Hoppin' and Poppin'

When I was a kid I used to break dance. Yeah I know, that's a hilarious image. I had a breakin' name, all the garb and everything. I kept doing that until about 6th grade or so when I got really serious about team sports. Specifically football. I think one thing I like about football is how everyone relied on one another. While I was break dancing the streets of Plainfiled, Indiana I was usually on my own. Yes there could be many reasons for that, but one thing is for sure, I didn't rely on anyone. I could have been great, or I could have been terrible and it wouldn't of mattered. I could of taken my dance in any direction I wanted to and no body cared. Most times they were just laughing. They were laughing with me, right??? With football though I really liked how everyone had a position or an assignment. I even liked how there was competition with the other players to play certain positions. For me that added to the overall understanding that this 'Team' I was on meant business.
Teams are very dynamic entities. Anytime you take multiple people and try to motivate, encourage, train, and equip them to go and succeed in a certain direction, you will have challenges. The coolest part about being on a team is when the 'Team' begins to grow and move in it's own direction towards success. It's really an awesome thing.
I saw that over and over this past month in the children's ministry. I know you guys have been doing this for quite some time while I was gone, but it is important for me to let you know that I do see it. I see an effective, well put together, successful team. It is amazes me that this team was put together by God right before our eyes. I can't wait to see what God will do as we continue to press forward in submitting to His will and functioning as a great 'Team'
Great Job to all in October!

MIGHTY GOD

What a cool week for me. I finished training with LSI and have been assigned two students. Yay! I truly do love to teach. I consider it such an honor to get to teach US Army flight students. I think of all the jobs in the world I could be doing and I am so thankful for the one I have.
A cool point for me these next few weeks is that one of my students is from Holland. He is extraordinarily smart and has already flown several hundred hours so it will be a lot of fun.

Today I was laying out homework for both of my students and describing successful studying techniques and I mentioned studying on Sunday's. That was an easy, non-offensive, way for me to ask if they were going to be busy at church or something. They both said that they did not attend church here in Alabama, but my Dutch student mentioned that at home he attends the Church of England. He began to explain how this was similar to our Episcopal Church here in the US. I said to him, “so the Church of England has Judeo-Christian beliefs”. His eyes got really wide and he said, “I don’t know what that means, but I don’t think so”. I briefly described that it simply meant that he believes in the Hebrew God (Yahweh). He still seemed a bit puzzled, but from that point we just talked a little bit about Christ and our conversation seemed to go in another direction. As a government contractor I didn’t want to pry a whole lot, but his response to my saying “Hebrew God” really had me thinking on the way home. It had me thinking about how MIGHTY our God is and that probably many people today don’t realize that the God we serve today was THERE. He was there in every imaginable instance of all recorded time! Every laugh, every cry, every battlefield (WOW), every tear, every disaster, and every joy. Our God, the Hebrew God of Israel, Isaac, and Jacob, has always been there. Thinking about Him like this has me feeling very small, yet also very comforted. He is so MIGHTY…so very MIGHTY. There is NOTHING….no surprise, no bad boss, no financial situation, no marriage, no sickness, no family situation that He is not ABOVE. Our God is completely aware of all situations past, present, and future! Simply put, “HE IS HERE…NOW…FOR US...and ALWAYS HAS BEEN…and ALWAYS WILL BE”. All we have to do is let Him in. Isn’t that awesome!
See You Sunday,
Pastor Matt

What A Great Weekend!!!

Such an awesome weekend for me. Thank you so much to my Crossroads family for being totally great. I had missed the first two Beach, BBQ, and Baptisms, so this weekend was especially great. Not to mentioned getting to baptise children with my wife. I honestly can't explain how cool that was for us. What an honor to be a part of each of those kids lives in such huge way. Thank You Lord!

Pagers seemed to go off pretty well. It was great trial run and we expect those to be a big hit for mom and dad.

We are creeping ever so close to launching the children's annex. I believe this is a huge key for our entire Crossroads family. We are blessed to have this space right next to the cinema and it really couldn't be more perfect for what we need. Very Excited! I can feel the anticipation from the nursery and preschool team for this upcoming move.

