There are just times that occur in life that blow your mind and make you say, “Wow!”  I am the father of two incredible boys, Drew (almost 3 yrs old) and Sam (just turned 7 weeks old).  Those two boys are a couple of the greatest things that ever happened to me.  God has taught me so much about Himself (and myself) through these boys.  Today was  another one of those lessons.

I had taken Drew out fishing this morning before the rain came in.  We had gotten back about time for lunch, so we were eating a sandwich and some chips at the table.  Naomi had Sam and was playing with him at the other end of the table.  Drew begins to play with Sam and mess with him.  You can already tell that these guys have great potential of being really close as they grow up.  Sam begins to smile and almost laugh at his brother’s “playing with him.”  Now Sam is not one to smile nor laugh much at this time in his life.  Something about his brother just brightens him up though.

It was in that moment, as I was scarfing down my sandwich and chips that the Holy Spirit whispered to my heart, “You feel that joy welling up inside of you because them two boys are playing well with each other?  That’s what I feel when Christians live together in love with one another.”

We may have different opinions on certain aspects of our faith, but if we are what the Bible calls “brothers and sisters in Christ,” then we had better be loving one another as family because in glory, we’re going to be doing that anyways.  Jesus’ prayer for us (John 17) was that we might be “one”.  This “one” is unity.  We don’t have to see things exactly the same way in every tiny part of our beliefs (though there are some essentials).

How are you and I doing with helping Jesus’ prayer become a reality?

I now sit at home finding myself recouping from our student ministry’s summer camp.  It was an amazing 4 days of fun and worship with the students of First Baptist Church of Birmingham, Alabama.  We went to a camp in East Tennessee called Whitewater Express.  If you are looking for a great camp to get away with your students that will treat you right and provide some great activities, I highly suggest you check out Whitewater Express.  Some of the fun activities that we did was rafting on the Nantahala and Ocoee, paintball, high ropes course, and more.  The staff at this camp is awesome. 

We brought in Ryan John to lead us in worship through music.  I had met this young man about 6 years ago as I had him lead worship for a summer camp for another church I was with.  Ryan is one of the best worship leaders that I have ever used.  He has some amazing talent in singing and guitar.  More importantly, he has a great heart for the Lord and students.  He hung out with our students all week and participated in most of the activities.  I knew that our kids would love Ryan and that God would use him in a great way to minister to our students… and that is exactly what happened.

Gary Permenter was our camp pastor.  If you’ve never heard Gary speak, you are truly missing a blessing.  God has His hand on Gary in a very special way.  I have found few people who will put so much time into building relationships with people as Gary does.  Gary brought some great messages about the life of Joseph in the Old Testament and challenged us all with how to position ourselves to be used greatly by God.  If you are looking for a speaker for camp, retreats, special nights, or whatever, you really need to check out Gary.

As I reflect on this summer camp, I am thinking about a couple of things…

1. Forgiveness is a vital part of the Christian’s life.  It is the number one need of every person because of sin in our lives, but also something that we need to be sure that we’re dishing out to others.
2. Times away from the normal routine are vital.  The past 4 days have been great to get away from the hustle and bustle of life to focus on some key things that God is wanting to do in my life and ministry.  Sometimes you have to remove yourself from the noise to hear God clearly.
3. Great adults are a must in student ministry.  I had a couple who have 3 teens in our student ministry (all who were at camp).  This camp would not have been possible if they would not have gone.  Their loving on the students and helping them (and me) out made this a week that will not soon be forgotten.  (Big thanks, Mike & Joyce!)
4. God will use anyone that will make themselves available.  This was the theme of our last service at camp, and it is so true.  The only special thing about Joseph was that he had made himself available by decisions that he made to be used in great ways by God. 

I look forward to seeing the fruit of this summer camp.  God was definitely doing some work on people’s lives (not just the students either). 

Searching For God Knows What is the first work that I’ve read by Donald Miller.  I’ve seen some of his stuff before but never taken the time to sit down and read it all the way through.  This book seeks to show that “relationship is God’s way of leading us to redemption.” Miller seeks to deal with an issue that in today’s world many have just taken a formulaic view of God, and this is not good.

I personally thought that this was a pretty good read.  Miller does have a humor about him and can easily bring that out in his writing.  Who doesn’t want something that can make you chuckle every now and then?  I will say that this book seemed to be a slow start for me.  I appreciated the stories and all that were contained in the first few chapters, but it didn’t seem to kick into gear until you almost got to the end.  When it did kick in, Miller had some great things to say.  One of my favorite quotes from the book was…

“It would be most tragic for a person to know everything about God, but not God; to know all about the rules of spiritual marriage, but never walk the aisle.”

If you are looking for something that will entertain you and give you a few things to really think about and ponder, I would recommend checking out Searching For God Knows What.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

June 7-12, 2010 marked a new adventure for me and our student ministry.  We participated in PowerPlant, a mission trip experience put on by NAMB to help church plants and teach students about church planting.  It was the first time that I had been part of this ministry.  I had heard about this ministry before but not had any friends who had actually tried it out.  After much prayer, I felt led to take our group on this adventure.

