I cannot stop laughing at a special behind the scenes video I made in preparation for one of our upcoming videos.
No, ha ha I cannot show you it yet bcuz it might ruin the fun, but I can tell you that I am sending it to our Pastor and my Co-staff for the enjoyment and edification.
AND I WILL ASSURE YOU that I will post it here for you as well after we show the ACTUAL video I am making.
TRUST ME don’t miss Sundays @ Journey…. EVER. God Is THAT Good!!
Within the last two years I have learned so much. The countless times Pastor has told me that there are things He constantly reminds me of that have become second nature to Him (in encouragement) and slowly but surely I do my best to get them and then forget about them until one day I’ll be walking a volunteer through something and I’ll think “HEY WAIT A SECOND, PASTOR TOLD ME THAT” but I wont even have to think about it anymore (well not actively anyways).
I am so thankful for my time at Journey Church over the last 2 and a half years. I have been forced out of my fears, negative tendencies, bad attitude, etc. Not that I dont slip back sometimes, but thanks to Pastor Michael, Pastor John, and my teammates I’ve been able to make mistakes, fall on my sword, adjust, feel the pain of loss, joys of success (best Christmas EVER!!! 
) man up and get my butt ripped (miss it Pastor), and learn about the Grace of God. AND THAT’S THE BIGGEST LIFE CHANGER. Understanding Grace.
Understanding God’s massive room for mistakes and even blessings on top of that when we’re walking that line He’s set before us, because believe you me, I’ve made mistakes, and God’s not given up on me. He IS that loving Father we all dream about hugging us and telling us He loves us unconditionally. Sometimes it’s just on His terms, He is God after all. 
Back to my first point though. It’s been 2.5 years at Journey Church, and amidst all the learning, mistakes, doubt, discouragement, fun, joy it would have been another 2.5 years without 2 things:
1. Mentors that Mentor – don’t mince words and get confrontational when needed
2. Law of Process – Meaning consistent learning/challenge
You know this is convicting as I write it, because the men who have spoken into my life don’t wake up and go if Scott asks for a challenge today I’ll give it to Him, they are men of the word, integrity, and the cajones to do whats needed. Im convicted because my excuse for not being more like that myself is fear. Fear of being wrong, Fear of being misunderstood, Fear of not being liked. And seeing other men around me that need a challenge or even a rebuke (like I often do) I give into this fear.
I have to repent because just like I need other men, I know that I need to be that to other men, and that means standing up and being a man. Honestly, I still need freedom in this, I don’t have my breakthrough yet, but I’m not going to give up.
Still I wouldn’t even be here without those two things, so here’s a question or two for you.
Are you being mentored? (have you asked for it)
If so, are they blowing your precepts away or blowing smoke up your butt? Even good intentioned mentors or meetings can just hinder. If thats the case then can YOU step up and create the atmosphere for change? For a long time I just sat knowing my meeting time (years ago) was ineffective, but I couldn’t say what was hard to hear.
Are you applying the law of process?
Meaning, are you reading books consistently to strengthen your weaknesses and reinforce your strengths? Day after day are you working toward a goal? Even if its minute steps… the law of process is the only thing that will lead to significant change apart from God’s radical transformation.
As I continue to do these things myself I can only imagine what lies in store. I can never achieve or succeed (on any meaningful level) apart from Christ, but with the Christ in me I am an overcomer, a son, a disciple, heir, messenger of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank You Jesus! God please continue to transform me. Make me like you, and bless the men in my life who want that as well.
In case you missed our services today, you missed out big, we shared 6 (awesome) video testimonies from our Journey people, and Pastor shared on the true reasons we have to be thankFULL.
But that was assuming that your circumstances were bringing you joy, right? O wait… UMMMM NO!!!
Again, if you missed today, you missed big, but here’s one of our video testimonies cuz we still love you…
Among other things, Pastor wrapped the message up with our #1 reason to be thankFULL. Jesus Christ. His grace, love, SALVATION. Forget circumstances, forget enemies, trials; we have Salvation regardless of our sin, past, laziness, selfishness, and on and on. We’re eternally thankFULL because we know who our Savior is.
