Jace Update

1. Jace has popped a tooth and is working on his second one. Both are bottom teeth and he is very cute with his tooth.

2. He is crawling like a mad man, it's awesome to watch Jace race across the floor on his knees to get something he wants.

3. He also loves to crawl to anything that he can use to help him stand up. He is standing up on everything and he gets back down by plopping on his butt. He is also walking...well at least while he is holding onto something. He's a fearless little man.

5. He is also waving bye bye, clapping, laughs all the time and has the most amazing smile.

6. Last but not least, Tonight he was having a hard time sleeping so I sang him to sleep. It was a beautiful moment and he is probably the only person in the world that I would sing to sleep.

I love this little boy a ton and want to show him off to the whole world!

Six Flags Over Texas

Yesterday I took our students to Six Flags Over Texas and this trip had a couple firsts for me:
1. First time to visit Texas (it was stinkin hot)
2. First time to Six Flags Over Texas
3. First trip with Epic Student Ministries

The best part about our trip was number 3, we had 55 students go and they all had a blast. They also were great to travel with and were all on time when we had to leave. Way to go guys, I'm very proud that nobody was late.

The park itself was pretty good. Not as good as Cedar Point or Kings Island but they had some good coasters. My favorites where the Titan and Batman. My least favorite was the Texas Giant. If you ever go to Six Flags over Texas DO NOT RIDE the Texas Giant, unless you want to leave the park in a wheel chair. In my opinion this coaster should be burned down and rebuilt as a steel roller coaster. All in all though it's a good park.

Lastly I got home at 1:15 am so that is why the blog didn't come last night. It was a long day but good fun.

Also big thanks to all my leaders who went on the trip, they were great and a huge help.

I love roller coasters and Epic was great

Tomorrow we are taking our students to Six Flags Over Texas and I'm super excited. I love roller coasters and I'm even more excited about going with our students. So far in life I have been to different amusement parks and my favorite is Cedar Point then Kings Island. I hope Six Flags Over Texas will rival those. Tomorrow if I'm not dead tired I will give my rating of Six Flags Over Texas.

We also had a great community group night with our students. Lots of relationships are being made from these nights and the groups are having great discussions. In a future blog I will explain what our community groups look like. We also had 4 salvations, thank you Lord for an amazing night.

One down, many more to go

Today I finished the book, Leadership and Self-Deception get out of the box. I believe this book is a must read for anyone who leads people, works with people, is a parent or a spouse. This book challenged me in the way I lead, interact with people, as a husband and as a father. This is what I would call an eye opening read. The book addresses how we treat people like objects or people and that this happens because of self betrayal that leads to self deception. Self betrayal occurs when we don't do something that we think we should do. After that we self justify why we didn't do it, which leads to us seeing others in a negative way and putting the blame on them, which causes us to treat them like objects. And if we are treating people like objects we will never be able to lead or interact effectively with others. What I just said may make no sense but if you read this book I promise you will be challenged and hopefully changed. I know I am. This is a powerful book that I believe everyone should read.

Less TV More Reading

I'm definitely a person who has my "shows". 24, Lost, Survivor, PTI, American Idol, Heroes and The Amazing Race will always be on my DVR list. However none of these shows are currently on the air and I'm amazed at how I'm trying to find other shows to watch. So I'm going to resist the temptation and use this time to read more books. I used to hate reading in high school, but have learned to really enjoy it in college and in ministry. Some of my favorites are The Barbarian Way, Chasing Daylight, Simple Church, Quiet Strength, Red Moon Rising, Seven Principles of Effective Ministry and soon to be Leadership and Self-Deception get out of the box. This summer I'm looking to add favorite books not TV shows.

New Bedtime

Before a week and half ago, Jace would always go to bed around 10:30 pm. At our staff retreat a few of the staff shared how their kids went to bed at 8 pm so we decided to give it a shot. That night Jace went to sleep at 8 pm, woke a few hours later, but only cried for a minute, went back to sleep and woke up at 8 am the next morning. WOW! We were surprised and ever since he now goes to bed at 8-8:30 pm every night and wakes up around 7 am. I'm glad he's getting a good night's rest but have to admit I miss my time with him. This has been somewhat difficult for me so I'm trying to get up a little earlier to have some more morning time, which is hard for me personally because I'm not a morning person, but very much worth it. The nice thing about him going to be earlier is now I have more time with Jamie. All in all this is for the better and I'm glad we tried it out because Jace is getting a full night's sleep, I have more time with Jamie and it's stretching me to be more of a morning person. In life we live and we learn and I'm glad I learned that my son can go to bed at 8 pm, instead of 10:30 pm. I'm also thankful that our friends shared their experiences with us, without them Jace would still be up late every night.