Great job to Kimber, Ashleigh, Harleigh, Tyler, Jarrod, Greg, Becki, Justin, Lyndsay, Marita, Erica, Jesse, and Brandy this weekend. Your effort, leadership, and commitment have had a huge impact. I mean it! I hope that you are well and in good spirits for this up coming weekend off.

A NEW STAR IS BORN!!! We had a special guest this weekend in The Filling Station.
'The Villain' came and had all the kids yelling, involved, and having a great time. Thanks Villain, you did a great job!

Sincerely, thank you all for all your hard work. Have a great week.
Matt

An Oldie, Even for Me

Late last year Pastor Gene posted this blog for me from Afghanistan. Today I glanced past it and thought of posting it again for those of you who may not of read it. It meant alot to me. Just a simple message that blessed me. I hope it blesses you too. This was written in November 08' while I was in Afghanistan.

I had an experience the other day here in Afghanistan that I wanted to share with you. We were in a province known as, Helmond Province. Helmond is still considered the Afghan “Wild West”, so we were all on high alert. Tensions were running high! We wanted to get in, let our guys do their thing, and then get’em out. Quick and easy, right! Well, we had inserted more than 150 troops on the ground. My group used three aircraft, and the other guys used two. We got everyone in without a hitch. So far so good! Now we wait for the call to come and get them. Then it happened. One of our aircraft broke hard. Thank God we got it down in a safe Forward Operating Base (FOB) and not out in the wild country. So at least the aircraft and our crew were safe, but it wasn’t going to be flown anytime soon. Aircraft do brake from time to time, even in a combat zone. The next turn of events was from the other guys who had used two aircraft. Well…... their priority had changed, and they were not going to be able to help us on the extraction (exfil). I will just say that this other group was not American. It was hard for us to swallow them not helping with the exfil, but it is what is.
Now, we have a lot of dudes to get out before dark, and the clock was ticking. It was shaping up to be multiple trips, and they still had not made the call for extraction. Not to mention that each trip back and forth would be at considerable increased risk. The idea is to drop them off, SURPRISE! And then hop back in to get them, never to be seen again. Going back two and three times is just asking the enemy to mount some kind of retaliation. The distance was great enough that on every turn we would need fuel, just adding to the daylight problem. Once our guys are on the ground doing their thing it can be tough for them to just turn it off, but the option of calling them and letting them know we were on our way early was looking better and better.
Luckily we got the call moments before we were going to be forced to go get them early. During this time I was part of the crew with the broke aircraft. So, I needed a ride also. As the aircraft were in bound to get the first load we learned that the ground commandos had fought quite a bit and were ready to leave. Knowing this just seemed to add to the tension. They certainly didn’t like the news that we only had two aircraft and multiple trips were required. But there is nothing they could do, but hold on until there turn arrived. The aircrews were calculating fuel down to the liter so as to put the max amount of troops on board and still make it back to the pump. Just another day at the office right!
During the first turn, unexpectedly, they yelled my name to hop on one of the aircraft and head out to get some guys and take them to the main staging area. Once there, I would replace one of the pilots. At that point the other pilot would have been flying nearly 8 hours. So, I hop in the back and am sitting amongst several Afghan Commandos, US Special Forces and others. Usually, an American crewmember would not take the floor, but time was of the essence, so I just squeezed in on the floor.
Sitting on the floor of the aircraft that day I began to Thank God. The sun was setting and all the people on board had made it home. I asked God to get us through this last little bit, all of us. As I looked out the back I saw a bearded Army Special Forces troop looking into the sunset. On his right shoulder there was a patch. It said, “A+”. I knew right away what this was. This is in case a troop gets shot up; the battlefield medic will know what type of blood to call for. Why keep this vital piece of info a secret right? Put that on your chest or shoulder so all will know. Most of the combat troops do it. I looked around the aircraft and saw that even the Afghans had these patches on…O+, A-, B+ etc….
This made me think of my blood type, O Negative (O-). O- is the type of blood referred to as the universal donor blood. O- can be received by any other blood type. The opposite is not true. Other blood types resist the wrong type of blood if it were to be given. Fatally even. You can’t just give anyone any old blood. At that moment the Lord blessed me with an awesome thought of Christ. That day, I had worked with the US civil and military, Afghans, Brits, and Dutch. So many different people, from so many different places. Each with vastly different cultures and traditions. Seemingly so different at times it seemed that the individual differences would just go misunderstood due to their complexities. Yet each of us has one commonality, Christ. Like the O- blood type, Christ is the only one that every person on the face of this planet can receive. All the faces I looked at that day, all the blood type patches, I couldn’t help but see Christ as the one commonality. If they only knew that Jesus Christ is O-…He can be received by all.

