I have a past that I’m not proud of.

So did Rahab, but she’s in the lineage of Jesus Christ (check Matthew 1).

So did David, but he went down in history as “the man after God’s own heart.”

So did Paul the Apostle. He used to kill Christians. Then one day, he saw the resurrected Christ and things changed.

I stand with countless others who have a part of their past that they’re not proud of. For me, it’s pornography. I hate that it was such a big part of my life years ago. I hate the pain and the hurt it caused. I hate talking about it, really, but here I am, blogging about it for the world to read.

I talked in a previous blog about my past struggle with it and how I keep it in check today. I talked about a ministry called XXXChurch.com that’s specifically targeted at helping people overcome porn addiction. They’re a great example of a group of people, who, like me, have a past they’re not proud of, but are willing to talk about it to help others.

I was recently asked to begin blogging for a new branch of XXX Church called Heart Support. They deal with addiction in general: sex, money, food, cutting, etc. I’ll be blogging there once a month about my past with porn addiction and how I came out of it.

I know this is a touchy subject and one that no one really enjoys thinking about (me neither), but here’s the reality: it’s part of who I was. One of the biggest hindrances to me stopping my porn addiction was that I bought into the lie that I was the only one who struggled with it. Statistically, I was WAY off, but I had no idea. Because I thought I was the only one, I thought I had to fight it alone. That’s one reason why I love ministries like XXX Church and Heart Support. They’re not scared to speak up, say it how it is, and help people who think they have to fight it alone.

My first blog is now up at HeartSupport.com. It’s not graphic or anything, but let me just warn you: it may not be easy to read. It wasn’t easy for me to write. It’s called “I’m A Pastor and I use Porn.” Read it if you’d like. If you know of someone that it could be useful to, pass it along!

I pray God can use my past that I’m not proud of to help provide hope and healing for people hooked on porn.

What issue have you dealt with in your past that you can help others with now?

Do you believe God is big enough to use your mistakes for His glory? Whether you believe it or not, He is. I’m proof.

If God Had Google

What kind of calendar rights would you give Him?

God rearranged my calendar recently. A lot. I wasn’t planning on having a clean-up day at the church and pulling down sheet rock and kicking through walls (although that was pretty fun). I also wasn’t planning on meeting in another church’s building for a couple months while ours dried out.

A year ago, I quit my job at one of the biggest churches in America to move to a city I had visited twice to do something I’d never done: plant a church. It has been a ride. That’s a major understatement. I don’t always do good with a change of plans but recently God has been reminding me of the importance of adapting to changes and always expecting the unexpected.

I was thinking about this the other day when I was setting up my google calendar on my iPhone. I have it set up so that it syncs to my phone and my iPad. That way, I always know what’s coming next. It has a share option where I can allow others to see my events and even edit them and rearrange things (if I trust them that much!). As I was doing this, the thought crossed my mind: “If God were on Google, what kind of calendar rights would I give him. Here are the options…

1) “see only free/busy schedule (hide details)”

This is the easy one. God can contact me when I’m free – I’ll ignore when I’m busy or have things under control and don’t need Him.

2) “see all event details”

This is a little more daring. This involves letting Him see it ALL – whoa! That’s daring!

3) “make changes to events”

This one is tough. This means that at any time, God can cancel & add events without consulting me!

4) “make changes AND manage sharing”

This is the best (and hardest) of the 4 options. This involves giving God FULL CONTROL of your entire calendar.

As good as that last one is, ideally, we’d take it one step further: log out, let Him log in and change the password. Relinquish all your rights except for viewing rights. You just check in every day and see what God has on the calendar for you! Now THAT is scary…unless you know the God you’re relinquishing your rights to! In reality, us trying to control everything is the scary thing!

We all fall somewhere in the midst of those options.

Where do you fall?

What’s so hard about letting go of your rights and giving God permission to rearrange?

A year ago…

A year ago on Thursday, I gathered with about 100 staff members from Calvary Albuquerque, one of the biggest churches in the United States, for my goodbye luncheon. I had been on staff as the middle school youth pastor for 5 1/2 years. We had Italian food. It was fantastic.

