Waiting is always the hardest part.

Well we have been preparing for the move to Maine and the only thing left is a place to lay our heads at night which we know God is going to provide on His time. This is the hardest part because we have searched and see the need for Jesus in this state. We also feel a burden that comes from God for the lost in this state. The one thing we must learn is to be patient and wait on God to provide and not try to jump ahead which we all know is human nature. Paul says we must over come the flesh. I believe Paul is the one who knew about over coming the flesh. Think about all the abuse he took we would have to fight back we would not stand there and take it like he did. Paul counted it a blessing! Can we look at it that way? When God does not make things happen on our time we get mad and upset and say God is not listening to us but this is not the case at all. God is making things happen on His time which is the perfect time. We never know how much we mess things up when we jump ahead of God instead we blame God for all the crap in our lives. It would all be perfect if we would just let God do things His way and stay out of it! Well so far it has been a great day and like everybody else pastors and their families struggle with stupid stuff we know God is taking care of but we want to put our noses in it and we have to let God spat us on our hand and say get back. LOL.

Legacy!!!

This is brought to you from a conversation I had with my dad. To start this story off right I will say this. The man I call my dad is not the man who "donated" yeah you know what I am saying. When my mom meet the man I call dad he was not a Godly man he said to me today "I did not start out showing you the right way to be a man" I stopped him right there and told him "you give your self to Christ and showed me how to be a man of God before I died and stood before God and spent eternity in hell". You see the big thing here to me is this man does not have kids of his own but he made the statement today that he now has a legacy and that is me and my kids. How AWESOME is that! To me that says his greatest life work is showing me how to be a man of God and me passing it on to my children. This is what I call a AWESOME dad. Not only is he a awesome dad he is a grandfather to my children a man I know they love and he loves them and it makes to know God put this man in our family to be a Shepard for our family and I know I would not be the man I am today if it was not for him showing me how and loving me even when I messed up. I say all of this for this purpose God works in very odd ways in our lives. It is always the people we least expect to make a difference in our lives that always make the biggest difference. Lets take a trip back to the Old Testament look as Moses in todays terms Moses would be "special" because he speech problems. Look at what all he done,all the miracles God done through him. Someone we would a retard done some of greatest things of his time. Now look at the disciples modern day bad boys but they changed the world! This all comes down to this we ALWAYS put labels on people before we give them a chance but we never look at them from Gods eyes. What if stepdad, stepmom, the crazy old lady in the creepy house or who ever it is always remember to see what God is up to before you place judgement on someone God might have sent to change your life.

WOW!!!!!!

Well maybe now I can get back to keeping my blog updated. Man it has been so exciting around the Welch home since the last post. To update everybody The Pointe our youth group at LifePointe went on our summer camp and god showed up and showed out!!!! like I have never seen before. The band was just so amazing and Anointed of God and the speakers came in and give everything over to God and let Him speak through them. We had 2 young men and 1 young lady give their lives over to Christ and several accepted the Anointing of God upon their lives for leadership, ministry, and music others including adults just fell back in love with our Lord which is so AMAZING!!! God has been working so strong in our home I feel great things are about to take place but it has not been easy it has took LOTS of prayer, tears and nights of just being on our faces before the Throne of the Almighty but I truly know all these things are from God. God has sent me a new friend which I think we may be related because it is like talking to myself. I am very blessed to say that it is not just us that great things are happening for. All of our, I will not say friends because they are so much more so I will say family, God is showing up in their lives and pouring His Spirit out upon them which is something that never gets old. I have to include my Fathers Day story. The kids got up early and fixed a spread of food for me and had some of sweetest cards sitting on my plate and bought me a app store gift card so I could buy music and games THEY like for my ipod which was so nice I have not got to play since I got got them LOL!!! It is ok it bring me more excitement to see them happy and playing together than any gift I could get. You know people say God is not active in people's lives as He was back in Bible times that bothers me. I guess the best answer I have for these people is a question so here we go. Have you ever opened your self to God I mean have you ever poured your self out and took hold of all the things God has for you? Yes I said take hold! what I am saying is God is not going to come to your front door like UPS and drop the package off you have to put forth some effort. God said He wants to bless us so much it blow our minds but He wants to do it for His Glory not to make us rich or famous but to give us the means to take this world back from satan and for us to say Father this is all for Glory!!!!! I hope everyone who reads this is blessed in some way and always seek out what God has for you and take it and use it for his Glory.