The Kids Point of View!

We are so blessed at Crossroads. I really love my Crossroads family. Its seems like every corner I walk around I run into people having fun, digging-in, and just overall loving to serve. I really had a great time talking with so many today in the children's hallway. We had a great team effort in service and a great turn out for our children's meeting after service. I know God is blessing us with the right team to serve him and am just so exicted everyday for how things are going. So Thank You Lord!

Look again soon to see what Hollie has coming up on this blog. Also, check out the servecrossroads-kids blog to get a glimpse into the future.

Thank you all so much for what you do.

Pastor Matt

Oh yeah, the table leg thing. Ask me about it next time you see me???

WOW! A New Blog Already!

Check it out. I have taken the papercopy of the October, November, and December service opportunity schedule and created a blog for it. I think this will really help all our awesome leaders and volunteers stay informed with when they are serving and where, and who they will be with. I am really hopeful that with enough encouragement this scheduling medium will take hold.

http://servecrossroads-kids.blogspot.com/

From there you can click on the link shown to view the calendar.

Let me know if you like it.

There is so much huge stuff going on with the Crossroads Kids right now it is amazing. I can't wait to share it all with you. Thanks for checking in.
Pastor Matt

AHHH! Homework Again

I started working for LSI last week. I actually worked for them before I went to Afghanistan and am now trying to get back to where I was before I left. From the first day I have been reminded of so many things that I used to know, would like to know, or didn’t even know I didn’t know. There is so much to learn. This morning as we covered the homework topics that were assigned for the weekend I was thinking of how in the world was I ever good at teaching this subject. How quickly we forget things right? All I could get a good handle on was how much home study was going to be required. My instructor didn’t even have to tell me, I knew. I knew that to get where they need me to get I was going to have to really buckle down….at home. Yikes!
I guess we all get like this sometimes. We have homework from work, school, church, music lessons, sports, on and on and on. The truth is that outside of the environment where the homework is given it takes a considerable effort to get it done. Not just get it done but get it done correctly and on time. In most cases homework is being done to satisfy a requirement put on you from someone else and you know you have to live up to their standards. It’s hard. You have to plan time to do it and usually you don’t feel like it when the time arrives. So you have to force yourself to do it. Then after about 45 minutes you realize you have only been thinking about how you’re not getting anywhere. Is this just me? Studying or working at home can be really tough.
I do have a point to share with how I have been able to gain motivation for this. Over the past many months a certain part of Christ’s life has been sticking out to me. He went out on his own a lot. Jesus seemed to go off by himself quite a bit. I know one reason is that He wanted to get away from the huge crowds, but that is not the only reason. Christ liked to seclude himself to spend time with the Father. I can imagine Him in the midst of all the crowds that were yelling, pushing, and constantly battering. He also cared for people, ministered to them, defended verbal attacks in the town square. It exhausts me just thinking about it. It seems that Christ needed this time alone to gain focus, perspective, direction, and balance. That from these times of prayer Jesus would return refreshed and prepared for the next task at hand.
I can say that even if for a minute or two, giving yourself some alone to pray can be just what you need to gain that focus to get the homework accomplished. It doesn’t have to be much. You can take a quick minute alone and thank Him for something. You can take a quick minute and just focus on Him quietly. This brief time alone with Him will help you gain perspective on what’s in front you…every time!
Now to finish my original thought about how much I don’t know and all the homework ahead of me. When I got home I made the effort to gain perspective and focus. Instead of bringing in the book bag and getting right to it, I took a minute. I went for a small walk. Only about 10 minutes, but I didn’t have my phone and I was alone. I prayed for a minute or two and then shut my trap and just walked quietly. His presence was real during that walk and it gave me peace. When I got back I just grabbed my book bag, laid out my books, and knocked it out. The overwhelming feeling I had was gone. I just did what needed to be done. What’s amazing is that I know I was way more productive than I would have been.
It’s great to have such a good God that He is there when you need him.