Miscellaneous Pictures

Maggie's Sixth Birthday!!!

We took cupcakes to Maggie's class on Friday and Friday night we had cupcakes for our Grillapalooza with our Beeson Friends. The Next morning Maggie opened presents from Gran, Kate's friend Wendy and from Kate and I.

Then later that day after soccer we took the family to Boyd's Orchard to have lunch and play. They have a harvest playground with slides and castles and the kids had a great time.

Grandpa entertains the crowd with magic tricks.

A Final Picture of our kids with their friends Max and Xavier. They grow up so fast. We have to enjoy the ride.

A Saturday With the Layers!!!

For the past two weeks, we have taken Maggie for soccer class. She is one of the youngest one the team but one of the fastest. One of the gifts we received when we left our church in June was a soccer ball and we played soccer a lot. Maggie is liking it very much.

The boys also do swimming classes at the Luce center at 10 and 10:45am. They are learning slowly but surely.

The Abbey of Gethsamane - September 1-3rd, 2006.

During Labor Day weekend, our Beeson crew went to Gethsamane, a catholic trappist monestary in Kentucky (south of Louisville) for a silent retreat. Here there are signs that say, "Silence is spoken here". You could talk outside in the countryside or in one of the talking dining rooms. It was a beautiful setting for this unusual experience. The purpose of the retreat was to get away to be with God and rest.

I must admit the setting made me a little giddy. Often I found myself laughing (outside of course) because of how uncomfortable I felt. It was a reverent place with about 40 monks who dedicate their life to God.

These monks have seven worship services a day. They begin at 3:15am, 5:30am, 7:30am, 11:45am, 2:30pm, 5pm and 7:30pm. They stand in the "pews" below facing each other, wearing robes. They sing the Psalms through every two weeks, repeating it over and over again. Many of the older monks know the scriptures by heart.

This monestary is famous because Thomas Merton lived and wrote here. He is buried outside of the church just like the other monks. Many protestants like his writings.

They had a statue garden that was a nice walk. This is Mary, Jesus Mother. They definately hold Mary up to divine figure and pray to her. Brother Chrsitian referred to her as God's spouse. This is very uncomfortable for us as Protestant Christians.

The garden went into this area modeled after the garden of Gethsamane. Here is a statue of the disciples (Peter, James and John) who went with Jesus but fell asleep while he was praying.

Just a stone's throw away is this moving statue of Jesus crying out to God asking him to take this cup from him. Yet he did God's will not his will.

If you are wondering if I got up to worship at 3;15am. No I decided to pass. I attended many of the services and found them meaningful. There is no way I could be a monk though. I respect them and there is many things I can learn from them but no way I could join them. You can find out more about them at www.monks.org. They sell fruitcake and fudge that is out of this world.

My Dissertation Proposal


The Kudzo Gospel: Assimilating for Life Transformation -
A Process for Making Disciples in a United Methodist Church

About a week ago I had to submit a proposal for my dissertation to the Doctor of Ministry office for approval. The proposal identifies a problem in church or ministry life and seeks to study the problem through the scriptures and the literature, developing a plan of action to implement a solution to the problem and evaluating the solution once it is completed. This is my proposal.


In Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey stated that effective people and organizations begin with the end in mind. If that is true, what would an effective church look like?

In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus gave us what is known as the great commission to go and make disciples. The mission of the local church and each individual member is to go and make disciples of Jesus Christ.

Many churches and individual Christians in America are not effectively making disciples of Jesus Christ. We have many people in our pews who made decisions but are not disciples. Most churches have no idea what a disciple of Jesus looks like and/or have no identified plan or process to “produce” disciples. Consider the following statistics according to T-Net International:

· The average "evangelical" church in America wins 1.67 persons (less than 2) to Christ and their church each year for every 100 persons who attend that church.
· Only 2/3 of the persons in the average evangelical church say they "feel" they are growing spiritually. Fewer still (just 1/3) say they have changed even one behavior to be more Christ-like in the last three years.
· One-third of church members state their greatest individual needs are not being met by their church.
· Less than 50% of church members pray for 5 minutes at least twice a week.
· Only 11% of church members have shared the gospel even once in the last year, and 33% have never shared the gospel with anyone.
· Most church leaders, when asked, cannot even define "Disciple," and hardly any have been trained to "Make disciples."

In my own experience, there are many folks who grew up in churches all their life, who came almost every time the door was open, who cannot pray in public, do not read their Bible, and have never won anyone to faith. These statistics include our church leaders! The discipleship process of a majority of churches is a lot like the making of a stew; a dab of Sunday School, a pinch of small group, a helping of committees. As shown above, this plan is not producing the disciples that it should and could be.

In addition, since many seeker oriented churches use entertainment evangelism on Sunday morning services to attract a crowd; I fear a large percentage often do not get into the deeper maturity of being a Christian because of lack of time or interest. Of the thousands of churches who use small groups as their primary discipleship and caring mechanism for assimilation, the majority are care and share groups which do not push people to maturity. In addition the majority of these groups do not multiply and they see evangelism and discipleship as two separate entities. These groups encourage loyalty to the church but do not encourage disciplemaking as a personal ministry to be embraced by every Christian.

Rev. Randy Frazee, former pastor of Pantego Bible Church in Texas, is convinced former business leader and church leader Bob Buford is correct; whatever we measure is really our mission. Frazee says that his church like others measured the ABC’s (attendance, buildings, and cash). These are incomplete measurements, for our goal is to see Christ formed in people. Even when people participate in our discipleship ministries such as small groups and Sunday Schools, we assume attendance equals growth. What we need is a plan to purposefully assimilate for life-transformation; a plan that encourages a multiplication of disciples, not just building bigger, larger churches.

Purpose Statement

Therefore the purpose of this study is to develop and evaluate an assimilation process which helps produce life-transformed disciples who in turn produce other life-transformed disciples.

Research Questions
1. What is the baseline level of discipleship?
2. What is the level of discipleship measured at the conclusion?
3. What aspects of the intervention process appear to be the most related to the outward changes?

During the first two weeks of October before I leave for London, I will write chapter one of my dissertation. In it I will explain what a life transformed disciple is. I will also look at discipleship models in the New Testament. If you have ideas or comments, please feel free to submit them. Thanks.

Happy One Month Birthday Pierson!!!

Yesterday some of the kids from the neighborhood sang to Pierson. This picture is of Beth Broderson. Beth is the one who delievered Pierson. Beth was a most positive person who always had a smile on her face. Beth had been very sick. She had ovarian cancer that came back and took over her body. She tried chemo and other therapy but nothing helped. When she delivered Pierson a month ago, she told us that one kidney had shut down and another was on the verge of shutting down. She was in hospice care.

I asked her why she kept working when she was so sick. She told me she did it because she was a Christian and knew she would be in heaven when she died. She felt her calling in life was to deliver babies and she felt so alive when she did so. She wanted to deliver as many babies as she could until she died. She delivered over 800 babies in her short life of 36 years old. Beth was so special to Kate. She delivered Maggie 6 years ago and would have delivered Anna if we didn't move to TN when she was 9 months pregnant. It was such a blessing and so special to have her deliver Pierson!! I thank God for this amazing woman and her ministry to my family.

This picture was taken Wednesday August 22nd at Kate's follow up appointment. The next day Beth delivered her last baby and 12 hours later went into a coma. She died 24 hours later on Friday. Her funeral was packed and it was neat to see young moms and many babies. She was a selfless lady who impacted many lives, including our family.