A Baby Changes Everything

More than six months have passed since we began rehearsals for A Baby Changes Everything. It was a bold challenge for the UBC choir and drama team, but this past weekend has proved it was more than worth it. I thrills me so much to say once again what a blessing it is to serve at such an outstanding church. It was a true miracle to watch this production unfold. The faithful saints at UBC are so well equipt. God has placed the perfect cast of people to accomplish His work and will at Underwood.

How Great Is Our God!

I was born again when I was 12 years old. God called me into full time ministry in my early 20s. Since then the greatest miracle I have witnessed was when my sweet little girl was saved. I had the thrill of baptizing her Oct. 2009. How Great is Our God!

The Hidden Blessing of Bronchitis!

I have bronchitis for the first time since I was just a teenager. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday have been virtually sleepless nights. I was in the midst of a pity party because I missed choir rehearsal, which is a highlight of my week. However, in the midst of the sadness and sorrow, I have had some great inspiration from the Word of God.
I mentioned to several folks at the beginning of this month that I had spent a lot of time thinking about the hymn "Sweet Hour of Prayer" (click on the title to read the story and complete lyrics of this great hymn). I have been so convicted about the amount of time I spend truly seeking God. I have prayed to the Lord that I could become even more disciplined in my time with Him. So due to a little perspective change I now realize the blessing of bronchitis, Jesus has allowed me to get up Super early the last few mornings and spend some more time with Him. I love Jesus. I'm so thankful that He saved me and called me to serve Him in full time ministry.

Whoever Calls on the Name of the Lord Will Be Saved.

In a previous post I talked in detail about the Colley's trip to Ohio. One thing I did not mention was the appointment that my little girl made with Jesus for her Salvation. She told me on Monday that she was going to ask Jesus in her heart on Friday of that week. Her mom and I sat down with her and shared several Bible verses with her and left it at that. She spent the next several weeks asking difficult questions. We were very serious about not persuading her to make a decision. We did not want her to do something and then when she is older question her what she had chosen to do. It was bedtime September 12th and Abbey told me that she wanted to be saved. I told her that it was bedtime and she just need to go to sleep. With a few more comments she talked me into sitting down and telling her again how she could be saved so I sat with her once again and began to read the scriptures to her. I read "whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, and from her bed she shouted "Jesus"! I was actually shocked. She proclaimed "I'm saved". I continued to read the scriptures to her and made sure that she was aware that sin is why we need a Savior and that she took some ownership in that. She stood by her bed bowed her head and prayed, "Jesus please take all this sin outta me"! I was floored. It is really that simple. Jesus provided Salvation to my sweet little daughter. I am so amazed by Jesus. To God Be The Glory Great Things He Has Done!

What is 1973?

Today Abbey was writing some notes while we were driving to school. Specifically she was writing down our birth dates. First hers then Bryant's next was my turn and I told her it was 08-06-73 and you should have seen the puzzled look she gave me. I tried to explain 1973, confusion mounted even more and she asked what is 1973? I love making memories with my daughter.
When we started throwing around dates I began to think of a couple other defining dates in my life. I remembered Saturday September 5th 1992. It was a overcast afternoon and two nervous teenagers were preparing to go on a date. She looked great in those green jeans. I will never forget my first date with my wife. Mandy and I have been married 13 years, but we knew it was going to be something special 17 years ago sitting in Pizza Hut.
I also remember Tuesday September 11th 2001. I was scheduled to sing at an association senior adult picnic. That morning I remember turning the TV on and seeing a stunned Fox news channel cast. I watched with our nation as the second plane hit the World Trade Center. I will never forget the day our country was attacked so viciously.
I'm going to wrap this up by chasing a rabbit. I'm a lot nervous about the current state of our country. I truly believe that the political system is out of control. I would love to see a leader that would take a STAND and not bow to the pressures of the political game. I growing confident that this will not happen prior to the Rapture of the Lord's Church. Dear friends it has been said for centuries that Jesus will return, I promise you it is the truth. Trust Christ Today receive His Salvation.
Jesus is the only way to inherit Heaven.

