Transitions

November 3, 2009

Over the last several weeks God has really been speaking to me about transitions.  As I began to process the things in which Father was speaking to me, I began to realize that transition was happening all around me. Our family, our church, and many ways with me personally.

Our family:

My wife is due with our third child in one week from today. Our youngest has been out of diapers for a couple of years, so this will definitely be a major transitions. Diapers and formula will once again be common place in my home. This is a major transition.

Our Church:

Since October began our churches changes have kept pace with falling of leaves here in Wisconsin.  Earlier this month I attended the SMI Conference Summit Ministries International Leadership Conference in Lubbock, Texas. The conference was on Preaching the Word with power and anointing. It was an amazing conference that not only confirmed several of the transitions that God has been laying on my heart, but it also ignited a fire for a new level of creativity and ingenuity.

Through processing the things I learned and gleaned from that conference our church is in the process of transitioning how we handle several processes. We are looking at how our presentation software is used in our services, how our Life Group guides are distributed and followed up on. I have been working on my preaching by transitioning my preparation process and my format/style.

There are more transitions that we are working on, and those of you who are Overflowers will get to see them in the coming weeks.

Personally:

In many ways this the hardest of the three to deal with and make sure the transition is smooth. In early October I joined a local gym and have been working our regularly for almost a month now. The working out is wonderful, and I love the refreshed feeling that I have as I head to the office.

In addition, to working out I have focused on my eating. I am by no means perfect, but the 5 fruits & vegetables in addition to watching the amount I eat. I am eating about 50% less than I did 6 to 8 weeks ago.

Those are the MAJOR transitions in my life right now, any new ones in your life?

P.S. my blog is now at kevinjbradford.com

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5 things I wish I had known when I got married!

May 11, 2009

# 5 I wish my new wife and I had known to check our baggage at the church before we got married!

Some of you maybe thinking, what is he talking about? The truth is that each one of us enters every new relationship with baggage. We have past hurts, past victories, past activities, and many other items that create baggage.

When we enter that relationship sometimes we treat or react to the new relationship based on baggage from the previous situation or relationship. My wife and I both had baggage.

I am going to be honest with you! We did not have a lot baggage that was too severe, but what we did have made for a few rough times in our first couple of years of marriage. She would act or react based on past experiences, and I would do the same. One of the areas of my baggage dealt with my parents relationship and how I perceived at times the marriage relationship should be dealt with.

Please hear me on this, I am not saying that my parents relationship was bad, but I had made assumptions, right or wrong, and then tried to play out that situation in my own marriage, when in fact our marriage is very different from my parents!

When someone walks down the isle today, it is absolutely important that these people are able to do the following things whole-heartedly:

1. Check your baggage of past hurts at the door!
2. Check your baggage of personal agenda’s at the door! {Must now think of each other}
3. Check your baggage of my “my parents” or “my mom” did it this way! {Men this is a hard one, you love your mom!}
4. Check your baggage of past relationships at the door!
5. Check your baggage of how marriage should work at the door! {This will be learned the next year or two!}
6. Check your baggage of how your husband / wife should be once we are married! {dealt with this a lot in counseling!}

I want to be very clear! These are simply things I have learned in my marriage, and in doing marriage counseling over the last several years. It is by no means a complete list, but it is the list I wish I had known or been told when I was first married!

In the last 5 posts, I have touched on just a few things I wish I had known! Not all of them were problems for me and my wife, but had I known them, I could have made better choices along the way, or maybe I could have helped us one way or another!

One thing is for sure! I love my wife, and I am excited to be celebrating 10 years of being married to her later this summer! Since she is pregnant with our third, we will not be taking the trip we had hoped or purchasing the new bed room furniture (our goals for year 10), but we will be celebrating TEN years of GOD bringing us closer together and further along in HIM! I am thankful for my wife, and the fact God has allowed me to be so blessed to have a wife that after ten years, some hard and a few harder, that we are more in love now, and living the best days of our life so far!

One thing I know for sure! The best days of our marriage are yet ahead!

