A Helpful Blog. . .

One of the things I struggle with as a preacher and in particular as a man called to the pastorate is finding where I stand on issues that face the church, and my denomination in particular.  Oftentimes, the difficult thing is not finding where I stand, but finding a scriptural basis to where I stand, because I have no desire to build on sinking sand.

One of these issues, that I really find should be more of a non-issue, is the issue of dress standards/

I believe the Bible teaches modesty.  Both men and women should dress modestly to honor the Lord.  I have often struggled with how we (Independent Fundamental Baptists) define "modesty" as women must wear dresses or skirts at all times.  

I'm going to attach a link to a blog that was recently shared with my wife, Laura.  She passed it on to me for my thoughts.  It was an eureka moment.  This blog echoed my thoughts, prayers, studies, and struggles exactly.  It was almost as if Pastor Reagan was eavesdropping on my conversations with the Lord.  

My intent in sharing this is not to pick a fight with anyone or to castigate anyone for their beliefs.  My intent is to make you think about why you believe what you believe as far as dress and modesty goes.  Read this entry with an open mind.  I'm not asking you to change what you believe, I'm asking you to simply consider how others' are struggling with an issue that, in my mind, should be a non-issue. 

I'm not interested in debating anyone, but if you would like to share your views in a positive, constructive way, feel free to do so.

The blog:
http://reaganreview.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/dress-standards-and-a-change-for-the-reagans/

See the Good

I’m tired.  It’s been a busy, hectic week in my life.  In fact, it’s been a busy, hectic year in my life.  But that’s okay because it has been good. 

Have you ever stopped to think about the good in your life?  Last night my lovely lady and I had a date night.  We did a little Christmas shopping and went to dinner at a nice steakhouse.  We wound up waiting for our table for a little over an hour.  Do I regret the hour we spent waiting?  Not for a minute!  We were able to sit next to each other and talk without interruption for an hour straight.  That never happens with three kids, two dogs, nieces, nephews, in-laws, friends, coworkers, church family…you get the idea. 

I was reminded of the good in my life.  As we waited for our table, we talked about favorite Christmas memories.  There were quite a few.  We talked about things coming up in our schedule...things we were going to do to help people.  That was another reminder of the good in my life.  We have the ability to help other people.

This morning, I woke up to the sound of my middle son, Alex, laughing.  He was watching some silly kids’ show on TV.  As I listened to him laugh, I was reminded of the simple joy of loving and being loved.  He saw me and immediately said “Love you, Daddy.”  Sweet words that reminded me of the good in my life.

This time of year gets crazy--going here, buying this, planning that, decorating.  Don’t forget the good in your life.  Don’t let life get in the way of the good things—being with those you love the most, your family and friends.  Don’t get so caught up in the preparations for the holiday season that you forget the point…do good for somebody.  This is the season for giving; it has been since the first Christmas.   

One of my favorite hymns of all time is "It is Well With My Soul."  The message of this particular song always gives me great joy and hope. Take a moment to read over the lyrics: 

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
 

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
 

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

 

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul. 

 

I preached a message tonight entitled "It Shall Be Well."  The message is taken from the fourth chapter of II Kings.  Several people that are very precious to me are going through some battles right now and I believe that the Lord used the burden I am carrying in this message.  May it be a blessing to you.

 

It Shall Be Well  

Home at Last

We finally arrived home after two and a half hours.  The kids enjoyed a nice long nap as I enjoyed a nice long talk with the Lord.  

The kids are all with their parents and mine are all home.  It's been a good week, but its good to be home. 

Day Four, Part Three.

The evening started with the team meetings.   Right before team meeting, I asked one of the girls in my group if she was saved.  She said no, and when I asked her why not, she said quite flippantly, I don't know. 

I did not have liberty to press her.  She set by her self during the service on the row in front of our group.  She paid quite a bit of attention during the whole service.  During the invitation time, she asked if she could go to the altar.  I said yes.   I grabbed my Bible and followed her. 

There was no room at the altar, so I waited until there was room.  I knelt down beside her and said "sweetie, why are you here?"

She looked up at me with the most beautiful eyes and burst out crying. I mean sobbing, and gasping for breath. I tried to talk with her for a few more minutes without any success. I realized that I was beyond my skill level in dealing with a broken hearted little girl. So I did the smartest thing I could do. I called for my wife. Laura took this little girl and dealt with her like the daughter she didn't have. She finally got the little girl to calm down enough to say she needed Jesus. There's a new name written down in Glory. Thanks be to God for a godly wife.

