New Hampshire Conference: Day 1

On Friday, January 8, we got up at 3:00 am to go to a conference that my dad was speaking at in Rindge, New Hampshire. It was hosted by a church up there. Four other people from our church came with us. We arrived at 5:00 pm. We ate Dinner at 6:00 pm, and Daddy's 1st message was at 7:30 pm. It was an evangelism conference, so he gave a talk was on "Knowing the Gospel." It was a good message. We were going to record it, but the recorder was in the camera bag, and we left it at home, so we do not have the recordings or any pictures.

Sufficiency of Scripture: Day 3

The first keynote on the third day of the Sufficiency of Scripture conference was by Kevin Swanson on "The Sufficiency of Scripture and Family Integration." The next message was a breakout. The message in the room that I ran the sound in was Andy Davis on "The Sufficiency of Scripture for Habits of Obedience." Then there was the lunch break. After the lunch break, I was in a talk by Paul Washer on "The Importance of Biblical Family Life for the Spread of the Gospel." It was a very good message. After that was a keynote, which I did not hear. We did not go to The Mysterious Islands screening because we had seen it at the premier in Durham, NC. You can read the post about that here. You can buy the CD Set from the Sufficiency of Scripture conference here.

Daddy giving his "How can a Loving God say to...?" talk

Father Son Retreat messages and a NCIFC conference

Mr. Scott Brown, an elder at our church along with my father and two others, just put the sermons from the father son retreat in MP3 on his website. You can buy them here.


Our church does a lot of NCFIC (National Center for Family Integrated Churches) conferences. My father has spoken at many of them. We are doing one the first week in December. Kevin Swanson, Scott Brown and the other elders of our church including my father are speaking. To sign up, click here.

My father preaches a lot at our church. You can listen to his sermons here.

Father Son Retreat - Day 2

Saturday morning, Daddy got up about at 5:30 (I don't think he actually slept) , I got up at 6:00, and Stephen got up about 6:45. Daddy went to the truck to work on his sermon, and I walked out to watch some of our friends from church fish. About 7:00 they served breakfast, which was french toast and sausage. It was very good! The first message was by Mr. Bradrick entitled "A Young Man's Roadmap for Victory." He spoke on how fathers need to train their sons to fight battles for God. I enjoyed it. After a short break, Mr. Brown gave another message on how sons should relate to girls in the church. Next Mr. Dohm spoke next on purity. These were all the messages for the morning. Here are some pictures:

Mr. Bradrick

Some people from our church listening

Mr. Dohm



Mr. Breagy and his son Samuel

Next we ate lunch, which was sloppy joes and potato chips. After we ate lunch, there was a time for the fathers and sons to be together and learn more about each other.

At 2:30, the games started! We were on the blue team. The first game was tug-a-war. It was the green team vs. the red team. It was really close, and each team won once. Then for some reason they decided to send us off the do different games, and then come back and finish the tug-a-war. This year we did "Highland" games, because we went to some in Scotland with Mr. Brown. First we did the tabor toss, and then we tried to throw a small rock from Iona, Scotland.

Me throwing the rock

After the Highland games, we finished the tug-a-war (which our team lost at) and did a canoe race, and another game where you had to catch water balloons in a tarp. It was a lot of fun, even though our team was not the best. After the games there was a little free time, in which Stephen and I went out in the canoes with a lot of other boys (and men) and tried to tip each other over.

I am the one on the left with the grey shirt on

After the tug-a-war

We had hamburgers for dinner, and after dinner Daddy gave a message on the spiritual, wisdom, and material inheritances that fathers should pass on to their children. It was a good message. After Daddy's message, we had ice-cream, and we went home late at night. I really enjoyed this father son retreat.





You can read the posts about the father son retreat last year here:
Day 1
Day 2

Father Son Retreat - Day 1

Last weekend, we went to a Father Son Retreat at our church (Hope Baptist Church). It started Friday night, and ended Saturday morning. It was a lot of fun! Stephen and I convinced Daddy to camp, so we left from work and arrived after stopping at Walmart to get a tarp, because the weather forecast that it might rain that night. For dinner there was pizza. After we ate dinner, we set up our tent, with the tarp under it. It wasn't too hard, and so we finished right before the sermons started. The first was by Mr. Brown, and he talked about what fathers and sons can learn from the relationship between God and Jesus. Here is a picture of Mr. Brown:



The next message was a short dialogue between Mr. Brown and Mr. Bradrick on how fathers exasperate their sons, and how sons need to honor their fathers.


