April 28 - May 4

Monday - We had a very easy Monday morning after a very busy Sunday. I got up to drink coffee on the porch in the rocker and had to get a jacket because of the cool weather. I told Holly that I wanted the family to go do something fun and we started weighing our options for a day trip somewhere. A couple of museums and places in Houston were closed on Monday, so we decided to go to the Prison Museum in Huntsville. We took the scenic route up through the country (through Dobbin, Dacus, Blue Bonnet Hill and San Jacinto) and drove through some really nice National Forest land. We really do live in a beautiful area of Texas. We drove straight to the Prison Museum and spent about an hour looking around and reading about the Texas Department of Criminal Justice over it's short history. After a while Holly said "We need to go to church now that we've seen all this depravity." Of course they had "Old Sparky" the electric chair on display and that kind of disturbed Tyler...so much so that he slept in our room the next two nights.

Then we drove to the downtown square, ate at the Cafe Texan, walked around the square and ended up in King's Candies where we had ice cream and a chocolate malt. After looking through a couple of Antique stores we headed back to Magnolia where Holly took her car to meet a friend for dinner and the boys and I went fishing at our good friend and fellow-staffer Larry Edwards. Austin got some really good bites and caught 2 sardine-looking bass and one medium-sized bass, but not much else. The weather was absolutely beautiful and we stayed until dark.

Tuesday - We finished up the final lesson in Acts/Philippians at the Coaches Bible Study. This has been a neat study, because we would read what Paul was saying in Philippians one week and then look at various passages in Acts the next week to see if he lived out what he preached. I have never looked at those passages in that way and it was a new look at Paul and the scriptures for me. The coaches want to keep meeting through the end of May and so now I have to find a 4-5 week study to carry us through. We're supposed to take a break for the summer, but last year they wanted to keep meeting, so we'll see what this summer holds for us.

I had a dentist appointment at 10am to get one filling replaced and a cavity filled and I had been dreading it for several weeks. The last time I had to do this in the fall my dentist and good friend Jonathan Sanderson went to deaden my lower jaw and hit my "lingual nerve" (which was like being shocked) and both arms involuntarily shot up and knocked his hand out of my mouth. This time he recommended laughing gas and so I tried that for the first time in my life. I thought I would feel really loopy, but it just kind of relaxed me. I don't think I was getting the full effect because I couldn't breathe well through my nose (which is where the gas was flowing), so after he finished drilling I asked him to remove it. I was beginning to feel very claustrophobic with this "thing" on my nose, his hands in my mouth and the back of my throat filling up with water as he drilled. Try swallowing with your mouth open because you can't breathe well through your nose! I think I was traumatized because when I went to bed that night I kept replaying all of that. Shouldn't this stuff get easier the older we get?

I spent the rest of the day doing administrative stuff (check requests, credit card receipt reconciliations, etc.) until it was time to go to soccer practice with the boys. After practice we headed over to The Woodlands for a birthday dinner with The Elms family (Hope was the birthday girl and is the one who did the testimony video from the Oklahoma City Bombing that I talked about last week and her husband David is my good buddy who does the Coaches Bible Study with me). We ate at a family-style Italian restaurant called Bucca di Beppo and sat in the "Pope Room" which is a big round table that seats 18 and has pictures of a lot of Popes! We had a blast laughing and eating wonderful Italian food.

Wednesday - Had to be at the church at 8am to get ready for a 10am funeral. I had to run sound/video stuff and I wanted to make sure it was all working. A funeral is one thing where you don't need technical issues to rear their ugly head. Everything went smoothly.  Fellow staffer Larry Edwards invited me to lunch with a friend of his at a Chinese restaurant (yummy General Tso's Chicken!). After returning to the church I took Tyler to his guitar lesson and had a technician look at Holly's laptop while he was "strummin'".  His guitar teacher always talks about how good he is and how he needs to be in a band.  I'm so grateful we found this guy. He not only knows how to teach guitar, he really loves the Lord and loves worship music.