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5 Things I Wish I knew When I Got Married!

May 8, 2009

Sorry I missed Thursday’s post. I ran over in my prayer and study time, and ended up not having enough time to post. So I will post #4 now, and then #5 on Monday.

#4 That the path that we are on, will take us where it is going, not where we intend to go!

This is a principle that I have known for a while, and was spoken to me a lot when I was being discipled by my pastor in Texas.

If you are on a walking path where are you going? To whereever that path leads! It does not matter if you want to walk to the park area, if the path leads to the baseball fields and you stay on the path you will end up at the baseball fields.

You see if you get up this morning and you want to go North to Canada for the weekend, but you get onto US Highway 41 South bound you will not be heading to Canada. Your intensions maybe to go to Canada, but your path is leading to Texas!

I have driven cross country atleast one a year for about the last 10 years, most years multiple trips have occurred. I cannot tell  you the number of times I have gotten onto I-44 going west, when I was trying to go East. Yes, sometimes it is that easy to see we are on the wrong path.

Othertimes, like when I drive in DFW I occassionaly get onto 121 south, instead of north, because the exit is the same, and then it splits. Not living there I have made the mistake a couple of times, and then had to be told I was going the wrong way, or realizing it when I did not recognize the stores.

You see sometimes it is difficult to know which path will lead us to where we intend to go.

To paraphrase Andy Stanly, “you will only go where the path you are on will take you, no matter your intensions!” I recently listened to his Principle of the Path leadership podcast (you should download it). It put a lot detail to what I had already realized, but did not know how to communicate well.

At this point, Ashlee and I have meetings or long discussions once in a while to make sure we are on the same page, and going the same direction.

The last one was in March, and we made some hard decisions, along with some fun ones. The fruit of that meeting has been amazing! We know we are on the same page, and moving in the same direction. In addition, the communication is great in those areas, because we know we are on board.

Question to Ponder: If everyone in your church is on a plane to LA, are you on that plane or are you on a plane to Alanta? {Famous Qoute from Brandon Honeycutt}

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5 things I wish I had known when I got married!

May 6, 2009

#3 Make sure your money, especially credit is working for you!

One of the greatest mistakes that Ashlee and I made as a young couple was not monitoring the type of credit we had, and how to make it work for us. In addition, we did not know a lot of about investing and did not pay much attention.

In all reality, we both have a very good knowledge base built around both, but thought it would come, and the time woul d be okay. We had a few credit cards,  and some medical debt. Not much different than the average American right?

Most American’s today carry a substantial amount of debt including: credit cards, cars, boats, credit cards, medical debt, and all other sorts of responsibilities. The problem with financial burdens such as debt is that it becomes very easy to be weighed down with life. I often say when preaching that we want to see those in debt be set free, and to live a life not burdened with life.

Early in our marriage, we were burdened with life. Too much debt, not enough income, and trying to live a little larger than we should.  I have heard good biblical teaching on finances state that “it is not how much you make, but how you manage it.” I think it is true in 99% of cases. At times it was definitely true for us, and at other times we had nothing to manage. Even in those times we could have made a lot of different choices that would have allowed us to manage our money.

Furthermore, we spent those early years spending every dime we made to keep on keeping on, if you know what I mean. We did not save or invest a lot. If I had it to do over again, I would have invested a little more into 401ks and a lot more into a Roth IRA before we had children, and could afford to save more.

The overall take away is that I wish I had known that credit should always work for you, and your money should be working for you. Neither credit nor money should be working against you!

Too many couples today are drowning in debt, and credit cards with no real end in sight! I personally have a little credit card debt that I acquired to help build a credit score, since we had no debt for five years. We are using the credit to our advantage.

My goal for 2009 & 2010 is to pay off all debt except for our home. Then in 2011 I want to start a 3 year plan to reduce our mortgage to 25% of the original purchase price. It would allow me to have paid off my 30 year mortgage in 7 years.

Now that I am smarter went to business school, and grew up a little through a few hard knocks in my finances and marriage, I think that I am finally making my credit and money work for me, instead of against me!