My Sabbath Day

Here are a few highlights from my sabbath day:

1. Got to sleep in so that is always enjoyable.

2. Had a great lunch with Daniel Green who is one of our awesome youth leaders. He is a true servant and I'm very honored that he is on our team. Plus he has cool hair and shoes.

3. Amazing it only took Walmart 12 minutes to change my oil, unamazingly it took me 15 minutes to pay because the line was so slow.

4. To make things worse when I got to my car it wouldn't start because my battery was dead so I had to buy a new one. That's life!

5. Jamie made an amazing Ceasar Salad for dinner and then we had our Thursday night Starbucks family time.

6. At Starbucks we played Guess Who? (old school game), Jamie was killing me 3 games to 1 and then I turned it on and beat her 6 games to 3, yeah baby!!!

7. We got home put Jace to bed and then played Phase 10, which I'm ashamed to say I lost! I guess I was gloating a little too much about Guess Who.

8. Jamie woke me up 3 times last night from her talking in her sleep. This has happened more the usual lately, but this time I was nice and didn't try to have a conversation with her, she hates it when I do that. hehe!

It was a great day, with a few speed bumps. Again that's life!

I've been slackin

Wednesday I had every intention of blogging but never got around to it. Currently we are finalizing all of our camp registrations and it is a crazy process. So between that and preparing for service the blog has had to wait. However, Wednesday night we had an amazing service with 10 salvations and Jamie did an awesome job leading worship. We also had 0ur first preservice prayer time and it went very well. It pumps me up to see students praying and pressing into God and I know this time of prayer is going to be a major catalyst to the growth of Epic Student Ministries. Students keep it up the best has yet to come! If you missed the prayer time we are doing it every Wednesday at 6 pm in the PC kids room. Let's pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on us.

First Father's Day

Sunday was my first father's day and it was very enjoyable. After church, Jamie made some steaks, my favorite potatoes and green beans. It was amazing! Then I got to watch an amazing round of golf and an ok NBA finals game. It was good except for the Celtics losing but no fear they will end it in Boston. Jamie also made me a calendar with a pic of Jace on it and a bluetooth headset, whoohoo! She must have read my blog a few weeks ago. At church Pastor Herbert asked all the dads to stand up and it was kind of weird standing but at the same time I was very proud. I love being a father. It scares me at times and I definitely have moments of feeling unworthy, but it is also very rewarding and I feel extremely blessed. Almost everyday I thank God for Jace and pray that God gives me wisdom and guidance to be a godly father. My favorite moments with Jace are when he gives me one of his big smiles, when I can get him to crack up and when he falls asleep on me. Even now thinking of them makes me smile and again I thank God for such a wonderful blessing.

A day late, but Tiger is a Beast!

I have to say I rarely watch golf, but from Friday to yesterday I was completely sucked into the U.S. Open to the point that I used DVR space for it. The only reason I considered watching it was because Tiger just came off surgery and nobody (mainly the PTI guys) thought he could win after a short recovery, so I was intrigued to see if he could defy the odds. And boy am I glad I did. After the 2 eagles and chip shot for birdie on Saturday I did not think it could get any better until the 18th on Sunday when he sunk the birdie to force a playoff. I was so into it, I was watching this with the same anticipation and heart pounding I would have in an awesome suspense thriller. It was ridiculous to the point that when he sunk the shot on 18, you would have thought Peyton Manning just threw a game winning touchdown based on my response. Never in my life did I think I would ever get out of my seat and cheer for a golfer. This guy is the best in the world and I want to watch him play every time he's on the golf course. Tiger Woods is a beast!

Recap of this week

Sorry for the lack of blogs this week but it has been crazy. So here is a recap of my week:

1. I should have never made my six flags trip and camp deadline on the same week that I would be out of town for 3 days and missing my Wed. night service. This caused lots of phone calls, scrambling, stress and craziness. Note to self this will not happen again.

2. My Monday and Tuesday were crazy but Wednesday was a great day of pool football, good food and even better desserts. I'm also proud to say my team won pool football with Jeremiah returning a kick off for a touchdown, I have never seen that before. It was lot's of fun but I was definitely sore the next day.

3. Thursday was even more fun in the sun. I played a little bball in flip flops which I do not recommend, and some intense games of ping pong. We were also at a lake and I rode a jet ski for the very first time. It was lots of fun and very cool to share this time with Jamie. That night we had some amazing ribs and capped the night off with playing spades while watching the Celtics pull off one of the greatest comebacks in NBA history. Go Celtics, right now my prediction is looking very good.

4. Friday we drove home, chilled, watched some amazing golf (tiger woods is a beast) and ended the night by watching the Great Debaters. It was a good movie and I would give it a B+.

There was my week in a nutshell.