After we returned to the church Holly took Tyler home and I went to the youth meeting which was held at the home of the boy who fell out of the tree a few weeks ago. He came home from rehab Weds morning and they decided to have the service at his house. He was really surprised when they wheeled him outside to see 150 students sitting on his lawn. He still has a long way to go (very little movement in fingers and toes). They sent him home because both arms are in casts and he can't really do any rehab work until the casts and neck brace are off. I think he'll go back to rehab in July to start some really hard work.

Thursday - After a long day and late night on Weds, I stayed home Thursday morning and did a little house cleaning.  When I got to the office I worked on the Sunday service and a few other things and then had to hang around for a 6:30pm counseling appointment and then Deacon's Meeting after that.

Friday - I had a breakfast meeting with a fairly new church member who I would like to audition for the worship team. He has been on staff at a few churches as the music minister and then did some intinerant music ministry on his own. I haven't heard him sing, but others have told me he's very good. We had a really good time talking about life on church staff and life in general.

After breakfast I had to run over to one of the Elementary schools to be a judge for their talent show.  It started at 8:30am and wasn't over until after 2pm. It was fun and I wished I could have video taped some of it and played the clips here for you. Especially one little 5 year old who sang "Twinkle, Twinkle" (or as he sang it "Tinkle, Tinkle wittle star) and another boy who apparently experienced absolute stage fright and just stood in front of the microphone speechless while his song track played over the speakers. But the kids in the audience sang it for him after they realized he wasn't going to sing.

I ran to one of the hospitals to make a visit later and then picked up some groceries and stuff and headed home. Holly had tacos waiting for dinner and then the boys and I went to see the new "Iron Man" movie.

Saturday - we had a soccer game at noon and then Tyler had a few friends over to play paintball for the afternoon.  Austin went to Fiesta Texas in San Antonio with a friend and got home about 2:00 a.m. I didn't really go to sleep until he was in bed.

Sunday - Got up at 5:30 a.m. (after just a few hours sleep) because I had to meet a singing group from Houston Baptist Univ. at 6:30 for sound check.  They did a great job in all three services and then I took them to lunch after the last service. Holly went to a "High Tea" in Navasota with a few of her friends. Had worship team rehearsal at 4:30pm and then hung around for our last class for "The Truth Project." That was one of the most well attended courses that we have had on Sunday evenings. I think we'll do it again in the fall.

April 21-28

Sunday evening (4/20) - I went to a "CD Release" of a friend named John Sherrill. He is an intinerant worship leader that I met a long time ago when I was youth minister at Jersey Village Baptist and he was a young college kid. He and his wife gave birth to a baby boy last October who was born very premature and had less than a 1% chance of surviving. But he did and I saw him at the concert. Amazing. I went out to eat with another friend who plays in John's band and so I didn't get home until about midnight.

Monday - I slept in really late...Holly and the boys were still in Burleson, so there was no one to wake me up. I woke up thinking it was probably 8:00 or so, but boy was I wrong! It was 10:30! I piddled around on the computer for awhile, watched a little TV and then started cleaning the house so that my lovely wife would love me more when she came home...and she did!

Tuesday - We had the usual Coaches Bible Study at 7:00am. I really love those guys. At noon I invited one of the other staff guys (Larry Edwards - Pastor of Outreach and Assimilation) to a lunch in The Woodlands for something called "Men at the Cross". I blogged about this organization at another time, but their mission is that Christian men would "love another man to Christ, until that man is ready to love another man to Christ." They will be having a huge event in Houston in August (hoping for 15,000 men in the Toyota Center) and this lunch was held for the purpose of getting the word out and rallying the troops for this event in August. Joe White started the organization and is truly a motivational speaker. He started the Kanakuk Sports Camps in Missouri many years ago and has written books, spoken for Promise Keepers and many other things. He is also battling leukemia, but you would never know it to look at him.

