I have been married to my best friend Casey for 10 years. We have two beautiful girls Charli and Chloe, and I love being a dad. We started Foundations Church Sept. 7, 2008, I love our church, I love our people, and am blessed to be the lead pastor. Believe, Belong, Become.
What a busy and awesome weekend we had, here are some of the highlights:
1. Sunday we had our biggest attendance ever, and had 28 people raise their hands for salvation! It was awesome to see and experience!
2. I have to say I was not pulling for the Saints, but they did look really good last night. I love football and hate when the season is over.
3. Had Cory Spurlock and his son Andrew come and stay with us Saturday Night. Had a great time hanging out together, very glad to see my friend be a dad. He is great at it too!
4. We had a great service yesterday, just a ton of excitement. You could really feel God's presence in that place.
5. Our children had the most they have ever had. Sammy had 24 kids and all of them raised their hand for salvation! Thankful for Sammy and Alyssa.
6. We have a great team and staff. Thankful for each of them and their families, we are a very blessed church!
7. So proud of Foundations Church for inviting so many people yesterday! You are awesome church way to go.
8. I have a busy but good week scheduled.
9. We start our new series The Big Mo, a study about Moses, this Sunday! It's going to be really good, so don't miss it.
I want to really encourage, urge, and challenge you to follow up with the guests that came with you this week and get them back to Foundations this week! Let's not just have one big day, let's grow and keep touching and effecting lives. Have a great week.
Up early this Saturday! Woke up around 5 this morning, and my thoughts are immediately going to service on Sunday. What a great opportunity we have to really impact and reach people this Sunday! I hope that this isn't just another weekend for me, you, or Foundations Church. But that this is a different weekend for all of us. That we see a chance to invest in someone's eternity. We see a chance to invite someone to church where they can find community and Belong. We see a chance to bring someone with us to Foundations, and see them get involved in ministry, serve in ministry, and grow as a person and Christian, and they are Becoming a passionate follower of Christ. Please join me in prayer for service tomorrow, and bring someone with you!
A few side notes:
1. Cory Spurlock is coming in town to stay with us and I am always excited to have a chance to hang out with him.
2. Casey is making my favorite meal tonight, brisket, mashed potatoes, and salad. (have to have something healthy and this is the part of the meal I ignore anyways) Then going to chase it down with some homemade chocolate chip cookies, woo hoo!
3. I am totally pulling for the Colts.
4. Just realized I have no Pro Football clothes so I am wearing my true number 1 team tomorrow, THE University of Oklahoma! Have a great weekend, see you tomorrow.
All of us have times in life and areas in life that we are anxious about. In fact a couple of weeks ago I preached on being anxious. Since talking about this topic, I realize just how many people are stressed, restless, and anxious about so much. The other morning I woke up again with too many things on my mind to sleep. So I got up read my bible and prayed for about 3 solid hours. In the midst of it I just felt God speak to me...
"Learn to be still, and know I am God"
How many times are you still long enough, to know that God is still God, Lord, and Author of your Life? I am running around all the time, but more than that my mind is running and thinking and questioning and what ifing (I know not a word) so much that it is never still. Until I become still, until I stop I will not know that God is still God and in control. Why? Because only when I am still does God have the chance to speak to me, only when I am still am I ready to listen, and only when I am still do I have time to reflect on all God has already done. If you are struggling with stress, with anxiety, or restlessness. Be still because then you can know He is still God!
I am believing that this Sunday is going to be the biggest Sunday in the history of our church. So invite your friends, co-workers, and family, and let's reach and impact people. Everybody bring someone with you!
Man I am stinking tired of snow! Ready for spring and summer to get here and get here fast:
1. Went and had a snowball fight with Casey and the girls! 3 against one and the giant still won!
2. Had a great service on Sunday, we were down in attendance but still had people give their hearts to the Lord and even had a few visitors! Great Sunday and glad we still had service.
3. Volunteers of the week- Daryl and John Watkins...thank you guys for shoveling off the sidewalks so everyone could walk safely into church. They went up Saturday, along with Greg Fisher (Fish), and shoveled the snow. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
4. Went to Copeland's Saturday Night with the Weber's. Shane and Heidi are great people and they are funny too. We had a great time hanging out together.
5. Still went to the gym and store on Saturday. Had to get out and move around, too much energy inside of me, or coffee, which ever you want to choose.
