Talking About A Great Book: A Big Godder

The biggest thing that jumped out from the Preface and Chapter 1 was God! But also the fact that I MUST have a big God if I want to have big fulfillment, big impact, and a big life. I don't make God big. He is big. But if I treat him as little I will live a little life. I love the story about Robert Dick Wilson.

One of the students of Princeton Theological Seminary professor Robert Dick Wilson had been invited to preach in Miller Chapel 12 years after his graduation. Dr. Wilson came and sat near the front. When chapel ended, the old professor came up to his former student, cocked his head to one side in his characteristic way, extended his hand, and said, "I'm glad that you're a big-godder. When my boys come back, I come to see if they're big-godders or little-godders. Then I know what their ministry will be."
His former student asked him to explain. Wilson replied, "Well, some men have a little God, and they're always in trouble with Him. He can't do any miracles. He can't take care of the inspiration and transmission of the Scripture to us. He doesn't intervene on behalf of His people. Then, there are those who have a great God. He speaks and it is done. He commands and it stands fast. He knows how to show Himself strong on behalf of them that fear Him. You have a great God; and He'll bless your ministry." He paused a moment, smiled, said, "God bless you," and turned and walked out. (John Huffman in Who's in Charge Here?)

I want to be a big godder. How about ya'll?

Talking About A Great Book: Introduction

This is the beginning of a set of blogs by the elders of Crew. This is who we are: Brian Patton, Chris Haddox, Jason Black, Josh Perry, and Michael Bailey. This is what this can look like: We are reading together The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer. We'll read a chapter a week and then share our thoughts about the chapter. I (Josh) will post my entry and the others will post theirs. We'll question one another, pray for one another and Crew, and hopefully dialogue with you. These won't necessarily be deep or profound. They will be our hearts and our prayers and our challenges and our struggles. We invite you to discover with us who God is and how unbelievably huge He is.

Getting Ready For My Favorite Day

Do you pray all week for the first day of the week? Do you unashamedly and boldly invite people to your church? Do you find it hard to sleep on Saturday night? Do you jump out of bed on Sunday morning? I do! That's not BS either. I really really do. I love Sunday. I love my church. My mom doesn't make me go. I don't go because I have to. I go because I love going to church.

It's not because our music rocks or our teaching is the best or our kids program is so dynamic. It's not because we are a perfect church. Come one Sunday and it'll take you about 1 minute to figure that out. It's not because we've got all the answers.

It's because our people are real and love God. I get to be with a group of men and women who desire to encounter God, be changed by God, and become more like His Son Jesus Christ. I deeply connect with Jesus and about 70 other folks. We laugh...a lot. We cry. We sing some songs to God and then for about half an hour I talk about what the Bible says to our lives. I really really do wake up on Sunday and do what I'd rather do than anything else...Do you? Boy, I hope so.

Love is in the air

Some of you might think that Josh wrote the previous blog because we were in a fight, you know trying to make up with me or something. Well any of you who know us well know that we RARELY fight. He wrote it just because he was overflowing with his passion he has for me! How privileged I am to be able to write that sentence, knowing that I feel the same way for him. I think that being married, God's way, is the most wonderful thing you can experience here on earth.

In our church there are currently 3 engaged couples, I think at least 10 married couples who have a loving relationship and tons of singles. Some dating & goo goo over each other and some still waiting for God to bring someone in their lives or me to try and play matchmaker (my little church hobbie :).

I want to encourage you in whatever stage you are in. Go hard after love. It is worth it. It will let you down now and then, but it is worth the risk of loving. And as long as you and yours are going hard after God together that is what matters most.

High on Love,
Sarah (the most satisfied married women in the world)

God, renew in me a passion for you bigger than the passion I have for Josh. I want that, I need that.

A Few Sentence I Want The World To Read

Many of you who read "real" know my wife Sarah. Some of you don't. I wish you did. Cause she's great. I love her more than a blog could say. So that's all.

