we want to help kirbyville

(photo from AP)

This post is an open invitation for churches or other relief organizations to use our help!!

As some of you know, we helped a family fleeing Ike last week house their 4 horses for several days. That family left last Saturday to return home to no power … but minimal damage to their homes … but the barn was gone. They were from the Kirbyville, Texas area. We have not heard much media coverage in the Dallas area from Southeast Texas … mainly Galveston and Houston.

I am a pastor of a local church and I want to help coordinate help to the Kirbyville … Jasper County area. My goal is to try and get as many other local churches involved in any type of relief needed. We are just like every one else … we have a little more time than we have a little more money … so our talents and skills will have to do for help. I know a number of carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and a bunch of semi skilled or non skilled folks who could come help in any way.

I have contacted “somebody cares” in Houston … but do not know any other way to contact local pastors in the Jasper county area. If someone could contact me today … I would try and get in touch with as many pastors in our area prior to tomorrow as possible … to find out who could come and when. We just need someone in the area to tell us what you need and how to get there.

Please contact me through this email address … give a phone number … I will return your call.

wgooden (at) yahoo.com

wayne gooden – pastor, and all around good guy.

 

again, stick a fork in it

(this is a reprint of a previous post, please excuse) Being a preacher for a bunch of years lends itself to times of hearing stories and seeing images in your mind … linking that together in some sort of logical form … for the purpose of teaching that truth to others. Today, while we rode the Goldwing, this truth came to me.

First off, it is no secret that the modern church has became spiritually obese. By that I mean … most believers think that the purpose of the church is to “feed them”. I have a visual of the Mike Myers character in the movie Austin Powers … saying “get in my belly.” That is not the purpose of the new testament church.

I can’t tell you how many living rooms I sat in … visiting prospective church members when I could recite this line from 90% of those visits. “We left our previous church and began visiting your church … because we just were not being fed.” In my mind I was going “oh great, if they come to my church I will have another mouth to feed.” I always wanted to stop those very sincere folks and ask … “how old do you have to be as a follower of Christ before you start feeding yourself?”

Anyway, today I got this visual of a FORK and began to think about the four prongs of the fork and began to ask myself … How do I know if I am getting spiritual nourished as a believer? I also remembered a cliche that has been around for several years … stick a fork in it … it’s done. Here’s how you will know if you are “getting done.”

F = Are you making FRIENDS and being friendly. Jesus said, “I no longer call you slaves … but friends.” Let’s not confuse the term friends and fellowship together. Fellowship is a church word that describes an activity. Friendship costs something … time, effort and love.

O = Is your OUTLOOK on life going forward?

R = Are you RETURNING to others better than what you receive?

K = Are your actions and attitude kind? Do you invent acts of kindness toward others?

This is a simple straight forward way of finding out if your Christian Education is just increasing the size of your head … or increasing the size of your heart.

I hope when others stick the fork in me … they can say … he’s done.

wayne gooden

 

no football here

It’s no secret that in our part of the world that high school football is “the” place to be on Friday nights. Here is a shot of a high school field in Delcambre, La by AP Photographer, Richard Alan Hannon. This photo was taken last Saturday. Wow.

Having school in South Texas after Ike … is sort of hit and miss. The lack of power is still the issue as thousands of utility workers from all over the country work around the clock to restore power. A lot of bloggers from this area report their food supplies running out, kids being restless, and major concern about their money running out by having to eat out.

Texas Baptists have always come to the rescue in disasters … they report serving 234,285 meals to folks during these days.

My alma mater East Texas Baptist University has been in the news quite a bit with helping Ike evacuees.

I did want to report that … the port of Galveston is suppose to re-open next Monday …. for cruise ships.

Youth Groups in the areas are stepping up and helping in small and big ways.

<< — wg

 

dude, where’s my car?

Can you imagine taking a cruise, getting news that a hurricane is headed to your home port … where you parked your car? Ouch. You can imagine the 2000+ cruisers who were told that they would not be making it back to the Port of Galveston … they were going to New Orleans … or you can just stay on the boat. Those were the options … then they had a ridiculously short time to make arrangements to get home … Carnival Cruise Line would be no help in this matter. Sorry. They did open 12 phone lines and give 30 free minutes of Internet to the 2000+ passengers to find their way home. Oh, and what about all those folks who drove to the port of Galveston to board the ship. Pretty sure their cars are gone or totalled … who can tell them … you can’t get in and Carnival … again, no help.

