Some things I learned from Dad

A few weeks ago, at around 5:30 in the morning I got the call that my Dad had passed away after a long and brave fight to recover from a heart attack. We knew his time here was coming to an end so Gail and I were able to be in New York with him for his last few days. Throughout his life, Dad was the most powerful and inspiring man that I ever knew and even through his recovery, while stuck in bed, he remained an imposing force that charmed [or frightened] every doctor, nurse and therapist he encountered. This week we would have celebrated both Mom and Dad's seventy-third birthdays but instead we are still grieving Mom and now Dad. This loss is simply indescribable because his life, and therefore my life have been indescribable too. As I walk through this time in my life, I find myself reflecting on what I've learned from my Dad, including but not limited to:

• How to be a gracious host. Dad [and Mom] made people feel at home and welcomed
• How to make the house look like nobody had been there - even after a large party Dad was able to eliminate any evidence of that party within minutes. It was amazing.
  
• How to make amazing pancakes. Okay, it's Bisquick, but he taught me how to make them a special event filled with love and joy and I now carry on that tradition with my family.
  
• How to completely lose my mind when I can't find a hammer - or some such thing. Okay, so this isn't a good lesson, but he also taught me how to regain composure.
• He taught me how to forgive. I screwed up more than my share, sometimes my screw-ups hurt Dad. In no instance did he ever show signs that it was hard to forgive. Ever.
• He taught me how to be strong. In Mom's final days he carried me and my brothers and sisters through the darkest hours we ever knew.
• He taught me that "if you look like you know what you're doing, people will leave you alone". He led us into amazing experiences because he was unafraid to venture into things that most would have been intimidated by. The great stories are endless!
  
• He taught me that having money, or not having it did not have to change you.
  
• I could go on and on, but I'll close with my favorite thing I learned from him. His sister tells a story from when Dad was first dating Mom. I should say that this was the 1950's and Dad was Fonzie, the coolest cat in town. He was into his share of mischief but he didn't hurt people and he had a sense of humor beyond description. So my Aunt was walking along the street one afternoon and she saw her super cool older brother walking on the other side of the street holding hands with his new girlfriend. She waved excitedly at her big bro and without hesitation he raised up his hand, the one still holding the hand of his future wife, and waved back, publicly showing his love. Dad taught me how to love my wife publicly. He danced with Mom in the kitchen, said he loved her, wrote her notes, there was never any doubt about who was his queen - for more than fifty years.

Part of me is sad right now, in fact most of me is sad but at my heart level, my very core I am so grateful for the life I led with the greatest Dad, Mom and brothers and sisters imaginable. I'm so thankful that I have wonderful memories shining through the grief and they enable me to smile and find some joy in this dark season.

Momentum

As 2012 continues, we have an exciting opportunity to capitalize on the momentum created by renewed commitments and resolutions to be more involved in church. Services at Rock Bridge Chatsworth have been incredible and we've already seen exciting growth for this young year. Here are some things that are contributing to and will help continue the momentum:

• Praying. This is everything, apart from Jesus, we are doing nothing.
• Inviting. People are inviting their friends and it is paying off. I have met several people already this year that were at Rock Bridge Chatsworth because of friends inviting them.
  
• Loving. We are doing an amazing job of taking care of each other. I have several examples of how we are 'being the church' to the people around us.
  
• Welcoming. We are doing a great job of making people feel welcomed in our services, may we never lose sight of the significance of this!
  
• Reaching. Upcoming Church activities include Staff-appreciation day at Bagley Middle School on January 23rd. Foster Family Appreciation Day on February 25th [details pending] and a special Easter event to be announced soon!

Thank you for what you are doing to build on this momentum, let's continue to pray, invite, welcome, love and reach out to people so we can share God's love with our community.

Victory!

As we launch into this new year I want to share Psalm 100 with you.

1 Shout triumphantly to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Serve the LORD with gladness;
come before Him with joyful songs.
3 Acknowledge that Yahweh is God.
He made us, and we are His[a] —
His people, the sheep of His pasture.
4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving
and His courts with praise.
Give thanks to Him and praise His name.
5 For Yahweh is good, and His love is eternal;
His faithfulness endures through all generations.


Note the following words/phrases:

• Shout triumphantly
• Serve with gladness
• Come before Him with joyful songs
• Yaweh [The Lord] is God
• He Made us
• We are His
• Thanksgiving
• Praise
• Yaweh is good... and His love is eternal
• His faithfulness endures...

I say all this to remind us all that we can move forward shouting triumphantly... serving gladly with joyful songs... knowing He is God... that He made us and we are His. That we can, and should, enter His gates with thanksgiving and praise, giving Him thanks and praise for He is Good, His love is FOREVER.

Let's enter His courts this new year without fear or worry. God is still good and we are still His and our goal remains strong - to lead people to Jesus.

