Thoughts from a guy just trying to chase after God!

Today has been a very long but very awesome day. This morning we led worship at Grace Community Church in Clarksville, TN. This is the church Erin and I attended when we lived in Clarksville. It was so great to see old friends and it was incredible to rock out both services and help people usher into God’s presence. After the services we loaded up and began our trek to Anderson, SC where we will be doing camp all this week.

The trip was real smooth and we made great time. We stopped at Cracker Barrel to celebrate Brooks 25th birthday. Food excellent as always. After that we kept heading up 85 North towards Anderson where we encountered a nice 15 minute traffic jam. Once past that we made our way into Anderson. Once here we realized the hotel rooms were not going to be quite up to what we need, so I called Zach, the youth leader who is bringing us in, and let me tell you he is PHENOMENAL!! He has been so helpful in anything we have needed. He switched us up to the Holiday Inn Express and it is PIMP!! Going to be a nice week.

I am real tired so that is about it for now. Please pray for the girls. Abi is crying non-stop right now, could be upset tummy or just overly tired. Pray for Kaylee, she has had quite a few meltdowns today and we are in need of prayers as she melts down whenever she does not get something or the smallest thing happens. Pray for this week coming up that my voice remains strong and that students hearts are ready to encounter God in a way they never have.

Got to run, crying babes and a shower needed…

Well tonight’s post will be real different. So today was our day off and it started out pretty peaceful and relaxing. Erin and the girls did the pool thing with our friend Cortni and her two kids. The guys and Alex had a little pool time as well. I went to Starbucks and had a little time preparing to lead worship tomorrow morning @ Grace Community Church and next week @ Creed Camp in Anderson, SC. My buddy Jason and his bands bass player Aaron came up and hung out with me @ Starbucks for a little while. Then we went and picked up lunch for our fams and came back and hung out around the pool. Ed took a trip back to Nashville to see his buddy Micah, then the rest of the day we all relaxed and the hotel and rested.

Then….tonight we went and ate dinner at the Blackhorse, our favorite restaurant in Clarksville. As we were eating dinner, Jeremy Bullock, a friend of ours who joined us for dinner with his wife Kelly, said there is a tornado warning for Clarksville and it should be here around 7:30. It was 7:05 when he made this statement and we were 15 minutes from the hotel. So we all packed up and made our way back to the Holiday Inn Express. As we pulled in we all were like, “yeah it looks worst behind us not here”. So we all went to our rooms on the 2nd floor. As Erin and I were in our room we heard a lot of commotion outside our door, it turned out it was Isaac saying, “get my shoes” and Alex his wife saying “I am so scared.” Then a knock on the door and everyone saying there is a tornado right outside the window at the end of the hall. So we all ran down, saw the funnel, then grabbed kids and phones and went to the lobby. Yes I can actually say, “I saw a tornado” so I am good and don’t need to see another one again.

Now let me clarify, it was outside our window about 3-5 miles away and it did not touch down, it was just a funnel in the sky. Either way, scary and I have had my share of Tornado’s. After our hearts stopped racing, many funny moments occurred such as Brooks leaving Angel what when she hears it will be a scary voicemail about said Tornado. That along with us all reminiscing all the funny moments when the Tornado was first spotted. We have many funny pictures I will post later, we forgot the chord that attaches our camera to our computer.

I want to say thank you to all who have been praying for our safety and protection, on a night like tonight you really feel those prayers. I ask you to continue to pray for that along with strength for my voice. It was a little weak this morning and I have two services to sing for in the morning, followed by a week of camp, then a buddies wedding to sing in and church next Sunday. Pray for Erin, she had a bad case of indigestion tonight after dinner. Pray for the hearts of the people at the church tomorrow and camp next week that they will be ready and open to worship God with everything they have.

I will write tomorrow hopefully with awesome stories of worship and not Tornadoes!!!!