Day Four, Part Two

Well, it just keeps getting better and better.  I was able to lead a little girl in my group to the Lord.  I asked her, Are you saved?  She said no.  I asked her if I could show her and she said yes.  We opened a Bible and showed her the Romans Road. She bowed her head and said the sweetest prayer.  Suffer Ye the little children.  Praise the Lord!  

Camp, Day Four

The last several days have been amazing.  We have seen at least 12 young people get saved.  I've had the great blessing of leading two of my adopted boys to the Lord.   I've talked with the third and he doesn't quite get it yet.  

I've been talking to each of my kids one by one to see what is happening in their hearts. We've seen some astounding services where God has swooped in like a cool refreshing breeze.  Last night was a service that no one in the tabernacle will ever forget. 

I am anticipating what the Lord will do tonight.  The heat has started rising.   Both physically and spiritually. My heart has been broken time and time again for these young people. 

Satan, of course, is fighting for control; we fight with the only weapons we have, prayer and scripture.  Praise the Lord and shame on the devil. 

Day Two

We have had a very good day so far.  Lots of good, clean, fun by way of swimming, horseback riding, miniature golf and so much food. 

The preaching has been wonderful.  In fact, we have had two saved.  I was honored to preach the week's first flagpole message.  

I have had one little girl thank me repeatedly for bringing them to camp.    My adopted boys have told me that I am the best counselor they've ever had. 

God is so good.  

Camp, Day One, Part One

We arrived after 3.5 hours on the road, 250 "are we there yet's," and one "are we lost, we're lost, aren't we?"

So far the kids are settling in okay. I'm thankful for the nice breeze we have  been blessed with.  

Oh, I've adopted three more boys for the week. 

For some unknown reason, I decided that it would be a great idea for my wife and I to take a group of kids from our church to summer camp for a week.  We worked for months getting kids interested enough to want us to come to talk to their parents.  After three visits to each home, we have seven young people (ages 7-12) going to camp with us.

Our adventure starts with packing.  My goodness.  I never knew that when a woman goes to summer camp, she takes everything that she could possibly need and then some.  See, I've taken road trips with my wife before so I thought I was prepared for her packing craze, but then again, I've never taken her to camp for a week.

For a week, the house has looked like Wal-Mart threw up all over it.  The Health and Beauty section threw up on the kitchen table; bedding in the living room, the clothes section everywhere.  I honestly didn't know there were so many clothes in my entire house!

It is almost time to get the selected items loaded into our van so that we can go to church and transfer then to the church van.

I'm going to finish my cup of coffee, pray for strength and patience and then start loading up the van.  I'm going to be posting on the blog from time to time while we are at camp--if I can get a signal!

I can't wait to see what every one else has packed.

Hi.  Hope you all are doing well.  It's been quite some time since I wrote an actual post.  I'll get one up shortly. but until then, here's a link to a sermon I preached a week ago. 

Beseeching the Brethren

Here's a message I preached some time ago.  It's from the book of Hosea and is entitled "A Call to Action" 

A Call to Action

Lessons from Vacation. . .

My lovely lady, our three boys, my best friend, his wife, darling daughter and son all went on vacation together.  We pooled our resources (limited as they are) and spent a week in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  More precisely, in a cabin about 15 minutes from said National Park.

Contrary to popular belief, we survived the week with all of our friendships intact--the kids still want to play with each other, my buddy and I are even closer friends and the ladies are still best friends.  I learned a lot of things while on vacation.

1.)  If the advice is good for the kids, it's good for me.  We had a hot tub on a back porch overlooking a cliff.  We warned the kids time and time again not to leave anything hanging over the porch rail as the wind might blow it down onto the drop off below.  The kids managed to listen pretty well.  One day, we took an excursion into the park and went down to a river bank.  Somehow, I managed to soak my socks pretty well.  (see more about this particular lesson below).  We got home and I thought to lay my jeans and socks out on the porch rail to dry in the sun.  About an hour later, I thought to go check on them and I could only find one sock.  I back tracked all through the house trying to find that missing sock.  Then it hit me.  The wind.  I went out to the back porch and looked over the rail.  Laying there on a large rock was my sock, laid out perfectly.  My words came back to my ears.  I realized something, all the advice that I give my kids can and should be applied to my life.  You know, like "I don't care if everyone else is doing it, you're not going to do it."  Just because we get "all grown up" doesn't mean we don't need reminded of this every once in a while.  Remember this:  if it is important enough for you to warn your children about it a certain danger, it is important enough for you to heed that warning as well.

