Celebrating a Great Woman

Last night our family got together to see my Mother for the first time together at the funeral home. After everyone had time to go to the casket and do some small talk, we gathered in a circle for a time of celebration and reflection.

We shared specifically how she impacted each of our lives and the responsibility we now have to carry on her example. We gave special thanks to Dad, for his example of servanthood and to my sister Jean who spent the last 3 weeks taking care of mom, along with Patty. My brother J. shared that every single one of our spouses and kids had been prayed for thousands and thousands of times before they were even born or we ever met them. He was right. There were many times I would get up to get ready for school to hear the voices of my Mom and Dad praying, calling out my name and the names of my siblings’ names, as well as the people we would have as spouses and the grandchildren that would come from our relationships.

It was a great time of sharing together as a family. We closed with reading 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18:

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.

We then sang the old hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness”

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

My uncle Clarence closed with prayer, thanking God for Mom’s life and asking God to help us to continue the legacy that Mom has left us.

Want to get to know a great woman? Read her story at

http://obit.smithfuneral.com/obitdisplay.html?id=547398&listing=Current

Chariot Ride

I got a phone call yesterday morning that my Mom who is battling cancer was not able to wake up from her sleep. I went to see my Dad, and he, my sister and I sat by the bed of my mother talking and laughing quietly. After a while my Father said, “I guess we will wait until God sends a chariot to get Mom.” For some reason it struck me in a funny way, and I started laughing. Dad laughed and he said, “Well, it is more comforting than saying that we are waiting for her to die.” I agreed.

Two Things :

It is great to laugh in the face of death. I am going to miss my mother in a tremendous way. She has loved me like no other person here on Planet Earth, but knowing that she will be with Christ experiencing no more suffering, sorrow, sin, no more disappointment, no more struggles, etc., is a great thing.

Second, it is a great comfort to know that I can laugh because my relationship with my Mom, as well as all of my family, is intact. There is no mending of fences to be done. We have all kept short accounts with one another and with God. So though there is sadness in our hearts, there is also plenty of joy and laughter.

That is the great thing for believers in Christ and lovers of God. You see, we don’t die. We fall asleep and wait for God to send His chariot.

Well, God sent His chariot this morning and my Mom is with Christ forever.

Thanks for your prayers, cards, love and support.

Hero X 2

A Hero 2 times

The Times Reporter www.timesreporter.com did a an article for Memorial Day on my father, James Mason, who reluctantly agreed to it. He served as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne. In the article he shares about being at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed , and his jump at Normandy.

He closed out the interview with these words.

“I’m not a hero, I was just there. Yeah, I was scared. I was scared all the time I was in the war, but it didn’t paralyze me. I did the best job that I could. I did what I was supposed to do. I was so proud to be a soldier.”

Dad, you are a hero. but for more than serving our country. And not just to me, but to all of your 4 kids and 11 grandchildren. You have demonstrated that you are a hero by the way you have taken care of your wife and our mother who has been battling cancer for the last six months. Though it is season of life that you have never experienced before, just like jumping in Normandy, you haven’t let it paralyze you from doing the best job you could do.

Thanks Dad, for not only being a great soldier but also a great husband our Mom.

Great Example

I had the privilege of being with Bob Russell a couple of weeks ago along with 7 other senior pastors to a mentoring retreat. While we all came from different sizes of church and styles it was a great time of being sharpened by one another. When you have 8 sr. pastors you got a lot of opinions , ideas and thoughts. It was good.

Bob is the former sr. pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville Kentucky. He is a man full of wisdom, character, goodness and generosity. He retired a few years ago after serving at one church for forty years. He took a church of 125 and led it to over 18,000 making it one of the largest churches in North America .

He demonstrated a great sense of humility and gratitude even in light of all the success that God has given him. Many times we see, hear, experience people who have not been able to handle the success and blessings of God. Bob Russell isn’t one of them.

I thank God and Him for that. He is a great model of what I am shooting for in my own personal leadership.

Louisville Slugger

This past week I got to have a personal tour of the company “Louisville Slugger “ from , Jack Hillerich III who retired as CEO and President in 2001 but remains as Chairman of the Board.

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It was great to be able to see how they made the bats, and learn their philosophy and strategy . One of their philosophy is that in their office areas there are no doors. He said it is so important to keep communication flowing .

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One of the cool things was that Jack showed us was all of the bats that they use as the model to make all of the other bats. Each player had their own personal model bat. You had guys from Babe Ruth to Pee Wee Reese to Ken Griffey jr.

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It was pretty cool to handle one of Babe Ruth’s bat. He said that they only used the one bat as the model, so to get it right every time.

Got Questions ?

This past Monday, we kicked something off for the very first time here at NewPointe. We call it Monday Night Live . We are online with a webcam where we receive questions through email about Sunday morning message and answer them.

We are in a series called What Lies Beneath – A Journey to Emotional Health and thought because of the subject it would raise a lot of questions. Well it has, we had up to 52 people online with us.

One of the concerns that I have when I share on Sunday morning is that someone is thinking, I don’t know if I would agree with that, or did I understand him right? or I would like to ask him a question about what he just said. Well, here is your opportunity!

