Mundane

Life is not always exciting. If only life could be as exciting as a roller coaster, then again I guess we would tire of that soon enough.

There are times when the mundane seems to be whats in store for the evening. Re-runs on tv, a movie you've seen before on Netflix, or perhaps staring at a candle as the shadows cascade up and down the wall, dancing.

Yep Life can be pretty boring sometimes, but ya know there needs to be balance in life.
For happiness to exist, sadness must also be around. For good to prevail, we must have to opposite of bad.

For excitement to excite, boredom must......bore. I think your starting to get the picture now.

Treasure life, the boring, the happy, the sad, the good and the bad.

At least you have a life to live.

Correction

Being corrected is never easy.

I am 26 years old. I have 1 year of experience being a full time Children's Minister. So there are a lot of things that I don't know. There are many things that I need to figure out. Right now as I am starting out on my journey as a minister, I am in the process of trail and error. I am seeing what works and what doesn't.

And believe me, this past week I have realized what was not working. Through the help of my volunteers.

Am I angry at my volunteers for pointing out my down falls? no.

In fact, I am humbled and thankful. How else will I ever learn? I need to be told what I am doing is working or I need to be told that what I am doing is not working at all.

Is it easy to hear that you are doing things wrong? Not at all!

But rather than dwell on the thoughts of "I've been doing things wrong" I want to focus on the future and how can I change things for the better right now.

I can not change the past, but I can change what I do in the future.

I am not a failure. I am simply learning what works and what does not work.

In my first year as a minister I feel I have changed a lot. and yaknow I'm not done changing either. I am sure I will go through many changes as the years go by.

I committed to be a life long learner. I will be the first to admit I do not have it all figured out. I know very little. But I hope to learn and change and be better, that is my goal in life. To be better.

Correction is hard, but necessary.

Lord event though these past few weeks have been hard, I thank you for them. I am thankful that I am growing and learning. Teach me Lord, your student is listening.

-The Adam Rainwater
Children's Minister

Life

So I really don't know where this blog post is going to go but it is going to go somewhere.

I thought I would just share what I've been up to in life and whats on my mind.

I have really enjoyed this holiday season, mostly because I was able to use my saved up vacation days. They were much needed. Now my job is not horrible by any means, it can be, but it is usually not. But not having to get up and go to an office has been nice.

I long to be lazy! To just lay on the couch, Facebook and Pinterest on my iPad, play my guitar and just spend time with my wife and our wiener dog.

Life doesn't have to be extravagant, it really is all about the simple things in life. Like getting some vacation days not to go somewhere or do something, but sometimes it is nice to just do nothing.

I'm growing a beard currently, why? To be honest, on my vacation I was to lazy to shave. So after a couple of days of not shaving I thought: "Might as well go for the beard!"
So that is what I'm doing.

Ordinary? You betcha!

But life is ordinary.

Life is not always cinderella's ball, sometimes it's frozen chicken and whatever is on Netflix.

-The Adam Rainwater

What is The Adam listening to?

At one time I owned a 160 gig iPod, it was crammed with all kinds of musical goodness.

These days I listen to Spotify non-stop! If you don't know what Spotify is, where have been? Hiding under a rock? (Patrick!?) 

Spotify is a lot like iTunes, except you pay for nothing! You pick the music you want to listen to, add it to a playlist and your good to go. You will hear the occasional commercial, but it is worth it.

ANYWAYS!

I thought I would share what I'm listening to these days

1. Eye on it -Toby Mac

2. Planetshakers (All of their albums are good!)

3. Shawn McDonald (All of his stuff is awesome)

4. Switchfoot

5. Paul Baloche (He is like an old school Chris Tomlin, He wrote "Open the eyes of my heart")

6. Kari Jobe (I don't like to listen to many chick singers, but she has some good songs)

I could go on forever! But those are just a few of the artist I listen to these days. I recently got a record player, so I've been spinnin some vinyl! Old school stuff like Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Elvis, James Taylor, Neil Diamond (I will get that record for Christmas!!)

Whatever music you listen to, all I ask is that you be careful what you allow to penetrate your brain.

Garbage in, Garbage out. 

You may think that listening to gansta rap about smoking homies in a drive by is harmless. But I promise, soon that is going to come out of you in a negative way at some point.

So be careful, enjoy some good tunes, and if you have any suggestions for me, let me know!

I am always on the look out for some good tunes.

-The Adam Rainwater

Running from your faith

I've been a christian since I was about 14. Starting out as a Christian I really didn't know much about God at all. Now 12 years later I feel like I have somewhat of a clue, not a giant one, but a small clue. 

I am not a deep theologian, I don't enjoy disecting every little thing about God, nor do I really enjoy a lot of history. The history of the church and such don't interest me.

