Student Of The Month!

Ian has been named the Vero Beach High School Student of the Month for February, 2007. His Mom and I couldn't be more proud. Ian lets the light of Jesus shine in his life every single day. He is humble in his servant attitude. In fact, he is not the one who told us that he had been selected for this honor. It was a couple of friends who happened to be at the house a couple of days ago (to check out our new Wii), who broke the news.

We praise God for all of our children and for their accomplishments in the Lord Jesus. Today, however, we want to give God the glory as we relish the honor Ian has garnered as student of the month.

The Year Flew By!

One year ago today, my best bud from my growing up days passed from this life to the next. I didn't find out until March 2, 2006, that Mike Wilson has lost his battle with lymphoma, and I blogged on that experience ( David Michael Wilson). I woke up thinking about Mike Wilson and our youth in Danville, KY. Here's a picture of my childhood home on Seminole Trail:





In the year since I made my way back to Danville to perform the funeral service for the guy who was my best bud growing up, and best man in my wedding, much has happened:
1. I am a year older (and hopefully wiser).
2. My Bride is more precious to me now than ever.
3. My kids continue to be a source of great joy and healthy pride.
4. Peggy, Ian, Emily and I traveled out of the country on a vacation cruise.
5. We spent a week with cousins in Alabama and this was another reminder that I haven't done the best job in "keeping up" with important people from my childhood.
6. I have maintained a closer phone relationship with Dale Wheeler from Danville, meaning for the first time in 30 years, I have regular contact with someone from my childhood home town.
7. Vero Christian Church sold the building, now meets in temporary facilities and we called a full-time preaching minister (all very exciting moves in my book)!
8. Peggy and I celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary.
9. Ian and Emily both got part time jobs.
10. Ian entered his senior year of high school.
11. Elliott and Abi got married.

Whew! I get tired just thinking about the whirlwind that has been the past 12 months. On this day when I am more in tune with events from my past, I just want to praise God for the friendships with Mike, his Dad, Dale and others from Danville. I want to praise God for the deep abiding love I have with my Bride, Peggy. I praise God for our children and for their love for Jesus. I praise God for allowing me to minister in Vero Beach, Florida.

Thank You Lord Jesus, for Your rich, abundant love. Forgive me for taking relationships for granted. Help me to be better in sharing Your love with people from my past and people with whom I have daily contact now.

What On Earth Am I Here For?

Now, isn't that just the question of the age? We all want to believe that there is a purpose for our lives. Unfortunately, many in our society have been duped into thinking that they evolved from apes and that there is nothing for them after existence on this planet. We have folks like James Cameron pursuing and exploiting hoaxses trying to call into question the very nature of Jesus, and people fall for such pap on a regular basis. Ignorance is NOT bliss, it can kill.

A simple survey of the surroundings shows that there must be an Intelligent Creator behind the universe. To think that somehow, this all came about by random accident defies logic (not to mention the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics). So, putting any assumption of a Creator aside, and taking the existence of the Creator to be fact then and only then can we start to address the question posed at the beginning of this discourse.

Since there IS a God, there must be a purpose for my life. My purpose is to bring glory and honor to Him through His One and Only Son, Jesus. Now, that purpose keeps me plenty busy! When I am "on task" I don't have time for the pity parties that seem to engulf me on a far too regular basis. When I am "on task" others around me are being blessed. When I am "on task" my life runs so much more smoothly!

Over the next 40 Days (okay, now 37) I am participating in the "40 Days Of Purpose" Campaign with Vero Christian Church. Over the next six weeks, we will examine the five purposes of the church and of us as individuals: Worship - You Were Planned For God's Pleasure, Fellowship - You Were Formed For God's Family, Discipleship - You Were Created To Become Like Christ, Ministry - Your Were Shaped For Serving God, and Evangelism - You Were Made For A Mission.

I am leading groups for children, youth and adults in our campaign, and we have a dozen groups studying this material. It is my desire to see the congregation known as Vero Christian Church grow closer to God and closer to one another.

