NEVER

“Never” is an unbiblical word!  How is it an unbiblical word?

“Never is unbiblical for those who are followers of Christ when discussing future plans!

“Never” is a word one who follows Christ should never use when talking about the future.

I have learned this in my short 33 years. Let me share with you a few stories.

When I became a Christian, I said, “I will NEVER ask anyone to become an Adventist.” i.e. “I won’t be an Adventist preacher.” Here I am loving every day as a preacher within the Adventist denomination, and obviously I am okay with folk becoming Adventist.

Happy Sabbath everyone!

 

What My Parents Did Right

I came from a fairly functional family, my parents had their issues and fights, but in the big picture my home life was stable. I over the years have teased my parents about some of the problems I have had in my life, and implied that they were to blame, though never really were. But they are responsible for some things I believe I have done right or at least I am attempting to do right. 

  1. My parents showed a lot of affection towards one another as I grew-up. They hugged, they kissed, they walked down the street holding hands, my mom sat on my dad’s lap when they talked at times. I felt secure as a child because of this type of interaction. Their behavior then and even now has helped me in my marriage. Christina and I see my parents as a model of two people who though very different can work together through anything and at the end of each day be one another’s best friend! I believe I am a better husband and have a better marriage because of what my parents did right.
  2. My parents never shied away from saying, “SORRY”. I never remember a time that I was wronged by one of my parents where they were not quick to say sorry. If they yelled at us kids unnecessarily, or punished us to severly, they always said sorry. I learned from them that it is okay to admit when I am wrong, and sorry is a very easy word for me to use.
  3. My parents said I love you a lot! I was a kid that was very insecure and got into an abundance of trouble, I was the black sheep of a great family. I did most the things parents never want their kids to do, I never, ever felt I did anything that decreased their love! I believe their unconditional love, eventually helped me to accept God’s unconditional love!
  4. My parents taught me respect for authority. If any past teachers are reading this, they may disagree:) But though as a young person I showed very little respect to anyone, the lessons were still planted and I know this has allowed me to accept and value God’s Lordship, His authority over my life, even when I don’t always understand what He is doing!
  5. My parents did not fight my battles. I had to learn to be strong and understand that life isn’t fair, that people can be mean, and that my response to these situations is very important. I wonder whether kids are still learning this? It seems that parents are always quick to blame teachers or a kids peers, or another kids parents. Parents are quick to go in and fight their kids battles and I am afraid we will find as the years pass a progressively more immature, and a more delinquet society!
  6. My parents believed in character over talent. My dad and I had so many battles during my sports years. I remember us breaking down every single play following basketball and baseball games. We would fight on the golf course and at the batting cages, etc.. Here is the thing though, I never remember verbatim any of those confrontations (probably b/c they weren’t as bad as I’ve created in my head), but I do remember verbatim the time he caught me disrespecting a teammate, and the time he caught me giving a cheap shot to an opponent in a basketball game. My dad wanted me to win, he wanted me to play well, but more than that he wanted me to play with honor. I have tried to keep that in mind with every decision I make in life. The most important thing for me is to do things with honor!

I have great parents and these are just a few of the many things they did right for me and I am trying to do right for my boys.

I LOVE MY JOB!

This is Danny & this has been a 5+ year journey! I love my job! Thank you Jesus

My Recent Health Woes

Hello Blog World.  I thought I would share with y’all an e-mail I sent out to my church family tonight about my health:

Happy Sabbath Church Family–

I decided to sit down tonight and write a quick note to y’all in regards to my health. I haven’t preached for two Sabbaths in a row (I am preaching tomorrow) and several individuals have asked if my absence has been due to my health, since I made a brief comment about it a couple of Sabbaths ago.  The answer is “yes” and “no”. Yes, I didn’t preach two weeks ago due to my health. No, this last Sabbath was just a planned week off. But let me share with y’all the story as quickly as a preacher can:)

