A summer of change...

Well keeping in my normal fashion of only writing blogs when I stumble upon some fascinating tibit or when some major change happens in my life, here's another post about change.

For those of you who know me I have been working my way through various management positions at BJs wholesale club for the past 5 years now. It has been rewarding, chalenging and fun, but it has also come to an end. I decided recently to make a change and take on a new opportunity which you will soon hear about at another time but the reasons for the change are simple, closer to home and a better work life balance. It will make it easier for me to be home and spend time with my growing family. That's right in case you missed it earlier, Rachel and I are expecting a baby due in early March and we couldn't be more thrilled! (That's change number two) amidst the hustle and bustle of preparing for a new life to enter our family, and preparing to change jobs, Rachel and I encountered something very unexpected... As many of you know Rachel and I did not live in our house alone. Shortly after purchasing our house three years ago we also bought a bearded friend, sawyer. He was a rambunctious, energetic, and sometimes annoying german wired haired pointer. We did everything that we thought we needed to do for this dog, gave him love, played with him, and exercised him. It wasn't enough. Shortly after finding out Rachel was pregnant we started realizing that we had allowed him to "rule the roost" and we knew we needed to change that before the baby came. Unfortunately he wasn't so willing to change and started to act out and show signs of aggression. Knowing that we could not have him around a baby acting like that we contacted the breeder, who had warned us about these dogs and their tendencies to be dominant if you let them, and she willingly took him back. It was by far the toughest thing I have ever had to do in my life. To feel like I failed this dog. He was apart of our family for 3 years and now he is not. Those of you who are dog owners will completely understand where I am coming from and those who are not, well, get a dog and you'll see. Since this all happened Rachel and I have found our ways to deal with the pain of losing a best friend. The easiest way for me to deal with it is by just knowing that the decision we made was what was best for us and for sawyer. Knowing that he is with someone who is very good with these dogs also helps. 

Getting ready to have a baby has changed the way I look at life. No longer and I simply a husband, but I am going to also be a father, a protector, a mentor, and a teacher. It's scary and exciting all at the same time! Am I ready? No, but I'm learning. Am I going to enjoy this next challenge? You better believe it!

One aspect of my study of 1 Timothy... more to come I am sure

So its been a while since my last post. I am trying hard to not follow my trend of only blogging when I am on vacation but it is proving to be a challenge. As you know I am not a highly educated man so I make many grammatical errors. Also I am not an expert in the scriptures so I welcome anyone reading this to question my thinking or studies. My latest blog will not be so much a rambling as it is more of a study that I have been doing. I have been challenged recently to start reading scripture in a new way. It is good to read the Bible but whats better is to study the Word so you can better know God our Creator. Currently (by currently I mean within the past two weeks) I have been looking at 1 Timothy. Why? well 1 Timothy is a pastoral letter written by the Apostle Paul to timothy who would be taking over Paul's mission in starting up and training the early Church. I don't think that I have ever read these books in context before. Look at it this way, 1 Timothy is like an e-mail from Paul that was sent to Timothy, who was likely frustrated and very concerned with the conditions of the church in Ephesus. He was dealing with all kinds of struggles and challenges from Order of worship, roles in the church, unruly church goers and false teachers.Paul was also showing Timothy how to set the church up with a leadership that would be able to continue the work after Timothy would leave, otherwise known today as succession planning. it is interesting to me to read

"11 Let a woman learn quietly owith all submissiveness. 12 pI do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. 13 qFor Adam was formed first, rthen Eve; 14 and Adam was not deceived, but sthe woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15 Yet she will be saved throughtchildbearing—if they continue in ufaith and love and holiness, with self-control."

To many people this is a topic that turns many away from Christianity. This is also something that has split many churches, even destroyed churches. It is a difficult subject and touchy one at that. I do not want to dwell on this topic however I feel it is of great importance because many women and men in the church miss this. Paul doesn't just stop at the fact that women should not be in authority over men, he brings up the order of creation. Why? because if you look at Genesis 2:18 it says that "it is not good for a man to be alone I will make a helper fit for him." Have you ever thought about that? A helper? Paul makes it a point to bring this out because while women are not to be in authority over men they are there to help the man. The weight of Pastoral Leadership is incredibly heavy to the point that many pastors will quit or give up on preaching. God sent us a helper so that we would have someone their to encourage us and to lift us up. Look also at  Titus 2: 3-5

"3 qOlder women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, rnot slanderers sor slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, tpure, uworking at home, kind, and vsubmissive to their own husbands, wthat the word of God may not be reviled."

