ONE RED PILOT

Blogging is interesting…I ask myself, am I cool enough to blog? Do I have something to say? Why am I doing this anyway? My answer is simple…Community. I want to build a community of like minded people who are passionate about cultivating REAL relationships with God. People who aren’t satisfied with just going to the movies with God. They want to sit down at a table with our Lord and engage His heart. Find out what really matters to Him and what plans He really has for us. I want to meet people who aren’t afraid to tell God that they are pissed off and don’t understand why He does what He does. People who aren’t squeaky clean or try to put off that front, ya know?

Cause friends I’ll tell you right now…that’s me. I shake my fist at God from time to time, I cuss on occasion, I’ve been known to literally shout out frustrations to Him. I also raise that same fist in praise to Him, use that same tongue to confess my sins to Him, I’m also not afraid to lay prostrate on the floor submitting those frustrations at His feet. I look at the Psalms and David is about as real as it gets. He doubted, he wondered, he praised, he feared and God called him a man after His own heart. God wants our REAL emotions. Not pretty prayers or traditions.

So that’s where I’m going. I want to be a believer after the heart of God. Who’s with me? If you read this blog often, start commenting, and let’s build a community here of believers after an actual relationship with our Lord!!

favor to you,

nate

Thought it’d be fun to share, for anyone who cares, my current gear set up.

GUITAR: 2007 Custom Shop Gibson

Power Conditioner/Pre-Amp/Tuner: Furman PL-8, Pendulum pre-amp, Korg DTR-2000, all racked into an SKB case.

Monitor: Ultimate Ear In Ear monitors, UE-7 Pro

what fun stuff are you guys using?

~nate

Last year I made one of the best decisions…I became a MAC owner. About 2 weeks ago I became the proud owner of an iphone. Besides the feeling’s of enlightenment that come with being a “mac” person, I’ve entered a new world of high-tech quiet times. I use my laptop for bible reading(bible gateway), itunes for my worship music, and pages or textedit for note taking/journaling. Now if I do the occasional secondary source reading that will be a part of the mix as well. If I’m on the go, that’s where the iphone comes in. Since I can access internet I’ll hit bible gateway and I’ll also set up worship playlist for worship/prayer times and such. Iphone has a notes application that I’ll use on occasion but I don’t use it often.

what are your tools for QT’s?

~nate

Last night I arrived home to a stressed stay at home mommy and two kids who had WAY too much energy. So after food was consumed into their little tummies it was daddy’s night out courtesy of the stressed stay at home mommy. Jackets were put on, little bums locked into their car seats, and we were off! With no destination in mind I went to the only place a daddy and 2 little ones would have a joyous time…Circuit City(Best Buy was too far away)! Nothing says a good time like 60 inch plasmas playing the movie “Cars”, Nintendo Wii, and 2 little red race cars…

From there if was off to Starbucks for a visit with our favorite barista/guitar hero Mr. Matt, chocolate milks, and good conversation. I hope to have many more of these randomly fun nights with my kids and I hope they look back on them with smiles.

What’s a fond memory you have with your dad?

~nate

So I’ve been studying the Tabernacle more and ran across something that I didn’t include in the first post. I wanted to share it because it truly is awesome.

Summed up in the last post (if you haven’t read it, scroll down and do so) I think we need to start at the Altar and progress forward in our church services, not just stay at the Cross. What’s cool about the end destination of the Tabernacle, the Holy of Holies, is it takes you back to the Cross, let me explain. In the Holy of Holies is the Arc of the Covenant. The lid, or cover of the Arc, is called “The Mercy Seat”. The Mercy Seat was God’s dwelling place in the Tabernacle. The Mercy Seat also covered the 3 articles that were placed in the Arc. Those 3 articles all represented some of the most embarrassing and disgraceful moments in the Israelites history.

1.) The pot of manna- this was a reminder that even though God provided what they needed they still rejected Him and His provision.