A year ago yesterday, we spent the evening at some friends’ house for our goodbye party. Tons of people we knew came to wish us well, eat cake, pray for us, and say goodbye. There were lots of tears that night.

A year ago today, I prepared to teach a message entitled “Along For the Ride” from Luke 5. I talked about how when Jesus stepped into the boat and told the fishermen to cast their nets (which they had done all night to no avail), it didn’t make a lot of sense, but they obeyed anyway…and their world got rocked! I talked about the step of faith we were taking in planting a church and how it didn’t all make sense but we trusted God was behind it and we were simply along for the ride.

That was a bit of an understatement!

A year ago tomorrow, I preached my last message as middle school youth pastor at Calvary Albuquerque. My office was cleaned out, and as I walked off the campus, I said goodbye.

A year ago Monday, I began a 2 1/2-month period of being unemployed…or as the guys and I called it “FUNemployment.” After a life of non-stop action, teaching 4 times a week, counseling, studying, and more, life slowed waaaaay down. I slept in every day, took a nap most days, got pretty good at fishing, read books, and just hung out. It was great, but I sure was happy to get a job – even if it was working the graveyard shift as a janitor on Ft. Campbell. It paid the bills and gave me hours to listen to podcasts. It was a start.

Of course my story is still being written as I type. I’ve now gone through a period of working 3 jobs at once while teaching twice a week, we’ve had a baby, and our church got destroyed in a flood. I could have never dreamed that a year from my last weekend at Calvary Albuquerque, our church would be meeting on the second floor of a bank building while our previous building was drying out from a flood.

Never. Crossed. My. Mind. Ever.

My message entitled “Along For The Ride” makes more sense now than it did a year ago when I preached it. It’s pretty unbelievable what we’ve been through and I can’t imagine what’s ahead. When I write a blog in May of 2011 entitled “A year ago…,” I wonder where we’ll be then!

To God be the glory. He has done – and is doing – great things in Clarksville, TN!

The importance of a day off

I’m convinced that I am one reason God wrote the 4th Commandment (Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy.). It’s possible that if I weren’t in the picture, there would only be 9 commandments, although I do know some others who have a hard time not taking a day off.

Sometimes people get all worked up about which day of the week God meant. I don’t think He got real worked up about it though. It’s about the principle behind the commandment. Right now, my Sabbath is Sunday. It hasn’t always been, though. It used to be Monday when I worked at Calvary Albuquerque. I taught once on Saturday night and twice on Sunday mornings, so I took Mondays off. Now since we just have the Saturday night service on weekends at Awaken, Sunday is my Sabbath…and I need it! I have to admit, though, as nice as it is to take a day off, it’s a struggle sometimes. I have an endless (and growing) list of things that need to get done, so taking a day off sometimes seems like a step back. Sometimes my wife even has to remind me that I need to just rest (thank God for her!)!

Monday-Saturday, my life is going at 100mph between graphic design, Lasaters graphic design, studying and teaching twice a week, as well as finding time to hang with my wife and my girls. Thankfully, God commanded us to take a vacation once a week. That doesn’t mean you can’t do anything productive, but it’s an extra excuse to rest and spend some extra time with God and those you love.

Some of my Sabbath activities include:

- sleeping in
- hanging with friends
- reading
- taking a nap
- family movie day
- brunch with the family at our favorite restaurant
- another nap
- play time with the girls
- taking a walk

I also follow a strict “no-answering-work-emails” policy. One email quickly turns into a bunch and before I know it, I’m back to work. I normally stay on top of texts and emails, but ignoring my phone for a day is quite relaxing. It takes me back to the 90s when I didn’t have that thing ringing off the hook all the time!

My challenge is that during the week, I tend to beat myself up if I find myself not doing something “productive.” However, from experience, I’ve learned that a Sabbath day spent with brunch, hanging with friends, playing with the girls, and taking a nap, is quite productive. It’s like the 15 minutes that my camera batteries spend in the charger. That 15 minutes is a fraction of the time that they spend getting drained in the camera, but if it weren’t for those few minutes, they wouldn’t be able to do their job. I’m the same way. I need to be recharged.