Check back tomorrow for “understanding your path”

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5 things I wish I had known when I got married!

May 5, 2009

#2. Purchase a House as soon as possible!

Ashlee and I purchased our first house in 2008, which was 9 years into our marriage! I loved purchasing the house we live in, and it met all the expectations Ashlee and I had for a house. The problem is that we had those expectations since about year three or four of our marriage.

When we first got married, we were not sure where we wanted to live, and our families (mine and hers) had just gone through some family crisis. We moved back and forth across the country twice in the first year. So we waited on purchasing a house while we traveled back and forth.

Once we moved back to Texas and decided to stay there while I went to school, we were given advice, “DO NOT PURCHASE A HOUSE!”  Someone who I looked to for coaching in this area gave me horrible advice. They explain I should not purchase a house, especially since I was in ministry and wanted to pastor.

His questions included:
“Where will you pastor in 3 years?” — “What will you do with the house if you move right after graduation?” — “How will you afford it as a student?”

The problem is that we lived in Texas another 6 1/2 years, which was all three years of college, 1 year of grad school, and 2 more years as a pastor of the church we had attended the whole time.

We did look at one house once. We decided not to buy it, because the payment was OUTRAGEOUS! {that is 444.00 a month for those of you who want to know what OUTRAGEOUS was at the time}

The problem is this: we moved out of our dirty, cheap apartment into a rent house and paid $600 a month a few months later.

We threw money away for years, and gained no equity during that time. You see we could have bought that $55,000 house for $444.00 a month and probably lived there happily while in Texas. Then when we moved to WI from Texas, in Texas a similar house was running around $70,000. If we had purchased it, we would have had some good money to put down on our house in Wisconsin.

We ended up purchasing close to our dream house last year. God has taken care of us, and we are so thankful and blessed! Praise God, he opened up this house at the right time, for the right price {bought way under appraised value}.

My advice:

Purchase a house as soon as possible! If you are going to live in an area 3 to 5 years it is worth it! If you are concerned about replacing major appliances then you can purchase New Home Buyers insurance. It runs around 550 a year and covers all major appliances. Things I realized in this last year is that things do go wrong, but most of them are minor, and you learn quickly how to deal with them.

I have also learned, that people who make more money than I do, people you or I might consider “wealthy or makes a ton!” struggle to find the dough to pay for things too!

If you purchase a starter house when your first married, you can buy up later. I have friends in Texas who bought their first house 10 years ago, and now live in house 2 or 3. They purchased cheap, did some minor upgrades and sold while the market was up. They then had good money for a down payment on house number 2 and many of them pay a very similar monthly payment and price for house number 2 even though it is WAY nicer!

Purchasing a house is a wonderful investment, and it will help you learn skills that you will eventually need to know. You might as well learn them as a young, energetic newly wed than 9 years in like I am.

You do what you want, but if I had to do it over again, this is one decision I would change! Living in our HOUSE has been one of the most rewarding things this past 14 months. We talked about it last night on OUR deck. Funny, since she did not know I was writing this today!

Check back tomorrow for #3…”it deals with money”

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5 things I wish I had known when I got married!

May 4, 2009

Later this year my wife and I will be celebrating our 10 year anniversary. {Still trying to decide how we plan on celebrating…with a baby on the way, a growing church, etc…}

This week I want to spend each day focusing on 5 things I wish I had known right before and during the first couple of years of marriage.

#1. The thrill of the chase does not have to end!

If you are a guy reading this I think you will understand the chase! If you are a female I will spend a few moments explaining. As a guy who had fallen head over heals for my wife, I had the thrill of trying to woo her! The excitement that came with every opportunity to make her laugh, look into her eyes, and try to steal her heart was a part of the chase!

I did things specifically to make her fall in love with me, and I was growing in my love for her throughout this time.

It sounds mushy and like a wonderful “girly movie”, but the reality is that it was exciting for me and for her. Once I got married we continued to date, and go out all the time to do fun stuff, because we did not have any children. Fast forward 3 1/2 years when our first daughter was born.