40 Days of Purpose

Our congregation begins the 40 Days of Purpose campaign on Sunday, Feb. 25th. We have 12 small groups ready to do the weekly Bible study. Steve Jones is preparing the messages for Sunday morning. We are advertising like never before in the local newspaper. In the past two weeks, we have had nine people call the church office and sign up for one of the small groups Bible studies. We have started the campaign yet, and it is already one of the more successful outreach events we have done in the six years I have been here.

In a survey I did with several larger and growing Christian Churches in the state of Florida about three years ago, each of those responding credited 40 Days of Purpose as a defining moment in their growth. I don't believe that this campaign will be a "magic pill" but I do believe that getting our people excited about studying God's Word together, and getting our people excited about asking their non-churched friends to join them in the study will have a profound impact on Vero Christian Church. Join me in prayer about this matter, won't you?

Super Comments

I am not a big Colts fan (at least not since they left Baltimore in the middle of the night and moved to Indy), but I am a huge fan of Jesus. I am therefore a fan of those who will publicly proclaim their faith. Check out these two video clips featuring Colts Coach Tony Dungy:
A post-gameinterview after the AFC championship game victory.


An Athletes In Action breakfast prior to the Super Bowl.


Thank you Tony for publicly standing up for Jesus!

All That I Need

In my personal daily devotions the other evening, I read Psalm 23 (among other passages from the one year Bible...check it out online.)in the New Living Translation. It reads: The Lord is my shepherd; I have everything that I need. As I ponder that thought, it has hit me, that I spend way too much time concerned about my needs, and not nearly enough time thanking God for meeting those needs. Like many people who live in Florida these days, we are having to find a new homeowners insurance company. We got non-renewed by Lloyds of London, I guess because of our hurricane damage claims from 2004. We were paying about $1,200 a year for insurance three years ago. It went upto $3,900 for 2005 and 2006 with a wind damage deductible jumping from $5,000 to $7,500. Today, the best deal we can find has an annual premium of $4,400, and a wind deducible of $12,000! I have sweated bullets over this, but after shopping around, this was the best deal wecould find. So, if another hurricane does hit us and we sustain the kind of damage we did after Francis and Jeanne in 2004, well, I know that God will provide. I just have to have faith. I still believe that God wants us here in Vero Beach. Our work here is not even close to being done, so, I have to believe that God will provide our needs. Of course, I am praying that we have no morehurricanes hit us. But, even if we do, and even if our damage is $12,000 (or $11,999), God will provide for our needs.

I don't write this to try to come off as some spiritual giant. I have struggled to getto this point. I simply write this to publicly proclaim that God is able to do more than I ask for or even imagine, and I trust that God will provide for all my needs, just as He has done all of my life.

Cats Blow Out the Vols!

Well, hopefully our Cats have come out of their two game slump. They certainly did it in style on Sunday, January 28th, defeating our arch rivals, the Tennessee Volunteers 76-57. Now, I realize that the Vols didn’t have Chris Lofton, and that we still have to go to that pagan land of Knoxville later, but let us celebrate our blow out victory today, okay? This win tops off a great weekend here at the Fabulous Blount Mansion as Elliott & Abi were in for an early birthday celebration for Dude, and Nanny & Papaw made it in for a nice visit, too. There are new pictures up on our flickr site, so check them out. Things are going fairly well with my voice, and I go to the E-N-T again on Friday to get the scoop there. Hopefully, I will be back on the radio next weekend, and back to more “normal” activities vocally before much longer. Thanks for the continued prayers, and no, I haven’t exploded because I had to be quiet during ballgames, etc. over the past month. Ha!

Go Cats!

Go Cats!
Originally uploaded by blountman.

The only thing better than watching Kentucky win their first bowl game since 1984 is watching it in High Definition!

Yeah, satan really is skating today with Kentucky's thumping of Clemson. The final score was closer than a true reflection of the game, since the Tigers scored with less than a minute to to go in the game to bring it that close. What a great game for Kentucky football fans. What a great picture on my hi def TV! Yeah, baby!

