Life on Snow Hill

It seems like just a couple days ago it was 2011 (*ba-dum-tshh*). Ok, but seriously. I wasn’t trying to be a Scrooge or anything, but it never felt like Christmas ever really made it here. Yeah, we got together with family and exchanged gifts and all that stuff, but it never felt like Christmas. I suppose since it never felt like Christmas, the new year just feels like even less of a reality. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older and time seems to move faster. (I just remembered..I did turn 30 this year…I mean last year.)

Enough with the corny jokes… In a lot of ways, I am glad to see 2011 become history. There were a lot of hard times in 2011, and I’m not just talking in generalities. Several of our church members have had a really, really rough year. I know that new year’s day is just like any other day in the grand scheme of things, but we humans like to think of it as a fresh start. A time to reflect on the past for a bit, then to make it into a new start.

I do pray, for all of you, as Moses did:

The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:

The Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:

The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

As always, we try to record our Christmas Program on video. This year was no exception. But, I haven’t had the time to put it together and make a DVD out of it, so I took a few minutes to create this teaser trailer in iMovie. Hope you enjoy!

It’s kinda funny how any time the weather man mentions a possible snow shower, everybody runs to the grocery store to get some bread and milk. Last weekend was no exception.

Saturday evening was nothing but rain, but that’s significant because it washed off all the treatment that had been put on the roads before hand. When it turned to snow early Sunday morning, it began sticking to the road. At first it wasn’t bad, as it was just a dry, powdery layer that blew off the road as soon as you drove over it. Later Sunday afternoon, though, it started snowing harder and sticking (and staying) on the roads.

On the way home from church, one family wrecked in their driveway, nearly crashing into a pond. Another family began sliding on the road and pulled over to call for help from a family member with a 4WD vehicle. Another young man was heading home and went into the ditch avoiding a pile-up. I haven’t heard how bad the actual damage to the vehicles was, but thankfully no one was hurt.

Becky and I made it home safely Sunday night, sliding only a little while we drove up the steep part of Snow Hill. Since then, we’ve been kinda stuck here. Our little road has only gotten worse. It did melt off some while the sun was out yesterday, but it refroze when the sun went down. With a low of around 10 overnight, there was no chance of it clearing off.

Hopefully today the sun will shine some more and melt some more snow as well as dry it off so we can get out tomorrow.

So it’s been forever since I’ve written anything. I’ve been spending my time working (Had a huge outage at work the week before Thanksgiving), at church, studying, and sleeping. I feel like I’m finally able to breathe for a little bit.

My ‘working’ includes things outside of my normal job. I recently revamped the church website. I personally think it looks a lot better (But I’m a bit biased.. I did the last one, too, however). I’d love any feedback any of you would be willing to give. I am planning on adding a guestbook back to the site, as well as adding all of the audio sermons back to it, plus some special singing at the church.

Another thing I spent quite a bit of time on was moving all my websites to a ‘real’ host. Up until yesterday, all of my sites were being hosted on a server I have in my house, all running on a DSL internet connection. Needless to say, it was a little slow, especially if more than one person was on at a time. I have this blog, a more ‘serious’ blog, a tech blog, a Facebook-type site for Christians, and a couple of test sites I’m working on for others. They don’t generate all that much traffic, but I was ready to free my home DSL from the extra traffic. I also wanted to save some money. Yes, I’m paying for the web hosting, but I can shut off that server at home now which should save me at least as much (likely more) on my power bill. I’m looking forward to that.

A little while back, I also procured an out-of-warranty Google mini appliance with a bad hard drive. I have a few drives lying around at home, so I slapped one in there and built it to be used as my phone soft-switch. Yes, I’m so geeky that my phones run through a computer. The little appliance is about the size of a medium pizza box from Pizza Hut, replacing a more standard-sized computer that happened to die during a power outage at home recently.

So that’s a lot of what’s been taking up my time recently. We’re also gearing up for the Christmas play at church, so that’ll be taking even more time. I’ll come back up for more air in January.

For a youth revival we just concluded last night, we had a contest among the youth to see who could bring the most visitors. The reward? Yes, you guessed it – the winner gets to throw a pie in my face. Bro. Jonathan Davis got in on it too.

This week we’ve been having Vacation Bible School at Fellowship Baptist Church. VBS is always a fun time – I always loved it growing up. It always seemed to be the most fun way to learn about the Word of God.

Now that I’m grown (mostly!) I enjoy it as a teacher. Let me back up just a bit. I teach the teens in Sunday School at church. I always try to make it as fun as I can, but there’s just a different atmosphere at VBS. We enjoy other activities like crafts and games during VBS, but even during lesson times it seems more fun. As a teacher, it’s great to see the interest the students show in learning about God.

Probably my favorite thing about it all is that there is a big crowd of young people excited about what they’re doing, and it’s all centered around the church. There’s no better place to be!

Hebrews 10:25:

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

Speaks for itself, right? I don’t believe I have ever met a church member that doesn’t know this verse by heart. Maybe I should say we all know it by memory. If we really knew it by heart, we might actually put it into more practice.

Fair warning – I’m telling the truth here. If you’re easily offended by blunt, honest truth, stop reading.

Yes, I’m going there. Church attendance. It seems to be the first thing that many people choose to forego when they need a day to do something fun. It appears to be the least important thing in many people’s lives, as they choose movies, ballgames (Yes, I went there, too), voluntary overtime, fishing, hunting…(shall I continue?) over church attendance.

My first reaction to this is to get angry. I’m working on this. But I get angry because these people know better. They’ve been taught the truth and know what’s right. They know not to skip church, but they do it anyway. It makes me want to grab ‘em by the shoulders and say, “Don’t you see what you’re doing??”

