Reflections on the Journey

A Good Friend has fallen

This morning the reality of pastoral life hit home with me again smack in the face as I woke up to Mary Jo screaming at 6:42am this morning as a good friend of mine, Sam Pascoe Pastor of Grace Anglican Church in Orange Park's face was plastered on the newcast because he had fallen in sin. It also made the front page of the Jacksonville Times Union.

I must say that I am pretty much devastated. I have been through this a number of times in past congregations but I don't know that it ever gets any easier. I was really beginning to develop a relationship with Sam, we were starting to have coffee every other tuesday morning.  To see him fall is just incredibly sad.

The following is semi-unrelated to above, but what is really on my heart.

I have only been in ministry for about 4 years. I have been told the average length of time for a pastor in ministry is like 3 years. I must be honest and say that I realize why. The enemy puts a huge, huge target on the back of those who reach out to make a difference. He attacks our families, our children, our churches, etc. Whats worse is most of the time he does it through friends.. Friendly fire is the absolute worst.

I would encourage everyone to be in fervent prayer for your pastors. Lift them up, encourage them, help them, resource them, love on them and their families, cover, protect, challenge, hold accountable..  Pastors need you to have their backs and pastors need to have eachothers back.

enough said.. I am bummed out today.. whew...

Chic Nite - 2007

Chic Nite was awesome - to subscribe to the full God First Revolution Podcasts use the link on the sidebar.


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Chic Nite 2007

Chic Nite 2007 was a huge success- To view the pics of chic nite click here.

I had the pleasure of hanging out, taking some pictures and watch the ladies of Celebration Church really bring it. Tonight there were 491 ladies including the kids and workers, and oh what a night it was.

From the second the ladies walked up it was an experience designed to bless them with the love of God. There were angels on swings.

There were many pictures meant to be taken.

There was chocolate everywhere.

There was a great word by Mary Jo, Keisha, and Pastor Kerri.

The dramas were awesome and it was a downright great night.

Ladies we hope you had a wonderful, wonderful evening in God's presence. Every ounce of work was worth it because you matter to God.

Chic Nite 2007 - Mary Jo Offering

Mary Jo doing the offering at Chic Nite 2007. Be sure to check out the pictures. Mary Jo and her team did an incredible job getting the place ready. What a huge win for the ladies of Celebration Church in Clay County!

Final Post about Perum

I have never known much about missions. I spent some time working overseas when I worked for Steel Hector in Miami and visited places all throughout South America, but never had I been there on a church related trip. It was powerful and life changing, and I can't help but recommend that anyone who is reading this blog consider going on one of our upcoming trips. Be it to Peru, Africa, Cambodia, you name it. I encourage you to go and be a part of one of these trips.

On my final day in Peru I spent some alone time at a Monistary for about 2 hours. It was a great time of reflection and a way to decompress. The pictures are in the photo album.

The final pics from Peru are from Lima. Stovall, I and a few others slipped out to the beach during the layover. Some pics are fun from the airport to.

Peru - Reflections Final Day

I find myself once again at Cusco Coffee as I write what I will be my final post from Arequipa. At 1pm today we will be heading to the airport and we should get back to Jacksonville tomorrow around 12:00pm.

Yesterday was an incredible day. The culmination of months of preparation for Pastor Mike Sehon and his team, for Pastor Mike Pier, and a week of very hard work getting the church ready to open my our EDJ team and all who went down to help open it up.

All of it paid off yesterday as 262 people came to the first service. The atmosphere was electric from the second the worship started. Pastor Stovall came up afterwards and preached an incredible message of forgiveness. In his trademark fashion he had to come up with a great analogy to crack people up. In this case it had to do with the water. In Peru the default water is pretty much undrinkable, even taking great caution, most of us have gotten sick this week. So everyone drinks bottled water. In this case "AUGA CON GAS!" which is essentially seltzer water which virtually explodes every time you open the bottle. Or Auga SIN Gas - which is normal "FLAT" water. So pastor challenged them to live thier lives for God Con Gas - not flat.. It went over very well.

