Just one more reason...

My UpStreet Small Group and small group parents continue to amaze me...Last Sunday, after the service, they said they had a present for me. So they huddled around and gave me a couple of cards with some great notes in it and a small box. Naturally, I was thinking a gift card because of the density of the box...I opened it up and got this...

Nine sets of silverware...Actually, just the pics of 9 sets of silverware. They came in the mail a few days later...Freakin' amazing...What a great group of parents for making that happen...And just a phenomenal set of kids I am so lucky to hang out with on Sunday mornings. Wow...

Just one more reason...

Check out this post by a dad of one of the kids in my small group on Sunday mornings...Made my heart melt reading it...By far the best part of my week...

Just One More Reason...

On Saturday, Amanda and I worked for about 3 hours on wedding stuff including that thing that should have been done long ago...The Budget...As we were going through the excel spreadsheet, I felt anxiety just totally well up in me and I starting sweating things big time as the numbers starting summing up. It was not good. Fortunately I have a rock star fiancee that brought me back down to earth. Still though, when I went out with the boys on Sat. night I was still kind of boo bears and just wasn't very stoked about things...

Well on Sunday morning when I arrived and got my UpStreet lesson, it was on a passage that I read quite a bunch...WORRY! I've read Matthew 6:25-34 like eight thousand times because I'm the ultimate worry wort. You name it, I've worried about it. So as we were going through the lesson and talking about stewardship and worry, God smacked me straight in the gut..."This lesson isn't only for these 3rd graders, it's for YOU."

I was totally focusing on the things that I didn't have and what I couldn't get and didn't really stop and say, "I'm marrying the raddest person on earth and it doesn't matter where we go on our honeymoon."

Thanks for the punch in the gut God. I need it sometimes. I actually need it more.

Old and Poor?

So a couple of weeks ago I took one of the little dudes from UpStreet out for a fun little day in the ATL. We had a great day consisting of breakfast, bowling and video games. Well, it was getting a tad warm so he wanted to roll down the window and he had this confused look on his face because he couldn't find a button to make it go down. He finally asked what the scoop was and I had to show him that you have to manually roll down the windows in the DX. He thought it was the coolest thing ever that he had to do it that way. Then, the next day in UpStreet that's all he could talk about. Not the The Flying Biscuit, not bowling and not video games at Andretti's. It was all about the roll down window...Wow, should I feel old or poor?

Why I do what I do...

As many of you know, I teach Sunday school (UpStreet) at Buckhead Church. I've been doing this for almost two years and I absolutely love it. Of all the things during the week that I do, this is by far my favorite thing that I honestly look forward to. I get the opportunity to hang out with 15 third graders that I think are about the coolest kids ever.

Well on Saturday night, Buckhead Church had Family Celebration which is an event where they baptize the kids (k-8th) that have accepted Christ as their Savior and want to publicly profess it. Well, one of the little girls in my group, Maggie Leigh got baptized. The cool part about it is they film a short one minute clip of the kids of why they are here getting baptized. Their testimony basically. Maggie Leigh was absolutely adorable and did such an incredible job.

Also, to make the night even better, one of the girls in Amanda's 7th grade group got baptized as well. She did such an amazing job as well and had a great testimony of why Christ is her Savior.

All in all, 19 kids got baptized. Watching their videos made me realize how complicated I make things some times. Some of their videos just hit me right in the gut and were like "Duh Jonathon, why do you make this harder than it is?"

It was by far the best B-Day present I've ever gotten...