Summer Updates

It's been several days since I blogged. Thanks for being patient with me. So much has been going on that I need to bring you up to date...

For starters, my prayers continue for the church family of Bell Shoals Baptist in Brandon. The deaths of their pastor and his son certainly have challenged and stretched their faith. Please continue to pray with me for the entire church family and Pastor Forrest's wife, Dawn, and the five surviving children.

Please drop by the FAITH building atrium and sign the memorial book with a word of encouragement for Dawn and the family. I'll personally deliver it to her sometime in the next few days. Please go by and add your words to the book.

God is blessing our church - it's different than in years gone by but it's still amazing what God is doing. With the economy and several other factors, we have made and continue to make adjustments in the way we do ministry. Yet, our goals and God's blessings continue to yield souls for Christ and many growing disciples in our church.

That is what pleases the Lord and it pleases all of us as well.

Summertime is here. That means we have lots of things happening, people going lots of different directions - sometimes all at the same time. As you vacation and travel to see family and sights, don't forget to fill your spots of ministry during your time away. Each of us has a place of ministry and service that is crucial to the ongoing ministry of McGregor.

When you are gone, it creates a huge ministry "hole" that weakens the effectiveness of our ministry because your ministry impacts the church and the Kingdom of God. We are all ministers together - be faithful to your ministry.

Also, remember to mail or "catch up" your tithes and offerings while you're away. You may be gone, but the church's ministry goes on. Also, continue to pray for our people's Chapter Three giving. Pray for God to bless investments and bonuses and JOBS. God knows our needs, we simply need to be faithful to Him and stay focused on Jesus.

Remember, it's ALL for SOULS!!

Reflections on Tuesday

Tuesday, May 13, 2008, was one of the most emotional days I can remember - ever!

Tuesday morning, I became aware of the death of my friend and fellow pastor, Dr. Forrest Pollock of Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Florida. Also, his 13 year old son, Preston, was killed in the same plane crash. I can't even come up with words to express how heavy my heart is from this. Dawn, Forrest's wife, needs our prayers and their remaining 5 children do, too. Please join me in praying for the Bell Shoals church family in these incredibly difficult days. This surely tests our faith - only God in Heaven can heal the hurt that this precious family and church must be going through.

Then, hours later, God blessed LuAnne and me with a new grandchild - our first girl!! Rylee Jordan Nix is a beautiful 7 pound, 19 ounce, 20 inch long bundle of joy. Her mother, Heather, is doing fine. She and Andrew are so happy to be blessed with their second baby in their four year marriage. I am reminded once again of just how blessed I am -- blessed with my wonderful wife, blessed with sweet kids that love Jesus and marry wonderful Christian mates, and they are blessed to be having grand-children. In addition to our wonderful church, I am simply speechless (unusual for me to say the least) at God's blessings in my life with my family. I couldn't have prayed for happier days. May God in Heaven alone receive all the Glory due His Name.


Thanks for sharing that with LuAnne and me. Enjoy the pictures of baby Rylee (a proud grandpa has to show her off, right?).

Big Day A-Comin!

This Tuesday (May 13), our daughter Heather and her husband, Andrew, will welcome a new addition to their family. Rylee, our new granddaughter, will be born!
Please join me and all of our family as we pray for an uneventful delivery (spoken like a true man!!) and the birth of a beautiful new little girl. Pray for her “big brother” – Aidan, who is 17 months old. He is so adorable and full of so much personality. He’s got a sweet temperament and sleeps about 11 hours every night – how awesome is that for mom and dad!!!!

I’ll be trying to balance staff and counseling meetings, sermon preparation, and the regular “never-a-dull-moment-around-here” ministry stuff with extra grandfather duties during the next few days. It’s gonna be GREAT!!

Preaching on the family for our “FLIP THIS FAMILY” series should be easier than ever since I’m living it in real time. Heather and Andrew having a baby in Tampa, Kayla coming home from college for the summer – oh, how I wish Alan and Brycie were just a bit closer – say 4000 miles closer!

Speaking of “family” – I’m really going to miss Tod Tanner and Deborah and Danielle. God has called him to a new place of ministry at Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, NC. It’s a great church with a great pastor and a great ministry in need of great staff leadership - Tod certainly fits that bill!! Tod has done a great job here at McGregor in a short time. We’ll miss him and his sweet family. God brought him here for a reason, and now, for reasons only God knows, He is moving him to a new place of service. To God Be The Glory.

God is doing great things. I know many are hurting, many are new and young in the faith, many are struggling. But remember, God’s greatest blessings often come during life’s most difficult trials. Pray for a tremendous outpouring of God’s greatest blessings – NOW -- on you, your family, our church, and the many yet to be reached for Jesus.

He ALONE deserves the Glory.

Praying for the Family

First of all, thanks for all the prayers as I continue to recover from knee surgery. I'm on the road to full recovery - it'll only take a couple of weeks. I just have to be patient - that's really, really hard for me.

I'm praying for lots of friends in real need. One of our deacons lost his mother-in-law last week. It was a sweet homegoing but a sad time. I have several folks that are my friends who are having some real financial difficulties.
I'm praying for them - please join me.