I put off day @ the top because this morning was the end to our first week of camp with the students from Gladeville Baptist Church. It was an incredible week of just leading students to chase after God the heart of God in worship. I am so thankful God gave me this opportunity and that he allowed my wife and daughters as well as Brooks, Ed, Isaac and his wife Alex to be a part of it with me. We have laughed and laughed some more, all rode in the good old Uplander with them just chilling in the back with the seats out, very illegal but you do what you have to with one van in the shop. A praise about that is Ed’s parents van is fixed and we are back in business with our van and that one.

So last night we finished our service by singing “We Shine” by Fee and it was AMAZING!! I thought the walls were coming down in that little room. Those 90-100 people were going for it. Fist pumping, jumping, praising, loving some Jesus in that place. We are definitely ending next week the same way. This morning I led a few worship songs acoustically down by the lake with everyone to wrap up our time.  The most amazing thing happened down there, my soon to be 4 year old daughter Kaylee was worshipping her heart out. Singing loud with all the students and at one point hands raised in worship sining “Never Let Go”, it was all I could do not to weep as I am leading the songs. It reminded me that Erin and I are raising our girls in a culture that what we do as a family is worship and serve Jesus. That is what she will know. It is becoming a part of her DNA and I saw that this morning and was blown away by God.

After worship we loaded up  and unloaded at the hotel. Then went down to Franklin for round 2 @ McDougal’s Chicken and oh yes it is good every time. We then came back to the hotel in Clarksville and rested up. Erin and I took the girls over to our friends Cortni and Jason Roy’s house for some dinner. After dinner we took all of our children to downtown Clarksville for a big Fireworks show. Yes they did it on the 3rd not the 4th. The girls did so well, so thanks for all the prayers. The guys and Alex went to Nashville for some dinner and then to walk around downtown to listen to music. Brooks text me saying, “they had slipped into one place and he heard the sickest guitar player he had ever seen live.” My only thought was welcome to Nashville!!

How you can be praying. Pray for my voice, camps can be tough on you and I need to rest up since we are leading worship Sunday morning @ Grace Community Church in Clarksville TN. Check them out @ www.gcomchurch.com. Also pray for continued safety over all of us as we are traveling Sunday afternoon for SC.

Write again tomorrow….

I did something different today. I waited until now to write the blog, one because I forgot to do it earlier, but second I wanted to wait until I got off the stage worshipping to give you an authentic reaction to our time.

Tonight is the last night of this camp with Gladeville Baptist Church and their middle school and high school students here @ Coldstream Christian Camp in TN. What is crazy is that name Baptist puts many different connotations in your mind and I at times am no different. I grew up in a Baptist Church so I had pre-conceived ideas about how these students might worship. I was so wrong and I am so glad for that. This group of 80-100 students have blown me away. They are passionately chasing after God in our times of worship. Tonight we ended our time with the song I wrote called “Forgive Me”. We taught the song to them last night and tonight they were going for it. We end the song singing an ad-lib part God gave me one night in a worship service and it simply just ask God to come move in us, then asking the Holy Spirit to come move is us and tonight I began to see God answer that cry. It was so awesome just to sit back and watch the God of the universe stir in the hearts of 12-18 year olds.

If I have never said it before, I LOVE WHAT GOD ALLOWS ME TO DO WITH THE GIFTS HE HAS GIVEN ME! The guys have flat out KILLED it this week. Isaac (Drums), Brooks (Guitar) and Ed (Bass), not only have they played amazingly, they have worshipped their hearts out on that stage and they have connected with students and have reflected Jesus!

Pray that these students will leave this camp and carry the fire of Christ they have received back and live it out in their everyday life. Pray that in just a few minutes as students begin to respond to what God is and has been doing in their life. Pray that we can celebrate this week with them when we sing “We Shine”! Pray that Ed’s parents van will be ready tomorrow. Pray I will have plenty of rest for my voice until we sing again on Sunday morning @ Grace Community Church.

