A Stone's Throw

Today was William Carey’s birthday.  He would have been 284.  He is often called the “father” of the modern missions movement.  Ran across this info. on Sam Shaw’s blog this evening on my google reader.  Check out his post here.

I am often reminded of William Carey and the Serampore Mission that he founded in India.  When I get to feeling pretty low and inadequate in my ministry, I always remember what I learned about him in seminary.  He must have had the same feelings–only exponentially stronger! What is amazing is that he had no converts for the first 7 years in India! He lost two wives to death. And he lost 19 years of translation work due to a fire.  After the fire, he wrote “In one short evening the labours of years are consumed. How unsearchable are the ways of God! . . . The Lord has laid me low that I may look more simply to him.” Are you kidding me? That is amazing! Sure wish I could have that kind of faith in the midst of the storms of life.  He was so convinced that God had called him to reach lost souls that he was never going to give up!

God, give me that same kind of tenacity and drive for the lost in my world!

A friend of mine, John Hill, posted about being close to Columbine on a business trip the day the massacre happened ten years ago.  It brings back to my mind the next year when I had the opportunity to bring in Darrell and Craig Scott to speak at several rallies at our church.  Darrell is Rachel Scott’s father and Craig is her brother.  Craig and Rachel were both in the library when the two gunmen came in and began their shooting spree.  Craig survived the shootings, but sadly, Rachel did not.

However, it seems that a whole lot of good has happened from this trajedy.  Darrell started a crusade across America to prevent what happened at Columbine for ever happening again.  You can check out their organization here.  Her brother is an amazing young man that is the video director for the organization.

I remember that week of “Columbine Redemption” rallies like it was yesterday.  It is hard to believe that it was almost a decade ago.  The beautiful thing about the Lord is that He always seems to help bring beauty out of trajedy.  That is the gospel–namely that God took me and my mess and is making “all things new.” What was cool was that God used Rachel’s testimony to help many students find Christ in the Springfield area. We hate for tragedy to happen, but we know that a soveriegn God who “holds all things in his hands” will bring glory to his name.  Much like the statement in John 11, the tragedy of Lazarus’ death was to “bring Glory to God.”  As we see photos and video of the Columbine tragedy, let us remember to thank God for his soveriegnty and his redemptive purpose in all of our lives.

Each Sunday night I will be summing up the previous week’s events in a “numbered” list, along with the “sum total” of our attendance for the week…even though “I’m not very good with numbers.”

1. Preached live at Carthage today…I love when I get to preach…I miss it!
2. Don’t miss the preparation and study…but miss preaching.
3. Don’t miss the “grind” of having to have a message every 7 days.
4. Had 256 on Spring Break…don’t know if that is good or bad.  Seemed like we had a lot of new faces, which is awesome!
5. My mom and dad spent the night last Sunday night and got to hear me preach at Collide.
6. We went to dinner at Cheddar’s for dad’s and my birthday.
7. Taylor and Tucker rode to SGF in the motorhome…Tucker rode “shotgun” and probably told Pa Pa how to drive the whole way!
8. I took off Monday through Thursday to work on the house “remodeling.”
9. I am extremely tired from scraping off our “house of wallpaper.”  There is wallpaper in almost EVERY room in our house!
10. Didn’t get as much done as I wanted, but we will hopefully get the “wallpaper walls” textured and painting done soon.
11. I was pretty proud of myself in not “working” during my vacation…I am pretty bad usually about “checking in” on my vacations.
12. Taylor spent Monday through Thursday with both grandparents…had a great time!
13. Tucker was “wheels off” here at home with us!
14. Tuck tried to “help us paint” by painting with the roller (no cover).  He did a great job on our floor, the walls in the foyer, the hallway walls, and the playroom…problem, we didn’t want any help yet!!  Paint thinner anyone??
15. Kids check-in is getting better each week.  Seemed like it went really well today.
16. Mizzou RAH!!
17. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!
18. and as much as it hurts to say it…Boomer Sooner
19. Bottom line–Big 12 did really well in the first two rounds.
20. Fran is leading a pool I am in…what??
21. I have an idea for Easter that is going to be AWESOME if we can pull it off!
22. Excited to have staff meeting tomorrow morning and get back into the swing of things.
23. Happy Birthday Kevin!

Here is a gallery of pictures that I posted on twitter and from my phone this week (and last week)…

The Week In TwitPics….