How To Have Great Worship Experience, Every Week

I work with a lot of wonderful musicians. Some weeks the music is really good. Some weeks the music is really great! Some weeks are better at one service than the other.
However... it's possible to have fantastic worship EVERY Sunday. Here are just a few ideas for you to help you make your time of worship a great time with God.

1. Remember that you are at church for God. It's not really all about you (don't mean to hurt your feelings). If your focus is on Him and not on hoping to hear your favorite song then true worship can happen.

2. Don't rely on the worship pastor or the band or the choir to get you all revved up or feeling good. Feelings are great, but in reality, worship is telling God how great He is and how much you love Him.

3. Worship with your mind as well as your heart. So many of the songs we sing have really terrific texts. We sometimes sing songs so many times that we just sing along and don't even think about the words. But the words are really the point. They tell of God's greatness, they encourage us, they teach us, they inspire us...

4. Come to worship expecting it to be wonderful. In most things in life you get out of them what you bring to them.

5. Pray before you come. (don't make me tell you everything. figure this part out yourself)

6. Worship during the week. It's good practice and your heart will be more in tune with God.

7. Some thinking about others more than yourself. (Ooops. There we go again with the "it's not all about you part.") Be happy to sing some old song knowing it speaks to the hearts of so many others. Be happy to sing that new song you don't know because it speaks to the hearts of so many others. (Get the idea?)

Created By: Lyndel Littlejohn-worship leader at Hildale Baptist Church Clarksville, TN

My Boy!

I'm so blessed.

My Girl!

I'm so amazed at how God has blessed me.

Beth Moore Simulcast

What a night of worship at the Beth Moore Simulcast. Underwood Baptist Church graciously hosted this event. It is wildly successful. God is alive and active in God's church here. It is such a great place to be. There will be tickets available at the door tomorrow. Come and worship with this awesome group of ladies..

"Seven"

My Little Girl seven years old.
I remember well the Sunday afternoon. Mandy stayed home from church trying to continue her doctor instructed bed rest. I was in a meeting at FBC Savannah, TN, and the phone rang. Mandy told me there had been an "event" I rushed home and we rushed to the hospital. It was not time, the delivery date was weeks away. Still the doc. told us that it was happening, and less than 50 min after we arrived at the hospital Abbey Nell Colley was born. One week later we came home with this four pound girl wearing doll clothes from toys'r us. I could hold her in the palm of my hand. Now she is seven and I can harldy hold her 65lbs. at all. She is a treasure to me. God's precious gift.

B4 Haircut/ First Day of School

B4 Haircut

B4 Haircut

First Day of School

Walking up to School.

Ohio Mission Trip

Bryant and I.

The family inside the Ohio Horseshoe.

Abbey and I on the Ohio State field. Turns out that it is a little frowned upon to be on the field. Keep that in mind when you visit this great campus. They were very hospitable to us.
It was a bit of a challenge to keep Mandy from yelling ROLL TIDE at everybody. She gets a little crazy around every football stadium.
It was awesome sharing Jesus with my family. We knocked on doors together. We shared the love of Jesus together. It was awesome. Family ministry is where it is at. We must teach our children the Holy Scriptures from birth till eternity. It is a parents responsibility to be a teacher and a discipler not a buddy. Eternity is not a joke it is reality and it is quickly approaching.

Health Care (who are they caring for?)

I've been trying to stay informed about new health care proposal our "leaders" are working on. I cant believe everyone is so blind to the obvious train wreck that is fast approaching. I lived in the state of TN for over 8 years and the entire time I was there I heard constant news story about Tenn Care, the state run insurance program, it was never positive. There were people in neighboring states simply getting a PO box in TN and qualifying for TLC (Tenn Care). One gentlemen I knew took such advantage that the local hospital would not even see him so when he called the ambulance to pick him up he would be immediately transported 50 miles away to another hospital. Then he would ride home in the gov. sponsored bus. This is a baby version of what our government is proposing. They are making a Mount Everest of health care plans. And the hypocrisy of not wanting to be on the same plan is just hilarious. If you have not heard the senator from NY saying "no one is trying to revamp health care" you should find he clip and listen. Its a joke. Control is what is being sought. No where in the world does this type of system work well. I'm shocked by the scare tactics proposed by some leaders trying to get citizens to give up freedoms for the greater good or for our survival.

