Spring Break

We had a great week with the kids last week. We just spent some time with my parents and LaRissa's dad. Here are some pictures of the kids fishing at LaRissa's dad's cabin in south Arkansas.

As White As Snow

As I sit in my warm kitchen tonight, outside the world is blanketed in eight inches of snow. Everything is a beautiful white.

"Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool."

Another reason to love Texas

Weather in Texas is just awesome.

Last week, we had days with highs in the 80s and I rode around with the windows down on my car.

This week we woke up on Tuesday morning with seven inches of snow on the ground. The kids played in it for a little while before school. By the time they got out of school, the temperature had gotten to the upper 40s and most of the snow had melted. It's great to be able to enjoy snow for a little while and not freeze your tuckus off.

Here are some pictures and a video of Abby. See if you can hear what Abby thinks the snow is.






How great is it to wake up and find the whole world is covered in "ice cream"?

Pre-Discipleship

In their book Breaking the Missional Code, Ed Stetzer and David Putnam point out that emerging generations are taking longer to come to a point of making a commitment to being a follower of Jesus Christ. Many of these people are involved in the life of a church, attending bible study and small group, connecting with believers, and even actively involved in a ministry for six or seven years before they commit to following Christ.

They go on to point out that this extended time of examining the church and Christian faith is actually a good thing:

A number of years ago, we began to observe an interesting trend in many of our new churches that attracted a large number of unreached/unchurched people. It seemed that the longer individuals took to finally go public with their faith, the less likely they were to fall through the cracks or go out the back door. On the other hand, when someone came in and rather quickly expressed a commitment to Christ, they seemed to
disappear just as quickly.

The longer people explore the faith before making a commitment, the greater their commitment. The more they are involved in the life and activities of a Christian community, the greater the likelihood they will stay commited to that community.

For a long time, we have place the emphasis on becoming a Christian at the point of decision. You walk down an aisle, pray a prayer, fill out a card. We emphasize the need to close the deal and want to get people to pray the prayer. But how would it look different and how would it change our methods and our results if we saw evangelism and discipleship as intimately tied to each other, in fact as two sides to the same coin? We tend to think of evangelism as something you do before a person becomes a Christian and discipleship as something you do after a person becomes a Christian. But what if we saw evangelism as pre-discipleship? What if we began "discipling" people before they actually became disciples? Would we see greater commitment and more long term commitment?

After all, Jesus didn't tell us to go into all the world and "make decisions." He said go into all the world and "make disciples." For too long we have tried to get people to make a decision so they will "get saved." But maybe we need to get people to commit not to a one time decision, but to a lifetime of being a Christ-follower.

Arrrrrgh!

I am feeling a bit like Charlie Brown right now.

My wife informs me that someone has been sick at our house since September. There are six of us, and when one of us gets something, it just seems to make its rounds.

I can't remember all of the sickness, but I do know that I came down with some sort of respiratory infection the week before Christmas, and I am pretty sure it turned into pneumonia. I broke a rib from coughing so hard. Not fun.

My oldest daughter, Grace, had pneumonia, and it took about three weeks for her to recover from that. Now, my middle daughter, Katie, has had a cough for about three weeks. This weekend, my son, James, ran fever and complained of a sore throat; and yesterday, the baby, Abby, started running a fever.

On top of all that, we are trying to get our house ready to put on the market. So, we are pretty exhausted right now. Be in prayer for the Kemp family.

Here Am I, Send Me

The family and I have some big news about our future. About two years ago, LaRissa and I began praying about how God wanted to use us, seeking his direction for our future and our ministry. We first began to sense God telling us to get ready because he was going to call us to something different than anything we had been involved in to this point. So we continued praying, seeking to align our hearts with God's heart, and ready ourselves for whatever God was calling us to.

As we continued to pray, we began exploring some opportunities and looking at different possibilities for our ministry service, but none of the possibilities seemed to be quite right. Some doors closed and some opened that didn't seem to be the right decision. So, we just continued to seek God and allow ourselves to be molded and shaped into the people he wanted us to be.

In our prayers, we came to a point of complete surrender to God. We told God that we were available to be used by him whenever, wherever, however, and whatever, and that we would just wait for him to make known to us what he wanted us to do. We affirmed to God that the minute he did make that known to us that we would answer yes to him.

Well, about eight months ago, God began to clarify and confirm for us the direction that he was taking us in ministry. Finally, about six months ago, God clearly revealed to me exactly what he wanted us to do. I was in a meeting where the speaker was telling about the importance of church planting and various models for planting churches.