So after service it was fun time for the team. It happened to be the final day of Carnival in Peru so everyone was on the streets having a crazy time spraying people with liquid foam. Of course the Gringo's had to get into the mix. It this case Clay looks to have been on the losing end of that particular battle.

As the night heated up things got even crazier and poor Sean ended up falling down into some metal spikes and pierced his hands and knees pretty bad. The picture on the left is Mike Pier digging into the holes with a q-tip and various medicines. Morgan is praying..

Of course you can't be in Peru without getting something stolen. Apparently if things are not attached to you they will get stolen. So in this case Alex Tran had his camera stolen, and once again Morgan steps up in prayer..

So we are on out way home shortly. 2 more teams are coming between now and August. I have been invited back for the august trip to continue to do some more leadership development and training. The experience has been great. Challenging my faith. Reminding me that my problems are not nearly as big as they seem. Can you believe the average wage here is $100 US per month. Per month.. I feel spoiled. wow.. It really helps to put some stuff into perspective.

Mary Jo - I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. :)

Stovall doing the greeting

at the beginning of the service. Pastor Mike Sehon translating.

Launched - Arequipa

This morning we officially launched the campus. 262 people attended. It was an awesome, awesome experience. We experienced many salvations this morning and it really was a Celebration Service..

I am still kind of tired, I will blog more later, and will do my best to upload pics, but right now we finally have some free time and are going to head out shopping. :)

Peru - Feb 15 - Day 4

Today you will get to see a room transform from being a room into being a Celebration Church Campus. As I write this, I am sitting in Cusco Coffee a place run by an American from California that is like a little slice of the US right in the middle of Arequipa. I will post pics of the place tonight or tomorrow. The mountain you see to the left is the view from the back of the church - not bad huh!

I am fairly emotional as I right this for a few reasons.  I may be getting slightly  homesick. Momma Jo, Matt, Molly, and Miranda - I miss you guys and love you dearly. I'm also 1/2 wiped out and in need of a second wind. Today should be another long one hooking up lights, sound, and preaching to the new church leaders on the concept of Team Building and volunteer development in the Celebration Church culture.

So back to yesterday. We woke up early and ventured out for some quick coffee, followed by our 7:30am prayer meeting, breakfast from 8-8:30 and off to the church. I made the call with both Pastor Mike's approval to paint the place much like the campuses in the US. So, Johnny, myself, and Humberto went off on a run to get paint.

Now getting paint in Peru is not like going over to visit Matt B. at the Orange Park Color center. It was a great adventure that took 2.5 hours to get 5 gallons of mixed paint and 5 gallons of black paint, plus the needed supplies. They don't have roller pans, try a 5 gallon oil bucket cut in half and you are closer to reality and no you can't get your paint, and all your supplies like tape etc, in the same place, you have to go to atleast 3 places spread over maybe a mile..

When we returned pastor Stovall got there and we made the decision to go ahead and get lighting so out the door Stovall, Mike, Mike, and I went to find lighting.

Oh yes, we found lighting. Even a dimmer pack to control 6 lights that I will talk about later and yes, it too was a 2 hour plus adventure.

We returned and got to work on a late night journey of running wires and installing the dimmer pack. But don't think that it was easy to cut the wires, and no wire nuts or anything like that are available so try electrical tape to do the trick.

Just before we were ready to get the lights fully operational a huge BOOM like explosion happened in the room. Sean Kelly one of the interns flew 3 feet into the air as he accidentally plugged the speaker plug which looks very much like an electric plug into the wall causing the SONIC Boom. Well both Johnny and I had electric wires in our hand, we looked at eachother in relief thinking we were both dead. :)

But as you can see, we pulled it off.

Amazing. Doesn't it look a little like Celebration! I will take some more pics of the progress today.. We love you guys dearly!

Girls Home

Yesterday the girls at the orphanage performed a little dance for us. It was awesome.