God is AWESOME!!!!

It's been awhile since my last post but I'm happy to say it's because the Spirit of God has been moving so strong in my life it has really blown my mind. A few weeks ago myself ad 2 of the most Spirit filled men I know did a podcast about the Holy Spirit and that day God moved in such a powerful way and we could not but to be overwhelmed by this. We took a long hard look at ourselves and what Gods plan was and took ourselves out of the picture and let Him run the show. Yes it was hard but we did it! We felt God pointing us in a direction that was only things we talked about but He said shut your mouth and start doing it. So we did! Tonight we took our youth to our local park located right in the middle of main street for everybody in our little town to see and thats where we held our youth service. Before we started we walked over to the fire dept. and had prayer with them yes as you can imagine they were very thankful but had that look like we had lost our minds. About ten minutes into our service some guy came up and sat with us for bit. How awesome is that?!!! Now he did not stay for the whole service but in our little town word got out fast which is what we want. We want to be different because the way church has been going for the past 50 years or better just aint cutting it anymore. Now I'm not saying church don't work but keeping in confined to four walls with people in fancy clothes and some nut giving his opinion on what the Bible says instead of Preaching what God said to is not working. Thats right God is not John Denver singing sunshine on my shoulders and giving you a pat on the back for giving Him ONE hour of your week to come to His house and sleep. Naw it aint like that He said take His word not your opinion to the ends of the earth so that means we have to move from our comfort zones into this sick and dying world and bust hells gates wide open with the WORD OF GOD!!!! Enough soap box. In the past month as we gone through our discipleship lesson God has moved in the teens lives and it showed tonight as they told us how they can use their God given gifts in everyday life to bring honor and glory to God. All I can say is to God be the Glory! Amen!!!

The Spirit is Leading

In our Youth group at LifePointe (The Pointe) we have going through the Bible to see how Jesus taught His famous 12 to go out and change the world. Through this study the Holy Spirit has moved in my wifes heart and brought an idea to lite that goes beyond anything our little town has ever seen. We will go out on Friday May 28th and invite the unwanted to our church parking lot for free pizza. Not such a big deal? Well this will be done at 11:00 at night in the parking lot and our seats will be the bed of pickup trucks! Everybody I know whats to know how to get youths attention. This question haunts me too. What do we do? Thats not the question we should be asking the question we should be asking is how far are we willing to go to reach the youth of this generation. Are we willing to go out into the War Zone and fight for those out dying spiritually everyday? For most us the answer is no because it will cost us staying out past our bedtime,hanging out with the "bad people" and even worse having somebody see us talking to somebody not on our social level (OH!!!!NO!!! I WILL BE THOUGHT LESS OF). If that is your thinking sorry but you have bigger issues!!!! I am praying to DIRECTLY to the Holy Spirit that He would make a major move through us as He did in the Book of Acts and bring the biggest Revival this little town has ever seen!!! I hope you will join us in prayer as we go and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the midst of Hell and and rejoice with us for what the Spirit is doing and going to do.

Mom

The other day my Mom called and had a question about facebook which she is new to and I am glad she is catching up with tech world. She had made a comment about how much she likes reading my blog and how she is impressed with my writings (not that I can write) her words LOL. That got me to thinking about why I put so much into this then it hit. For years I watched my Mom a single mother give everything she had to give me and my sister the best life possible. She gave 100% at everything she done and still does which very awesome. Seeing my Mom give her best at everything has some how been tattooed on my brain and it just comes natural to give it all to even the smallest of things and for that I want to say thank you Mom. Now I'm not saying everything turns out good or the way I hoped but as I look back not a lot went as Mom planned either but the one thing I can say is she never stopped giving it all and keep joy in her heart. Now for all the guys out there when you think there is nothing you can learn from your mom you better step back and take another look. Your mom like mine is the heart of God loving you in your screw ups and on your greatest day and always there to cheer you on and when you wonder why you give 100% at even the simplest of things you can thanks Mom, I love you.