6. Remember God has called Foundations church to be a Mission not a Museum! Let's stay focused on reaching people, no excuses.
7. I had some hilarious comments about my sermon after service! You know who all you are.
8. This week's service is going to be awesome! Can't wait for our Big Super Bowl Giveaway Day. Invite someone to Foundations Church this week. Better yet, just bring someone with you.
9. Went sledding with the Kunkel family this weekend as well. Our girls had never been sledding before and had a blast. We have so many great families and people coming to our church.
10. Just in case you didn't know this weekend's service really is going to be phenomenal! Can't wait to see what God does. Have a great week.
So I am sure you are asking yourself, are they going to cancel service or still going to have it? Well as of right now we are going to try to still have service! I hate canceling service, but to decide that on Friday is a little to early for me. So for right now we are still planning on having church. However, we aren't going to be crazy and ridiculous about it. So if we can have service and think people will get out and come we will do service. We will let you know tomorrow, check the website out and watch the news. If we cancel we will let you know otherwise we will plan on having church. Enjoy the snow!
As we have been doing this New thru 30 challenge, one thing I am learning is that there is such power in consistency! Every day I and a lot of you have been reading the bible, and reading a lot of it, and the thing that has been the hardest has been to stay consistent. To consistently read the bible everyday for 30 days! And even though it is the hardest part is the the most effective part. Many times I think our Christian walk has so many problems because we aren't consistent. We are consistently reading the bible, we aren't consistently praying, we are consistently going to church, and the result is their is there is a lot of uncertainty and inconsistency in our spiritual life.
Yet being consistent isn't just true of our walk with Christ. It is true in our relationships too! If I am happy one day and just a hot tempered jerk the next who would want to be married to that? Not me! Yet this is how many of us are and we don't know why our marriage and our relationships are in trouble. Learn to be a consistent person, in your spiritual walk, in your relationships, at your job, in the areas of your finances!
By the way we are planning on having church on Sunday, so plan on being there. It will be worth driving in the snow for!
We had such a busy weekend, but it was great! Here are the highlights:
1. Casey's parents Bob and Debbie came into town on Friday. Had a lot of fun, and Bob and I killed I mean killed the girls in card games. It was sad...
2. Had a great Sunday service, great attendance, just a great day over all. A lot of life change happening every week.
3. Talked about being anxious this week. God is really working on me in this area, if you weren't there make sure you download the podcast.
4. Sammy and Alissa Floyd are doing a great job back with our children in Base Camp! All the children back their raised their hand for salvation! Not that is awesome!
5. Had a great time with our community group on Sunday Night. If you aren't in one, get in one and connect with others.
6. Can't believe the Vikings lost. I was totally a bandwagon Vikings fan after they beat the Cowboys. Man I can't believe they lost! Ahhhhhh
7. Kyle, Tyler, and Cassie are our volunteers of the week! You all are doing a phenomenal job with the video. Greater things are still to come, I can't wait.
8. WE have an amazing staff at Foundations Church. Shannon, Fish, Sammy, and Johnny you guys are awesome I love you guys, love your hearts, and appreciate your sacrifice! You are being used in a huge way to change lives.
This week's service is going to be great! I can't wait, I am telling you it is going to be different and awesome, don't miss it. I'm serious the next two weeks are going to be phenomenal so be there and bring someone with you. Going to be awesome. Have a great week!
I knew this before but as we are doing the New thru 30, I am reminded how important time is. There are many of us that are going through life stressed out because their doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to get everything done. If I am not careful this can happen to me very easily and my life and schedule can become way too busy. So here are some things I do that help me with my time:
1. Learn to say no to things. You have to say no to people and events.
2. Don't waste time. (Examples: facebook, myspace, video games, TV these aren't things you must do and if you don't watch it, they will take up to 3 hours of your day without you even knowing it.)
3. Prioritize your schedule. Do your must first, your needs seconds, and your wants last.
4. Prioritize people. People can take a ton of time up, make sure you are spending time with people you need to. If you don't watch it one person can try to monopolize your time! Make sure you put your spouse and kids at the top of this list.
5. Have a to do list. Many times our schedules are hectic, because there is no order to them, organize your weeks and days.
Hope this helps. I am not blogging very much because of the New thru 30 challenge, it is awesome but challenging at the same time. This Sunday I am speaking about Learning to Cast... I promise you will want to be there and it is a sermon that is very applicable to every person and every age. Don't you miss it and bring someone with you. Text them, facebook them, call them, but get them to Foundations on Sunday. It is going to be uhmazing! Have a great rest of the week!
