Pray for your Pastor

I just had the privilege of spending a week with approximately one thousand pastors at the 2012 Moody Bible Institute Pastor's Conference. I was encouraged by all of the great teaching and worship; however, it might surprise you that I do not primarily attend this conference for the teaching and the worship.

I attend this conference every year for the purpose of fellowshipping with other pastor's. Some of you may not be aware of this, but being a pastor can be a lonely vocation. This is not a gripe or complaint; it is simply a fact of being in the ministry of the Gospel.

When pastors get together with other pastors, we share our hopes and dreams for the people that God has given us the privilege of shepherding and we share our frustrations we experience with...

Getting on the plane in Chicago...Landing in Denver...waiting in Denver.

 …the sheep and the inadequacies we struggle with as shepherds.

There is a brotherhood that we share that goes deep as a result of our shared experiences in the ministry. We all know how much we need each other and remind each other how much we need Christ leading and guiding our churches.

This may sound self-serving but I want to encourage those who read this (including the folks in the church I serve in) to pray for your pastor's. They may look like they know what they are doing, but most of the time they have no clue; including myself.  If you are not sure what to pray for your pastor, simply pray that they will totally rely on Jesus and His Word as they do the work God has called them to.

Living Life to the Full (And waiting for a plane to Worland… Landed in Worland and glad to be back safe and sound,)

Pastor Scott

The Lord of the Dance

It has been a rough couple of weeks for me. First and sadly, one of my favorite football players of all time, Junior Seau took his own life. I watched Junior Seau play football at Oceanside High School, USC and for many years with the San Diego Chargers. Seau played every play like it might be his last. He had a personality that was larger than life and he was a hero to many in San Diego; however, that apparently wasn’t enough. He eventually came to that deep dark place where he made the ultimate choice to take his own life.

This week, the Queen of Disco, Donna Summer, died of cancer. I grew up during the days of disco. Almost every high school dance I attended, the final song was always Donna Summers, “Last Dance.” This song was always bitter sweet. Since we knew it was the last dance, it made us sad, but it also pumped us up to break out every last disco move we had because it was the last dance.

 I think that one of many metaphors for life can be a dance. When the dance starts, lots of folks are just standing around; waiting for the right song to break the ice. Whether it was Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood,” Elvis Pressley’s “Jail House Rock, or for me the Bee Gees “Stayin Alive,” once the right song came on the dance began.  Throughout the night, we all danced to fast songs and slow songs, long songs and short songs, some songs we liked, and some songs we didn’t, however, we almost always danced. Why, because it was a dance! We came to DANCE!

 In Psalm 150:4, the Psalmist tells us to, “Praise the Lord with the tambourine and dance…” and Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes 3:4, “…there is a time to dance.”

I remember singing a hymn as a child called, “The Lord of the Dance”. Take a moment to read the lyrics:

I danced in the morning when the world was begun; I danced in the Moon & the Stars & the Sun.
I came down from Heaven & I danced on Earth. At Bethlehem I had my birth:

Chorus: Dance then, wherever you may be. I am the Lord of the Dance, said He!        
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be. And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said He!
I danced for the Scribe & the Pharisee. But they would not dance & they wouldn't follow me
I danced for fishermen, for James & John. They came with me & the Dance went on:

I danced on the Sabbath & I cured the lame. The holy people said it was a shame!
They whipped & they stripped & they hung me high. And they left me there on a cross to die!

I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black. It's hard to dance with the devil on your back.
They buried my body & they thought I'd gone. But I am the Dance & I still go on!

They cut me down and I leapt up high. I am the Life that'll never, never die!
I'll live in you if you'll live in Me - I am the Lord of the Dance, said He!

 Jesus is the Lord of the Dance and He invites us, His children to dance with him today, tomorrow and for all of eternity.  Don’t quit dancing; however difficult life may become, keep on dancing.

 Someday, each of us will participate in the last dance of this life. Which song will be playing on your last dance? Will it be “Stairway to Heaven,” or will it be, “Highway to Hell.” Don’t wait until it is too late to pick your song. Jesus invites you to dance. Will you dance with the Lord of the Dance?” 

I hope you will.

Living Life to the Full,

Pastor Scott

We've Become Soft on Sin

I believe many Christians have become soft on sin. Sins that are spoken about today freely in public, used to only be whispered about in private.

In Jerry Bridges book, Respectable Sins:Confronting the Sins we tolerate, (which I recommend that everyone read), he speaks about how our many Christians have become soft on sin.

If you recall when Kobe Bryant committed adultery a number of years ago, he stated, "I made the mistake of adultery." We now call sin simply a mistake. Premarital sex sounds much more tolerable than fornication. Pro-choice is much more tolerable than Pro-abortion.

