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| so i figured it was about time i do another post. not that many people even read this thing anymore. but maybe i still have some friends out there.
since graduating about 2 months ago i've had to find a job. well after long searching, much prayer, and many people giving me their advice i've found my place. natalie and i have accepted the associate youth minister position at a church in yukon, oklahoma at a church called Christ Church of Yukon. yukon is just slightly west of oklahoma city, which is that star in the middle of oklahoma on the map i provided. natalie and i are doing very well, and i never thought i'd say this, but i like it here in oklahoma.
my responsibilities right now are yet to be completely defined. like i said i am the associate youth minister so there is a youth minister already in place, but eventually he will be transitioning out to another ministry in the church. so hopefully when that time comes the baton will be handed to me. everything else is going very well. natalie is still looking for a job so hopefully something will happen soon.
that was really all the news that i had. hopefully that anyone who finds themselves reading this is doing well and God is pouring out his love on you in noticeable and awesome ways!
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| i thought this was note worthy enough to post about. so the other day natalie and i were eating lunch and i was channel surfing. while turning channels i happened to go past TBN (Trinity Broadcast Network) anyway normally i would just keep flipping because not a half hour before that they had Benny Hinn on there, who i personally have problems with and so i was just going to keep turning...but something stopped me. i looked and realized it was a talk show and this lady named was the host of her own talk show. on the show she had two very wealthy men talking about how to get rich. the one guy i have no clue who he was but the other guy was donald trump, ya know comeover dude. anyway the whole time this lady was talking about how people need to go out and buy this book that donald and this other rich dude wrote so that we could become rich too. *at this point i really began listening because i wanted to know why she wanted me to be rich* what she said next shocked me. paula said that in the bible Jesus came to give us life and life more "abundantly" John 10:1-10 and therefore we should not be afraid to become rich as we want. (never mind the fact that the verse she used is in the context of Jesus talking about himself coming to earth to give life more abundantly to his sheep that were otherwise being deceived by thieves and robbers. therfore the "abundant" life Jesus is referring to is coming from the heavenly realms represented by grace, not earthly, and certainly not monetary) *now my ears are really perked.* she continued to say that the middle class in america is shrinking and that we need to stop this downslide. during her talk she would repeatedly turn to donald trump and talk to him about what the bible said about getting rich. never once did i hear her say anything about if you get rich to give it to the poor or the homeless or something like that, nope, nothing mentioned at all about it. finally to top it all off when the show was ready to end she gave this as her final sign off, and i quote, "I want all of you to be wealthy, because Christ died for that." WHAT?!!!!!!!!! i am certain i didn't close my mouth for five minutes because my jaw was on the ground for the entire time. i could not believe what i had just heard. but as i was sitting there thinking about that i began to get very heart broken. i realized how incredibly selfish we are. here this lady was sitting there in her leisure suit all nice and pretty telling us all to get rich and never once making any kind of mention to go help those who cannot help themsleves. i'm not trying to make this lady out to be my punching bag that i can make an example of, i simply wanted to make a point at what has happened to christians in our country. what has happened to the mindset of christians when people are more concerned about their annual income than their obligation to the poor? i would encourage all of you to go to this link to give yourself a real look at where you stack up in the world. i'm the 856,848,898 richest person in the world. http://www.globalrichlist.com/ | | |
| every once in awhile something pretty amazing happens that you just
have to make a xanga post about. some of those include: getting a
new job, finding the right school you want to go to, or maybe even
finding a large sum of money on the ground and now you can pay your
bills. well my big announcement has nothing to do with any of those. my
big announcement has to do with someone. some of you may have been
expecting while some of you maybe never thought twice about it, but
here it is...i'm engaged!!!
that's right adam the dude no girl wanted to date in battle creek high
school, the guy who once thought he'd never find anyone to like him or
anyone to ever date him is going to tie the knot. so as you could have
probably already guessed i'm pretty darn stoked! she is of course
natalie watts, the girl i dated for one year exactly, and on the one
year anniversary got asked to marry a dork from northeast nebraska.