The blogs and the forums criticize people for taking a cruise during hurricane season. Here’s a flash … why sell a cruise during hurricane season? People reported calling Carnival and asking if the cruise would be cancelled since mandatory evacuation was imminent … Carnival said, you can cancel … and you will lose all of your money.

It’s true Carnival probably could not help you find your car … but at least there could have been better communication in letting people know instead of just option #1 … get off the boat and find your way home … or option #2 … stay on the boat and maybe the port of Galveston will open back up (of course that didn’t happen). It’s a bad deal all the way around. Messed up vacation. Mad people. Bad PR. No win situation for Carnival … no matter how you water it down.

<< — wg

 

galveston mayor in new storm

Galveston mayor Lyda Ann Thomas is facing a category 5 media storm in her town. Newspapers from all over Texas have reported the latest blast of disgruntled council members. Criticising the mayor for extending her emergency powers another 7 days. Local media reporters say that the city manager should be in charge and others say that the city should be governed by the council.

Oh me.

Here’s a lady that has faced more than she had ever bargained for and she is still leading. Granted the “look and leave” program was not a good idea … but, she was concerned that the citizens of Galveston wanted to get in and see their homes and businesses. The logistics were a nightmare. The knee jerk reaction to shut it down … made it worse and frustrated people even more. Ok, good idea … not so good planning. She has done some pretty good things in the past few days. Let’s not throw the baby out with the sea water.

The media loves the story of failure and pain. It sells. I have to give this to mayor Thomas … she stepped up to an enormous catastrophic disaster and has faithfully stayed at the helm. Excuse me … but she does not strike me as a crazed power crazy politician. Honestly, right now there needs to be “one” in charge. I am sure she is using her resources as best as possible. These are trying times for her as well as the local government and the people of Galveston. In the words of John Stossell … “give her a break.”

<< — wg

 

motorcycles and cool air

I don’t know what it is about fall (or fall like conditions in Texas), but it clears my head. 65 – 75 degrees minus humidity … makes me crave getting on the GW and heading down the road … and even if I can’t ride, it makes me want to turn off the AC in the car or truck and ride with my head out the window. Strange sight. It just seems I can think when I am riding. I can’t explain it well … it’s just a love affair with freedom.

It’s on brisk mornings like this that I contemplate all sorts of things. I question the things I do and ask … are they bringing me joy? Why don’t I do that on mornings when it’s 95 by 8 a.m.? I don’t know … maybe because I know I have to keep moving or I will melt in sun.

As you know, I also love to blog and read blogs. Recently, I have grown tired of reading certain types of blogs … religion, Christianity, church, theology … all used to be tags that I would peruse. All boring to me now. It’s the same old dribble. People arguing and debating biblical loggerheads. Christians bashing other Christians for not being like themselves. It’s almost like we have gotten to the point that WE made GOD in our image and not the correct thought. In light of the last couple of days and the great stone throwing at Ray Boltz … I hang my head in shame of qualifying myself as a Christian. Some bible blogger out there will call be a liberal for having compassion for the man and his family, while the gay blogger will consider me a hater for being a Christian. My question is … when did one sin become so much worse than another. Let’s think back … in church world before their was the “homosexual sin crisis” … there was the “divorce sin crisis”. You might be too young to remember … but divorce used to be the sin of all sins. You couldn’t go to seminary if you had been divorced! Wow … how quickly we forget. Lets move on.

I thought I would follow the presidential race … only to be sickened again by peoples course rhetoric on why the other candidate should not be president. I am constantly being bombarded with facebook 20 somethings that tell me I have to be informed about the OTHER evil candidate. I am 51 years old and I learned a long time ago that no matter who sits in the oval office, and how many great ideas they have, and how they preach change, it rarely changes anything. The only person that can change is … me. The only people that can change are those that want to change. Barack is not the answer … of course neither is McCain. Don’t get me wrong … it is interesting. But so is Pro Wrestling, Police Wildest Chases, Intervention and Dirty Jobs. These campaigns are just good TV. Not a good movie, mind you … just good TV. I will vote, but don’t expect me to get into a debate with you unless you would like to discuss how neither one of these guys will achieve a fraction of what they promise.

Ah, motorcycles and cool air … now that’s where I want to be.

