Last Post about Pittsburgh Project

The last 2 days of work is always the hardest because we are tired and we really had not gotten “good” sleep while we were there. Our teens and adults pressed on and most of us finished our projects for the week. Thursday night is always fun because we get to go out for a night on the town and have dinner and relax. After much discussion and head banging, we ended up at Chinese restaurant in Station square, which is on the river. We had a great meal and great fellowship but I was trying to get the teens to share about their week. I got real quiet. I understand its tough to speak in front of peers and to not have a heads up that I am going to ask questions but it was interesting to watch them come up with answers. On the flip side of things, we have a small group time with where we have different work groups mixed together. We had a sharing time and we were talking about the “storms” in our lives that we deal with. I was blown away with what the teens in my discussion group were dealing with and with how open they were with everyone in the group. Two words come to mind when I think about small groups and discussing things in them; vulnerability and trust.
As we head into a new school year, i want our small groups in the youth ministry to get to the point where we are comfortable to share (vulnerable) and not to worry about the people in the group talking to others outside the group about whats been discussed (trust). I am not sure what that’s going to take but it needs to happen because teens need to have a place where they can be vulnerable and trust people. This year our theme is Connect and it is based on a passage in Acts. Acts 2:42-47, please pray for us as we try to be a place that teens can be vulnerable & trust each other.

Pittsburgh Project

Our first three days here in Pittsburgh have been hazy, hot and humid but have been a great challenge to our teens because of the type of work we have been doing. We have been scraping, painting, installing windows, tearing down garage roofs, shingling roofs, weed whacking, and learning how to operate power tools. Everyone is enjoying the physical challenge of the work but we are also being challenged spiritually every night in our worship time as we listen to the messages being given. We are talking about the story of Jonah and his calling. Jonah was called to go to Nineveh but decided to run the to other direction. God does not give us more than we can handle but sometimes the call is difficult and we want to run from God. God provided an opportunity(salvation) for Jonah in the form of fish. The storm raged while Jonah slept but Jonah knew that the storm was happening because of what he had done. Last night we discussed in our small group time about what storms we are going through in our lives. My heart broke as I heard these teens in our small group share about whats been storming in their lives. Things like friendships breaking up, older siblings running from God, friends making really bad life choices, siblings with autism, sickness in families, and one girl spoke about her father going to jail again but this time for 10-15 years. I don’t remember in my teenage life ever having to deal with such storms.
The song below is our theme song for the summer and it is a powerful song about us a Christians needing to just GO. Please take the time read the lyrics as it plays, Tonight, is a fun night for all of us as we get to go out on the town and have some fun.
Please continue to pray for us as we get more tired and patience may be waning amongst each other.

Bulimic or Anemic

Last night our Men’s group discussed these two terms and what they mean to us as men of our households. Spiritually anemic is an aversion to reading the scriptures daily and spiritually bulimic is an aversion to reading or hearing the scriptures without applying it to our lives.
James 1:22-25 – “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. 23 For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. 24 You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. 25 But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.”
So, being a Christ follower is more than just doing. We can do many things, (serve the needy, go to church every week, go to Sunday school, serve in ministry) or we can be spiritually in tune with what God might have for us by reading His Word and applying it to our lives. As Christians, we can get in a rut of just “doing our devotions” and in a way just checking it off our “to do list” as a Christian. In doing this, we deprive ourselves of the nutrients of God’s Word and so, we become bulimic. We want to have a full, nutrient, filled life and be empowered by God to live this life to the fullest. In Ephesians 3:20 – “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” We cannot be empowered unless we are reading His Word and applying to our lives. So, which one are you, spiritually anorexic or spiritually bulimic?

New location!

Find my new posts on my new blog at mefc.org! This site will remain as an archive for previous posts.

Alabama relief day 4

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Today was another day of record heat in Alabama but we pressed on and finished two more job sites. We also began another job in the same neighborhood and we are not quite finished with that one but we will be moving onto a new job site tomorrow. One of the jobs we finished today told some of group member that a some people came to their house a day after the storm and chopped some trees down for them but they were not hired to do it. The kicker is that the people were sent a bill for the work that was done even though they never hired them. I can’t stand it when people try to take advantage of others who are in need. It has been a very fruitful week for the whole team. it has been enjoyable getting to know everyone on the team and taking care of peoples physical needs in the name of Jesus. Our team has worked well together and worked really hard despite the incredible heat here.   We will be working half a day tomorrow and then heading up to Nashville to spend the night with some friends. Unfortunately there are no teams available to work next week and there is so much need here. Please pray that more churches decide to come and serve. Pray for our safety, and that we finish strong tomorrow.

Alabama day 3

Well today the heat index was 105 degrees but our group worked really hard and finished the job we started at the beginning of the week. I don’t think any of us has worked this hard ever in our lives. The home we were at for the past 3 days was over run with poison ivy & poison oak. So, some of us maybe come home a bit itchy. We moved onto a new job today that was just a few minutes away from where we were for the first part of the week. This place also has a ton of poison ivy and more trees to cut down and debris to pick up.  We will be there tomorrow and possibly at a new project for Friday.

