the little guy

"oh im just the little guy!" quote from one of the greatest movies of all time

being the little guy does not necessarily mean much anymore. i have learned this throughout the years of watching ncaa (the madness of march) basketball. normally during the final four you will have some higher seeds. yeah, there are two number ones in the final four (unc and illinois) but we also have a number 4 (louisville) and a number 5 (michigan state) and of course i need to mention all the upsets that west virginia, bucknell, uw mil., nc state and vermont actually pulled off. who expected this? well, we should not be too suprised. it happens almost every march. but has it really ever happened quite like this?

i like a lot of america love to cheer for the smaller weaker underdog. this year my "dog" was west virginia. i loved seeing those white guys shoot the ball. they obviously were over matched by athleticism but what they lacked in the ability to jump they made up for in heart. they never gave up. unfortunately for them they did not have what it took to hold out against louisville (who has heart and athleticism.)

i am also a big fan of the small church. its not that i dont like big churches. big churches are able to reach out and effectively reach people. they are able to do more with technology, they are able to hire pastors that have there own specific expertise. (if i keep on going i think i might be persuaded to move on to a bigger church.)

however i like the sense of a smaller church. i have now been at a church of 100 for over a year now. and at first i judged them for not reaching out as much as they could. i have been frustrated many times when the printer hasnt worked and the projector decides to have a mind of its own. but in reality i see a church that has been beat up by former pastors, former members and people within the district. i sit back now and look at these board members that i have ridiculed and church members that i have judged and say i am in just as much fault as they. now i look at them and say that they are tired, burnt out and think that it is my job to lift them up and encourage them. church people just like pastors can get burnt out. but the last few weeks i have seen a fire in them. they want to grow, they want to get back to where they know God wants them. and they have admitted where they have faltered and failed and where they should have been. they know that they have messed up and they are now starting to turn around.

i know that this really doesnt show why i like the small church, but when the small church wants or needs something. they strive, they work hard in order for it to happen. the bigger church works hard but it is seen more in the staff. they small church you have a higher percentage of volunteers because they have ownership of the church. i have started rambling. what do you like small churches, big churches?
what do you think of the ncaa tournament?

“Reverence and a little respect”

In Hebrews 12:28 it says “… and so we worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.”

I wonder how much truth there is in this statement.

When Esther approached King Xerxes with her request, she approached with a reverence and awe. For if she had not approached in that way and the King had not held out the gold scepter to her then she would have been killed.

Today we have lost a sense of reverence and awe. In fact I would go as far to say we have lost a sense of respect to not only authority but also everybody. We do what best serves us at the best time allotted. So if we do not have a reverence and awe for those in authority; how is it any different then when we approach God with our worship? Do we care about how God wants us to worship? Is it even the slight bit important to us? I am not sure that it is. It goes back to the “best for me” mentality.

Hebrews continues in verse 29 with “for our God is a consuming fire.” What does that tells us?

God consumes the fuel (fuel=worship)
He needs more fuel to add to the fire.
In order to worship acceptably we do that with reverence and awe.

There are many forms of worship. We can worship through song, drama, personal devotions or a hike up Table Rock Mtn. But remember no matter how you are worshipping you need to do it with a reverence and awe in who you are worshipping. It really is the respectful thing to do.

inadequate

many times jenny teases me about being full of myself, or lets word it as confidence. many times especially around jenny i do fell confident, also around people i know well i am confident. this confidence in myself comes when i fell that i can actually be myself around the people i am with.

confidence=knowing thyself

yesterday morning i started driving a 5th grader to school. he goes to our church. his parents just seperated. he and his dad moved into an apartment in our complex. the kid has low self-esteem already and now he is dealing with the impending divorce of his parents. i am from a family where my parents just celebrated their 25th anniversary, my grandparents are at 63 years and 53 years respectively. so i really have no idea what to mention to this kid that is going through all these things. the even more interesting thing is that his parents seperating does not really phase him. maybe it is that he just doesnt grasp all that is going on yet. or maybe in some strange way it is better that he doesnt have to put up with his parents in the same place. but either way i feel inadequate during this situation.

inadequate=confusion

also with my senior pastor resigning jenny and i have to figure out what is going on. i do have one lead with a church in michigan (in the thumb, 10 miles north of port huron.) in fact last night jenny and i had a phone interview with the pastor, some of the sponsors and some of the board members. (13 in all) i came away from in somewhat confused and somewhat confident. why do i feel this way? one, they might be looking for someone who can lead music (that is not one of my gifts) two, not knowing. they were also going to talk to three other candidates. three, i hate talking on the phone, sometime i feel i ramble. i would much rather talk to someone face to face. four, we are still trying to figure out if we are supposed to actually stay at this church in sc. the board wants me to stay, the church wants me to stay, the teens definately want me to stay, district leaders want me to stay. the question is do jenny and i want to stay. the answer to this question is a resounding NO. we want to get up out of this place and not turn back.

confused by reading this? just imagine how confused jenny and i are. confident? well i am too. i am confident that no matter what happens God will be there, to guide, encourage, challenge and love and then provide grace if i mess up.