Wednesday - Started with staff meeting at 9:00am and ended waiting for Austin to finish "youth stuff" at about 9:00pm.

Thursday - Not much went on that I can remember. I think I actually got home at about 5:30pm, we ate dinner and Holly and I sat on the porch enjoying this beautiful spring weather. I think we were shocked that it wasn't dark when we actually saw each other at home.

Friday - I worked on Sunday's service in the morning and then headed out to make hospital visits at noon. I was headed to a hospital about 35 minutes away, got within 5-10 min. and remembered that I had a lunch appointment with one of my worship team guys, so had to turn around and meet him in Tomball. After meeting with him I headed back to the hospital and made the visit. By the time I got back to Magnolia, it was almost 5:00pm. Holly and I were determined to have a date night, so we left at about 6:00 and went to one of our favorite "comfort food" restaurants. It's called The Heritage House and is about 20 min. from the house in Montgomery. We split a chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and corn, with homemade rolls and honey (hence, the "comfort food" comment).

Saturday - We had an early soccer game and then headed home to get ready for an 8th grade boys Sunday School class paintball party/sleepover at our house. Austin's class came over (only 3 other boys and the teacher) to play paintball all afternoon and then sleep outside in tents. I think they wore themselves out because when it came time for bed they opted for beds indoor rather than tents outside.

Sunday - What a day! It started at 6:30am getting ready for the services which were wonderful. After church we had a lunch for the single adults because we're trying to jump-start a ministry here. That's the one area where our church is lacking, but we have a new couple who really want to minister to that group, so we tried to get input/feedback on starting a Sunday School class and other activities. We had about 15 single adults there and it was a very good meeting. I hope we can get it going with that group. We tried before and it just never got off the ground.

By the time the lunch meeting was over it was almost 2:30pm and there was no point going home since I had worship team rehearsal at 4:00. So I just made myself comfortable in my office and prepared for rehearsal. I had to be part of "The Truth Project" class at 6:00pm (my job is to start/stop the DVD player because the class leader is technology-challenged). This is really an amazing study and although I have missed a few classes I think it is something we will have at least once a year. By the time class was over at 7:15pm I was ready to put on my PJ's and crawl in bed...after consuming a pizza and watching a little TV with the family.

April 8 - April 20

We're playing catch-up again today, so I'm going back two weeks to the week of April 7th. On that Monday I put out an ad to sell our 1994 Chevy Caprice (more on that later). Holly and Austin and I went downtown on Tues (4/8) to see Andrew (the boy who fell out of the tree). We weren't able to see him, but we talked with his Dad and other family. He was still in pretty serious condition, but it didn't appear life-threatening. He went through surgery to repair two vertabrae in his neck, was put on a C-pap machine which helped him breathe (not as invasive as being intubated), and had surgery on both broken arms in that first week. They also got him to move both arms, but were not seeing much movement in his legs until the following week; and then it was only movement in both big toes.

Andrew was moved to a rehab place on Thurs 4/17 which was a pretty big deal and now begins the long road of occupational and physical therapy. No one has really said what the prognosis is for walking or not walking again. The church set up that website to update people and we had 15,000 hits to the site in just the first few days (that doesn't necessarily mean 15,000 people, but a BUNCH of people checking and re-checking the progress). If we, as church staff have learned anything through this, it is that people will use technology (our website) to not only get updates on situations like this, but they will leave messages for the family, which has been a huge comfort for them.

Weds, April 9th was a pretty typical day: Staff meeting in the morning, lunch with the staff guys and then I had to clear some of our stage to make room for choir risers because the school district conducted an Elementary Choir Contest on Thursday. I spent most of the day Thurs helping with that Choir Contest. It was fun and we had some amazing choirs come through and sing. It's nice to be able to use our facilities for the community. Holly had an open house at the school on Thurs evening, so the boys and I decided to have a boys night out. I had made arrangements to meet with a guy who wanted to look at the Chevy Caprice and so we took care of that first. This guy pulled up in a really nice, tricked-out, customized Buick LeSabre and looked over my car and decided he wanted to buy it, so we made plans to meet on Friday. When the boys and I were eating our buffalo wings later, I just really started to feel uneasy about this guy, but dismissed it. Even the boys thought they looked like "gangsters."

