Peter Gowesky – Page 7 – Peter Gowesky

In Uncategorized

I couldn’t be more proud of my boy!

April 12, 2012 1 Comment

In a recent parent teacher conference Noah’s teacher said that she has never had a student care about others like Noah does. WOW, right? I mean as a parent I am so proud of him. I was expecting to hear that my kid was the weird kid that stands in front of the urinal with his pants at his ankles. AWKWARD. But no! Instead she surprises us with great stuff! Then, I get this video from Tiffany today. This just put me over the edge. So, indulge me for a minute.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73wPBeO1gtQ]

I could not be more proud of Noah, not because he wants to follow in my footsteps, but because God is developing a really soft spot in his heart for people! I LOVE THIS about him. This reminds me to keep praying for each one of my kids. I love them, and believe that God has something really special in store for each of them.

What are you praying about for your kids?

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Added Value…

April 3, 2012 2 Comments

Callout, Value Added Many of you know that right now Tiffany and I are in the midst of selling our house and looking for a new home. We find ourselves asking questions almost everyday. Questions like, “how many showings will we get?”, “when will someone make an offer?”, “will they like our house?”, “will we get what we are asking?”. I am grateful to say that we have received a couple offers on our house and we have accepted one of them. PRAISE GOD! Seven days later and we’ve got ourselves a buyer. That’s unheard of, but not when God is in the midst of it!

But now that we are through that hurdle we find ourselves looking at a different set of hurdles. We have rounded the bend in the track and in front of us yet more hurdles. We are asking even more questions, like, “where should we live?”, “what is that area like?”, “can we make that into something we can live in?”, “what can we afford?”. It seems to me that most of our questions are based around the core idea of VALUE. Monetary value, yes, but not just that. The questions that we are asking are centered around the value that this decision will add or detract in our future, and the future of our family.

Value is something that we deal with everyday. I drive past probably 50-60 gas stations on my commute to work and each one has a slightly different value on the gallon of gas. In the morning we value our cup of coffee so much so that some of us will not speak with our spouse until we have tasted the sweet caffeinated nectar. Value shows up in almost every decision that we make.

We deal with value every single day. We evaluate values every single day. We will look at a product or a service and determine if we are willing to pay the value that is set on it. It controls our spending and the use of our time, etc. Yet, how often do we honestly evaluate the value that our own life is adding to our world?

Our lives are significant and valuable. However, they can be used to do one of two things; add value to life, or detract value. Our lives when lived in mission with Christ should add value to the lives of those around us.

So this leaves me wondering… Am I adding value to the lives of those around me? This means the waitress that serves me lunch, the security guy who stands in the lobby of the building, the parking attendant, the lawyer who rides the elevator with me, my neighbor who is always interested in what I’m doing outside, and all of those other people whose lives intersect with mine.

How can I breathe value into their life? Better yet, how can I help them see the value that they have in the eyes of their creator? What about you? Are you adding value to the lives around you?

~Peter

In Spiritual Growth

Puddles and Perspective

March 27, 2012 No Comments

As many of you know, my life is in the midst of a major transition. Recently I have resigned from my position as youth pastor at First Baptist Church in Doylestown and I have accepted an associate pastor position at Liquid Church in Morristown NJ. My life meets the pre-req’s for the term transitional to apply. I am living in one state, and working in another. Our front yard is decorated with a large “for sale” sign. The attic is ready to explode with the amount of boxes that are shoved up in there.

Our life is in the midst of a transition.

Transitions are crazy right? If you’ve been through one, then you know what I am talking about. Some of you may have moved, changed jobs, or added children to your family–all of these things create a massive disruption to your version of normal. I was on the phone this morning and I said, “I can’t wait to get back to a version of normal”. See, normal is relative. Right now is anything but normal. That is okay–because it is a time of transition. Right now, I can say to myself, NORMAL WILL RETURN!

But, during this time of transition, life is crazy! I am driving more now than I have ever driven before. I am learning a whole new language, a new organization, and a new work culture. I am farther from home more often than ever before. Things do not feel normal.

In the midst of this transition there are several things that are constant. I am still a dad to my three kids, and I am still a husband. This has not changed, nor will it ever change. The hard part is trying to figure out how to balance being the best daddy to these three precious children and being the best husband to my wife all while living in the midst of crazy amounts of commotion.