2.)  Rocks may indeed be slippery when wet.  As I mentioned in the paragraph above, we took an expedition to the national park and walked a "quiet trail" to a river below.  Absolutely beautiful.  The mountains, the trees, the river, all were absolutely beautiful.  We carefully made our way to the banks of the river.  We walked on the banks and then the spirit of adventure took over and my buddy and I began to climb the rather large boulders scattered across the riverbed like a giant tossing a handful of marbles.  We did our very best to be careful, but every once in a while we would find a rock that was indeed slippery.  We would loose our footing and have to quickly recover our balance and footing before we plunged into the water.  Some of us did this better than others.  At one point, I slipped and put my foot down into what I thought was a shallow place but wound up soaking my pant leg, socks, and boots up to my ankle.  I learned exactly how cold a mountain river can be in March.  I was the lucky one, I just got wet up to my ankles, my buddy, he got wet up to his hips.  We learned that just because something looks perfectly safe, there may be a hidden danger that you cannot clearly see.  I also learned that the old saying "still water runs deep" is quite true.

We did learn a lot.  The most important lessons learned came from the eyes our children.  As I saw my children take pleasure from the simplest things--throwing rocks into a river; playing a very bad game of pool with their Daddy.  I was reminded that those things in life we find the most important--jobs, status, possessions, are nothing compared to those things in life that are the most important--family and friends.  Treasure those that mean the most to you.

This week we spent more money than I care to think about on trinkets, souvenirs, food and lodging.  However, the investment we made in our relationships will reap dividends for a long time to come.   What investments are you making in your relationships?

On the Open Road

About two years ago, I started to seriously try to lose weight.  I was overweight and really in a bad place health wise.  I realized that if I didn’t change some things, I might very well be in the same spot my father-in-law was in—open heart surgery, a severe stroke and having to have someone take care of me day and night because I wasn’t able to take care of myself.  

I had been going to the gym for several years before this and I hadn’t really been making any gains. We started a “Biggest Looser” type contest at work and I got serious about it.  At the same time my wife, Laura, started Weight Watchers.  I started listening to what she was bringing home from her meetings and began to track my points and really try to learn about nutrition and the food I was putting in my body.   At the end of 2011, I had lost 90 pounds and was a new person.  I changed gyms and really started focusing on getting healthy and not just weight loss. 

I set myself a new goal in January of 2012—I was going to run a 5K in the spring or summer.  Every other weekend after that, I was in the gym running a 5K,  and three days a week I was running two miles on a treadmill.  I was pumped!  I was knocking back the miles with a steady heart rate and feeling good! 

Today I woke up and realized that a trip to the gym would not work in our schedule, so I decided to do something I had been thinking about for awhile…running on the road.  So I set off on my run to the Community Park and back.  I learned some things about road running that I never expected while running on my nice, comfy treadmill at the gym.  I’d like to share them with you: 

The road does not bounce.  Ever notice how the treadmill gives just a little bit when your foot comes down?  Not a whole lot, just enough bounce to make you feel like you are hurtling through space.  After a block or two, I realized this pavement wasn’t given me that same feeling.  In fact, it wasn’t helping me at all and I think it may have been fighting me…I’m not sure but I think it was resisting every step I was taking.

Dogs are everywhere.  I had no idea the number of dogs that are in my neighborhood.  The nice friendly greetings from the neighbor’s pooch as you’re driving comfortably down the road are quite different when you are running in front of their house.  They all sound like Cujo.  I swear that I head the heavy breathing of a rabid St. Bernard bounding down on me.   On second thought, maybe that was my breathing I heard. 

Road kill.  As disgusting as road kill looks from your driver seat, it is about 100 times worse when your foot lands right next to that dead possum’s eye.  It wouldn’t have been so bad if the eye hadn’t been hanging out of it socket staring at me as I ran by.  I will be seeing the eyeball in my dreams tonight, I just know it.

Wind.  What starts out as a nice, cool breeze at your back soon turns into a wall of total resistance when you turn the corner.  Remember when you were a kid and your dad or your uncle would be standing there and you would run towards them?  While you were running towards them, they would put the palm of their hand right on your forehead.  No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t get any closer to them?  That’s what I learned running into the wind is like.  I turned the corner and it felt like those 90 pounds I lost last year had came back all at once! S-L-O-W-M-O-T-I-O-N! 

