Tag: nick carnes

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180Weekend at TrueNorth Church Recap

I had the opportunity this weekend and on Wednesday to participate in a movement of God.

A couple of months back Adam asked my friend Shane to speak for TrueNorth Church’s 180 Weekend for their students. Shane was not able to speak because his student ministry at Greenbrier Church was also hosting a similar weekend with their students, but Shane gave Adam my name.

The Theme for 180 was Collide, so I went to their normal Element mid-week service to set things up and give a preview of the weekend. I left on Wednesday really impressed with the genuine worship from both the middle school and the high school, I also left feeling a little nervous. These kids are special and I felt like I may end up hurting what God was trying to do rather than help. After all, the previous two weeks have been CRAZY at home, at work and New Passion. I worked 52 hours the week before 180 at my normal job not including my second job pastoring New Passion and my primary job of husband and dad. I was facing 6 messages between Wednesday and Sunday, so I had no idea what to expect, and for most of the week I just wanted to just stop and shut my eyes. At times I didn’t feel like I had 100% to give this ministry and this special weekend. Of course, God is sovereign and he can use a donkey if he wants to, so I knew He was in control of the weekend.

I thought it was funny to learn that Cliff Jennings was leading worship. I have never heard of Cliff, so I had never met him, however, he is the Worship Leader at Stevens Creek Church in Grovetown. They meet just up the road from us, so here two Grovetown ministers were going to lead at TrueNorth (Come to find out his dad is Gene Jennings, the Executive Pastor at TNC). It’s funny how God puts things together. Let me add right here. Stevens Creek is blessed with a great worship leader, he’s almost as good as Jonothan 🙂 – I got to talk with Cliff for a little bit after the final session, he’s a great guy, and Stevens Creek is blessed to have him.

All I can say is I felt the presence of God strongly at the Blok. A few students shared with me a little of what God was speaking to them from the weekend. If God so chose to use my feebleness, I am truly blessed and thankful.

I have a special place in my heart for North Augusta. My wife and her family are from there, my kids spend the weekends at my mom-in-law’s house there, I lived there for a while, went to school and church over there, and I eat lunch there sometimes. I’ve heard for several years that God is doing something great through TrueNorth, and now I’ve experienced it first hand. I heard things continued over into the Sunday service as well. I cannot wait to watch and see what God does next as they prepare to move onto their new property and continue to take the gospel to the community.

I can only pray that God ignites a fire in New Passion as he has in TrueNorth. Their people are excited, passionate, and the love of Jesus flows through them. I know that God is using their pastor Steve and youth pastor Adam as well as their other leaders greatly. I hope God does the same in Grovetown through New Passion and Stevens Creek what he is doing through TrueNorth.

P.S. We have a bright future. I’ve had the privilege to meet, speak to, and hear from a lot of local students over the last 4+ years, and Jesus has won their hearts and they are going to transform this world like we’ve  never seen before. I just know it!

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My 17 Year Old Valentine

I asked Nicki to be my Valentine this morning. She said, “Yes!”

This time it didn’t cost me anything.

It was a different story 17 years ago (as of Saturday, February 12). That time, it cost me a box of chocolates to get her to finally say yes.

It was the day of our Valentine’s Banquet (February 12) for the church we attended. We were not going to the banquet with each other, but I had my eye on Nicki for quiet a while. I was in seventh grade and she was in sixth at the time. My friend was ‘going out with‘ her best friend. That’s not why I liked Nicki, but it made things better. I asked Nicki to ‘go out with me‘ once already and she told me no, she liked some other boy in her class. Although they were not boyfriend and girlfriend. In fact, I don’t even think he liked her; I think he was still picking his nose and playing in dirt. So, I was down but not out.

Keep reading, this is an inspirational story that will make you want to keep believing when your backs against a wall and there’s nowhere to turn. They’ll make a documentary about this one day!

Someone in my class gave me a small heart shaped box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day. It had a furry, cute little creature on it. I didn’t like chocolates and I didn’t have any money, but I had just been given all the ammunition I needed to win Nicki’s heart. I quickly penned a note, as to why Nicki should be my girlfriend and ditch the other guy. At the end of school that day I gave Nicki the box of chocolates and the note asking her to be my Valentine and my girlfriend. And when all hope was gone…She said “Yes!”

We were together for a little while, I’m not sure how many weeks or months, but at some point we broke up. I remember my friend broke up with her friend and so I broke up with her. It saved us a bunch of fighting over which friend was right. Remember: we were in 6th and 7th grade.