<–wg

 

end of the day humor

Ok, it’s 5:05 p.m. I have had a very, very frustrating and busy afternoon. I run my own business. We print tshirts and make signs and banners. I do a lot of graphic design. I get an email two weeks ago from one of my brokers who has sold (or hopes to sell) a banner. The clients instructions … a 3 X 8 banner of a lighthouse with this text … blah blah. That’s it. So, I design the banner (top picture) and send it back. I get word back from my broker … he doesn’t like it. That’s cool … I deal with rejection everyday … it didn’t hurt my feelings … my question … what does he want? I get this today at 5:05 p.m. (bottom picture) with the instruction … he wants it to feel more “cartoony”. I have stared at this for 10 minutes … and all I can do is laugh and think … what a day this has been.

<– wg 🙂

 

morning moon

This was an unusual sight out my back door this morning. At 6:15 while the sun was rising on the east side of the house … the moon was still visible on the west side.  It was great … I could see great detail of the moon from the reflection of the sun … it was the clearest I have ever seen the moon.

It may not be a big deal to some … the air was cool and crisp. A welcome change to the humid air that we have had the last few days.

I reached my brother in law by cell phone this morning … he lives in Houston and is doing ok. No power … but minimal damage to his property. The folks whose horses have been staying with us the last few days also went home today. They were excited to go home.

<< wg

 

famous fema two step

graphic from here

News reports from Houston are very upsetting. FEMA had 26 trucks on the ground yesterday morning, but didn’t know what to do with them. Seems they are pushing the blame on the state for not setting up distribution centers. The state … did not know that FEMA was waiting on them … FEMA says “my bad, communications issues.” News conference last evening has the mayor saying that 6 of the trucks have been dispatched and here is where they will be. Seems to me, that was probably not a good plan either. The obvious melee of thousands of people sitting in more long lines and finding out that there will be no water, ice or food when they get there.  FEMA always has a two step plan to get out of a bind … blame the local government … then claim bad communication. Why is it that Red Cross, Salvation Army, Food Banks, Churches, and Denominational Rescue Teams … always know where to set up … way in advance of a disaster … they have no problem finding the people who need it the most. In fact, they do such a good job that they run out of supplies … helping those who need it. All the while there are 26 trucks setting in a parking lot with armed guards around it and, I hear, 40 more trucks on the way … all full of supplies that … POWIE … taxpayers PAID for. While Red Cross, Salvation Army, Food Banks, etc … are begging me to give MORE money to help their effort.

Here’s a NEWS FLASH … why doesn’t FEMA let the Red Cross, SA, and area Food Banks distribute these trucks … since they can’t seem to find the ON RAMP to help the people in a timely fashion. There is plenty of food and help available through our FEDERAL government but everyone has to fill out the proper paper work before you get a block of ice. I know that is an overstatement … but really. Volunteer organizations were on the ground feeding thousands before FEMA could figure out who was in charge. Why does this have to be so hard?

It’s frustating.

<< wg

 

one thing, keep moving

photo from here.

Today marks our second worship service as a new church. Journey Church is a new church in Pilot Point, Texas … that we have started from a little different model as most are doing these days. blah, blah.  I don’t know why I keep saying that … it’s not really important. We are just being obedient to what we feel God wants us to do.

I also put my message I am about to present on this blog. Probably because more people will read this blog than come to our service … not a biggie.

I was reading in Philippians this week. To me, it’s the letter of encouragement. It’s upbeat and has a lot of great instruction. Chapter 3 Paul is exhorting the church to watch out for the “life suckers”.  Now, you won’t find that terminology in scripture … but the truth is there. His warning is to beware of religious people who talk the talk … but do not have a clue about what a relationship is.

Sometimes, you have to lose it all to find it all. In other words, to know Christ you have to be willing to know Him all the way … in the suffering as well as the good times.

He then gives this great statment … “but one thing I do.” Now, we all know he did more than one thing. So, we know he is making a value statement or a mission statement. It is a foundational truth that he can stand on … no matter what. Whether he is having a good day or a not so good day … this one thing I do. What is it? He says … Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. … I press on.  Very poetic.

He doesn’t actually mean he can physiologically forget. He means … I will not purposefully dwell on the past. I have my hands full of present and I am reaching for the future. In other words … keep moving.  If you are rowing against the current … and let’s face it, as a believer, you should be … and you quit rowing … you will not be going forward and you will drift. Eventually it will turn your boat around and you will have a more difficult time to get your vessel turned back. Paul says … just keep moving.  When you stop moving you … 1.) lose your balance, 2.) lose your momentum, 3.) lose your race.

If you don’t remember anything else today … just, keep moving.

<< wg