As you saw from my post on Monday, I am in the begining stages of planting a church in Uptown Albuquerque, NM.  Over the past few years I have made some good friends who are also planning on planting churches in Albuquerque and across the U.S.  I thought I would take the next few days to introduce you to these guys so you can pray for them and follow them as they are on their own respective journeys.

Brook Sarver

Like some others, Brook and I met through the interwebs a little over a year ago through a certain Christian beer blog (I starting see a trend with church planters and beer).  Although I’ve never met Brook in person, I consider him a good friend.  Brook loves Jesus, has an amazing wife, and has some mad photography skillz.

Brook also has a huge heart for the people of Thailand.  After going on a several month mission trip a few years ago, they have had a passion to go back.  So they’re doing just that.  A few weeks from now,  Brook and Sara are moving across the world to spend 10 years preaching the gospel of Jesus.

To learn more about Brook and his journey, you can follow him on twitter or read his blog.

As you saw from my post on Monday, I am in the begining stages of planting a church in Uptown Albuquerque, NM.  Over the past few years I have made some good friends who are also planning on planting churches in Albuquerque and across the U.S.  I thought I would take the next few days to introduce you to these guys so you can pray for them and follow them as they are on their own respective journeys.

Brad Ruggles

Brad Ruggles and I met through the interwebs a little over a year ago through a certain Christian beer blog.  Although I’ve never met Brad in person, I consider him a good friend.  He is one of the top three creative people I know (yeah I number them…I have a points system and everything), has a wonderful wife, and some adorable daughters.

Brad left his job, started doing freelance design, moved 120 miles (through a 2300 mile journey) from Fort Wayne to Carmel, IN, set roots, and is in the beginning stages of planting a church.  He has an amazingly compassionate heart.  I can’t wait to see how God uses him in Carmel.

If you would like to learn more about Brad and his church plant you can:

• Follow his Blog
• Friend him on Facebook
• Follow him on Twitter
• Add him to your LinkedIn network
• Subscribe to his channel on YouTube
• Follow him on YouVersion
• Add him as a contact on Vimeo
• Check him out on Flickr
• Join his ROOV Community
• Find him on Smaller Indiana

As you saw from my post on Monday, I am in the begining stages of planting a church in Uptown Albuquerque, NM.  Over the past few years I have made some good friends who are also planning on planting churches in Albuquerque and across the U.S.  I thought I would take the next few days to introduce you to these guys so you can pray for them and follow them as they are on their own respective journeys.

Carlos Griego

I met Los a couple of years ago when we were going through Ed Stetzer’s book “Planting Missional Churches” at City on a Hill.  He is the director of the college ministry, The Well, for Desert Springs Church here in Albuquerque and is the chaplain for the Lobo basketball team.  He is an amazing husband, fantastic father, big reader, and a true UFC fan.

For as long as I’ve known him, Los has had a huge heart for the UNM campus area and Downtown Albuquerque.  His heart is to one day plant a church that will reach the lost of Downtown Albuquerque for the glory of God.

If you are interested in learning more about Los and his ministry, you can meet him at the Well every Tuesday night at 8:07 pm at Desert Springs Church.  You can also read his blog or follow him on twitter.

As you saw from my post on Monday, I am in the begining stages of planting a church in Uptown Albuquerque, NM.  Over the past few years I have made some good friends who are also planning on planting churches in Albuquerque and across the U.S.  I thought I would take the next few days to introduce you to these guys so you can pray for them and follow them as they are on their own respective journeys.

Clayton Bell

Clayton Bell and I met through the interwebs a little over a year ago through a certain Christian beer blog.  Although I’ve never met Clayton in person, I consider him a good friend.  Through reading his blog and a few online chats, I know that he is a wonder husband and loving father.

About four years ago, Clayton felt the call to plant a church.  Like me, about a year ago he felt that God was calling him off the bench to start his church plant.  This last Sunday, He left his job at Every Nation, Tallahassee, where he served as Family Pastor for the past year and is moving to the Tampa/Trinity area of Florida to start Trinity New Life Church.