During the first couple years of our oldest daughters life things were pretty rough. I worked full-time, was a children’s pastor, went to college full-time, and tried to be a husband and father. The chase was over…

It took every bit of my energy to simply provide and survive for my families sake. I wish someone had sit me down and explained a few things. Please, do not get me wrong I had some great people in my life that looked out for me, but no-one really putting me in my place. If I had it all to do over again, I will still follow that path, but I would have done one single thing different!

I would have continued the chase!     Fast forward 3 years …

In 2007, I really began to focus on the chase again! The excitement of bringing home random gifts for my wife, not just the kids, the last minute date nights where we could grab dinner and a movie. In addition, we began to plan nights to go on a date. I hope you understand, I am not perfect in this by any means, but I am much better than I used to be.

My motivation for each post the next 5 days is to encourage you, and explain what I wish I had known. I wish someone had told me, NEVER STOP THE CHASE!

My marriage has had some rough days, months, and maybe even a couple of rough years. There were times I loved my wife, but was just blah about everyday life as a married man. I am being honest with you here, and I know it happens to WAY TO MANY COUPLES!

If you are dating, just married, or have been married twenty years I encourage you to start planning date nights today!  Begin to think about little things you can surprise your spouse with on a day-to-day basis. It could be as simple as bringing Starbucks home one morning, or buying clothes.

Here are a few things I have done the last couple of years:
1. Bought my wife a whole new wardrobe. I mean everything, seriously! {Hint: I bought things I think she would look cute or HOT in!}
2. I began planning times monthly for us to go out to dinner and discuss anything other than ministry and parenting!
3. We began to schedule specific family nights, weekly, that nothing can interfere with, especially ministry! {This is with the whole family, but it strengthens my marriage}
4. I began randomly bringing things home or scheduling fun things. {dinner, treats, fun movies for the family, etc..}
5. In 2009 we have added 1 out-of-town get-a-away per quarter. These are not expensive and sometimes do include family, even ministry meetings for 1 or 2 hours. These times are refreshing and fun to just get away!

These may not be the same things your marriage needs, but if you have not continued the chase, your marriage will suffer at some point. Marriage is work, and it is the most important relationship you have with another person in life.

Check back tomorrow for #2.

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Swingset # 2

April 28, 2009

Now that you know the beginning of the story….

Here is the rest of the story…

On Saturday April 16th, I began the journey of building a Rainbow Play System All American Kingdm Swing Set!

We had 1 children’s pastor, 1 general contractor & construction company owner, 1 airplane painter (general builder), and me!

We began out the day by setting out all the wood, bolts, screws, and accessories. Sounds easy right? Yeah Right! This part of the process took almost 2 hours to get it all sorted, labeled, and read the instructions.

We worked for an additional 7 hours and ended up finishing 6 of 24 steps.

We were only 1/4 of the way done after a full days work. (at least we had fun!)

So Friday I took the day off, and JoNathan came over to help from 10 until 4.  Those precious 6 hours were spent leveling the swingset, and then building 3 more steps. After he left, I was able to get 2 more steps done.

Then in the last few minutes I was tightening one of my last few bolts of the day, and the wrench slipped and I got nailed in the nose. Yep!

Here is the Friday breakdown: 5 more steps done, 2 exhausted men, and 1 broken nose.

Some exciting news is that I finished 1 1/2 more steps tonight. I will work more tomorrow night to try and get into the home stretch.

This whole process has been a pain in the neck! It has been very frustrating at times, and very enjoyable at others.

The thing that keeps coming to mind when I am working on it is that every victory requires a price to be paid!

In order to get to the place, where my kids have a fantastic swing-set that I only dreamed of as a kid, I must pay the price of long days and a couple missed families times.

Overall: decision is worth it! (Next Swing-Set post will be once it is done and I will post a couple of pictures.)

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SwingSet #1

April 27, 2009

One week ago Saturday we began an adventure at my house.  Installing the new swing set that I bought for my kids back in February.