Starting last week our church kicked off a Wednesday night worship and prayer service as a part of our Revive Series. It will run up until the week before Easter. The idea is that on Wednesday we would fast and pray and end our day with corporate prayer and worship. (Aussie Dave blogged about it here.) Last week was my first week at Liquid, and my first week participating in the church wide fast. We were challenged by Pastor Tim to pray about what we should fast and bring before God. I knew quickly what I was fasting for. It was clear, and obvious. I was to be fasting for my wife and my kids. I specifically was asking God to watch over and protect my family. I was asking God to meet their needs since I couldn’t. Simply put, it was me asking God to do what I couldn’t.

That Wednesday afternoon I had to walk to the store to get some ice for the evening, and I was praying for Grace, my 5 year old. She was having a particularly hard day emotionally. I was on my way back from the 7-11, awkwardly carrying three bags of ice when I noticed several common sparrows flitting about on the ground ahead of me. I paused to watch them for just a few brief moments and then I noticed what they were doing.

Birds on the Sidewalk The sparrows were dancing around a small puddle that had formed in the low area of the sidewalk, and they were drinking from this pool. I watched one sparrow in particular crane its neck forward in order to swallow up a small amount of water. I was reminded in that moment how much God cared for these sparrows. Those sparrows were being taken care of by God through that puddle. I thought of my daughter, Grace, and how much I wanted God to take care of her emotions. I thought of my wife, Tiffany, and how much I wanted God to give her strength. I thought of my son, Noah, and how much I wanted God to protect him and watch over him. I thought of my 1 year old daughter, Leah, and how much I wanted her to know that her daddy loves her.

And then I thought of how much God takes care of these sparrows. I was reminded of what Jesus says in Matthew 10:29-31,

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

It was in that moment that God comforted me and reminded me that they are really his children, and He’s got it all under control. Even when I don’t feel it! Tiffany is His daughter whom He values more than I ever could.

It still feels crazy. But I am thankful that God is a God who handles all of the transitions.

~Peter

In Spiritual Growth

Revive

March 22, 2012 No Comments

Last night was one of the first events that I was apart of in my time here with Liquid Church. We had the first of three prayer and worship nights, which we are calling Revive. The goal of the evening was simple:

Gather together to worship God, and call on His name in prayer.

Being new here, I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t know how many people would show up, or how the evening would go. At 7:30 people were streaming in and the line wasn’t stopping. We ran out of programs and we were adding chairs to the room till it hit capacity!

The truth of Hebrews 4:14-16 was declared, and realized by many.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Hebrews 4:14-16

I am excited to come before my Lord and ask Him in confidence for the things on my heart. What about you?

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Chapters, Journeys, and other such things…

March 13, 2012 2 Comments

For four and a half years I have served as the Student Ministries Pastor at First Baptist Church of Doylestown. There have been times when we have laughed so hard that I cried. There have been times when I have flat out just cried. There have been times when we stayed up all night. There have been times when we served our community and the communities around us. We have seen God break through in the lives of countless students and truly be their Lord and savior. I have been given the privilege to work alongside of some really gifted individuals that love God and love others. I have had an opportunity to train and mentor others. I have learned new things about leadership, students, volunteers, myself, and God. It has been an incredible journey.

God has blessed me abundantly more than I could have ever dreamed He would.

It is with a contemplative spirit that I write the ending to this chapter in our history. I am thankful for all that God has done in and through us here at First Baptist. We are truly excited for the future. We are excited to dream about what God is going to do in and through us as we follow Him. The future is filled with unknowns for us. But whose future isn’t? So we will walk by faith, knowing that God has never left us hanging, never let us go, or ever turned His back on us.

Some of you have been asking what I will be doing in the future. I am excited to share with you that I have the opportunity to continue to serve alongside of great men and women. I will be working at Liquid Church in New Jersey. I will be working at the Morristown Campus. For those of you into details, I will be working as an Associate Campus Pastor. I’m super excited to figure out what that exactly means. I know one thing, I will be able to continue to lead people to life and growth in Christ and partner with others as they explore their journey of faith. Stay posted to the blog for more info of what I’m doing in life and in ministry!

