Where Did May Go?

It seems like I keep getting lost in time and I can't keep up with the blogging. May was insanely busy and I think June is going to be even more packed. Here's what's been going on and is coming up for the Powell's...

FIELD TRIPS TO JOURNEY CHURCH
One fun and insightful thing we got to do is take the Hannaford Praise Team (musicians and techs) on a field trip to Journey Church, a couple year old church plant in Bozeman, Montana. Journey has been very effective at reaching people in Bozeman so we wanted to find out what the buzz was all about.

We took two trips and attended their Saturday evening services. Their worship guy, Brandon Edwards was gracious to set up meetings after the services to let our people ask questions and interact with theirs. It was pretty cool. Journey does a great job creating environments that make people actually "want" to go to church.

NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER
On May 1, the National Day of Prayer, we were invited to provide music for the city-wide prayer event on the Montana Capitol Building steps. We assembled a small team of musicians and singers and did about four songs including my favorite, Chris Tomlin's America. It was a very moving event.

BATTLE CRY CONFERENCE
In the beginning of May, I was part of the Battle Cry conference held at the Helena Civic Center. I was the worship team leader of a group comprised of guys from five different churches. Battle Cry was put on by the local Promise Keepers group, LCMI, with help from the Promise Keepers organization.

It was awesome worship. Hearing hundreds of men sing worship songs is quite a different experience than your usual Sunday morning church worship. Andrik came, too, and did an excellent job running the video. In addition, the entire conference was video taped and was aired on the local PBS station. DVDs can be ordered here.

MONTANA FAMILY FOUNDATION WEBSITES
I've also been very busy using some new web skills for the Montana Family Foundation (MFF), a para-church org that is like Focus on the Family, but for Montana. One of the things they do is create those voter guides that report how candidates stand on different issues. What's new for me is that I've had to learn ASP, a web programming language that can dynamically generate pages from databases. Whew! I never thought I'd be doing something like this. MFF has three websites that I've been working on, you can check them out here:

•  Montana Family Foundation •  Montana Voter Guide •  Montana Family Action

MOTHER'S DAY
For Mother's Day, we mixed things up a bit and moved things around on the stage. We put the singers up front and the ladies led the worship with Andrea as the main singer. We did a pretty funky version of Israel Houghton's "You Are Good." Okay, compared to Israel Houghton and New Breed, our version was rather vanilla, but it was pretty funky for us. I actually enjoyed this movie honoring moms - it make me laugh.

ANDRIK WINS MEDIA AWARD
Andrik created a poster for a club he co-founded at his middle school. The poster was entered in the M.Gen Fest here in Helena. The M.Gen Fest was "designed as part of the media literacy curriculum recently implemented into middle- and high-school classrooms throughout Helena. This interactive event will highlight how students have learned to critically analyze and understand media messages and techniques that impact all of us." Andrik's poster won 3rd place. Whoo-hoo!

2007 Jesus Conference Highlights, Part 4

As I mentioned, I was the worship team leader for the 2007 Jesus Conference, put on by the local Promise Keepers chapter Last Chance Men of Integrity (LMCI). One of our speakers, Hobe Rash spoke on "Seeing The Vision," focusing primarily on the life of Joshua. He had some great insights on pursuing God purpose for your life. This is part 4 of a 4 part series. Click on the label PK Jesus Conference to view all the related posts.

WAIT ON GOD

• Joshua 1:1-9, 16-18 - The number 1 thing we can do to accomplish his vision is to wait. Joshua wandered in the desert essentially waiting for people to die.
• How do we respond to waiting? As we wait, we begin to question. Did God forget me? Maybe I misheard Him. Maybe I disappointed Him.
• We need to focus our eyes on Him. We need to wait until WE can answer the question, "Did God forget me?"