If I don’t talk to you before Thursday, have a great Thanksgiving, and remember why, no matter what, you can be thankFULL!!
Ok scratch that title
Fresh Direction and Focus… not quite as sexy… oh well 
Over the last few weeks Dawn and I have met, prayed, planned, fasted, strategized, dreamed, laughed, and prayed some more and basically, without going into crazy detail, we have been given 2 team to head up @ Journey. One inside team (me) and one outside team (Dawn). Anyways… so through prayer and discussing we agreed that although responsibilities and roles are different we are truly one team.
From the second people pull onto the property, until they walk through the front door, until they sit in the seat with our communication cards and envelopes, until the Pastor gets up, until, until, until… you get my point.
Everything they see and all that we do all takes a part in our complete message: JESUS. We all work side by side to communicate God’s forgiveness, grace, mercy, love, truth, life-changing commandments, etc. Our hearts (Dawn and I) are to communicate to our teams together and work/worship/enjoy together as one team. As one body, because we are ~1 Cor. 12:12-20, all for the glory of God.
Needless to say, we are passionate and excited to build up these teams again. To continue to build upon the parts of the “foundation” that others faithfully laid and to go back and fix a few things that could use a little more glitz, glam, and well, flippin fun. We get to CREATE and PROVIDE an atmosphere every single week that reflects the glory, healing, and joy of Jesus Christ.
That’s awesome, and an honor.
As of now we are connecting with people one on one and sharing our hearts and plans for the IMPACT Team naturally as we feel led, and as the opportunity presents itself, however come January we will be having our first “IMPACT Invite” Event the first of next year. You are going to want to be there. and…
YOU ARE INVITED.
Until then, we are pouring out our energy, passion, and focus into our Holiday event team. BTW We have a creative meeting this Sunday at 6pm at Dawn’s house, so if you signed up and we haven’t called you yet or you have not signed up, but would like to take part in our creative planning process for our Holiday events, please contact Dawn or Myself at DawnBarthelette@journeychurchnow.com or ScottClark@journeychurchnow.com. It promises to be fun, filling, and productive. Hope to see you there.
I could go on and on, and I might later, but for now our hearts are to take these areas of ministry to a whole’notha’level!! Won’t you be a part?
Do you know where you are spiritually gifted to serve? Is not knowing holding you back? Or do you know what you’re good at, but feel that it’s just not that important? Feel free to comment & be blessed!
Have you ever wished that your co-worker was able to hear what Pastor taught on last week? Did you just overhear them talking about how they wished their marriage was stronger? Or that they wish their teenager would stop shaving the cat? Well we might not cover that last one, although you never know, but if you do hear a message that you just know would minister to, and encourage a co-worker, or family member, etc. than I would like to present to you…
Next time you are on campus make sure and check out the new “CD 4 A Friend” sign-up located in the church foyer. All you have to provide is your name, the date and title of the message you want, and how many copies you will need. Voila! Your CD’s should be available for pickup the following week. If the CD is for you we would only ask that you request 2 and take one for someone else as well.
NOTE – You can also download our weekly messages through itunes and in multiple formats online at www.journeychurchnow.com.
TIP- WHEN YOU GIVE THEM THE CD INVITE THEM TO JOURNEY & HAND THEM A TOUCH CARD. Which brings me to my next point:
Did you know that 95% of people swallow 3 church touch cards in their lifetimes?!? CRAZY!! AMAZING!
And untrue. 
That’d be cool though…
BUT, each Sunday you might find yourself leaving Journey Church without taking at least one Journey touch card with you. Maybe……………? That’s alright, it happens to the best of us
BUT, here’s a thought, what if we all took (1) card every week, and handed it to just (1) co-worker, family member, friend, wal-mart employee, homeless person, insurance agent, etc, etc each week.
*Thats 604,800 seconds to complete your goal of handing out (1) card!!!!* THAT’S NUTS!!
