Last weekend was one for the history books as Northway celebrated 5 years in a very big way! On Saturday night in Malta, there was standing room only!  Clifton Park was so jammed on Sunday that they couldn’t put chairs out fast enough!  Malta’s 9:30am hi def service is growing, and the 11:30am Malta service was at capacity! God has blessed Northway more than we could have ever dreamed.  But if I’m honest, during this last year, I simply stopped dreaming about the future.

Have your dreams ever stalled? Have you given up hope in some area of your life? If you have, I can relate. But here is what I also know; God wants you to dust off your dreams! Perhaps things didn’t work out the way you envisioned.  Perhaps the critics have let you have it.  Or maybe you’re just too scared to try again.

Life is too short to shelve your dreams.  It’s time to begin again.  This weekend, I will be talking about how to dust off those dreams and take your imagination beyond limits to turn your dreams into reality. I will also be sharing what I believe God has in store for the next 5 years at Northway. I look forward to sharing this with you. 

Who will you invite? Life is short…Live different!

First let me say thanks for all your feedback!

Plant your fields first, then build your barns.

Sometimes I suffer from spiritual insomnia…this verse has been keeping me up at night. Can anybody else relate? I think its Gods way of getting my attention. God’s way of giving me a heads up on an upcoming situation. I have already used this wisdom multiple times this week. I have paused before I have spoken or promised things or even cast vision.

As I am writing this blog, I am looking out my window at the barn of my next door neighbor. That’s right a barn. We just recently moved and one of my favorite things to do is watch the farmers around me.

Farmers fascinate me.

Farmers never seem to be still, always planning work and working a plan. When we moved into our house the front yard was a chest high meadow as our house had been vacant since Jan. Our farmer neighbor was kind enough to help us out and brought multiple tractors over and went to town. It was a huge favor to me as we didn’t have the equipment to do this, nor the time. He got over 19 bails of hay! I got to thinking later, Dude how much is that worth?

I appreciate it but I got to tell you…I’m already thinking about next year when they harvest hay again. I’ll be prepared.

I believe this verse it all about misplaced priorities and being prepared.  I wonder how many times God wants to bless us….but we are simply not prepared…because of misplaced priorities.

God has a way of keeping you humble…actually, the bible says “pride cometh before the fall.”  2 Christmases ago I had an interesting thing happen while I was speaking…ENJOY!  This is my wife’s favorite. 

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Last night we had our first connection group in our home. I was excited, but to be honest, I didn’t know how it was going to go. Let me tell you, we met some of the nicest and most kind people from our church that we’d never met before. Debbie and I couldn’t believe how well it all went, and we had a lot of fun practicing hospitality.

This has been a dimension of the early church that I have been missing.

I haven’t led well in this area. Thru the years, Deb and I have gotten burned many times so we just decided to fall back and be close to our family…that’s good. Then we realized that’s not healthy so we opened up and got close to our staff…that’s better.  But it’s not the BEST. These connection groups are stretching us and helping us tear down walls in our own lives.

I’ve got to tell you, I think I caught a glimpse of the early church that I haven’t seen before. I learned a ton last night by listening to other people’s stories. Everyone has a story to tell, and there is nothing more powerful than your own story.

Debbie and I are already pumped and looking forward to next Wed. and our Connection group. We are taking steps toward the BEST!

Just for the health of it series…Pastor Puff to Pastor Buff 

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Check out this trailer for the Message Series “Retro…Back to the Basics” from a couple years ago…

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Have you ever read a verse in the Bible that didn’t seem to be there before? I’ve been reading Proverbs for years but this verse just jumped out at me and has STUCK!

Plant your fields first, then build your barns.

I’m not a farmer but I can’t stop thinking about this verse…I keep turning it over and over in the rotisserie of my mind. What does it mean?

• Perhaps it means that barns represent vision and fields represent systems and structure?
• Perhaps it means that fields represent vision and barns represent systems and structure?

I don’t know.  What do you think?

Yesterday was phenomenal! Thanks for the prayers! God gave us the perfect day for shooting our video for this weekend’s message “live dangerous” and…

I think we did it!

I think we may have captured some of the best videography ever! Haven’t seen it yet…but that’s my gut! Huge props to the production crew for living dangerous with me! I think they may have been in a more dangerous situation than me in what they had to do to shoot this…these guys could be up for an Emmy. Totally cool that I didn’t just do this one by myself and got to do this with some of my favorite peeps!

Chad, Brian, Kevin, Larry, Dewey, Sam, Bookhout, thanks guys for a day I will never forget! It’s a priviledge serving Jesus together with you! Thanks for living dangerous!

Reflections from Israel…

Stay with this one…it’s worth it! I promise…the first couple minutes seem like serious reflections of our Israel trip but then it takes a dramatic turn.

Today I’m off to do a video shoot for this weekend’s message LIVE DANGEROUS! Can’t tell you what it is…but I believe we have the opportunity to shoot the best video ever produced for church. Our production team is going to another level and I believe we have one of the best in the country!

Pray for us today…I’m really not scared for myself…just for the HI DEF camera.

The buzz continues from this past weekend…the kick off of our Live Different series and Connection Groups are in full gear this week! This coming Sunday night we will also launch Northway United. In the words of todays lingo…it’s going to be SICK!