After a short testimony by a man from Texas, Mr. Breagy, another elder at our church, gave a message about what we can learn from the story of Daniel. He said that we should resist temptation and not be enticed by the evils of the world around us.

Mr. Breagy

After the messages, we got to have smores, and we finally went to bed at about 11:30. We got in our sleeping bags, and then it started raining very hard. As the water poured down the side of the tent, it got caught under the tent by the tarp, so in a few minutes we were in a puddle of water! I got on the huge air mattress we borrowed from Mammaw (with my wet pillow.) And Stephen moved to the back seat of the truck! We spent the rest of the night trying to sleep!

Church Planting Conference

On September 5-6 the National Center for Family Integrated Churches did a conference on church planting. The speakers were Dan Horn, Scott Brown, Steve Breagy, and Jason Dohm. On the first day Scott Brown started out with a talk on the "Centrality of Christ in the Church", which was about how Christ is the center of the church and how it can not go on without him. The second talk was by Jason Dohm titled "Establishing the Elements of Biblical Church Life" on how the church should look and how to do it. Then Dan Horn did a talk on the "Complementary Roles of Church and Home" which was about what roles are the church's and what roles the are the home's and how the church is doing the family's roles and the state is doing the church's roles and what the consequences of this are. Then Steve Breagy did a talk titled "Church Planting Checklist" which was not a checklist, because you can not make a checklist of all of what to do to plant a church. We might want a checklist of everything to do, but all situations are different so there is no right way to do it every time.

Then the second day started out with a talk by Dan Horn on church membership and why it is important to have it, with reasons like "the shepherds need to know who they are to protect." The second talk that day was by Scott Brown on Church Covenants, which was on the necessity to have one and he also walked through the covenant of Hope Baptist Church and why they had certain things in there. Next Dan Horn did a talk on "Issues and Answers for Maintaining Doctrinal Unity" which was about what to do about doctrinal unity to prevent a split. Then Jason Dohm did a talk on "Biblical Church Government" which was about qualifications for elders and deacons and he went through the passages which had the qualifications in them. Then Dan Horn did a talk on "Issues and Answers on Leaving a Church" which was about how to leave a church and why and how to avoid those who have left wrongly from their last church. Then Scott Brown ended with a talk on "The Loveliness of the Church" and about how Christ relates to the church and how the church is the bride of Christ. You should get these CDs if you are going to plant a church or if you already have. To buy the CD set, click here. To see upcoming NCFIC events, click here.

Beach Trip

This weekend we went to the beach. We had not been for a long time, but Daddy finally took us this week. Mommy, Rachel, Stephen and I drove with Mammaw (our maternal grandmother) to Myrtle Beach Thursday. We arrived there, and went to the ocean, but as soon as we got in, it started thundering, so we went in the lazy river that was there, but then after a little while the security guard said that we had to get out until the storm passed! We went to Walmart, and got some food there. We had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, and then Daddy arrived. That night we started playing a game called Empire Builder. It is a game that is about building railroads, and delivering loads from place to place. It is a lot of fun and requires a lot of thinking. We would play it more, but it takes a long time.

The next day we went swimming in the beach, and then we went in the lazy river again. It was fun. We tried to go as fast as we could, and pass each other.

We went out to eat at a seafood restaurant with Mammaw, and then she went back home.

We went swimming again, and had sandwiches for dinner. That night we played Empire Builder some more, but we were not able to finish. Stephen or Daddy would probably have won.

On Saturday morning we had to leave, so we got up early and swam in the ocean. Here are some pictures.

Happy Birthday Stephen!

Yesterday (June 17) was Stephen Ethan's birthday. He turned 10. I am thankful that I have a brother to play with. I hope that he grows up to be a strong man of God.

He also started working for my father's company Datatek, just two weeks ago! He comes to work 3 days, like me. He is looking at bug reports for the files that Datatek converts. Now all of us, Rachel, Stephen and myself have all worked for Datatek at one time or another.

Today (June 18) is Daddy's birthday. His is the day after Stephen's. He is on a buisness trip right now.

---- Joshua