I am blessed with a beautiful family. This picture was taken last weekend at a wedding I performed. I had to post it so that everybody could see my beautiful family.

I have had a fast and furious past few weeks. From a nice extended weekend at the lake to a week with 200 children at Children’s Camp to this week which has been full of meetings, it seems as if it never slows down! That being said, I love so much being a pastor that even though my schedule is full, I couldn’t be happier! Tracy and I were talking the other day about how unique it is that each of us is getting to fulfill our dreams for our lives. She is a stay at home mom and I’m a lead Pastor at an amazing church which is being used by God to take the gospel to the world. What a blessing!

Coming up this week, however, is a couple of very exciting events. We start our new sermon series this week entitled “Oasis”. Just as an oasis appears in the midst of vast desert, so to Christ appears out of the midst of our depravity and offers us hope in a hopeless world. I’m excited about the new series. On top of the exciting series, the good folks who design our stage for each series have built a 10 foot waterfall which looks incredible! I’ll try and post pictures in the upcoming weeks once the stage design is complete.

Beyond that we start VBS next week. Last year we had over 200 children and this year we are praying for 400! We’ll see how God blesses our prayers and how God uses our VBS to draw children to Himself.

Finally, below is a picture a friend took of my wife and girls as we played with fireworks last week at the lake. I thought it was particularly good so I thought I would post it.

I don’t KNOW if I will, or will not, correspond with anyone for the next few days. Tracy, the girls and I are taking advantage of the extended weekend and we’re heading to the lake for a few days thanks to the generous hospitality of some friends from our church. I’m looking forward to relaxing, spending time on the water, and coming back from Osage Beach nice and tanned (and hopefully not sunburned ). We should have wifi while we’re down at the lake but I’m not planning to spend excessive amounts of time using it. So, I’ll talk to you each when I get back. Until then, have a fantastic Independence Day.

A pet peeve of mine is teaching children “memorized” prayers. I want children to learn that their faith is a personal faith and so we have encouraged our daughters, since they began to talk, to formulate their own prayers to God. At the close of our family devotional time each evening we let the girls each pray. Grace has been a pretty avid prayer since she was 2 and a half or 3. She loves to pray and she can pray some amazing prayers at times. Kessed, however, has just recently decided that she needed to begin praying. She listens to her big sister a lot and often copies her, but she is also beginning to develop her own personal ability to converse with God. It’s pretty amazing to watch.

Tonight after she prayed, we thought it was so cute that we had to get it on video for the sake of archiving it. We asked her to pray again once the camera was rolling. She obliged (which is definitely not a guarantee when you’re talking about Kessed) and I love the video. I’ve posted it below.

In case you don’t speak Kessedese and need a translation, she says: “Jesus thank you for today. Help us. In Jesus Name, amen.” I love watching my girls begin to grow in their faith.

Last week in North Carolina, I got to do something that I don’t get to do more than every 2-3 years…I got to hang out with my brother and sister both during my brother’s wedding. We’re a pretty good looking bunch, don’t you think?

It’s the end of another Sunday and what a good Sunday it was! When you look at numbers it wasn’t incredible, in fact we had the lowest attendance of the year I believe. It seems that summer vacation has hit us hard. In spite of that, however, we had a phenomenal day. It was exciting to watch as God moved in our hearts as we took the Lord’s Supper together. I’m always profoundly moved by the opportunity we have to remember His sacrifice.

The choir rocked this morning! Wow! They sang Thou Oh Lord for the second time and I am blown away every time I hear them perform it. I’ve had it in my head all day and I can’t stop singing it. I found a video of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir singing it, in case you’re not from Frederick, and they do well but they’re not as good as Chad and our Celebration Choir. Man, I am in awe every time I hear this. If you’re listening to it for the first time, it starts a bit slow but the second half of the song will knock your socks off. There was a time when I just didn’t like choirs in church very much but I’ll tell you what, Chad and our choir have changed my mind. When they begin our services they do a phenomenal job of setting the table and preparing our hearts for worship. Thanks choir!

It was a privilege to watch as God brought one family and another individual to join the Frederick family this morning. I’m always thrilled to watch as God brings more people to be a part of what He’s doing at Frederick!

For some reason God’s presence really seemed strong as I taught this morning. There are days when I struggle through messages and then there are days when it seems as if God is really speaking and it’s easy to move through the message. This morning was exciting as I taught about the church at Philadelphia. I’m working on uploading the video from the message given in the second service and I’m hoping to have it posted in the morning.

We got the privilege of spending this afternoon with our band and worship team enjoying lunch together which was a privilege. I love spending time with the special people that God is using at our church in powerful ways!

The day ended just right as Tracy and I sat on our front porch and watched our girls chase and catch lightning bugs. The little things like that are the best parts of life. We finished up with our girls by sharing in our devotion time and we just put them down for the night.

I hope that your Sunday was as good as ours was!

I wanted to post a quick update to let you know that I haven’t disappeared. After leaving Indianapolis, Tracy and I traveled to the coast of North Carolina for my brother’s wedding. The wedding was incredible and he and his lovely new bride are enjoying life down in St. Maarten so we decided it was time to head home. It’s a 21 hour drive home and we now have our two toddlers back with us so we’ve decided to take our time. It’s because of that I find myself enjoying a couple of days in the mountains of East Tennessee with my girls. Tomorrow we’ll take in the beauty of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and then we’ll head home later in the week. So, until then I plan to continue to avoid any serious thinking, particularly about blogging, and just enjoy my family. This should be all you get out of me until we’re back in St. Joe.

Today continued to be a good day in Indy. The general consensus among those I spoke to was that this was the best convention they had attended in quite some time. Between the unity of the convention and the direction of our leadership I am heartened and encouraged. Today was particularly encouraging as we passed Tom Ascol, Malcom Yarnell and Bart Barber’s resolution on Regenerate Church Membership. It’s about time.

Today was also fantastic because I got to spend the afternoon (which is free time at the convention) with my wife. During that time I ate at Chik-Fil-A twice and we went on a boat ride down the Indy Canal which was a blast. I’m telling you, my wife and two meals at Chik-Fil-A makes for a killer afternoon.

I also spent a bit of time this morning speaking with Jim Hardwicke, who many of you will know as the former pastor of Frederick Boulevard. It was encouraging to hear from him about what God was doing in his life and to share with him the exciting things happening at Frederick!

Speaking of Frederick Boulevard, I was encouraged yesterday to learn that our church was recognized as one of the top 500 givers to the Cooperative Program in the entire SBC! If you know me well you know that I love the CP. It is incredibly encouraging to once again be reminded of the missions heart and faithful commitment of our people at Frederick Boulevard. It’s a lot of fun to be Frederick’s pastor.

The convention highlight of the day, however, was the IMB report tonight. Tracy and I cried as we listened and watched Dr. Rankin and the other members of the IMB family remind us of the greatness of our task, the greatness of our missions sending agency and most importantly, the greatness of our God. It was a wonderful way to end the convention. I am going to attempt to get a copy of the dvd from this evening to show it to our folks at Frederick Boulevard on a Sunday evening in a few weeks.

Well, I am going to sign off now. I’d love to write more and I may in a few days. Now, however, I need to go to bed. I’ve got to be up in 7 hours when we’ll jump in our van and drive to Wilmington, NC for my brother’s wedding. Ugh.