Lost in Chaos

In life it seems that every day we wake up and go through the same motions. We get caught up in our routine you know you get up at the same time have the same thing for breakfast etc........ day after day. We go through life doing what has to be done and most of the time we go through life doing what everybody else thinks we need to do. This is what I'm gonna call Lost in Chaos. This is chaos that we put on ourselves we feel the need to live by the standards of this world do go do go do go you get the point. Why do we do this? We have seen what it does to people it has drove them to the point of mental and physical breakdown. Yet we still always say yes to any and everybody who ask something of us. Why do we weight ourselves down burdens that 5 years from now nobody will even remember. I want to come at this from a personal level for a moment. Yes I am one of those people who wants everybody to be happy all the time I do not like conflict. I can not say no to people and I always take on more than need be and yes I had a routine to get it all done. Then one day it hit me. What am I doing? I give up my joy my happiness the happiness of my family trying to please everybody and doing any and everything people wanted me to do I became the Yes Man. My life had become full of Chaos, Chaos I put there which was not doing me any good and at that point I was not doing God any good. I realized I had become something God can not stand a people pleaser. I made the focus of my life doing God stuff instead of doing what is pleasing to God. Now I have to take that step back and refocus. The hardest thing about that step back is the sick feeling you get when you realize you broke Gods heart but we serve a God that has so much Love and Grace that when we get Lost in Chaos that He is faithful and just enough to jerk a knot in our butts as my granpa says and get us back on the right path. Even when we feel like a failure for having to step back just remember Jesus took breaks, not because He overwhelmed Himself but to keep from it as a example to us. I hope some how this has blessed you and always remember God loves each and everyone of us.

Life

Well I'm back at it! For the past month satan has been stepping up his game with me. I believe God is moving me into somewhere I have never been before and about to do some AWESOME things, things like never before. The only thing my mind keeps going to is when God allowed satan to hit Job like a bomb. No I am not putting myself on same level as Job! I do believe God has allowed this to happen to strengthen me and learn to turn to those who He has put in my life. A great friend told me to let other people help, my first thought was (like most of you) they can not do it as good as I can. Thats CRAP! They just do not do it the same way I do but it does get done and done very well. I truly believe God is about to move in a awesome way here in Amory MS. We as followers of Jesus Christ need to just hang on and STICK together. This is a AWESOME trip God has got us on and it's a hard lesson I have learned but He is always there. Right by our side and He will never leave us. God Bless

Paying the Price

You know God tells us to seek out the One! I had the honor this week to go to Atlanta to the Velocity conference and In a breakout session with Pete Wilson he really brought the point home of seeking out the One. I felt God speaking directly to me about one of the students that attends our youth ministry on Tuesday nights. So When I got home I give this alot of prayer and just like God He opened the door for me and said now did you really mean it? I had no other choice but to say yes God I mean it. This friday night the Pointe stayed the night at the church and the One showed up I let the Spirit lead me in every choice I had to make with the One. Now as if I didn't see it coming satan has struck and I feel condemned for the choices I made and I feel people are striking out at me for this. How do we overcome this? I know I am not a people pleaser! God I pray you help people to see that I am working for the BIGGER picture not just the small corner we see with our earthly eyes. Give us ALL your eyes to see people the way you do and if the ways you chose to bring people to the cross is not what the world thinks is right give us the strength to keep on your path and not conform to this sick world we live in. Amen!! The road to this cross is full of blood sweat and alot of tears the ONE thing we must focus on is what is on top of that hill and that is the CROSS!!! The cross Jesus Himself hung on to pay for the sins of each us. It was not the easy way it was a struggle, the HARD way but shows us the compassion we need to have. Jesus loved US so much he chose the HARD road not the punk way out. So why do we always want things to be easy all the time for all people. It was NEVER easy for Jesus. Do you honestly think you are so much better than your Creator that everything is going to be peachy for you?

Wow

Well our youth group at LifePointe church (The Pointe) started the 30 Famine. We are about 8hours into it and I believe the worst part was having the group give up their cell phones. We have played some games and the got to experience what water is like in 3rd world countries. We took a tub and put 50lbs of sand in it and then added water. I had all 18 of them wash their feet in it and showed them what these kids have to drink. Yeah it was nasty!!! Put it got the point home with them. I believe God is doing no I know God is doing in major work in some hearts.