Women should be teaching in the church now more than ever! Godly women should be teaching younger women how to love. Society has twisted the way that women are viewed in the eyes of men. Young girls are taught that they need to be covered in the latest clothes and make-up while that is not the case. Young girls should be taught to respect themselves and respect men. Just as older men should be teaching younger men to not treat women as objects but with respect. Before I go to far off on rabbit trails be clear with this. Women are important parts to the church. Women were created as more loving and more sensitive than men. Women should be helping their husbands and pushing their husbands to be better men. When you are married the two become one. As the women prays for and pushes her husband to be closer to God she is also strengthening themselves. Just because a woman is not supposed to preach or teach over men does not mean that they are useless to the church. 

As I close this post, remember I do not claim to know it all about this topic or really any topic in scripture I am learning and I pray that by me posting this it will spur others on to dig into the Word and learn. I leave you with the doxology  from Jude:

" eNow to him who is able fto keep you from stumbling and gto present you hblameless before the presence of his glory with great joy,  to ithe only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, jbe glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen."

Thoughts and frustrations...true ramblings and run-ons

I have come to realize recently that there is a HUGE difference from attending church and being involved in church. Many people today want a church where the music is modern and the preaching is deep and impacting. I see this as a good thing. Where things start to bother me is that I feel many times people attend these churches to feel better about themselves. They can tell their friends and coworkers that their church is feeding the needy or their church is doing this or doing that in the city/neighborhood but what are THEY doing as attenders of the church? Church was never designed to be a get together or party or a place where people sit, sing, and listen and not act. Church was meant for people to learn and to teach others how to become more like Christ. Please tell me once where Christ said "look at all these things that my followers are doing? Isn't it wonderful?" Nope, instead he taught others how to serve, to spend every waking moment praising God and serving others. If you are going to church to feel good about yourself you're doing it wrong.
Remember high school?  Remember saying why do I need to learn this I will never use this... well guess what you do need it and you will use it. Have you ever sat in church and said why am I learning this I won't use this? Probably not. Why? because that would make us look bad and make us look like we are not living a life worthy of being called a christian. Well we may never outwardly say that but in reality it gets said all the time! I am guilty of it and so are you. When was the last time you volunteered to serve on a ministry team to feed the homeless, participate in a prayer walk, or even just walk the streets and talk to strangers at the bus stop about God? I bet it wasn't recently. Sure when the church makes announcements about needing volunteers at the soup kitchen you may help out every once and a while, but why are we waiting to be asked nay begged to help? This should be automatic. If the church today was truly acting as a group of "little Christs" then we should never have to ask for volunteers. People would be banging down the doors trying to help. Why isn't this way? Status. People today don't want to get "dirty" talking or working with people "less than they are" because of what other people may think. It makes me sick to think about this because I have found myself to be this way at times but also because majority of people in church today are this way. Thinking about all of this makes me wonder what God really thinks of the church today as a whole. Is He pleased with our overall performance? I don't know... probably more to come at a later date on this subject but I am rambling on and not being very grammatically correct now and its bothering me so I will end.

Another vacation come to close

Well it's been about four months since my last entry. A lot has changed since April. I had a birthday, we've made some renovations on our house, I finally got back to working days again, and most importantly my wife and I had decided that its time for change. As we both sit on our front porch of our quaint little house in the sleepy town of Pen Argyl we discuss the future and what it may hold for us, I smoke my Rocky Patel java cigar and contemplate our life changes. I have come to realize that I am more ready now than ever to pack up and leave this area. Where are we going might you ask? Well it seems our hearts are set on North Carolina. Some may say, why there? Why so far away? What about your family? Well to answer all of these questions in one sentence, I don't know. The only thing that I do know is that Rachel and I have prayed and prayed about where God would lead us as a family and North Carolina, Raleigh-Durham area to be more precise, seems to be our best fit. With Rachel finishing up her masters and becoming a Nurse Practitioner this is a perfect area for her career being that it is the research triangle of NC. For me I work in retail and if I can't get a transfer down there, well, as long as there is a grocery store or some kind of retail market I will be able to find work. Also with NC being in the Bible Belt of America there are plenty of churches that are hiring worship pastors and there is plenty of opportunity for me to use the gifts that God has given me.