Our daughter, Heather, and her husband, Andrew are about to have their second baby -- this time, a girl -- any day. Please pray with me for a safe delivery, and a healthy baby (Rylee) and quick recovery for Heather.

On the church front - I'm so pleased with this past weekend's parenting conference. Dr. Richard Ross was awesome. He brought wonderful communicating skills and great content on teaching parents to make an impact on their children for Jesus. I'm just so sorry more of our parents couldn't/didn't attend - their loss. I hope I just don't have to help them pick up the pieces with their kids who walk away from the Lord.. I'm already praying about that.

May is our family month. I've been working on the sermons for this month for awhile now. I love to preach on the family. My family means the world to me. I thought the family changed the most when the kids were young, but I'm not so sure anymore. My wife and I have seen our family change more in the last 24 months perhaps than anytime in our family's history. It has been all good - just dizzying to say the least. I love my kids, my in-laws, and my grandson. I'm praying for them all.

Do you make it a regular practice to pray over and with your family? LuAnne and I have said for years "the family that prays together stays together." You've probably heard me say that in nearly every May sermon since I came to McGregor. I absolutely believe it's the truth.

I guess the theme of this blog - let's pray. We have alot to pray about.............

Much "Knee"ded Prayer

This is really uncomfortable for me, but here goes...

I want to ask something from you. I want to ask you to pray for me. Yesterday, I had (minor) knee surgery on both knees to repair some cartiledge tears. This surgery is quite common and insignificant, but doing both knees at the same time makes it a bit more difficult.
With the consultation from my wonderful doctor (Dr. Ron Gardner, a member of our church) we decided to go ahead and get them both done and get it over with.
So, please pray for the recouperation time and physical therapy for the next few days. Hopefully, I'll be up and "better than ever" in just over a week. For those of you familiar with my schedule - it looks like I won't have any problem making my prior commitments. Mark Bricker is preaching at Wednesday night's FOCUS service, but I'm still planning to be there to give the "First Quarter Operating Report," as promised.

McGregor's "Flip this Family" Parenting Conference is this weekend. Lu and I are still leading one of the breakout sessions. If you haven't signed up, it's going to be incredible -- visit www.flipthisfamily.com for details on registration.

Also, pray for my sweet wife, LuAnne, because I'm NOT a good patient. I'm stir-crazy already.
Great time for lots of Bible reading!!

Family Matters

Family matters to everyone. Family really matters to the Powells. I love my wife, we love our kids, our kids' mates, and our grandson - bunches!!
As with all parents, we are so grateful to the Lord for the way our kids are living for the Lord and serving Him - in lots of different ways.
Heather and Andrew are in Tampa. Andrew is on staff at Idlewild Baptist church as the Minister to Middle School students.
Kayla is at Liberty University in Virginia and right now doing 12 shows of the musical theatre production "West Side Story." It's incredible.
Alan and Brycie have been in Los Angeles for 18 months as he "tries to take the light of Jesus to the darkest place in our nation."
God has opened a door for him and his music. That's where YOU come in.
His recently-released "single" is available on his MySpace page. Here's what Alan says about the song:

"As of today March 31st after only a week of putting out my first single I have already been blessed with the opportunity to be featured as an unsigned artist on a major radio stations website! The radio station is 104.3MYfm Los Angeles, Ca. I’m featured on the NEW! section which exposes my music to more than 10 MILLION PEOPLE PER MONTH on nearly 500 radio station web sites across the country! Spread the word and help me rise to the top of the NEW! charts! Artists with the most plays get special homepage placement and are considered first to have their songs played on air! Just click the link below to play my song! God bless. Alan"

So, if you would, please click on the link below, listen to the song and therefore "vote" for Alan's song to be played by the LA station.

I'll keep you posted as to how it's going.
I really appreciate your help. Most of all, pray for Alan and Brycie in their ministry.

CLICK HERE to listen to Alan's song "Just Let You Go."

From the West Bank to the West Side (Story)

LuAnne and I just returned with about 30 others from our church from a wonderful trip to the Holy Land. Honestly, I cannot even describe this trip. To see the places described in the Bible, and the places where our Lord lived, ministered, died, was buried and rose again - it just can't be put into words. The Bible comes alive around you!
I hope that many of you will make your plans NOW to go with us next time (we'll probably go again in two years) and receive a huge blessing in your life and heart.
When we returned (exhausted), we went straight to Liberty University to visit with our daughter, Kayla. This was a special weekend for her. She played the part of Anita in the musical theatre production of "West Side Story."
We saw the opening night performance - 3 hours and 10 minutes!! It was awesome. Heather, our oldest daughter flew up for the performance and that was tough on her. She is almost 9 months pregnant (due May 16) but it was great to see her. Rilee (our baby grand-daughter) will be here soon. We are sooooo excited!!
This morning was great. To be back home with our church family was a blessing. I am so excited about the things coming up in the next few days at McGregor. The "American Idols" series on Sunday morning, the "REAL" series in our FOCUS service on Wednesdays as we study the book James, the "Flip This Family" conference and then preaching series for May - and then a full summer of outstanding events for everyone in the church family.
It is good to see God doing what only God can do in the hearts and lives of so many people.
Keep praying - keep growing in your faith.
Keep reading the Word - daily.