Heart

You know things can get really crazy really fast in our lives. This past Sunday I ask God to put His heart inside of me just let me see everybody the way He sees them. I cut myself off from Facebook, Twitter, etc....... I even went as far as to put people I am really close to on my call reject list on my phone. Yeah I know it seems cold but you can not truly give yourself over to God with everything in your way. Not saying people bother me LOL. You know this worked God opened my eyes to a hurting would that is seeking something but they do not know what it is. Tonight I was at Wal-Mart waiting to pick up my meds and of course they where slow. It was 6:15 and I had to be at church in 15 minutes to share the Gospel with a group of teens. This is when God said ok lets see if you are willing to see people the way I do. A elderly lady walked up to pick her meds up and she came up about 30 dollars short. Now here is the problem I live on a budget and 30 dollars might as well be a 1000 dollars and I had a group of teens waiting on me at church with no clue where I was. All of a sudden I found myself in tears telling her I would pay for her meds. The big picture God gave me a chance to share His love with that lady her 2 grandchildren and I looked up and the dude behind the counter was crying and another heart had been touched by Gods love! A simple thing like money hinders all of us but in the end if we look past ourselves and have a heart like God money becomes nothing but a means to help others as I believe God intended it to be.

Love

Love is more than saying I love you. Words mean nothing people want to see you act out the love you say you have for them. We do not have to go to great lengths to show our love. It is as simple as writing a encouraging message on facebook twitter or whatever network you use. You can show your love by being there for someone when everybody else has left them. Laughter is one of the greatest gifts God has given us why do we not use it? Who out there does not love to laugh? Think about it when someone starts to laugh like they have lost their mind and gone off the deep end you cannot help but to join in and you forget about all that silly stuff you thought was so important. I had the chance to talk to a young man this week and he was so burdened down by things in his life and it broke my heart. I told him that when I was his age I thought the same things that he is going through was the end of the world for me too but now those things don't even cross my mind. The point is this we have to look at the big picture and stop focusing on the little things that are just bumps in the road along this path we call life. Thats love. Taking time to listen even when you think it's silly. People want to see how much you love not just hear about it.

Listening

School has started back and taking my New Testament class it's very interesting so far. We have started out focusing on the four hundred year dry spell of no word from God. You know the thing that is amazing for four hundred years there not a single word from God then out of no were He shows up right in the middle of mankind! Our God came down to this earth to share his love with us face to face. You can't get much more personal than that. People claim God has given up on mankind and He doesn't care anymore. Well how many of you are four hundred years old and have never felt God's presence? God shows up in our lives everyday it's just that we fail to see it. Every morning when you get up out of bed God is right there waiting on you to acknowledge His presence waiting on you to see that He has given you another day another chance to seek Him and His will for your life. If we want to hear God speak we need to open up our hearts and minds and realize that He is still in the middle of mankind and wants to share His love with us and have us pass it on to everyone one meet.

Wierd

Tonight at the Pointe the students got to break into a CSI case and figure it out in their groups. I have to say some of the ones I thought didn't listen or have any knowledge of the Bible are the ones who shined tonight. WOW!!! What also amazed me is they had a chance to act out the event in question and without even reading through the event they got up and done it. I have to say this is one of those times where God showed me things beyond what my eyes can see. Well I went to do the job God put me here to do and to my surprise He taught me a lesson I have tried to get across to these kids it don't matter how old you are God wants to use you. God used those kids to show me it don't matter what I see on the outside it's whats going on, on the inside and I can tell you there is some major stuff going on in the hearts of these kids.

Nap Time

The boys have had lunch and now they are sleeping like babies. I had a rough night last night trying to keep the baby comfortable and checking temps and keeping it quite for my wife and daughter so they could have a good day at school but they helped more than I wanted them to,what a awesome family I have. Well back to the point of all of this I have been reading and praying and thoughts have come to the front of my mind things I have been told in this past. I can remember being told at the start of my ministry that this is something that comes first above anything else. And yet another voice came in of something a great man of God told me, God gave me this family to take care of. Yep you can imagine I wanted to slap my self in the head a shout STUPID but I didn't. I just sat back and laughed and told God I get it and you know the people God has put around me stepped up and took charge and God's plan is not going to miss a beat. Dude how awesome is that. As I sit here and look at these precious gifts God has blessed me with all I can say is this, what looks to be a bad thing God is making into something beautiful and when it is all over God gets the glory and we will all be better. AMEN!!!!