God isn’t above His own commands. He set the example, even on this one.

Genesis 2:2 – And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.

That does not mean that God was worn out after those first 6 days of creating stuff (As if, after 6 days, He was exhausted from speaking things into existence). He didn’t need to be recharged like me or some batteries. I believe He did took a break to set an example. He knows the benefit of rest…especially for us. He knows how healthy it is to take some time apart from our daily time with Him to “be still and know that He is God” (Psalm 46:10).

So obey ALL 10 commandments by taking a day off! Don’t take yourself so seriously! I promise that the world won’t come crashing down if you hit snooze a couple times or take a nap.

Am I the only one who struggles with taking a day off? I know there are other over-achievers out there who tend to think the world rests on their shoulders.

When is your Sabbath and what do you do on a day off?

Look Past Your Own Need

We’ve been focused on our own needs a lot recently. We lost thousand of dollars worth of stuff in the flood. That kind of devastation could wipe a 7-month old church off the map…but not Awaken Church.

We had such a great turnout to our work day last Saturday that we were the first building in our shopping center done. Everything 8 feet and below was taken out – the whole building was stripped down to the studs and the cement. Thanks to Carlo Serrano from First Assembly of God and a few other churches and volunteers, we knocked that thing out.

I was tempted to save some of it for our work crew from U-Turn for Christ that was due in the next day, but there was no point in saving work – surely there was more to be done!

The beauty of getting it all done on Saturday was that it freed the work crew up to focus on other people’s needs within the community, and believe me when I say there are plenty of needs everywhere you look! The team of 13 spent all day Wednesday helping a tool store clean up and said there’s probably at least another month’s worth of work in that one store! That’s just 1 of 144 businesses that were hit by the flood!

On Monday, we prayed that God would lead us to the right people and He definitely did. Julie Edler, from the church, knew of a lady that had just moved here 6 months ago because her son had died in the Army. Their basement flooded, which had created a major issue in their home. Lisa, the mother, was allergic to the mold that had quickly begun growing in her home, and their 3 special needs kids were also allergic. That left Ron, the father, and their 2 stepsons to do all the work of clearing out their basement, killing the mold, and bringing everything back in. Thankfully, what would have easily taken them weeks took our team of 14 about 8 hours! Armed with muscles and minds ready to work and vans and trucks ready to drive, we took truck loads and van loads of stuff to a storage unit so that the basement could be cleaned.

I realized how significant of an event this was when one of the kids asked Lisa what was happening. She turned to him and replied, “God sent these people to help us.” What a blessing to be a part of that! And to take it a step further, Lisa and 3 of the kids joined us on Wednesday night for church!

It’s amazing how God can use you when you look past your own needs! It made me wonder how many other families are out there just like the McLellan family!

I’m excited to see who God leads us to next week when we’re joined by a ministry crew from Vintage Church in Indianapolis, IN.

Get in the habit of looking past your needs. I’ll bet there’s a family or a person that’s in need like the McLellan family if you look hard enough. And now that we were able to help them, I don’t know who was blessed the most – them or us!

Unity Amidst Destruction

Saturday was a day I never saw coming: kicking through walls, ripping up soggy carpet, tearing down doors, throwing away chairs, and much more. That would have never entered my mind. We had plenty of volunteers show up, though, and in the midst of the destruction, something amazing happened: unity. All of us from different backgrounds, different churches, and different parts of the city and state came together for one purpose: helping Awaken Church start over. It was great. We knocked it out quickly. The whole church is down to the studs now – no doors, carpet, tiles, or sheet rock. All the bathroom vanities, kids toys, chairs, tables, cabinets, and anything else that had been on the floor ended up in a huge pile outside the church building, then eventually in a dumpster and headed off to a landfill.

We’re excited, though. We had out first service on Saturday in our temporary building. We’re praying that if God wants us somewhere else besides our wrecked building, He’ll drop it in our laps. Otherwise, we’ll wait it out and have another grand opening in a few months at 581 S Riverside Dr! After all, by that point, everything will be brand new – that building will look better than it has in decades!