Back in February I began to get some rather severe headaches, I am not one prone to headaches so I was a little alarmed, especially when they didn’t go away and began to get worse. I spoke with the resident doctor of our family my brother-in-law Chad and he told me I needed to go see a neurologist, he gave me a number…but that was the end of that.  In mid-April the head aches began to subside some and so I thought they were just a random seasonal thing.  Then in May they came back and around the same time I also began to experience regular short bouts of dizziness.  Again my family urged me to the go to the Dr., but again I ignored them and kept on.  Christina kept telling me I needed to go, she has actually been telling me to just get a regular check-up for years!!! I asked her “when do I have the time?” and always assured her, “I am fine.” Well several Sabbaths ago I experienced a couple of those dizzy spells while preaching. A little alarming, but they are 30 seconds or less, so no big deal. Then that next week I about when down while picking something up and I thought, “that could be one of my kids I was trying to pick up.” That day I was up in Fresno and I had some time to kill, and I saw a sign for a walk-in urgent care and so I dropped in. The individual that examined me told me I probably had an inner ear infection and sent me on my way.
That night at house of prayer my head ache was just raging and so I decided to ask Dr. Eller who was there what he thought. He did the right thing, HE SCARED ME:). He told me it didn’t sound like an inner ear infection and I needed to get to a Neurologist. Well, through the suggestion of Dr. Eller, I got made an appointment with Dr. Soloniuk-Tays.  She got me in right away and in that visit we discovered a perfect storm of symptoms.

Headaches, Dizziness, right side weakness, right side reflex deficiency, forehead numbness, left ear hearing loss.

Like I said it was the perfect storm of symptoms and even as I was being checked I realized this wasn’t looking good. All the symptoms together pointed to something very bad. I was told not to drive and to rest. And for the next 24 hours Christina and I mentally prepared for the worst. Praying and praising God for whatever would come.
Dr. Bouitt and Jon Jacques got me into an MRI ASAP and at the end of that MRI we discovered that I wasn’t gonna die, at least not yet:)!  But obviously things were still wrong. So I’ve been back to see the Neurologist a couple times and to see Dr. Soloniuk again, had some labs, gone to PT, yada, yada, yada.

Here is what we know:

I have a pinched ulnar nerve in my right arm. I have mild carpal tunnel in my right wrist. I am definitely hearing deprived in my left ear, we don’t know why yet. I have muscle weakness on my right side, I have an MRI on my neck to check for a possible bulging disc after I get back from camp meeting. I have a muscle in my neck that is a difficult muscle to work with but something is wrong with it and it is what is causing my head aches, the numbness in my forehead, and possibly the vertigo since it attaches right behind the ear and has been known I was told to cause dizziness. My total cholesterol is too high, and my bad cholesterol is way to high. We also discovered I do have some extra tissue in my brain but nothing to worry about! I told one member this and they asked if it was then okay to call me fathead? 🙂 All the persons I have seen have been wonderful and I feel blessed to have had such great care.  They have all given me much wonderful insight and one common piece of advice, “You need to take better care of yourself.”

I am a naturally intense and passionate person, it is my personality, that I probably won’t be able to change much. But my diet, my sleep, my exercise, my time with my family I can control and it is in these places I seek balance and I ask you for your prayers in as well.

Some things I learned in all of this:

  • That Dr. Eller, Dr. Soloniuk-Tays, Dr. Bouitt, and Jon Jacques are awesome!!!!! (I really already knew this about all of them, but it was just confirmed) I love y’all!
  • I learned that folk without God and without a church family need Him and a church family desperately! I LOVED!!!!! and felt so blessed to have our prayer partners praying! To be able to call up brothers and sisters in Christ here locally and across the country that hit their knees in prayer for me. I felt the strength of those prayers! My heart literally aches for people that don’t have that.  I think of all the individuals that go through what I went through on a daily basis and in many cases their results aren’t excellent like mine. And yet they have no God that they can turn to and no family that will petition the Almighty for them! We can’t rest ’till everyone has had a chance to be a part of God’s family!
  • I realized that though I would not want to go through on a regular basis, it is a good thing to have to stop and take moment or 24 hours to think about the fragility of life. To take account of ones life and where we are at with the Lord is a blessed reality!
  • How awesome is the assurance of Salvation! I pray each of you know that if your last breath were tonight that you are saved by our loving Savior!

So that is my story. Thanks for listening. Please continue to pray for me, the dizziness has been a little better. Maybe that is b/c I have been trying to slow down a little. The head aches remain pretty constant but not agonizing, just the minute awareness that something is a little off on a continual basis. I pray it goes away, but I have told the Lord whatever He sees as best. I may need a thorn in my flesh.

I love y’all and let us all continue to reach people for Kingdom Growth!

