A New Journey Begins

Yesterday I wrote that we completed the Route66 journey, reading through the Bible in 2008. The cool part is that God’s Word is living and inexhaustable, so January 1st marks the begining of another journey. Today we begin reading through the Bible again in 2009. We will also be emphasizing journaling, using the S.O.A.P. method. This will help us record our journey, and grow closer to Jesus this year.

This is a great tool, because it doesn’t matter what your knowledge/experience is with the Bible, you simply record your thoughts each day. You can learn more about the S.O.A.P. method by watching this video: http://media.palmvalley.org/video/121308.html or reading here: http://www.pvcroute66.com/studytools.htm . I highly encourage everyone to watch the video by Wayne Cordiero, it will really help you.

My hope is that our conversations as a church will center around our reading of God’s Word, and what He’s teaching us. Tonight I had great joy as I looked around the room as all my family was reading the Bible, and then gathered to share our S.O.A.P.’s for the day. What a unifying factor in our family to read and share God’s Word together. Parents and grandparents, I pray you’ll take time each day to do this with your kids/grandkids. What a great way to invest in the young people in our lives.

I encourage you to find others to share this year’s journey with. Our Home Team is reading and S.O.A.P.’ing together, sharing our growth together. If you don’t have a group, I’d encourage you to find one or even start one. Contact Dennis Johnston, our Home Teams Pastor at djohnston@palmvalley.org for help with this.

I believe journeying through the Bible together will make 2009 the best year ever, join us on the journey!

15 years ago today!

Today Lori and I are celebrating our 15^th wedding anniversary. It’s hard to believe how quickly time has flown, it seems like just yesterday we were walking down the aisle with great expectations. We’ve experienced a great deal in 15 years…

• A wonderful youth ministry that still produces fruit today.
• 3 years of marriage w/o kids where we built a deep and abiding friendship.
• The birth of 4 children, truly God’s greatest blessing is our family. Watching our children grow physically, emotionally, relationally and spiritually brings us great joy.
• Starting Palm Valley Church together in our home. This was easily the biggest step of faith, yet our greatest faith-growing experience.
• Developed great friendships, many which have remained a huge blessing to us today.
• Experienced great sadness at close friends who have chosen to walk in sin and wrecked their lives, leaving us feeling hurt and helpless in the wake of damage.
• Learned great lessons in how to communicate love to each other and avoid the pitfalls of marriage.
• Learned huge financial lessons, the hard way, that have drawn us closer to each other and to our Lord.
• Realized how blessed we are that God brought us together, and have fallen more in love with each other every day.

To my bride, Lori…

• You are my beloved wife.
• You are my best friend.
• I love when you laugh, even when you’re laughing at me
• I love your passion for Jesus, and that you’ve always walked with Him.
• I’m grateful you saved yourself for me, it makes me feel special.
• You’re the most incredible mother ever; our children are blessed by you.
• Your faith encouraged me to pursue my dreams. Without that, Palm Valley Church wouldn’t exist. Every changed life at PVC can be traced back to you!
• Thanks for believing in me when everybody told you to run.
• You’re more beautiful today than the day I married you. You defy logic.
• I want to grow old with you
• You’re the best little help-mate ever
• I thank God every day that He brought you into my life!
• The first 15 years have been amazing, I believe the next 15 will be even better.

Through 15 years, with ups and downs, nobody will ever know how hard we’ve worked at our marriage, but Lori and I do, and that’s what matters. I love you honey!

Thankful today

1 Chronicles 16:34 (NLT)
³⁴ Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever.

I have so much to be thankful for today (as do you), and I didn’t want the day to pass w/o naming them…

• I’m thankful for Jesus, the giver and sustainer of life, the author and perfecter of faith, my Lord and Savior.
• I’m thankful for Lori, my wife, my best friend, my ministry partner. 15 years and more in love with her each day.
• I’m thankful for my 4 children. They’re each unique, and in each one I see the imprint of a Creator who loves them and has big plans for their life. I’m thankful He’s entrusted them to me, and I relish the title “dad”, it means the world to me.
• I’m thankful for the awesome people of Palm Valley Church. I love being on the journey with Christ-followers who are committed to living authentic, sacrificial lives. Through all the ups and downs, God has molded a church family that I truly love.
• I’m thankful for an incredible staff. God has given PVC a wonderfully talented team who are deeply committed to the vision and people of our church!
• I’m thankful we live in a country that’s free. Even when we disagree, we unite as Americans. Given the events in Indian, I’m thankful we’re a country that doesn’t single people out due to their faith or color. I know we’ve got a lot of ugliness in our past in regards to racism, but I’m thankful we’re making progress.
• I’m thankful that today I’ll eat too much, but I’m more cognizant this year of people who won’t. I’m more committed to helping ease suffering for those in our world who don’t have the resources we have.
• I’m thankful for Value Baptist Church. What a great ministry partner we have. They think we bless them, but truly “it’s more blessed to give than to receive”.