Now onto the good stuff:

This past Sunday was my last Sunday here at FBC. The church was incredibly generous in praying for us, thanking us and being a huge blessing to us. So to all of you from FBC, THANK YOU! We love you all dearly. I had the opportunity to preach, to laugh (thanks Bob Miller), and to pour my heart out. Then later that day was my last youth group. What a great night! There were some highlights for sure. I loved being able to share with students the one thing I want them to remember: To Love God, and To Love Others. We concluded the evening and my ministry here at FBC with a baptism service. I could not be more proud of these six students! Each of them had a story to tell about what brought them to this point and why they wanted to be baptized. We cheered, hollered, screamed, and whistled in celebration of our six friends who decided to make a public statement that they are following CHRIST!

The pictures tell it all!

To all of the students at FBC, thank you for giving me the opportunity to be your pastor. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for partnering in the kingdom mischief, I pray that you will keep it up. I’m super proud of all of you! God has great things in store for you.

~Peter

[slideshow]

In Uncategorized

The Ninja Assassin in Me

March 8, 2012 No Comments

Do you remember AOL? I bet some of you don’t remember what AOL even stands for. In fact some of you may not have even known it stood for something. So, I’ll not tell you. Let’s see what you remember.

But seriously, AOL developed one of the most iconic noises of that era. It was that blessed noise, “You’ve got mail!”. They made a movie based upon it, cleverly titled, “You’ve got mail”. To me, that sound was like a beautiful chorus of sweet baby cherubs singing the Hallelujah chorus. I was so excited when I would get an email. I can remember waiting five minutes to establish the connection, trying to call a different location because the AOL phone number was busy, and then waiting for everything to load.

It was like Christmas morning when you would hear, “You’ve Got Mail”. And to make sure that there would be presents under the tree when I got there, I would sign up for anything that would be willing to send me an email from time to time. “Would I love to hear more about this exciting new product to reduce ear hair? SURE! I’m only 14 but you can never be too educated right? Sign me up!” Bam, now I’ve got mail.

How times have changed.

Now I don’t hear “You’ve Got Mail” anymore. In fact all I hear is a small chime. But now, getting email is much more than listening for the baby cherubs. We use email for far more than my 14 year old mind could have dreamed of.

Now the goal of my email box is to eliminate with the precision of a ninja all foreign and unnecessary emails. The unsubscribe button and I have become friends. I am ruthless when it comes to junk email. I cannot have a cluttered up email inbox. It is not good for me. When it gets crazy cluttered, I loose sight of others emails, and I can easily become distracted by “The 10 quick and easy steps to rid yourself from the plague of ear hair!” To keep my email clean I have to do this.

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time: Am I as ruthless with sin as I am with junk email?

What I mean is, do I work equally as hard to get rid of sin in my life? Do I work to diligently to rid myself of the evil of sin? Do I push towards the goal of Christ likeness with the same tenacity that I apply towards keeping my inbox pure?

I think that many of us have a very soft view of sin. If we truly believed that sin is as harmful as it is we would act like it. It would change the way that we live. We would set up certain protocols when temptations entered our life. We would work diligently towards eliminating sin’s hold on our life.

I wish that I was more of a sin assassin than a junk mail assassin.

What are your thoughts?

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Journey’s, Hike’s and Adventures

March 4, 2012 No Comments

What is the coolest journey that you have ever been on? This journey could have taken you miles from your home, or it could have only moved you few minutes from home. The distance does not matter. The journey does.

When I was a kid, one of my cherished family traditions was to spend thanksgiving day with my extended family and sleep at my aunts house that night. This would make it so that all of my cousins could hang out the next day. The day after thanksgiving never changed. As sure as it was to be a Friday, we were certain about what we were doing. We set out on a journey, an adventure. All six of us would gather up food, provisions, and supplies for the journey that we were about to embark on.

We set off to play/build/create in the woods of a South Jersey farm. We left from the house that sat at the front of the property and we journeyed to the back of the property. Not a far destination at all, yet a significant one at that.

We are all grown up now, and it has been years since the last time the six of us plodded down the dirt pathway leading to our destination, yet it comes up from time to time in conversation. Remember when we used to ______________________. It was significant. It was fun. It was an experience, a journey.

As kids we would journey to the back of a farm every friday after Thanksgiving. I’ve gone to places much farther than the back of the farm in the years since those adventures. A journey can be near, or it can be far. It can occur in a day, or over the course of several years. The distance, nor the time matter, the journey does. I’ve been thinking, how do you journey well?

