Blessed With 30 Years Of Marriage

I joke about how I married Marla Kay Bell at a very young age. (As if that explains why I am so young but have been married so long.) Who am I fooling? ...we were pretty though. Well, I will say one thing…I am so blessed to have been married to the love of my life for thirty years today.  It seems like yesterday we tied the proverbial knot in Memphis, Tn. , went to Gatlinburg on our honeymoon, and began our lives together. It has not been perfect by any means but Marla is really trying.  I better retract that, huh?  A lot has happened since that day. We have had about one thousand five hundred and sixty dates since our wedding. We both graduated from college and received graduate degrees. We were taught by our parents to tithe, work hard, pray diligently, live in His Word, live by faith and trust God....so we did. We have not always succeeded at everything we set out to accomplish but we have continued to press forward. We have traveled on mission to 5 countries, seen thousands come to Christ, served as pastor of six great churches and with the partnership of many great people, planted an incredible church called NorthStar.  During these thirty years, I have lost both parents and all my grandparents.  Marla has lost all her grandparents and her father. During these years, we had three incredible children, gained a godly son in law, a wonderful future daughter in law, and just this past week, we gained our first precious grandbaby Emma.  We have been blessed with so many friends through these thirty years.  We have seen some incredible miracles in the lives of our kids, friends, family and churches. We are so thankful for so much and the exciting thing is that the journey continues.  With many lessons learned, we are now beginning our next thirty years together.  I can’t wait to see these years unfold as this the Lord keeps His work in us alive.

Bold Steps

Sunday was incredible as we had Pete Wilson with us from Crosspoint Church, Nashville.  He brought an awesome message as we began our miniseries “Empty Promises”. What an honor to have had one of the leading pastors in America with us here at NSC. Pete is a highly sought after speaker and we were blessed to have had him here.  If you haven’t picked up a copy of his book, I would encourage you to get one. We still have copies of both of his books in the Compass Center.   I am excited about continuing this series this Sunday.  I know God has a word for us this week that will challenge us to get rid of the idols.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that we are launching a brand new campus in the spring of 2013.  We are pumped about the potential not only at our Saltillo Campus but also at our new Tupelo Campus.  I have heard from so many people about this over the last two weeks and the enthusiasm is incredibly high. This is one of those bold steps of obedience that I have been talking about for quite some time. Every time we as a church take these bold steps, God releases His miracles. I know God is going to do great and mighty things in our future at both campuses.  As Pete and I were talking this past Sunday   he said to me concerning the new campus: “This is huge and God will honor your obedience.”  Coming from a pastor who currently has five campuses, I take this as super encouraging.  One of the core values at NSC is that we structure for where we are heading.  I guess this is just one example of how God is moving us to a whole other level.