Blog Posts - FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH SWEETWATER, TEXAS

The Peace of Quiet and Retreat

2/11/2014

     Life is full of noise. There is obvious noise: music playing, commercials being louder than the show you are watching, and traffic on the street outside your house. Then there is the noise that can be enjoyable: children playing, birds singing, and bacon frying. Then there's the noise we sometimes do not notice: billboards and signs cover the streets and highways we drive and the chaos of the day runs through our minds constantly.

     All of these noises compete for our attention every day that we are alive and a part of God's creation. The noise interrupts our lives and disrupt our connection with God. God does not always speak in the booming, audible voice that we imagine, and rarely does God show up physically in the form of Morgan Freeman (or at least God has not done that in my life).

     But God speaks in the still, small voice...the voice that can be overpowered by the noise in our lives, unless we are intentional about hearing God's voice. As Christians along the journey of faith, we need to put aside the noise of our day and spend time with God. Then, like Elijah in 1 Kings 19:9-18, we find and hear the still, small voice of God. The voice is challenging us, encouraging us, and comforting us through the Body of Christ around us.

     This week I needed to remember that hearing from God is not an accident. I must be willing to get away from the noise of life, even the good noises, and just sit with my Creator. One of my favorite songs came to mind while spending time with God: "If I Could Just Sit With You Awhile" sung by MercyMe.

When I cannot feel
When my wounds don't heal
Lord I humbly kneel
Hidden in You

Lord you are my life
So I don't mind to die
Just as long as I
Am hidden in You

If I could just sit with You awhile
If You could just hold me
nothing can touch me
though I'm wounded
though I've died

If I could just sit with You awhile
I need You to hold me
Moment by moment 'til forever passes by

It's Not About Me

9/20/2013

This Summer, our church went through The Purpose Driven Life. The book begins with the statement, "It's not about you." The book was a huge success in the United States, as well as around the world. How in the world is that possible?! A book that begins with, "It's not about you," becomes a best seller across the world? As I watch TV or read the news, I don't see a world that believes that it is not about them. As I look into my own life, I realize that there are many times when I am living out a life that is about me. Maybe, "It's not about you," is the beauty of Christianity that draws the lost to Christ. Maybe our culture has become so focused on "me" and we have allowed that mentality to creep into the Church in America and we have lost our prophetic voice of love.
I am not here to condemn or judge anyone, but this is what I have been dealing with since we began the book together as a church this summer. "It's not about me." Looking at the greatest commandments and the great commission, I see that not only is it not about me, but it is about God and it is about others.
That is the attraction of the Good News. In a consumeristic society where we are catered to on a regular basis, the draw of the Good News is that there is something more to creation than just me. There is a Creator who loves me and calls me to love others. It is no longer what I want, but what God wants that is important. God wants me to put aside my own personal wants and desires and see the world as God does. When the Church does this, when I do this, then we look different...we are different...we are living water to those who are thirsty!
How church is done is not about me, it is about God. How I relate to my coworkers is not about me, it is about God. How I relate to my family is not about me, it is about God. How I treat the least of these is not about me, it is about God. The whole of Christianity, the whole of life, is not about me, it is about God.
In my life today, that is an easy concept to hear, but a difficult concept to live out on a daily basis. My parents tried to raise me in such a way that my life would be about more than just me. Everything else points me in the opposite direction...except for Jesus, at least the Jesus of the Bible. I think at times we, no I, make Jesus into the image of me and forget that I am made in his image. When I forget "It's not about me," I forget what it is to be truly human. I become selfish and inward focused, not living out love as God has called me to do.
The good news is, there is forgiveness and a Savior who is constantly beside me, challenging me to be more and live out a life that is about God and about others. When I am living that way, I experience the life of abundance that has been promised to me.

