Got this in the mail today. I can’t tell you how much I needed it…

To the person who followed the prompting of the Holy Spirit to pray for me and even write me a card and snail mail it….I say thank YOU!

Here’s what it said:

“you were prayed for today. The Lord prompted me to intercede for you because He loves you. He sees your hard work even if others don’t. He sees your frustrations but other don’t. He knows you’re tired when others don’t. He hears your wondering heart and says “stop wondering”; I am the way the truth and the light. Psalm 119:147- I rise early before the sun is up; I cry out for help and put my hope in Your word. Be encouraged!! Rock it out and keep bringin’ it on Sunday mornings. Your church loves you-good days and bad”

That last line put me in tears. Person, because of your card I worshipped the Lord….thank you thank you thank you!!

-nate

December always shapes up to be my busiest/stressful time of year, even more than Easter. I have a collision of personal and professional and it always makes for an eventful month!!

3rd: Mosaic Volunteer Christmas party. I’m planning and leading the charge

7th: My mom’s b-day…forget this and hear it for days

12th: My 6 year wedding anniversary…forget this and die

***don’t forget that I work for a church and xmas eve is rapidly approaching….oh and don’t forget we are a portable church :0)***

24th: xmas eve. set up, rehearsal, full run through, 2 services

25th: xmas day. involves an awesome morning with my family. then packing up and driving 3 hrs to Charleston, SC

29th: Dads bday

Are you tired? I am and it’s only Nov. 30th.

-nate

Let’s keep this simple…

“Do you or do you not pay musicians at your church?” If you do or don’t…give the WHY

I’d love to get some great dialogue going on this..so everybody chime in!

-nate

God gave me an eye opener tonight. Let me set the scene…

We had our neighbor friends over for dinner. They have 2 girls they same age as our 2 kids. We were sitting downstairs after dinner talking and the kids were in the playroom upstairs. We heard some anger type cries coming from the neighbor kids and their mom went up to check. She came back downstairs and said that we may want to have a chat with our son because he was saying some mean things. Carrie went upstairs and promptly came back down, told me what happened, and said I needed to handle it…here’s where it begins.

The second I grabbed my sons hand to take him into his room, he began to cry. I sat him on his bed and asked him to tell me what he did (even though I already knew), he just looked at me and cried. I said to him, “it’s very important to me that YOU tell me what happened”, he shook his head no. I asked him why he would not tell me and he replied, “I’m scared.” This was nothing new because that just meant he thought he was getting a spanking…yes, we spank in our home. The thing was, I already knew what he did. I knew what the punishment for him was going to be and it wasn’t a spanking. It was just very important that he fessed up to what had happened.

I asked him again to tell me what happened and asked him why he was scared…he cried harder. The cry though wasn’t one of fear at this point. It became a familiar cry, one I personally was familiar with. It was a cry of shame. I asked the question one more time and this time he answered. “I don’t want to tell you because what I did was bad.” This shook me inside. You see, he knew what he did was bad and it was messing with him. He thought if I knew he did something bad he’d fall short in my eyes. In his mind he wants to be a little boy that his Dad can be proud of and if I knew what he did maybe I wouldn’t be. I stood up and sat next to him, by this time I was borderline crying myself. I brought him in close to me and said “buddy, i love you. there is nothing you can say or do that would make me love you more or less. Exactly who you are makes me the proudest Dad in the world, nothing will ever change that.” In that moment, he stopped crying, he calmed himself, I asked him one more time to tell me what he did, and he told me.

What I took away from all of that is this. How many times has God come to us already knowing where we fall short and just wanted us to talk to Him?! Tell Him where we’ve fallen short. We begin to cry a shameful cry not wanting to reveal our ugly side trying to be these perfect Christians, ones that God can be proud of. He then leans in close, grabs us and says, “I love you just the way you are. I think you are perfect in every way, there is nothing you can say or do that would make me not want you……just talk to me.” In that moment everything seems to disappear and we have an open honest conversation with our Dad.

when’s the last time you had an open honest conversation with your heavenly Dad?

I love being a parent,

nate

Psalm 128: 1-3
Blessed are all who fear the LORD, who walk in his ways. You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your sons will be like olive shoots around your table.

I work in full-time ministry. That means I invest a of time into caring for people, planning services, building relationships, and encouraging people to grow in their gifts and use them to serve the Lord.

I’m a family man. That means I invest a of time into loving, providing, caring for my wife and 2 kids. I plan stuff for us so we can experience things as a family. I invest time into the relationship with my wife and kids encouraging them in their gifts and how we can use them to serve the Lord.

Since moving and taking over a worship ministry, a lot of my time, focus, and energy has been placed on my ministry at the church. As a result, my ministry at home has suffered. The Lord has really been getting my attention with this because letting my family slip IS NOT AN OPTION.  My wife and children are my priority, not my team at church. Thinking through how to shift my priorities 2 areas came forward where I need to step it up:

1.) Time

Church- I meet with key volunteers to encourage them and let them know that I’m thankful for what they do. Usually I’ll buy them lunch or coffee

Family- I need to be more consistent with date night. Buy my wife dinner. Tell her how much I value all she does in our family and encourage her in her womanhood and motherhood. Spend one on one time with my kids acknowledging their love language and loving them in that way.

2.) Planning

Church- I spend a lot of time planning experiences for our church members. I want them to walk away from Mosaic and say “wow, I love my church”.