I will write tomorrow from our day of hanging out in Nashville…

After I got done with yesterday’s blog we had a great rest of the day. Worship last night was once again an incredible time of pressing into the presence of God. The students are really engaging during the worship time and it has made it so enjoyable for the guys and I to lead them. The speaker has been doing a good job of encouraging the students to live their faith out daily for God, and to be passionate about their love for him.

Today we woke up to another beautiful Tennessee morning and the day has been really good. We drove into Clarksville this morning and the guys and I spent some time at a local coffee shop called Lassiter’s. The camp speaker came up there so we had some time to hang out with him and get to know him better. Erin and the girls along with Isaac’s wife Alex went to Wal-Mart and Kaylee had quite the meltdown since she did not get what she wanted. So you can pray for Erin as she is the one who spends the bulk of the time here with Kaylee. Pray her little heart begins to know how to control her emotions.

On a bright side yesterday we got to see our great friend Cortni Roy and her two children Avery and Haven. Haven is Kaylee’s best friend in the whole world and they don’t get to see each other much since we moved away from Clarksville. Below is a picture of the two of them yesterday @ Starbucks.

Best friends haven't seen each other in so long!

Right now I am relaxing at the camp getting ready to rehearse with the guys around 4:30 central time, which is 5:30 for all the folks on the east coast. I ask for your prayers for my voice that God will allow it to remain strong and  that I take care of it and rest it when needed. I also ask your prayers for Erin that she will get the rest needed as she is 18 weeks pregnant and she is chasing our girls around and that is tiring, tiring work. Also pray she will be able to have time with God to strengthen her walk. I ask prayers for my guys that they will continue to pour their hearts out in worship and fall more in love with God on this journey.

Thanks for taking time to read these updates and thank you so much for your prayers and support. I will write again tomorrow…

The minute I posted yesterday’s blog, I walked over to the sink in the hotel room to find out that my wife had poured my only pair of contacts I brought with me down the drain. Now let me clarify, I forgot to bring my contact container and I was using to hotel cups filled with solution for my contacts. I had mentioned to Erin the night before please don’t dump these out, but in my wives defense she has a lot going on and I understand she didn’t remember that. She was giving the girls a bath and needed two cups and she dumped out the two cups she found not thinking about what was in them.

So that was the start to yesterday, but it got much better. The girls traveled well so thanks for the prayers, but I still allowed that one instance to get the best of me. As we hit the road we had no major hurdles to overcome pretty smooth sailing. We stopped in Nashville and ate @ my favorite chicken place called McDougals. Go to mcdougalschicken.com and you will realize there are only 2 locations and they are in the Nashville area. It makes Zaxbys or anything else look like a little girl. You can ask anyone who has eaten there and they will tell you the same. Below is a picture of Ed and Brooks first taste of heaven.

After that we arrived @ the camp and yes it is out in the middle of nowhere, but let me tell you something, it has been awesome. Worship last night was crazy good. Kids singing their hearts out to God and just going for it.

How you can be praying? So Ed’s parents van began to over-heat last night and we took it to the shop this morning and it needs a new coolant motor, so that was an unexpected $200. You can pray for no more car issues and continued safe travel. You can also pray for continued health of everyone and that my voice remains strong. No problems there just good to have advanced prayer. Also just continue to pray for the students here from Gladeville Baptist Church that God just does a work on their hearts and the Holy Spirit continues to draw them to the heart of God and to intimacy with Christ.

Write back tomorrow…

So I thought I would take a few minutes everyday to update you from the road so you could know how to pray for me and the family as well as the guys on the road with me. So here is Day 1.

So this morning we are up and about to eat some good old Continental Breakfast provided by the Days Inn before we start our last 5-6 hour leg of the trip to Clarksville. We should get there around 2 or 3pm Central Time, which makes it 3 or 4pm Eastern or what I refer to as the time on which my body runs. Once there, we will unload and then setup for a sound check and rehearsal. I am really looking forward to this camp because it is the first one I have done in over a year. It will be great to help these students press into the presence of God and help them Worship the One who created them.

