A Stone's Throw

Wow, what an awesome day at Forest Park Carthage yesterday!  We had a ton of new faces at both of our services.  We also got a ton of people signed up for LifeGroups! Exciting things are happening here in Carthage!

Monday is for Missions…

• Keep praying for Haiti.  FP has had over 60 people interested in going on relief trips to Haiti.  We have raised well over $1000 to go to Haiti.
• FP has a group in Kenya this week.  Pray for them as they minister in His name at the Mattaw Children’s Village
• We just had a group get back from Fort Worth, TX yesterday that were working in the inner city with a church downtown.

Too good of a post to pass up on this Monday afternoon…Enjoy!  This is from Matt Wilkie’s blog this week.  Powerful!!

A few months ago, I got my own Haitian mudpie. It sits on my desk. This gift from our Haiti director,Kevin Rose, has reminded me to pray for the poorest people in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

On Tuesday, like every other “normal” day in Haiti, people in the poorest areas of the country were eating these for lunch. Some ate them for breakfast that morning and dinner the night before as well. They’re made of dried yellow dirt, vegetable oil and salt.

I’m going to type that again…they’re made of dried yellow dirt, vegetable oil and salt. They’re real mudpies. People eat them.

Then an earthquake hit.

I’m still processing things…but I for now, I wanted to mention the mudpies.

around the world with Jesus » Blog Archive » Mudpies for lunch Tuesday, and then….

Jenny and I were talking this evening about the situation.  Glued to the television just like 911 and Katrina.  The devastation is stunning.

We have been getting a lot of calls and questions about what our response will be.  Brock Cummins, our Missions Pastor has been in contact with several agencies and is exploring the possibility of FP putting together a relief trip to Haiti.  You will have an opportunity on Sunday to sign up to receive more information about the trip(s).

My cousin’s wife, Nettie was commenting on Facebook about the benefit of being a part of a Southern Baptist Church in Indiana.  I wholeheartedly agree with her.  There is a lot of power behind pooling money and resources for a united effort.  Our Cooperative Program is an amazing thing for sure.  There is a fund set up to provide relief to the devastated country. What is good about the SBC fund is that each gift is 100% toward relief–there are no administrative costs taken out of your gift.

In addition to giving to the SBC relief fund, we are also pooling our money locally to help fund a relief team.  You can give directly at church to go towards our own FP relief effort.  Please simply write “Haiti” in the memo of your check and bring it on Sunday.

If you have noticed my tweets and other posts since the earthquake, there are also a ton of other organizations that you can give to as well.  I think one of the most effective things we can be doing at this time is to pray fervently for those who are already on the field and those who are headed that way.

Great post by Vince Antonucci, planter of VERVE, a church on the strip in Las Vegas.  He talks of a High School football coach in Arkansas that has punted only one time in the past two seasons…and is the coach of a state championship this year! There has been LOTS of talk about high profile coaches “going for it” on 4th down and it not working.  This coach thinks the “numbers” lean toward “going for it” on 4th and “whatever” equals success!

Interesting concept.  Much like The Dip by Seth Godin.  The secondary title is “A little book that teaches you when to quit (and when to stick).”

There are times in our lives when we simply need to “go for it” no matter what!  I think the most difficult time to continue on is when you feel like giving up.

I love what the back cover of The Dip says:

what is the dip?

It’s the fifth job interview where they never even call you back.

It’s the garage band playing to an empty club in the middle of nowhere.

It’s the seventh time you fall on your butt while learning to snowboard.

It’s the middle of the marathon, when the excitement of the starting gun is a dim memory, and the joy of the finish line is a distant dream.

It’s any rough patch you have to get through before achieving your big goal . . . if in fact you’re chasing the right goal.

What else?

Oh yeah, it’s also the key to your career, your company’s future, and maybe your ultimate happiness.

We are at that place (possibly) at FP Carthage.  We have been here in Carthage for a couple of years and some of our team is tired and feels like needing a rest.  Things just aren’t like it was “in the beginning.”

It reminds me of the “Miracle on Ice” in 1980 when the USA Hockey Team beat the Russians in the semifinals of the Olympics to eventually win the gold medal.  Part of the backstory of the 1980 Olympics is the coach, Herb Brooks, was cut from the USA hockey team that eventually won a gold medal.  He came back 20 years later and led a group of college players to beat the best hockey team in the world. I love these kinds of movies that bring a group of people together to do amazing things that were though never possible!

I pray that we would “go for it” and “dig deep” and all of those other sports cliches and see amazing things happen in all of our lives.  Paul said it this way  in Philippians 3:12-14 “¹²Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Here’s the trailer for the great movie “Miracle.”  Enjoy!

Vince Antonucci: Dont Punt.