So, this weekend we had our first real experience with an all weekend soccer tournament. Ally’s GSA team played in a Tournament over in Buckeye.   One game Friday night, there was supposed to be a game on Saturday and a game on Sunday with a possible Championship game on Sunday.

They won their first game Friday night and were set to return on Saturday for game number two.   Unfortunately, due to a scheduling mix-up on Saturday the girls game was rescheduled for Sunday which meant they had a game at 11, 1 and potentially 3.   Each game lasts an hour so it didn’t give the girls a lot of break.

The girls tied their first game of the day and had to win the next one in order to have a shot at the championship game.

Beth and I decided to break out the portable propane grill we’ve used for camping and cook up some hot dogs between games 1 and 2.   It was a blast – we had hotdogs, chips, oranges, bananas and drinks.  We were able to feed the team and any of the parents\kids there that wanted food!  I was a grilling fool!

It must have given the girls the boost they needed, too – or maybe it was the fact that they are a strong team with strong coaches.   They won their 2nd game of the day and then went on to play for the championship at 3 against a strong team from the Sandusky area.   It was a hard fought match but in the end the girls prevailed by a final score of 2-1.

Congrats to all of the girls on a great game.  I know Ally didn’t let go of her trophy the rest of the day and night…though she did finally put it down to go to sleep.

Wow…what a summer. I realize I’ve been MORE than a little quiet on the electronic front. I have unintentionally taken a break from a lot of things – this blog, my facebook account & twitter. It’s been nice and I can’t say I’ve missed reading all the tweets and updates on twitter and facebook. Sure, I’ll pop on from time to time to just check things out but it hasn’t happened too often.

You see, this summer is the first time in…7, 8, 10 years maybe – that I haven’t been serving at the church in any way. After I left Rittman UMC Beth and I landed at Freshwater Church here in Wadsworth. We decided that we were not going to jump into anything right away but just spend time together worshiping. It has been refreshing – but also pretty strange.

This last two months has also given me an opportunity to focus on serving at home a lot more than I have. I’ve watched a LOT of softball as Ally’s team made it to the championship game of the pony league. They didn’t win it all but had a great season and Ally is becoming quite a pitcher. Beth has started taking classes at Liberty University (online) in order to get her Masters in Teaching and that means that she is MORE than a little busy. I am SO proud of her though and what she is doing. She’s completed one class already and is finishing up her final paper for her second class and is doing great! Plus – I can say I’m dating a college girl again which is always fun! I’ve been doing my best to help out with the cleaning\laundry\cooking\shopping\kids\etc. I’m not going to lie – some weeks are a LOT better than others in terms of my helpfulness.

I would be lying though if I didn’t say it’s seemed like something been missing. I guess I’m just wired to serve – and I think Beth is too. We are starting to slowly plug in to some things at church now. Beth will be helping out in the nursery and I spent my first Saturday with the youth group there last week (more on that later).

I’m not sure exactly what will be next…and am not really worried about it. If there is one thing I’ve learned it’s that I completely trust that God will lead us to where it is that HE wants us to be.

I am hoping to start back into the blogging on a regular basis in the week or so and am looking to redesign this site as well (need to keep my coding skills up). It’s been a nice time away from the social media but you can’t keep a geek like me away from it all for TOO long! I guess it’s just how I’m WIRED!

OK – I love watching lightning.  Always have.  Something about it just amazes me.  I’m not sure if it’s the beauty, the inherit danger or what.  A few years back we lost a tree in our backyard to a lightning strike.  While that was a bit close for comfort it’s still amazing.  A few years back we were at Kalahari resort and I was able to capture some pretty amazing lightning pics with my camera.

But then I came across this today.  Absolutely amazing video captured by a guy out in Chicago.

Lightning strikes three of the tallest buildings in Chicago at the same time! from Craig Shimala on Vimeo.

He also posted a follow-up video a few days later of some more video he took during another storm including the formation of an amazing rainbow over the city.

Thank you Lord for the beauty of a storm.

So, despite the fact that my wife was a huge soccer player and my kids played I’ve never considered myself a big fan of the world’s biggest sport.

Funny how some things change.

I am completely engrossed in the World Cup.  Many times through the last week or so I’ve had a number of the games on in the background no matter who was playing.

Then there are the U.S. matches – all I can say is Wow!  Today’s amazing win over Algeria had me more hyped up and excited than any sporting event I can remember in a long time.

