This is an interesting journal post. I found this word document; “My First Digital Journal Entries & Xanga Posts – 2002.doc” on my computer on an old hard drive that I didn’t know I had. I had been writing my stories down over my early days in Huntersville, NC and Washington, DC in a Word document and these are my actual posts to my digital diary and my Xanga page. So fun!
Which brings me to my thoughts on journaling. I believe that each one of us has a story to tell and from close up, it would seem everything is disconnected and random. However, after so many years of walking with GOD intimately as we daily talk and I daily journal, I can see patterns that show me HIS hand and more than that, I have learned HIS characteristics and how to know and do HIS will, HIS way.
Journaling is key in this. Even though like in this post you see some digital journal entries, I have kept a paper or moleskine journal. I literally have more than 60 total journals from the last 22 or 23 years. The image on this post is only some of them. Yes, I’ve been journaling since college and have those journals which are in spiral bound notebooks with UNC logos on them. (They are literally antiques now. Ouch).
In these journals I write everything. Things I hear HIM say, experiences that are happening, dreams, visions, planning for the church, sermons, IT concepts, planning and more. I am going to add pictures of pages I transcribe later in A Warrior’s Tale, but for here, let me share my story and a window into my early digital journals. I have more written than this on this time period and will connect it later, but this is just too cool to see.
And what is so cool about it? If you journal, you can go back and see what GOD did, how HE answered, how you thought, how you’ve grown as well as small things like the mouse story below I’ve forgotten. It makes me love my wife more just reading it.
So, I am adding them here and will elaborate later on this part of my life. I am so thankful for these. I actually don’t like the way they are broken up with only partial stories here, but I want them in here for my kids.
I will take time relating the stories better or at least the ones that are important later and the things we learned from them.
However, here is a look inside of some of my first digital entries.
———————–
The stories and journal 11-12-2002 and on
(for use on my xanga page)
(write one story a day)
(get list from my diary program)
9-27-2002
The Move
Well, things are definitely interesting. We felt like God was calling us to plant a church in Huntersville, North Carolina, so I dropped everything and quit my job at a church in Troutman, North Carolina, moved to Huntersville and began to pray for God to show me what to do. Well, He began to do amazing things right away. I went to work at a place called Foamex and in a matter of days, we had a number of people who wanted to come to our new church! (Read later for more stories on Foamex). But just months into our ministry there, we ministered at a summer camp that was amazing, (Read later for more on MAYC), and one of the churches called us to minister with them. The name of the Church is Ichthus International Church. It is a Korean church. They are the most amazing people and it is really amazing that we were invited. We have been praying about what to do and today we moved. We are now living in Rockville, Maryland for the next year and we will be moving back to Huntersville October 2003, where we will re-establish our work as a church plant. WOW! We know there are going to be some awesome things that will happen.
9-27-2002
Foamex
I took a job when we moved to Huntersville. I thought it would be a great way to make money and just get established in the community. I started working at a place called Foamex. They hired me to move stock around, load trucks and such. It’s pretty cool to be a pastor and work a job like this. People could not understand why I would be doing this kind of thing. I simply told them that God had called me to do it.
This led to a whole lot of different stuff. When I first got there, I worked my heart out and immediately got all kinds of promotions within the first week. I became a machine operator and within a couple of months, the business was talking about hiring me into the office area as more of a managerial position. This also led to some interesting things.
In a few weeks after my arrival, people were talking about the fact that a preacher worked for the factory. Soon, I had people coming up out of nowhere having me pray for them, having me witness to them and asking me all kinds of questions about the Bible. It was one of the most exciting times of my life. I loved it.
One guy came up one day and asked me to pray for him because he was, “lost, ” I said, cool, I will. I left him hanging and started to walk off. He stopped me and said, no, I mean I need to get saved I am lost. I said great! Again, I offered no more advice. He then asked me to tell him how he could be saved. I did. Very simply I told him that he had to confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Believe in him as God (and that GOD raised HIM from the dead). Then, he would be saved. He expected me to pray for him or something. I did not. The next day he comes in beaming!
He says that he had asked Jesus into his heart and it was awesome. The change was evident that day as his language and everything changed. Go Jesus!
Another time, my boss overheard everyone at the clock talking about me and saying that they couldn’t understand why I would be there and why I would be so happy to work the job I was working. He (personally) stopped everyone (he is also a Christian and just wasn’t outspoken) and witnessed to the whole crowd and told them that it was because I knew Jesus.
It was so cool to see God minister through my life example. We as pastors need to learn a valuable lesson. We need to be with the people. We must reach them where they are.
They need to SEE the compassion of Jesus. They don’t want to hear it preached and then see us not living up to our own preaching.
9-27-2002
MAYC 2002
Can you see it? The students were all excited about another week at camp. Their thoughts were on camp food, games,
10-08-2002
The Sniper
The week after we moved to Rockville, we went down to minister in St. George, South Carolina. Annually we go to a Methodist Campmeeting and minister to the youth. The name of the Campmeeting is Indian Field. Greats in the ministry have ministered there, such as Homer Roadheaver and Francis Asbury. What an honor to be invited to minister.
11-07-2002
Forest Fire Thoughts
On February 15th, 1997, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, we had a conference for college students. here were about 3,000 – 5,000 (actually a few thousand more) students in attendance and we had an amazing time of praise and worship and a great sermon by Clayton King.