Abi and Elliott Blount

The Vows
Originally uploaded by blountman.

Friday, December 22nd has now come and gone. Abi is officially Mrs. Elliott Blount, and we are recouperating from the frenzy that is a wedding. I am sitting here in the very nice home of a family from Christian Church in the Wildwood, who graciously allowed us to live in their home for three days. Such Christian hospitality is just one of the small marks of a fantastic past few days.

We had plenty of those last-minute tension builders, like the programs that had to be reprinted on Thursday afternoon, and the tuxes that didn't arrive until five minutes before the ceremony was supposed to start, but the wedding was beautiful and went off without a hitch. Well, except for the fact that Elliott and Abi got hitched!

I have posted several pictures from the wedding, the rehearsal and some of the home in which we stayed on my FLICKR SITE so you can get a better idea of the beautiful time that was this wedding from those pictures.

It's Saturday morning, and I am getting ready to roust Ian and Emily from bed, send them to the showers, and hit the shower myself. We have a breakfast to attend with Abi's family (Elliott and Abi are long gone, heading to the Bahamas for their Honeymoon), then I am driving Abi's car back to Kissimmee for them, and then we will finally head home later this afternoon.

May God bless Abi and Elliott as they start their life together. We are truly blessed to have another daughter and we love Abi dearly. Poor girl, she still has no idea what she has gotten herself into!

Happy Birthday, Dad

Dad
Originally uploaded by blountman.

I know he will never see this, because he doesn't even have a computer, much less visit cyberspace, but today is Dad's birthday, and I just wanted to wish him a very happy one!

Christmas Tree '06

Christmas Tree '06
Originally uploaded by blountman.

I love our family Christmas Tree.

Christmas Trees mean different things to different people. For the Blounts, the tree is a family history and an expression of our love for Jesus. Numerous ornaments depicting the manger can be found. Red birds that once adorned Mama Thelma’s tree are there. So are those ornaments that twirl around from the heat of the lights that used to hang on Mama Stella’s tree. How about the cross-stitch ornaments that my Mom made for us? The Angel topper once was on Mae Mae's tree. The hand-made ornaments from each of the kids loving crafted during their early childhood years always bring smiles to our faces as we decorate the tree. We have ornaments reflecting high schools and colleges we love, sports teams about which we are passionate, ornaments given to Peggy as gifts from her students over the years, and that egg ornament made for me by...well, I've "Ben" trying to remember who made that one (an inside joke, sorry). We have ornaments reminding us of family vacations, and we have family ornaments with all of our names on them dating back over the past decade! This year's family ornament includes the newest member of the family: Abi, who becomes Elliott's Bride just before Christmas this year. Being a Trekkie, we have several starship ornaments on our tree; being a Veggie Tales fanatic, we have Bob, Larry and the gang hanging out on our tree as well. We have ornaments that remind us of Christmas books we have read as a family, and we have hand-made ornaments from church family over the years. Every ornament on our tree tells part of the story of our family.

Now, I know that people decorate trees in many different ways, with different themes and different schemes. However, I like seeing our family story played out on our Christmas Tree. The reflection of our shared love for Jesus warms my heart. The fact that many ornaments on this year's tree will move to Elliott and Abi's tree next year is part of that process. It is time for them to start making family memories to be represented by various ornaments. Ian and Emily will soon follow in Elliott's footsteps, and then Peggy and I will have fewer ornaments hanging on our tree, but we will still have the memories of the family love we share.

I love our family Christmas Tree.

Happy Birthday, Lil Bro

Trust me, I could have done much more damage picture-wise than this one. Here is the gang, skinny Scott, Tim with hair on his head not his chin, Ed with the 'fro, and Donna when she was cute. Wink, wink. Oh for simpler times, eh?

Christ Follower

While reading my dear brother in Christ Arron Chambers' blog today, I saw a parody video that is one of those "hmmmmm....." deals. Produced by Community Christian Church in Naperville, IL, this series parodies the Mac comercials on TV these days. This is #2 in the series, and is my personal favorite. Thanks Arron, for turning me onto this series of thought-provoking messages.