On Friday (4/11) I did my usual hospital visits and wrapped up details for the service on Sunday. Later in the afternoon I called the guy about meeting up to sell the car and he ended up having to work late and couldn't meet.

On Saturday we had to get up really early for the garage sale at Holly's school. We had to leave there at 10am for the first soccer game with the boys. They are on the same team AND they have three of their friends (2 brothers & a sister) on the team, so they pretty much rule the field. We had to go back to the garage sale after the game to help clean up and then headed home. We had a Men's Ministry Cookout at 3pm, so I had to clean up and head right back out for that, but Tyler went with me. We had invited this man who trains Labrador Retrievers and ties in illustrations of that with our obedience to the Lord. It was really neat and you can see this guy in action at kingdomdog.com.

After the cookout I called the guy about the car and his "boss" answered his phone and said that he was working on a car and couldn't talk, but could I bring the car down to his place of business in Houston. It was 6:30pm and I didn't feel good about going into Houston that late, so I told him we would try again on Monday (still feeling uneasy about this whole thing).

Sunday (4/13) was a good day. We baptized probably 10 people that morning and so our services were very exciting. One lady found out we were baptizing that day and told one of our staff guys that she had put it off long enough and wanted to be baptized. She didn't even have clothes to change into, but she wanted to do it anyway. She sat in the church service after being baptized in one of the dry baptismal robes. It was pretty moving.

Monday (4/14) I was determined to get this car sold (needed the $$ to pay the IRS on Tues!) so I called the guy and he was ready to pick it up, but was working and said his "brother" would pick it up. I asked if he had cash and he said yes. A little later another guy called me and said he would be picking up the car. I said "Are you Terry's brother?" and he said "No, I'm a friend." We set it up to meet at 4pm and I asked our Children's Minister Jesse (strong, muscular guy) to follow me to meet this guy and bring me back. We met at a gas station in a busy intersection in NW Houston. He was about 45 min. late, but finally pulled up in a black, tricked-out, customized Suburban with really dark tinted windows. He got out, we shook hands and he wanted to start my car up, so I gave him the keys. He started the engine, got out of my car, but left it running and he had a friend with him too who stood near my car while he and I conducted business at the back of Jesse's car. I was signing over the title and other stuff when he asked me to get in his car to count out the money. Well that totally freaked me out and I just didn't answer, but kept signing papers. Of course, my mind was racing: Was he going to bonk me over the head in his car? Was his friend going to drive away in my car without me getting paid? I was just praying that the Lord would protect me. He didn't press the issue of getting in his car, so I just handed him the title while he handed me the cash. I counted it, shook his hand and jumped in Jesse's car and said "Get outta here!" I didn't settle down for about an hour.

After Jesse dropped me off at my car, I saw a friend who I had told about my uneasiness with this whole transaction after the initial meeting with the guy. He then told me that he had heard on the news the day after I told him, that there were 2 guys in Houston who were robbing people of their cars in pretty much the same way I had told him.

On Weds (4/16) we had a pretty exciting day. At about 1:00pm Gatlin Elms (18 year old who has recorded a CD and has a band) called me and asked if Austin could play percussion for him at a concert at a church in Round Rock (near Austin). Needless to say Austin was very excited about this possibility. Austin has played drums with Gatlin a number of times on Weds nights for the youth group. Austin left with the band about 3pm and we had planned to follow them in our car, but didn't get to leave until almost 6pm. We actually arrived at the church in Round Rock before the guys did (had to pick up another guy in College Station and had some minor issues with their van). They played and did a great job and the kids at the church loved them. (the picture at the top is of Gatlin and the band. Austin is sitting behind Gatlin playing a drum) We all drove back together, but didn't get home until after 2:00am. Holly let the boys skip school on Thursday, so I stayed home with them while she went to school and I worked on a video that we showed in church on Sunday.