Here are some thoughts that I had from this mission trip…

• Church planting is important. I had not heard a whole lot about church planting as a ministry of local churches.  The only churches that I knew of growing up that newly started were those that consisted of a group of people who were tired of the way things were going at one church and decided to start something new (that suited their own tastes).  What I seen in Indianapolis (and been seeing a lot more of in other areas) was amazing.  There is truly an understanding that no one church can be “all things to all people.”  We got to see churches working together as teams to reach entire cities instead of them competing with one another over the same 100 sheep.
• Church planting is not the only way to reach the world. I know that the emphasis of this week was the importance of church planting, but I was reminded that if the current established churches would step up and be what God desires them to be (Great Commission and Great Commandment focused people), then the need for new fellowships wouldn’t be as needed.  (Note: new fellowships are still needed, but in some areas they wouldn’t be if the current ones stepped up.)
• Students will shine when given the chance. Okay, I had known this already, but hadn’t had much of an opportunity with this group of students to see it happen.  I was blown away at how these students took the reigns and stepped out into unknown territory.  It was encouraging to see this generation of students step up to the plate and knock it out of the park.

The past two weeks have been crazy and non-stop.  We were blessed with the birth of our second child, Samuel Taylor Stephens, on Friday, June 4th.  Three days later, I boarded a van with 7 students and 2 other adults and headed to Indianapolis for PowerPlant Mission Trip.  If you’ve been in student ministry for any time, you know that there’s not a lot of sleep that goes into those trips.  I returned from the mission trip to a house with a newborn and the sleep schedule of that.  With all that said, it has been wild for the past two weeks but I wouldn’t trade it for the world!

I am going to look to put out some posts about some things that stood out to me from our mission trip to Indianapolis with PowerPlant.  It was an amazing trip.  God did many great things.

For those who are wondering, our second son (Samuel Taylor Stephens) was born on Friday, June 4, 2010 at 9:24am.  He was 6lbs 3oz and 19″ long.

I received a copy of this book by Dave and Jon Ferguson from Zondervan in exchange for my honest thoughts about it.  Sweet deal, huh?  I thought so too… until I read this book.  It was then that I realized that it was a VERY sweet deal.  Dave and Jon Ferguson planted a church (Community Christian Church in Chicago), and it has quickly become one of the models for reproducing churches around the world.

In “Exponential”, Dave and Jon Ferguson lay out the principles that they have felt called to in forming reproducing fellowships of believers in Christ.  They break it down into four parts:

1. Movements Start With 1
2. Reproducing Tribes of 10-100
3. Reproducing Communities of 100-1,000
4. Reproducing Movements of 10,000s

I really enjoyed reading this book.  It was great to see the strategies laid out by these men in reproducing communities of faith.  What made it such an easy read was that it had the real-life experiences weaved through it from the life of Community Christian Church.  It’s nice to read something that not only sounds good on paper but comes from a source that has seen it work.

I would highly recommend this book to all leaders in Christian ministry.  This work does a great job of encouraging and challenging us to be faithful to reaching the nations with the Gospel.

Note: I would have had this blog post out a lot earlier, but the birth of our second child kind of took first place in my mind.

The student ministry of First Baptist Church of Birmingham, Alabama is hosting a fundraiser on Father’s Day.  We are doing a “Father’s Day Brunch” featuring the cooking of our own Chef Bob Vaningan.  The meal will go from 11:30am – 1:30pm.  It is a come & go event with all-you-can-eat pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, pot roast, mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, and desserts.  This great event will take place in the fellowship hall of First Baptist Church of Birmingham, Alabama.

You will have to have a ticket to get in.  Tickets are $10 per person and available in the First Baptist Church offices or by contacting me.  Proceeds from this event will go to help the student ministry fund some of its bigger events (mission trip, summer camp, and others). The deadline to purchase your tickets is Sunday, June 13th.

I invite you to come and check out some of Birmingham’s best food and support a great student ministry as they try to reach out to our community and around with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

As many of you know, we are expecting our second son this summer. We are very excited about the new addition to our family. As we approach the due date ever so quickly, we have began to think about some of the issues that we had with our first son, Drew. I believe that it was about this time during the pregnancy with Drew that Naomi began to have blood pressure issues. She was placed on bed rest for a while to prolong the pregnancy and give Drew a chance to develop properly. The blood pressure issues got to the point that we had to induce early. But all was good because we had a beautiful and healthy baby boy.

Today, we had a checkup and have started to notice a slight raise in Naomi’s blood pressure. The doc wants to keep an eye on it and is starting to put some limits on Naomi (not bed rest yet). I ask that you be in prayer for Naomi & baby Sam that things will be okay with them and they won’t have to go through the bed rest thing. That would be one of the crulest forms of torture for me.

It won’t be terribly long now and our baby Sam will be here (due date is July 1).

Our pastor’s message for the Graduate Recognition service this past Sunday was awesome.  It was what should be in that kind of service: something for everyone but with a hint towards the graduates.  In the message, our pastor made a great point that stuck with me and has me mulling it over.  In Luke 2:41-49, Jesus was left behind by Mary and Joseph after the Feast of Passover in Jerusalem.  Three days later, they found Jesus in the temple talking and questioning the teachers about God.  Jesus’ statement was priceless…

Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”

The point that our pastor made was that Jesus was shocked that His earthly parents took so long to find Him.  Didn’t they know who He was and what He was here for?  Where else would Jesus be but other than talking about His Father and making sure people understood the truth about Him?

Then the question gets turned back onto us… Where would we be found if we went missing for three days?  Would the search party find us in a church?  bar?  ditch?  football stadium?  Jesus later taught that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).  Whatever holds our heartstrings is where we’ll find our feet going towards.

Make it a point today to let Jesus be the treasure of your heart and follow Him wherever He leads.

Here is the video that we made for our graduates on Graduate Recognition this past Sunday.