GET GOING

• God said, "I am going to give you the land. I will be with you. Your part is to lead my people there."
• We love to hear about what God is going to do. Often, we become spectators and begin to talk more ABOUT God than actually doing our part. Other times, we focus on our DOING and forget about God's plan.
• Remember that He is the vine and we are the branches. Apart from Him, we can do nothing (John 15:5). Can I produce fruit by myself? No! I can do nothing without Him.

DON'T STOP THE FLOW, JOE

• Hebrews 3:15 - Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in your rebellion. "Don't stop the flow, Joe. Don't say no."
• Joshua is told over and over to "be strong and courageous." This mean for you to "be continually receiving His strength and you will be courageous." You will not be afraid of what God will do.
• Be "full of" God. People know what you are "full of" from your own lips. "From the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks."
• God gives us a vision to give us a purpose - SO GET MOVING! God wants you to play a critical, tactical role in the accomplishment of HIS strategic plan.

2007 Jesus Conference Highlights, Part 3

As I mentioned, I was the worship team leader for the 2007 Jesus Conference, put on by the local Promise Keepers chapter Last Chance Men of Integrity (LMCI). One of our speakers, Hobe Rash spoke on "Seeing The Vision," focusing primarily on the life of Joshua. He had some great insights on pursuing God purpose for your life. This is part 3 of a 4 part series. Click on the label PK Jesus Conference to view all the related posts.

WE NEED BUDDIES

• God will prepare us for His vision by correct conflict ... and we don't need to do it alone. You don't have to look for trouble. If you are living for Christ, trouble will find you.
• Jesus prayed all night before He picked His team. Then, He selected carefully. He didn't just run out and yell, "Hey, who wants to be on my team?!!" You've got to get the right people "on the bus."
• Exodus 17:8-15 - When carrying out God's strategic plan, you need to have some buddies. Had Moses not had his team to help hold up the staffs, Joshua and his army would not have been victorious against the Amalakites - no matter how hard or skillful their fighting.The spiritual and physical work together - spiritual power and physical obedience.

TIME IN THE TENT - INTENTIONAL WORSHIP

• Life in the Kingdom is not about me. It's about HE and we. That's how God prepares us for His vision.
• God prepares us for His vision and purpose for us through intentional worship. That is coming into His presence to honor Him above everything else. It means that we are CONSUMED with Him.
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• Exodus 33: 7-11 - Moses went into the tent and talked with God "as one talks with a friend." When Moses left, his servant Joshua would stay. Joshua was there too!
• Where do Joshua learn to hear from God? to offer praise? to cry out his need to God? to yield to God? If you spend time alone in the tent with God, He WILL change you as you yield to Him. This is intentional worship.

HAVE FAITH

• Numbers 13:1 - The Lord said to Moses "Send men out to explore the land and report back." The men reported a land flowing with milk and honey, but there were also giants living in the land. We can't do it.
• We CAN do it, not because we are stronger or bigger than our enemy, but because GOD is bigger and stronger!
• We have 2 choices: either have faith in God's word and act on it, or we can show contempt for His word. God says "if you treat my vision with contempt, you will not live to see it come to light."

2007 Jesus Conference Highlights, Part 2

As I mentioned, I was the worship team leader for the 2007 Jesus Conference, put on by the local Promise Keepers chapter Last Chance Men of Integrity (LMCI). One of our speakers, Hobe Rash spoke on "Seeing The Vision," focusing primarily on the life of Joshua. He had some great insights on pursuing God purpose for your life. This is part 2 of a 4 part series. Click on the label PK Jesus Conference to view all the related posts.

