Indy Cars

Friday I took Caleb to the track in Newton to see the Indy Cars. Thanks to the Bushong family for the tickets and Victor for showing us around. I was amazed on how loud those cars can get. I think Caleb thought it was pretty cool but possibly a little too loud for him. I should have brought him some ear plugs. The top speed while we were there was 182 miles an hour. I can't imagine going that fast! Probaby the best part was we were able to go down to where the cars have their pit stop. It was pretty cool to see the cars up close. I've never been a racing fan it was awesome to see the look on Caleb's face as he got to see some real racing cars for the first time. It was good day all and all.

Scary Thought

I've been thinking about a post from my friend Glenn Reynold's blog; here is what he says'
"Most Christians are a major tragedy away from giving up on their faith. I think it's true. Here's an even scarier thought--Many Christians are a minor inconvenience away from giving up their faith, or at least their church. If something goes wrong in a relationship, if the worship music isn't right, if someone doesn't call them back then they can easily give up church altogether. How do we build more commitment into the hearts of people?"

Good thought! It seems that some people tend to give up on their faith or church because of simple inconveniences. I think Satan sometimes works in the small ways more then the big ways. He knows that if he can get a person offended, busy, or away from the Word and prayer, he has a great advantage of getting people to slip from their faith. As a pastor, I've seen this far too many times. As my friend Glenn said in his blog, "How do we build more commitment in the hearts of people?"

Van Ministry

Today we start our new van ministry to the community. We will start out by offering rides from Monte to Grinnell for those who may need rides for medical appointments once month. This has been a need in our community as many people here do not have the transportation to get to a larger city. We are praying that God will use this to touch people by meeting their physical needs. If you take a look at scripture, you will notice that this is how Jesus often ministered. Jesus often met the needs physically before He met the needs spiritually. For example, Jesus healed the sick, turned water into wine and fed the 5,000. Jesus understood that if you want to touch the heart you must meet the outside physical needs first. As a body, let's look for ways to meet the physical needs of the people around us and as we do this, we will pray that their hearts will be open to the spiritual need as well.

Happy Fathers Day

Yesterday was Father's Day so the family and I went to IA City to celebrate by eating lunch at the Olive Garden and going to the mall. My kids got me a shirt that says coolest dad on it, pretty cool! All in all it was a great day to spend with the family. I hope all you dads out there had a great day as well.

The sickness of Greed

Continuing our series on the sickness within, and my message Sunday was on Greed. We often don't think of greed as being a sickness but Jesus identified it as an issue of the heart. In fact, Jesus taught more about money and possessions then He did faith. I often wonder why people get upset when you talk about money in church when Jesus sure talked about it a whole bunch. Money and possessions can easily consume us. So what is the cure for greed? Naturally it should be giving. Sunday I used the illustration of the cantaloupe. God has given us all cantaloupe. (Some large piles, some medium, and some small.) The pile of cantaloupe doesn't matter, what matters is what you are doing with it. God says to give a portion of your cantaloupe back to Him. Scripture calls it the tithe. (10% of the increase.) God is always a God of firsts in the Bible. (Firstborn, First fruits, etc.) God says give to Him first. In other words don't eat the cantaloupe which is rightfully His. Adam and Eve ran into this problem in the Garden of Eden. They ate of the fruit that God said was His. Because of their sin, Adam and Eve were cursed. When we eat of the fruit that God has given us, we are throwing away the seeds of blessing that God wants to pour out on our lives. When we decide to give God our firsts, we are scattering seeds of blessings on our lives. Time and time again, the Bible promises us that if we give, God will take care of us. Malachi tells us that we will not have enough room to receive the blessings that God has if we give to Him first. So the question for all of us is, what are we doing with the cantaloupe that God has given us. Are we being greedy and holding it dear to our hearts, or our we giving back a portion that is rightfully Gods? When we give, greed's grip lets go and we set ourselves up for the blessings of God.