Hebrews 11 has encouraged me to journey well. The last verses of chapter 10 are significant to the reading of chapter 11. The writer of Hebrews writes,

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not delay. But my righteous one shall live by Faith. And if He shrinks Back, My soul has no pleasure in Him.” Hebrews 10:35-39

Tiffany and I are about to head out on a new journey. Along the way I expect that there will be adventures, set backs, and mountain top experiences all mixed together. There will be times when a journey looks crazy scary. It may be ridiculous at the outset. I’d encourage you to read Hebrews chapter 11. There are some people in there who journeyed well, and did some incredibly crazy stuff along the way(And hey, be encouraged, Samson made it in that list.)

What are some things that you have found that have helped you journey well?

I’d love to hear your thoughts/insights.

~Peter

In Spiritual Growth

Dangerous Tools…

March 3, 2012 No Comments

I have a lot of tools in my garage. There are countless tools. I have tools to fix cars, tools to work the ground, tools to fix plumbing, tools to work with wood, and tools to fix electric and tools to do a ton of other tasks.

Several of these tools are ridiculously dangerous. I’ll never forget the time when I saved my dad’s pointer finger from being severed on a table saw. (That story later) I have another friend who nearly lost his finger to a table saw. Every time I operate a table saw I think about lopping my finger off. I have a chainsaw that loves to rip through wood. This thing is mean. Since I heat my house with wood, I have spent a lot of time cutting up trees with this saw. I have heard horror stories of people who have done incredible damage to themselves with their chainsaws. Those thoughts run through my mind every time that thing rips!

As I have a garage full of tools to fix my house, garden, or vehicles, as a follower of Jesus there are certain tools that I have at my disposal. I think that one of the most dangerous tools is prayer.

In the voice of prayer we can diminish others and elevate ourself. Jon Acuff has a pretty funny blog post about the prayer shot block. (quite the funny read) Because we know and believe that prayer is powerful it can be incredibly tempting to use it like one uses a tool to fix their home, car, or yard. Too often I use prayer as a tool to change God.

I can focus a majority of my prayers on changing God instead of praising God. I can spend 80% or more of my time asking God to change this person, or give __________ to that person, or even to help me do __________. It is good and right to be praying for others. But it seems to me that we miss the boat when all we do is direct God to do this that or the other thing.

What about spending time praising God for who He is? What about spending time thanking God for what He’s done in your life and the life of others? What about spending time asking God to forgive you? What about just being silent before God and listening to what He has to say? Must you really hear yourself talk the whole time?

When most of your prayers begin with Dear God, please… there may be a problem.

I might even go out on a limb and say that this is an effort to play god. In a sense to be god over God. Every time I see someone trying to be god it never ends well.

I am afraid that this is the pattern of my prayer life far too often! It’s time to make a change. Anyone else with me?

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

Vanilla Ice and My Son

February 24, 2012 No Comments

Okay, for real. I’m jealous of all you people out there who have awesome hair. It is not that you’ve got incredible hair per say, it is the fact that you can do something with it. You can style it. I have been shaving my head for over 4 years now not because I want to be prematurely bald. No, I have been shaving my head because my hair simply will not style in any other way. I grew up with a comb over, I tried the shaggy surfer hair, and I would say for a vast majority of my adult life I’ve had chia pet hair. You know the kind that just poofs out.

I have vowed that Noah will not inherit my comb over, or the chia pet hair cut. So, since the other day he started to look like this guy… We decided that something must be done. So, we busted out the clippers and I went to work. He sure was a trooper. Here’s how it went down. (Barber of Seville style)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcA3ozgqqw0]

Just so you know, I’m open for business, if you are looking for a new do!

~Peter

In Faith in Real Life

One of my favorite things…

January 20, 2012 No Comments

There are a lot of things that I enjoy doing in life. And fortunately my job allows me to do some of them! This weekend is a highlight for me. This weekend I will have the privilege of performing the wedding ceremony for two of our former youth leaders. I look forward to opportunities like this. I have known Bekah and Jesse for about 4 years now and I am totally excited to celebrate with them tomorrow!

I also love participating in weddings because every now and then something like this happens…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clw7SAJs_6w]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0]

What’s the best thing that you’ve ever seen at a wedding? For me, it was my own wedding… My 6’49” brother-in-law passed out right in the middle of my ceremony. Good times, funny memories of “Tommy-Timbers”…

Here’s hoping for tomorrow,

Peter