Thoughts from a guy just trying to chase after God!

So today is my first official day working at Life Community Church. I cannot begin to describe how awesome it was to wake up this morning and know that I am going to work at a place I love, with people I love , doing what God has designed me to do. I got up a 6am this morning, went to the gym and worked out for 45 minutes, then spent the morning hanging out with the girls while Erin went to an appointment. Then they all dropped me off at the church offices and I hung up my pictures of the girls and now I am doing church work which I LOVE!!

I walked into Tim’s office and he said, “Isn’t it so awesome we are having this meeting in here”. Usually we are meeting over lunch since I was working at Hedquist. I had a chance to grab lunch with Adam Wood, one of our worship leaders, John Freshwater, our youth intern, and Josh Oliver, drummer for Decyfer Down, and Josh’s wife. So cool to just hang out with the body of Christ and do life together. I am so grateful God has blessed me with this opportunity to be a part of the staff at Life C.C.

One last cool thing for those who are keeping up with the Blair’s and our church. We got approved Friday to lease out 14,200 square feet in Independence Mall here in Wilmington. There are two Vacant units next to Sears that we will be moving into probably sometime in July. I think it is so stinking cool that we are going to have church right in the mall. It is a great  mission field and opportunity to reach different cultures and people. So you can continue to pray for God’s guidance and provision. 

More cool stuff coming….

that tomorrow is my last day working at Hedquist Electronics. Let me begin by saying how grateful I am that my grandfather and his partner were willing to hire me in the midst of a down economy. It has been a great blessing to have a steady income since August of last year. It is also hard to believe that 7 months have flown by and God has provided the next step for me and my family. I will say my back is very grateful that tomorrow is the last day! NO MORE LIFTING 250 pound TV’S WOOHOO!!!

Beginning next Monday I will officially be full time at Life Community Church as the Worship Leader, as well as assisting Tim in other areas of the church, such as our family ministries. Words cannot begin to express how excited I am about what God is doing in my life and the life of my wife and daughters and in the body of Christ at Life Community Church. 

I cannot wait to see where God takes my family and our church in the upcoming months and years. I just pray for continued guidance and leading from the Holy Spirit that I would be completely obedient to all that God is calling and asking of me. 

P.S. If you haven’t heard we are expecting baby #3 and are so grateful that God has seen fit to give us another child. A little earlier than we expected but we are so EXCITED!!

I always enjoy reading uplifting things not the downer news we hear a lot of lately. Today was one of those uplifting days for the Blair’s.

- Woke up early and got ready to head to Life Community Church for band practice.

- 9am service was great. People really worshipping and excited about what God is doing.

- Tim and the church prayed over Erin and I as I became the church’s worship leader.

- 10:45 service was another awesome time of worship. We really just saw the Holy Spirit moving in hearts and drawing people to the heart of God. Tim’s message was great at both services. We need to make sure that as God is blessing us we in turn bless others.

- Had an amazing day with the wife and daughters. 

- Great dinner with all the ladies in my life, including the mom.

- Now getting ready for bed to start my last full week of work at Hedquist Electronics. Only 8 more days of work and I will be doing full time ministry again. Thank You God for providing me with an amazing church and an awesome opportunity to minister there. 

So be encouraged as you read this. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

So I am not one of those blog everyday kind of people. Heck I hardly blog once every 2 or 3 weeks. So if you don’t have personal contact with me on a regular basis, you could assume a lot of things about my life by what you read on an every 3 week blog or what you hear from other people.

Which is what led me to write this blog. It has been brought to my attention that a lot of people are assuming a lot of things about what has gone on in the last few months with my family and I. So I feel like the time has come to set the record straight once and for all. Stick with me this is a long blog.

From January of 2003 until January of 2009 Erin and I had been very involved at Port City Community Church. From April of 2004 until January of 2006 I was on the staff at PC3. Even after coming off staff I was very involved in leading worship and serving in different environments in the church. In January of 2006 I came off staff to pursue my music full time. I spent the next 3 years touring around the eastern half of the US, leading worship and speaking at churches, youth camps and conferences. In February of 2007 I packed up my wife Erin and at the time our 1 daughter Kaylee and moved to Clarksville, TN just outside of Nashville. We moved so that I could pursue a career in the Christian Music industry. As I look back now and I have processed all that God taught us out there, I see that it was a very prideful pursuit on my behalf. I desired fame, being on K-Love and being known more that I desired to make God famous. Trust me it is hard to admit that but it is true. Now don’ t get me wrong, I wanted to see peoples lives radically transformed by Christ, but I moved to TN for the soul purpose of getting a record deal and being known.

While living in TN God really began to do a lot of work on Erin and I. We call that our wilderness experience. It was 18 months of God stripping us away from everything we had known and drawing us unto Himself. In January of 2008 we put our house on the market and began to pray about what God’s next step was for us. In the process of wrestling out God’s next steps we read a book called “Chasing Daylight” by Erwin McManus. This booked helped us realize we need to seize the divine moments God puts in front of us. We realized we needed to take a radical step of faith and get out of the box once again for God.

In June of 2008 we packed up and moved back to Wilmington knowing God had a next step around the corner, but we needed to gain some stability first. Upon arriving back in Wilmington we were approached by people asking, “Did you fail in TN”? Did we fail? No we didn’t fail. I had numerous opportunities offered in Nashville, but none of them was what God wanted for our life so we turned them down. It didn’t make sense but we just knew it wasn’t what God wanted. We had people ask, “so what are you going to do now”? All we could tell them was we are waiting on God’s next step but we knew I needed to find a full time job that would give us some stability. I began working for my grandfather at Hedquist Electronics in August of 2008. The last 7 months there have been challenging but an awesome time of character building and shaping for me.

