Do you feel valued?

Many of you know that I have two jobs. One pays the bills and one is my passion. I am so fortunate to have both of these and have a few days a week to just be daddy. Most of the time I work hard and it always feels great to see the results of hard work. But there is something deep inside most of us that wants something more than just to see the results for yourself. We want to feel valued. We want to feel appreciated. I want to feel valued. I want to be appreciated. Part of me wants to say it's a weakness, but at the same time I recognize that this is the way God has wired me. In my life and careers I see both sides of the spectrum of value.
The Rock Church is my family. I have never felt unappreciated there. I am encouraged to dream big, reach higher and grow more. It's hard work and takes alot out of me on Sundays, but at the same time when you are doing what you love and what you are passionate about it empowers you.
Today I finished up a 13 hour day and walked away irritated because of where I stand. Over the past 3 years I have had a pretty good amount of success in a sales job in a difficult economy. I have had some opportunities for advancement and I have turned them down because it would pull me away from family and ministry too much. I caught some flack today and it just left me frustrated and feeling undervalued for what I have accomplished.
All this to say, I am wired to thrive when someone has my back. I thrive when I am encouraged. I'm not the only one. So instead of wallowing in my frustrations, I am going to make a conscious effort to show others that I value them.

Sundays and feet

Many times in ministry days can just be a blur. You have guest speakers, not enough volunteers, new projects, broken pagers, wild kids...etc. As we were wrapping things up this morning I was monitoring the bounce house and one of my first graders was putting his shoes on had something to tell me about his soccer game yesterday. He always sounds excited about things and I could not quite understand what he said so I said "great" or "awesome". Well his mom happened to be standing there and asked me if I heard what he said. I responded sheepishly "something about soccer, but I couldn't tell for sure what it was". She told me he said "Yesterday a soccer ball hit me in the face". Wow! Did I feel like a jerk. It stinks when you get so caught up in the noise that you miss what's really important - the relationships. I hope the families at the Rock Church know that I love their children and really don't think it's cool for them to get hit in the head by soccerballs. My favorite part of working with children is the relationships. I love it when kids are so excited to tell me about their week or something important that happenned. Next week, I'm not going to miss out on that.

Summers End and Sabbatical

A little over 4 years ago my old Pastor asked me to come and lead the Elementary Ministries at the Rock Church. I have been faithfully serving there since on a part time basis. I absolutely love my church. The people there are awesome and truly care about each other. I had a few things this summer going on and needed some time off. I asked my Pastor Scott Fenton for the time and he asked me to take off a few more weeks for a Sabbatical of Sorts. One day, I would love to take a few weeks off and go to Yosemite or something and just connect with God. However, I still have a family and a job to take care of, so I had a few Sundays off. It was nice I was able to visit a few other churches and just relax on Sundays without having to plan any lessons or tear down any bounce houses or load any trucks or trailers. I have to admit - I really enjoyed the time off and it went by very quickly. However, I was very excited to go back to my church. I was brought before the church on Sunday and was shown alot of appreciation. It is great to feel loved. I had kids hugging me and parents thanking me and friends welcoming me. It was great to be back at the Rock. I have had a few job offers in the past year that I have turned down because God wants me right where I am. There are some great things going on at the Rock and our community. We have a huge Block Party coming up on Sept 13 and the following weeks some special guests in the Children's area. I thank God for the opportunity to serve where I am at and I thank the people for believing in me and supporting me.

Why I love the Waffle House

Last night Laura and I had the privilege of visiting one of my favorite eating establishments with my sister and brother in law Amber and Aaron. I don't get to visit the Waffle House to often because they won't let them build them anywhere near the west coast. So anytime I come back to Tennessee I have to make at least one trip back to the WaHo. Here is a little best of list from our trip last night in no particular order..

1. No smoking inside anymore. This means no ash in your food.
2. The restaurant is empty and the parking lot is full.
3. It now smells like a bathroom.
4. Special Lady at the Waffle House is always on the jukebox and I will always play it. I skipped out on the Waffle House Do Wop.
5. When it's slow the Waitress will stand and talk to you the whole time.
6. She will tell you about how she has a customer who recently got Salmonella poisoning from eating their undercooked eggs and had to take medicine for a year. This makes you not hungry very quickly.
7. There's a picture of promo picture of their chili and it looks like the guy is holding a cigarette over the bowl.
8. They are always open.
9. 12 hours later I still have a gut bomb
10. When I got back to the house I found a Waffle House Camoflauge shirt on my bed. (Team RealTree)

A first for everything

So yesterday I received my first black eye. Now I would love to say "you should see the other guy" or "I charged the mound" or "I took a line drive to the face", but it's simply not that cool It was the kickoff of my Tuesday night Softball Team. We took first place in our league last summer and are looking to take it again. I arrived at the park in plenty of time to warm up. I started throwing the ball around with one of our new players who happens to be a police officer. He's got a pretty decent arm and I was working off of about 3 or 4 hours of sleep. He threw it to me and I put my glove up, but not fast enough. The ball nipped the top of my glove and then hit my cheek bone pretty hard. I walked about ten or fifteen feet and then quit throwing. I went onto play and did pretty well, however I pulled myself out of the outfield the second game due to some depth perception issues. As you can see, a good shiner has a growing process. I woke up with my eye swollen shut. With the advice of my sister who is nurse and Carver's Pediatrician I had some X-rays to make sure all is well. It's just going to make me really pretty for a few weeks.

Happy Birthday Laura

I married the most amazing woman in the world. Today, I was able to spend the whole day with her celebrating. Well except for the 3 and half hours she was getting her hair done. I have known her for almost 10 years now and she has made me me a much better man. Happy Birthday Laura - I love you!

Wow do I stink at Golf

So this afternoon I went to Ballinger Lake Golf Course for a Staff Meeting with my pastor. We don't meet to often, so we had to make the most out of it. There comes a point in golf where you just have to pick up your ball and right a very large number on the score card. I made that happen on the first 3 holes and then I came across this beast on the course. It was 85 degrees outside, so he was just chilling under the bench at hole 4. My ball landed about 10 feet away from him, so he decided to attack or at least lay right beside the ball. So I poked him a few times with my pitching wedge and he just thought I was playing. I picked him up and moved him a few feet, so he darted back on top of my ball. This sequence continued for about 6 or 7 times before I finally was able to run back and chip the ball away. I finally got away and watched my hacker pastor shoot a birdie. We had a great time and I look forward to more golf this summer. I just have to quit swinging my clubs like a baseball bat.