We will be doing it again this Monday night from 9 to 10 p.m. You can hook up through our NewPointe website www.newpointe.org.

Making Memories

God be with you till we meet again . . .

Last week my two older sisters, Jean and Brenda, along with my older brother, J, got together with my dad and mom to give our love once again to our mom who is closing in on going to heaven.

It was a great evening of sharing stories, laughing, crying, being challenged to stay the course and keep the faith.

Dad told each of us kids how thankful he and Mom were for us. Mom echoed those thoughts.

Dad went on to say that he has seen firsthand what it means to experience dying grace. He mentioned that Mom has prayed for us kids, as well as the grandchildren, yet now feels completely released from that, knowing that God will bring her prayers to fruition, and she desires only to go and be with Jesus.

We closed the evening out by sitting in a circle with each one praying and thanking God for His goodness and faithfulness through our lifetime together. We then sang an old hymn, Till We Meet Again. Here are the words:

God be with you till we meet again
By His counsel guide, uphold you,
With his sheep securely fold you
God be with you till we meet again
Till we meet
Till we meet
Till we meet at Jesus’ feet
Till we meet
Till we meet
God be with you till we meet again

Great Opportunity

Monday Night Live

I kicked off a series last Sunday called What Lies Beneath.

The response has been incredible, which means it spoke to a lot of people.

I know that what we are talking about really resonates with a lot of people. It can even be painful and raises a lot of questions like, how am I to handle all of the feelings if I choose to look beneath?

Well – Monday, May 19, from 9 to 10 p.m., we are setting up an opportunity for you to e-mail questions to me. We won’t mention who they are from, just read the questions. Hopefully, that will give you the courage to be completely open and honest.

I am praying that this will be a real help for all who want to grow and develop into Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.

Let me encourage you to get the book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. It is in our book store.

As someone who emailed me, this is going to be longer than a 6 week series. I agree I will be working with God on my emotional health the rest of my life.

Wii Serve

WOW -- What a weekend service!

I want to personally thank everyone who served Sunday. It was a great time.

I believe that the message came across that this is an unbelievable place to not only serve, not only have fun, but to be able to make a huge impact in the world. I want to encourage everyone again to sign up and "get in the game".

God is doing some pretty incredible stuff, and we need everyone. When you sign up, you will learn about the training events that will be coming up, so you will be equipped to fulfill the area of your service.

Also, I did not mention it, but you do not have to be member at NewPointe to serve .

One last thing, God is beginning to open some doors for possible satellite churches. That would mean we would need to be able to do what we are doing right now here at NewPointe in other locations.

You might say, "You've got to be kidding me!" No. For us to be able to reach the communities that God is leading us to, we need to be able to create the same kind of environments in those locations. Therefore, many more opportunties to get involved will be coming soon.

Remember, maturity doesn’t qualify you to function in the body of Christ. Giftedness qualifies you. It is one of the best ways to facilitate your spiritual growth and go deeper with God.

Sign up and we will help you discover and cultivate the “divine enablement" God has given you.

Lessons in Prayer

At the breakfast table this morning, our youngest son Benjamin was asked to pray. He basically prayed his normal prayer--asking God to give him a great day today and tomorrow. He asked God to help his grandpa and grandma. Then he said, “Dear God, help my substitute teacher to be nice today.” I thought, “WOW. What faith! He actually believes that prayer can make a difference.”

It caused me to think three things:

1. Ben brings all of his concerns and needs to God.

2. You hear what’s on someone’s heart when they pray.

3. It good to ask your kids to pray. It is a valuable tool that they will need in growing up and
living in an ever changing world.


Question: Dad? Mom?

Are you teaching your son or daughter to pray?

It just might be the greatest skill you could teach them. It was basically the only thing the disciples asked Jesus to teach them. You see, you won’t be able to walk with your kids through everything in life, but God is able and willing. I know we customarily teach them in the area of hitting a ball, playing an instrument, studying for a test, but what about prayer? They may not ask to be taught, but they will be thankful one day for being taught.

You see prayer can do anything that God can do. God said, “Give all your worries and cares to me, because I care for you.” 1 Peter 5:7

I won’t be able to walk with Ben through all of life challenges, but God promises never to leave him or forsake him. One of the most important things I can do for Ben is to teach and train him how to invite and communicate with his heavenly Father.

Be sure that your kids know how to connect with their heavenly Father.

P.S. Ben said his substitute teacher was nice.

All Access

This past weekend we were able to see one of my dreams come true. It has always been a dream of mind to be able to encourage, challenge and train church leaders to be all that God has called them to be, especially churches that are in rural areas and small towns.

We hosted a two day event where we gave complete access to all that we do here at Newpointe. Saturday night those attending were given a tour of the facilities with explanations of the specific environments and the purpose of each area as well as a time of teaching about leadership development that is strong enough to lead change.

Sunday morning they were then able to experience each of those environments in full swing as well as experience a service. After lunch there were workshops with time for Q & A about each ministry area.

We fulfilled our vision. We encouraged. We challenged. We trained. It was a great time of helping leaders to realize that they can have a positive, powerful impact right where they are leading.

Props to the NewPointe staff for their generous spirit of giving.