(February 14th, 2008)

As I drove home from the coffee shop that I visit each Saturday morning to put the finishing touches on that weeks sermons, I called home. “Sweetie, get the kids dressed and fed a quick breakfast. I want to go look at swing sets.”

Ashlee got the kids ready quickly, and fed a quick breakfast.

We started with the normal stores: Toy R Us, Menards (home improvement store), Home Depot, and then the Pool and Outdoor Store. After looking at these places we were not that impressed.  So we decided to take a peak at 2 more places.

1. Rainbow Play Systems: I heard they sold displays for a cheap price in February and March.

2. Lowes (Home Improvement) since I had heard they have good systems called Harvest, and they will come build them.

So the first trip was to Rainbow Play Systems (RPS) to take a look around. The store happened to be closed, but they had a lot of systems outside to look at.  As I walked through Knee deep snow I realized the cheapest set on clearance was still $2900.

Basically, out of the price range…

Then came the trip to Lowes where they Harvest swing set was nice, and only a couple hundred more than I wanted to spend. (Yes I said only a couple of hundred) So we went home and decided we would pray about it.

My wife has always wanted a Rainbow System Since the kids were born. I have always said, “They are too pricey, we will never get one!”  I know I am a man of great faith, right!

(February 16, 2009)

I was looking at Lowes over lunch at their swingset that could be installed the first week of April. The set was nice. It had a small fort, swings, a rope ladder, and was large enough for my kids. I was a little disappointed that the swings would only hold 70 lbs, wich meant it was rated for 8 to 9 year old kids.  As I drove back to the office,  I was a little bummed.

Around 4:30 my wife called and said that Sams had a new swing set she had heard about from a friend, and we should go take a look at it.

Once arriving at Sams Club we went straight to the swing set and to my surprise there she was in all her glory, beauty, and splendor. It was the 2008 Rainbow Play System All-American Kingdom (Now Called RPS  Castle which has 1 more rope ladder and a different roof (canvas)).

As my kids drooled over the play set and my wife looked on in astonishment, I quickly did a few calculations in my head.

1. The set I looked at on clearance was $2900 for a smaller system. The Castle I really wanted was $4300, and yet this system is an amazing $900. (Yeah that’s right $2000 less than the smaller system, and $3400 less than the brand new one at the RPS store.)

2. How many men and days it would take to build, since Sams will not come and build it for you.

Needless to say, that hunting trip was successful. Please do not get me wrong, I enjoy shopping with my wife. I love the “bird watching” technique she uses in scoping out every good deal in 100 mile radius, and she saves our family tons, tons of money. With that said, I am still very much a big game hunter when it comes to shopping. I like to know I am going for, get the prey in my sight, and bag it and carry it home in the shortest amount of time possible.

That day, I brought a 2100 pound monster into my garage. The RPS All American Kingdom has been sitting in my garage ever since, well until last Saturday.

The kids were ecstatic, the wife was happy, and I felt like a dad who just made way for his wife and kids summer dreams to come true. Now all I needed to do was wait for spring.

Oh yeah, I started this thing with the building project (April 18, 2009)

Check back tomorrow for the building adventure…

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Excitement

April 3, 2009

Excitement is one of the words that could be used to describe the atmosphere around the OC.

Yesterday, I blogged about the things I was personally excited about in my life. Today I want to talk about the things that are building the excitement around Overflow Church.

1. God is stretching our leaders and requiring us to step outside the box.
2. People are starting to catch the passion and vision for this mustard seed church.
3. The new building is moving along and we are out growing are current location.
4. God is really allowing me to cast some great vision and dream some bug dreams for what He wants accomplished.
5. People are recieving Christ for the first time, and connecting to a body of believers in a way never experienced previously.
6. We are fighting the good fight of faith and seeing breakthrough! People are being set free!
7. JoNathan Fietzer moves here tomorrow! That is building all kinds of excitment.

Ultimately, God is on the move in many ways. Things are happening that people are realizing cannot be by accident and He is growing us through it.

