Filed under: Journey Church
I can’t wait for tonight! To me, one of the best times for churches is when we all get together outside of our normal Sunday Services and just hang out.
Tonight – Journey will be having a HUGE Bonfire at our family’s property and will be running Hayrides for the kids, having Chili-Cookoffs, eating S’mores, drinking hot chocolate and apple cider – and HAVING A BLAST!
We light the fire @ 6pm – if you got time – swing on by – we’d love to have you! Go to www.journeychurchmo.com for more info and directions (click on the events link).
Jesse (Pastor – Journey Church)
Filed under: Family
We finally got rid of one of Javan’s (my youngest son) teeth! He’s 7 and hadn’t lost a tooth yet – and so he’s pretty jazzed about loosing this one. Once it got loose enough to pull – he wasn’t really up for me pulling it so he would slowly try and bend it and yank it – but wasn’t successful at his attempts.
So we did what they used to do in the ‘old days’ – tie that baby to a doorknob! We used thread and tied a knot around his tooth and then tied a knot on the door – he was pretty excited – and when he shut the door there wasn’t any success, only frustration from Javan. So he took that string and started yanking away and all of sudden – out it popped and you would have thought he had just won the superbowl!
Anyways – just wanted to publicly congratulate my little man on his tooth-pulling skills.
Jesse (Dad)
Filed under: Journey Church
I know many ppl @ Journey are excited about this Sunday’s message as we close out our Home Improvement Series with ‘THE BEDROOM’ and heck – I’m excited too!
This will be one of our more illustrated messages that will be sure to ‘uncover’ some of the areas of disconnect that many married folks are experiencing today. As we have stated throughout the entire series – our focus this Sunday will be ’solutionary’ – offering you key principles that once applied will take your marriage to a level that brings you the peace, love, and intimacy that your marriage deserves to have.
Also – this message is specifically geared for Adults and we encourage you to take advantage of our wonderful children’s ministry (Journey Kids – click here) that will be available during the service. Lookin’ forward to seeing you this Sunday!
Jesse (Pastor – Journey Church)
Filed under: Journey Church
I’ve been recommended hundreds, perhaps thousands of books (as I’m sure many of you have as well) by people I know, and with the amount of books out there (it seems like millions) that are being marketed to us as Christians as ‘must reads’ – it’s good to have a solid recommendation from someone we trust so we can know what books are ‘good reads’ and what books are ‘bad reads’.
I’m nearing the end of a book that has become the ‘greatest read of my life’ called ‘I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH FAITH TO BE AN ATHEIST’ by Dr. Frank Turek and Norman Geisler:
This book (in my opinion) seems to be the first of its kind specifically created to equip Christians with the knowledge and understanding of just why we believe what we believe as followers of Christ…and it not only provides of the most in-depth understanding of the Christian Worldview – it equips you to be able to defend it properly to those with opposing worldviews that are passionately trying to tear Christianity down with their secular ‘reason and rationalism’ approaches calling our belief in God ‘mythical’ and ‘unprovable’.
If I don’t stop now – this blog post will end up being a hundred pages long.
I’ve actually decided to make this book into a Small Group at Journey that will begin in February 2010 – and am very much looking forward to sharing this amazing tool of Christian Apologetics with the folks in my church. I literally cannot wait.
Jesse (Pastor – Journey Church)
Filed under: Family
My boys had the day off of school today and our outside adventure plans were stifled by the weather – so we’ve been hanging out and playing some games inside. We busted out the Wii and started looking at some video games to play and one of the interesting things about the Wii is you have the opportunity to purchase some of the ‘old school’ games that paved the way for today’s video game era for just a few bucks – you purchase them through your Wii’s WiFi connection and in seconds you’re playing some of the best games of the past (PacMan, Pitfall, Pong, etc…) – any old school gamers out there? Holla.
This morning – we downloaded one of my all-time favorite games:
Not to offend any gamers out there – but this game put it ALL on the map! I remember (as do many of you I’m sure) playing this game as a kid for what seemed like hours and hours and hoping that maybe ONE DAY we would be good enough to beat it. Then came that day where you made it to level 8-4 and somehow snuck by Bowser to be crowned the champion of Super Mario Bros and saved the princess! It was one of the great celebrations of my childhood! haha!
It was just a lot of fun watching my boys play this game that I used to play at their age and see the excitement as they would make from one level to the next. Kind of took me back a little bit. Kind of funny how some games never lose their edge.
Jesse
You gotta love the fall in the midwest. The trees alone make it absolutely gorgeous with all of the colorful variety in the leaves and seeing the ground carpeted with brown and orange is quite the sight to behold.
