Thumbs Up

Thumbs are really important and I think I always took mine for granted until I nearly lost one. For the last week, I have had my right hand wrapped up because I tried my best to cut my thumb off (which I do not recommend) while carrying in a prop for last Sunday morning. I rushed to the hospital that morning and made it back in time for the last 2 songs of the first service. Big props to the habersham ER who got me in and out in a little over an hour.
Anyways... this week has taught me a valuable lesson. Never underestimate the value of a good thumb. Texting is a much harder task now as well as taking a shower... typing this blog... using the remote... carrying anything... working out... and the most important thing I do in a day... holding a microphone is even a chore. (I guess I'll have to hire someone to walk around with me on sunday mornings and hold the microphone up to my mouth.)
So in closing... everyone love your thumbs. Remind them today how important they are and how much you appreciate all they do. Who knows... tomorrow you may cut one off trying to bring a recliner in the back door of the church.
Seacrest out.

Restoring Worship

Having trouble getting past the ceiling with your worship?

I have to be honest and say that there have been times when I felt like my prayers and worship were going nowhere but to the wall. Worship is my lifeline... its my release... its my strength and if I dont have that, I feel completely... incomplete. Some of you probably know what I mean. Teachers teach, preachers preach, singers sing, artists.. well they art (who knows what they do), builders build, worshippers worship. This is who these people are. Worship has always been my passion since I discovered what it was and the power and accessibility that is given to us through it. This is why when I find myself struggling to get God's attention its time for immediate action. I dont think I can live without worship and guess what, God doesn't want me to.

Worship is not only something that moves me. Worship moves God. It is not a request, it is mandated by God. An no it is not a selfish move to demand worship when you are the biggest and most amazing thing in the universe. I like what Tommy Tenney said... "God has this crazy idea that church is supposed to be all about Him."


Picture this... God's people have been in exile and captivity in Babylon. For years they have been out of their comfort zone and have been in a place where they could not receive a word from God. (man that'll preach huh?) They have lost their ability to worship because they have no idea what true worship is. Surely the old timers remember what it was like to see the tangible presence of God. They knew what it was like to receive assurance that they were in the presence of YHWH. They must have been miserable to have lost that.


Well now the exile is over and slowly the people are being released to go back to their home, to the land of their promise. The first thing God does is send Zerrubabel to rebuild the foundations. The foundation of their physical lives, the structure that would hold their homes, the temple, the shops. The foundation of the city had to be built before anything else could be. Guess what was second... you got it WORSHIP. God sent this man named Ezra to restore worship. Worship is the foundation of our spiritual lives. If God was gonna have a people, they were gonna be worshippers. They had been away from the teaching of God's word for so long, they had no idea how to worship. But Ezra uncovered this major problem that would hinder these people from being able to worship God properly. They were married to something that God had told them to stay away from.


God had instructed them not to marry outside of the holy race but they did anyway. They were living in direct disobedience to God, so even if Ezra instructed them how to worship, their worship would only get ceiling high. Long story short... Ezra demanded that they DIVORCE their wives. They had to divorce the thing that had taken precedence over God. Not just a seperation... a divorce. Can you imagine how hard this must have been? These people loved their wives and had built families and lives with these women. How could they just divorce the people they had fallen in love with?


Here's the hard part. Our disobedience has consequences. Maybe if you are experiencing a worship drought its because you're married to something that God can't live with. We all know how it happens... we develop strong relationships with things in our lives and then we are virtually married to them. There's no way we can ever see ourselves living without them. Problem is... while we nurture that relatonship, we neglect our "first love". Whats the first thing to go when we find new "stuff"? Our face time with God. If you're a singer then can you ever remember singing to Jesus, all by yourself, just because...? Musicians... remember going to the basement all by yourself and playing just because you wanted God to hear? Wanna restore worship? Get a divorce from your habits... from your mentalities... from your thoughts... from your sin. A seperation won't cut it. God expects extreme measures when dealing with sin.

Ezra 9:6

"O my God I am too ashamed and disgraced to lift my face to you, my God, because our sins are higher than our heads."

you're in my world now

Well hello world! This is obviously a big day for me. Everyone tell all your friends and make this the most popular blog site in Cornelia GA history. I have no doubt that my fans (Brandon and Wes) will rally behind me and before long I'll be a blogging superstar. Fur reel do... hopefully through this you guys get to laugh and make fun of me a little bit and I get to blow off some steam about how hard it is working with Brandi Wood (she has yelled at me daily to start this).
1st order of business...
Man let me tell you how impressed I am with the new staging and lighting in our church. I have to be honest and admit that I was really nervous to begin with because it was such a big step for us to incorporate more staging and lighting (we're still a small community church trying to expand our borders). I know I made the guys that were installing it nervous because I stressed to them on multiple occasions that we have to remain modest in our approach that first Sunday morning. Well they were even more modest than we normally are but that was a good thing because it gave people a chance to get used to the changes.
The stage changes have really revolutionized our whole sunday morning service and our video broadcast. It brought more life to the platform and more color and quality to the screens. I know I'm A.D.D. anyway but I found myself so much more attentive during the message even because of the fact that I was visually intreagued. Like any change made.. I fully expect some negative comments but for the most part I am so pleased with the transformation and cant wait to do it all over again in a few months... wait a second!