Been A While

Well, since I last blogged we have had our Pancake and Sausage Dinner, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, the Spring Church Clean-Up Day, and Easter! It has been a busy few days. Thank goodness my taxes are already done! Everything went very well--from the Fundraiser Dinner to both services on Easter. We also had our first softball practice. It was really fun to get out there and play around and have some good fellowship. We may be a small church, but we are plenty busy! That is fine with me. I would rather be busy than bored any day. Thanks for your support and work making Asbury such an active congregation of believers.

Holy Week

First, don't forget about our Sausage and Pancake Supper this Saturday, March 27 from 4-8pm. Please bring a friend or 8 of them.

Holy Week is approaching! It is quite the roller coaster ride. On Sunday we go from joyous celebration of palm waving and Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem to his betrayal and death. It is quite an up and down one hour of worship! Then Holy Week continues with a Good Friday service at Nokesville United Methodist Church at 7:30pm (April 2). If you have never been to a Good Friday service, it is quite different from a typical Sunday celebration. Finally we conclude Holy Week with Easter services (April 4). We will have a sunrise service at 6:30am for the whole Nokesville community. In the history of the Christian Church, this has been they holiest of worship services. In the early Church it was the pinnacle of the year; no one missed the Easter sunrise service! Finally we conclude with our tradition Easter service at 10:30am.
Enjoy your Holy Week--the pinnacle of the Christian year--and hang on for the ride!

Church Softball

Well, I will meet with the other coaches for the Manassas Church Softball League tonight. We officially have a team! I think that there are about 15 that are committed to being there every week. We also have a group of people that are willing to play if we need them due to absences and vacations during the Summer. This should be fun and I think we will be pretty competitive in our league and potentially win it! We play on Mondays starting in April. If you are not on the team, come out anyway and support us.

My Apologies

I have not blogged in a while and I am sorry. I have been crazy busy. Along with the requirements of planning and preparing worship and the sermon (which usually takes about 10 hours/week), I have other responsibilities from the Virginia Annual Conference. For example, each month I go to a clergy meeting somewhere in Northern Virginia. This Saturday I have to travel to Richmond for a meeting for a half day. There have been many other things at church that have taken my time as well. However, there are also things at home. I am in the midst of renovating our living and dining room as well as our main floor bathroom (you will be invited over soon so that I can brag). Finally, since Alethea works full time, I have to take care of the kids often. Needless to say, I do not have very much free time and it has been obvious. I have struggled the past few weeks in all aspects, not just this blog. Therefore, I apologize. I will do better. Blessings.

Progress Report

Above is a picture of my son shooting Goliath with his toy gun! It has absolutely nothing to do with this blog. Sorry!

Okay, want to know how my Lenten fasts are going? Probably not, but I am going to tell you anyway. First, I have given up all sodas, all desserts and candy, and all fried food. Talk about a change in lifestyle! I have thought a lot this past week about what Christ gave up for me. It has been difficult for me, but I am sure it was difficult for Christ as well.

On the other hand, I have failed to take something on. I have not called anyone from church during Lent. The more I thought about it the more I realized that I would probably leave someone out and I did not want to do that. Plus, I have been struggling so much will my fast, that I forgot to call anyone the first few days when I was curled up in a ball on the couch with a pounding headache due to sugar and caffeine withdraw! I have failed, but I am forgiven. Thanks be to God.

Lent

Lent begins today!! I have often been a rebel when it comes to Lent. Instead of giving something up like chocolate or soda, I have taken something on. For example, I have taken five more minutes every morning to pray for those in my church. I have taken time at night to call someone that was on my mind thinking that perhaps God was speaking to me through these urgings. This year I am doing both. I will be on a workout regimen called Body For Life. I have not been taking good care of my body. I eat junk and fail to exercise consistently. It will be a huge change for me. I am also going to call up one person from church each day and let them know that I am praying for them today. What are you doing this Lent to come closer to God? Let us journey together!

Church is Cancelled

You guessed it, church is cancelled for tomorrow, Sunday, February 7, due to a light dusting of snow across the area. Enjoy some family time and stay off the streets.

No Superbowl...Youth Event That Is

Please remember that I have been working in the Central Time Zone for eight years. Additionally, remember that I have been working with college students who stay up all night. With that said, we are canceling out Superbowl party for the youth on Sunday. The game will not end till sometime after 10pm and the youth will have school early the next morning. I am used to the Superbowl ending just after 9pm (Central Time). I apologize for this confusion. I just did not think it through. Our next youth event will be on February 21. We will meet at Asbury at 5:15pm and travel to Nokesville for youth group. Still looking for someone to cook our dinner that night for both youth groups. Let me know if you can help out. Enjoy the snow this weekend!