Sin used to mean more than simply doing something wrong. Bridges writes:

"Sin is a principle or moral force in our heart, our inner being. Our sinful actions, words, and thoughts are simply expressions of the principle of sin residing within us, even in those of us whose hearts have been renewed. Even though our hearts have been renewed, even though we have been freed from the absolute dominion of sin, even though God's Holy Spirit dwells within our bodies, this principle of sin still lurks within us and wages war against our souls."

We must not fail to recognize this awful truth. In Puritan Ralph Venning's book, The Sinfulness of Sin, he makes this contrast between the holiness of God and our sin:

"God is holy, all holy, only holy, altogether holy and always holy, so sin is sinful, all sinful, only sinful altogether sinful and always sinful."

Bridges then writes:

"Whether our sin is large or small in our eyes, it is heinous in the sight of God. God forgives us our sin because of the shed blood of Christ, but he does not tolerate it. Instead, every sin that we commit, even the subtle sin that we don't even think about, was laid upon Christ as He bore the curse of God in our place. And herein lies chiefly the malignancy of sin, Christ suffered because of our sin."

When am reminded that my sin caused Christ to suffer, then I begin to hate my sin and do my best, through the power of the Holy Spirit to refrain from sin.

The Apostle Paul stated in Romans 6 that where sin abounds, grace there much more abounds. So is Paul saying if we want to experience more of God's grace then we simply should sin more? Of course not! We should be committed to sin less and be intolerant of sin in our lives.

If we continue to be soft on sin and tolerate sin in our lives we are in danger of making excuses and rationalizations for our sin and becoming grace junkies.

Living life to the full and hating my sin,

Scott

Deep Birthday Thoughts

Since I am celebrating my 46th Birthday today, I thought I would share some deep birthday wisdom. This wisdom does not come from me, but from the late Henri Nouwen. I love what Nouwen has to say about Birthdays and it is my gift to you on my birthday. I encourage you to take three minutes and read Nouwen's thoughts:

Birthdays need to be celebrated. I think it is more important to celebrate a birthday than a successful exam, a promotion, or a victory. Because to celebrate a birthday means to say to someone: "Thank you for being you." Celebrating a birthday is exalting life and being glad for it. On a birthday we do not say: "Thanks for what you did, or said, or accomplished." No, we say: "Thank you for being born and being among us."

On birthdays we celebrate the present. We do not complain about what happened or speculate about what will happen, but we lift someone up and let everyone say: "We love you!"

I know a friend who, on his birthday, is picked up by his friends, carried to the bathroom, and thrown clothes and all into a tub full of water. Everyone eagerly awaits his birthday, even he himself. I have no idea where this tradition came from, but to be lifted up and "re-baptized" seems like a very good way to have your life celebrated. We are made aware that although we have to keep our feet on the ground, we are created to reach the heavens, and that, although we easily get dirty, we can always be washed clean again and our life given a new start.

Celebrating a birthday reminds us of the goodness of life, and in this spirit we really need to celebrate people's birthdays every day, by showing gratitude, kindness, forgiveness, gentleness, and affection. These are ways of saying: "It's good that your are alive: it's good that your are walking with me on this earth. Let's be glad and rejoice. This is the day that God has made for us to be and to be together."

Video of our week at the NIH ( Day 5 )

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Today was our fifth and final day at the NIH. I think it was the busiest day too! We started the day with Caleb getting an I.V placed for a lab test. He was a hard stick so we took him upstairs and they used an ultrasound machine to view his vein as they inserted the needle. Caleb did wonderful throughout the whole thing. They put a special numbing cream on his arm and so I don't think he felt a thing!

Then he had an EKG and an echocardiogram. He had professional photograph taken to be kept in his records. He had a skeletal survey done where they took x-rays of legs, back, head, hands, etc. He did so well that the tech said that he did better than a lot of adults! The last test of the day was a skin biopsy.

We ended the day with a wrap- up session with Lynne Wolfe, NP and Dr. Tifft. These two women coordinated all of Caleb's care and were just wonderful! If either of you are reading this blog then let us thank you again for all your hard work. We are very grateful!

Tomorrow morning we leave to go home. The week has just gone by amazingly fast! We unfortunately do not have a diagnosis yet but there are a couple of things that Caleb will be tested for but will take weeks if not months to come back. Some of his bloodwork was even sent off to Germany! Overall, we feel blessed and grateful that Caleb was chosen to participate in the UDP. At the very least we feel that everything possible has been done to figure out the mystery that is Caleb. :)

We also met a couple of very nice families whose children were participating in some other studies being conducted at the NIH. I met a mother who told me that her 12 year old daughter had been diagnosed with a terminal illness only two years ago. I met another mother who shared that her 5 year old son wasn't potty trained either, probably would never potty train. It was last on her list of priorites though because BOTH of her children had a rare disease in which the life expectancy was 10 years old. So we are very thankful that no matter what is going on with Caleb, he appears to be progressing and we expect him to be with us for a very long time.

