love it when it happens

I really enjoyed today even though it wasn't the best day I have ever had. Nothing really awesome happened but don't you just love it when you can look back on your day and say, "today was a good day?" I do. I was really busy planning things for Wednesday nights ReFUEL with the student ministry and working on some other things. I was able to help my friends/coworkers with a project and I always like doing that. I was able to break some things and then fix some things. I lined up some folks to cook some food for the students on Wednesday nights which went really well. They love free food almost as much as I love when they come. Its just great when things come together for a great Wednesday night ReFuel, which it did. I planned to show a couple of videos throughout the night and they went well. I decided to let the Youth band practice without me supervising them because they work better when I get out of the way and let them figure things out. The lead worship very well tonight. I wish I had been recording them because I think it was really spirit-filled. Matt finished his 3 part message to the students tonight and that went really well. God gifts him to speak and he is so much better with words than i am. I really miss it though when I do not get to share my heart and message with our group. It is nice to have a break but I am also excited about our new series coming up in 2 weeks. The students love hanging out at the FLC and I am glad that they have so much fun there and enjoy being with God's church. My only desire is that more students would desire to join us for our exciting journey of life that we are doing together as Immanuel Baptist Student Ministry. Ministry has it's ups and it's downs; glad today it had it's ups!

article I read today

How Close is God

By Jim Burns

The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; Do not be discouraged. Deuteronomy 31:8

How close is God? God is closer than your breath and closer than your skin. Philippians 4:5 tells us to never forget the nearness of your God. How much does he care for you? Scripture reminds us:

He knows our names (John 10:3).

He numbers the hairs on our head (Matthew 10:30).

He counts the steps of our feet (Job 14:16).

He bottles the tears from our eyes (Psalm 56:8, RSV).

He holds our right hand in His hand (Psalm 73:23).

He supplies all our needs (Philippians 4:19).

I think this is really good to be reminded, Williams OUT!

Man, ALIVE!!!

I know it has been an eternity since I last blogged about anything, so I am here today to write about the things going with me lately.

The fall semester has gotten off to a fair start with the student ministry. It seems so many students are lackadaisical these days. They really are not passionate about anything but especially are not about church things. That is why I say that it has gotten off to a fair start. We have had some good moments with the middle schoolers and a few others inviting friends and bringing them to church. The weird thing though is that the 7th graders do not seem to really like or want to worship god through music. One person said they really don't like music or movies. I have been pondering how to get students worshipping God with passion and living their faith actively. It is a difficult thought to deal with because you cannot force people to do things and trying with food and games does not seem to be an effective youth ministry strategy in this day and time. what I truly believe makes the difference is when you have Godly loving adults who consistently pour their lives into the students in the student ministry. I think we lack that.

I am headed this Friday to Los Angeles, California to National Youth Workers Convention. I am hoping to have a time of training and revitalization. I need training in how to motivate adults to want to give up their time and routines and desires to spend time growing and maturing students to be fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ. If anyone ever said that a Youth Ministers job is easy because all they have to do is play games with kids, those same people have no clue of what it means to develop a team approach to growing a student ministry that challenges and equips parents to teach their children Godliness and while also engaging students to want to be connected and involved in the ministry is created for them. Because you can do everything you want and desire but if they choose to not be involved, all that you have planned, organized, and carried out makes no difference to them.

I am definitely desiring more of God's presence in our church and student ministry because our adults, students, and myself need Him more than we need more of ourselves.

I would appreciate the outpouring of your prayers!

June...WOW!

So I have not posted a blog the entire month of June. I am not sure if it has been that busy or if I have been that lazy. There has been a lot going on though, I started the month going to Sarah's family reunion on Sam Rayburn lake. I thought I was going to be able to do something out on the water but was disappointed when the boat broke. I took our students to Centrifuge Youth camp in Mississippi. It was a great week with them and I feel like many of them have deep desires to live for Christ but just have a hard time figuring out how to do that in real life situations. We had a great ride in a 48 pass charter bus. It was probably the best ride to camp i have ever had. We returned home on a Thursday, well Friday morning Sarah & I headed to houston to pick Kailey up and hang with her family. We had a great weekend with Pappasitos, shopping, swimming in her parent's pool, Fuddruckers, and I even got to swing by and visit my friend of 27 years. Last week was crazy getting back into the swing of things but I was not really allowed to. Monday flew by trying to getting business taken care of for the youth camp. Tuesday was Staff Adventure day and we went to a zoo. Wednesday I was preparing for Fiesta Theme Night and one of the staff's computer started malfunctioning with a virus. After two hours of trying to fix it, I called a professional but still had a hard time getting everything done. For the Fiesta Theme night I had ordered enchiladas from Jaliscos, I thought Jaliscos in Temple but when I got there and they did not have my order I realized that I had ordered them from Belton which was a bit farther. we got it done and moved on. Thursday Sarah wanted to get kaileys pictures made because she recently turned 18 months old. That was a full day of adventure. Friday was Schlitterbahn Day. I and another man named Eric took a group of students for the all day adventure of Schlitterbahn. We had a great time with them and got plenty of sun. Saturday was a day of rest and had a few friends over for a barBQ, that was def fun and enjoyable. Hope they had fun. Yesterday(Sunday) was a whip as well. We started off with ACs not working in several parts of our church including the youth room! HOT! We ended the day with IBC FAMILY ROADTRIPS which this sunday was the Summit. We were suppose to have rented the rockwall, the pool, and the tennis courts. Get there and they are like the rockwall is closed. I am like thats the whole reason we rented you out in the first place. But we all still had a great time playing tennis and swimming in the pool. Ended the day with a honey barbeque chicken strip sandwich from Whataburger, sarah's choice by the way. I got up this morning at 645 am and jogged 3 miles. It was somewhat difficult but I feel like if I keep it going I can continue to improve my running strength. I am looking forward to this weekend with my family. We have lots of fun things planned and I am hoping it will be a great time away. Thats my June for YA!

