The Power of Pressing Through To God

This blog is about us and our own human behavior. We have been challenged through the past two services in not leaving the altar without getting through to God. We are often held back by our own selfish ambitions. We have to give everything up to God. It is kind of unpopular in today's church world when we start talking about taking time to commit to God. It is essential for us to take whatever time we need to when it comes to us seeking God. We have learned that God wants to bless us but sometimes we have to wait on His timing. This advance is so enlightening in that I have realized that sometimes it takes more time than we think it might when it comes to us drawing nearer to God. Sometimes we need to give up things in our lives to allow God to work in a deeper and more intimate way. He is so good and loves us so much, it blows my mind! I am heading to bed for a short nap now, it is back up at 7am.

Blessings,
Pastor Carl - Carlisle, PA

Robots Are The Now!!

With robot technologies getting better and better as the days progress you will be influence by the technologies that come out of these interesting devices. Your back-up sensors on your car, for example, have come out of this technology. There are a lot of others as well. I wouldn't mind having a robot cleaning my house when I came home from a long day's work. The new models can actually learn how to do new tasks and are easily programmable. You have surely seen the kids toys that learn tasks as kids teach them new things. Awesome technology that is advancing every day!! There are many things today that we don't understand how they work and yet we put our lives in their hands. Take a look at the computer system in your car for just one example. When we bought our minivan a couple years ago the salesman told us that there was more technology in it than the first space shuttle. Wow, that amazed me! We trust the things that we don't see or know anything about everyday of our lives... and yet so many people refuse to have faith in our God who loves us!! What a shame! We press on though, and share with whoever will listen!
Links: http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/category/robot-gadgets/
http://people.csail.mit.edu/edsinger/domo.htm


Blessings,

Pastor Carl

What a Sunday Night!!

Tonight I was so very proud of our students. Our Nicaragua missions team ministered in the PM service and they were all awesome!! We started out with Tim Bennett leading worship with a couple of songs in Spanish. I then had Dylan Harvey share his rap solo that he went to nationals with. He did a wonderful job! I held a conversation style interview with all of the students in a semi-circle discussing the ministry that we did in Nicaragua. I basically worked through the schedule that we received when we got there. I put together two different videos that went together great for the night. All of the students spoke and we had laughing and crying and praising throughout the night. We finished the night with an altar call and had the students pray for our people. They all went after God and interceded for people around the altar. I believe that many were blessed around the altar. Some of the students really stepped out in faith and I was so proud of each of them. Some other youth that were not part of the missions team got involved as well. I love our students. One of the highlights for the night was when they all came up on the platform and prayed for me at the same time. It was incredibly powerful! I am always moved by students praying for me, it is so encouraging. What a night filled with joy and tears and God moving at the end of it all!! How Great Is Our God!!
If you missed it all we have it recorded, contact the church office to get your copy of it all. Or e-mail me!

Blessings,
Pastor Carl

I Love Her!!

This blog is solely dedicated to my amazing wife Andrea. She has been married to me for 14 years now!! That is incredible when you think about all the junk that I have mustered up for her to deal with!! She is the greatest woman I have ever met. She loves and mothers our kids and she takes care of me. I am so proud of all that she does to help me in the ministry. No would would ever know the countless hours that she spends doing "church" stuff and youth stuff. She never complains about it either. She is a role model and I am so very blessed that I have her help in every situation that arises. I hope as we grow older together that we can maintain the love and respect that has grown us closer together over the years of this marriage. I pray that she will stay close to God and help me to lead our daughters in the faith. We need His strength to carry us, as we often get weary from the well doings of the church. If you would like to encourage her, send her an e-mail at aredding4@hotmail.com and let her know that you appreciate her!

Blessings,
Pastor Carl

Wrap Me In Your Arms

It seems to me that there times in our lives and ministries when we need God to wrap us up in his arms. It is a wonderful place of love and comfort. I often find myself seeking that place of refuge to let God deal with some specific things in my life! Sometimes I lose focus and He has to pull me back in! I must remember that it is not about man or what someone says, but about what He wants to do! We all must be focused on Him and He will direct our paths!
Blessings,
Pastor Carl

Day 5: NFAF

Today was the final day of our journey here in Charlotte. It was a good day, as we didn't really do a whole lot. The students enjoyed their last day at the theme park and several others just hung out at the pool here at the campgrounds. We left here to go down town at 5:30 to take part in the celebration service at Bobcat Arena. It was a good time as we listened to the winners of the various categories get announced and then perform on the stage. It was great to see student leaders ministering through their abilities. Our students were encouraged by the whole experience. I trust God that the services and the events will permeate the hearts of these young people. I am trusting Him for long lasting results and life changing power for these lives. I hope that each one of us understand that we need more of Him and when we seek Him we will find Him and what He has for us. It is about us taking our eyes off of ourselves and fixing our eyes on Him.

We will be home sometime between 5 and 7 pm tomorrow! Thanks for all of your prayers!