Pastor Chad

Cars Pull Over In the South

I had only been living in the South a short time, the real South (Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, etc.) not Southern California, I was driving along when suddenly all the cars in front of me began to stop.  Not pull over to the side of the road and stop, but literally STOP right where they were at.  I couldn’t figure out what was going on.  I looked around the cars, I didn’t see anything that would be blocking the cars.  I was frustrated, what was going on?!  Then I noticed a driver from one of the cars got out of his car and respectfully stood facing the two lane highway going the opposite direction.  That is when I noticed something amazing.  Over the grass median heading in the opposite direction was a funeral procession. I thought to myself, “this must be someone very important for all these cars to stop.” But as I watched it seemed just like your ordinary run of the mill funeral. I waited patiently, thinking I must be missing something. Then the man got back in his car and we all began to move again.

It wasn’t more than a few weeks later when I was driving along and suddenly all the cars in front of me were stopping. Yep, another funeral procession. In the South it doesn’t matter if you are the President of the United States or Billy the local porch sitter, if you die, people will stop for your funeral procession. I was once in a procession for one of our members that had died. I noticed something else on this occasion. People on the sidewalks even stopped walking, kids got off their bikes, and everyone stood respectfully while the procession passed.

I was happy the day I saw a funeral procession and no one else was around, but I was able to stop and wait respectfully in the middle of the road while cars behind me slowed to a stop as well.  No one honked or sped by me. We just sat there, for 5 minutes not moving paying respect to the family and friends of the deceased individual.

Last Friday we were driving through Visalia and came upon a rather large funeral motorcade. Christina asked me, “Are you going to stop?” Sadly I looked at her and said, “We aren’t in the South anymore.”

I love living in Visalia, but every now and then I miss the South!  Thanks Dixie for still making honor more important that rushing through life and for teaching me a little about respect for our fellow man!

What U2, Bon Jovi, & AC/DC Teach Us About Church

Most people don’t like change! They say they do, “No really I actually like change,” but they really don’t.  I think maybe it is seen as uncool by some especially in my generation to say that they don’t like change, to admit they just prefer the good ‘ole stand-by/status quo ways of doing things, so people say they like change. By the way you can tell if people really like change by how they respond to it and how long it takes them to wrap their head around an idea or if they resist at all. People that really like change don’t usually resist to every “change idea” initially.  Some people, I believe, think they do like change simply because they are able to change, but being able to change and liking change are two far different things! And most people don’t like change, and this is frustrating to me as a Pastor, especially as a pastor that likes change! Now let me be honest, I don’t like change in all areas. It took me a long time before I decided l liked Chinese food, Indian food, Thai food (I love them all now, but it took some time).  If you go to a Mexican restaurant there may be something wrong with me if I don’t order cheese enchiladas. I still prefer and use a hard copy to do list over the new technology that allows me to digitize all my tasks, unlike my good friend Rodlie who is In Lust Over Wunderlist. I still prefer baseball games that are a 2-1 pitchers duel over the crazy 10 to 9 games of the steroid era! So I don’t like change in all areas.

But where I do like change is in church!  Why is this?  Because 80% of all Adventist churches in North America are plateaued or dying and I personally cannot just sit around accepting things “as is” when so many people still need to be introduced to Jesus and to learn the full truth’s of scripture. Or while the church I love dies a slow death of irrelevance in North America. So what am I willing to do? I am willing to change in every area without compromising principles in order to reach people for Jesus! What I have discovered is that other people don’t feel the same way as me!  And this honestly has at times about driven me CRAZY!  Because I have interpreted often, which is what drives me crazy, that people who don’t like change, really HATE change and refuse to like anything different.

So what does this have to do with U2, Bon Jovi, & AC/DC?  All these bands are old!  AC/DC first entered the rock music scene in 1973, U2 was formed in 1976 and hit it big in 1980, and Bon Jovi in 1983.  These bands by the ever changing music world are old! Yet in 2010 Bon Jovi, AC/DC, & U2 were the top concert draws around the world! Old or not, people have gotten used to them and people like what they are used to. It doesn’t mean people don’t like other types of music or other music groups, they just like to come back to some of the old classics.

I think this is good for me to remember as a pastor…maybe it isn’t that most people hate all the changes, they may not like change, but they don’t hate it, they just hate that at least of the few “old classics” still aren’t around.  Like singing out of a hymnbook, pathfinders, old school evangelism, etc.  So maybe the thing to do is while in the midst of change to make sure we keep around a few of the “old classics” or to at least bring them out for a tour every now and then so that people can know that all they once loved is not completely dead.

Kinda like I have accepted that the new Heritage Singers are a better fit for the time and era in which we live:

I still like to go back and get a little of the “Old School” every now and then:

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