We will be praying for you all in the east coast. We saw that a tornado touched down in Mass. and that there are tornado watches all over our area. If we have any damage, i know our group will be ready to work and help our neighbors.

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Alabama tornado relief

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Alabama tornado relief day 3

                We had a great day of work and fellowship today.  It was another scorcher but we pressed on and we have about a day of work left at the site we are at. We will then move onto another job site that the church has set up with the neighborhood. The church says that they feel that God brought a mission trip to them with this tornado and it is giving them many opportunities to reach out to their neighbors. The evenings here have very laid back and the people from the church have been very generous with serving us dinner each night. The heat and humidity have been overwhelming at times but it’s all good. Our team has been working very well together and we have been having a good time with each other. Our home owner has been great and some of us have had opportunities to talk to him but we are still not if he is a believer or not. Today we had an opportunity to meet another lady from the neighborhood and she joined us as we prayed for our homeowner. We took a short trip about 6 miles away from the church to see the area that the F5 tornado hit and it was very sad to see the destruction. Our group was in amazement at all the homes and buildings that were mangled or completely destroyed. It has been almost a month and there are still people that are not in their homes. The area is called Harvest, Alabama and it was leveled by the tornado but amongst all the debris and destruction, there was one home that had a sign that said “God Bless everyone for the help”. I was truly heartbroken for these people. I could not imagine losing everything in a matter of seconds. We prayed for the people of that area as we drove through.  Last night was probably one of the worst nights for sleep for some of us. At about 4am a dog decided to sit right outside the building we are sleeping in and bark nonstop, until me and one other man went outside to scare it away. Needless to say, it woke everyone up in the building. Pray for us today as it is going to be hotter but pray that we have more opportunities to talk with our homeowner.

Pictures from Alabama

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Alabama Relief work

Alabama tornado relief day 1

                So, we traveled 16hrs to Alabama and no issues other than people thought it was too cold in the van. It was a great drive in beautiful sunshine and it went by pretty quickly. As we traveled through southwestern Virginia we saw some tornado damage along Route 81. The mountains along this interstate are beautiful.

When we arrived at the church we are wondering where the damage from the tornado was. I think some of us; myself included, and had our expectations that the damage was going to be everywhere. We had a meeting to give us an idea of what the week would look like, what to expect, and what type of work we would be doing. We also met two other groups of volunteers from Michigan and Indiana. Tomorrow we will be heading out at 8:00am to the job site and we will be there until 6:00pm. It is going to be a long day, so I am going to go to bed. By the way, we are an hour behind y’all in NJ. Pray for our safety, our ministry to the people we will be serving and for us as we build relationships with each other.

In His service,

Pastor Eric Couch

Alabama tornado relief day 2

We started our day quite early.  We had devotions at 7:30am and we were ready to hit the road and get to our jobsites for the day. We passed by many places that had minor damage. We ended up at the home of Doug and Kristin. Doug is a war Veteran and it is great to do work for a man that served our country. He has also been laid off from his job in the aero space industry and is trying to find a new job at the age of 61. He and his wife have been really friendly and have been out working with us. The tornado that came through their area was a spin off from the F4 that came through the area. On April 27^th northern Alabama had over 200 tornados blow through the area with over 200 people passing away during the storms.  The damage was in a small area but was quite extensive to homes, and trees.  Today, was a cool 96 degrees and very sunny. The group worked really hard moving debris, stumps, branches and the three adults ran chainsaws all day. We cleared a ton of debris by lunch and after lunch the energy level hit a wall. The heat played a huge role in how the rest of the day went. We had to take numerous breaks so that we would not pass out from heat exhaustion. Tomorrow it is supposed to be even hotter and with more humidity. Continue to pray for us as we are all quite tired after just one day of work.  I will be posting pictures later this evening of our job site.

Our theme for the week – Love God with all you got and love your neighbor till you drop!

its been awhile

I have not touched this whole blog thing since my trip to England. One reason why I have not blogged, is that I don’t have anything really that interesting to talk about.
In my devotions I have been reading through the Gospels and I have really enjoyed reading them. Our God is personal, real, caring, passionate and loving. Its been to go through them again because I pick up things that I had not seen before, like when Jesus’ authority is challenged by religious leaders. They asked ““By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” and Jesus answers them by saying ““I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30 Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.” So these know it alls discuss which way to answer and then they decide to say, we don’t know. Jesus’ response is a tad bit sarcastic & funny in my mind. He says ““Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” This is like, well you don’t know, so I’m not going to tell you. This could be my weird sense of humor. Jesus shows His humility time and time again through the Gospels. When He is questioned by Pilate if He is the King of the Jews, Jesus says -
‘You have said so.” Our human nature does not work this way. If asked a question like this or something similar, we are not going to say “if you say so”, we are going to want to stand up for ourselves,& defend ourselves. As I prepare to start reading through the crucifixion passage tomorrow, I pray that I really think about what Christ has done for me and what I really don’t deserve, — His grace & forgiveness