Contrasting Churches in Tyler, Texas

Okay, my wife and I have some very dear friends who are planting a church in Tyler, Texas.  Their daughter was born on our wedding day so we have always had a natural connection to them, not to mention that Garth and I are very close and Melisa and Donna have been friends for years.  With that being said, when we heard that they were going to be leaving us (they were both on staff at The Church Alive) we were pretty upset. 

I guess the Holy Spirit had already prepared my heart for the news before hand because I had mentioned to Donna a few days prior to receiving the news that something like this could eventually happen.  Well, once they met with us and shared their heart it only confirmed to me that this was God’s call for them to go and do this, but of course I still didn’t like it.

One thing I have learned from watching Garth and Melisa’s journey is that planting a church has it’s ups and downs, these two have been through a whole lot getting this church off the ground and still have a long road ahead of them.  Spending time w/ them this weekend I witnessed firsthand their determination and it inspired me, of course I would never tell them that.  I still keep some alarming statistics about Texas handy to blurt out at any given time just in hopes they will move back but I have accepted the fact that it’s all in vain.  I have devoted some research to this too, everything from Texas’ high ranking in repeat teen pregnancy, human trafficking, and methamphetamine production, they can’t be budged.  So, I am officially throwing in the towel…

Donna and I have already sewn into their ministry in the past by every means possible, prayer, finances, infrastructure, website and hosting, and even our talents (Donna sang this past week, I played Cowbell) and we will continue to do so as we are able.  It takes a special heart and endurance to do this whole church planting thing, and I can’t think of two more people better equipped to answer God’s call than Garth and Melisa.

If you live in the Tyler, Texas area, or know someone who does, please send them to the Summit Church website, and encourage them to connect with Garth and Melisa.  They also have a presence on Facebook and Twitter so be sure to connect with them there too, but most of all, please keep my friends in your prayers!

• Summit Church Facebook
• Summit Church Twitter

A Funny Story from the Weekend…

The next part of this story is yet even further proof that I can’t stay in your home for a few days without a funny a memorable story happening.  And what makes this story so funny is how straight-laced and ministry focused our friends are, this sort of thing doesn’t phase me, but the look of shock and surprise on their faces was priceless, and it came at a good time when we could all have used a good laugh…

This past weekend while we were visiting them in Tyler, Garth got an iPhone.  He and I were sitting around installing apps for managing his Facebook and Twitter, etc., and I was showing him one cool feature on Twitterfon that allows you to search recent tweets for those that are nearby (2.5 miles, 5 miles, etc.).

Well, in doing so I ran across a couple of tweets by folks who were professed Nudists.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking the lifestyle, to each their own.  But obviously we are no nudists, nor do we know any (I guess we don’t, lol). Jokingly I told Garth that he should open up his vision for the Summit Church a little bit and try to include the large nudist population in the Tyler area.  Of course he just shrugged this off just like he has my countless “alarming statistics about Texas”. 

While we were having lunch after their service Sunday morning I got on Twitter to show some of our friends the Tweets by local nudists to some of our friends down there.  Well, long story short, some of these tweets were about a nudist church located in Tyler…  Someone had beat us to the punch… haha.

I did a little investigating on Google and sure enough, there was a nudist church website out there for a Calvary Nudist Baptist Church!  (see the screenshot to the right, I am obviously not going to link to this website, although it didn’t have any offensive images other than their pastor being shirtless on the home page).

We got a huge laugh out of this the entire weekend, and I snickered for miles on our way home as I called some of our friends in Conway to let them know about this nudist church, there’s just something funny about naked people in a church, I am sorry, that’s just funny.

I also posted this twitpic of the website on Twitter and quite a few of my tweeps got a kick out of it as well.  Well, along about Hot Springs on our way back home I switched w/ my wife and let her drive.  I took advantage of the 3g service area and did a little research on this nudist church and found that it’s more than likely not a real church.  I have to admit that I was a little dissapointed but not shocked, the whole idea is a littel far-fetched. 

The local media there in Tyler had numerous phone calls about this church and this is a recap of their report:

Oh well.  You have to give whoever set this website up a thumbs up on giving us all a good laugh.  The website is hosted on a subdomain of a company called “Nearly Free Speech” if that also gives some sort of a clue as to the websites origin…