she's from oklahoma, but luckily she's not wanting to move back there,
which is good cause i don't want to live in oklahoma either.
anyway our wedding will be on march 10th of this year, i know it's only
5 months away. some of you are probably very shocked that it's that
soon, but hey 5 months is plenty of time to plan a wedding. so in 5
months and 1 day from today i'll be married! pretty crazy huh? the
wedding will be here in joplin, at the church i work at and we attend
together. so yeah it's pretty darn cool, everyone should now go
congradulate natalie for her willingness to want to marry a dork like me, and craig cause he will be my best man along with my older bro.
well that's my cool news, hope the rest of you's are doing good, i gotsta go now.
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| time is a very curious thing. the less you have, the more quickly you
work, and you realize that you don't need as much as you think you do
in a day. the more time you have the more you complain that you need
more of it to accomplish meaningless tasks.
free will is a curious thing. we've been given free will by God to do
as we will, but in the end there is no free will. the free will we have
is only a conditional and temporary free will. i can live how i want,
if i choose to reject God then that is a choice made out of my free
will, but then i'll be sent to hell. at that point i no longer have any
free will at all. i can't choose to leave hell, nor for that matter i
can't choose to leave heaven. so in reality our free will only lasts
around 70, give or take, years.
love is a curious thing. the more i understand it, i feel the less i really know about it.
God is a very curious thing. how can a completely loving God be just and merciful at the same time?
these are just a few of the things i think about when i'm showering, driving, or bored in class.
i have to prepare a presentation to speak for class on wednesday over
calvinism. that's the predestination stuff if any of you don't know.
man they have got some very unique ways of interpreting scripture.
anyway all is well here, hope the rest of you are good too.
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| so here i am, over 3 months later finally updating my xanga. to be
honest once the summer started i was just so glad to be done with
school that the last thing i thought of was getting on xanga and
updating everybody about what's going on. but since it has been 3
months i can officially get back on the xanga train and make an update.
for those of you that didn't know i was given an internship at the
church i attend here in joplin. the church's name is college heights
christian church. it's an awesome church, and a pretty good sized
church at that. were just shy of 2000 people, so like i said it's a
pretty big church. for the past 2 and a half months i've been, you
could say, the vice youth minister. any time beau (that's the youth
ministers name) would be gone for a mission trip or for vacation i was
the person in the office. i have learned so much already about the ins
and outs of youth ministry, and believe it or not there has been much
more to learn than i ever would have imagined. it still astounds me
though that there are people out there that think that ministers only
work on sundays. this summer i was given the opportunity to teach
sunday school a few times, preach at youth group a few times, attend
ciy, and summer camp. over all my summer was awesome. i'm sorry i don't
have much details. but to be honest when getting started in ministry
the main thing you report on is the new people you meet everyday. so
that's basically what it sums up as, i met lots of new kids this year,
and i have learned so much from them. they have been such a blessing to
me and have given me so much confidence to know that i can do it.
God also showed me many new things this summer. my prayer life as well
as my devotional life have both taken on a new level of seriousness.
the times when i would do my bible studies this summer they were more
fruitful than i can ever remembe them being. it was like learning a
language that you could use to finally understand a very close friend.
you could just feel the intimacy and the closeness. He is so good, and
He has blessed me so much this summer.
Natalie and i are doing very well. to quote kip from napoleon dynamite,
"i guess you could say things are getting pretty serious". this year
will be a very big year for the both of us. we are both finishing
school this year, her in december and i am finishing in may. after that
we will most likely be moving out of the state to find a church
somewhere in the great ol usa. i will be looking for a youth ministry
position and she will be looking for any job she can find that will pay
enough. also this year...at some time...wedding bells will be ringing.
we don't know when yet. but that will come in time.
other than that this summer has come and gone so so fast. it's actually
sad at how fast it's gone. in one week i start school. and even crazier
than that, one year from now i don't even know where i'll be. oh well,
that leaves more for God to reveal. so this concludes my summer update
and i hope all of you are ready to start another year, if you're not,
too bad cause it's here anyway.
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