DOING FIRST-HAND "RECON"

• In Joshua 5:13-15, Joshua is doing "recon." He goes ahead to check out Jehrico for himself. We, like Joshua, need to experience faith first hand. No more second-hand faith! On God's team, there are only players. There are no spectators.
• On "recon," Joshua comes upon a man "standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand" (the commander of the army of the LORD). What would you do if you were on "recon" and met someone with sword in hand. Run? Call reinforcements? Joshua is bold. He asks "Are you with us ... or them? Friend or foe?" The answer is neither, because it's not about who's team He is on, it's about who's team we are on.
• God does not answer the question we ask - He answers what we need. The commander of the LORD's replied to Joshua, "Take off your sandals for you are standing on holy ground."
• Joshua was looking for a plan for victory. Instead, God showed him a person. We need to yield our plans and yield our wins. Only then will God reveal His vision.
• Joshua wanted God to tell him what to do. We're the same - we want to DO something. Instead God told him what to BE - holy. "Take off your sandals for you are standing on holy ground." In order to receive God's vision, we have to be holy.

THERE IS POO ON OUR SHOES

• After a hard day at work at the farm, I want to come in and eat. But Momma stands at the kitchen door, spoon in hand, saying "Don't you dare think about coming in like that!" At that point I realize I am not coming in when I have "poo on my shoes." God wants His holiness in us.
• When we are holy, God does his work. The children's song "Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho ... and the walls came tumblin' down" is a LIE! Joshua DID NOT fight the battle. God fought the battle and Joshua and his men cleaned up the mess afterward.

2007 Jesus Conference Highlights, Part 1

As I mentioned, I was the worship team leader for the 2007 Jesus Conference, put on by the local Promise Keepers chapter Last Chance Men of Integrity (LMCI). This was my second year and it was even better then the first. In addition to breakfast, lunch, and worship, we had three great speakers: Hobe Rash, Jim Pagels, and Jim Stumbo - each are pastors living here in Montana. Here are some of the highlights...

Jim Pagels spoke in the afternoon session on "Bondage Breaking." I was quite surprised at Pagels' background. He now pastors at First Assembly of God here in Helena, but has worked as a dairy farm hand, a nuclear material installer for military vehicles, and as a corrections officer. It was with the latter that Pagels spent much time working with men in prison for a variety of sexual offenses. While widely applicable, his presentation was specifically useful for battling bondage areas of men's lives - including lust, anger, and pride.

Jim Stumbo, Pastor of Helena Alliance Church, spoke in the second afternoon session. His presentation "Is Your Wife Married to Jesus?" was great! It was man focused and down to earth. Stumbo took the time to speak about marriage issues (loving your wife like Jesus loves the church) in a way that make "manly Montana men" feel comfortable.

I wanted to share most about the morning session with Hobe Rash. Rash spoke on "Seeing The Vision" focusing primarily on the life of Joshua. He had some great insights on pursuing God purpose for your life. I'll share from my notes in the next few posts. For now ... take a look at some more photos of the event in our e|Photos gallery here.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Just got done leading worship at the local Promise Keepers 2007 Jesus Conference here in Helena. I am dead tired so I will report later (I have photos, too!) Also, please pray for the kids - they have been sick all week.

For now, I will leave you with something from Shane Yancy's NailScars.com:

"Happy St. Patrick's Day. I love St. Patrick because he was a man who knew how to make a good object lesson. According the legend he would be hold up a shamrock and ask, "Is it one leaf or three?" When his audience would answer "It is both one leaf and three" he would then begin to teach them about the Trinity and how God is both one God and three."

Promise Keepers

Please pray for me and those involved in an upcoming Promise Keepers Conference. I've been leading a worship team of guys from various churches around Helena. We've been preparing for a PK conference put on by the local PK chapter here in Helena, Last Chance Men of Integrity.

Anyway, we've been rehearsing for four weeks and it's been a struggle getting everyone together at one time. It's also been a challenge to get everyone on the same page musically. We have one more rehearsal next Friday and then the conference is all day next Saturday.

If you will, please pray that I will find someone to watch the kids. This will be the same weekend as Hannaford's Women's Retreat. So, not only will Andrea be gone, many of the other women in the church will be gone as well. I'm probably going to have to find another dad whose alone watching his kids, too.

Like I said, please pray for me, the other guys on the PK team, and you really need to pray for the poor guy I find to watch Andrik and Kellin :-)