But then I think a little deeper about it. It has begun to break my heart. The anger isn’t as strong as it used to be, and here’s why. When someone can be at church and he or she makes a choice not to be there (circumstances completely within their control), I believe that person is responsible for and will be accountable for the truth that they would have heard had they been where they were supposed to be. They are hurting themselves eternally, and yet they can’t see it. My heart breaks for them. Mostly because I can’t do anything about it. I pray for them, and tell them the truth when I have the opportunity. But the choice is up to them.

What is more important? Seeing a movie that will be playing for weeks to come, yet has no spiritual significance and no eternal impact? Bouncing a ball up and down a floor that has a basket on each end that you try to throw that ball into? Catching the biggest fish? I’ve just picked a few of the most popular ‘excuses’. Insert your own here. Are these more important than the eternal impact that good, Bible preaching will have on your life? I think not…

God help us all to place the importance we should on meeting together in a good, Bible believing church to hear the man of God preach His Word.

Wow, it’s been nearly 3 weeks since I’ve posted anything! I’ve severely neglected my blog. It’s not like I don’t want to keep it up to date – I’ve actually been pretty busy.

One thing I’ve been working on is a social website for Christians. It is still in its infancy right now. I’m getting some help from a group, mostly from my church, to get things set up for it, select a name as well as the initial features the site should have. My goal is to have all of that finished before it goes live and is opened up to the rest of the ‘world’. Hopefully it will be ready within another couple of weeks. Stay tuned for an update.

This month has been Youth Month at our church. So far, I’ve had the privilege to preach twice. We’ve had two Youth Sundays, and I’ve preached both Sunday mornings. We also had Benjamin Cooley for the first one, and Jeremiah Cooley for the second. For those of you who don’t know them, they are twin brothers who are great young men that serve God. We also had Seth Stewart from Redemption Baptist Church. He is 13 years old and has announced his call to preach. They all 3 did a great job and preached messages that encouraged, strengthened and charged me.

I look forward to this Sunday, when Breaking Ground will be with us. They are a group of young men (The oldest is 26 I believe) who sing bluegrass Gospel music and preach. One of their wives also sings with the group. All of the guys preach, and preach well. I’m looking forward to all of it.

We’re also having a youth revival the week of March 1st through the 5th. Nick Sorrell and myself will be preaching that revival. We’re looking for the Lord to do some great things in all our hearts and lives.

So again, this has been a busy month, and it isn’t quite over yet. I’ll do my best to keep this blog updated a little better so that you, my loyal readers, will have something to read.

Today’s daily verse is Philippians 4:8 – Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Every once in a while, I run across someone who simply wants to twist the Scripture to make it fit his or her lifestyle. Some try to use it to flaunt their ‘super-Spirituality’ and highly educated self. Some totally ignore it so they can do the things they want and feel no conviction for it.

Some do all three.

This morning I was thinking about some of them. When I do that, I usually find myself getting angry and not fit for much for a while. Then I thought to myself, “Today is Sunday. I should be at my very best today.” Not that I should be any different today than I am any other day of the week – I certainly shouldn’t. I should live life the same every single day. I should be the same person every single day, whether it’s a Thursday, a Monday, or, yes, Sunday.

My point is, today is the Lord’s day, and I should find myself extra careful to keep my focus on the things of the Lord. Dare I say, the devil may try extra hard to get us off track on Sunday? Sure he does.

That’s when God reminded me of today’s verse – think on these things. Don’t worry about those other people. Stand for truth, for sure, but think on these things.

One small disclaimer. I couldn’t put the entire verse in my twitter status because I only get 140 characters. I’m not trying to change anything about what it says – promise!

I’ve severely neglected my blog again. I’m not going to keep much of a following that way, now am I? I’ve decided to try to do something about it. This something will serve two purposes for me.

1. My Bible reading and study habits will benefit. I’m taking other steps to improve this area of my life, as part of somewhat of a New Year’s resolution. But this will help to further that purpose in my life.
2. I’ll at least have something here daily. If it’s nothing more than a twitter update. Yes, that’s how I plan to post my daily verses, at least to begin with. If I feel compelled to expound on the verse, I’ll post about it here in my blog.

Today’s verse, that you should see over in the right column over there, is a large part of my motivation. Here’s why.

For the past few months, I’ve been realizing more and more that I don’t study like I should. I don’t read God’s Word like I should. I spoke to Becky about it a little, and told her what I’d been thinking about doing to improve this. She agreed that it would be a good thing to do. I thought about it a little more and decided that’s what I would do.

What’s that, you may ask? A way to help me improve my study habits in the Bible. A specific way to commit myself to it. I’m being purposely vague. I’m sorry, but that’s all you’re getting out of me. For now. Maybe later.

In church last Sunday Morning, the pastor read a verse as sort of a sideline thought to his main message. That was the one I needed. It not only confirmed in my heart that I was committing to do exactly what I should, but it took it even farther and revealed to me that if I am going to benefit at all, and if I’m to learn anything at all out of the study I’m committing myself to doing, it’s going to come from God.

I know, it’s a really simple thought, right? But it was a revelation to me when it hit me. Not only do I need to improve in my study life, but in my prayer life as well. I can read the Bible until I’m blue in the face, but if I don’t have God’s help in giving me the wisdom and understanding for what I’m reading, it will benefit me little.

To my Christian friends and readers, I desire your prayers. First, so that I get and keep the determination I need to keep at it. I don’t expect to take a step for God and not get resistance from, at the very least, my old nature. Second, so that it will actually benefit me. I don’t expect to study God’s Word and  get nothing from it. But I want all I can get. It’s one thing I feel like I can be selfish about. The thing is, God is big enough to do the same thing for anybody and everybody else that wants it, so I guess it isn’t really all that selfish.