P.S. I am stokes for Nate to be here tomorrow. Praise God. He is such an answer to prayer.

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Excited!

April 2, 2009

I am a guy who is passionate about many things in life. I am extremely passionate about the Kingdom of God and the church. I am passionate about taking care of my family, and spending time with all my girls.

Anyone who has been around me long, will realize that I am way more about being FOR things than against things. Some people don’t get me, because of that attitude, or they misinterpret what I am about. To be honest with you, that used to bother me. There are some amazing men of God that I have had the pleasure of reading, and asking questions from, that has honestly broken that right off! Furthermore, the last four years God has changed my self-value level from 3 or 4 to a 10 on 1 – 10 scale. I know it sounds prideful, it really is not, I simply quite looking at how I or anyone else sees me, and started looking through HIS eyes at me! {You should try that…you would be at a 10 too}

Now that you have a glimpse of what I am about, I would like to share with you 15 things that I am excited about! (No specific order)

  1. New Baby – my wife is pregnant with our third child, and it was an amazing miracle from God! He promised the third would be a suprise, and boy was it! (ask sometime)
  2. My girls are getting older, wiser, and funnier by the day. I am so excited to see them learn and mature. (I am very proud)
  3. My marriage is getting better by the year. (The last month has been a little rough. A lot of stress and warfare, but overall I would not trade it for anything)
  4. I have lived in my house for 1 year now! MAN, that went by quick. I am excited, because God had to come through for us to afford it, and do the things He was speaking to me about. Guess what, He DID!
  5. Growth: I am very excited to see people around me growing. I see people growing in love, grace, joy, passion, talent, and most of all closer to God! (There are few on-fire people in our church that I am so excited about. Honestly, I just want to run up and hug them when I see them.) I honestly think few people understand how excited I get to see a brother / sister on fire for God!
  6. Friends: I have several people that I am moving into a good friendship with here in Appleton. For those pastor’s reading, you know this is a difficult thing to have, yet an essential element to surviving the ministry.
  7. Freedom Fellowship: A sister church about 15 miles away.  I am excited to be connecting with them to see the Kingdom of God advancing in the Fox Valley Region. We share a lot of common vision, and some interesting differences! It is a perfect relationship, and I am stoked!
  8. The Freedom Center Bldg that we are working on getting ready to be our new home, along with an outreach center. Freedom Fellowship and Overflow Church are moving forward in trying to create a multipurpose building here in Appleton for outreach, youth activities, worship nights, and a home for the OC.
  9. TWISI (The Way I See It): Our study on world views that starts next Wednesday Night! I think it will be powerful and provocative.  If you have friends who are wondering why your crazy, sold out, or asking a lot of questions this is a perfect series for Life Groups!
  10. The next two Sunday’s Messages: WOW… they are going to be good.
  11. Overflowers are getting excited about what God is doing in their lives. We have several that are spreading the word about the OC, and I am getting emails and blog readers with questions about what God is doing here in the valley. What a blessing!
  12. God is stretching me, and speaking to me about multiple series at once. Tony Morgan and Perry Noble discussions about series planning is beginning to rub off on me.
  13. The following series being developed: Happiness Redefined, Prayer, Essentials of James, Family Matters,  and More To Love
  14. New believers and partners at Overflow. I am so excited to see people accept Christ or those recommitting to Christ after some time away from God and the Church. THIS NEVER GETS OLD! THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE NEW OVERFLOWERS. I love having you around. I could not communicate how excited I get to see you each Sunday or Life Group!
  15. My daughters new rainbow swing set. It will get built in a couple of weeks, but it is a dream system for my wife (yes I know) and my girls are SO excited. God allowed us to get it at around 1/4 of the actual cost. We are blessed.

There are so many more things that I am excited about, but I thought I would just share a few. One that did not make my list above, but is very important to me is this:

I am excited that you are reading my blog. I love being able to share my thoughts, pondering, and insights here. I love interaction, and hope you enjoy it.

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