State of the church...

In 2009, we began the process of launching the Chatsworth campus of Rock Bridge Community Church. Based on what we read and learned through the wisdom of churches that pioneered multi-site church ministry we set a goal of being financially 'self-sustaining' at our two year anniversary and began the work of finding a location, purchasing equipment and hiring staff.

As our first staff hire, Matt Goss has served as our worship leader at a level above and beyond what we could ever have believed and his influence has touched everyone in our church. He's laughed with us, done setup and breakdown a zillion times and led us to the throne of God on Sunday mornings. He's visited hospitals, funeral homes and prayed with us. He even took time out of his crazy life as a pilot to visit my mom in New York during the last days of her life. His title is worship leader, but his role cannot be summed up in a title.

Later, as we made our way along the road of Rock Bridge Chatsworth, we hired Daniel Kiser to lead our Student Ministry. Daniel has done an amazing job, his leadership team has grown, he has developed strong relationships with the adult leaders and students while leading them toward a deeper walk with Jesus. He too has served beyond his 'job description'.

Now, as our two year anniversary approaches we see that God has blessed our efforts with strong attendance, salvations, baptisms and small groups. Friendships have forged that will likely last throughout our whole lives, giving support and love as we go. We have not however been able to reach our goal of being financially self-sufficient and our church leadership has spent endless hours praying and seeking God's help to know what to do next. Should we forgo the wisdom to be financially stable and continue needing the financial support of our Dalton campus or should we make changes to reach that goal?

After much prayer, we feel led to make changes to get our campus on a more solid financial foundation. We then began conversations on how to do that and after exhaustive discussion and even more prayer we've made the difficult decision to eliminate both Daniel's role as student minister and Matt's role as worship leader. I cannot overstate that these decisions did not include any kind of moral or ethical or performance failure, they were a sad product of where our financial world is today.

This raises many emotions and questions so this Sunday, after we finish our church service, we will provide a lunch and Matt Evans will be joining us at Bagley for lunch and a time for questions and answers but I do want to address a few things here.

• Is this the end of Rock Bridge Chatsworth? No. This is a challenge, but we feel very strongly that God has us here to stay and our commitment is strong, so strong that we will make hard decisions to make sure we can continue for the long haul.
• Will we have quality worship or student ministry without staff to lead it? Yes. Student ministry will continue the A.B.S. groups we have and we pray for God to grow this effort. As for worship, our band will continue to play and Lori Beth Edgeman, along with our Dalton worship staff will carry this load. Long term solutions are wide open and can be further discussed on Sunday but it is safe to say that many great ministries are led by volunteers.
  
• If we are 'one church in many locations', why don't we forgo being self-sufficient and use the tithe's from the people in Dalton to meet our needs? There is much to talk about here, and Matt Evans will be able to do that, but a key point is our desire to be a good example of Biblical stewardship.
  
• Were we over-staffed for a church our size, and if so, why? Yes. As a church of 150, the typical staff would be 1 to 1.5. We 'staffed for growth' based on faith and models we saw at the time.
  
• Will this move allow us to do community outreach? Yes. Our budget includes funds to do 3-5 major outreach events.
• Why were these positions eliminated instead of others or something else altogether? We considered endless options. In these cases we discovered that we can continue ministry through either current staff or volunteers and more importantly, we believe that this is the way God would have us go.
• Gus, how do you feel about this? My heart is broken. Matt and Daniel are friends and this has been hard but I am certain that even through our pain, our obedience here will lead to amazing things in our future - for all of us.
• Will we refill these positions when our funds change? Our future staffing decisions will be based on our needs at the time. As a volunteer driven church we want to model the Ephesians 4 plan for each of us to do what we are gifted to do.
  

This is a lot to take in so if you have questions or concerns, please join us for lunch and Q & A after church at Bagley on Sunday and ask whatever questions you may have.

Excelling in Giving [From Matt Evans]

Some exciting stuff from Matt Evans blog:

Last year our church approved a faith-based budget of $3.2 million dollars. This budget was born out of prayer and a vigorous pursuit of wisdom. We doubled the amount of money we invested in local and international missions. We sought to wisely and adequately fund our own ministries for worship, children, students, discipleship, and day-to-day operations.

Even with the troubles in our local economy, we have seen our weekly giving increase this year! However, we are still falling short of our budget by around $2000 per month. Because we have some reserve funds and some built-in margin, we are not in a crisis. We can easily adjust our spending to handle this shortfall, but that means cutting back on some investments to which we believe God has called us.

We believe this is an opportunity for us to “excel in the grace of giving” as Paul encourages churches to do in 2 Corinthians 8:7. So rather than back down and reduce our budget for the remainder of the year, our Elders believe we can rise up and exceed our budget by finishing strong in this last quarter of 2011! Here’s how:

The $10-$50 Plan

Our church currently has about 1400 giving units (a giving unit could be one person or an entire family). If each of those giving units increased their monthly giving by $10 to $50 we would easily meet and even begin to exceed our budget goals!

