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I'll put some Relay for Life info on here tomorrow, but for today I want you to read this post from Dustin Willis' blog. For those of you who never click on the lincs I put on here, you don't want to miss reading this. Go ahead, take the extra two seconds to click over to another site. You'll be glad you did.

No Clue

I like to think I'm a pretty well-rounded guy that has a cursory understanding of many different subjects, but I'm finding more and more there are things out there that I have almost no knowledge of. Some are things that don't matter if I know about them, and some are probably pretty important. Here's a short list of things I know almost nothing about:

- 3G and 4G networks

- Lady Gaga

- Bandwidth

- Frequent flyer miles

- T9 Word

- Twilight

- Gray's Anatomy

- Soccer

- Mortgage based securities

I'd love to know what things are on your list.

Transition update

Thanks to all of you who prayed about yesterday's service at Lake Robinson Community Church. We had a great time worshipping with the folks there. I took some time to share the history and vision of Freedom, and then I answered a lot of questions.

Here's what you need to know if you weren't there yesterday: The people at LRCC are very positive about the next steps in this transition. Of course they are also emotional. It will be very difficult for them when the church they have been working so hard in for seven years is absorbed into Freedom. Pray for them as we make the transition. Pray for their pastor Jimmy Hawkins and his family as well. Please continue to pray for wisdom for the leadership at Freedom.

Thanks to our entire team for handling everything at our service while I was away yesterday. It was great to be able to speak at LRCC without having to worry one bit about things being taken care of. We have the best group of volunteers that I have ever had the privilege to work with!

Also, thanks to my oldest daughter Emily, the Johnson's and the McCombs' for being at LRCC yesterday to lend their support and encouragement. For the first time in a long time I had a great deal of nervousness as I got ready to speak. Seeing some familiar faces helped ease those fears.

This entire process has been simply amazing. As a general rule churches just don't do what the folks at LRCC are doing. The faith it has required for them to give their land and building to a younger church is phenomenal, and I am overwhelmed at how God has orchestrated everything. I am pumped up about what God has in store for us next!

Pray for Sunday

Sporadic updates for my faithful handful of readers:

- We had a great weekend. Having Tony and Bettye at the house this weekend was a lot of fun, and the girls loved having another dog in the house to play with. Buddy was very well behaved around Kiki. Of course he spent plenty of time with his nose stuck in her rear end, but overall his conduct was acceptable. By the way, Buddy and Kiki are dogs. If you didn't know that then that last sentence would be really weird.

- I've been down in the hole studying for the last two days. Normally I will go out of town for a couple of days to plan the message calendar for the next several months, but this time I stayed in town. I spent Monday at the main Spartanburg library and yesterday at the main Greenville library. In case you were wondering, Spartanburg is nicer. For one thing they have free parking. I actually backed up at the Greenville library yesterday to avoid going into the pay lot. I found a nice free parking spot on the street in the back. Thankfully I still can parallel park.

- Pray for me Sunday. I will be speaking to the folks at Lake Robinson Community Church. I want to be sure and communicate clearly what God has been doing at Freedom and what kind of church we are trying to be. I will also be answering any questions they have about Freedom.

- I have a serious case of beach fever right now. I actually live with a chronic case, but it is normally under control. Our vacation to the beach is one month away, and I am really getting antsy. I've actually considered just driving down to Folly or the Isle of Palms for the day and coming right back, but I think I'll just wait it out.

- Our LIFE Group ends tonight. Well the study does, we will still get together next week to grill out and hang out. This group has been a blast getting to know. We've been talking about marriage, and there has been some great, honest discussion each and every week.

Weekend Preview

Here's a little rundown of what's in store for this weekend:

- Our friends Tony and Bettye will be in town. They were like an extra set of parents for both Sherry and I when we were in college. We're really looking forward to spending some time with them.

- Family Fest is tomorrow! If you're going, be sure and check out some of the guys from our band who will be playing around 10:30.

- There's some El Mariachi in my future planned for Saturday night. I will risk catching the swine flu and eat there anyway.

- We'll be talking Sunday morning about "Going Public". Read Matthew 5:14-16 before you come.

- I want to take Emily to see the new Wolverine movie, but unless we go sometime Sunday night it won't happen this weekend. We'll have to see how things pan out.

- Maybe I can fit a nap in the weekend somewhere, but the chances aren't looking good.

- Spring is here! I'm loving the warm weather, and now that the pollen is calming down being outside is wonderful.

Hope you have a great weekend. See you on Sunday!

The First 100 Days

There has been much in the news for the last couple of days concerning President Obama's first 100 days in office. It seems to me that 100 days is a short amount of time to fix just about any problem, especially some of the issues in our country right now (economy, health care, Iraq, and now swine flu!).

As I kept hearing about the 100 day mark, I thought back to the first 100 days of Freedom Fellowship. On September 1, 2004 I officially began my new duties as pastor of this new church. My last official day on the job as Youth pastor at Fairview Baptist Church was the last day of August.

Here's some of the things I remember our team getting accomplished in the first 100 days:

- Got a new cell phone. That happened in the first week.

- Got a computer.

- Got really nervous and scared. There were several mornings I woke up and thought, "I don't know what to do next."

- Had weekly meetings to pray about the future. This helped a good bit with the fear and nervousness.

- Put together our first budget. I remember sitting with our team around the Wilson's dining room table trying to figure what we would need to spend money in the next 12-18 months. It was like throwing darts at a dart board on the side of a moving truck. We had no clue what was actually needed, so we just did the best we could and hoped we would hit the bulls eye.

- Secured the first place we would meet to begin having "practice" worship services.

- Began planning those first services.

- Borrowed and cleaned up our first sets of preschool and children's ministry equipment.

- Started putting together a band.

- Had lots of breakfast, lunch, dinner meetings with people who were interested in what we were doing.

- Met with lots of local pastors begging them for money.

- Asked lots of questions to people wiser than me. By the way, they weren't hard for me to find.

- Heard the question, "Where are y'all gonna build your church?" more times than I care to remember.

That's just a partial list of some of the more important things, and I know there are tons of things I have forgotten about. The lesson that I'm learning over and over is that at the end of the first 100 days Freedom Fellowship was far from a finished masterpiece, and it is still that way today. In fact, it will always be that way. I always want us to be changing, learning, growing, and becoming the church God wants us to be. 100 days isn't a lot of time, but my prayer is that 100 days from now we will be closer to God's plan for us than we are today!

Important Meetings and Random Updates

Random bits of info from my life:

- I spent the first half of yesterday helping out with Grace's field day at our home school co-op. I was in charge of the softball throw. In the older boys(4th and 5th grade)group the second place finisher threw the softball 91 feet. The first place finisher threw it 130 feet! He needs to be careful because winning by 39 feet will get you accused of taking steroids.

- I saw a dude at Ingle's yesterday who was wearing a headband. It was the kind people wear to work out in. Seeing him there wouldn't have been that odd if he had been wearing a sweat suit or running shorts, but the rest of the ensemble he had on consisted of: khaki pants, penny loafers, white golf shirt, and a gold watch. Your guess is as good as mine as to what the headband was for.

- I've got two meetings tomorrow that are important for the next few months of Freedom. I'd appreciate your prayers as a small group looks at what it would take to move our office space to the land on Hwy. 290 we are in the process of acquiring. Then later in the day Sherry and I will be spending some time talking with someone about the future of the worship ministry. Ask God to give everyone involved wisdom.

- "No Hit Wonders" will be practicing tonight after a two week lay off. I'll publish the set list here before we actually play at Relay for Life.