It was written about in Decision Magazine and we saw around 250 college students make decisions for Jesus that night. After the meeting, for the next months, amazing things happened on campus and all around, there were large group meetings all over the place, some right out in the open, praising God and witnessing to the whole campus! here were about 42 college campus ministries involved and about 22 college campuses from all over the United States represented! What an awesome event!
This year, we are going to resurrect Forest Fire. It will be held on the University of Maryland in September of 2003. It is going to be huge. All of the details are being worked out, but we will soon see God’s mighty hand doing miracles again. (This did not happen).
11-12-2002
The Mouse
Today we were working in the office and hanging out at the church where I work (Ichthus International Church), and Lori and I were doing the new stuff for the youth when a mouse just ran into the office and looked at us and ran into the corner. I told Lori to stay calm and not freak out, which was very hard for her to do. hen I ran over and grabbed a trashcan and put it in front of the mouse. As I was trying to figure out the best way to make him run in, he ran in by himself. Triumphantly, I carried him outside and let him go. Thank God for the little things He helps us accomplish.
11-21-2002
No more Business as usual.
Now, everything is different. We have meetings such as staff meetings and they don’t go like they used to. It used to be business as usual, now when we meet, we end up ministering to someone till 11PM at night. It is unbelievable! People will start to tell what is bothering them and then the next thing you know is that it is ministry time. It is so cool to watch God build community and unity. Go Jesus!
11-22-2002
George Bush’s Favorite Restaurant
Tonight, Chris Kim’s family invited Lori and I to go out to eat dinner with them and some friends in celebration of his mother’s 60 birthday. It was a great honor for Mr. Kim to invite us and an even greater honor to spend that time with them. We ate at George
Bush’s (the senior) favorite restaurant. It was neat to see all of the pictures of the dignitaries and George Bush and his family and George W. and Laura all over the walls.
Mr. Kim also invited about 6 other friends who were CEO’s, dignitaries and such to join in the celebration. he time we spent with these people was so precious. They were by far some of the most kind and classy people I have ever met. It was very interesting to get to meet these very successful people, not to mention Chris’ mother and father are very well known, successful people in Korean and American governmental circles.
They treated us as if we were guests of honor. I prayed for the family and the meal. And then we ate so much food it was unbelievable. We then headed to their house for coffee and tea and time to talk.
What a great time. I feel as if I am so honored. Now we have an open invitation to spend time with them any time they have family gatherings. How cool is that?
11-23-2002
Last night, we drove through DC and around the Washington monument, near the capital building and past the Jefferson Memorial. As we drove by and looked at all of the different things glowing under the beauty of the soft light, I was drawn to a neat thought.
The thought that God had placed me here for some reason and that I needed to pray. I felt that if I prayed right then for my nation and it’s capital, I really could effect change.
Then I thought about how powerful my every prayer was. Every time I prayed or praised, I was tearing down the Kingdom of Satan and building the Kingdom of God. I could just imagine Satan and his demons screaming and angry because I was bringing God glory.
Right now as I sit and think about the awesome feeling I had as I asked God to give me every place that I drove that night for His glory. What a cool thing it is to praise God at the capitol. I want to get tons of people together to really praise and worship out there.
We’ll see what will happen.
Three cool thoughts for the day that came from Lori and my quiet time:
“Remember that God values you for who you are, not what you do . . . True faith involves doing all you can and letting God take care of the rest . . .God will never send a thirsty soul to a dry well.”
-Bruce Bickle and Stan Jantz, (God is in the Small Stuff).
12-10-02
Outreach a couple of weeks ago.
A couple of Saturdays ago, we went on an outreach with the youth group from Ichthus International Church. It was pretty awesome. About 35 students went with us to give away free hot cocoa. They loved it. We reached approximately 350 people with the gospel by a simple random act of kindness. How cool is God? They were awesome. The students really got into it and they were very effective!
12-10-02
Last week’s adventure to Atlanta
Last week we left on Sunday afternoon and took off for Atlanta, Georgia to go to 722.
It’s Louie Giglio’s service for singles at Northpoint Community Church in Georgia. It was a great trip and took 12 hours of driving to get down. There were probably 3000 people there and they were from all over. The service was amazing as Steve Fee did worship, Louie brought the message and then there was worship time. He used a loud trumpet sound at one point that really got everyone’s attention and helped us to get an idea of what it might be like when Jesus comes back. It was extremely cool. he service all in all was the best church service I have ever been to in my life. It was definitely more post-modern and I am excited to learn more about this post-modern move and the churches involved such as the Gathering and Frontline, which I attend whenever I can at McLean Bible Church.
The trip home was very interesting. It started to snow in North Carolina Wednesday morning. It took about 6 hours or more just to get out of North Carolina and into
Virginia. By the time we got into Virginia, it was dark and the snow had accumulated a couple of inches. Soon, no one was on the road and it looked as if we would be stranded as the roads began to disappear and snow was getting deep. I kept up the pace and after many exhilarating minutes, we drove out of the storm near Richmond, VA. Because of the traffic and accidents, (we saw 14 accidents), it took about 10 and a half hours to get back to Rockville, MD! Can you say exciting! Needless to say, I caught up on prayer life during that trip!
#washington
#dc
#Korean
#church
#sniper
#Passion
The post My Thoughts on Journaling with GOD (For Chapter 7) appeared first on A Warrior’s Tale.
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