The U.S. had a number of great shots on goal and there were some amazing saves by the Algerian keeper.  Then finally in the 91st minute….stoppage time…Landon Donovan sinks a great shot as the ball bounced off the keeper.

If you missed the game you can watch the “Speed Match” version over at ESPN.

Proof to the popularity of the sport can be found in this article at CNN that say that this match today may set an new record for internet traffic – over 11.2 MILLION visitors per MINUTE to a group of sites that host a lot of video and sports sites (like ESPN).   Traffic got so crazy it actually knocked out Yahoo Sports for a bit after the match was over.

I can’t watch for 2:30 Saturday afternoon to see the U.S. play their knockout game in the round of 16!   Oh – and while I don’t own a vuvuzela I do have an app for that on my Blackberry.

I know it was a week ago, but I am just now getting around to posting my thoughts on last weekend’s Walk to Emmaus that I was a part of.

All in all it was an absolutely amazing weekend with about 50 men full of music, prayer, incredible talks, amazing times of worship\communion and some awesome God moments.

One of the things that truly humbles me every time I have served is seeing how God works in the lives of men.  It is such a blessing to be able to see lives changed and hearts transformed by our Lord and Savior.

It is also such a blessing to be surrounded by incredible men of faith.  It seems like it is through these weekends that God brings men into my life that become great friends.  I know this time he did that as well for me and I am thankful for that.

As for my talk…well, God is so good.  You see, when I got there Thursday night I noticed a bit of a “tickle” in my throat.  I didn’t think too much of it.  By the time I woke up Friday morning my voice was about gone.  Yep, laryngitis nailed me as I was supposed to be facilitating discussions at my table.  Luckily, I was paired up with another great guy and between the two of us and the two guys at our table we had some great conversation.

So…I wasn’t able to talk much…which meant I wasn’t able to sing at all.  Now this is something that I knew was going to be a struggle for me because music is such an important part of the weekend.  I was a but frustrated by this but quickly realized I could sing as loudly as I wanted on the inside and God would be pleased by this.  I was able to spend the weekend worshiping through music in a way I never have before and I’ve got to say it was pretty cool (though I prefer actually singing).

When Sunday rolled around and I knew I had my talk coming up at 10:45 I was a bit worried.  The voice wasn’t back.  I had no idea how I was going to be able to squeak out what needed to be said over the course of 30 minutes.  Well, God is SO good!  I went down to the chapel before my talk for prayer.  My dad was there (as he was serving in the chapel as a prayer warrior for the weekend).  By the time I left there and got to the conference center my voice had returned and for the next 30 minutes I was able to speak and get the message out.  When I was done I was back to no voice.  My prayer was that God would speak through me – that my words would be his.  There is no doubt that I didn’t give that talk on Sunday, but that God used me and spoke through me – I love how God works!

All in all it was a fabulous week.  I will share that the laryngitis did turn into a full on nasty cold and other fun things by Tuesday and I missed a few days of work but I’m finally feeling better now.

Praise God in the good times and praise him in the bad times – at ALL times I will say blessed by YOUR name, Lord!

I am off to serve as a member of God’s team this weekend for the East Ohio Emmanuel Emmaus Walk (yes, that IS a mouthful).  I love serving with a group of guys that are all focused on God like this.

This is my third time to serve on team and this time I will be playing a new part.  In the past I’ve done music but this time I will be a table leader.  Facilitating discussion for the pilgrims at my table.  On Sunday morning I will also be giving a talk on the Body of Christ.

I’m excited and nervous about it all and would value your prayers for me, the rest of the team and those men that are making the walk.  My talk is on Sunday at approximately 10:45 am so any extra prayers for God to shine through me for about 30 minutes there would be really appreciated.

Blessings!

So, this will probably be my final reflections for a while (and my final for a while as part of the Sunday Setlists at TheWorshipCommunity.com).  As I mentioned previously this past Sunday was my final day to lead worship at the Rittman United Methodist Church.  I have resigned from my position as Director of Youth, Worship and Outreach effective June 15th.

It was a day of mixed emotions as it will be hard to leave some of the amazing people that God has placed in my family’s life there – however, Beth and I are also excited to see what God has in store for us next.

During the morning service the chair of SPPR made the announcement in the beginning of the service and I had an opportunity to say a few words myself.