– – – 5 Years Later – – – I had just returned to the church & school where Nicki and I first met to finish up my Junior year in High School. When I first returned I actually had another girlfriend who was outside of the school. After several months, I broke up with the girl I was dating and was not really looking to date. I was content hanging out with my friends. At the start of my Senior year, Nicki and I shared a class or two with each other and would have small conversations here and there. She claims I told her I would bleed for creed (it was a promotion to give blood in exchange for Creed tickets) for her, however, I think one night while she was dreaming of me she dreamed that conversation.

A friend of mine heard that Nicki liked me and suggested I asked her to the infamous Valentines Banquet this church put on annually. I guess as cheesy as I thought it was, I have to be thankful for it as it has been pivotal in my relationship with Nicki. I asked her, in between her tears of joy she said, “Yes!,” and it was a date.

I got Chicken Pox. At 18. The Valentines Banquet was not happening. I was not going around my classmates looking like that. However, Nicki still wanted to go out with me (remember tears of joy) despite the fact that I looked like my face was about to fall off. So we went to Olive Garden. It was February 12. We had a good time, as much as I could get her to talk.

On the way home, I pulled over and reminded her that it was 5 years ago to the day that I begged asked her to be my girlfriend (and it cost me a box of chocolates) and that I would like for her to go out with me officially starting that night. Just call me a romantic, pre-planner. She said, “Yes!” and we’ve been together for 12 years (married for 10) since that night.

Hold on, I just realized, I guess this time it cost me a dinner at Olive Garden 🙂

So, when you feel that your dream guy or girl is out of reach, the moral of the story is, a box of chocolates with a cute furry creature, a dinner at Olive Garden and begging could land you a lifetime of bliss!

Happy Valentines Day to my beautiful valentine, Nicki, the one I was almost meant to be with!

Join the Conversation…Do you have any exciting Valentine Stories?

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Pivot Points Part 2

On Monday, I posted about one of the pivot points that Nicki and I made in our marriage. As a result of our choice we’ve seen the fingerprints of God on our home time after time.

Today, my post is not about a pivot point as a couple, rather, a pivot point that I made as an individual before I got married. Couples make decisions and commitments together all the time. After all, when standing at the altar, the minister officiating a wedding asks for a commitment from the couple in order to fulfill the requirements of the ceremony. How many times has a couple made a vow and commitment to each other and it is broken? It happens all the time.

Commitments to each other will only be upheld if each individual makes a decision in their own heart that they will fulfill that vow.

PIVOT POINT #2: Established Boundaries

The song made famous by Top Gun says the following in some of it’s lyrics…

Revvin’ up your engine listen to her howlin’ roar
Metal under tension beggin’ you to touch and go

Highway to the Danger Zone ride into the Danger Zone

Out along the edges always where I burn to be
The further on the edge the hotter the intensity

Highway to the Danger Zone gonna take you
Right into the Danger Zone

Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins

A life and marriage without boundaries is a life lived on the edge, not begging to be in the danger zone, but already there!

This was a commitment I made BEFORE I got married. It is a commitment I would encourage any man or woman whether single, dating or engaged to make now. It is definitely a commitment that I would encourage any married man or woman to make if they have not already done so.

Who is this commitment made to?

  1. God
  2. Your (future or current) spouse
  3. Yourself

Shortly after I was married, someone (who will remain nameless), decided they would try to trap me and (I guess) test my commitment to my wife. This was back in the day when instant messaging was like today’s Twitter and Facebook.

I got a request from this “someone” and I didn’t recognize their user name. They posed as a UGA cheerleader and immediately started saying they noticed I was a Bulldog fan and liked certain things for which they had in common. The funny thing was, I did not post any of that information in my personal profile, so I immediately knew something was wrong.

I did two things. First, I contacted two or three people who I trusted and told them what was going on and that I had  suspicions that it was someone I knew. Secondly, I continued to lead this person on through the instant messenger to try and discover who it was that was trying to obviously hurt me and my reputation. This person was asking me to come see them at a Georgia game, for which I had never been able to go to, so I started talking a lot around people who I knew about trying to go to a Georgia football game.

Long story short…I don’t remember all of the details of how it happened, but I finally found out who was doing it and the situation was dealt with (like Jesus would have…maybe).