noise

have you ever wondered how you go through one moment to the next. it seems interesting (at least in my life) that we live life without the concept or knowledge of silence. just now as i am typing this a radio is playing, a ac unit is on the fan mode, i can here noise each time i hit a letter key and i can here the quiet hum of the pc. and we wonder why we do not here God when He is talking to us. as elijah was on the mountain and experienced God as a gentle whisper (which to me that is almost as quiet as one can be.) we just have way to many distractions. the interesting thing is that all these noises in the background are good. it is christian music on the radio, the ac keeps me from sweating and smelling poorly, and as i sit typing processing my thoughts i realize the pc is a good thing.

noise is not necessarily bad, but it is not inherantly good either. but when God is trying to speak, the noise hinders us from listening. it is not that God could speak over the stereo or really over anything. the question is why should God have to speak above those things. i am not saying to get rid of all your noise making machines because in today's world it would be impossible. but at times we need to sit back shut off the tv, the radio and all those other noise makers and give time; quiet, undisturbed, solitude, quality time so we are able to hear God's voice even if it is judt silence.

to go or not to go

that is the question that we have been deliberating for about 2 months now. for those of you that do not know jenny and i are on staff at greenville first wesleyan church in sc. however, the senior pastor has resigned and in the wesleyan church that means i automatically resign as well.

personally, i hate making decisions. just yesterday i grabbed some lunch at a bar-b-q place and it took me forever to order. over this same lunch, we started discussing what it would be like if God took away the idea of choice, and then he made the decision for us. maybe that lies in the idea of predestination and takes away the idea of free-will. everybody of course likes the idea of free will because then they can make their own decisions. but everyone i talk to (which is a primarily christian circle) wants God's will for their lives or at least for God to lead them in the direction. and if we really truly are servants and followers of Christ they we aren't living our own lives anyway. so God do i want this decision, do i want your will. however i also know God wants us to be in the best possible place for us to be able to accomplish ministry. if God is leading one way or the other. please help me realize. show me and jenny your will while also fulfilling our wildest dreams.

what a weekend

i am not sure how many of you like to drive long distances on highways but for the past 4-5 years of my life i have lived 21 hrs drive from my family and now jenny and i live in sc far from our closest friends and family. so in order to see anybody we have to drive. and anyone who travels alot knows delays can happen.

this past weekend i was able to attend jt and kelly's wedding. great time of celebration with friends that i havent been able to see in a while. it was a very enjoyable weekend until the ride home. just as i was entering tennessee i found out there would be a fifteen mile detour off of interstate 75. and of course when you have 4 lanes of vehicles go down to one it definately slows a person down. so the next 15 miles which would have taken me about 12 minutes now took me a little over two hours. my already 8 hrs trip became 10 hrs. i eventually made it home exhausted and sore. but not in a horrible mood. i realized not to let small things bug me so much. just think of all the things God has blessed us with. there is no reason to complain about a 2 hr delay.

United We Stand

hey everybody. this is a newsletter insert from church that will be sent out tonight to our church. its a little risky. but hey i am the youth pastor, i am supposed to do stupid stuff.


This Sunday, I was frustrated as a teen walked
up to me and said they handed the “Community Night” sheet to someone who took one step, laid the paper on the pew, and walked off with no care. What hurts me is not that this person probably will not attend “Community Night” but that the teen had to see that this person did not care, nor support, what was going on in the church.

What is your attitude towards the church? How do you portray your attitude about the church to others? Is it a place where we seek our own desires, or is it a place where we unite with others for the same purpose? Is it a place we come and check it off the list of things that we need to do, or is it a place that you desire to be so you can lift up praises to Jesus Christ? Is it a time where you can catch up with friends, or is it a place that you can experience true fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ?

Did Christ go through His horrible death on the cross for a church that would be divided? On Sunday, I heard that division means two visions. I think we have two visions. One is that “these people are hard to please.” I have heard this statement from about fifteen to twenty individuals within the church. Who are “these people” that everyone keeps talking about?
Then I realized that we need to come together as a congregation and create more unity. It is not about “these people.” It is about the whole congregation. Not singling out one person over another. People want responsibility to make decisions, but then when something bad happens they want to blame someone else.

Another word for unity can be harmony. What would happen if one of the people in a singing group decided to sing a different part without telling the group, or if someone else decided they did not like the words to the song so on Sunday in front of the congregation sang different words? It would not sound nearly as good as if they had perfect harmony. When a group has harmony they become one on all the different parts. They help each other out and compliment each other.

People, this is a cry for help. We are not united as a church. We are not creating harmony as a church. We need to help each other, build each other up, and compliment each other as a church. If we are not, “Divided we fall.”