Church Planting

We had our church planting meeting once again in Iowa City today. Pastor Keaton got to be there for the first time which I was really excited about. Today we talked about Self-Awareness leadership. This was really good for me as we talked about how God can you a crisis in our ministry and use it to shape us and our church. To be honest, I'm not to fond of crisis' and I especially hate conflict. (I usually run from it.) What is amazing though is through a crisis situation, we grow closer to God and rely on Him more. Isn't that what God wants from us as leaders? I'm amazed that it is usually a crisis situation that ministry emerges and God births something new if I'm relying on Him and not myself. So instead of running, I need to embrace and let God do what He needs to do. This only happens through prayer and servanthood. It is through this process that God usually works on our character and shapes us to be more like Him. This is the ultimate goal of every leader.

Caleb turns 6

Wow, I can't believe my buddy boy is turning six today. Time seems to fly. I will never forget the moment the doctor told us that we had a boy. A lot of emotions that day. First of all, Caleb's middle name is Donald after my dad. My dad wouldn't be more prouder of having a Jones boy. I was the last one in the family to carry on the name. ( I know that sounds weird since there are so many Jones' but in my family blood line, I was the last one.) Now we have Caleb and Ethan! Tonight we will be having a birthday party with lots of Disney Cars stuff. It will be a lot of fun!

Celebrate Recovery

It's almost been a year that God birthed Celebrate Recovery in our church. I will have to say, it's been a roller coaster since we started. I will never forget the conversation I had with the leader of the Celebrate Recovery leader in Des Moines when he told me that it was going to be a spiritual battle. Boy was he right! I was encouraged last night not by the numbers but by the Spirit. There always seems to be a sweet Spirit in Celebrate Recovery. Props goes to Fawnda Roberts for sharing her experiences this week. It was really encouraging. Who knows what God is going to do in the following months with CR, but I know God is not finished.

New Look

Our bulletin will be getting a new look in the upcoming weeks. The ones we had have currently run out and it has been two years since the first design. The colors on this is wrong but will be our normal blue and white. My friend Rich Greene designed the cover for us and I think it looks awesome. I love the different generations on the cover, really fits us well.

Sickness Within

Started a new sermon series last week called "The sickness within." I'm really excited about dealing with some of the issues that come from the heart. Proverbs tells us to guard our hearts with all diligence because out of it flows the issues of life." Last week I talked about guilt and how guilt says, "I owe you." The only way we can heal guilt is through confession. Not only are we to confess to God, but also the person that we owe. Our relationship with God hinges on our relationships with others. I think we tend to forget that at times. Over the next few weeks I will be dealing with anger, greed and jealousy. Looking forward to cleaning our hearts out for the next few weeks!

Back from Disney

We are back from seven straight days at Disney World. It was truly a incredible time. Jen or I had never been there so it was neat to experience the whole thing together and with the two oldest. What I find amazing about Disney is there care for the customer. When Jen and I arrived at the airport, Disney actually took our bags straight to the hotel so we didn't have to carry them. They transported us everywhere from park to park and when it was time to leave we checked our baggage in the motel and they gave us our bordering passes right there so we didn't have to do it at the airport. Pretty cool! My short time there got me thinking about the church as well. What if the church showed this kind of hospitality? What if the church showed this kind of kindness to strangers when they showed up on a Sunday? The Bible is full of commands for us to show hospitality to those outside and inside the church. As God's people, the church should be known as a place where people can come and feel welcomed. I know the church isn't Disney World, but I believe it should have the same reputation of caring and taking care of those that come inside.

Headed to Disney World

I'm going to be taking a blogging vacation for the next week as I will be taking my family to Florida to Disney World. I can't wait to spend some time with kids this week. Please pray for us as we are gone!