Sure, that was a softball, but even if they were not that bad at deception, and I did not have boundaries, I could have given into the temptation to meet-up with a Georgia cheerleader and my reputation, my character and my integrity would have been shattered. By the Way, when you are married to the sexiest woman on the planet, this is an easy temptation to overcome because no other woman can compare! 🙂

By passing this test and maintaining my character, when a “concerned” lady in my church several years ago ran into my mom-in-law in the store and tried to accuse me of “being in the car” with another woman. My mom-in-law (who is wonderful by the way) knew immediately that this woman was only trying to cause problems and get me in trouble. My mom-in-law also knew that I was currently working at a car dealership and it was my job to be in the car with all sorts of people who wanted to test drive a car. By the way, this car only had a dealer tag and a sales sticker in the window. The fact is, some people are just fools.

The Traffic Light

In the marriage course, a Biblical Portrait of Marriage, Bruce Wilkinson talks about the traffic light and how we all put off a signal.

  • The Red Light (meaning stop) signifies that “You” are not available.
  • The Yellow Light (meaning slow down)….well, I’m 30, my memory is slipping from me. Let’s just say it means you still don’t have proper boundaries.
  • The Green Light (meaning go) signifies that “You” are available.

The question you have to ask yourself as a married spouse is what signal are you giving others outside your marriage? How do you talk with those individuals? How do you exchange touches? What kind of compliments do you pay them?

If you have the proper boundaries, when others interact with you, they should not receive any sincere or false signals that you are remotely “available” to them.

I’ll post later about my personal boundaries that I have set…

Men and Women…Join the Conversation…Have you set boundaries as an individual for your relationship to your significant other? What are they?

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Reflections on 30 Years of Life

Well tonight at 9:35 p.m. (and not a second earlier) I will enter into the infamous old man’s club, as I enter my third decade of life. I want to use this post to reflect on some of my memories both good and bad over the last 30 years, so enjoy a little bit of my life….