The Heroes of Youth Ministry

5/1/2013

Today is National Youth Workers Appreciation Day and I want to take some time to celebrate some of the people I am blessed to minister alongside. These volunteers are some of my closest friends and have amazing hearts for ministry and for students. I cannot say thank you enough for all that they do and how they love on students. I want to tell a little bit about each worker and how special they are to me and the youth ministry of FBC (they are in alphabetical order).
Mollie Bedgood was me before I was me at FBC. She built relationships with students and created a foundation for spiritual growth in the student ministry that was amazingly helpful for a new youth minister arriving at FBC. After I arrived, I was blessed that Mollie stayed on and has continued to minister to the students in numerous ways. She has become a great friend to Stacy and me and has saved me from having to see unlimited chick flicks with my wife! Thank you, Mollie, you are amazing!
Robert Eaker has served in the Sunday School Ministry as long as I have been at FBC, and was there before I started four years ago. I have served aside great men in ministry, but Robert has become more than just a co-minister of the Gospel. Robert is a friend, a mentor, an encourager, and an example to me of how to love students. He is faithful to teach on Sundays, but his relationship with students goes beyond one hour a week. He engages students outside of church and I know how the young men in his class respect and love him. Thank you, Robert, you are awesome!

Stacy Hamilton has one of the most difficult jobs because she has to deal with me on a daily basis. I have been blessed by God to serve alongside her in ministry for over ten years now. Her constant encouragement and unending energy (teaching third graders as a job and still serving with youth) brings me joy that cannot be expressed and I am so thankful that God brought us together in marriage and ministry. Thank you, Stacy, you are awesome!
Dana Rhoades has the compassion that only comes from a mother. She is so dedicated to the students and a prayer warrior that every youth minister would be lucky to serve alongside. She has a joy that only comes from God and is contagious, as well as a constant encouragement in ministry. Dana is a great friend and has challenged me to be more patient when ministry gets frustrating, and to truly enjoy the blessings of life and ministry. Thank you, Dana, you are amazing!
Each of these people has blessed me in so many ways! Thank you each for all that you do and the joy you bring to my life everyday! They are the real heroes of youth ministry!

A Time for New, Stronger Growth

4/30/2013

(Reposted from Tique's blog in 2011, but with new edits.)
As part of the Doctor of Ministry program, I have been assigned a Mentor to walk through the program with me. My mentor is the pastor at FBC Colorado City. He is a great man of God and I enjoyed meeting with him yesterday. After our time together, I drove north on highway 208 to see the impact the wildfires had on the small community, having talked with someone earlier about their relative losing a home in the fire.
I can’t explain some of the feelings I had as I topped the hill and saw where the wildfires had torn through the north part of the community. The fires had burned some houses to the ground, but left others standing right next door. One house was burned halfway down, but a large pine tree surrounded by green grass still stood in the front yard. Some people were in their blackened front yards beginning the cleanup process, while others still had sprinklers on their burned grass to keep any flare-ups from happening.
When I see something like this, it always raises questions of “Why?” “Why would God allow such a thing to happen?” “Why did some people lose everything while neighbors lost nothing?” Questions are difficult because I do not know the mind of God.
I have to remind myself that I live in a fallen world: a world where even creation was affected by the sin of Adam and Eve. Tidal waves, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and wildfires happen because we no longer live in the Garden of Eden.
As I drove home on I-20, I saw a small patch of land in the median that had been burned in an earlier fire. I could still see the black from the fire, but there was something different about this area of burned land. This charred piece of ground had bright green growing through the ashen areas. I was reminded that even out of something as devastating as a fire, good happens as the fire creates fertilizer and new, stronger growth happens.
This does not seem comforting for those who lost their homes, because their homes will not grow back. Their clothes will not sprout from trees. I think, no, I believe this is where we come in. As Christians, we are to be the physical presence of Christ to the hurting. For those who have lost everything, we are to help begin the new, stronger growth in their lives.
I ask you to first pray for those who have been and are affected by wildfires and other horrible things that happen everyday in the world, but also, find a way to be a physical presence of Jesus in their lives. You do not have to meet every need, but listen for those groups that are helping and plug into the mission of those groups.
Second, as a church and as individuals, we are reminded with the newness of regrowth that happens in spring and after fires, that we, the people of God, have a chance to grow stronger in the midst of adversity. No matter what it is ion our lives, God is there walking with us and though we might fall over and over, God picks us up and helps us start new...stronger...better equipped to serve the Kingdom of God.

