Tropical Storm Fay is headed into my backyard (St. Augustine, FL) in a couple days it will sit 60 miles our coast for 12-30 hours…then come back in Thursday a.m. somewhere along our coast. it only caps off the craziest 24 days of my young life! and now they say it may be category 1. my bravado and gusto is fading….

Let’s work backwards…

Monday Aug 18- a full day at the spa, look below to see why i needed

Sunday Aug 17- First day as official campus pastors at St. Johns after 3.5 years as youth directors/associate pastors.

Aug 15-16: Flex Mens’ conference at our church…800 men, with the second day containing a 5.5 hour service project painting, mulching, and planting at Webster Elementary School in St. Augustine.

Aug 11-14: Rush Week- 4 days of events with over 450 middle, high school, and college students attending our “Guard your heart” series based on ‘Deadly Viper Character Assassins’.

Aug 9-10: Weekend services ramping up to Rush/Flex

August 8: Jail ministry in the a.m., called, myspaced, and texted hundreds of students in anticipation of Rush Week. Looking forward to using “simply Text” from Doug Fields in the future.

August 7: Meetings in A.M. Lunch at Carabbas with Superintendent of St. Johns County Schools Dr. Joseph Joyner speaking to the Marketplace ministries. More than one person asked if I was his bodyguard…

August 6: Hillsong London was here, had a crazy packed house. 10 day church fast ended.

August 5: spent afternoon on 3 hour walkthrough to prep for Webster Elementary Outreach.

August 4: Recoup from Costa

August 2-3: Weekend services

August 1: arrived back from Costa Rica at 2 a.m. Went to jail ministry at 10 a.m. Prayer night with hundreds in attendance at Midtown Campus at 7pm. Prayed like a crazy Costa Rican.

July 24-31: Costa Rica Trip. Check blogs below for details.

July 23: Last Youth Service before Costa. I spoke in my famed hundred dollar jeans (19.99 at Bealls but have an imprint of Ben Franklin on the front and back).

in the future, could someone remind me not to book a mission trip, rush week, and men’s conference back to back to back?

but what an amazing 24 days!!!!! i’ll never forget how amazing it was…and have never felt closer to Jesus.

Our annual men’s conference, FLEX, hits Florida this weekend with monsoon force!

I’m especially excited this year as along with kickin masculine worship with some r and b flow from my guys from Blameless, we’ll have exciting speakers…..and a huge opportunity to change the community in one day on Saturday.

We’re taking over a  hundred men from the conference on service outreach projects—i’ll be going to St. Augustine to the Webster Elementary School for a 2 hours blitzkrieg of brotherhood- we’re painting, pouring mulch, clearing fences, and planting potted plants in the county’s poorest neighborhood at its most desperate school. I have several buddies who’ve agreed to come on for the ride, and we expect to put some smiles on kids faces with the ‘marines’ of Celebration Church landing on the beachhead there in full force. (there’s also an outreach in Springfield near downtown Jax for the guys from the Northside at Eugene Butler Middle School!)

So let the testosterone flow, the chicken wings fly, and the enemy flee this weekend! bring on the men! You can still register at www.celebration.org.

There will be tons of food and fun, guys 11-18 come free! Those over 18, it’s $20 for a weekend of band of brother bonding! Look forward to seeing you men there!

Fresh on the heels of our return from Costa Rica  (Rachel’s pictured with 3 girls she played with at a playground renovation there)…..Yesterday Pastor Chris Brooks announced to our campus that Rachel and I would be the new campus pastors at St. Johns Campus of Celebration Church. 

Its another step on a winding road we’ve taken in church ministry.   The campus opened in March 2005, less than a year after we got married, and we began day 1 as middle school directors with 5 kids in our class.   Eventually, we became high school and middle school directors at the campus, then later, youth pastors as the group grew over 100 students.   Last year, ‘youth and church life pastors’ was the expanded role.      What a crazy ride!

Rachel and I are excited beyond belief for this opportunity given to us by Pastor Stovall and the church leadership.   We will continue to lead the youth ministry at St. Johns as we continue to expand our team of volunteers to inspire and equip students to live a God first life.   CareForce Leader training will resume in September for adults who want to become group and extension gathering leaders.    Many of our key mens, womens, childrens, and serving team leaders also cross train as youth workers, so we have a distinctly networked relationship with them.  

The training we’ve received by Pastor Darren Sullivan and Pastor Chris Brooks has been life altering.  Each brought his own leadership style/anointing and shared it with us over these past 3.5 years.  I count them as trusted and true friends who have invested countless hours in me.  

Now it’s time to get back to work!   Rush Week for our Middle and High School Students takes off tonight, where we employ the disciplines of Deadly Viper Character Assassins to the issue of “Guarding your heart” in a weeklong event with the students.   Flex, our men’s event, lands Friday, with an amazing slate for the 800-1000 men who should be in attendance.    

Stoked for a huge week-and year!  -big John

i’ve been off the blogging path for a few weeks…just a few here and there.   tonight, hillsong london makes a stop for a worship concert at our church.   should be amazing.

I’ve been off the blog radar due to a couple things…1-costa rica trip   2-myspace and facebook networking.   I realized i was getting very few emails or comments on those pages….mainly because i was sending no ‘love’ to our students on theirs.  so i’ve been trying to find some semblance of balance between myspace and here.

i know here we share some great ideas and inspirational stories to enhance some lives of people all over…but if I fail to fire up our people we have locally, there’s not much to share….. quite the conundrum.

so what about you?   where’s the line between investing in people in your locality and investing in leaders worldwide?

we arrived back in FL late Thursday night, and rode a bus into the wee hours of the morning returning home. Probably got back into my bed at 3:30 a.m., then hit the jail to catch up with some of our guys there.