  • I remember that first evening at St. Joseph Hospital in Augusta, GA. It was cold, I really wish they would make hospitals a little warmer for new babies, however, that could not take away from being the best looking baby born that night December 16, 1980. I remember the doctors saying out of all 25 babies born that night, I was also the best behaved, and I looked the most like Jesus. They were so kind!
  • I spent most of my childhood with a chipped tooth. In most of the pictures where I am smiling as a child you can see it. It really didn’t bother me, it was kind of like a badge of honor. I was kind of sad the day it fell out.
  • I used to not be able to pronounce the “R” sound. I would say it like a “W” – My fourth grade speech therapist threatened to cut the little thing under my tongue. I learned to say the “R” sound.
  • I was convinced for a LONG time, like up until last year, that Santa Clause was real, because a dad dressed up and sat out on his porch at the corner house on Heard Ave. peering into his child’s bedroom. Wait…I hope it was the child’s dad.
  • I used to love going to the Mall and eating at “Corn Dog”  and getting an Orange Julius. Those were great times.
  • There is a seafood restaurant in Augusta called T’s. I liked going there because I thought “Mr. T” owned it.
  • I loved watching Knight Rider, the A-Team, the Fall Guy, Air Wolf, CHiPs, The Justice League, Transformers, their poor man knock-offs the Gobots, and I loved Saturday Cartoons along with USA’s Cartoon Express.
  • I love(d) Superman.
  • I am Superman.
  • I collected all of the Justice League Characters.
  • I wasn’t allowed to watch the Smurfs growing up. My dad was a very strict for a while, until we took him to a Third Day concert.
  • I grew up in some very legalistic, fundamental churches.
  • I am still in therapy.
  • Honestly: I am thankful for the Christian heritage and foundation that God has given me. I am thankful for every Church and Christian who has invested in my life. I believe that it’s through those churches and people that I have found God for who I know him to be today. I love what Acts 17:27 says, “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us.” I believe He placed me where I could find him best.
  • I used to love going to my Granny’s house on Friday nights. Most of our family would be there. We grew up together and all of us are very close. We dressed up and performed songs for our family, we played together in the play room, and it was awesome when Granny would open “K-Mart” (the back room where she kept the toys she found on clearance) to give us a special toy. My cousins always put me up to asking Granny to open K-Mart, even after my dad told me in the car, “Don’t ask for anything!” So, Granny would open K-Mart, give us a toy, and then I got to stand in the corner. I think my Cousins owe me.
  • My Granny died one early Saturday morning after one of our visits on Saturday night. I miss her.
  • I love(d) going to my Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Covington, GA. I’d go up for week’s at a time and I would help my Grandparents work and Grandma would take us shopping at Sears. They took me on a tour of parts of the U.S. from Georgia to Florida to Illinois to New York City, and then another trip to Cherokee and Santa Land. Those were good times!
  • I am thankful for great parents who raised me in a Christian home. For a mom who stayed at home to raise my brother and sisters. She was doing backyard Bible clubs with my family and cousins before they were cool. I am thankful for a dad who at many times worked multiple jobs to make it possible for my mom to stay at home with us and to do Backyard Bible clubs.
  • We used to have a Sky City right behind our house, so we would walk to it during the day. I would ALWAYS get a free coke out of the coke machine. My cousins would even go bang on the machine before me to try and get one first. It didn’t work. It only worked for me. It was crazy! My family was poor, so me and my sister and all of my cousins (8 total kids) would cram into this little machine that played a quick cartoon for .25 cents.
  • I was a Coke-a-holic. I hate drinking water, so all I used to drink was Coke.
  • My parents tried to limit my intake of Coke.
  • It didn’t work. I was 50 pounds overweight three years ago, mainly because of Coke.
  • I lost 53 pounds and went from 193 lbs to 140 lbs, I am now around 145.
  • I knocked myself out in Middle School. I was running and tripped and landed with a curb up my ribs. My girlfriend (not to be confused with the love of my life mentioned next) cried, she thought I was dead!
  • In 6th grade I met the love of my life. She didn’t know it yet. In fact I had to persuade her to be my girlfriend with a box of chocolates.
  • I broke up with her a couple of weeks later because my best friend dumped her best friend.
  • She practically begged me to take her back when I was in 12th grade. We’ve been together ever since.
  • I have the most beautiful, stubborn, kind, hardheaded, patient, hardworking, frustrating, and loving wife. I have been honored to be married to her for a third of my life (10 years for the math challenged).
  • She won’t leave me alone and I can’t tell her no, so God has blessed us with three amazing children, Gavin, Tristan, and Hailey.
  • I attend the greatest church in the world, New Passion Church. We have one of the greatest looking pastors in the world! We are on the brink of seeing God do amazing things through our church. I can’t wait to be a part of it!
  • It would be a mockery of God to not acknowledge that I am truly a blessed man. God has done great things in my first 30 years, I cannot wait to see what he does in the next 30 years.
  • If you are reading this and you know me. Thank you for being a part of my first 30 years! My memory may fade and I may not know you after today (you know us old people) but I am grateful for you.
  • In honor of my birthday, you can help make memories for people in Africa that do not have clean water. A donation of any amount towards my birthday campaign will help provide clean water for many people who may not live to see 30 without it!
  • http://mycharitywater.org/nickcarnes
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Nobody Loves Me, Everybody Hates Me

In one week my life changes forever. I leave these glory days known as the 20’s behind for a much darker, scarier land full of broken hips, bad eye sight, and dentures. Yes, on December 16, just seven days away, I enter my 30’s. All I know is that it will be a depressing week!

What makes it more depressing is that I have recently discovered that the only people who love me is my sister and her family and (updated) my parents. See, they are the ONLY ones who have given clean water to families in Africa in honor of my birthday (insert guilt here). It is almost too much to bear thinking that those poor (literally) children will suffer because of people’s lack of love for me (insert more guilt here).

Or, maybe it’s the curse of my birth, being born in December. I remember those Christmas mornings where family members would tell me that my birthday gift was included in the same box as my Christmas gift, so I would tear into the package to see what I got, and somehow it was the same gift my cousins next to me got too. I guess my cousins were celebrating my birthday with me or maybe they thought I was too young to notice. I understand that December is a tight, difficult month for some, I guess people don’t need water in December, in fact they should just learn to wait until February, after all, someone needs another fruitcake or silly tie they will never wear while telling you it’s awesome (Yes, everyone without a December Birthday should feel guilty here)!

So, maybe God (or guilt) has moved in your heart and you realize you’ve found a little bit of love for me. Okay, maybe it’s not enough love for $30 ($1 per year of my birth) worth of water to provide 1.5 people clean water for 20 years, but maybe it’s $5 or $10 or $20 worth of love. If you have discovered that you love me in any amount, you can go ahead and send that love gift to Charity:Water on my behalf.

…Can you feel the love tonight?