1. Went to OKC to see my parents and spend some time with some great friends! We had a blast and our girls loved seeing their Nanna and Papaw!
2. Got to eat at one of my favorite restaurants in OKC called Saturn Grill. It is awesome, you should go try if you have never been.
3. Had a really great service on Sunday. I love our team and I love what God is doing in our services too!
4. Having our projector down irritated the mess out of me and Shannon. Oh man I hate when we have technical problems; however it will be fixed and won't happen again anytime soon! (I hope)
5. The Cowboys lost! The Vikings kicked their face in. So now I am a total Vikings Bandwagon Fan, go Peterson and Farve.
6. Thank you to all our children's workers. Everyone of you are the volunteers of the week. All of you are doing an amazing job with our children week in and week out. Thank you so much for all the time and effort you put in, and for loving on our kids.
7. Felt really sick after service this week. Nothing too bad, just glad it is over with!
8. We have a lot of needs in our congregation, glad we serve a God who is way bigger than our situations.
9. This new thru 30 reading is tough. I gotta stop blogging and get to reading.
I hope all of you have a great week this week. I am preaching on being anxious this week. This is going to be a very transparent and personal sermon for me. I hope you are inviting people to come with you this week, it is going to be a great service. Love you all, love being the pastor of Foundations Church, and can't wait for Sunday! Bring somebody with you.
Many times we miss out on things and experiences simply because we are afraid to try. Like getting a new hair style, many of us won't do a new hair style because we don't know what it will look like on us, so we keep the old one but wish for something different. And there are many of us that 2010 will come and go and we will be the same person with the same financial problems, relationship problems, marriage problems, job problems, health problems, and spiritual problems because we are most of the time not afraid but unwilling to try new things. Let me encourage you to try something new this year. Some of us need to quit old habits and start new ones. Others of us just need to get outside of our comfort zones and push ourselves further. Here are some new things I am going to try that I haven't yet:
1. Try sushi (looks gross, but everyone raves about it)
2. Get out of town without the kids just me and Casey (this is no small feat)
3. Try to read the whole bible through In 6 months. (you try reading through Leviticus, Numbers, and Duet.)
4. Bring one person a month to church with me. I want to lead the way in this area for our church and not just preach it. I am working on this now.
5. Go deep sea fishing
6. Go on a mission's trip and see the little girl we adopted from Haiti. (we support her financially every month)
7. Try to find a piece of cheesecake I can tolerate. (This is going to be the hardest one)
8. Spend more time with my friends.
9. Have a guy's road trip. (This is a must)
10. Help our church grow to 500 this year!
Can't wait to see all these things happen, except maybe for the Cheesecake! Have a great rest of the week. And really invite someone to come to church with you this week, go change somebody's life!
Had a great weekend this past week! Very busy and very tiring but very fun. So here's the run down:
1. Had a great friend Nicole Pierce come in town and stay with us on Friday Night. She brought some puppy chow made with butterscotch, peanut butter, and chocolate chips! Oh man it is sooooo good it was worth the 2 extra pounds I put on!
2. Woke up for no reason at all at 2:30 in the morning on Saturday!
3. Birthday Party at the Crisp House! A lot of people and a lot of toys.
4. Had an amazing service on Sunday. God is doing some great huge things at Foundations Church! Love what is happening and seeing people's lives changed.
5. God can't bless what he doesn't posses.
6. The worship team did an incredible job on Sunday! Great job Shannon and the worship team, loved your hearts for worship.
7. Had a great time at our community group on Sunday Night! We all gave away junk we got for Christmas, it was halarious.
8. Cowboys won a playoff game! Watch out now.
9. Went to lunch with the Hull family, had a blast and ate way too much food.
I hope you have a great week this week. Just started our New thru 30 today, it is going to be awesome! Invite someone to come with you this week.
We just came out of Christmas and all of you I hope had an incredible Christmas. As I watched my kids go to bed Christmas Eve, there was so much anticipation and excitement on their part about Santa, that they could hardly sleep. They knew something great was going to happen the next day, they knew something incredible was going to occur the next morning when they woke up. And sure enough something truly incredible and remarkable happened they got a pony! Okay so there was no pony but there were a ton of presents for them and it was a day they will always remember.
