There has been so much going on in my head lately… some of which includes, sinus congestion, others of which include Auto Tune, Leadership, the Church, Kanye West, and tons of other stuff… Unfortunately I just haven’t had the time to get anything down on paper. They keep escaping me.
I feel like my mind is a restless wanderer lately…
What things/ideas/circumstances make your mind go in a million directions?
I’d love to know.
~Peter
Hey guys,
SO, here’s the deal… I know that the last week was a little rough here. When I checked this morning and realized that the last post was a whole week ago! I am realizing that was a little pathetic! Sorry…. So anyway, as you continue to check, I will continue to make sure that there are some new thoughts here…
Last week was really fun. I was getting ready for this Sunday’s sermon, and I am praying that God uses it in big ways in your lives! I am getting really excited about it, and for it! Seriously!!! I am so thankful for every opportunity that I get to stand before you guys and share with you what God is teaching me and showing me… Thank you for letting me!
A couple things that also really excite me today…
1. I almost welcomed our head elder/Five regular attender/incredible lasagna maker/all around cool guy to Twitter…
2. Reading “In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership”
3. Almost welcoming Tiffany/my wife to Twitter…
4. Looking forward to heading out to Texas for a short but great visit with my Mom and sisters this Thursday-Saturday…
5. Waiting to hear about when we will close on our house…
6. Relistening to Francis Chan’s sermon: “Living a Life that Matters: Living with Jesus” challenged me the first time, and I don’t want to forget it!
7. Still laughing about meeting Mr. Willy from Tennessee. Loved that guy! If you’re there on Sunday night at The Five, you might hear a few stories about our trip down south!
I hope that you have as thrilling and exciting of a day as I expect to have!
~Peter
This morning I came across this verse in Acts, one which I am familiar with yet it struck me differently today… “And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the eart, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist,” Acts 17:26-28
Have you ever been in the dark? I mean the absolute dark. As in the absence of any light? One time I think I can honestly say I was in the dark. We went on a field trip when I was in 6th grade to Crystal Cave Pa. Apparently this is “Pennsylvania’s Greatest Wonder”. Anyway, it was cool, but the best part was when they took you in the cave and shut the lights off. And I mean all of the lights. It was pitch black, dark, like devoid of any light DARK! I can remember feeling infinitely small, and even remotely scared. I couldn’t see. I wouldn’t be able to find my way out, etc… It was a strange feeling. I would have done anything to find the light, had I not known that the guide was trustworthy enough to turn the lights back on… (Which he was…)
Back to Acts… Paul is writing here that we are to search for God, and to find Him. I like the wording that the New American Standard Bible uses, “that they might grope for Him and find Him.” That totally carries some great mental pictures. Can’t you just picture someone who is searching for something but can’t find it? Jesus calls Himself the light of the world. Things are so much better in the light then in the dark. Shouldn’t we do everything we can to get back into the light? {See Ephesians 5:6-16}
What prevents you from finding God? I don’t mean finding God as in for the first time… I mean what prevents you from getting on your knees every day and groping for more of God… searching and seeking and earnestly looking to find out more about Him?
on my knees looking…
~Peter
Okay, so go here… and watch the video called “dream job week 4”. Then click back over here… Go ahead, do it now… I’ll be waiting here for your return.
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I was with a good buddy this morning, and we were talking about God’s will and God’s direction for his life. Immediately I thought of this video. This is such a cool story. Isn’t it? It made me think. What do you think?
~Peter
Lately, I have been thinking about stuff… You know? I find myself thinking about ministry, life and my family. Sometimes I wonder if this is normal? I mean there are times when I just can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve found myself saying, “Okay, it’s time to go to bed now. Stop thinking about stuff!” I suppose that you could call this craziness, or maybe just disturbed.
I wonder about how can we do things better? How can we more effectively minister to students. What would be my dreams and goals… I sit and think about the church in a perfect world. I dream about the day when we can be a church that stands culturally relevant, and is culturally attractive to those in our community! I dream about how we can get to that point. I am pained by phrases, and ideology that causes more harm to the name of Jesus, than it does good.
Sometimes I wonder… Sometimes I dream…
What keeps you up at night? What are your passions?
~Peter
I came home from work today, and Tiffany suggested that I take Noah outside to play. So, I did. We had a great time. He really wanted to throw the frisbee. It is unbelievable how far that dude can throw a frisbee.
He is a champion! It made me think of the times when my dad and I would throw frisbee or play catch or wiffle ball, or whatever it was. But, I loved it. Both then, and now.
My little son is old enough to throw a frisbee back at me! HOW CRAZY IS THAT? I AM ANCIENT. You should put me in a museum. I am feeling old right now.
To top it off, we were looking at book bags online for him as he is going to be headed off to the big scary world of preschool this year! I could be buying my son a book bag, like to actually use! What planet am I on, and what happened to me being young?
Do you feel old? When do you think you will feel old? What is old?
~Mr. Gowesky (Cause you only call old people Mr.)
So, it has been kind of quiet around the salt lick lately. I admire guys like this, and this who can everyday wake up and have the time to get a blog entry out there. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t do this because I have to, I do it because I want to. But I am surprised at how quiet I have been over these past few days. I hope to shed some light on it all.