Thanks to all of our family, church family and friends who have prayed for us during this trip! We love you all!

NIH Day 4

Today was long and interesting. I'm really tired so I'll just share the highlights.

• Caleb had a Dexa scan this morning. I guess it checks for bone density. The test took all of about 20 minutes even though we were told it took 45. I asked the Tech why the test was so short since we thought it was going to be almost an hour and she said that Caleb was a pleasant surprise. He's such an easy-going kid that he just laid on the table and when she asked him not to move....he didn't. Most kids freak out so they allow a 45 minute time slot. Anyone who knows Caleb knows that his middle name ought to be mellow!

• He then met with an occupational therapist who gave us some great ideas on how to help Caleb hold a pencil better to write. She also gave us a hand brace fitted for him and some pencil grips.

• After lunch, Caleb had a blood draw from his hand. They put numbing cream on about 10 minutes prior and he didn't even flinch! They took a bunch of blood too for research purposes.

• Then a Pediatric gastroenterologist came to the room to visit Caleb. We discussed his constipation issue and how to treat it better. She also suggested that we trial a milk free diet for awhile. That'll be very hard since Caleb loves his chocolate milk!

• We finished the day with more neuropsych testing. We'll find out tomorrow how Caleb is doing cognitively and I may take the results with a grain of salt. We'll see...

• Now for the interesting part... We had to take a cab to a New Balance store to get Caleb a pair of shoes that his new orthotics would fit into. We left the NIH at 5:15 pm straight into rush traffic into Washington D.C. and our cab driver barely said a word and drove like a MANIAC! I at least put up 3 prayers for safety. When we got back to the NIH we had to go through the check point which required us to get out of the cab, walk through a metal detector, show our ID, etc. EXCEPT guess who forgot their ID?? I did ( Heather ). Yaa, I wasn't even sure they were even going to let me back in the place. It was a huge deal! Thankfully, I had Caleb's hospital wristband in my jeans pocket to prove that he'd been in the hospital!

• After all of that, we get back to the Children's Inn and I realize that my cell phone is missing!!!! It must have fallen out of my coat pocket into the cab! I called my phone and on the 8th ring a man with a heavy carribean accent answered......the cab driver! Thank God! He ended up coming an hour later to drop it off.

• Tomorrow is our last full day and Caleb is scheduled for an ACTH stimulation test...they'll need to place an IV. He'll have a skeletal survey, skin biopsy, Echocardiogram, and an EKG. We finish the day with stopping by rehab medicine to make sure Caleb's new shoes work with his new orthotics. Hopefully, they do because we are not doing the cab ride into D. C. again! Yaa, we'll pass on that. :)

NIH visit day 3

Today was another full and busy day! We started at 7:30 am with a blood sugar check, then breakfast for Caleb. By 8:30 we were meeting with a speech, language pathologist where Caleb was evaluated. Thankfully, Caleb is already seeing such a great SLP at home that she didn't have a lot to add. We then had an a appt. with a Physiatrist who tested Caleb on his gross motor skills and he actually is doing quite well in that area. He is delayed but we were told that he just needs organized play like tumbling, swimming, etc. to catch up. The doctor also had another suggestion for a different type of orthotic than Caleb is wearing right now.

We had lunch and then Caleb saw a dentist/geneticist. Can you imagine?? These people must have spent half their lives in school! He looked at Caleb's teeth and said that often teeth can give a lot of clues. They did x-rays and thankfully Caleb has all of his permanent teeth up in his gums. The dentist was pretty impressed with Caleb's bifurcated tooth. He said it was a classic dentil anomoly that was pretty rare to see. He was going to research it but he said that it may be unrelated to Caleb's other issues

We then met with a dietician who gave us some tips on broadening Caleb's diet. He's pretty limited in what he'll eat right now. Of course if he has some kind of bacteria in his gut then that would be responsible for a lot of his pickiness. He sees GI tomorrow so we'll see what they say.

We finished off the day with the Enocrinologist/ Geneticist.....again the guy said he did 9 years of school AFTER medical school! The endo/geneticist along with the another geneticist seem to think that caleb may have a particular syndrome in a mild form. It's pretty interesting but I'll share that more when we have more details.


Two more days to go!! Here's some pictures!!

The Children's Inn right across the street from the clinical center

Caleb yesterday after his eyes were dilated.

Scott & Caleb

Scott working on his sermon between physician visits

Caleb playing his gameboy during some downtime.