Now that catches you up on the general timeline, now I want to address the biggest thing God has been doing. When we moved back we plugged back into Port City and were so glad to be a part of a church we love and had missed so much. We were there for the opening of the building and I was lucky enough to get plugged back into leading worship in the different ministries throughout the church. Even though we were back we still sensed God had a next step for us and we were not sure what that next step was.

Let me just clarify something about myself. I had a bad habit I have worked very hard to change. I have a tendency to process out loud what God might be doing in my life. What I mean by that is I might feel God is leading me to do something and I begin to talk to people about that. What I have learned is that is not always good, because people take that as a definite next step, instead of me processing what God is doing. When we moved back we shared with some people we thought God was possibly leading us to start a church somewhere in the Southeast. That was just something we thought God might be putting on our heart, because we had been radically transformed in TN and there were some things we just desired to share and pour into people. As we prayed and really wrestled that out with God we realized that wasn’t then next step. We still kept feeling like there was something more God was doing. Something deeper he wanted from us and we began to pray about what that was.

While in TN I drove our family in the ground financially and we got linked up with an awesome guy named Loren Johnson through Financial Peace at Port City. Loren met with us and helped us set up a budget and a plan to knock down our debt. In one of our meetings he told us about something called Angel Food Ministry that is a national organization that for $30 a month you could get a box of groceries. So we began to participate in that ministry and the boxes are distributed by Life Community Church. We picked up our first Angel Food box in September of 2008 and thought how cool this church does this as an outreach to the community. When we went back in October I ran into the pastor Tim Blevins. I taught Tim’s son Eli 6th grade Bible and history at Myrtle Grove Christian School in the spring of 2006. So we got to talking and I told him we had moved back and I was working for my grandfather and the conversation was just a normal getting to know you since we had only met in passing.

As many of you know Port City does not have services the last Sunday of the year, so when we woke up that morning I told my wife I wanted to go visit Life Community Church where we get our Angel Food from. Upon arriving we sensed something very different. We felt the Holy Spirit stirring the minute we hit the door. The service was great and we enjoyed it, when we left Erin said it was exactly the kind of Church she had been wanting to attend. She loved that Tim was talking about a lot of the things she had been wrestling through in her quiet times dealing with the Holy Spirit and his leading in our lives. Tim shared that morning how the church was going to be embarking on a 21 day Daniel Fast starting January 12th. Erin asked me if I ever saw myself being a part of a church like that and helping them out? When she asked I thought, “no way I am a part of PC3, I couldn’t go to another church in Wilmington.” Then God began to haunt me for the next 10 days. Why couldn’t I go to another church? On the first Sunday in January Mike preached on the “my one word” at PC3. He said something that morning that got me. He was referring to choosing your one word, but God used it to speak to me in a completely different way. Mike said “what would make you want to choose this word, and what would make you not.” When I listed out what would make me not want to start attending Life Community it was an ugly list. I thought of things like,

             - There are more people at PC3 who can hear my music

             - I am really well known here

            - They have an amazing band and building

And the list was full of things like that. Then I felt horrible. Those are the worst reasons. So I told Erin that day that I felt God is leading us to become a part of the body of believer at Life Community. I called Tim and asked if we could grab lunch so I could hear his heart for ministry and the mission of the church. We met and it was just more affirmation that this is where we were supposed to be.

Let me really clarify something here. We did not start attending Life Community because I got offered a job. God led us to join there because we knew there had to be something more to our walks with God and we found that something more at Life.

Now hear me on this. We love PC3. We pray for them all the time. Mike and I have a great relationship. I still hang out with tons of people from there. We just knew that God was leading us to Life as the next step for our family. All those things that we had been feeling about planting a church we feel like Life is doing. Yes they are a spirit filled church, but let me clarify there is nothing spooky cooky about that. Get all the weird images you have about charismatic, snake handling, people convulsing, crazy stuff out of your mind. Life is a church that just desires to see the full power of the Holy Spirit released. If you would love to talk more about what that looks like email me or if you know me personally call me. I am not going to go into all of that in a blog.

Now let me also say, we did not leave Port City because they would not give me a job. Please hear me on that. We had already prayed and decided if the opportunity arose we would not accept it because we knew God wasn’t calling us to be back on staff at PC3. We knew that wasn’t the next step.

Now After attending Life for a month and Tim and I spending a month in prayer, I began to lead worship at Life Community. We both feel like it is God’s divine leading that brought my family to Life. We began to pray about what it would look like for me to come on staff and help grow the worship ministry of Life CC. Next Sunday March 15th the church will pray me in as the worship leader and we are in the process of seeing what we can do to help me come on full time as quick as possible. We were in complete agreement that even if I was never offered a job we would still attend and serve at Life CC.

God has had us be silent about this process until now, but we are thankful and so excited for this refreshing season in our life. I hope this helps bring clarity for anyone who might have been wondering why and how everything has happened in the past few months.

Here is the greatest thing, Port City and Life Community and every other Christ professing church in this city has one goal, to reach the lost and help them be transformed by Christ. Our hope is we can do our part that God has called us to do in helping reach that Goal. This is not about one church, it is about the body of Christ, THE CHURCH, serving God and loving and serving others.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and know how much Erin, Kaylee, Abi and I appreciate your prayers and support. It means the world to us.