If you live in in the Florida area and want to join Clayton on God’s mission to reach the lost of Tampa, you can email him at info@trinitynewlife.com for more information.

Please be in prayer for Clayton, his wife, and daughter as they follow God on this wonderful journey.

So this is how my week has been so far. Towards the end of last week we received a mdical bill…from the emergency room…from before Asa was born. This was only days after we had finished clearing up all of Asa’s medical bills from his birth.

Saturday we received a letter from our mortgage company saying they had to drain our escrow account to pay the property taxes for the first half of 08. This is because the title company wasn’t intelligent enough to find out they weren’t paid before we bought the house. Now if we don’t get the seller (the government) to refund our escrow account, our monthly payments are going increase drastically.

And now I’m sitting on the cold concrete sidewalk outside of a Chevron as the guy is hooking up our van to tow cause the transmission died on it. This is our only vehicle and we really don’t have a lot of spare cash laying around to fix it.

This trend seems to happen pretty often in our family. Just when life seems to be going semi-smooth, Murphy shows up with all his friends and has a kegger in my living room.

But here is the other cool trend in my life, God always shows up a few days later and kicks Murphey’s @$$.

I must say things are really crappy right now, but I look forward to seeing what God is going to do in the days to come.

Hello,

With only a few days away from running in my first triathlon, I wanted to share some words of encouragement and wisdom with my fellow athletes out there.  I didn’t grow up a very athletic person.  I’m not that coordinated, and I’m not that strong.

I tried playing basketball, but I was to aggressive.  I would generally only get to play for five minutes before I would foul out.  I tried playing football, but I wasn’t big enough, strong enough, fast enough, or aggressive enough to be any good (it didn’t help that the coach wanted me to play center at 6′ and 135 lbs).  There was really only one sport I was good at…track.

It doesn’t take a lot of strength or skill to run.  So I did really well.  I wasn’t fast, so I ran longer distance events.  I wasn’t the best, but I always placed.  I ran on the varsity track team at my school starting in eighth grade until I graduated. (we were a small division school).  I loved pushing my body to it’s limit and then some.  I loved competing.  It’s this history of competition that starts to bring up some long lost feelings inside of me.

Some of my feelings are good and some are bad.  I think sports can bring out the best and the worst in people (and sometimes at the same time).  I know from experience that sports and competition can bring out a laundry list of sins in people…pride, selfishness, arrogance, timidity, course language, unrighteous anger, belittlement, ect.

I have seen people pray before a game and in the same breath speak crude and prideful words against the other team. I have been an arrogant winner and a sore loser.  I have been poor sport.  I have cheated.  I have belittled and demeaned other athletes and teammates.

But I have also seen athletes become even more Christ-like through competition and sports.  I’ve seen teamwork and unity abound.  I’ve seen men with great talent and heart walk humbly in a knowledge of Who gave them their gifts.  I have seen men suffer well in harsh anti-christian environments.  I have seen men point to Jesus as their true prize and not some medal or ribbon.

It is with this in mind that I write this letter.  I am determined that sports and competition will not bring me down.  I am determined to not seek glory for myself.  But I pray that my competing will be done in a way that brings glory to Jesus. I am determined that it is more important to finish the race with integrity proclaiming the good news of Jesus than to win and dishonor his name (not like I have a chance of winning).  I am determined that Jesus is my ultimate prize.  The reason I compete is to draw closer to Jesus and humbly point others to Him.

Whether I win or lose, I am determined to “run the good race.”  I hope you are determined too.

To the glory of God,

Greg Qualls

So about six months ago Shannon and I started our search for a home to buy.  Being first time home owners we had a vague idea of what we wanted in a house….three bedroom, two bath, lots a space to grow.  Our realtor started showing us houses in Albquerque, and we started to get depressed.