I have been feeling kind of blah lately. Physically I’m fine. However, if I am honest with you, and I want to be honest, I have been feeling kind of blah. I am tired. I am hungry.
I am tired of waking up tired. I am tired of wanting more. I am tired in a good sort of way. I don’t want to sit still and just watch as things go by. I want to be apart of them. I want to be included in the “things”.
I am hungry for all sorts of things, the least of which is food. In the last three weeks, I have been trying to read as much as I can, and learn as much as I can. I am hungry to know more. I want to be the best leader, and pastor that I can be. I am hungry to see God do big things. I couldn’t tell you what they are, or what they should be, all I know is that I am hungry to be apart of it!
I guess I have a lot going through my head in these last few days. I have been thinking about a lot, wondering a lot, and praying a lot. Pray with me that God would do great things here in Doylestown. It is a privilege to serve as the Youth Pastor here at FBC.
~Peter
So, as I said earlier, Tiffany and I have been going pretty hard and at a pretty fast pace recently and we decided that we needed a little time to spend together as a couple. This was awesome! Let me tell you… We just laughed together, listened to one another, held hands with one another, walked around with each other, and just spent some quality time together. The key words in that last sentence were “one another”. We did stuff together. I love Tiffany so much, and it was awesome just to be able to hang out together for a little while. We had a blast.
We went on a couple day trips. The first day we went to NY City. This was great. We’ve been talking about doing this for a long time. Finally we did it. We went into the city and just walked around and got lost. I got yelled at by a cop on a horse for something I didn’t do, and we had an awesome time. I almost met Ryan Cabrera, and then I was like, ah, who cares. So here are a few pictures from New York.
So, here was the only annoying thing about being in NY. People tried to sell me everything. They wanted me to buy, bus tours, maps, T-Shirts, comedy tickets, and any other sight-seeing paraphernalia. Here’s what bothered me though. Do I really look that different that I stand out from the melting pot of america? Do I talk that differently? Do I have the deer in the headlights look or something?
Have you ever been in a situation where you just clearly don’t belong? What was it?
It made me think though, this is how it should be for each one of us as Christians here on earth. The Bible tells us that we are strangers in this place. This is not our home. We eternally will be in Heaven, not here on earth. As a Christian, people should be looking at me and saying, hmm… he’s not like this world.
Just a few observations from my trip to NY.
Any thoughts?
~Peter
It’s funny, most of you will not even read this post till much later because I have started blogging here at this new site before it has even been linked to the button that you just pushed. Some of you may be reading this a week from now, or who knows how long. But I have some thoughts rolling around in this big old cranium of mine(the likes of which I have unfortunately passed on to my son). So, anyway, here’s the deal, I was reading in 2 Chronicles yesterday. I kind of threw a dart at the Bible and said, I’m gonna read this. Have you ever spun a globe and closed your eyes and pressed your finger on it and where ever your finger landed on was where you were going to live? 71 percent of the time you end up with your finger someplace in the watery deep. However from time to time you land on some solid piece of land, and that is where you are going to live. Well the same sort of principal applied to my Bible reading yesterday (I’m sorry to say). I wish that I was a little more focused and purposeful, however, I cracked it open and here’s where I landed; 2 Chronicles.
I read the first several chapters because it captivated my attention. I was drawn into what was going on here at this point in time of history. It was amazing! Here we find King Solomon {who was the son of King David, the great shepherd King} ruling over all of Israel. He heads off to go and worship God. He brings his entourage with him, and they head to a place called Gibeon where they are going to worship God. So check this out, Solomon gets there and he starts a huge worshp service. He goes and the Bible says that he sacrifices 1000 burnt offerings. When I read that verse I was thinking, wow, that is really extravagant, and incredible. This guy(solomon) up and sacrificed 1000 burnt offerings to the Lord. I was also thinking, I wonder how much all of that would cost! So, I tried to do some research to see how much on the average sale price of a cow. Let me tell you, that is no easy task. However, I did find an auction site that provided me with the exact data that I needed. This site documents that they on average sell their cows for $576. They sell their bulls for $1750 on average. Now, when people would make burnt offerings and sacrifices to the Lord in this time period they would never sacrifice whatever was cheap, or mutated, or old and usless anyhow. The rule was that the sacrifice had to be pure and unblemished. So, it is safe to assume that the 1000 animals that were sacrificed were probably worth more than the industry average. If we take these average numbers and we were to say that the offering is split 50/50, that is, half cows, half bulls, we are talking about a worship service with an offering worth 1 million 163 thousand dollars. (In todays values)
IMAGINE THAT! Can you imagine coming to a worship service ready to give God over a million dollars? I know that there are some super wealthy people out there who have the ability to do such things, but come on! I mean seriously that is some extravagant worhsip. This begs the question, “How extravagant is your worship?” I mean I know Solomon was a king, yet at the same time, I’m sure this was even extravagant for him. The idea is that God is worth our worship! He is worth all that we have and all that we are!
How good of a job are you doing right now in worshiping God? It is my desire to worship God with extravagance, with generosity and with joy in my heart like Solomon did here. How incredible would our worship services be if more and more of us worshipped God with all that we had and all that we are! Incredible!!! Think on it.