On Saturday Holly and the boys drove to Burleson to celebrate her grandmother's 90th birthday. I had a Deacon's & Widow's Banquet to attend Saturday afternoon, but had a quiet evening at home. We had a good day on Sunday and showed this video testimony of a lady who was headed into the Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 at about 8:55am. She decided at the last minute not to go in and drove on to work. At 9:02am a bomb exploded decimating that building and killing 168 people. Hope found out later that her Mom had felt strongly drawn by the Lord to pray for her safety that very morning. It was a really moving video (you can see it here).

Sunday afternoon at worship team rehearsal I introduced a few worship songs I had written to our band (at their request). They really liked one song in particular and we worked on it for about 30 minutes and got really excited about playing it for the church very soon. I am planning to record a demo version of it and submit it to something called "Song Discovery" which sends out a CD of worship songs (written by worship leaders all over) every couple months. I'm excited to see if it might make it onto that CD someday. We'll see.

Playing catch-up!

Wow! The last month has been a blur. I stopped blogging because I worked for three Mondays (my normal day off - and my day to blog) leading up to our Easter musical. Not only did I work on my day off, but I calculated that I worked EVERY DAY from February 26 through the Easter musical on March 16th. Sometimes that was just a couple hours on those Saturdays, but I did not have a complete day off during that time period. It was exhausting, but the week before the musical turned out to be a very peaceful week. I had anticipated a lot of chaos and mayhem, but I was pleasantly surprised. Much of that had to do with the fact that the construction on the stage set was DONE by Tuesday the week of the musical. So I was left with just little details to work on and that made for a very enjoyable musical this year. It turned out that the musical went off very well and I heard several comments that it was the best Easter musical they have seen in our church. I think it had much to do with the fact that the music was live rather than "canned." There is something about a live music production, if it is done well, and I felt like our band really stepped up and met the challenge of this music. But we had also rehearsed at least a few songs each Sunday afternoon beginning in January and then we had rehearsal with the choir four nights straight before the actual performance.

The week after Palm Sunday (and the musical) was Spring Break for Holly and the boys and my mom came down that week and helped us spruce up our landscape by planting some new trees and creating a nice path to the front door.  I took off that Monday and Tuesday after the musical, but as I just said we worked in the yard. When I returned to work on Wednesday I began working on the Easter service (which had already been planned out the week before).  It turned out to be a great day as we had over 1500 attending one of four services (including our Spanish language service).  

I worked the Monday after Easter because I took Friday off to go to Amarillo with the boys. It was very nice to be back in the office without a major event looming over me. I could think about some of the other aspects of the ministry and relax a little.  Wednesday night the 26th was the last night of our Men's Fraternity study "The Quest for Authentic Manhood." We watched the last video and had a share time and the testimonies were awesome. This study really had a profound impact on more than a few of our men. Several of the men did not want to quit meeting so we made plans to meet again the following week to further discuss the impact of the study. Thursday the boys and I left at 5:30pm and drove to Ft. Worth to stay with Mom on our way to Amarillo. Gatlin Elms is a senior in our church and has recently released a CD of his own music. He grew up in Amarillo and had a concert/CD release on Friday March 28th in a church there. The boys and I arrived about 3pm and were able to help setup for the concert. It's been really fun for the boys to be in on the ground floor of what could potentially become an exciting career for Gatlin.  We spent the night at the home of a very sweet lady somehow connected to the Elms and she fixed us a wonderful breakfast Saturday morning before we left. We traveled back with the whole crew (Gatlin & family with the band and a couple friends). After about 2 hours in the car, David Elms (Gatlin's father and my best buddy) came to ride with me and Austin went to ride in the van, which he loved because he was with "THE BAND." David and I talked and talked while Tyler watched movies. We got out of Amarillo by about 8:45ish and got home by 6:30pm. It was a long day.