It seemed like there weren’t really any good houses in our price range.  They were either to small or so run down that they were on the verge of being condemened.  That was until we came accross “the house.”  The second we walked through the front door we fell in love.  It had everything we were looking for in a house and then some.  Most importantly it was in our price range.

There was some small problems though.  The Realtor for the house was a little crooked.  He was part owner and was trying to do a short sale.  But he failed to mention that he was a part owner and that the house was going to foreclose on if he didn’t get someone to pay cash for it in the few days he had left.  By God’s grace we found out and didn’t get caught in a huge mess that could have happened.

So fast forward to this last Sunday.  The house ended up going into forclosure, and no one bought it at auction.  So it came back on the market this last Sunday as a HUD home.  That brought up some small problems since we are qualified for a FHA loan and generally it’s hard to buy HUD houses with FHA loans.  Things are ok though, but we have one last issue to overcome.

HUD houses are sold by a bidding process.  Everyone interested in the house puts in a bid (not knowing if anyone else is bidding or the other bids if there are any) and the most cost effective bid for the government wins.  There’s no counter offers or anything.  You get one chance.  So now we are seeking the prayer support of all our friends.

We really feel like God is opening up the doors for us to get this house (there is so much more to the story that I’m not sharing due to time).  This house is more than a house.  We see it as a place where we can truly do ministry for God.  The only thing we have left to figure out is how much we need to bid.

So please pray that God would give us a clear direction on what to bid for the house.  Pray that He would give us wisdom. Pray that He would give us peace.  Pray that He would ulitimatly give us the house.  Thanks so much and feel free to pass this along to anyone else.  We are meeting with our realtor on Thursday to put in our bid and will find out on Monday if we got the house or not.

I must say it has been weird not writing over the past few days (this isn’t writing this is me giving an update…or something). But I wanted to give a quick update and let you know that I’ll be back in the saddle as soon as possible.  I had a great weekend with my parents hanging out and painting the nursery.   I’m all relaxed and ready to get back to my blog.

On a side note.  If you hear on the news about a refinery blowing up in Big Spring TX (it’s Big Spring…not Big Springs…there’s only one spring and it’s big…kinda), that is where my mom and step-dad live.  It is only about a mile from where they live.   My mom said that it shock the whole house and when she first looked outside there was a mushroom cloud.  Kinda cool.  They evacuated all the schools too (my niece has to be happy).  There is reports that only one person got injured in the explosion.  Anyways if I get any further news, I’ll let you know.

Over the past few weeks I have been following a series of blogs done by Vince Antonucci titled “Waaaaa. I’m not getting fed.” You need to go read all seven (it’s actually more) of them right now.  Here is a link to the first one.  I must say that I have completely enjoyed every word that the man has written. He has hit the nail on the head as far as American Christianity has gone.

We have become such a consumer mentality society that it has even crept into the church. I even use to have the mentality that it is the pastor’s job to feed me (probably is the reason that I went to church five times a week when I was growing up). Put the reality is that the pastor’s job is to teach us how to cook.

Ephesians 4:11-12 says, “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” The pastors and teachers jobs are to “equip” not feed. By equipping they are building the body up.

I remember telling my youth in Olton that if the only time you are opening you Bible is on Wednesday (or Sunday for most), then you are starving yourself. I have to say that I use to be the same way. The only time I opened my Bible was when I was going to church or when I was preparing for a lesson.

The greatest joy in my life has been over the past few months as I’ve started to spend time with God daily for no other reason than to just sit at His feet and learn. Before it was a chore to open my Bible. Now it is a pleasure.

Now I sound like one of those sappy Christians that I use to hate (who am I kidding I still have problems with them). But it is the truth. I feel different when I haven’t spent time with God. It feels like when I have to go to work while my wife is still in bed and I don’t get to talk to her until she gets home from work at 5pm. There is just something missing from my day.

So if you are the type of person who only eats once a week…I’d recommend adding to your diet.

P.S. I’ll post a blog in a few days on some tips and tricks for having a daily time with God.