At that time, I felt God tap me on the shoulder and say, "That's what I want you to do." Now, God speaks to different people in different ways, and the way that God ordinarily speaks to me is through inward urgings and tugs at my heart. (I know that sounds very mystical and maybe a little vague, but that's the best way I can explain it.) But this day, God spoke to me with those specific words: "That's what I want you to do." So, I looked around to see if somebody had said something to me. Nope. So, I said, "Say what?" Really spiritual, huh? And God said again but more clearly, "I want you to go into church planting."

So, I went home that afternoon, walked through the door, and said to my awesome, beautiful, amazing wife, "I think God is calling me into church planting." Now, I've heard all the horror stories about wives' responses to a statement like that, but my wife says to me, "Yeah, I can see that." Over the next several months I began to seek wise counsel and continued to find confirmation of the call and affirmation of how God had worked in my life to prepare me for this.

To make a long story short, I am now connected with a church planting network, and will be planting a church in Anna, TX. Anna is currently the fasting growing city in north central Texas. It has experienced a 177% growth rate over the last six years. We will be planting with the North American Mission Board and the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

The target kick-off Sunday for the new church is September 7, 2008. We will begin intensive work in the community in Anna in May.

We want and need you to be involved in this church planting process. First and foremost, we desperately need your prayers. This is a God-sized task, and it will not happen unless he works in amazing ways. Pray for our family. Pray for workers to help us. Pray for people in the Anna community that they would be receptive to the good news. Pray for our financial support. We also want your blessing. We also need people to actively be involved. We will be doing door-to-door surveying, block parties, community service projects, preview services, you name it. We need people to help us be the hands and feet of Jesus with us.

If you would like to learn more details about the church plant, I will be posting that information on a new blog: www.blazingthetrail.blogspot.com.

This Has Got to Be Effective!

I saw this truck in the Target parking lot this week. If you look closely, you will notice that one of the figurines glued to the top of the truck is the Grim Reaper holding a baby in his hands.


Also, take a look at the face of the guy walking by the truck in the background of the second picture. And, the red Target cart is reflected in the puddle under the truck, which makes it look like the truck is bleeding.

I affectionately refer to this as the Catholic Anti-abortionmobile.

I cannot recommend highly enough Mark Batterson's book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. The premise of the book is basically that some of the biggest obstacles in our lives, some of the most difficult situations, are opportunities for God to work in our lives in incredible ways. It's easy to read and incredibly inspiring.

M & M Shawn

My girls and I m&menized myself. Click here to check it out.

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus

In 1897, Francis P. Church wrote the following editorial as a response to an eight-year-old little girl's question. It has since become the most reproduced editorial in newspaper history and is a Christmas classic. It is also a stunning commentary on the modern era.

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. "Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. "Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.' "Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?"VIRGINIA O'HANLON."115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH
STREET.

"VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All
minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus.
He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry,
no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished. Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in
fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.You may
tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture
the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times
ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

A Suggestion for Those Wanting to "Go Green"

"Going green" is a really hot buzz topic right now. I don't know why, but for some reason I got to thinking last night about one of the ways that some of my old, widowed, great aunts and great-great aunts conserved energy when I was a kid.

Now, understand, they did this not out of a sense of responsibility for the environment, but because they were on a fixed income and needed to save money. Also, understand that I grew up in rural Arkansas, which is a little bit different (note the vast understatement) than the rest of America.

Several of my aunts conserved energy by living in two rooms of their house. They had their kitchen, which they did not heat, and their bedroom/living area. This was the only room that the heated. And they never used air conditioning. When you went to visit them, they had a little sitting area, but in the background was their bed. They usually heated the room with a little gas heater.

Maybe we could conserve energy by following their lead in our homes and using less space.

Oh, well, that's what was on my mind this morning.

Been a Long Time Since They Rock and Rolled

Led Zeppelin, some would argue the greatest rock and roll band of all time, reunited for the first time in over twenty years last night at a benefit concert in London. Does this mean more from the band? We can only hope so.

For the Love of Cornhole

Cornhole is a game that my family and I have enjoyed over the last seven years. It is decently popular in North Texas.

Here is a tribute to that great sport: http://www.rhettandlink.com/videos/the-cornhole-song

Virtual Church

Earlier this year LifeChurch.tv, a leader in the multi-site church movement, launched a virtual campus and worship experience called Experience Island online at Second Life. Users can explore the campus, participate in a worship service, and connect to XXX Church for help with pornography addiction through their online avatars.

Any thoughts on virtual church?

Is It Just Me?

Or are these the same bands, twenty years apart?