The Church

4/10/2013

What is the church? A loaded question. As one looks around the internet, there are numerous "churches" that range from Christian to non-Christian, but still claim the title of "church." Even as one looks at Christian churches, there does not seem to be one cohesive pattern between Christian denominations. Baptist churches in America look different from Baptist churches India. Baptist churches in Sweetwater look different from other Baptist churches in Sweetwater. So what, then, is the church?
The best place to discover the identity of the church is in Scripture and the understanding of the earliest Christians. Literally, the Greek word for church means "the called out ones." The church has more to do with people than it does with architecture. When Paul went on missionary journeys or wrote letters to churches, he was writing to a body of believers, not to a building that had been erected in a town. The church is not a building, but the church is the people who are called out by God to do the work of God's Kingdom. The church is God's people doing God's work in the world.
Maybe the best way to define the church comes from an experience I had Sunday. Two girls, one in first grade and the other in second grade, asked me to take them home Sunday. As we drove, they told me they wanted to be baptized. We talked about why they wanted to be baptized and their words echo in my mind today, "Because I asked Jesus into my heart and to forgive me of my sins and I love him." The girls told me of the cross and the empty tomb. They told me what sin was and that they knew Jesus died for them because of the bad things they had done. I was in awe of how much they understood about how one begins a relationship with God. I asked them where they learned that and they said at KidX and from their teachers. The church is God's people doing the work of the Kingdom...to all those who serve God's Kingdom and help lead people like these two girls to a relationship with Jesus, thank you! Thank you to our KidX workers, our Sunday School Teachers, our Deacons, our Growth Group Leaders, and everyone else who lives out what it means to be a Christian! Thank You for being the church!!!

Sunday is here

3/31/2013

'It is Finished!" This is the powerful phrase uttered from the lips of Christ as he hung on a cross. On this day we celebrate the event behind the power of those last words of Jesus. When Jesus burst forth from the tomb His victory over the powers of sin and death was complete. No longer would sin and death hold the world in their dark shadow. When the stone was rolled away the blinding light of hope, redemption and salvation spilled out into the world and the world would never be the same.

There is power living in light of Sunday. We live knowing the cross was not the end, but just the beginning. The resurrection on Sunday gave us all a new hope, new purpose, and a complete victory over sin and death. On Friday, we took time to remember the darkness of Jesus' death. On that first Good Friday the words 'it is finished' brought grief, uncertainty and despair. But not on this day...

I would love to be able to go back to the day Jesus was hanging on a cross and put my arm around Mary. She was experiencing deep and powerful grief. Her world was crashing in around her as she saw her son suffering and ultimately dying on an execution tool reserved for the foulest of criminals. I wish I could whisper in her ear, "I know your grieving and hurting, I know it's a painful Friday, but Sunday is coming."

I would love to be able to stand before the Disciples as they huddled in fear and questioned everything that had happened over the last three years. They were searching for meaning and trying to make sense out of a senseless situation. Their future was in shambles and they were broken men. I wish I could say to them, "I know you are mourning and confused, I know that this is a Friday that has caused you nothing but uncertainty, but Sunday is coming."

I certainly would love to casually stroll up to the religious leaders as they mocked and laughed at this man hanging on a cross who had taken up so much of their time and energy. They were experiencing the adrenaline high of a victory won and a difficult plan accomplished. They were ready for life to get back to normal: a life where they had the religious power and dictated what the Kingdom of God looked like. I wish I could say to them, "I know you are enjoying your victory today and you better relish in the fact that it is Friday, but....Sunday is coming."

Let us all be reminded that Sunday is HERE. We all will have days and periods of our lives when we feel like it is still Friday, but remember Sunday is here. The man from Galilee has proven Himself to be the promised redeemer of Israel and the world. We live in His victory each and every day. We have a message to proclaim to the world around us; a world filled with those who are grieving, uncertain, confused, hopeless and yes, even some who revel in the belief that God is dead. We have a message for the world: It is no longer Friday, Sunday is Here!

It Is finished

3/28/2013

Jesus' final words spoken on the cross were possibly His most powerful: "It is Finished." I have always seen these words as powerful and victorious, but as we enter into Good Friday we should take time to think about what those words meant to people who heard them on the day Jesus died.

Think about Mary as she is looking up at her son hanging on the cross. When she heard the words 'it is finished' her heart was breaking. Her mind must have been flooded with the memories of the extraordinary night when she gave birth to this special child. On that night she could never have imagined the scene before her now. How could the child the angel promised Mary so many years ago be hanging on a cross. When Mary heard the last words of Jesus her grief must have been near unbearable. 'It is finished' meant 'it is over,' she was just another mother grieving the brutal execution of her son at the hands of the Romans.

Think about the Disciples hiding throughout the region in fear, uncertainty and grief. When the description of Jesus' last words on the cross came to them, what must they have felt? They had given up three years of their life following the one they believed to be the promised Messiah. Had they been wrong? Jesus, the one they gave up everything for, was now hanging on a cross much like previous men who had come proclaiming to be the promised one. In their hearts they still wanted to believe they had not wasted away the last three years of their life, but the hope in their hearts was being replaced by the image of the one they loved hanging on a cross. 'It is finished' meant the Disciples had to start their life over with the stigma of being men who put their trust in a man from Galilee; and they were wrong.

Think about the religious leaders jeering and mocking Jesus as he hung on the cross. As Jesus' popularity had been growing they felt their power weakening. The message Jesus preached of the coming Kingdom of God was a threat to the existing religious system and therefore a threat to the leaders themselves. No doubt, countless hours of planning and scheming were used to determine how to rid the world of this so called Messiah. The crowds of people following Jesus were growing and the religious leaders could not afford to have the crowds turn against them. The Romans were a constant antagonist to the religious leaders, but they were a needed commodity in order to see Jesus executed. Finally, their political maneuvering came to fruition and Jesus was hanging on a cross. 'It is finished' meant their plan had succeeded, their power was secure, life could go back to normal; and they were victorious.

But, Sunday was coming....

Patrick of Ireland

3/18/2013

Talking with the youth Sunday Morning, I realized that we have allowed Saint Patrick's Day to become a day that is synonymous with the color green, pinching each other, and dyeing the San Antonio River Green. Saint Patrick's Day is more than three leaf clovers and leprechauns, Saint Patrick's Day is a day to remember a man who lived out the Christian life in such a way that it changed a country...no, it saved a country. March 17 is a day to draw encouragement from an example of what living out one's Christian life can do for the lost world around us.
Patrick's story begins in 385 in Scotland, traditionally in Kilpatrick. Around the age of 14, Patrick was captured in a raiding party and taken in slavery to Ireland to herd and tend sheep. Ireland was a land of barbarians, and pagan religions that focused on nature. For six years, Patrick was sustained by his faith in God as he lived among his captors and learned their language and practices. At the age of twenty, Patrick was told in a dream by God to flee to the coast, where he found some sailors who took him back to Britain and he was reunited with his parents.
The story would be fine ending there: a story of perseverance reliance on God, and even some secret agent spy stuff, but Patrick's story does not end with his escape to freedom. After returning to Britain, Patrick had another dream in which the people of Ireland were yearning for him to return with the Gospel. He began to study and train for the Priesthood, and was ordained a Bishop in the church. He was commissioned to take the Gospel to Ireland...the home of those who took him away from his family and put him into slavery.
According to one account, "Patrick began preaching the Gospel throughout Ireland, converting many. He and his disciples preached and converted thousands and began building churches all over the country. Kings, their families, and entire kingdoms converted to Christianity when hearing Patrick's message. Patrick preached and converted all of Ireland for 40 years. After years of living in poverty, traveling and enduring much suffering he died March 17, 461" (www.catholic.org/saints).

The story of Saint Patrick is an example for every Christian. He took the words of Christ literally, to love your enemies. Because of Patrick, a country was changed as other missionaries followed Patrick and spread the Good News of Christ. Are we living out the Good News where God has called us? That might be the question that Saint Patrick's Day is a

Elementary, My Dear Watson

3/5/2013

I am a mystery/detective/scientific book/TV show kind of person. I love walking with the detective/explorer/shadow through the mystery that the author has put together and try to see the same clues that they see. I rarely solve the crime without the help of the main character, but the journey is the best part. The beauty of each story is in the details. I am stretched by characters like Juan Cabrillo, Dirk Pitt, Jack Reacher and Sherlock Holmes. They make it look so easy, but they cheat because they have read the script...the author tells them ahead of time how the story will end.
Our lives in Christ are much the same as the beauty is in the details. We know how the story ends, but the joy and love comes in the journey we take to get to the end. The joy is in the people we meet and share our lives with, the stories we hear and become a part of, and the lives that we impact as they impact us at some level.
Every detective has flaws; every hero has a weakness. The result is that the detective or hero needs someone to walk beside them, to partner with them as they do what they are called to do. Jesus had the disciples (Not saying Jesus had flaws, but he knew he needed someone to carry out his mission on earth after he went to be with God), Paul had Barnabas, Timothy had Paul, David had Jonathan, Barack had Deborah, Adam had Eve, Eve had Adam, the list goes on and on. We need someone to share the journey with, someone to walk alongside and share in the joy of the journey.
When life begins to go too fast and you find yourself wondering where the time is going, stop. Intentionally slow down and find someone to share the journey with, someone to share your story with, someone who will share their story with you. Take time to enjoy the details of life, the loved ones who God has given you, the creation around you, the Body of Christ that you are a part of. Life will not slow down unless you make it. Sometimes we have to tell the world that the phone and computer are being turned off and we are spending time enjoying the journey of life with those that are around us and the rest of the stuff that busies our lives will just have to wait.

where is our service targeted?

2/19/2013

We all serve! We all serve? Really? Yes!! The question is not whether or not we serve, but where that service is targeted.
Jesus not only commands us to serve, but openly stated that He came not to be served, but to serve. And then ... He modeled service for us!
The truth is, that when we are either lost or carnal, our service is directed toward ourselves ... SELF-service. Only through the power of the Holy Spirit can we truly be what God wants us to be as servants, ready to lay down our own SELF-ish desires and do things that bless and help others. One of the most challenging statements in Scripture is found in I John 4:20 ... "If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen."
Wait! Weren't we talking about service? How did we get here? Think about it ... how did Jesus SHOW his love for us? Did he not SERVE? Was His service not SELF-less, rather than SELF-ish? His service was demonstrated as He willingly laid down the glory of heaven and took on our form to come as one of us, own nothing, wash the feet of His disciples ... and ultimately as He allowed himself to be crucified.
So ...when I'm insisting on my own way (yes, even within the body we call church) am I showing SELF-lessness or SELF-ishness? If I won't budge on my own preferences so that others might be reached or encouraged, am I serving? Oh yes ... we are serving ... either SELF or OTHERS. Think about it ... maybe folks don't know we LOVE them because we refuse to SERVE them! Want to know if you're loving like God loves? Examine where your service is targeted! If it is to others, Jesus is pleased and is visible in you! And your SELFLESSNESS is showing! If not ...