Family- I need to spend more time planning family days, not just laying around expecting my wife and kids to entertain themselves so I can rest. As my kids grow in to teenagers I want them to say “I love our family”. They will only say this if I show them that I love our family.

Who knows, in 10 years I might not be working for this church or even in full-time ministry. I do know that in 10 years I’ll still be married to the same woman and I’ll have the same 2 kids. My family is forever, ministry is a season and seasons change.

favor to you,

nate

The above picture is me after 8 hours of sleep, a nice breakfast, and coffee. I know right?! I look like I drank 12 beers and pulled an all nighter. Within the past year i’ve been getting these dark circles and puffy bags under my eyes. I did some research and it turns out it can be related to stress, lack of rest, and even diet but another big contributing factor is genetics. This was my “hmmm” moment.

See my dad always had bags under his eyes but he WAS pulling all nighters drinking, partying, working too much, and not eating well. I figured he just lived a hard life but it seems it could be in the genes! So, do I just live with people thinking I’m strung out? NO…the hunt for a solution began and I think I may have found it.

Immortelle Eye Balm

I started using it on Monday right after I took the above pic. It’s Wednesday and I feel like I already notice a difference.

As I age I’m looking forward to embracing it, but sleepy, puffy looking eyes I refuse to have!

Can you see a difference?

Nate

During the winter months I pull these things out of my belly button once or twice a day…it’s weird to me. Never in the spring or summer months do I gather these little treats. I’m thinking it’s because my belly is bigger in the Fall and Winter months and is a deeper hole to catch lint…that’s my theory.

do you get belly button lint?

So over the Christmas holiday we were able to leave our whole set up. It was amazing…so nice to be able to walk in, set up our gear, and start. Then after service just pack up, mingle in the foyer, and leave. Seriously…if you aren’t  a portable church don’t take that time for granted. Anyway…

Yesterday was our first weekend of the New Year and we had to set everything up again. Not a big deal but when we arrived, the school had started building a set for their new musical this semester (I believe they are doing “High School Musical”). That’s fine, we knew this type of stuff was going to happen, but we had NO IDEA…it was a total surprise. You may think…what’s the big deal…well, I’m gonna tell you. See the problem is we rear project, have a huge screen, and we need about 16 feet from the projector to the screen. As you can imagine, the new set the school was building took up about 12 feet of that 16 we usually use…yikes!  With limited time in the morning this really threw us for a loop. After a small moment of panic, we adjusted, moved everything forward (thank God for a big stage), and had the whole band in a very small space. It made for a very eventful morning but more than that a morning that gave me some great perspective…

God doesn’t need everything that WE think we need to do church. He doesn’t need a big stage, great lighting, big screens, or us being comfortable with our NORMAL thing. He needs TOTAL reliance on Him and HIS power and presence to make the morning slammin. Because let’s face it. When you put the big guy in control of your life…it can be a roller coaster at times. I look at it like this: the things we have are a blessing and I’m grateful to have these tools to minister to Charlotte and to be honest there are more things I WANT. What I realized though, is all I NEED is Jesus’ power and presence. As long as I have that, I’ll lead worship from the High School Musical set any day!

Happy 2009….it’s gonna be an amazing year for the kingdom of Christ!

Nate

The past 2 weeks or so the Lord has been getting my attention with a certain area in my life that I need to step up. Let me give ya a little back story…

My son is the early riser of the family. My wife, daughter, and I are sleepers. We all love to sleep in…love it. So the plan my wife and I devised was before we go to bed turn the T.V. to a kids channel. That way when Nathaniel wakes up he can stumble in to the T.V. room and just turn on cartoons without having to disturb us…horrible parenting I know.

OK, back to my convictions. The Holy Spirit has been very clear and specific on stepping up my game in this area. Psalm 128 1-4 says:

“Blessed are all who fear the LORD, who walk in his ways. You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your sons will be like olive shoots around your table. Thus is the man blessed who fears the LORD.”

So, how am I stepping it up? By doing exactly what God is telling me to do. I need to get up BEFORE my son and have my QT. The specific time I heard from the Lord was 6:30am. For some of you that is a normal day…maybe earlier. For me…this is a HUGE deal and the Lord knows it. Why do this, you may ask? I’ll tell you…

The verse above says if I fear the Lord and walk in HIS ways it will spill over into my wife and my children. I need to be the one leading this family in to the new day the Lord has given us…not my 4 year old! When my kids wake up and stumble in to the T.V. room I want them to see their dad already awake, reading his bible, praying, and taking this being a follower of Jesus thing SERIOUSLY. I want my wife to see her husband conquering something that is very hard for him and doing it because he loves Jesus and this family more than himself.

Men, we need to continually be stepping up our game to lead our families. Next to loving Jesus, this is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN OUR LIVES! Not your job, not your ministry…let’s make THEM our job and ministry!

favor to you,

Nate

I was born and raised in the country of Southwestern Ohio until I was 13. When I say country I mean farms, vast skies, fields of different arrays of crops, and simple country people as family. I just got back yesterday from visiting family I haven’t seen in 10 plus years. It was a great trip, many highlights, but here is one that took the cake for me.

That is my Uncle Randy. We had a fish fry at and he and my Aunt Denise’s farm house. They don’t drink wine often so they didn’t own a corkscrew….this was Uncle Randy’s solution. I was amazed at his resourcefulness! After he was finished he confidently said, “that’s how we do it in the country”. I love my family!!!

nate