Daryl Strickland

Week three of Messy: My Love

Attendance: 315 - same week last year 128 (146% increase)

Songs:

• It’s Not Over - Daughtry
• Jesus Paid It All
• I Am Free

Moment/s to remember:

• Jeff in a suit again. This time performing a wedding.
• False alarm on the wedding.
• Cohabitation Ceremony
• Jeff saying the following in one service (kick him in the nuts, bullcrap and missionary position). I am wondering if I can even put that on my blog. It was all in good taste… well it was in context.
• The realization that probablly 90% of the people at Lifepoint were hearing God’s plan for relationships for the first time. (based off of the conversations in the lobby after the service)

Bottom Line: We you see as God sees, you will do as God says and Purity paves the way to intimacy.

Next Week: Week four of Messy - My Secert

Week two of Messy: My World

Attendance: 341 - same week last year 131 (161% increase)

Songs:

• Blessed Be Your Name
• Marvelous Light
• Everything

Moment/s to remember:

• Jeff making 33 marks on the canvas to represent the 33 lives lost at VT.

Bottom Line: This world is not as God designed it!

Next Week: Week three of Messy - My Love

I will resume blogging today!

Noah’s first baseball game was Monday and he got the game ball!

Victoria and Philip both played their first game last night and they loved it. Victoria threw a batter out at first and scored two runs. Philip threw three batters out and got on base each time he batted.

Week one of Messy:

Attendance: 357 - same week last year 131 (173% increase)

Songs:

• Marvelous Light
• Majestic
• Everlasting God
• Meant To Live - Switchfoot

Moment/s to remember:

• Guest band Exodus rocked the house.
• Jeff in a suit.
• Jeff trashing a painting to illustrate how we sometimes feel like we know better than God.
• Jeff trashing the suit to illustrate that we need to stop covering up our mess.

Bottom Line: Not understanding our purpose, causes our lives to be messy!

Next Week: Week two of Messy - My Love My World

In my mind I feel like I want to forget this week. Let’s review the reasons:

1. Virgina Tech
2. I have poison something (ivy, oak) on my face, neck, back, legs, and yes areas that my bathing suite covers up.
3. The poison appears to be infected now
4. Vomiting
5. Diarrhea
6. Headaches
7. Oozzing junk coming out of the infected poison
8. Their showing the VT shooters footage of himself (burn the tape)
9. The dude used Jesus name like he was a believer- thanks, that helps a lot

My first thought is that I can’t wait for next week, maybe it will be better but I have to jump over this first:

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportuniy for great joy.”

Can I be honest with you. I don’t think that I have used the word joy all week and I don’t know that I have felt it.

The verse continues…

“For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”  - James 1:2-4

So my confession to you is that, I was not studied up for my test this week and I failed. The good news is that there is a makeup test today and tomorrow and the next day and I can prepare for all the ones I missed and maybe I will be ready this time.

I don’t want to forget this week, I want to remember that joy is not based on circumstances.

Sorry, I guess I should have done quotes of the day

“Delegation is a decision followed by a process”

- Ed Young, Jr.

“Leadership is not a popularity contest - if you are always trying to be liked, you will never step up and step out.”

-Ed Young, Jr

I will go ahead and warn you this will be an open ended post, I just wanted to get some thoughts recorded.

As I was riding to work this morning that was the thought in my head: How do I know if I am a leader? Jeff Foxworthy style, here are my thoughts.

You might be a leader if:

• People Follow You
• People Continually Look To You For Advice or Direction
• You Make Things Happen
• You See Projects Through To Completion

Let me stop on that last one for a minute. Having the tenacity, passion or focus to see a project completed does not mean you have to do it yourself. Being a leader most of the time means you have to inspire and engage people to do the task and you have to inspire them in such a way that they will accept nothing less than getting the job done right and on time. But that passion and focus has to come from the leader.

If you are anything like me, sometimes you just grab the bull by the horns and say I’ll do it myself and if that is the case, are you really leading anybody?

I would love to hear your (both of you) thoughts on what a leader might look like.

You either love them or you hate them right? Teenagers are so weird to me. I both love them and hate them. I love the energy, passion, pureness of them. I hate the immaturity, dis-respectfulness and straight up stupidity.

I agreed to co-lead a teen life group at Lifepoint this semester and I will not lie to you, sometimes I dread  Wednesday nights but then they come and something pretty cool happens. A bunch of kids from a bunch of totally different backgrounds come together and totally enjoy hanging out with each other and talking about their spirituality. It is a total freak of nature type deal. I convince myself each week that no one will show and they all come back.

I think the stats say that 85% of the people who give their lives to Christ do so before they turn 18. It’s worth putting up with the little frustrations to see kids connect with God and his plans for them.