Blessings,
Pastor Carl
Charlotte, NC

Day 4: NFAF

Today was a tremendous day for our youth ministry and for our own personal lives. We just returned from a service that was absolutely life altering!! Rick Lorimer spoke tonight after the Planetshakers led us into worship. What a night!! There were several that were baptized in the Holy Spirit tonight! I am still trying to figure out everyone that was, because after the service it is always chaos!! God stirred many hearts tonight and they will never be the same again.

Our youth choir sang this afternoon and they did a very nice job. You can image how intimidating it is to be standing in front of such a large audience. Their song filled the room we were in and I was very proud of each one of them. They received a superior rating of 34 points out of a possible 40. That is very respectable especially at this level of competition.

Sooo... I am off to bed, I need to rest as we have been running all day long. I will write again tomorrow. God bless you all!

Pastor Carl
Charlotte, NC

Day Three: NFAF

Today we started in the water park with my kids at 10:00am. We had a blast it is really a nice water park and amusement park. If you are ever down this way it is worth checking out. It is called Carowinds. We left the park at noon to come back and eat lunch. We left here at 3:30 to take Dylan Harvey to the convention center for his rap solo. In the meantime Joy Mason called and she was somewhat frantic as she missed her connecting flight to here and was in Atlanta. She was due in here at 4:30. She ran around and made arrangements to be on another flight that was due in at 6:30. We were glad that she was able to do that, God worked it out for her. That doesn't mean that it wasn't stressful for her though, we are so thankful that she was willing to come and play for us!! What a blessing she and Dave are to this ministry and to our church. We arrived at the convention center and Dylan did his thing. He was amazing!! We thought that he really did a great job. Then I ran everybody back here to the camp to go back over to the park if they wanted to. I ran to the airport to get Joy and Alexis, and then brought them back here to check in to the hotel. It was a busy day! I am kinda glad that we didn't have a service tonight as it would have been impossible to get everything done.

We just learned a short time ago that Dylan got a superior rating and will not be chosen among the "Elite" rappers of the Assemblies of God. He did his best and that's what matters to God.

The choir is on at 2pm tomorrow! Pray that we are able to do our best for his kingdom!!

Blessings,
Pastor Carl
Charlotte, NC

Day Two: NFAF

Today was a great day! We started out by going swimming in the pool at the campground and then we all ate lunch together. After lunch we went to the waterpark. What a blast that was as we hung out together. The temperature got to a little over 100 degrees here today. It was so hot!! We left here at 5 pm to head to the service. We were able to get the first two rows of the second section on the floor. It was incredible. Planetshakers are an unbelievable worship team!
Worship was extended as young people got fired up for God and the moving of His Holy Spirit. There was one time when it got really quiet in the whole place and you could sense the Spirit moving. Spontaneous worship just started to spread throughout the auditorium. It was incredible. I was happy to see our young people being extremely expressive in their worship. Rod Whitlock spoke and challenged everyone to really dig deeper and get closer to God. Then... We worshiped some more!! It was a great day and a great night.

Dylan Harvey performs at 4:46 tomorrow pray that God will help him and be with him. Thank you all so much for your prayers and support. You mean so much to us!

Blessings,
Pastor Carl
Charlotte, NC

Blurb!

I almost forgot to tell you all! You can view the services live along with us if you would like, beginning at 7 pm each night except for Wednesday when there is no service. http://www.charlotte08.ag.org/live/ I will update you all as the week progresses!!

Blessings,
PC

Monday Night, National Fine Arts Festival!! (FAF)

Well we made it. It took substantially longer than I thought it would, but after 4 stops and 8 hours we made it to Charlotte, NC. After a slight ant problem in one of our cabins we are settled in and hopefully in bed for the night. We had a great opening service tonight, Steve Pulis (National Student Outreach director) spoke about the fire of God! It was very good. Almost all of our students responded in some way to the altar call. Planetshakers was amazing. They played one of my all time favorites: Healer! It just flat out is anointed by God. We stopped at Chick-Fil-A for dinner after the service and had an enjoyable dinner! Thanks for praying for us, pray specifically that some of these students will go deeper with God this week.

Blessings,
Pastor Carl
Charlotte, NC

Ready To Go Again!

Well, it is now Sunday night and I am ready to go again. We will be leaving tomorrow for National Fine Arts Festival in Charlotte, NC. We are really excited about the opportunity to take 30 people on this trip. We will be taking our children with us and we will be camping at a campground. It will be a lot of fun. Our students will be staying in cabins and we will be in our pop-up camper. I am looking forward to the services and also Worshiping with Planetshakers. They were amazing last year in Indy. We will also be close to Carowinds amusement park. Dylan Harvey will be competing on Wednesday at some point and the youth choir will be on Thursday. I am really proud and excited about our 19 students that made it to this level. I have seen a lot of students that have been very good not make it to nationals. They are all excited with me and I am trusting God to do a work in each of their lives. Pray for us once again as we travel. Thank-you so much!!

Blessings,
Pastor Carl