For me every Sunday that comes, I feel like a kid who is trying to sleep on Christmas Eve. I can't wait for it to come, because I know something truly incredible is going to happen, something unforgettable! Yet what would happen if all of us felt this way, and had this kind of expectation and anticipation? Can you imagine the excitement that would be in the air, the buzz that would be stirring, the experience that people would have? Oh I can and I do, I want to encourage you to expect, anticipate, and get excited because Sunday is only 4 days away! Wooo Hooo I can't wait! I am already inviting, already expecting, already having a hard time sleeping! Why? Because I know somebody's life is going to be changed, somebody's eternity is going to be totally altered. So get on your phone, facebook, walk to somebody's office, or to your neighbors house and invite them to come. I am so excited about 2010 that it is really hard for me to sit still, and no it's not the coffee! Have a great rest of the week.
So much happened this past weekend, but it was an amazing weekend though so here are some thoughts:
1. Remember we are an In n Out Burger Church, not a Golden Corral!
2. So excited that we are doing the New thru 30 as a church. If you haven't signed up do it. Get ready to grow and become who God intended you to be.
3. We had 2 staff out this week. Fish was sick and Jonathan was in a car wreck. Glad they are both okay, but man I missed them both big time!
4. Glad to see OU win in their bowl game, they looked really good. I won't say anything about OSU, my momma told me if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all. So...
5. Had a great attendance this week at service. Can't wait to see all that 2010 holds for Foundations Church.
6. Tim Schneidau was the big time volunteer of the week. Thank you Tim for all that you did this Sunday, you did a ton of things and didn't mind doing them, so thank you very very much. I love the heart that Tim and his wife Ashley have for Foundations Church and for reaching people.
7. Very excited about starting our internet campuses up and doing the live streaming video. Can't wait to see who is going to be impacted through us using the internet.
I truly hope all of you have a great week. Make sure you invite someone to come with you this week to church. We are starting a new series called Overflow. Ahhhhh I can't wait to see what happens this year, how God uses Foundations Church, and to see all the lives changed. Let's go out and make a difference now! Have a great week.
There are quite a few New Year Resolutions that I have for myself and the church and I thought I would share some of them:
1. To see more than 200 people give their life to the Lord in 2010!
2. To enjoy the journey more and not focus so much on the destination.
3. To go on more dates and getaways with my beautiful bride. I am stupid for not spending as much time as I can with such an amazing and beautiful wife.
4. To read the Bible more than I did this year.
5. To reach more people and our church double in attendance.
6. To get out and relax more with my friends and family.
7. To eat healthier (I haven't been eating as well as I should be)
8. To run in 3 15K races. Half marathons were too rough on my body.
9. To play more with my little girls.
10. To be as close to God as I can be, to be simply a Man of God. Don't care if people know my name, if I get am ever a famous pastor or speaker, I just want to be a Man of God and see a move of God happen in Tulsa.
Seriously invite your friends to church this Sunday! People are looking for a church to belong to, and are very likely to come at the beginning of the year. So invite, invite, invite, and let's see God change lives. I can't wait for Sunday and hope you have a great New Year.
I just got home from all our Christmas travels. We had a great time, enjoyed our family and friends, but I am very happy to be back home.
So I don't know if you have seen the I am second videos on youtube or not, but I love watching them. They talk all about how their life is not about them, and how they are second. It reminds me of our church and I have to say that I am very glad that we are building a church that isn't about the pastor. Our church can and did run without me being there this past Sunday. Mostly because of two reasons: 1) I don't want to make church all about me 2) I have a great staff and capable team serving with me.
Being gone this past weekend reminded me that this church can never be about me or about anyone else, but has to be all about pursing what Christ wants us (the church) to do. I truly believe this and I am not about building my kingdom up and making myself look important, but I am always trying to be about building up God's Kingdom. Foundations Church can never become about me, you, or reaching a specific person, it simply has to be about reaching people.
I can't wait till this Sunday, I got to rest and had my Shabbath. Yes I meant to spell it that way. Shabbath in the Hebrew means to cause to cease, to stop. So I took my Shabbath, but I am ready to go this week. I hope you have a great New Years, and make sure you invite someone to come with you on Sunday. One of people's top New Years Resolutions is to start going to church. So make sure you invite someone to come with you this week. Let's start making a difference at the beginning of this year in people's lives. Have a great week, and I will see you Sunday.