past weekend

working out is so hard to continue to do. It is even harder to not fall lazily back into your old way of eating and living. I desire to continue to shred the weight and continue losing but at times it is really hard. pray for me because I am looking at a wall but I do not know how to maneuver over or around it. Had a good time this weekend with friends eating out, Genghis Grill, and pa rousing around, at rangers/astros game Saturday, and visiting friends in old town of sherman. Loved every second of every second. even got to eat at an old time fav restaurant, Tin Star. love you

my 8's

8 things I am looking forward to
1. Centrifuge Youth Camp
2. Going out to dinner with Sarah and Matt and Erin and Marcus on Friday.
3. Visiting some friends on Memorial Day
4. Tomorrow (Thursday) my day off
5. weighing in at 199 (soon hopefully)
6. My surprise trip from Sarah
7. editing a video here in a little bit
8. Matt Dugan updating his blog

8 things I did yesterday
1. ate breakfast
2. made a video for church
3. watched the Lakers Game
4. went to dinner at Jaliscos
5. went walking/running for an hour
6. found out a friend is also going to the Astros game on Saturday
7. encouraged Sarah as she recovers
8. went grocery shopping

8 things I wish I could do
1. skydive
2. buy anything I wanted
3. see students leading other students to a faith in Jesus Christ
4. buy a new phone
5. play golf once a week
6. Eat whatever I want and still loose weight
7. fly to a different city once a month
8. be a more inspiring leader

8 shows I watch
1. ESPN
2. The Bounty Hunter
3. The Biggest Loser
4. Survivor
5. The Hills
6. The Fantasy Factor
7. House Hunters
8. Diners Drive-ins and Dives

8 people I tag
Sarah
Michelle
Eric
Matt
Erin
Kenya
David
Bobby Bones

Busyness

Busyness and Apathy are definately of the devil. I believe that was the first thing the devil set out to create as the biggest distraction to God. God is so great and so good and so loving and so big and so awesome, but if we pay no attention to Him because we are so busy or lazy, either extreme, then we completely miss Him. Tonight some of the youth and I were watching "How Great is our God" tour teaching series by Loulie Giglio. He illustrated how big other stars and galaxies of stars are than the planet Earth, and how our God has created these large stars and planets, but can hold all created things in the palm of His hand. I am awed that God, the creator of the universe and all galaxies everwhere, desires for me to spend time with Him. I know I should. I know I want to, but do I consistently spend time with my Lord, NO. Why, you might wonder, because of either busyness or apathy. Either I busy myself with insignificant things in this world that matter to little or nothing or I am apathetic about my spiritual life and seem to do nothing. If God is so great then why don't I worship Him with every second of my life? With everything I say, with everything I do, with every place I go, with everything I look at, with everything I write? All I can say to that is I DUNNO! I was walking today by myself around the neighborhood and began thinking about this. I started saying to God, "I know you are real and that you are apart of my life but sometimes I need to hear from you. God I need to hear from you." Then I get to church and watch this video with the students and think to myself, "how foolish are you!" God has created a world of amazing things that demonstrate who He is and how great He is and I do not even take time to observe them. I do not even take time to listen to God talk to me through His creation. This morning in sunday morning study our topic was worship. We learned how we have fooled ourself into believing that worship takes place in a church building. The truth is worship does take place in a sanctuary but as 1 Corinthians 6:19&20 states, "your body is the temple of God...therefore honor God with your body." Worship takes places with you wherever you are. If that's at a church building, a mall, at a restaurant, or at a bar. God is worship when we worship Him, but unfortunately we usually become one of two previous mentioned states of being and skip on doing what we were created to do. My desire is to work on this, to be conscious of this and maybe I feeling of closeness to God will be different.