Cooperland

The first 25 weeks of Rewind down, and here’s the start of the next 25.

• Talent Quest 2010 was a huge success.  Of 5 categories there were 2 wins, 1 second, and 2 honorable mentions.  I’m very proud of our performers.  They represented Life-Givers well, and more important honored God.
• In a competition 1 mistake could cost you the win. Thank God his forgiven always win.
• The greatest tragedy is a life with an unrealized purpose.
• Bridgett did a great job of organizing and leading our juniors and teens in performing their talents.  Again, I believe in Proverbs 18:22, “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.”
• In the same thought, I love people who just want to help no matter where they are or what they’re doing.  We had a ton of help this Saturday, and Bridgett and I are extremely blessed to have had it.
• Close friends are a rare valued commodity. I love that I have those that I can call close friends.
• Speaking of friends, 2 of them (Pastor Chuck Barrineau of Restoration Ministries and Pastor Brandon Goff of Ebenezer PH Church) and I entertained ourselves in a war on Twitter during Talent Quest on Saturday.  I’m pretty sure I won.
• 11 Beyond Youth students were present in yesterday’s class at Life-Givers.  That’s just above our average.
• I set out 20 chairs for the Beyond Youth class each Sunday even though we average 10 students per week.  I do that because I expect 20 students to attend.  (Side note: Bring someone to church this Sunday.)
• Sanctification is the process of separating an object for a special purpose.
• There are 2 parts to sanctification: 1) God sanctifies us FROM sin at salvation for the purpose he created us for, and 2) We sanctify ourselves TO God to live out the purpose for which he created us.
• I love being a youth pastor. Sure, I’ve stated that before, but I really do mean it.

Enjoy.

Friday and Saturday was the annual Talent Quest for the South Carolina Conference of the IPHC.  Life-Givers had 16 children and teenagers performing in 5 categories: Vocal/Instrumentals, Painting, Dance, Junior Drama, Teen Drama.  Here’s the results:

• Vocal/Instrumental (Piano & singing): 1st place
• Painting: 1st place
• Dance: Honorable Mention
• Junior Drama: Honorable Mention
• Teen Drama: 2nd place

I consider that a very successful weekend especially since this was LGM’s first appearance at Talent Quest.  I very proud of all of our performers, and now we have 2 teens going to national competition in Orlando, FL in July.

This weekend is the annual SC Conference Talent Quest competition held in Lake City.  Life-Givers Ministries is sending 16 juniors (9) and teenagers (7) to participate in 5 categories.  This is huge for LGM considering that LGM didn’t have any competitors last year and 16 this year.

I’m extremely excited for the performers.  I remember participating in this same competition for a number of years as a teenager, and it has impacted my life to this very day.

Please pray for them.  Pray specifically for peace over their nervousness, safe travel to and from the competition, and that their performances will bring glory to God.

The root word of contemporary is temporary.  Temporary is defined as “lasting for a limited time” according to Merriam-Webster.

I’m weird.  Why?  Because, I love change.  In fact, I thrive on change.  Sure, too much change is bad, but so is too little.  It’s got to be “Just right” as Goldie Locks would say.

Since I love change I don’t understand why people hate it so much.  Change is going to happen.  We should be used to it, right?

As a pastor, I’m always evaluating whether change is needed.  If it doesn’t, then no changes are made.  If it does, then change is on the way.

My point: Churches should be constantly evaluating change.  A good policy would be to change what’s necessary, keep what’s not, and always keep evaluating everything.

While driving to work this morning a revealing question popped into my head: “What’s my motivation?” In other words, why do I do the things that I do?  What inspires me to accomplish a task?  What gets me up in the morning?  Why do I go to work?  To church?  To anywhere?

Here’s the way I see it.  Everything gets accomplished through some sort of motivation.  We are either motivated by forces outside of our control or we motivate ourselves.  Either way, motivation is what gets us up to accomplish whatever we need to do.

Back to me.  What motivates me?  Sadly, I’m not always sure.

I know how I want to be motivated.  Simply put: to make God smile.  I just want to make God happy.  Like a son wanting to make his dad smile.  But I can’t say that this is always true for things that I do.  And, that makes me sad.

I’m not perfect.  I never claim perfection, because I know I’m fallible, and although I am a youth pastor I pray that other people will know this, too.  But that doesn’t exempt me from trying, and from here on out I’m making a life-changing choice in determining that everything I do will be influenced by one sole motivation: to make God smile.

So, chime in!  What’s your motivation?

Last Friday night, my brother and I went to our pastors house for a steak dinner.  Our wives would have joined us (and eventually did), but they were busy with other plans.  It was cool though, because we had a great time eating, conversing, laughing, and generally enjoying each others’ company.  It was refreshing, and generally a good time.

Do you ever have these times where you just sit back and enjoy someone’s company?  When was the last time you did just that?

Here are my thoughts over the past week.  And, as a treat, I’ll make it short and sweet.

• One student rededicated her life to God today at church.  Awesome!  That’s something I can get used to seeing each week.
• Never underestimate the power of a good conversation with good friends.  It’s energizing and refreshing.  Like taking a nice hot shower.
• I thoroughly enjoyed being back at church this week.  Missing last week had me missing everybody.
• It was cool being a “student” today.  I never really get to do that, but listening to Robbie teach was an awesome experience.  He did a great job.
• The Kingdom of God isn’t about getting what you deserve.  If it was, then we’d all be dead.

Enjoy.

Welcome to the newest addition to the Cooperland entries family, Open Field Fridays.  Like the Rewind posts that are published on Monday mornings (hence the series’ name), Open Field Fridays will be posted on…wait for it…Fridays.

These posts are meant to create an atmosphere for discussion in the comments section.  I’ll start it off by posting the entry each week, then it’s an open line for discussion.  And, I’ll close the comments section or delete any comments I deem inappropriate if I see that it must be done.  I hold that right since this is my blog.

So, ask a question, make a statement, encourage someone, or just say something.  Just remember to keep it clean and to keep it friendly.

Here are my thoughts over the past week.

• I learned that I hate surprises, and boy did I get a surprise Saturday night.  Bridgett and I came home to find our master bathroom and bedroom flooded due to a broken water pipe.  This kept me from attending church since I had to fix it to turn our water back on.
• I also hate missing church.
• The opposite of hate is love, and I love encouraging others.  There’s nothing like watching something you’ve said make someone feel better.  I love it.
• In the presence of perfect love (God) is the absence of fear.  God doesn’t fear anything, and if we have God in us, then why do we fear or worry about anything?
• I work with the greatest leadership team.  The Beyond Youth Leadership Team stepped up to the last minute challenge of conducting Sunday morning youth class due to my inability to attend church yesterday.  Oh, and Robbie taught a great lesson on the fear of God.  It is great to know that at any time I have to be away that my leaders can take care of everything.  That’s a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders.
• Hockey games are boring without any fights.  Enough said.
• Thank you for the birthday card I received yesterday from Life-Givers.  It was a great blessing.
• A little birdie told me that many of the Beyond Youth students were standing and involved in worship at church.  Could it be?  I am so proud.  God, and I mean God, has done so much stuff in their lives over the past 6 months.
• Lastly, my uncle and aunt gave me a lot of computer equipment yesterday.  There’s a CPU tower, a UPS battery backup, webcams, hard drives, and a lot more.  I’m hoping to put much of it to use for the Beyond Youth.  Maybe do a little ministry expansion.  We’ll see.

Enjoy your week.

Totally awesome!