Check out our Baptism video. Behold he is making all things new. If anyone is in Christ they are a new creation, the old is gone and the new has come!!


Baptism by the Bay 2010 from National Community Church on Vimeo.

I had my check up with the surgeon yesterday. Looks like everything is healing well. The pathology reports came back negative which means there is no trace of the tumor and the surgery was successful. Thank God for His grace in finding this thing the way we did. If I never got my braces I would have been in trouble. Deep breath......thank you God! I will see the surgeon again in the middle of September and we will discuss the next and final surgery that will hopefully take place in the middle of October. Thanks so much for your continued prayers as Shelly and I continue to Navigate this journey.

This past weekend packed full of very moments. Saturday night I joined the team at Ebenezers to lead worship. I had such a great time with those guys. The environment and vibe at Ebz is just awesome. The sound is pretty much the best of all of our locations too so it's always a blast to jam out there. Then Sunday morning I spoke at Georgetown. I loved having that opportunity to share the Word with our congregation. It was my first time back in the preaching mix since I had my surgery. Such a cool moment to be able to articulate what God has been doing inside of me over the past few months. Then Sunday night we had our baptism celebration at Sandy Point right next to the Bay Bridge. That was a great time of hanging out and celebrating what God is doing in others lives. I was so proud of Shelly. She had the privilege of baptizing one of her girlfriends. What a cool moment. One thing that was especially cool. After this packed filled weekend I was not tired or exhausted when most times I am ready to just crash. When you are able to participate in the things that God has gifted you to do, it ends up being more refreshing then exhausting. Leading music and teaching/speaking are the two main things that I feel like God has wired me to do. I made a commitment to myself this weekend. I need to do more of the things that God has directly called me to and learn to delegate the rest. It's the moments and experiences that we have with others that cultivate our lives. I want to be a part of those moments with others. I don't want to miss any moments due to being exhausted because I failed to be a good steward of my time.

We are continuing our Legends series this week at NCC. I will be sharing a message about the prophet Nathan. One thing is very interesting about Nathan. The written records of him are very scarce. In fact there are only four accounts of Nathan in the Bible. However, his impact continues to proceed his life span. Nathan had a great influence on King David. He was there for David at the most pivotal points in his life. It is scary to imagine what course David's life may have taken if it wasn't for the prophet Nathan. To hear more, join us this weekend at NCC or tune into our podcast or videocast at theaterchurch.com.

You can always tell and feel the difference when someone has a gift of hospitality. They seem to go the extra mile to make you feel comfortable and welcome. You can always tell when someone does not have that gift as well. You know it as soon as you walk in the door or as soon as you call customer service with a question (ahem budget trucks). Hospitality can make all the difference. That is one of the things we have desired since we have been in our new home. For the past two weeks we have had people over and grilled out almost every day. I must say I am loving it. Hospitality is a great thing to strive for. You never know how you can make a difference in somebodies life. It is the moments and experiences that we share with others that cultivates our lives.

We are almost three weeks into our new home. What a blessing it is. We love our new place. it has so much character and the location is amazing! We could not be more satisfied. There is a really cool back story to getting this home. Well, it wasn't very cool at the time but now, looking back, we are so thankful for God's hand at work in our lives. It was in January that Shelly and I decided to look for a home to purchase. We were ready to start a family and we were renting on the Hill, which is more than a mortgage itself, and it began to feel like we were taking cash each month and throwing it into the trash can. So we decided it was time to make an investment since we both felt like we would be around these parts for a while. We searched and searched and learned everything there was to know about home buying and foreclosures. We put an offer on one home that Shelly and I absolutely loved and lost it. Then we searched again, all the while hoping we would find one before the first-time home buyers deadline. We were on a mission. Finally we found one that seemed to be a good fit for us. We got the contract and prepared for the 30 day waiting period to get all the paperwork in line. After the 30 days we waited and waited and signed two more extensions making it 40 days. You can imagine the waiting period. We had to move out of our place so the next tenants could move in so we were homeless for what we thought was going to be only a couple days. After the second extension we found out that the house was not able to be sold because the owners did not pay off their second mortgage. Are you kidding me? At this point we had already unpacked all of our stuff into the garage of the new house. Now we had to rent another truck, pack up all our belongings again, and find storage to keep our stuff until we found another home. Unfortunately now the deadline was over for the tax benefit. Nothing was going our way. We doubted our process and wondered if we totally missed God. Then we found out that the first home we put a contract on, the one we thought we really wanted, had become available again because the people had a problem securing the loan. We couldn't believe it. We thought for sure this was God working on our behalf. So we put yet another contract on the house and waited and waited. After two weeks of waiting we found out that they gave it to someone else without even contacting us back for a counter or final offer. We were devastated. How could this be happening? We decided to stop looking because the whole deal took a toll on us physically and emotionally. We did not know what we were going to do but we did know that we were done searching for homes. After a few weeks our realtor emailed us about a property that he had seen and thought it would be worth us looking at. He thought it was a great home that was priced well below its worth. We shot him down and said we were not interested. The next day we felt like driving by the property just to confirm that we should not be interested. Well, we took a look and became interested. To make this long story short we made an offer along with four other people. After making a final offer we got the contract. What's even more ironic is we moved into the house two days after my surgery. Well, our family moved us in two days after my surgery. After all was said and done we were homeless for more than 90 days, we missed the $8,000 tax credit, and our settlement fell on the day after my surgery. I know, sounds crazy right? However, the house is the best location of all the homes we saw, it's $90,000 cheaper than the last house we had a contract on, Shelly will be able to stay at home with the children if she wants to, and we got this home after we got out of the way and let God do what He wanted to do.
If we are honest our human nature desires to gravitate to logic. We think if it's not logic it's not of God right? Well our story goes against all logic and believe me I thought we made the wrong decisions because of it. But then I read the Bible and nothing in the Bible is logical.  God brought us an amazing gift in a home and an amazing story to go with it when we stopped trying to make it happen and removed ourselves from the equation. Not only did we get a great deal out of all of this but we also learned a great lesson that we will take with us for many years to come. I hope this post challenges and encourages you in your life. Always remember, it may not look like the way you think it should. Leave that part up to God.

I am so grateful for our freedom that we have as a country but most of all I am grateful for the freedom that we have in Christ. I had a thought today though as I was reminiscing over our relaxing weekend. Do we live as free as those who are persecuted or are we the ones imprisoned? Meditate on that for a bit. Happy Independence Day! Remember our true independence is dependence upon Him.

We had our annual staff retreat this week. We have such a fun time with no agenda but to play and pray. It is so relaxing and the team connection is amazing. So thankful to work with an organization that makes these time priority. We hiked out to St Michael's with the staff and families for a two day R & R. I think our numbers doubled this year. It is so cool to see how our staff has grown in just one year. I think there were like 17 children on this trip. There may have been 4 or 5 last year. So cool to have this cohesion among our staff. We enjoy life that is for sure!! Here is a pic of all the gentleman around the pool table. If you will notice, someone had the the idea for everyone to sport a mustache so I apologize ahead of time:)