Check this article out I kind of resist getting something shoved down my throat.

Challenging Week

Then month of June ended on quite an difficult note. After a long battle with cancer my Dad finally lost on June 27. I visited Mayfield Kentucky and saw many of my family members for the first time. It was a mixture of emotions for the couple of days that Mandy and I were there. I was glad to get to know some things about my family. I say where my dad and his siblings went to school, their old home place and many other things.
The difficult lesson I learned through all this is that tomorrow is a myth. Do today what you need to get done. God has been gracious to me through all this. My family and church family have been such a great support. I'm so thankful for the path that God chose for me.

Have a happy fourth of July

Colley Mansion Beautification

Love The Light. My neighbors might complain due to the Xtreme brightness. But it looks great.


Pretty Work..

Nice Bed. Look at that border..wow

Mandy's Dad made the window boxes for us. Aint they sweet...

I thought the window boxes deserved two shots..

Pray for President Obama Monday May 18th.

Pray for our president. He will be meeting Monday with Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel. They will have some kind of talks about peace in the middle east. I'm truly afraid of what our president is doing on just about every subject. In his own policy statement on the whitehouse.org website speaks of a "two state" option. It has not worked for decades but President O. seems to think he can encourage everyone to just get along. I'm not very optimistic that this will happen. I know that many Jewish folks voted for Obama, but I can't imagine they are happy with the line he is taking with Israel. I feel it is a very important for the safety of America that we make the right decisions regarding Israel.

Randy Alcorn Is AWESOME!!!

I just finished my fifth Alcorn book and I would just like to say WOW! He is absolutely my favorite author. (I'm not comparing his books to the Bible I hope everyone reading my little blog would know that there is no comparison.) Anyways, I just love his books.. Let me share with you about my journey with Randy Alcorn. I have some dear friends in Belmont, MS that read all the time. They always share with me some of their favs and thankfully they shared Randy Alcorn with me.
The first book I read was Safely Home and it is still by far my favorite. This one gave me a small glimpse of Mr. Alcorn's view of Heaven. I don't think i have every read about my eternal home and it come so alive to me.( I wrote about this in an earlier blog post) I then moved on to Lord Foulgrin's Letters. To me it was kind of a modern Screwtape Letters it weaved a vivid story about our enemy's plot to destroy us. Then I read Dominion, Deadline, Deception these books immerse you into the life of about 6 or 7 characters and they all are terrific. Randy is a master of weaving a worldview into his books. He very carefully in narrative form shines the light on just about every viewpoint of difficult issues ranging from racism to abortion. I'm thankful that God has allowed him to share his gift with the world.
The first thing i would read about Randy is a little article in Christianity Today called "Pastor without a Paycheck" Randy was a pastor but the Lord allowed a very difficult chain of events and now we know and love Randy the author, not Pastor Randy. I'm thankful that he was listening and obedient. This is a lot of rambling about my little reading adventure since last September but I hope through this rambling you will discover the great adventure that can be enjoyed by reading Randy Alcorn.....The End......:)

What is going on in the world?

