Back from NC

[kristie here]

Here are a few shots from our Thanksgiving vacation with John's side of our family in North Carolina. As always, time was too short, but we had a great time!

Outside Uncle Dave's new home in South Carolina, where we spent turkey day.

Our visit to the new Billy Graham museum in Charlotte.

While we were there, we ran into the next Billy Graham...look closely...

Estela made a special trip down from VA just to see us! Thanks buddy.

Here we are with our Tony's milkshake - the best in the world.

We also enjoyed meeting up with the Brafford's and just had a plain old good time with John's parents. We are so blessed.

Deaconized

[kristie here]

One of the many, many things I'm grateful to our church elders for is the seriousness with which they view service and leadership in the local church. I was reminded of this again today as John was being commissioned/ordained as a deacon in our church. We're humbled by and excited about this new season of service at Immanuel.

Here's a still shot captured from the video (thanks Josh Brown!). John and the two guys to his left are the new deacons, the one at the pulpit is our preaching elder, and the ones behind are our other elders.



The one on the far left is Juan Maclean - John's good friend and former roommate at LU. We enjoyed a sweet time of fellowship after the service at Juan & Debbie's house with Ricky Hardison and Tim & Marion Patterson, the pastor and wife at Grace Assembly, John, Juan, and Ricky's church home during the LU years.





You know someone is a good pastor/friend when he drives eight hours each way in two days just to see John become a deacon. Ok, so maybe Tim came at Juan's request, but we still were so grateful for his sacrifice and support.

Thanks for making the trip, Tim!

One more thing...

In relation to the blog I posted immediately below, I would like to wholeheartedly recommend one of the best sermon series that I've ever heard. To locate it, you would go to the second page on the audio section of the church website. It is the series entitled "Men and Women..." If anyone happens to give a listen, let me know what you think.

Check it out

Well, Kristie has put her magical touch on two things recently:

1. As you can tell, my blog has been redesigned. Thanks, Kristie!

2. Our church has a (much needed) new website. The picture of Louisville on the main page of the site is courtesy of my wife as well. We only charged them a $325 royalty fee. I strongly encourage you to check out the link to our church on the right. While there, don't miss the audio section, where you can listen to great teaching, particularly that of Ryan Fullerton, our main preaching elder and one of the most gifted preachers alive today.

For the Good of Your Soul and the Advance of the Kingdom...

I do love the ministry of the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation, based in Philadelphia, PA. I had the great opportunity of attending their annual conference this past weekend with some folks from my church. The theme / title was "Running Scared: Fear, Worry, and the God of Rest." Ed Welch was the main speaker, as he just released a book by the same title. Of all the great guys who work at CCEF, Welch is my favorite. His excellent books include Depression and When People are Big and God is Small, among several others.

These guys are true physicians of the soul. Some, who initially encounter the ministry of CCEF, might wonder what the big deal about biblical counseling is. On first brush, their counseling seems to consist of always going back to the Gospel and saying things that any average Christian might know or say. However, the depth and wisdom of this movement is only grasped, I think, by persistence and patience in seeing how the Gospel is not just the "simple" answer but is the resource that alone can be applied to any and every wound as a healing balm. Biblical counseling, in its truest form, is no mere dispensing of bible verses to a distressed person; it is nothing less than a restoration of Christ to counseling and counseling to the church (the slogan of CCEF).

Please, please check these guys out (see the link on the right).