And the craziness begins...

So today Nick and I had lunch together and discussed this ExposedPastor.com series that we will be starting in just a few weeks. Nick and the media crew from Barefoot Church returned from their trip to Flamingo Road Church worn out, excited and FULL of information. So much information, in fact, that my poor husband is having a hard time sorting through everything in his head. After finishing a full days work at Sign Station, he headed home to watch Mason so I could go to school. He spent the entire evening designing the graphic for the series, then getting it approved. (It looks awesome!!! He actually found a picture of Clay that I took and it worked. He's such a genius!) Then he had to set up a blogger -- www.ExposedPastor.blogspot.com -- which we will be running the live feed through.

I have to say, THANK GOD for the folks at Flamingo! I would name names but I cant remember them, I'm bad with names to begin with and these guys all have hard names. I seem to remember Arturo and Miguel...but beyond that, I'm at a loss. Sorry guys. Anyways, these guys are phenomenal! Nick sent the graphic off to them so they can build this site...flippin' nuts. It's really great when people are so helpful and open to sharing their mistakes and victories in order to help others prosper. What they did with MyNakedPastor.com was amazing, and we intend to try and improve upon this with their help. Really, these guys are the definition of Christ followers. Especially considering they have their own high-tech church with multiple campuses to run in Florida.

Anyways, the ExposedPastor series will begin in August, directly following our series titled Quitter. (Spin off of Twitter. Clever, huh?) In a nutshell, cameras will be following Clay around 24/7 recording his every move, completely exposing him and his family to the general public worldwide via the internet. This will go on for 31 days - the whole month of August. We were discussing the fact that this had never been done, with the exception of Troy Gramling at Flamingo, when my husband brought something very profound to my attention. There is one person that did this, even before Flamingo. Completely exposed, hiding nothing, just completely raw...Jesus. Go ahead, think about it. Oh yeah, that's good stuff. Jesus led the complete transparent life, totally exposed, completely naked, pretty amazing stuff.

So y'all please pray for our church and the wonderful people at Flamingo. And say and extra prayer for my pregnancy, this series goes through August and I am due to give birth the 1st week in September. Let's hope that Daiden doesn't decide to make an early appearance.

I miss my husband :|

He's only been gone since 6am yesterday, but it seems like forever. Nick (my husband), Clay (our lead pastor) and Mark (our worship experience pastor) took a trip to Flamingo Road Church to dissect their media department. We are getting ready to start up a few new things in the church that are pretty cutting edge. Flamingo agreed to let our media department check out their media department for a couple days and help us get started.

I talked to Nick last night and he seemed really pumped. He said the guys at Flamingo are awesome, offering to really step in and help us get this stuff off the ground. They are learning how to set up a satellite campus for Barefoot and how to do live stream video 24/7 for an up coming series. It's going to be awesome!

I am personally thankful for the help from the guys at Flamingo, because without them, my husband would probably be spending countless more hours working on this stuff in the upcoming weeks. Thanks to them he may be home at a decent hour some nights.

Well, thankfully he will be home tonight!

Seeing things in a whole new light..

So, last night I had something terrifying happen to me. Well, technically it happened to my son, but it really freaked me out. Have you ever had one of those moments that stirred you to the core of your soul? I had one of those. I was sitting at church listening to my husband and the rest of the praise band practice for the igNITE (6pm) service, Mason was doing his usual running up and down the aisles while I sat and watched. I normally let him run up and down the aisles when there aren't many people there because it keeps him occupied and gets rid of some of that excess energy he has. Well, one of the other band members and him were playing some form of tag. I saw Mason run and then he disappeared, since he falls all the time I thought nothing of it - the soundboard was obstructing my view of exactly what happened. The next thing I know my almost 5 year old little boy comes stumbling up to me making this strange grunting noise. It took me a moment to realize he was really hurt, but as soon as he got to me his eyes rolled back in his head and his legs turned to jello. His whole little body went limp and he kept making these weird noises. I promise you I have never been more scared than I was in that moment. It really looked as though he was having a seizure. Apparently what happened was he took a corner too fast and hit his belly on the arm of one of the chairs. He got the breath knocked out of him and once he caught his breath he was fine, but I wasn't. As the mom of a small boy, I see tons of falls, bumps and bruises, he even broke his arm at the age of three, but something like that, when I didn't know what was wrong, made me feel so helpless.

It's strange how these things can make you look at your life and the lives of those around you so differently. On a personal level, I think of all the selfish things I have done since I've been a mother. I didn't accept Christ until Mason was two, and even then I didn't fully get it. It has taken me a long time to base my decisions on the well being of my family and not what I want, honestly, I still mess it up sometimes. I have taken for granted that I have a healthy little boy and a family that loves me unconditionally. But seeing my little boy suffering and now knowing why or how to fix it just reminds me of how blessed I am and how quickly I could lose all the amazing things God has given me. Just by being careless for a brief moment it could all be gone. So last night I hugged my son a little tighter, read him an extra bedtime story, told him I love him about a thousand times and watched his little chest rise and fall as he slept. I prayed for him and I prayed for me, I prayed for God to help me be the mommy that he needs and deserves. And needless to say, the rules have changed considering running in church.

I just want to say to anyone reading this, if you have healthy children, don't take them for granted. I have seen in newspapers, magazines and on television the thousands of children in the US that spend the majority of their childhood in hospitals, and the hundreds that don't make it out of the hospitals. Just be thankful that God blessed you with this perfect creation (no matter how annoying or unruly they can get) and spend as much time loving them as possible. And for those of you that have spent weeks and months in the hospitals beside your children, praying that they will pull through or asking God why it had to be them, I commend you for your courage and love. I don't know what it's like to be in your shoes, and honestly I don't want to, but I promise I will pray for you and your children.

On that note, I am going to go spend some time with my son.