Sunday (March 26) was a pretty special day. Bro. Ed started a sermon series on Revelation 1-3 entitled "Churches of Yesterday and Today".  The worship team had been rehearsing a song called "Revelation Song" just for the occasion that is a very powerful song. Well it turned out to be very powerful for our church as well. We had one of those "presence of God" moments right after the song and our little Baptist church wasn't quite sure what to do with the moment. Our ladies had just completed a really awesome retreat, so they were already emotionally charged for the service and that song in particular. People are still talking about the song and Bro. Ed wants us to sing it every other week throughout the series.

Which finally brings us to the present...almost. I swapped days off again last week so that I could attend an airshow near Corpus Christi with the boys and some friends (pics here). So I worked a little on Monday last week and had pretty heavy days on Weds and Thurs (12 hour days). We left at 10:00ish Friday morning and got to Corpus about 2:30pm. We checked into our hotel and then headed for the beach. The kids saw a park that they wanted to play at, so we stopped there for about an hour while they played. The wind was blowing, it was overcast and sprinkling and I spent the time trying to get out of the wind and keep warm. After the kids tired of chasing each other around the playground we headed over to the beach where they spent almost an hour playing in the surf. We returned to the hotel, cleaned up and headed out for dinner. One of the friends that came had a headached and stomach ache, so I stayed in the room with him while the rest went out for dinner. They brought me back some yummy quesadillas and they watched tv in the other room while I stayed with the sleeping sick boy. We finally went to bed about 11pm, slept pretty good and got up about 8am to head out and eat breakfast. We got to the airshow in Kingsville about 10am and had a really good day watching the airshow and looking at old planes and Navy stuff. We left about 4pm and got home at almost 9pm. When we pulled up in the parking lot of the church two police officers were walking around the church building so we asked them what was going on and they told us someone had broken into the church and had damaged some stuff. We went inside and found that some kids had got in somehow and were joy riding on the golf carts that we keep inside. They hit almost every corner of the hallway that surrounds the sanctuary, doing damage to sheetrock and door jambs and completely knocked a water fountain off of the wall. They had apparently busted a pen and got ink all over one of the golf cart seats. Our maintenance guy had seen some kids earlier and recognized at least one of them, so they got his address and when the police went over to his house he still had ink all over his hands, so it was pretty much sealed up, but he confessed anyway. It turned out to be 3 kids (3rd, 5th and 8th graders).  Needless to say I had to stay at the church for awhile to help clean up (with Holly and the boys) and we didn't get home until almost 11pm.

Sunday was a long day: Worship services until 12:30, Meet the Pastor Lunch until almost 2pm, back at the church for rehearsal at 4pm and Tyler and I drove downtown at 6:30 to see Gatlin Elms sing at a church there. We got back to the church at 10pm to pick up Austin (he rode the bus with the youth) and when we got there, there were two police cars in the parking lot and I thought "Good grief! What now!". It turns out that one of the youth had ridden back with someone else (not in the bus) and was there by himself, climbed up in a tree and then fell out head first on to a deck below the tree.  A couple of parents were in the parking lot and saw it and were able to get the police there quickly, but he was unconcious for probably 15-20 min. They had to Life Flight him to a hospital downtown. Our youth minister called us at about 3am and told us that he had broken his neck (but had some movement) and arms and bruised a lung. As of this morning he was scheduled for spinal surgery and had possibly taken a turn for the worse. We're planning to go see him this afternoon because it's a family that we knew at Jersey Village (I had 3 out of 5 of their kids in my youth ministry and the mom, Sharon, was on staff with me there).  You can follow his progress at our church website