing. There is no way I could ever describe the feeling, the sounds, and the smells that fill the place! Its a very large market with lots for sale. There are live fish everywhere, socks, fruit, vegetables, candy, blankets, and anything else you might need! People would be shouting and yelling and pushing and buying. I tried dried octopus, puffed rice, tofu chips, and dried squid legs!

Here is a picture of the entrance to the market:



Kendal, Lisa and Asha Looking for a good deal:



Squid for sale:



Fish for sale:



Fish Drying:



Tomorrow morning we are going for a bike ride really early to hike up a mountain named Dragon mountain to watch the sun rise over the water. Should be cool! Hope all is well! Love, Joy & Peace!

<

My Class!

Our first camp is over and we are enjoying a long weekend break! We got off work on Friday at about 1:00 P.M. and are off until Monday morning at 8:30 A.M. So I've been relaxing and seeing some sights! I'll have another post after this one with some pictures of my time off.

During the camp I had a homeroom class that I was responsible for each day. They would start everyday in my classroom for a time called "Mission to the World." In that class we were assigned a Missionary from Cairo Illinois of all places! Each day we would discuss missions and our Missionary and the United States. Each homeroom was assigned a city and country to learn about during the camp. My class was the city of Chicago! These were the only kids I had in class everyday. So you get closer to these kids than the others.

Here are some pictures of my kids and my class.

My Classroom:



My Class:



My Boys



Our class project! We built our own version of the Chicago Skyline. They spent 3 days building this and our American Flag. Check out all of the little details:



My Boys proud of their city:



Boys and Girls with massive American Flag. Allice the girl in the back cut out every star on the flag!: