Friends

I have had the privilege of being on a Ministry committee of a worship conference called The Experience Conference for the past 10 years. This group consists of 50 worship leaders from around the country who gather once a year in January at a ranch in Texas to discuss the conference and to plan together. 

The group gathers again during September in Orlando for the Experience Conference. 1,500 ministry leaders from all around the country come together for 4 days to worship and refuel. This group of 50 has become some of my most trusted friends whom I could call on anytime.

When I see these friends, it's like we pick up where we left off. This group of men and women have been faithful friends and have represented themselves as the church should.

For instance, on the second day of meetings in January, we met at 6:30 pm in the church on the ranch’s property. We put the piano in the middle of the church and 50 of us gathered around it to worship and sing. The last time we met, my friend Jerry started to sing "Great Is Thy Faithfulness," when he got to the last note, he couldn’t sing it and just broke down. Two men came and stood next to Jerry and sang the chorus again with him. In the end, the two men stepped back and let him finish the last notes on his own. This is a great example of what the church is. Whatever place we are in, we come into church looking for answers. We stand alongside each other, and hold one another up, allowing everyone to "finish their song." 

Regardless of where you are in your life, you must value your trusted friends. These are the friends who you can call on at any hour and say, "I need your help," and they will be there. These friends will go to lunch with you and not just talk about the weather. They will do life with you. Keep in mind, my 50 friends from the conference do not live close by, but they are as close as a phone call or a message of encouragement.

So, when the world seems to be closing in on you, look around and see who your real friends are and make sure they know they are loved by you.

The one true friend you will always have is Jesus. Look no further than Jeremiah 29:11-13

“For I know the plans I have for you, “declares the Lord, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”.

I have been blessed to have friends who have been there in my darkest of days. Friends who want to see me flourish. 

This church has been such a blessing to me. I will always remember when my mother passed away. Vicki and I were meeting people who were coming into the service, and I was ok until I saw Pastor Alan and Robert Trigg walk into the Church in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. They drove 12 hours to come to the service and support my family and me on some of the most difficult days. That time and effort they put in for us will always be treasured and I am so grateful for them.

Always pour yourself into the friends who want to see you flourish because it is a two-way street. Reach out to those people and know that in the end, the time, effort, and respect you both put into the relationship is what will be remembered.  

It is a new year and a new beginning. Make yourself a better person and a better friend.

Blessings to you,

Mike

My First Blog

When I was asked about doing a blog back in mid-October, I took one look at them and was like “Nope, not doing one. I’ve never done one, it’s not my thing, I don’t know how.” You see, I’m not big on, or in the know about, a lot of online stuff or the computer world. I mean I have never even really read a blog (until now) or gotten into that sort of thing. It took me a long time when emails became a thing to start using one and what felt like forever to figure out Facebook. Even now, I am not a big fan but I had to learn for my kids’ schools and activities because that is how they put information out to the parents. I do have to say, it was helpful living overseas to be able to Shae pictures and stories with family members stateside. However, after some more conversation and knowing that on the schedule I had until mid-December to figure it ou, I decided why not? How hard could it really be? So, me being me, I started googling and scrolling through Pintret “What is a Blog?”, “How to Blog”, and “How to start a Blog”. The amount of information coming across my device screens was totally overwhelming. My anxiety about something new and uncomfortable would start to increase, so I would close the computer or swipe out of my phone and say “I’ll do this later.”

After continuing to do this multiple times and then getting in the groove of the holidays with work and home life, I totally space on working on it. The person in charge came to me on the day is was due and asked if I had it finished. My first thought was “oh crap” and of course I apologized profusely and asked for a new date promising to do it then. With him being the amazing person that he is, he gave me a new date in January. 

So, again I opened up my computer and started the whole “How to start a Blog” search. But instead of closing the laptop and giving up because it felt overwhelming, I decided to adult and started scanning over all the options to click on. Apparently, there are multiple ways to start a blog. For example, one link said “8 Steps to Start Blogging”, “9 Steps to Start Your Blog”, “Sign up here to Start Blogging”. There were way too many options in my opinion. And then there are multiple layouts you can use to help get you started on your topic. Some of those you had to subscribe to in order to access. My thought was “nope, I get too many junk things sent to e as it is”, and went back to searching. 

The more I decided to adult and read everything, the more different pieces of information I pulled from and concluded that a blog is basically just someone, somewhere talking about anything. I sat in my chair and thought “Well, now what am I going to write about? Do I need to use a layout? Can I just type?” Too many decisions and not enough coffee. I get told that I overthink things and that I am overthink this. As I stare at the blank page on my laptop, it clicked. I can write about my experience of having to write my first blog. I decided not to use a fancy layout and just typed like I am sitting across from you with a cup of coffee talking about myself and my insecurities when it comes to learning something new that has to deal with technology. So here’s my first blog. If I’m asked to do one again I may try one of those fancy layouts with an interesting topic like “How to…” or “Did you know…”. But for now, I suppose I’ll conclude with this thought.

Don’t be afraid of trying something new. You can learn something cool or learn about gibberish that you still don’t understand, but hey, you gave it a shot right? I’m going to keep trying and who knows, maybe I will get good at these one day. 

Waiting For God Knows What

Sometimes we feel like we’re always in a cycle of waiting for something – doctor’s appointments, bathroom lines, finding the right job, finding the right person….  We all have areas in our lives where we are waiting for something to happen.  All of us go through those periods, but in those moments we may begin to ask ourselves:

“What should I be doing differently?”

“Did I miss my chance?”

“Why is this happening to me?”

“Is there some kind of sin or shortcoming in my life that is keeping me from achieving what I desire?”

I think most of us handle waiting in one of two ways:

Dwelling on the Past

Some of us mourn over times when things were better. We can enter a dark place that feels like we’ll never see the bright side in things ever again. This often can lead to depression and a feeling that nothing good will happen ever again.

Anxiety About the Future

Some of us may take a different extreme and begin to become anxious – especially if what we’re waiting for has a correlation with our livelihood.  Many of us become anxious when we have to wait for something for a really long time.  At this point we begin to dwell too much on those questions that creep in our heads.

In these moments we forget how to recognize God.  We forget what He’s done for us in the past. The writer of Hebrews reminds us in Hebrews 11:1-3:

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

There are times in life when we are not going to see how a particular trial or circumstance is going to help us grow; or better yet, when that trial is finally going to come to an end. I’m reminded about how Job dealt with so much strife and loss, never really understanding the purpose of it while he was going through those trying times. Never knowing when things were finally going to get better. It’s the open-ended waits that are the hardest to deal with – the most frustrating.  It is easy to get impatient with our waits.  As we think about resolving our wait, the worst thing possible happens: The wait becomes interminable – incapable of ending.

The big question is: “How do I make it through my waiting period with enough patience that is healthy and that honors God?”  But for many of us the question is: “How can I make this wait end quickly without messing things up?”

We must remember these periods of waiting are helping us grow. And that is a difficult lesson to learn in our instant gratification culture. The world of digital social media, fast food, and 2-day Amazon shipping conditions us to have a “gotta have it now” mentality.

I think now more than ever God is teaching us to just be present in our circumstances. Psalm 46 reminds us that God is our refuge in times of trouble, and that God is telling us to “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” In Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus reminds us that we are cared for daily, and worrying about what the future holds will not add a single hour to our lives.

As with all circumstances in our lives, everything comes to pass. God is still ever present in our times of need, even when it doesn’t seem like it. May God give His peace that goes beyond all understanding; and may we seek His Kingdom first above all else.

2021, A Retrospective

Another year has come and gone. Forgive me for going the predictable route and doing a retrospective of the year. 2021 feels like it has flown by, until I start to think about everything that happened in the year. Exactly one year ago we were taking things out of the sanctuary in preparation for the renovation. I’d have to look back to be sure, but I think the very first Sunday of 2021 was our very first Sunday worshiping back in Hildreth Hall. At the time, we had no idea how long the process was going to take. Our first contractors were telling us we would be out of the sanctuary only a few weeks and that we could still worship in there under the scaffolding. If you saw what eventually took place in our sanctuary, you might have a better idea why we sought after another contractor. However, because there were so many unknowns surrounding the timeline, we had to prepare for a quick transition and for a longer period of displacement at the same time.
              There were many, many heated conversations about worshiping in Hildreth. In most other years, we would have been able to worship in Hildreth with minimal controversy. However, we were (and still are) in the middle of a pandemic. Our options were to worship in Hildreth, find another location off campus, or do virtual church only. People were passionate about each of those, and while there were disagreements about which option was best the heart of everything was how do we best reach people for Christ while doing all we can to protect our congregants. The off campus option would potentially allow us to safely accommodate the most in-person worshipers, but the number of venues in Navarre that are available for that, along with the initial cost of buying portable equipment (trailer, speakers, cabinets, lights, etc.) and the extreme toll on volunteers to set up and tear down each week meant that it wasn’t a great option for us. That left online only versus in-person in Hildreth. Instead of making it an either/or option we did a both/and. We continued to live stream our services and do in-person worship. The leadership’s stance was that we will do everything we can to make it as safe as possible inside Hildreth, but we fully understand and encourage people to worship with us online if they are uncomfortable, and especially if they are at risk or sick themselves.
              It wasn’t a popular decision. After the first test run of putting chairs up there were a lot of concerns about if we would be able to safely seat everyone. We set up an overflow room, had a backup plan over in Taylor, and had more contingencies in place. The one thing that gave us hope was a sense of returning to our roots. Hildreth Hall was the original sanctuary on our campus, for our long term members it brought back a flood of memories. At the time, some were still hopeful that we would only be there for a couple of weeks.
              Then reality set in. Our sanctuary was in worse shape than many of us initially thought, and the scope of work kept growing. In the middle of February it became clear that instead of the 4-6 week range the original contractors had falsely promised, we were looking at a 4-6 month process. I’m not going to say that that realization deflated the leadership, but it sure made it more difficult to be excited about what all was really happening. Bruce Flannigan with Re:Done Renovations was our on-sight contractor and an absolute God send. Nathan Butterfield, our general contractor, and owner of All-Star Restoration along with Bruce were the best people we could have asked to work with. Not only were they extremely understanding and cooperative with all the legal and insurance aspects, but they also donated their personal time and money to support our church.
              We finally got back into the sanctuary in July. In the six months of worship in Hildreth, we only had to cancel one service due to Covid. It was a precautionary measure and no one that I’m aware of traced their infection back to our church. The first big thing we got to do in our new sanctuary was host VBS for the first time since 2019. As always there was an extra element we had to work around but we saw around 100 kids on campus that week and had a phenomenal group of volunteers. For the first time in almost 18 months things felt almost normal again. Then school started back, our new Children and Youth director got all the programs going again, and we got to where we are now. Almost normal.
              You see, we aren’t back to the days of pre-covid. Our in person worship is roughly half of what is was before March 2019. Our budget is around $100,000 less as well. With each new variant we have to assess what our steps will be. There will continue to be challenges ahead, but in the midst of everything we still have so much to be thankful for and to celebrate. The Good Neighbor Thrift store is setting records almost every single week. Under the leadership of Laura Beth Snow they are bringing in more money, customers, and donations than ever before. And they are doing this open fewer days a week than in 2019. And while we celebrate those records, what it really means is that we have more money to help We Care and the food pantry. These ministries support or community in so many untold ways. If you ever want to see direct life change because of our church, volunteer there and see what a difference we can make.
              Our Preschool managed to pay all of it’s staff throughout the entire pandemic and only had to fully shut down one time for two weeks. They have a wait list of over 70 kids who would love to be in the program, but we have maxed out our building’s capacity. While several other preschools in our area have shut down permanently, had several outbreaks, and struggle to keep teachers, we have only had staff leave because spouses received a PCS. Churches from all over the NW portion of our state reach out to us for ways to improve their programs. The bottom line is we have over one hundred families pay us for their kid to be on our campus and learn about Jesus (along with their numbers and letters).
              There are so many more things that we can see God doing in and through our church. I can’t list them all or even give them justice if I tried. There are bright days ahead, and if we could make it through this past year we can make it through anything.

Song Remembers When

Song Remembers When

There is an old saying that states, “You might not remember what the Pastor said, but you will remember what song you sang.” There is a lot of truth in that statement for me at times. Music has been the mainstay of my life since I was 12 years old. There are moments in my life that I remember exactly where I was and what songs were playing, such as the day Elvis died.  When the song “One More Night” by Phil Collins plays, it takes me back to a snow-covered town in the middle of February in Canada.

I remember sitting in Willow Creek Church and hearing Chris Tomlin saying he had just written a song last night and he wanted to do it for us, and it was "How Great Is Our God."

I am sure there are songs that take you back to a certain time in your life that trigger a memory. I was asked a few months ago if I remember any specific night playing music on the road that stands out. Of all the nights, I remember a night in Melbourne, Florida in a club that seated 1,000 people.  It was a Tuesday night and there might have been 25 people there. I remember we had just hired a new guitar player for the band. We played the best 1-hour set we had ever played, and we played as if there were 1,000 people there, but as I said, there were only 25. When we finished the set, the guitar player said, "Man, I cannot wait to see what happens with a full house." We did not know it at the time, but a booking agent was one of the 25 people in there that night. He began booking us the next week.

You never know what is in front of you if you don’t open your eyes and realize, this is the hand you have been dealt and make the most of it. God will show up and bless you when you least expect it, with abundance.

I look back on those times and realize there were many days that were not the best at all.  We stayed in hotel rooms that I would not let my dog sleep in, we were hungry, poor, lonely, and were gone for months at a time.  I think about all the family gatherings and special occasions we missed.  At that time, there was such a passion for what we were doing. We were five guys on the road, living the dream (or a nightmare.) The drummer for the band and his wife recently came down and spent a week with Vicki and me. We have kept in touch over the 33 years it’s been since I left the road. He is a successful chicken farmer, owns a Pizza Inn, runs a sound production company, and has played drums for many country stars, including venues such as the Bridgestone Arena and the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. We had a jam session while he was here, and we did songs that we have not done in 33 years, and we never missed a beat. Breaks, harmonies, and structures of songs we did without even blinking. They are woven into our memory.

During this Holiday season will you look back and have the memories which are woven into your memory and smile? When there is a house full of family and the laughter is loud, take the time and weave that moment into your memory. It’s not just a song that remembers when, it’s the moments we choose to take in and not let pass by. God has placed all these memories in front of you, it’s your option to choose to see them.

Isaiah 60:2

“My Presence, My Glory brightens the world around you.”

God Bless, 

Mike