Here are some pictures and a video of the demolition and our temporary meeting place. See more at awakenchurch.org in the photo gallery.

How Water United Us

Good try, Satan. That whole “wreck the church with a bunch of water” thing was a good one. You gave it a sporting try. Unfortunately for you, I’ve been daily watching it backfire on you…and I love it!

I am blown away by how this tragic turn of events has brought the body of Christ together like no other event I’ve ever been a part of. Here’s an idea of what I’m talking about…

- We had church at the Edlers’ house on Wednesday since we didn’t have a building.

- 5 churches offered to let us meet in their buildings or offices for church. We got to choose! 5 days after the flood hit, we’ll hold our first meeting in our new temporary location (beginning tomorrow night at 6:30pm on the 2nd floor of the Bank of America building)!

- A couple from the church assembled a “Mobile Kids Minstry” box for us with all the supplies that we need to continue to minister to our kids wherever we end up meeting!

- One lady from the church filled her Suburban with cleaning supplies and is dropping it off for our clean-up day tomorrow.

- I know of at least 2 churches that are joining us tomorrow to help us clean up our building and our community.

- One girl from the church is making 100 sack lunches for us tomorrow to feed us, all our volunteers, and quite a few of our neighbors!

- We have a team of 13 people from a ministry in Chattanooga that will arrive Sunday night and stay through Wednesday night. They’re coming just to help and serve any way they can.

- One girl from the church is organizing all the host homes for the incoming groups. She already has homes, meals, and rides figured out!

- We have multiple people in the church housing these complete (Christian) strangers in their homes for 4 nights this week!

- A church in New Jersey who wanted to send a team to help but couldn’t with such short notice is funding the trip for the group from Chattanooga!

- The middle school group from that church is selling flowers this Sunday for Mother’s Day as a fundraiser for our church!

- We have teams assembling from Indiana and New Mexico, ready to come out here and light this place up for Christ.

- A church in Indiana is printing 200 t-shirts for us to sell to raise money to bless our community and get back on our feet after the loss of the flood (pre-orders begin soon)!

- Everywhere I go I have to charge my phone because of the endless amounts of calls, emails, and texts I get every day from people who are there to encourage. By 6pm on Monday, the day of the flood, I had 141 emails!

- Through Facebook, I met a guy who is setting up a concert for us that we will use to draw people in and share the Gospel with them.

- We have hundreds (maybe thousands) of people praying in many states as well as Afghanistan and Sydney, Australia.

I could go on, but I just don’t have time or room. What Satan meant for evil, God used for good! I can honestly say we have bigger vision and more excitement now than ever! God has used this tragedy to realign our priorities, reunite our vision as Christians, and revive our passion for sharing the Gospel with those who need it the most! May God be glorified through what Satan tried to use to destroy!

After the water comes the mud

For the first time since Sunday, we took a drive down Riverside Dr. today. We had to drive through a few shallow ponds and past a flopping 16-inch catfish in the middle of the road (no joke) to get to the church parking lot, but we made it. Here are a few pictures of our journey…

If it looks like someone vandalized our church, that’s because someone did. His name is The Cumberland River. He left mud everywhere. We’ll just call it “mud” because it just sounds better than what it really is (a mixture of dirt, gasoline, oil, trash, and raw sewage).

The bottom 4 1/2 feet of all the walls and doors in our building are ruined, but I gotta admit, they look pretty sweet.

Kids toys and business cards decided to defy gravity and hang all over our church walls. It made for some pretty cool art. Very modern…or something.

The Bibles are a bit muddy. I saved one as a flood memento. I don’t think we’ll be passing them out at church for visitors any more – we’ll go ahead and pull out the non-muddy ones.

We thought about adopting a new “reclining” method with the chairs during service. I’m afraid “Awaken” church might turn into “A-sleepin’” church, though, so probably not.