Well, we had worship on Sunday, but it was sparse. We had 32 people at worship and we missed the rest of you all. However, I understand not traveling in the snow. Most of the time we will have worship even if it snows a lot, but I do not want anyone risking the roads. It is better to just wait a week than to get in an accident. However, this week looks like more snow on Saturday and Sunday! If you cannot make it to church this Sunday, pray for your brothers and sisters in Christ, spend some time with God, give someone a call and let them know you are thinking about them...worship God in some fashion.

The last website that Asbury had was not compatible with all internet browsers. For example, I have an Apple. Whenever I went to the old Asbury website, I could not do anything. I could not open any links, see any pictures, etc.... Therefore, we have created a new, and very inexpensive, website. It is going to cost us $2 per month!! Awesome! Check it out sometime. Either go to www.asburynokesville.org or click the "Asbury United Methodist Church" link to your right. Let us know what you think.

To Save A Life

We took ten people to see the movie To Save A Life yesterday. It was great! Not only was it a good movie with good acting and realistic teen situations, but it was also had a good message that was not too cheesy. Check it out if you get a chance before it leaves the theaters.
After the movie we went back to Nokesville UMC to have a discussion and dinner with their youth group. It was really nice to have our youth interact with their youth. After all, most of them go to the same schools. It was also nice to talk about the movie and the issues that it posed for youth. We even had a police office and crisis counselor there to talk about suicide (a theme that the movie addresses in detail).
Thank God for good movies, good friends, and good youth group meetings.

Youth

This past weekend we went on a bowling lock-in with other churches from our area. It started off a little slow and ended a little slow, but it was great in the middle. Nothing better than bowling at 3 in the morning. We were fortunate to have seven youth attend and two youth leaders (yours truly and Sarah Valentine--thanks for your assistance!).
This week we are going to see To Save A Life at the Manassas Regal Cinemas (leaving after church on Sunday). I have heard great news about the movie. For one, I have heard that it is not cheesy. Often times movies with a good message are cheesy and youth can see right through them. As of right now, we have seven youth going again and four of them did not go on the bowling lock-in. We have about 15 youth active in the church. Just imagine if everyone came! If you have not given youth a try, you are missing out! You are always welcome at Asbury's youth group.

Change of Schedule

Up until now Alethea has had to work Tuesday-Friday and an occasional Saturday. This proved to be problematic for us. She gets off on Saturday, I work on Sunday, she has off on Monday. We could never take a long weekend away. However, things are starting to shift. Alethea now works Monday-Thursday. This means that we might be able to take a few days away for camping or some other family thing anytime we desire. The only problem is that Alethea will start working on Wednesday nights. Therefore, I cannot do chimes any more at church as I will have to take care of the kids on Wednesday nights. I thoroughly enjoyed chimes. It was fun, active, and a good fellowship event. I will miss the many laughs I had at chimes. If you are not doing chimes, you are missing out!!!! Give it a try even if you don't have any musical skill (I didn't have any skill). I know that you will find it to be fun and rewarding. Come out on Wednesday at 7:30pm.

Time Away on the Mountain

I will not be there on Sunday for the first time since I came to Asbury in July. I am sometimes guilty of practical atheism. Let me explain: I sometimes think that if I am not there, everything will fall into chaos. While I know this is not the case and that God is in control, it is difficult to let go sometimes.
This weekend I am learning to let go. I am taking some time to just be with my wife. I am taking a rest. Jesus often took a rest. Jesus often got away from the crowds. The Bible tells me that before I can be a good pastor, I must be a good father and husband. Jesus, through his example, tells me that I need time away to relax, to reunite with God, to recharge my batteries.
I promise that from now on I will take more time away. I will trust that things will be okay at Asbury. I will put my faith in God and listen to God's word for my list of priorities. They go like this: God, family and self, ministry.

Committees

I am not the biggest fan of committees. I cannot stand being in a meeting for over an hour. Eventually I just have to stand up, walk around, and get some energy out. However, I think we have to have a few more active committees at Asbury. This year people have often looked at me and said, "when are you going to do that?" At which I have said, "I did not know that I was supposed to do it." I think that you would rather have me visiting our members than watering 25 poinsettias. I think you would rather have me spending time on a well thought out sermon than putting greens on the pews. Therefore, we are putting together three new committees: Mission (doing all the outreach of the church-working with DaVita Dialysis for Thanksgiving and Christmas missions-etc); Altar Guild (decorating the sanctuary for advent and other special occasions-changing banners-ordering flowers-etc); and Cemetery (writing up contracts-ordering the plots-general organization around our cemetery). Please sign on for one of these committees so that these things do not always fall to the clueless pastor. I need more time to be the best pastor I can be (not to go kayaking---even though that would be nice). Working together will get us far!