So we are asking anyone with an income to prayerfully seek to raise your current monthly giving by between $10 to $50.
Think about it this way: over 30 days that represents about 3-5 gallons of gas, 3 Starbucks’ coffee drinks, or 1 movie ticket!!

If you have never given consistently to God’s church, then would you prayerfully consider starting to give around $10-$50 per month? This is a simple way for you to begin giving regularly and begin to experience God’s leadership over your finances.

Remember: it is simple and easy to set-up online giving directly from your checking account (called “E-Give”). You can sign-up directly from our web site by clicking here.

If we as a church take this step together, a few things will happen:

1-We will meet and could even exceed our 2011 budget!!

2-We will be more like Jesus by becoming more generous (2 Corinthians 8:9).

3-We will resist the pull of complacency, instead experiencing the thrill and joy of being open to God’s direction and leadership in our lives (2 Corinthians 2:14).

4-God will be more glorified as we invest in His Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20) and kingdom work locally and globally.

Thank you for being a part of what God is doing at Rock Bridge! We know God is moving and we know that He is providing through the generous hearts of His people!

**If you have no income, are unemployed or under-employed and need assistance, please allow your church family to help. Financial counseling and/or assistance with groceries or other basic needs are available and part of our budget to minister to those in our church family who are experiencing tough times.

Update on Beth Evans - from Matt's Blog

From Mattevans.cc:

Been great to be back home and at Rock Bridge!! I love our church! Yet my heart is so with Beth in NYC, and as y’all have again shown me, your prayers are with her and our family in a “big” way. Thank you so much!!

Beth just finished “Skype-ing” with our boys and she is looking great and feeling stronger. She has had several good days in a row both in how she feels and what the doctors are observing. The mucus problem in her throat (which is making eating difficult) seems to be a result of a fungus that took root in the dead Epstein-Barr virus tissues (that thing causes problems even after it dies!). Thankfully, some infectious-disease specialists were able to pinpoint this likely culprit. So with some changes in her medicines, we are hopeful this latest challenge will be overcome soon. While we wait, the G-Tube is doing its job so Beth is getting nutrition and feeling better.

So we are cautiously optimistic that she is turning a corner. Her counts are very strong and there are new signs (from her latest labs) that her immune system is maturing and getting closer to full capacity. However, we are not there yet, we must remain careful and vigilant … but we are very thankful for where we are today.

Update from New York

The last few days have been indescribable. They are wrapped around two weeks containing several 'anniversaries' related to the last month of my mom's life... It was a year ago last week, after learning mom was sick, that Gail and I spent a week with Mom and Dad and my brothers and sisters. It was a year ago Sunday, the day after we returned home to Georgia, that mom went into the hospital for what ended up being the last month of her life and it was a year ago today that Gail and I returned to NY to spend our last days with her. On that day we met Dad and brothers/sisters at a local diner and the last few weeks have had me reflecting a lot on losing mom but also reflecting on her amazing life and my amazing family. I remember so clearly sitting in that diner, so scared and yet finding peace with this amazing group.

That said, I must return to my initial statement: "The last few days have been indescribable." In part because of the memories of last year, but sadly, it is made worse because of what happened THIS weekend. As I was walking into church for our 9:15 service, I happened to check my cell phone, which I rarely do any time after 8:00am, and I saw that one of my sisters had called. The timing scared me as I knew she'd not likely call at that time unless something was wrong. I tried to check the message and due to the limited service in the building, the message was cut off. I was out of time so I headed to the stage to make some announcements and then ran outside to check the message. "Dad has had a major heart attack" was the message.

I got my sister on the phone, got some details and informed her that I did not know how to respond, so I'll go ahead and freak out. I informed Gail and eventually the church and soon Gail and I were on the road, again rushing to NY to visit a parent in trouble. I began to wonder which of my brothers/sisters was having this nightmare and why did I have to be included in their terror, reliving the worst moments of our lives. I even pinched one of my brothers to try and wake him up to end this horror.

It did not work.

So here I am, sitting in a hospital waiting room with many emotions and realize I've left a bunch of amazing friends in Georgia with little information so here is where we are:

• Dad is very strong and fighting a good fight.
• He is in an induced coma to help him rest while on a ventilator
• There is an infection that NEEDS to go away
• His Blood pressure is good without medicine - a BIG DEAL!

A few prayer needs:

• His oxygen levels to rise
• His infection and fever to be ELIMINATED
• His blood sugar to get where it needs to be
• For him to get free of medications that are affecting his kidneys
• For me and the brothers/sisters to have strength and wisdom

I'm out for now.