What does interest me is a realtionship with the creator of the universe. The maker of the stars and He calls me by name. One thing I am curious about is why God would choose to love me even though I do not deserve it at all. I am a sinner, I mess up daily. I mean I've blown it more than a million times in my short 26 years on this earth.
But there God is, love unfailing, mercy new each morning. Holding out grace, waiting for me to take it.
I am truly humbled.

Let's get to the point of this blog shall we? Last Christmas time my faith was under attack. Satan was hitting me hard, I was beginning to doubt all of the things that I had believed for years. 
As I sat in the church service hearing the story of the birth of Jesus, I began to question.
"Virgin birth? what if these people just made up this story and it's be carried on?"

Soon I had entertained these thoughts so much, that soon I was doubting everything.
"Was Jonah really in the belly of a large fish for days?"
"Did the waters really part for Moses?"

It was a rough time for me, These were things that I hadn't struggled with! I had always believed these things! Why now!

Was I going to have to run from my christian faith? I mean if I didn't believe these things why was I in church? Why was I leading a childrens ministry?

I cried out to God, "Whats the deal!? I don't understand! Why do you ask us to believe things that are hard to believe!?"

And then it hit me. God had spoken. It wasn't an audible voice, it was more like a thought entered my head. The thought went something like this:

"I do ask you to believe things that are hard to believe, thats why it is called faith. How dare you say that those things didn't happen. You are looking at things through a finite mind. I am infinite. My ways are way higher than your ways. Trust me, I got this."

From time to time the thought "This didn't happen" will enter my mind as I am reading the Bible, but I have to come back to that thought "I am looking at things through a finite mind, God is infinite. His ways are higher than my ways, trust me, I got this."

I know a lot of my friends who have gone through this very same thing. But for them, they just can't stop focusing on the questions.
Drop your questions at the foot of the cross and just gaze at your savior, trust Him, he is in control, you are not.
You are a finite being, you have a beginning and an end. God is infinite, he was not created, nor will he end, he has always been, and always will be. He can do things that you can not do.

I think the problem is, we like to humanize God. We try to put him on our terms, and we just can't do that. God is bigger than our punny little minds could ever imagine. 

-The Adam Rainwater

17, 18, 19, Routine

I don't know if your life is anything like mine, but I bet it is. It seems like I do the same things over and over. I eat the same things, watch the same things on t.v., go to the same website. Even church is routine. We have the same order of service, sing the same songs.

Routine is enough to make anyone go crazy! Now some routine is good I will say, like brushing your teeth before bed and paying your taxes.

There is more to life than routine though. We need to bust out with something random! Something that catches us off guard, and dare I say it, something that makes us uncomfortable! Maybe even brings a cold sweat.

We have hearts, it's what pumps our blood, it keeps life going, but we've been doing the same things over and over that our heart is just numb, beating the same amount each day. Not any faster or any slower.

We need to spike that heart rate! We need to live! We need to punch our routines in the face and bust out something random! I don't know what that random thing can be, hey it can be anything! Just do something different! Catch yourself off guard! We need new ideas, a fresh ways to look at the world around us, and that is only going to happen if we step outside of our cookie cutter, routine existence and really live!!!

Your challenge is to do something you normally wouldn't do everyday for a week, or maybe a month! Heck you might like it so much that you make it an everyday thing! But whatever you do, just break free.

"Randomness is the spice of life."
                               -The Adam Rainwater

Yeah I quoted myself, it's a great quote that I try to live my life by. I came up with it.
What are you going to come up with?

It's been a crazy year!

So around this time last year I start my journey as a full time children's minister at FBE Lawton.

I gotta say, it has been a crazy year! But, crazy good!

I have made tons of mistakes because I've never done anything like this before. I am constantly learning. I am still in the process of forming my opinions on what is important in children's ministry. It is an ongoing process. A process that will not end until I die! I learn something new everyday. And ya know that makes life exciting.
I have grown to love everyone here at FBE Lawton. I am way beyond blessed to be here and to be a part of what goes on.

Something I hear over and over is: "Your young!" "Your just a baby!"
Well yeah! I am young! Sorry I didn't play hide the dinosaur egg when I was a kid!
I am young! I will take full ownership of that. But I have a passion inside. I am called by God to lead kids to the Lord. God has gifted me and he is with me and is helping me everyday. I can not do this on my own. It is only with God that I am able to do anything.

It's been one awesome year! It's been so crazy. Sometimes I just sit in my office and think "Is this real? Am I really a children's minister?"

Like I said, I am beyond blessed. When I first got here to FBE I decided something. If God isn't helping me every second of every day as I am ministering to children and families, then I don't want to do it. I can only do this with Gods help.

I am forever dependent on him. I am nothing without him. I am worthless, but with him, I'm a little less worthless

-The Adam Rainwater