Over the 1 week in Costa Rica we were a part of some amazing projects. we could tell from day 1 that it would be powerful…when firstcoastnews (local abc and nbc affiliate) showed up at our church wanting to do a story on our trip….and then offered continued coverage throughout the week through reporting on our blogs over at from the field. it was just that kind of week for us. i have so much to say, and will as the days go by. i’m in florida, but i’m still in a state of mind that’s a little hard to define. i miss costa, i love st johns county, i don’t like my consumeristic life so much, and i’m pretty sure i love God more than I did a week ago. Good thing he’s not like me…His love never changes.

Hey everyone—this is a guest blog from one of our teens, Lindsey Gardner - she’s on our Costa Trip…..17 years old and living out the kingdom of God.

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 Yesterday, after a long hike and going shopping in San Jose, we got off the bus to head to the team house for rest. But God had different plans. On our walk home we ran into a young Tico, as the locals call themselves, named Wagner. He was 18 years old and looked like he weighed about 100 pounds, his face covered in shame and guilt which broke our hearts. So we invited him to come back to the team house to have a pow wow with the fellow. He told us that he hadn’t been home in 15 days because he was afraid to go home and felt like he was going to be killed over 10 dollars he owed someone for drugs. While talking to him he kept his head down and it seemed as if he had tears in his eyes. Boldy he made these confessions in front of everyone at the team house. Compassionately we gave him a meal and provided him with money for a bus ticket to come back today. Also the team prayed for wisdom and salvation over him. We had sympathy but he had to earn the money.

   Waking up this morning, coming down the stairs, there was Wagner washing two cars. Like it says in scripture, whatever is concealed cannot be healed, after confessing yesterday his face was brighter and his head wasn’t hanging today. When he finished we gave him shoes and the ten dollars. Love, compassion and mercy is all it was. God Bless.

Lindsey

Adios amigos

yesterday we went to the top of a mountain here overlooking san jose costa rica. pictures will be coming soon. i encourage you to check our live trip blog and it’s flickr page for tons of pics!

i’ve experienced a healing moment on this trip. i injured my back recently with all the hurricane bertha mad waves, and for 3 weeks i just wanted to somehow pop it and feel relief. on this trip, i’ve had to take tons of ibuprofen and even some easy-to-obtain-in-costarica-muscle relaxers. yesterday, we hit the mountain, and i was still feeling some of that pain. a couple of students prayed for me, just as the team and my wife have numerous times recently.

the climb was rigorous…the mountain was 7400 feet up, and were at 3000 here. the hike in all was 4 miles. on the way down, it started raining, i slipped and fell down a path, and my back popped 3 times….just like i’ve been needing it to.

about an hour later, on the last half of the descent, we came up on one of our interns…she had twisted both ankles …. so i hoisted her up on my back and carried her down the mountain while rachel carried her stuff. in the tough passages, i put her down and she stuck close for bracing. thank God…i never could have alternated the piggyback ride and fireman’s carry had i not fell earlier on that path!

we begin our return tomorrow. i have so many emotions i don’t know where to start. thank you for your prayers.

Our team is doing such an incredible job.  Be sure to check their blog for student updates! The picture above is from our team’s renovation of a small local park.  Our team brought sidewalk chalk, jump ropes, soccer balls, stickers, and bubbles to play with the ninos.   They literally would not let Taylor Brantley leave, as they clung to her feet.  My wife Rachel and I had a good time playing on the see saw with Lindsey G. and these 3 local girls.  As you can see, they still had trouble balancing me out!

I spoke at the youth service in Aurora at Mt. Sinai Church… it was a packed house and my first experience speaking with a translator.   Carolina did a great job as my partner in preaching for the night.  I spoke about how often, we have a see saw kind of life, trying to balance 2 separate lives, our church life and our outside church life, it’s so topsy turvy and is painful, and it never seems to give us ‘balance’.  My point..the world is out of balance,,, there’s no real balance apart from living a genuine life as a follower of Christ in the world….then there aren’t 2 conflicting lives, but just one.  

Later in Aurora, we did something similar, except the poverty was more extreme.  Instead of a park, we setup in the middle of a street.   It was not as sheltered, and many adults watched the interaction our students had with their children.   the transformation 6:8 Ministries has been involved in these past 2 years has changed that neighborhood from a place of random street fires, gang violence, and no safety for children, to the place we found ourselves yesterday, with packs of children clinging to our team, our girls in particular, having the TIME OF THEIR LIVES!   Thank you for your prayers as we continue.  today we goto paint a local school.  Tomorrow we hike to the top of a mountain nearby for an unbelievable time of groupbuilding and connection with Christ.  

from the field-

big john

this is Brandon, one of our teens.  he’s standing with Louis and Mauricio, 2 proud owners of a block house 6:8 built this summer with one of the teams.  a cool thing…6:8 built furniture out of concrete so that the brothers or any of their friends couldn’t sell them for drugs.

alejuelita is the neighborhood we’re staying in at the 6:8 ministries compound.  it’s so awesome!  great costa rican coffee this morning….

this morning’s prayer session was unbelievable.   we’re going today to the market this morning to meet people and get in sync with the pulse of the community.  6:8 has a constant presence with groups in here over 45 weeks a year, and has done so many projects.  I’m just glad we can be a part of adding to the pillar of the kingdom here that God is doing.  In the afternoon, we’ll paint a fence in a neighborhood where kids play t-ball in the streets (minus the T).  i joined that game yesterday, and got to tell the kids we’d be back. 

So we’re on our way!  I’ll be speaking at the local church youth service tonight.  pictures will be loaded up!  be sure to check our missions blog for more updates….