Simons Building

Today we voted on the purchased of the Simon's building right next to ours. I am amazed with the unity of this church week in and week out. The church voted 72-0 on purchasing the building. The building is the exact same size that we currently have so it doubles our space plus we can finally have adequate space for youth and Sunday School. God is definitely awesome and moving here in Montezuma!

Two Services

Well we officially kicked off our two services this past Sunday. I would have to say that things went smoother then I thought. The transition between Sunday School and first service wasn't so bad. Our numbers were a little low yesterday. This past weekend was prom for our Montezuma kids so I'm not for sure if that had anything to do with it. God was still good as Daren Mathes gave his testimony on how his faith has stayed strong this past year even through many trials. I think Daren is a good example of someone like Job in the Bible. Daren has been through a lot yet he has never cursed God through it all.

Daren's testimony made me think that we need to hear more testimonies in our church. Testimonies build us up and strengthen us as the body of Christ. If you have a testimony sometime, don't be afraid to share it. God may use you to help someone us out when they are in need.

Easter Weekend

What fabulous weekend we had this Easter. Even in the freezing cold, our Easter Egg Hunt was a huge success. Over 190 children attended our Egg Hunt this year. Way to go Pastor Keaton for all your hard work. I expect to get some pictures up soon on the website so everyone can see.

Easter services were a huge blessing as well as had 169 people attend between our two services. Pray that seeds were planted in people's heart this weekend as the Word of God came forth. Thanks to everyone who volunteered and made this weekend a great one!

http://www.archive.org/download/CommunityHopeEvangelism101/Evangelism101m.mpg

Here is the video we did Sunday on how not to do evangelism. Hope you enjoy for those that missed.

Easter is coming

Gearing up for Easter weekend and I'm really excited to see what God is going to do. We are trying several things to reach more people this year.

- Every person in Montezuma will get an invite card in the mail to our Easter Services
- Easter Egg Hunt will be held this Saturday. We are hiding over 8,000 eggs!
- Two week newspaper ad plus local tv spots.
- We put a banner outside the church about Easter as people drive by Highway 63 everyday.

Let's pray and believe God for a great harvest this Easter!

We are gearing up for our 2nd Egg Hunt for the community. We are wanting to hide 8000 eggs this year at the School field and as you know 8000 eggs means lots of candy. One of the businesses in town gave me a call yesterday and said that they wanted to donate not just some of the candy but ALL OF THE CANDY! Isn't God awesome! We can now use the money that we would have used for candy for prizes. God amazes me every day.

Walk across the room

I am reading a book right now by Bill Hybels called, "Walk across the room." It is a book on sharing your faith in simple ways. It is amazing if we just ask the Holy Spirit to use us, how He will. There are tons of opportunities for us to share our faith or God's love to someone if we are just open and listening to His voice. God has given me the opportunity this week to share God's love with my own family. As many of you know my cousin lost her husband on Saturday to a car accident. He was in his late twenties and has left behind four little children. My family is not Christian and through this tragic event, God gave has given me the opportunity to share my testimony and faith. Even though I don't believe it was God's will for my cousins husband to die so young, I do believe that God uses every opportunity to draw people to Him. I pray for God's wisdom as I conduct the services this Friday and that people will be drawn to Him.

Church Planting

I spent all my day last Thursday in Iowa City with the church planters in Iowa. My friend Rich Greene is looking at doing something out of the box which I'm really excited about. They are looking at purchasing a building in North Liberty and converting it to a box theater where bands can come and play. There is currently a larger theater in Iowa City that holds 1000 people but some bands can't fill the space. So the idea is to build something smaller. The space would have a coffee house and an auditorium that would seat 300 or so. The church would own the theater and be able to have church there on Sunday's. Jesus did something similar in the New Testament. If you read the scriptures you will find that Jesus spent most of His time in the marketplace not in the synagogues. Instead of trying to get people to go to church, the church needs to go to them. Rich is doing exactly that by this idea. People from all over the city would walk through their doors that normally would not go to church. Absolutely awesome!