2.) Aaron’s Staff that budded- out of jealously they rebelled against Aaron being their high priest. God resolved the dispute by having them put 12 sticks out with the names of each tribe leader on each stick. Overnight God budded Aaron’s staff to identify his house as the priestly line.

3.) The 10 Commandments- God gave these laws for them to live by and they continually defied them.

Now, these 3 articles were all placed in the Arc. Then, God placed the Mercy Seat, which has also been translated into “Atonement Cover” on top of the Arc which covered the 3 articles of disgrace and embarrassment. Obviously the Cross of Christ wasn’t even on their radar, but for us it applies like this.

We start at the Altar and we receive redemption and restoration from sin. We move from there to cleansing our hands and purifying our hearts with the living water that is Jesus. Then we progress to the Holy Place where we commune with God and intercede for others, and finally we move into and reside in God’s dwelling place, The Holy of Holies. It is here the Mercy Seat has Atoned for our embarrassing and disgraceful moments. Now my favorite part is this: the “Atonement Cover” for us is the Cross of Christ! So in moving past the Altar we are brought back around to a deeper and greater love and understanding of our Atonement….Brilliant!

~nate

Within 2 months my wife has surprised me with a trip to New York, this was in Dec, and just yesterday bought me an iphone. Ok guys, you can all be jealous now.

what’s the coolest thing someone’s done for you?

nate

Around my house we are trying to build a mentality into the kids that says, “before you can move on to another activity, clean up your current mess”. As parents we are not great at enforcing this rule but we are trying. Recently I’ve been applying this to outreach, global and local. Side Note: As Christians outreach should be a major part of our walks. If you’re not helping others you need to sit down and re-evaluate why you call yourself a follower of Christ. Anyway…Like I said I’ve been thinking a lot about Global vs. local missions and asking myself, “which is more important”?

I had the awesome opportunity to be a part of an outreach the Young Adult ministry of Seacoast did in December of last year. We went to a community that is about 15 minutes from our Church that is ravaged with drugs, murder, poverty, etc. We served a hot meal, gave each family 2 weeks worth of groceries, and brought the hope, love, and acceptance of Jesus Christ. We took prayer request from people and upon closing the night we gathered the volunteers and the Pastor read one of the request, it said this. “Please pray that I get into the homeless shelter tomorrow night.” BOOM!! It was a Holy Spirit punch to my gut. I have never and will never pray that prayer…EVER, but whoever this person was, prays for shelter EVERYDAY! The other kicker was “I’m not watching this person on TV in some country far away from me, I probably shook their hand that night”. Not only did I probably shake their hand, they live 15 minute from me. 15 minutes away from hundreds of thousands of people who could change the rest of that person life by 2 months worth of their personal income. I was wrecked. Let’s go back to the parenting rule for my toddlers:

“Before we go on to another activity, clean up your current mess.”

I guarantee we all have the same ravaged community within a 30 minute drive of where we live. Imagine the impact you could have if your family, small group, or even church said, “for this season we are going to focus on thinking locally.” You want to talk about making an impact, I can’t think of a better way. I close with this:

The value on Global missions is limitless, but I propose the question: “Should we clean up our current mess first?”

Favor to You,

Nate

You could have never prepared me for the feelings of having a daughter. Everyday she does something that wrecks me and tonight was by far the best. Her normal night-time routine is to cry when we try and put her down, not tonight. As I held her, she snuggled into my neck and let out a sigh that said “i love you daddy”. I started to tell her how much I loved her, how special she is to me, and how I’m going to be “her man” until she meets her husband. At that moment I had a flash forward to me dancing with her on her wedding day, her snuggling into my neck, and me sharing this story with her. It took about 5 seconds for me to lose it. I mean tears streaming down the face sappy mess. She leaned back, looked at me as if she knew exactly what thoughts just went through my head, and pointed to her bed. I love this little girl…

~nate