Weekend Update

1. Go Celtics!!! This series will be over in 5.

2. Friday I had a long drive home, saw some friends in Springfield and almost went crazy because of the drivers driving under the speed limit in the passing lane. It's always been my understanding that the left lane is the passing lane, but it was made very clear to me Friday that there are many people who don't have this understanding. AAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

3. Saturday I chilled all day with Jace and Jamie. It was a nice and relaxing day.

4. Jace is crawling all over the place and I don't know how but the kid gets cuter and cuter every day.

5. Sunday we had a great service on peace and many people gave their hearts to Christ. It's awesome to be apart of a church where people get saved every week. Since I have been here there hasn't been one Sunday where someone didn't get saved, thank you Lord!!!

6. Speaking of salvations, we had 10 this past Wednesday at Epic. Again, thank you Lord!!! I am humbled by the work You are doing and love being apart of building Your Kingdom.

7. Sunday afternoon we had our first student leadership meeting and it went great. I'm excited about this group of students that will be leading on Wednesday nights and I'm confident God is going to use them to be a catalyst for life change and growth at Epic Student Ministries. Get ready students God is gonna rock our world!

Random Thoughts

1. Go Celtics, I hope they sweep the Lakers.

2. Being in Carlinville, IL has reminded me that I'm very glad I live in a big city. Living in the country is just not for me, I would go crazy.

3. The last two days I've gotten to spend some time with my old youth pastor, Paul Hinzman. I got saved under his ministry when I was 18 years old and he has had a lasting impact on my life. I'm thankful that we are friends and it's been fun hanging with him and his family. He is a friend who challenges, sharpens and holds me accountable. We all need people like this in our life and I thank the Lord for my friendship with Paul.

4. I'm having the blue tooth blues, I used to always have a blue tooth and absolutely loved it. Since I switched to AT&T I didn't get one because my iphone had headphones that allowed me to talk on the phone. Well I lost them and this trip has caused me to miss the blue tooth. I hate driving and having to hold the phone to my ear, it's annoying. Oh well.

5. Today I'm driving back to Oklahoma City and I'm praying the weather isn't too bad. The forecast is showing storms in Illinois and Missouri, hopefully I will miss them.

6. Next week is our staff retreat and I can't wait. It's my first one and I look forward to hanging out with our staff and families.

7. I miss Jamie and Jace and can't wait to see them.

I'm thankful I live in Oklahoma

Today I pulled into Carlinville, IL, which is in the middle of nowhere and there it was......unleaded gas for $4.09, at that moment I felt bad for complaining about the $3.69 I had to pay for a gallon in Oklahoma City. Then I thanked the Lord that I live in Oklahoma and I pray we don't hit $4. This was also the first road trip I have taken by myself since college and I have to say I really enjoyed it. For whatever reason some of my best times with the Lord have come on a road trip by myself. It seems that I hear God's voice clearer when I'm worshiping and praying in my car, I guess I can't be distracted by much when I'm driving through the country of Oklahoma, Missouri and Illinois. Maybe I need to do this more often in Oklahoma City, the problem is I probably can't afford it with the gas. Maybe I'll get a motorcycle. Anyway with that I'm looking forward to the drive back to Oklahoma for 3 reasons:
1. I need to get away from gas that costs $4.09 a gallon.
2. I'm looking forward to my time with the Lord during the drive.
3. I miss my family and can't wait to see Jamie and Jace.

Quiet Strength

It normally takes me a few weeks to a month to finish books that I enjoy, but it only took me 3 days to finish the 301 pages of "Quiet Strength". It helps that I'm a Colts fan but as I read this book about the life of Tony Dungy I found myself always wanting to read the next chapter to see what was going to happen to him next. If it wasn't for needing to get to bed at 3 am I might have finished it in 2 days. From Dungy's death of his oldest son, the disorder of his youngest son, the battle of being a Christian in the NFL world and his ups and downs as a coach, I was challenged and encouraged by his faith in God. What I enjoyed most about this book was Dungy's transparency, even as a high profile coach he was transparent with his faults, pain, victories and submission to God's will. I know people will think I am biased but I believe this book is a must read especially if you like football or if you are a dad. The chapter on his son's suicide alone is worth every dad or parent reading. As my friend Justin Chandler rates his movies, I rate this book as an A+.

Here is the Video, I think

A Great Date Night

Tonight Jamie and I had a date night without Jace and it was great. Don't get me wrong I love my son but it's nice to have a night away. We went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner and it was amazing. I had ribs and chicken and some of those amazing rolls with cinnamon butter. After that we capped off our night with a trip to Target and Walmart...fun times baby. We bought some tv trays and then picked up Jace.

Our Pastor preached on families last month and spoke about the value of married couples having a date night, especially couples with kids. For us this had been hard because we don't like leaving Jace but we are going to try to have a date night without Jace at least every other week. Whoohoo for date nights!