Not to mention that we would ALL be inviting and potentially ministering to 52 people a year!!! You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that THAT is HUGE missional (and effective) living.
Anyways, to keep this from becoming an article, I’ll get back on point. I just wanted to notify our Journey go’ers of (1) a new resource “CD 4 A Friend”; sign up in the foyer, and (2) a resource that is available for assisting in inviting others to church; “Journey Touch Cards” available on a seat near you (Sundays only ).
I hope this has been helpful and at least provoked a chuckle.
Have a great week & I’ll C U Sunday!
Sugar, spice, and everything painful and broken.
I don’t wanna blog. There is so much going on right now that I feel that I don’t want to spend any energy on pouring out, but as my title says; These are the things hearts are made of.
As you may or may not have heard my wife Ashley was pregnant. We were 11 weeks along and went in this last Tuesday to the OB’s to find out that the baby had stopped growing. No heartbeat. She went in today to have a DNC.
We are still taking everything in, it’s been 3 days, and obviously, there is SO MUCH MORE than I could write going on right now in my wife and my own heart, but I will share some of my top-coat thoughts as they have been coming to me since we started down this unexpected turn.
1. God is in control. Even though there are questions, pain, fear of future issues, physical and emotional implications, and stress etc. God is in control. His mercy and love are always there evident in our lives and circumstances.
2. The hurt comes and goes. For me, thinking that it could be 18 months + before we could possibly even hope to have another child is scary. We had dreams and hopes already. Looked at names, furniture, talked specifics, shared our excitement with friends, family, our church. It’s painful to go back and re-share the loss and experience their sorrow for us one person at a time. Thoughts like that just bring the pain right back.
We are thankful, however, that we have strong loving people around us to love and support us. http://JourneyChurchNow.com
3. I am very optimistic. I almost feel guilty that I am so focused on the positive things that are to come as opposed to crumbling under the loss. God has blessed Ashley and I and I do count my blessings in a time like this. My beautiful, kind, forgiving, intelligent, sensitive wife. My “couldn’t be any better” baby girl. Who is healthy, beautiful, energetic, so smart, and straight from the hands of God. A family that loves us and has shown it time and time again toward Ashley and I. Friends that honor and love us, showing their kindness and willingness to help every time we are in need. An amazing sincere God-loving church to serve in and a job that is fulfilling, challenging, humbling, pays money (cuz thats kind of a blessing) and I have a boss who is loving and uncompromising in our purpose and calling. Our future is not dim. It shines bright and is full of life, excitement, and joy because of the God that Ashley and I love and love to serve.
4. I am not foolish enough to think that my optimism is a sign that I am over this, or that there won’t be things to deal with in the future. I haven’t really broken down from this yet, and maybe I won’t, but I know that mourning is appropriate and an important step in the healing process, and I am more than willing to give in and mourn over a baby lost. To cry with my wife who was already carrying and connecting with that life in her. This sadness will only magnify our gladness when God reveals himself and also when we finally do have that second child.
I might blog on this down the road or not, I don’t know, but I do have hope that there is more to come, good and bad, and that we WILL make it through and be all the better for it because my Daddy is the God of the universe, and He knows how to take care of me and my family.
I hope you are blessed and encouraged by this. I hope your faith is raised to not only stand but to walk forward; to step out and move.
have been kinda quiet, I know. Sorry, but a lot has been going on church wise and personally. After this weekend, that was awesome, I thought I’d take a few minutes and spill some thoughts.
1. Why do I have so much energy? It was said at church today that Christians are the ones who instead of being broken they should be able to stand and say Christ has saved and redeemed me in the midst of my humanity. Well, I can at least be an example of that physically. We had a crazy week at church. I’m talking physical work every day for the daycare and just for the church as well. So I get to Friday and work a full maintenance day (still had 1 or 2 things to do when we left Friday, shhhhh don’t tell Pastor) and then we went mountain biking for a few hours, Ricardo, Pastor Michael, and I, doing some pretty intense trails chasing @garlanddavis and his dad Kent. So I go home and play video games until 2:30 in the morning, which should have wrecked my Saturday, right? Ashley wakes me up at 8am and She and I go on a breakfast and a movie date ’til 12:30. While Breanne naps Ashley and I catch a 20 min. power nap. Great but not able to save from exhaustion within its self. We then head over to St. Pete to go to the beach with my Dad, Stepmom, and Brother.