Be God's,
Scott

Senior Recital

Belting It Out
Originally uploaded by blountman.

Friday, November 10, 2006, Elliott had his Senior Vocal Recital at Florida Christian College. This is the culmination of his Music Ministry Degree at FCC. The first half of the recital included a collection of classical music and spirituals sung by Elliott while accompanied on the new Grand Piano the college has just gotten. Those selections included:
Caro Mio Ben

Vittoira, Vittoira, Mio Core

Ich Gro Le Nich

Windmung

Zeignung

Deep River

Somebody's Knocking At Your Door

Elijah

The Trumpet Shall Sound

All of Me

Despite his sore throat, Elliott nailed this part of the recital. Especially on my favorite song from this collection: The Trumpet Shall Sound from Handel's Messiah. We could not have been more proud.

Then, came the worship set portion of the recital, where Elliott was joined by Abi and Tyler to lead the 30-to-35 of us gathered there in a time of praise and worship. Those songs included favorites such as Your Grace Is Enough, Forever, Enough, and Take My Life (Her Am I) among others.

Afterwards, we had a great meal with Abi's parents, Peggy's parents, Emily, and Tyler. Unfortunately, Ian had to work, so he couldn't join us for the evening. What a fantastic evening.

Number 18

Balloon Time II
Originally uploaded by blountman.

It is way too mind-boggling to think that Ian is now 18 years old. As I think back on the many fond memories; on the triumphs over adversity; over the laughter and tears that Ian has produced in his Mother and me, I am overwhelmed with a sense of pride and joy. When I see the man of God that Ian is developing into, I am blown away by his faith and his trust in our Lord Jesus. His sweet spirit and his giving heart are just two of Ian's numerous wonderful traits. Ian is the quintessential Middle Child, and we have had our fair share of struggles in areas I won't go into on this blog. The bottom line is this: Ian can do all things through Christ Who strengthens him. My prayer for Ian continues to be that he will allow Jesus to mold him into the man Jesus wants him to be. My prayer for Peggy and me is that we can be the best parents possible given our human frailties. I just don't want to mess my kids up too badly.

Thanks to Amber and Jonathan for sharing in the evening's festivities with us as we celebrated number 18 for Ian. He is a special dude to us, and our lives are so much better because he is a big part of those lives.

Thank you, Ian for being "my man." My love for you grows stronger each day, and I am so proud to be called your Dad. Keep those big eyes focused on Christ, and on His plan for your life.

Elliott's Testimony

Elliott's Testimony
Originally uploaded by blountman.

Words do not adequately express my feelings as I reflect back over the weekend. On Saturday, several of us from VCC went up to Florida Christian College for Round Up. That is a major fund raising event with a western theme to it. The college had a couple of alumni give testimonies about what the school has meant to them, and Tommy Oaks preached one of his usual fantastic messages. Then, I saw Elliott make his way to a front row in the Chapman Center. I could feel the tears welling up even before he made his way to the podium to deliver his testimony. I had no foreknowledge of this and I can't even remember much of what he said because I was so emotional. I do remember him saying that he only came to FCC because his Dad told him he had to do at least one year at a Bible College. I lost it at that point. Elliott has grown so much as a man and as a Christian while he has been at FCC over these past 3 1/2 years. When he graduates next month, he won't just be getting a degree, he will be fulfilling a ministry prayer of his mother's and mine. He will go into full time Christian Ministry as a worship minister! You can see pictures of his ordination service held at VCC on October 29th by visiting my flickr site. You'll also see pictures of Ian's 18th birthday celebration which we started two days early. I am so proud of the young man Ian is becoming! God has blessed me beyond measure with these two sons, and I won't short change my darling daughter, either! How God could allow me to take care of these three kids for Him is beyond me, but I am a blessed man for sure! To have my salvation in Christ, to be married to the most beautiful woman on the planet, and to have three kids who love Jesus more than life...well, of course I am the most blessed man on earth!