Thinking

Well being stuck in the house for next 5 days seems to be a bad thing but as I sit here and pray and let God show me what the next move is I can't help but to think it has to something major because He has put me in a spot where it is just me and Him. Maybe it is something I have over looked or somewhere I am lacking or who knows, but I am thankful for a God that loves me enough to stop me and show me what He wants instead of letting me run wild. Well time to pray read and seek HIS will. When it all comes together I will let you know.
GOD BLESS
Mike

Another Day

Well spent most of night in the ER with my oldest son Dylan last night and come to find out he has the swine flu. When the Doctor came in and told us Dylan broke down crying, he thought he wad gonna die. It took me an hour to convince him he was not going to die. As we sat there and talked he ask me why God done this to him, I told him that God didn't do it to him it is one of those things that just happens. Everybody gets sick. That stuck with me, and I thought on that some more how many of us blame God for the bad stuff that happens in our lives. As I explained to my son God did not do this to him, the thing God wants from us now is to turn to Him and run and blame Him. A 12 year old child got down and turned to God in prayer and ask all of his friends to pray for him. How is that a child gets it and most adults don't? Lets start looking at the bad things like this. FAITH BUILDERS! When we learn to turn to God in every bad situation it will become habit forming and you will turn to Him in everything good and bad.

Who are you?

This is a thought I believe crosses all of our minds more than once in a blue moon. With me it goes through my mind often. I know that I am a child of God but I mean who has God put us here to be? Most of had some kind of dream of what we wanted to be when we grew up or know what we will be doing when we grow up. But lets go further with this. In what we are doing or will be doing how are or will we be serving God? Yeah thats strikes the core! It did with me last night when the Pointe was starting our CSI series. I never really looked at it from that point but honestly God made it so simple for us to apply Him and His teachings into our lives and share it with everyone in everything we do but we complicate it up with all this crap that doesn't even matter. That is not who God calls us to be He wants us to be people of love kindness compassion and obedience but are we? These are not things we can go to wal-mart and buy, It only comes from God. It does not matter what you do or going to do find out how you can serve God doing it. This is where you will find out who you are and why you are here and how our BIG GOD needs you for His big plans.

?

You know young Christians depend on the mature Christians help them with their walk with Jesus but you know thats what God told us to do. With that in mind lets ask ourselves this question, what are we doing to help them? As I sit here and think I look back and think of some of the things I have done and I am guilty of making Christianity out to be some kind of perfect fairy tell that you watch on Disney. How sad is that? We all know that is not the case at all, it is the hardest life you could ever imagine. Now that would turn anybody in there right mind away. Where it all pays off is in the end, when we get to meet Jesus face to face. The Christian life is something we can not go through on our own we need each other. Let me say that again WE NEED EACH OTHER!!!!! Take every chance God gives you to tell somebody you love them and give them a hug.

First Sunday of 2010

WOW! what a Sunday dude you could never imagine how great this day has been. Everything just seemed to go perfect. I know it was all God because i have kids and every Christian parent knows the next comment is true. On Sunday mornings satan shows up in my kids! There is fussing fighting and etc............ But not today it was peaceful and they even helped. What a blessing that was. During our Prayer and Share my wife and I keep the children and tonight that was so awesome too. We played some crazy games and ate a jar full of chocolate and I know their parents love me even more for that,LOL. I am really looking forward to Tuesday night when the Pointe our youth meet together for our service we will be starting CSI. I really love that show so I jumped on the idea when it passed on to me. I believe this is going to help the youth dig deeper into Gods Word and discover things they may have never see and old things in a new light.

2010

Well we made through 2009 Christmas is over and LifePointe church brought in the New Years with a party that God truly blessed. There is no way that ordinary people could have put together something where people connected like a family. As I sat back and just watched God allowed to me to see what the first church from Acts was truly like. There no feeling like that it was like God stepped down from Heaven and sat with us. Its moments like that when you can't help but to praise God with everything is in you. Going into this New Year I want to give all I have to God and to the ministry He has blessed me with. So watch 2010 here we come with with our GREAT BIG GOD who can't be stopped!!!!!!!