I know it’s been a tough year for so many, my family included, but I choose to be grateful for what God has blessed me with, not worry about what I don’t have (or even have lost). God is so good, and I’m thankful today. Blessings to you and your family on this special day!

How Do You Spell Relief?

Thanks to all who prayed for me today; I’m home and doing great. Had a few bone spurs, but the doc was able to swiftly (and fairly painlessly) remove them.

It feels so good to not feel pain

HS Camp – Day 1

Today was the first day of our High School Camp, called “Crashing The Rohlinger Family Vacation”. We have 50 high school students with us up in Durango, Colorado for a great week. The students drove for about 11 hours today, finally getting to Durango about 7:00 p.m.  Some highlights from our brief night together…

• Parents can rest easy, the students made it in safe.
• My family cooked tacos for 60 tonight, which was no easy task. Thanks to the Molina’s we got it done.
• Darius is a GREAT leader. I’m grateful to Jesus that my kids are growign up with Darius as their pastor.
• This is a fun group of young people. They had such great attitudes after a long day. They jumped right in and helped with everything! I know parents all over the west valley are wondering how I’m talking about their kids right now
• D-Lo and Kim came up so that he could lead worship. He’s like a rock star to the high schoolers!
• Chapel was short, but incredible tonight. I loved that the students were so attentive as I talked tonight!
• My main points were simply to remind the students that (1) God loves them, (2) God likes them, (3) God knows their name and cares about them!
• The adult mentors rock. They took time off work to come invest in young people. I believe Jesus is proud of them!
• Watching my children serve the students dinner and dessert, and then clean up was awesome! I’ve prayed their whole lives that my kids would have servant’s hearts, and tonight that’s what I saw! I’m a proud dad!
• I’ve got to be up in 6 hrs, time to hit the sack.
• Tomorrow’s packed: alpine slide, rock climbing, hiking, team building activities and lots of fun.

Pray for us. I shared with the students tonight that I feel God has called me to invest my life in the next generation, to equip them to dominate our culture with the gospel. It’s a privilege to have this opportunity and I’m praying that this week will significantly impact each of the students and help them grow closer to Jesus and commit their lives to serving Him! More tomorrow….

Ending the Silence

I’ve been quiet the last few weeks, just spending some time investing in my family, my staff, and spending time with the Lord pondering what’s down the line for PVC. It’s been a great summer so far, very profitable. It’s hard to explain, but I believe Palm Valley benefits the most when I’m not around. Let me explain…

Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching, but it can become a grind when I do 24 of 25 weeks like I did this spring. with 5 services, I get flat worn-out. When I get away from the weekly teaching grind, I get a fresh perspective. My brain gets to relax, no pressure every week. I get to spend greater time in God’s Word and prayer w/o having to think about what I’m teaching right now. I visit other churches and spend more time talking with other pastors, gaining valuable perspective from what God’s doing around the country.

Basically, when I get away I feel like I get to just sit and here from God. I believe this is what Palm Valley Church needs me to do most. If I’m just teaching from my own wisom, we’re all in trouble. I believe God has big plans for PVC, and I want to be a part of every bit of it. By the way, my absence gives PVC the chance to hear from extremely gifted teachers like Ryan and Darius, who both brought it the past couple weeks. I truly feel that the quality of teaching doesn’t drop a bit when I’m gone. If anything, it goes up!

So, my blog silence is ending, and I can’t wait to be back with the people of PVC this week.

Water Wars

Now that I have a jr. higher, I have a built-in excuse to hang out at more student ministries events. Wednesday night I dropped Jake off at the “Water Wars”, and decided to get in on the fun.  What a blast! Nothing better than hanging out with a hundred jr. high students and just having a good time. Of course, as soon as I walked up I was attacked by a dozen students with water guns and buckets. I was drenched before I even got a chance. Our student ministry team is awesome, and I’m glad my kids have such a great group of mentors helping them take steps toward Jesus.

Parents: if your students aren’t involved in student ministries, get them connected!