Today please pray for safe travels for myself, Erin, Kaylee and Abi and you can throw in unborn Zoe Joy as well. Pray that the Kaylee and Abi travel well and we have a peaceful last 5-6 hours in the van. Also pray for Ed, Brooks, Isaac and his wife Alex. Pray God would give them safe travel as well. You can pray that God will begin to shape and form all of our hearts as we prepare to lead these students in worship for the next week. Pray for salvation in the life of students who don’t know God. Pray that the Holy Spirit would lead, guide and direct me as I am sensitive to His leading in the times of worship. Pray that we would form relationships with the students and model Christ to them, not just be the “Worship Band” that performs. Above all else just pray for a supernatural move of God on that camp ground.

I will update tomorrow with more from the road.

Matt

Kaylee is at such an awesome age. She will be 4 years old next month and she is at that fun inquisitive age where she wants to be very creative and crafty. Her newest thing was Erin and her planted flowers in our backyard. They planted some sunflower seeds, because Kaylee loves the big yellow ones that look like sunshine as she calls them. They also planted some other flowers in little pots. Every morning one of the first things I hear as the blinds are opened to reveal the outside is Erin saying, “Look Kaylee the flowers have gotten bigger”, which is followed by laughter and excitement as she runs to the door to see. 

What I learned is that Kaylee has an expectant excitement every morning that those flowers are going to grow. She believes they are going to do exactly what God created them to do. She doesn’t doubt it, she believes they are going to grow because that is what they were designed to do. 

So that seems simple to some and it should because it is simple. It is simple child like faith. When Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (Mark 10:15) He reminded us that we are to have that child like faith. The problem is instead of having a faith like that, I choose complicated, hard, structured faith, were if I don’t spend time with God I use it as a license to struggle the rest of the day since I have already screwed up. God reminded me today as I was thinking about Kaylee and those flowers that every morning I need to arise with an expectation that I am going to grow that day. I am going to grow more in my love for God, grow more as a husband, father, minister, friend, and lover of God’s word and His people. If I could arise with that expectation then getting into God’s word becomes easy, spending intimate time with Him in prayer and worship is just natural. Serving people is just what you do as an outflow of who God is and what He is doing in your life. 

So I thank my wife and daughter for planting flowers, they did it because they love to look at them, God used it to remind me that I am planted in Him and because of that I am expected to grow and be the beautiful reflection of Him I was created to be. John 15 teaches this brilliantly about Jesus being the vine and we are the branches. We have to stay connected to the vine or we wither and die. I want to stay connected to my true life source! Hope that encourages someone today as much as it wrecked me and helped remind me who I am and whose I am.

So everyone who reads this knows that I do a horrible job blogging. One because I don’t feel the need to let everyone know everything that is going on in my life, as if I were that important. When I do write it is usually something God is teaching me or it is something that is on my heart that I feel might encourage others. Today however is just a chance to stop by and say hello and let you know a little bit of the cool stuff going on in my life.

1. Family is doing awesome. Erin is in her 2nd trimester with the baby so she is feeling a whole lot better and the baby is healthy and growing. Dr. appointment tomorrow to hear the heartbeat. She is 15 weeks. Kaylee is getting big and she is gorgeous. Abi is really growing up and she is our sweet little beauty. For pictures you can check either mine or Erin’s facebook, if we are friends, if not send a request.

2. Church is going amazing. Life Community Church in Wilmington, NC is where we are in case you did not know. I am the Worship Pastor as well as I oversee all of our family ministries. I LOVE IT!!! We are really becoming a worshipping church. It is an honor to lead them every week. We are about 7-8 weeks away from moving into Independence Mall. That is right our church will be in the mall. Taking church to the people!! It is going to be stinking AMAZING!!

3. My step-dad Jim comes home from Iraq for good tomorrow. Girls will be glad to have Paw-Paw home. He has been working for Halyburton driving fuel tankers for the last 4 years and only comes home for short breaks.