"You are altogether beautiful, my darling, and there is no blemish in you." (Song of Solomon 4:7)

"Many waters cannot quench love, nor will rivers overflow it; if a man were to give all the riches of his house for love, it would be utterly despised." (Song of Solomon 7:7)

"My wife is sexy! I'm going to go kiss her on the mouth right now!" (Josh Perry July 22. 2006 @ 7:54pm)

Here's What...

Wow, I can't believe that I haven't posted a blog in over 2 weeks! I haven't been quiet though. Believe me, I've been running my mouth plenty. I wanted to share a little of my experience this past weekend.

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED: Last Sun. evening we had our first baptsim service at Crew Community Church. And like everything Crew does it was a little outside of the box. It wasn't so much a typical service as it was a baptism and a BBQ celebration in one of our member's pool. (Thanks J.R. and Emma!) We had 6 folks publicly declare: "I believe that Jesus Christ is God. I believe He died for my sin. I believe He came back to life. Through faith in Christ, I died and rose again with Him. I received the gift of God's Spirit to change my life. I am a Christian and I am going to follow Jesus Christ." All of that in the beautiful symbol of water baptism.

HERE'S WHAT I FELT: I was pumped that God was using our team to share the message of Christ and people were responding. I also felt privileged that I was getting to take part in such a special, special occasion for these peeps and this chruch. But bubbling up throughout the day was a sense of, I don't know, dread? Fear? Not dread of baptizing people, I loved that. Not a fear of being seen and heard, I'm a public person. But a dread of being misunderstood and a fear of being stereotyped.

HERE'S WHY I FELT IT: There are tons of stereotypes around preachers. They talk wierd. They say goofy stuff like "blessing" and "thee". They turn a monosyllabic word like "God" into "GOOOOOOOOOOOOD". They dress weird. They sometimes have a collar around their neck or wear a robe. They act wierd. People assume they don't go to movies or play cards or dance or chew tobacco or laugh real loud. Before I became a Christian I use to think preachers must iron their underwear! I hate that stuff. And it takes you about 10 minutes to figure out that I'm not that guy. But. But. There are some events and some scenarios that I am unable to break those stereotypes. Not only that, but I end up reinforcing it. Those occasions are weddings and funerals and baptisms. At these events you have people from all walks of life and for some the only time they're in a church or see a pastor. For example, at a wedding I'm expected to say something like, "Dearly beloved we've gathered here...". And everything in me wants to blow that up and do something else, but I can't without ruining someone's wedding. Another example. At funerals I pray with the family which I love doing. I preach a funeral sermon which I love doing. But even then everything is so scripted and seems forced. Don't get me wrong, I feel so honored to be sharing these occasions with families and individuals. It's just that these are events that throw me off a little. I thought here we go, baptisms are going to be another one of those formal official religious events when the pastor does "his thing."

HERE'S HOW IT PLAYED OUT: So with all of that swirling around in my head, I got into the pool. The fact that I was in a pool helped me. I thought this isn't the norm, good. We're all wearing swimming trunks and T-shirts, not robes. Good. I explained in very straight and simple terms what we were doing and why we were dunking people. I did that Sun. morning as well. And then one by one they publicly declared their faith and I baptized them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

HERE'S THE MAIN POINT: Every week in our Treehouse (Sunday Morning Worship Time) our K-5th graders learn a main point to take away for the week. A couple weeks ago it was "It's not about me." I learned that this past week. It's not about me. This was a celebration of new life and the death of an old life. This was declaring Christ's fame in the back yard of 15 Pincrest Drive. This wasn't about robes or me wanting to pronounce a Trinitarian formula. This was about God and what He is doing at Crew and in the lives of Amy, Sunny, Ben, Kaitlin, Chase, and Collin. So shut up and be misunderstood Josh. It's not about you!

Oh, I almost forgot. Right after we finished someone noticed that there was dead mole floating in the pool the whole time! Is that gross or what?!