The evening service was treated as normal as possible.  The advantage here was that most everyone there had already heard that I was stepping down so I wanted to just keep the focus on spending time worshiping our awesome creator.  The service looked like this:

Welcome
Mighty to Save (Fielding\Morgan)
Glory to God Forever (Fee\Beeching)
Prayer
Message
Blessed Be Your Name (Redman)
Jesus Paid It All (Grape\Hall\Nifong)
Marvelous Light (Hall)
All Because Of Jesus (Fee)

We then made the official announcement.  This was the one that I knew would be toughest as I was surrounded by the entire team.  What I didn’t know was that after the representative from SPPR made her announcement my team was going to step forward to say a few words.  I can not say enough how much these people have meant to me and how proud of each of them I am.  My drummer Andy (aka Animal) read from the Psalms and said a few words (which I will admit I missed a lot of as his son was not too happy about me leaving and was letting it be known – I love that kid).  They then presented Beth and I with a beautiful picture that couldn’t have been more perfect.

It’s perfect for a number of reasons.  Two special ones  though are:

One – It has Beth’s favorite verse,

“Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

Two, it is a picture of a quiet setting at the water’s edge…appropriate for this blog and very similar to the header on this blog.  It also reminds me a lot of the path and benches at edge of Lake Erie at Lakeside, OH where I really felt God speaking to me about my ministry a few years ago.  This was very unexpected and I am thankful to the team for doing this for me.

I then shared a few words and we closed with “You are the Light” be Fee.  I love this song.  As I said during those final moments – I pray that when people think back to the time spent together that they don’t look at me as just the youth leader or just the worship leader but as a child of God and that in all that I said and did that His Light was shining from me.  I pray that my ministry was never about me and all about what God was able to do through me.

I value the friendships and relationships that I have made while at RUMC and will always treasure them.  Here’s hoping that many of them continue.

Just saw that Dennis Hopper passed away today.  Sure, he played Billy in Easy Rider.  But as a child of the 80′s I will always remember him as the psycho ref from the Nike commercials.  Rest in Peace Stanley…I mean Dennis.

Here’s a few of those for you that want to remember (or are too young to remember).

Bad things man…bad things

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you may remember that three days ago I posted this:

The hardest step to take is often the first one in a new direction.

Over the last few years I have seen this lived out numerous times in those around me:

• Last week Beth started her first college class in quite a few years as she goes back to school to get her teaching degree.
• When I see some of the youth in I’ve worked with head off to college or get their first job.
• When friends have sold a house that they’ve lived in and made memories in
• When friends have moved away because of a new job opportunity

And the list could go on and on.  For me personally a few of those first steps recently include:

• When I left my job at Westfield not knowing exactly where I was going to land
• When I left Wadsworth United Methodist to follow God’s call as I went to Rittman United Methodist
• Starting a contemporary service from scratch in Rittman
• Starting and leading a youth program in Rittman

And now it’s time for another one.

After much thought, discussion and PRAYER I have resigned from positions at the Rittman United Methodist Church.  My family will be heading to Freshwater Church in Wadsworth where we are looking forward to waiting and seeing where and how God calls us to service.

Just a few words for now:

To the members of the church – I want to thank all of those that have supported Beth and I over the last year and a half at Rittman.  You have each touched our lives in very special ways and we will miss seeing you on a weekly basis.

To my youth – I pray that you continue to seek God’s will for your life and grow in your knowledge of him.  Don’t lose my contact information as even though I will not be there every week I will always be there for you if you need to talk or need anything.  You have touched my lives more than you’ll ever know.

To the Sunday Evening Praise Band – you are all amazing and I know that God will continue to use each one of you to bring him glory through the gifts he has given you.  I have no doubt that you can continue to make a joyful noise to Him.  Remember – it’s not about a person but what God can do THROUGH each one of us.  It has been an absolute joy serving with each one of you.

This Sunday evening will be my final opportunity to lead worship at Rittman. I hope to see many of you there as we celebrate through word, song and prayer what God has done and continues to do for each of us.

It’s always hard to take a step like this but I do believe that God is directing my steps and in that I can have complete confidence as I follow HIM!

More than anything I hope that as I leave people know that in the end none of it was about me – but about Christ who lives in me.  May HIS light ALWAYS shine through all that I say and all that I do!

He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’  You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”

This is from Mark 7: 6-8 (NIV) when Jesus was talking to the Pharisees.

The question for us today is could Jesus say the same thing to us about the things in our lives…

Our churches…

Our homes…

Our own lives…

I know if I am being completely honest and were to make a list of the things that in my life and hold them up against this list with “God\Man” boxes beside them to indicate whether these statements describe them…way too many of them would have the “Man” box checked.

What about you?  Be honest – What does your list look like?  Are you following God or man?