I think sometimes we are all going lazy and crazy. We just sit back and wait and hope for things to happen. I am becoming more positive that as the days of our lives get more wicked we are going to have to stand up and take action. I sickens me to watch our country being dragged through the mud by our current president. In the past months he has paraded around the world and tried to be a rock star and with his popularity tell the world that America is the worst, but he gonna make it all better. I remember a passage I read in an ancient manuscript that said "blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. We continue to slip and slide farther away from that every day. I was thinking this morning how uncertain things are. Then I read O. Chambers this morning and the title was The Graciousness of Uncertainty. He discussed how inclined we are to be mathematical. We need a conclusion we need control. Then he said this and it has help me gain my perspective for the day. "Certainty is the mark of the common-sense life: gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, we do not know what a day may bring forth." I don't know what this presidency will bring. I assure you I'm not optimistic. However, God knows what is going to happen. And if i will simply dive into what he has for me i will be overwhelmed with HIS peace and CERTAINTY. That is all i need. A real and right relationship with Jesus Christ. Make sure my family knows and understands the riches he offers and focus on Him not on the "world affairs".

God is Good.

Good Times

Every Man's Dream when his little son comes in and announces to everyone that he is a princess.

Cutie pie after she got her haircut.

A healthy breakfast Pringles Honey Combs and a HI-C.

My little man guarding his sisters money.

Sunrise over the Sea of Galilee

What a great Resurection Sunday. We had an unforgettalbe day of worship at Underwood Baptist our choir sang the glory down, and our pastor shared an awesome sermon. This Easter weekend has meant more to me than all the others before. Since I visited the Holy Land the stories in the Gospels have been so real to me. The Garden where He prayed, the place of the Cross where He was crucified it is a lot more real than it used to be. I was looking through my pictures after church this morning and came across this one taken early one morning looking out over the Sea of Galilee. I thought about Jesus telling the disciples he would meet them in Galilee. I think more often now than ever about the promise of the Lord made "I will Come again." How awesome to think that Jesus will one day return for me.

Israel

What an amazing trip. I have told many people that it was as much an emotional experience as it was physical. There were things I felt as I walked through he city where Jesus walked that I could never put into words much less take a photo of. I saw the Jordan river, the Sea of Galilee, the Church of the Nativity, I toured through Jericho, Bethlehem saw the Dead Sea. Went to Tiberius. I sang at Capernaum inside a Roman Amphitheater. I saw the modern city of Tel Aviv, viewed the great fortress of Meggido and looked out over the valley of armegeddon. And there are so many other things I saw that I could never even dreamed of. I saw some things that suprized me. Some that depressed me, other things that were quite shocking. All of this and all of the words I will ever speak till the day I die could never share with you the experience I had as I stood outside the Garden Tomb with hundreds of other pilgriams wanting to view inside the "EMPTY" tomb. I will just say WoW!! I'm so glad I serve a risen Savior. Jesus is Alive.
(The photo is taken just before Ientered into the tomb.)

WE ARE HERE

All is well we have arrived in Israel. We were quite tired, but we have had a good nights sleep and are getting ready to go visit the old part of the city of Jerusalem. It is truly overwhelming to be in this country. I will post some pictures soon. I hope all is well in the US.
....to be continued....

I'm Going To Israel

Well I leave in the morning for a once in a lifetime trip to Israel. (actually twice in a lifetime I hope to take my family someday) Seventeen people from my church are making this incredible journey. I ask you to please pray for me and my friends as we travel.
If i have opportunity to connect to the Internet I will post some pictures.

825 Billion Dollars 825,000,000,000

Common Sense is gone. I am thankful that Alabama Senator Richard Shelby is willing to take a stand. Americans must wake up and take a long look at the truth. If we continue to just keep our eyes closed tight and say "i think they can" we will be a nation that falls. Government is not the solution, they cannot fix what is wrong. America was built by people not politics. Good moral judgement must be implemented or we will fall. Righteousness exalts a nation.

Check out Senator Richard Shelby (AL-R) comments today to the Senate. Click Here to read

Happy New Year

What a great holiday season we had. I am so thankful for my entire family. God has blessed me so very much. I think this picture says it all. Whew! We are all so very tired. Thanks be to God for loving us enough to give us the greatest gift which was His son Jesus coming to earth to be our Savior.

Christmas with my Babies...

Reading the Christmas Story



Christmas Kiss!!

Christmas at Mandy's Parents