A plea for a leader

It only takes a few moments to realize there is a lot wrong with this world today. Children are being brought up in a single parent home. Sexually transmitted diseases are continuing to be spread. There are wars being fought everywhere. Drugs are destroying the lives of youth and adults alike.
People are searching for something to fulfill their needs and ambitions without knowing where to look because they have never had someone to show them the way. Why? What must take place to be able to turn this around?
Leadership is a topic taught by many people. You can buy books, magazines, videos on a variety of leadership topics such as how to lead small groups, how to be a leader in a followers world and however many ways I can think of to tie in the laws of leadership. People are looking for someone to follow.
It is time to step up as leaders in our home. We need to realize if our child is going astray then it is time to step it up as a father and mother. First and foremost the parents are the most influential person in their child’s life.
Today I heard a statistic that if a father takes a spiritual step of salvation that 90% of the family will follow their lead. As opposed to just 17% if the only the mother accepts Christ. This statistic alone shows the responsibility that we have as men to be a spiritual role model in the home. We need to pray more often with our children. We have to lead our family in times of devotion. We need to be concerned about what is going on in our families’ lives. We need to step up and start to lead. That way people have something good to follow.

A PLace I am Used To

“A Place I am Used To”
Pastor Nathan

One of my favorite places in the world is the family camp. My dad’s side of the family all went in together to buy the land and built a cabin on East Grand Lake in the back woods of Maine. I love it there. It is fun every time I go. However not much about the cabin has changed. It is the same pale yellow color filled with old furniture that was handed down from each of our houses. We have a beach of rocks out front with a wooden dock sitting on old rusted cast iron wheels. We have a canoe, two kayaks, a hammock, and a fire pit. I love it.
On July fourth weekend you can bet at least twenty people are occupying the cabin while maybe even a couple tents are set up out front. It is a blast. This is the way I grew up. Then it seemed one day that everything had changed. I have only been their once in the last five years. People grow up and change. It happens that is a part of life.
In the past five years I have spent time in Indiana, Delaware, Colorado and now South Carolina, and the one thing I see is that people do not like change. They like what they are used to; personally I am that same way. Every year on July Fourth and I am not at the cabin, I complain about not being there. But it has become a part of my life.
The last eight months for me I have experienced a lot of change; a move down south, a new job, a new wife, new friends. At times this change has been tough but also wonderful, challenging but also rewarding and lonely but also fulfilling.
Change is not always fun but is always needed. If we were not always evolving as humans we would become stagnant creatures of habit, living in a complacency that is unmoved. The trouble with this complacency is that the world around us is changing. If we are not willing to change then we will be left behind.
As far as ministry goes it is the same way. If we want to grow as a church we must be willing to change. We must be willing to meet people where they are at to minister to them in ways that are relevant to their lives.
Sure I miss the cabin. Who knows maybe next July Fourth I will be able to go back. But if I never left a place I am used to then I would be missing out on so much more. I do not want us as a church to miss out on “the so much more” that God has in store for us.

a charge for more

It is to the best of my knowledge that God expects more out of us. We go from one day to the next giving God only a few hours on Sunday and one or two on Wednesday. It is a continuous cycle that repeats weekly to form what eventually becomes our life. Then one day we will come to a place where we are face to face with our creator and He will judge us based on what we have done for Him. (This article is in no way trying to persuade that good works lead to salvation.)
When you come to this point, what will you be able to say in your defense? Can you say to God that you have you lived your life for Him each and every day since the day of your conversion and you have made many sacrifices in order that you could live for him. And then He asks you “what have you actually done for me?” You answer that you attended church every Sunday giving Him praise; through the week you would pray for those that were lost and I read the Bible and even went deeper to learn about you through reading devotionals. I raised two fine sons and one of them even went into the ministry as a Wesleyan pastor.
My question to you today is, “is doing this enough?” Sure I would say to anyone that does this that they would get to experience eternity in heaven. However, we should be doing more.
In Matthew 25 we read about the sheep and the goats. The sheep will eventually go to heaven but the goats will be left out. In verse 34 “the King will say… ‘Come you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance… For I was hungry and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” Skipping down to verse 40, we read “I tell you the truth whatever you did for the least of these you did for me.”
Doing devotionals are a nice thing. They continue our growth in the Lord. But are we really learning to put these things to use for the Lord? If we are only doing this to grow in knowledge then we as Christians are missing the point. We need to get outside the church to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, help the sick and build relationships with those in prison. This way we can live the way Christ wants us to. If we do this we will live out the two greatest commandments given to us in Matthew 22:37-39. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” Everyone has a neighbor and our neighbors have needs. For some it is physical and for others it is mental but when it comes down to it they still need Christ. Are we doing enough so that they might experience Christ’s love through our actions? Are we doing enough so everyone might hear about what Christ’s actions did for them when he died on the cross? Are we doing enough so everyone else can spend eternity in heaven with us? Are we doing enough?

well i guess it works

this site will cotain things within the future about who i am (personal things), what i think (ideas), how i view the things going on around me and the world (perception). the idea that you might agree or disagree with me is okay. the next few posts will be some things i have written for the church newsletter. sure it really isnt published or seen by anybody but it is a platform that i am able to use, so i do.

greetings to all my friends out here. lets have some fun.

rev nate

my first post

hey i am joining the world of blogging. i figured there might be a slight possibility that someone might actually care what i think. i doubt it but it is possible. maybe my mom cares.