What A Report Card!

It has been a long, "interesting" journey, but yesterday afternoon Ian's report card made me happier than I have been at report card time in the past four years! He has seven classes, and he got six A's and one B+ (in weight lifting)!

Thank you to those who have prayed with us and specifically prayed for Ian. As I told him yesterday, keep up the great work!

Oh, Emily's report card was good, too. Not as good as Ian's. Haven't been able to make that claim in the past four years, either!

Resign, Senator Dumb Guy!

I don't usually get political on my blog, but I cannot stay silent on this one, folks. Okay the three of you who ever look at this blog, anyway. John Kerry should resign after his totally ludicrous remark insulting the intelligence of our military forces, and the intelligence of the American People in general. Others have been forced to resign from public office for "botching a joke" (Trent Lott for example), and those jokes neither attacked our military forces nor the American Public in general.

I'm glad to see that our soliders in Iraq can show a sense of humor as they take a jab at the Senator as pictured above. However, this lousy excuse of a public servant has called our military forces rapists and murderers in not one but at least two different wars. I am not saying that there aren't individuals who wear the uniform who don't cross the line, but John the Donkey Kerry has crossed the line more so than any of them could ever hope to. To give aid and comfort to the enemies of this country has a name: treason. Resign, Senator Dumb Guy.

What A Weekend!

Natural Position
Originally uploaded by blountman.

Elliott and Abi came down from Kissimmee for a bridal shower on Saturday and for Elliott's ordination service on Sunday. We were so blessed to have not just them, but Nanny & Papaw, and Lil Bro come in for the weekend!

Abi closed at work Friday night, and apparently ate some "bad chinese food," so she was ill upon their arrival at 2:30 a.m. Saturday. We let her sleep in until 8:30 before awakening her so she could get ready for the 10:00 a.m. bridal shower hosted by Cathy Aldhizer and put on by the ladies of VCC.

Lil Bro arrived about 8:20 a.m. Saturday, having chosen to stay home with the kitties on Friday night. Only Nanny and Papaw were "brave enough" to get here Friday night.

We (and by we, I mean Elliott and I) had planned on going to the beach while the girls were having their shower, but God had others plans. It was a stormy, rainy Saturday morning, so we chilled in the living room waiting for football to start so we could enjoy the hi def football experience. It was quite nice.

Our male bonding time was rudely interrupted by the girls returning bearing many gifts. Of course, Elliott was obligated to look them all over and at least feign excitement. He was genuinely excited by most of the gifts, we just had to give him a hard time.

More football, followed by card games, naps and the coveted Fall Back night of extra sleep followed. It was a truly good day.

On Sunday, we ordained Elliott into Christian Ministry. He has now been specifically set apart by the elders of Vero Christian Church for full time Christian Service as a music minister. That was a cool thing, if I do say so myself, and I do. I had the privilege of preaching the message that morning (check it out at our web site - www.verochristian.com and then go to the sermon page). It was an emotional and beautiful day.

We had Nachos for dinner Sunday in honor of the release of the movie Nacho Libre, and by four o'clock everyone was gone. Peggy and I caught our breaths and got ready for youth groups. We had about 25 in our house that night for our study in the book of Acts. What a weekend!

Bluebird of Happiness

Bluebird of Happiness
Originally uploaded by blountman.

Emily spotted this bird hanging out in the Palm Trees in our mulch bed next to the house. The bird was quite calm and relaxed perched in the Palm Tree, enabling both Emily and me to take several close-up shots with the camera. Guess it is a sign, eh? The Bluebird of Happiness pays us a visit just before we have Elliott's ordination service on Sunday, and just after what he described as a very good day of interviewing and leading worship at a church that is interested in brining him on board. He describes that as his "dream job." We also will have a house full of family this weekend as Peggy's parents, my Lil Bro, Elliott, Abi and Tyler will all be here for the wedding shower/ordination weekend. Now, THAT, truly makes me happy.