Sidenote- this was Breanne’s first trip to the beach and we had a blast. She played in the sand, chased birds, hung with me in the water, then ate some sand, which thankfully, she didn’t like. Plus I had a daddy moment as I stripped her down and showered her off with me. Now I will clean other people’s kids, but a. not in a public shower b. not with them naked and c. not whilst people watch. I loved every second of it.
So we do the beach thing (if you have kids you know its WORK) and ended up not getting back to Tampa until after 10:30, shower ourselves, watch the tube, pass out, go and serve the church. After church I cooked out for my fam, devin, angela, brenda, and matt. I cooked good too. We then hit 2 stores, and head out for the cookout and mountain biking tonight. I’m still wanting to go hit the single diamond track as I write.
Why do I have so much energy? It’s not just from biking, cuz I’ve been noticing it the last couple of weeks. I love it.
2. Due to some personal things going on right now I am appreciating serving both behind the scenes more, and learning to appreciate leading from the stage more. So much more. I am excited to clean our back building tomorrow. I normally see the honor in serving in such a way, but really I am thankful to be doing it lately. I also am seeing the PRIVILEGE that it is to be able to get on that stage and share my life, my relationship with God, and my personal worship with the church. I am sooooo blessed!! And I want to do it so much more humbly, sincerely, effectively, lovingly, God-honoring-ly
3. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that I am going to be a father of two. It definitely makes me feel old. I am sooo blessed though.
4. I want to live this life to the fullest. Chasing God, that is. Loving my family, wife first, that is. Sincerely and Passionately, Loving God’s people, that is. But I am seeing the importance of consistency, perseverance, and PATIENCE. I suck at that last one. I did have a mini revelation friday coming back from biking though. I saw that I am only 24, 25 in days, and that there are a lot of reasons not to rush things. I just get almost freaked out because so many things are SOOOOOOOOO important, like not wasting a single day of this precious life, and not letting a single sin or habit steal our focus from God.
5. God is BEAUTIFUL and I want nothing more that to grovel in His dirt. To absolutely be His SLAVE. To truly WORSHIP Him as my 1 IDOL, GOD, KING, MASTER, OWNER. I am His belonging and that is good enough for me. To be near Him. To reflect and redirect any glory I can to Him. Just look at HIS creations!!! They are countless!!!
So many of those words are absolutely meaningless in our culture, church and American culture equally.
This ended up being an outpouring of me, kinda all around. I hope it is beneficial to you.
I literally spent hours today researching paid blog hosts for the church blogs and a possible new website provider for our church site. I personally promote blogger as the best blog site, however if you are a coding GENIUS feel free to give typepad.com $180 a year for a few more features than blogger offers for free. I customized a site over at cloversites.com to see if it was something we could use. After editing a few sites I have concluded that cloversites is AMAZING for simple straight forward drag and drop updating. Its 90% image driven and not customizable outside of 6 page templates which for me is a no go. We are looking at another site that will completely customize a site for us at a reasonable price, however, I need to call them and chat about their interface and user editing, not to mention, I just found out that as of January they are not taking any clients. Well see what happens… well, you’ll see too once we decide.
Go over to michaelkyker.com and read my pastor’s blog. He’s always got great advice and challenge out of the word of God. Today is not an exception. His post on God’s timing hit me right in the teeth. I tend to get over-zealous and explode every once in a while, and I learn over and over again that sincere consistancy and patience are SO MUCH MORE POWERFUL than judgemental promulgating. It’s a good post, check it out.
Well, I’m going home to get rested for tomorrow. John Nichols and I are heading out to tape a youth camp promo video. It will be awesome… don’t miss it Sunday. Peace.
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