Cars.  Thirty five miles per hour doesn’t seem very fast at all when you are behind the wheel of a car.  When you are running on the side of the road and a car blows past you at 35, it scares the water right out of you.  Who knew cars in Franklin where all stealth cars?  I never heard one sneaking up behind me!  It’s like they tip toed until they got close to me and then just gunned it!  The only one I heard was the old farm truck that sounded like someone had poured marbles down its manifold.   I heard that truck rumbling and I went all cross country, like I was John Rambo or something.  It was awesome.

Time.  Time has no meaning to those not running.  I staggered charged triumphantly into the house and my adoring, supportive wife says “that didn’t take long.”  Between gasping for breaths and trying to determine if I should just collapse on the floor or aim for the couch, I told her “I (gasp) ran (gasp) to (gasp) the park (gasp, gasp) and back.”  Twenty five minutes on the treadmill goes by pretty fast…25 minutes on the open road is FOREVER.

Old People.  Don’t get me wrong, I love senior citizens.  I think they deserve and are entitled to respect and honor.  They don’t understand that when you are running past their beauty parlor on a Saturday morning with sweat streaming down your face, you’re not really going to stop and talk about the weather.  So, the sweet Grandma, that said “Good morning, beautiful day for a walk,” Yes, it is a beautiful day, but if it comes to breathing or talking, I’m going to choose breathing every time.  Thanks anyway and please forgive my rudeness. 

I learned a lot this morning.  Am I ready to face a 5K on the open road?  Probably not, but you know what?  I ran this morning.  Two years ago, I’d still be on the couch trying to figure out why I was still fat.  I made a choice to change my life and I did it.  What do you need to choose to change today? 

I have decided to do something a little different with today's post.  Depending on how this works, I may do so again.  I've posted a link to a sermon that I preached last week.  Take a few minutes (About  35, actually) and give a listen.  If you can't get to it, let me know.  Click the link below, click File, Download, Download Anyway and click Okay. Let me know your thoughts. 


Sibling Rivalry

Committment

This weekend has been focused around commitment.  Friday night, our church held our 15^th annual Purity Banquet.  What’s a Purity Banquet?  It’s a time that we set aside for our young people.  At this banquet, they make a promise to the Lord and to their parents to be a virgin on their wedding day.  We call this the Commitment ceremony.  The first year, they are given a ring that says “Love Waits” and each following year, they are given a key as a token of their commitment.  This is always a beautiful service because we are celebrating new commitments and remembering old commitments.  

Saturday afternoon, I was in Lewisburg, Tennessee at the ordination service of my good friend.  If you haven’t ever seen an ordination service, it is a very special time in a preacher’s life.  The first part of the service was private.  The ordination council (comprised of other ordained preachers, pastors, evangelist, etc) examines the candidate on their testimony of salvation, calling into the ministry, beliefs, and really anything that could impact their effectiveness as a minister.  This council (as several others I have sat on), developed a theme of commitment.   How committed is the candidate to his calling?  How committed is the candidate to his Lord?  How committed is the candidate to the people he serves?  

My youngest son has been quite sick for a week or so now.  Seth has asthma so anytime he develops a cold; it winds up in his chest causing complications with his asthma.  I have seen my wife tirelessly care for my son.  Caring for his asthma and cold related issues usually involves regular breathing treatments with a nebulizer and a bevy of medications, antibiotics and whatever else the doctor can throw at it.  For the past several days, Laura has been up every four hours during the night administering these breathing treatments.  When Seth sleeps, she sleeps; albeit, she sleeps with one ear open waiting for the coughing attacks to begin again.    As soon as he coughs, she springs out of bed to check on him.  That’s commitment.  Laura has worn herself out caring for that child.  Why? Because she is committed to his welfare.  

Valentine’s Day is coming up fast.  Let me challenge you guys with something.  Don’t give your sweetheart roses or candy.  Give her commitment.  Husbands reexamine your love for your wife and recommit to her.  Take time to make sure she knows that your commitment is stronger than ever.

As we examine our earthly relationships for commitment, take a moment to examine your relationship with the Heavenly Father.  Recommit to Him.  Spend time talking with Him about your commitment to Him. 

If we asked the question “What’s the biggest problem in your relationships” I believe both women and the Lord would say “Commitment.” 

Let’s commit to something today, shall we?