Thanks for the prayers and DONATIONS! We’re excited about the huge ministry opportunities in front of us and blown away at how things are lining up for God to do something big. We begin cleaning the church on Saturday at 8am. We have teams coming in from New Mexico, Chattanooga, TN, and Indiana! God is good!

Mission Trip to Tennessee

It’s surreal to think that we live in the part of the country where emergency responders are being dispatched to. Our county is one of 6 (that I know of) in Tennessee that has been declared a state of emergency by President Obama.

We’re tentatively planning on a clean-up day this Saturday at the church from 8am-2pm, but we know that’s just the beginning. Besides our building, there are hundreds of other businesses, organizations, and families that need help cleaning up and moving on with life. We want to help facilitate that and while we’re at it, share the love of Christ!

We just received word tonight that a team of 12 from U-Turn for Christ in Chattanooga will be heading our way on Saturday to help with the clean-up. We’ll be finalizing details with them in the morning. We’re also working with a church in Indiana and some individuals in New Mexico to possibly organize not only a huge clean-up effort, but also a community event with a band and a Gospel message. There are many hurting people around here and I figure we need to seize the opportunity while people are really feeling their emptiness!

There are a few ways that you can be a part of this:

Prayerfully, of course. Wherever you are, you can pray for our church and for our community. Pray that God would use us powerfully as we reach out and offer a helping hand to hurting people.

Financially. You can give financially by clicking HERE. We need money not only to replace thousands of dollars worth of lost stuff, but also to help the community and hopefully put on an event that will draw people in and provide an opportunity for a large-scale Gospel message! Events like this cost money, but no amount is too small to be a part of reaching Clarksville for Christ!

Hands-on. If you’d like to get your hands dirty (literally), do we have a job for you! Clean-up will begin this Saturday, but our community will be cleaning for weeks (possibly longer). Digging through a bunch of ruined possessions really puts things in perspective and opens up huge doors for ministry! We want to use a tragic event like this to change eternity for many. We can’t guarantee housing, transportation, or anything, but we’re willing to try to work out whatever details we can. Leave a comment or drop me an email if you’re interested in joining the front lines for a few days!

Again, we have so many people to thank for their help through prayer and online donations. We’ve had 4 churches offer their buildings for us to meet in as well as at least 3 different states working on bringing teams out here to help us clean up and reach out. We have people praying for us in Costa Rica, Afghanistan, New Mexico, Colorado, New Jersey, California, Montana, and many more places. Thanks so much!

Starting over

July 29, 2009. We had 4 couples show up to our very first in-home Bible study (pictured) on a Wednesday night. We met at Jeremy & Julie Edler’s house. We were stoked. Awaken Church was off to a start!

A little over 9 months later, we’re back to square one. We met tonight for a Wednesday night Bible study at the Edler’s house. It’s interesting to think that the church owned more at our first Bible study than we do now. We don’t even have a banner to put outside like we did at our first Bible study!

We’re ok with that, though. We’re excited to see where God takes us from here.

We emailed our insurance company today about the flooding, knowing that there may not be much they would do considering that we didn’t have flood coverage. Their response: “We’re sorry for your loss. There’s nothing we can do.”

God offers great flood coverage, though. As unbelievable as seeing our church standing in feet of water was, what is even more unbelievable is the outpouring (that’s a slightly sensitive word right now) of support – prayerful and financial – that we’ve seen so far. Literally from coast to coast as well as in Afghanistan, we have people praying and asking how they can help. We’re humbled. We also just found out about a team of 12 coming out here on Saturday to aid in the clean-up (more on that in another blog)!

Although we’re starting from scratch with less now than we’ve had, we’re reminded of what’s really important: people. It’s all about reaching people with the love of Christ and His Gospel. Whether my pulpit is rusting in an abandoned, flooded church building or not, I’ll keep preaching the Word. That’s what God called us here to do and that’s what we’ll keep doing.

Thanks again for all the prayers and support! Click HERE if you’d like to donate to the cause. Click HERE for more pictures and a list of some of the things we lost in the flood.

Isaiah 43:2 – When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you….

Here’s a video recap of some of the sights outside the church (sorry for the wind)…