Now to address the hardest part of this decision, leaving family. This part is difficult to address for me. Yes I did go to college for a year in Virginia however I made MANY weekend trips home where I could spend time with my family. This move will be difficult for me especially in this light. I will not be able to make as many trips home to see my family. My parents have talked about moving as well but due to the fact that my brother and his kids don't plan on moving yet, I don't see them following after us. Will I miss them? Absolutely. Will it keep me from moving south? No. With exception to getting married three years ago, I have never felt as strong or at peace about moving south. Rachel and I would appreciate your prayers over the coming months as we make final renovations to put our house on the market and hopefully sell before we move. The plan as of right now is that Rachel graduates in July and we are hoping to be ready and able to move sometime next August or September. This gives us a year to get our house situated and begin looking for a place down there. A lot has to happen between now and then and yes things ultimately could change and God could lead us elsewhere but as for now this seems to be the plan that has been laid out before us and it is the plan that we are following. I hope you enjoyed this little update on our life, and stay tuned for further updates.

Vacations end...

So here I sit on Friday before I have to go back to work after a week off. I have come to realize just how much stress and frustration our current situation puts on us. Being able to spend this time wife my wife has been great. We celebrated her birthday with a surprise party on Wednesday, which was a huge success, we got all of the projects done that we wanted too and we were able to spend quality time together. Now as we go back to our work and school schedule I realize that it will all just go back to the way it was where we wont see each other for more than two or three hours a day, unless she is working that day which limits it down to about an hour. Some people are more equipped for working nights and honestly I have been able to adjust my body to working overnight and do enjoy the work mainly because I don't have to deal with the customers. What is the purpose of this blog entry you may be asking? Well basically just to say that I thoroughly enjoy spending time with my wife and I wish that I had a job which allowed me to spend more time with her, however the place that we are at in our lives we are not there and this vacation has made me realize how much more I need to continue working on improving my current situation to give my wife and I a better quality of life, and not financially either.

Where to turn?

So I have been reflecting a lot lately about life and my career. When I was in high school I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was called by God into ministry. I knew that it was where I would find peace and happiness serving Him through a career. The years went by and I soon neglected that calling. I got wrapped up into the parties and drinking and doing a lot of things that I thought were a whole lot of fun, at the time. I graduated High school in 2005. It wasn't until last year that I really felt God saying to me that I had fallen away from Him and that if I was still going to serve Him that I would need to get my life back on track. Now since I had wasted 3 years of college with nothing to show for it except for some bad grades and even worse habits, I knew that getting my life back on track wouldn't be easy. As I said before it was last year that I felt God calling me to ministry. I didn't know how or what that would look like but I knew it was what I am supposed to do. I dusted off my resume which hadn't been touched since I was hired at BJs Wholesale Club in Allentown, PA, and submitted it for consideration for a Worship Pastors position at our church. I knew it was a long shot due to my lack of education in the area but I truly felt that God was saying it is time, so I did. I went through the interview process and afterwards was talking to other church members and was feeling very encouraged about it. I felt that this really was where God wanted me and that this was my time. My wife and I prayed about it and both had a peace about the whole situation. It was a while until I got the phone call and I can remember it to a "T". We were driving home from my parents house and as I was driving I got the phone call. "Hello?" "Josh after consideration and prayer the search committee has come to the conclusion that we will not be including you in our final selection for the worship pastor position." He asked if I had any question or wanted to meet to discuss their reasons. I quickly said No and ended the conversation. My heart was broken. Anyone who knows me and I mean really knows me, knows that my heart is in worship ministry. I truly felt that God was saying Josh this is your chance to prove to me that you will do what I have been calling you to do for so long now. It was a very difficult next couple of months for me, wrestling with the questions of , is the really what God wants for me or not. I wasn't sure to be honest. Deep in my heart I knew the answer I just didn't know how to get there. I still don't know how I am going to get there. The only thing that I do know is that every day my wife and I pray that God would mold me into the man that he wants me to be and that he would open the doors for me to be able to step into full time ministry if it is his will. Recently God did open a door. I was approached and asked if I would be able to take leadership of one of the worship teams at the church. In that discussion I said I would yet I was unsure how it would work with my work schedule in the future. Currently I work overnight so it makes it somewhat easier to be consistently at church. But if I ever go back to working days it would make it very difficult due to me having to work Saturdays when our worship team plays. God has been teaching me patience and faithfulness through all of this. Teaching me that if I continue to look to Him for the answers that He will provide and that I need to trust in His perfect plan an Perfect timing. I know He is still calling me to full time ministry. I don't know when or where but I am content in knowing that if I lean on Him He will guide me.

Here we go!

So I always said that I would never get into this blogging thing yet I have realized over the past few months that I really should start a journal to help me remember things that I have discovered or things that I feel I just need to write down. I will try to update this often but I know how my life goes and I probably won't be able to keep up with it.