4. Music is good, I have 2 camps this summer. One in Clarksville, TN, which will be awesome to go back and see friends and our old church there. I am also leading worship July 5th at our old church Grace Community Church in Clarksville. The best thing though will being able to go down to Nashville and eat at McDougal’s chicken, think Zaxby’s but 10 times better. Ask any of the guys who play with me that have eaten there and they will tell you the same thing.  2nd camp is in Anderson, SC and should be really cool. I will also be heading back to Gastonia in August to see our friends @ Focus Youth Ministry. Other than that mainly pouring into our community here @ Life CC.

5. My walk with God is just booming. Growing in what it looks like to be a better servant of God and how can I have crazy love for all around me. Starting with a crazy love for God, then my wife and children and then the community around me. I love my wife and probably don’t tell her enough or show her enough. I am crazy about her and our girls and our soon to be son or daughter? Fingers crossed for a boy but if not that is fine with us another girl will just mean I need to buy a boy dog to get some more testosterone  in the house. 

So that is a brief update on us. I will try to start checking back in more on here. Until then…..

So the last 3 days have been a whirlwind of emotions. Sunday was awesome. It was mother’s day, which was Erin’s last one as just a mother of 2 girls since we are adding a 3rd in November. Can’t remember if I blogged about baby #3 or not since I am so slack about blogging. Back to Sunday though.

Church was absolutely amazing. Worship was INCREDIBLE!! The sermon was so great to remind our church that we are called to serve this city. We revealed the floor plans for the renovations to the mall we are moving into in August, so that created a lot of excitement. After that we went home and rested and then went to my mom’s to celebrate mother’s day with her and ate some Outback to go. It was an awesome night. That night though I got  a text from a buddy of mine who told me his brother had shot himself after an argument with his wife. My friend was torn up over the fact that this tragedy had happened but more to the fact that his family is full of non-believers and he was praying that God would use this to draw his unsaved family members closer to God. He left Monday morning to drive to VA to be with his family as his brother was on life support and not looking good. So that night Erin and I began to pray for that situation.

About 10 days ago Victoria Oliver, a great friend and  young woman in our married couples small group, was complaining about shortness of breath and tightness in her chest so they took her to the hospital. Her husband Josh is a great friend of mine and the drummer for the band Decyfer Down and he was out on tour with Skillet, so we knew we had to really rally around Victoria and her parents until Josh got in. A CT scan revealed a growth near her heart and lungs and they told her they would have to do a biopsy. Josh came in town but had to get back on tour before the biopsy that got pushed back. We as a family and church began to pray for God’s healing in this situation. We knew the results would not be in until Tuesday and we joined Victoria in the waiting game. Monday morning she woke up complaining about her body and neck swelling, and we received a text from Josh saying he had flown back in and Victoria was in the hospital because they found a blood clot in her neck. A little back story, she has been on medicine for clot’s since January. We now know that those clots and her problem has been caused by non-hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer. We got the devastating news yesterday and were told they would begin chemo Tuesday morning. Our church has been lifting up the Oliver’s and we know we serve a God who is bigger than cancer and has the power to heal. We ask that you lift up Victoria and Josh as they begin this battle. 

God led me to Romans 8:11 today which says, “the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” I want us all to know that there is amazing, sometimes untapped power in the Holy Spirit and he fills us with power to overcome. Now some will read this and say what about those who do not receive healing? Is their faith not good enough? What I would tell you is that is not what I am saying, I am saying God has given us great power through the Holy Spirit to overcome anything. If it His will He can heal and restore anyone from anything. 

All that to simply say remember my buddy who is walking through a tragedy surrounded by a lot of unbelievers, and remember Victoria Oliver as we agree and believe that God is bigger than cancer and can heal. Also remember Erin as she is nearing the end of the first trimester with the pregnancy. She has experienced a whole lot of nausea this time around so maybe that means we have a boy in there? Only time will tell. Thanks for checking in and a word of encouragement is we can trust God no matter that circumstance or situation. Romans 8:17 “Now if we are God’s children then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if we indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” Claim it and believe it!!!