Baby Tyler

Baby Tyler was born Tuesday May 8th at 11:28pm.
9 pounds, 9 ounces and 21 3/4 inches long. We are home now and doing well!

We had a great delivery - 5 minutes of some solid pushing and Tyler was here!! Nothing like our 3 hour pushing marathon with Maddy Kate.

Maddy Kate Turns 2!

Maddy Kate had her second birthday party Saturday, March 10th. We had 15 of her closest friends over for food, a Barney cake, and tons o fun!!

Tyler is due in about 8 weeks - it's hard to believe he is almost here!

"I want to want Thee!"

I’ve been thinking a lot about “hungering for God”. About being desperate for Him and thirsting for His presence. I truly long to always thirst for God. I know we must confess, repent, fast, pray and put our selves in a place of obedience where God can move in our hearts. But, where do we “truly” begin. For me, the starting place has always been simply asking God to make my heart hungry. A.W. Tozer prayed an awesome prayer:

“O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longings; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray thee, so that I may know Thee indeed.”

So, we ask and we believe in our hearts He will create a hunger in us. Jesus says in John 16:24, “I tell you the truth, my father will give you whatever you ask in my Name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my Name. Ask and you will receive and your joy will be complete (or made full).”

Shocking Finding!!

We’ve been talking about pursuing intimacy with Jesus and walking with Him moment by moment in my small group at church, exploring what that looks in our daily lives and what it takes to live it out. It’s been an incredible journey. Last week, we looked at some Barna research on the current condition of The Church in the United States. One particular finding caught my attention. The research states:

“Barna expects to see a widening gap between the intensely committed (to Jesus) and those who are casually involved in faith matters. The difference will become strikingly evident between those who make faith the core of their life and those who simply attach a religious component on to an already mature lifestyle.”

This is pretty shocking. I mean, I know what group I want to be found in. Yet, I am so easily pulled toward choosing the flesh – true selfishness. I pray we are continually more and more hungry and desperate for Him - that our hunger for Jesus would drive us to choose Him moment by moment. We’re either passionately walking with Him or we’re not.

Delirious Coming to Arkansas

If you've never been to a Delirious concert, I highly recommend it. They put on a great show. They'll be coming to Conway (Arkansas) on April 9th. A link to the details below.

http://www.delirious.co.uk/tournews.html

Are We Missing It?

My pastor and I were talking last week about the state of The Church in America. We were commenting on some past and recent Barna research that was quite disturbing. I probably don’t need to tell you “were in trouble”!! We are loosing a generation who are sick of religion and failing to reach those who are searching for something real!

With the rapid growth of the “emerging church”, it seems that we have made some headway. But, I often have to question how much of what we think is a movement is really just another man-made program or idea. I have no doubt that God is using the emerging church to reach people and change lives and am very thankful for it. I am definitely not against it. But, I think it’s important to remember in America, we so often want to change what we “do” and not “who we are”. God is interested in changing “who we are”! I believe He is more concerned with our personal core values and how we live those out than whether or not we will use candles and Turkish rugs in our sanctuaries or if we have tattoos and buy our threads from Urban Outfitters!! I believe if this is truly all we have, than we’ve really missed it!

In a recent Relevant Magazine article, emergent pastor Mark Driscoll addressed the issue. I thought his comment was very profound.

“There is a strong drift toward the hard theological left. Some emergent types want to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a pride fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up. I fear some are becoming more cultural than Christian, and without a big Jesus who has authority and hates sin as revealed in the Bible, we will have less and less Christians, and more and more confused, spiritually self-righteous blogger critics of Christianity.”

GREAT NEW WORSHIP!!

Recently, came across some great new worship CD’s (no “recycled” worship songs)! I recommend checking them out.

Baby Boy!!

Elizabeth and I found out several weeks ago we will be having a baby boy!! We are about 25 weeks pregnant and the baby is doing great. We've choosen a name:

"Tyler Deen Pulley"

Tyler is not a family name - just one we really liked. However, Deen, is a family name; my (Matt) grandmother's maiden name.