When it all comes together….

Yes I know. First thing. It has been forever and a day since I made a new post. Sometimes life it seems takes off like a rocket and before you know it, almost a year has past. So much has happened and so much has gone on that it would take me all day to finish this.
God is incredible. He has brought Steph and I through a financially tough year. He has taken her out of a bad situation in her job and put her in a new position. He still has me in the same place but now I work from home on Wednesdays. Which helps because now, I have taken on a lot of responsibilities with the youth and I am able to be at church a lot earlier on wed. nights and get the technical side set up.
Which is one of the new irons that I have in the fire. When Jeremy left LMBC, there was a need for someone, an adult, to oversee the praise team and to take over the technical side of the service. I took on the technical role while another friend of ours took over the band. (I definately got the better end of this deal). The kids that I work with are great. The youth are amazing at LMBC. They do things for Christ that youth in my day, never dreamed about doing. They are not only talking the talk, but walking the walk.
And now, not that I have any spare time, another iron has been placed in the fire. Now I have been asked to take on the role of technical director for the LMBC contemporary service. Its almost exactly what I do with the youth on wed. nights now, it will just be with a new team, which I have to recruit.
Of course, sacrifices will have to be made. The most important one is making sure this does not become a problem with Steph and I. We don’t argue and we never fight. We both sacrifice and we both put the other one before ourselves so reaching a decision that we both agree on is usually not difficult. What this means is that we will both go to the early service together, to Sunday School together and then I will go to contemporary service and she will be open to serving in other areas.
For the first time, in a VERY LONG TIME, I feel like God is working through me, using the talents that He gave me, to do a work for Him right where He needs me to be.

I have said it before and I will say it again….
“I love it when a plan comes together!”

Dear God,
Thank you so much for bringing us to where You want us. You have brought us through the valley on to the the mountain top. When life happens and we don’t see how You will work it out, You always do.You haven’t given us children yet, but you have given us a LOT of youth to work with at LMBC until Your time is right. Continue to show us Your presence, especially at this time of year when it is so easy to forget the real reason for this time of year.

Keith

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Two Question Project

Imagine for a moment, you are sitting in a public place. It could be the park, a mall, a sporting event, your favorite place to eat, etc. You get the picture. About this time, someone comes up and sits beside you. At first, you think this person seems very familiar but you cant place the face, the voice, nothing.

Then, the person introduces Himself as God.

For what ever reason, you know that its true and God Himself, is sitting next to you.

With a comforting voice, He says that you have been a good person and to reward you, He is going to give you the opportunity to ask Him 2 questions. Two questions about anything that you want to know. Once you are over the shock that God is sitting next to you, you think for a moment about what in life would you really like to know.

What would those 2 questions be?

This is the idea that has been on my mind for several days now. I have sent out numerous emails to people that I know asking them the same question. Some of the answers are people not putting a lot of thought into it until they get to the second question. A LOT of the second questions have been really thought provoking and very deep.

The great thing about this idea that God gave me (He obviously did because I’m not smart enough to come up with this on my own) is that it is a great ice breaker to talk about with those who either aren’t Christians or those who are Christians but have fallen away. The whole purpose of this is to get people to think about “What is going to happen when I am face to face with God?”

Think about it and email me your answers to kwhite75@bellsouth.net. I will be posting some of the questions here but I want to give everyone the chance to come up with their own answers before I post some of the questions already given.

“Yea Alabama……”

Living in Georgia and being from Alabama, I get a lot of grief on my “Bama” heritage. I have even been called the “token” Alabama employee. No where in the Georgia criminal code does it say you must hire so many minorities, handicap people and so many from Alabama. Regardless, I refuse to convert to or be adopted into Georgia. I will wear my Crimson and White proudly. As I have told others, there are 2 types of people in this world, people FROM ALABAMA, and people who WISH THEY WERE!.
I have met people from the north, people from the mid west, people from the west coast, couple of Iranians, a few Chinese, one Romanian, and none of them are like true Southerners. Sure they think we all talk funny, we only drink ice tea even for breakfast, we all date our cousins, we all drive trucks and we all own at least 1 shotgun. The truth is, we dont talk funny, everyone else is just doing it wrong. Some of us drink more tea than others. Me personally, it just isnt the same without a cup of REAL sugar. Splenda in tea just isnt the same and since I can’t have real southern tea, I’ll pass on that one. I dont plan on being on Jerry Springer any time soon and since I’m married to a great “Georgia” gal, the whole cousin thing doesnt apply either. I dont own any shotguns, handguns or even BB guns but as any true southerner would be, we have not one, but two trucks in our garage. (One is a honda, does that really count as a truck?)
One thing southerners do and do very well is come together when a loved one passes away. If someone close to you dies, people you probably have never met will bring more food to your house than your kitchen can hold. If someone in your work, your school or church dies or has someone close to them pass on, you automatically make a caserole, a cake or a pie. It isnt law in Alabama, it is just the way it is.
Last week, a popular radio personality (Rick Burgess) got news while out of town, that his 2 year old son, Bronner, had drown in the family pool. Rick being the strong Christian man that he is well known to be, spoke at his son’s memorial service. The church had the insight to video what he said and someone put the video up on youtube.com. As of this post, it has been viewed 364,117 times. That is 17,000 views today since this morning when I saw it again.

What is so special about this video

It is the message that God spoke through Rick. It is about how people came together for this family. It is about how a father, who just received the worst possible knews a father could get, was obedient to God. It is a challenge to all of us to look at our lives, to finish the fight.

What has blown me away is how God used the death of this 2 yr old child to make an impact on the kingdom not just in Alabama but throughout the world. On Rick’s radio show this morning, they said that the video on you tube reached #1 in the WORLD last week. I dont know if Billy Graham has made an impact on the world in just a few days like this child has.
Today was Rick’s first day back on the radio. People were calling in sharing what an impact this video has had on them. Churches have viewed it and entire churches were re-examining their lives and coming back to Christ. A Birmingham weatherman told a story of leading children’s church this past Sunday and telling the story of what had happened. Sixteen kids came to Christ because of this event. Rick was at a conference when he got the news. No one will ever know the impact this event had on the people at this conference.
A warning. If you enjoy your life the way it is, dont watch this video. If you like going through your routine in your own little world, dont watch it. It is a message of hope, a challenge to finish the fight, and it encourages you to look at yourself and make an impact for the kingdom.

Not many messages have touched me like this one has. It not only reminded me of why bad things sometimes happen to good people, it reminded me that God has a plan, I am part of it, and when it is all over and done with , God wins. Everything good and bad, happens because like Rick says in the video, God allowed it to happen to bring about His glory.

Dear God,
Thank you for William Bronner Burgess. Thank you for using Rick, at the lowest point of his life, to bring this message that reached me as well as countless others, and challenged us to all look at ourselves and when dark times come, to remember Bronner and how what seems like tragedy to us, God is using to make an impact. Help me to remember this in my own life when I think I dont want to go on, I just want to go home.