We took a quick hike on Sunday afternoon and decided to take some pics of the family – just wanted to share some of them with you.
Happy Fall Y’all!
Jesse (Pastor – Journey Church)
Filed under: Journey Church
I can’t wait to continue the Home Improvement Series this Sunday! This week – we’ll be walking through your ‘Living Room’ – and trust me – you’ll want to be there for it.
As I stated last week in service – we have been experiencing ‘disconnect’ on a serious level inside of many of our homes in America – we’re not connecting like we should with our own families in the way God commands us to – and it’s tearing at the very fabric of what’s holding our families together. Divorce is being experienced on a catastrophic level in America today and it seems our relationships with our children are getting harder and harder to maintain.
But what’s the solution? How do we improve our homes? How do we connect God’s way of thinking to my way of living?
See ya Sunday for those answers!
Jesse (Pastor – Journey Church)
Right before the race - stoked of course!
Well – you may not be able to see me as I type this blog – but know that I’m pretty stoked and smiling about the O’Fallon 5k Race this past weekend that I competed in.
The race was held Saturday (10/10) and started at 7:30am at a chilling 39 degrees (that part was NOT so cool). There were a few hundred participants that entered this year’s race and was my very first one – so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
As we all crammed into the starting area – I put my ear buds in and started to focus on one thing – keeping my pace in this race. I knew if I get too jumpy that I would wear myself out halfway through – I couldn’t let the fact that hundreds of ppl are racing with me get to my head and make me want to stay with the pack or stay ahead of ppl…I had to keep my own pace to reach my goals (which was to accomplish this race in under 25:00 minutes – something I’ve not been able to in practice but set a personal goal to do it in this race).
As soon as we got the go – everyone darted off – I stayed with the pack and focused on the race in front of me (also enjoying the playlist of my blackberry through my ear buds). After about a mile in – I knew I was keeping a good pace – then came 2 miles – and then the ‘wall’ starting to show up (you know, that point where you don’t think you can give it anymore) and discipline and will became the driving force to keep me going at the pace I started at.
To make a long story short – I finished the race at 24:58! 2 seconds under my goal time…something I worked really hard to do. After the results started coming in – my sister-in-law Erika came to me and said ‘Jesse, you actually finished 2nd in your division.’ I went over the results that were being posted and it was true – I finished 2nd in my division! DANG! HOLLA! WADDUPP!!! – were just a few of the words going through my mind. So I got recognized at the awards ceremony for the 2nd place finish in the division I competed in.
GOAL MET – and a bonus reward received. Gotta love it. It all came down to pace – something that has taught me a lot.
If you’re interested – here’s the link that posted the results (my wife, my father-in-law, sister-in-law, and one of my best friends Ron also competed in the race and all had great places too): CLICK HERE FOR THE LINK.
Here’s some more images from the race – thanks y’all!
My teammates (from left to right) Ron, Randy, Erika, Me - Missy's taking the picture
Mis and I after the race...she's amazing.
Reward for the run - HOLLA!
Keepin’ the pace,
Jesse
Our driveway
This morning we woke up to the sound of a tremendous amount of rain hitting the roof of our house. It was so loud you could hardly sleep – now mind you – I LOVE SLEEPING TO THE SOUND OF RAIN(it’s so relaxing) – but this wasn’t any ordinary rain. When we got up – we looked outside and ‘lo and behold’ we saw one of the worst flash floods we’ve seen in a long time. It covered nearly an acre of our family’s property.
Luckily the waters ceded quickly as the rain lightened up and we were able to get the boys to school – but it was quite the sight.
This is our spring - normally it's a quiet trickle!
The bridge over the spring!
Pretty amazing how quickly this happened.
Gotta respect the power of rain.
Jesse
Filed under: MISC Posts
Just wanted to take a quick second and say GO CARDS! We face off against the Dodgers tonight in the 1st of 5 games for the NL Division Series. This will be an AMAZING series – after all – their the two winningest franchises in the National League (Cards: 21 Pennants, 10 World Series Titles, Dodgers: 22 Pennants, 6 World Series Titles).
St. Louis is considered one of the most popular baseball cities in the nation and when it comes to be playoff time – you quickly know why. It’s on everyone’s mind and all we can do is hope for the best! It literally takes over the town – this is Cardinal Nation baby!
I predict we’ll take this series (3-1) and face the Phillies in the next where we’ll prevail yet again (4-2) – all the way to the Yankees in the World Series where we will be hailed the World Champions (4-3).
Anyways – GO CARDS!
Jesse (Pastor – Journey Church)