Camp Reflections

So this week Lori and I tagged along for our elementary and jr. high summer camps up in the white mountains. All I can say is Wow! Our teams hit a home run and then some. Here’s some thoughts…

• Tonto Rim Camp worked out great, lots of cool stuff (zip line, mud pit, jump rock, etc…)
• My back hurts from sleeping on a crummy bed
• Cool to be big enough to rent out the whole camp for ourselves and do our own programming. Made a huge difference.
• We have awesome kids at Palm Valley Church. I had such a blast just hanging out with them.
• I remembered how hard it is to preach to kids and youth. Took me back to my youth pastorin’ days and it was a blast.
• I love speaking to a couple hundred kids around a campfire!
• Our volunteers were amazing, they kep bringin’ it all week. They made a huge impact on kids lives this week!
• One of my boys spent his whole $20 dollars in 15 minutes at the camp store. So much for “saving for a rainy day”. At least he was generous and bought Icee’s for everyone in the store
• Somehow my 6 year old took over the whole camp and did whatever he wanted. He had more fun than anybody.
• This was one of the most spiritually significant camps I’ve ever been a part of. I was overwhelmed by the depth of decisions young people made this week.
• I’m pumped about the next steps for our ministries to the next generation.
• There are some things we’ll do better next year, but they’re small tweeks. Overall, the whole week blew me away!
• Can’t wait for High School camp in July. If you haven’t signed up, do so now.

Humbling Day

There’s days where I see God at work in such an incredible way that I can’t believe He’s allowed me to be a part of it. I’ll be the first to admit I’m in way over my head, and that it’s only God’s grace and power that is doing this. I’m so grateful to the Lord for letting me experience this. Today, I was humbled and moved by a number of events…

• Heard some incredible discussions amongst our staff. Our guys and gals are growing in such a great way, they’re developing the leadership integrity and skills it’s going to take for PVC to go to the next level. I see our staff thinking and talking about things at a much higher level than in the past. They’re moving past simple details and into visionary leadership, and it’s exciting me for the coming days. We’ve got a young staff, but they’re hungry for the Lord’s presence and power in our ministry.
• Paul Lewis came and shared with me that 163 people have made decisions for Christ in the past 3 weeks at Palm Valley. I know, I couldn’t believe that number either. I’m also excited because every one of these people who have stepped across the line of faith are being followed up with by our Fresh Start team. I’ve never experienced such a wave of people coming to Jesus, it’s awesome!
• Got to pray with Mark today as he heads for Africa. I hated seeing God lead Mark off our staff, but I’m digging having a front row seat to watch (and be a part of) what He’s going to use Mark to do next. Mark loves Jesus, and he’s going to impact the world (literally) with the love of Christ. Pray for him over the next 3 weeks as he travels Africa discerning his role in helping churches connect with opportunities.
• Had lunch with big-wigs from a bank that’s considering funding our building project. It amazed me today to sit in a meeting that reminds me how close we are to actually seeing a campus for Palm Valley Church became a reality. Thanks to those who were praying, I felt it went incredibly well. In the coming weeks we’ll be making some huge decisions about how we move forward; it’s definitely speeding up. Drove by our land on the way home, all the roads are in and infrastructure is almost all in place. Yeah God!
• Ended the day by celebrating the 80th birthday of Lori’s dad. Hosted the party at our house for Lori’s family, just had a great time celebrating an incredible man. Lori’s dad pastored for 50 years, and has done things for the Kingdom that the rest of us dream of having the faith and courage to do! He took about a 1/2 hour and shared his life story with the kids and grandkids, ending with a special prayer of blessing for us. I was moved to tears thinking about how much his faith has meant to me, and the huge amount he’s poured into me. It meant alot to me to see my kids so intrigued and interested in PaPa’s faith, I know they were processing it. I pray that I will be as faithful to the calling God has placed on my life as this man has been.
• Sitting here tonight thinking about what an encouraging message God has given me to deliver this weekend. We’ll be talking about “Growing Through Failure”, and I believe what I’m going to share will have a huge impact on all of us; since we’ve all failed at different times. I’m so thankful God’s definition of success is far different from ours!

That’s it, what a great day! To top it off, tomorrow I’ll be hanging out and swimming with my kids, then Lori and I are taking our boys to our very first Nascar event at PIR; thanks to a friend who shot us some tickets. We’re fired up to honorary rednecks for the evening!

Great Saturday

With 5 services each weekend, as well as sports for the kids and other stuff, my weekends are usually shot before they began. Today feels like the best Saturday in a long time…

• last night we had a birthday party for our youngest son. Blast to have his friends over and wreck the house
• Got to sleep in ’til 7:00 am this morning, awesome!
• Laid in bed and went over my message notes.
• I feel very relaxed today, first time in a while.
• Watched recording of “The Ultimate Fighter” from Wednesday. Going to be a great season.
• BBQ’d hamburgers for the family.
• Back in bed to study my notes.
• At 3:00 I’ll watch a little UCLA – Memphis before heading to church
• TIVO’ing the Carolina – Kansas game. Will watch Carolina run the Jayhawks off the court later tonight when I get home! Go Heels.
• Two services tonight, 5:00 and 6:30: hope to see you there.
• Feels like I’ll need some ice cream tonight while watching Carolina win, just to top off a great day.