Ten Core Values of Long Hollow

Posted on February 3, 2010 in: Long Hollow

I feel so blessed to serve as the Sr. Pastor of Long Hollow.  It’s not always easy, but it’s always exciting and fulfilling.  I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.  I love our church and what God is doing in and through us!

I realize we are not for everybody.  We are different from a lot of churches.  That doesn’t make us better, it just means we are being who God called us to be.  There are many great churches in our community, and we here at Long Hollow are pro-church!  But in our “different-ness,” God has called us to reach some people other churches won’t reach - people who have given up on church.

Through the years I’ve heard people say they didn’t like the direction our church is going or that we’re just about numbers.  I always pause when I hear that and search my heart.  But I can honestly say we are really not doing anything any different now than we have the last 13 years.  Oh, we may dress different and the music may be a little different (if you don’t like that, don’t worry.  I’m sure it will keep changing, and we may even come full circle! :-) ) But at the heart of Long Hollow, we are doing the same stuff we’ve always done.  In fact, we have operated by these 10 core values since 1997:

  1. We affirm that Jesus is the head of the church, therefore He tells Long Hollow what to do; we don’t tell Him.
  2. We believe the Bible is THE Word of God, and it is our sole authority for our faith and practice.
  3. We are convinced that the only way of salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
  4. We are mindful that people matter to God, therefore they matter to us.
  5. We are broken over the awareness that lost people go to hell, so we will do “whatever it takes” to reach them with the message of the Gospel.
  6. We will never settle for low impact in our community.
  7. We fear missed opportunities more than we fear failure, therefore we are not afraid to take risks.
  8. We believe that change is good and normal for a healthy church.
  9. We are committed to unity, understanding that the world knows we belong to Jesus because of the way we love each other.
  10. We want to be and do all that we do as a church for the glory of God!

It’s important that we cling to these core values.  It’s so easy for a church to lose focus and become “me-centered.” In the end, it’s not about us.  The goal for all churches everywhere is to stay “Christ-Centered.”   May we forever and always tenaciously seek to make this the goal of Long Hollow!

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Haiti Trip, Last Day

Posted on February 1, 2010 in: Crazy Love, Long Hollow, Missions, Prayer

I was incommunicado the last day of our trip and was unable to update my blog.  Here’s the final installment of our trip.

Lance, Derek, Mike, and I spent most of our last day in Haiti at the Port-au-Prince airport, waiting for a flight out.  The Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) is organizing free flights for volunteers using planes donated by various organizations.  We flew out on a Hendrick Motor Sports plane.  Joe Gibbs Racing also donated his plane. I may have to become a NASCAR fan! :-)

It was strange to leave the heat and humidity of Haiti to arrive back in snowy Nashville.  But it was good to be home!

Bob Mell left Haiti a day later on Kobe Bryant’s plane.  Due to the weather, his flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Nashville was canceled, and he found himself stranded in FLL.  Amazingly, while waiting in line at the airport, he ran into Long Hollow member, Chris Ferguson.  Chris gave Bob and another doctor from Nashville a ride home.  They got home about 9am Saturday morning, after a 14-hour drive!

The Global Orphan Project continues to experience God’s blessing for provision and favor with the relief agencies that are handling orphans.  Please continue to pray for the Global Orphan teams, as they are serving at ground zero of this crisis.

The work we are doing with our orphanage in Jeremie is more critical than ever, now that the number of orphans in Haiti has increased because of the earthquake.  To ease overcrowding at existing orphanages, we need to finish our orphanage as soon as possible.

We are planning on taking several teams to Haiti over the next few months.  Some immediate needs include:

  • Medical teams
  • Construction teams
  • VBS teams

Thank you for your prayers while we were gone.  We literally felt them!!

This Sunday I will be sharing more about our trip, as well as talking in more detail about the next phase of Long Hollow’s involvement in Haiti.

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Haiti Trip, Day 4

Posted on January 28, 2010 in: Crazy Love, Missions, Prayer

Wednesday was another interesting day here in Haiti.  We were waiting on 3 trucks full of supplies to unload, but they were late showing up.  So we spent the morning doing odd jobs and playing with the orphans.  We finally heard that the trucks were being held at the border until a representative of The Global Orphan Project could arrive and verify their use.

All of The Global Orphan Project staff were gone, so Mike Fox, founder of The Global Orphan Project, sent our team along with a translator, by the name of Stephanie, to pick up the boxes.  I was told I had to drive!!  I did my best to drive Haitian style - aggressively and with a liberal use of the horn.  By the grace of God we made it to the border!  Lance, Derek and Stephanie went inside and, after several minutes of negotiations by Stephanie, the trucks were released.  I think Lance and Derek’s contribution was that since they haven’t shaved or bathed in several days, they looked very mean.

Stephanie was such a gift from God because she spoke Creole to the Haitians, Spanish to the Dominican truck drivers and English to us (not to mention French), and so we were able to get the supply lines opened up and rolling back to Eben Ezer. We spent the rest of the afternoon unloading the trucks, about 75,000 pounds of food.  God gives strength to the weary!

Once that was finished, Lance,  Mike and I left with Pastor Moise to visit his church.  We went by the school where his 9- year-old son, Jean Marc, was at the time of the earthquake.  The building is in total ruins.  He has been told by some people that they have seen his son alive, so he and his wife are still looking for him in the refugee camps.  Pray for him and his wife as they don’t want to give up hope but realize that he may in fact be dead.  We prayed with him that God would grant him grace for this challenging time.

Next, we went to his church in the heart of the city which was badly damaged by the earthquake.  Many people were camped out in the church grounds, and we met many of his congregation and had prayer with them.  Pastor Moise’s congregation lost 11 people in the earthquake.  He introduced us to several who had lost loved ones, including a teenage boy who had lost his father and sister.

He shared with us his vision for his congregation to be a light that shines brightly in this dark season.  He believes that God showed him before the quake that the church would be strategically used during a season of great trial.  He is committed to staying and rebuilding.  He talked so powerfully about members of his church who had lost loved ones but were serving others through this time. Already they have seen many people saved!

I’m grateful for the time we had with Pastor Moise. He was a huge blessing to be around. Pray for Pastor Moise and his congregation.  They are literally at ground zero and making a  huge difference.

Yesterday I shared about how we were unsuccessful in rescuing many kids from PAP.  Today two children were brought in!  Praise the Lord!

Right before bed, we got word that a shipment of food needed to leave early in the morning for distribution to orphan villages in the Les Cayes area, so we turned around and loaded about 45,000 meals and four tons of rice & beans back onto a truck!  We will have no problem sleeping tonight!

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Haiti Trip, Day 3

Posted on January 26, 2010 in: Crazy Love, Missions, Prayer

Today (Tuesday) was full day here in Haiti.  We have felt your prayers and ask that you continue to remember our team and the work of The Global Orphan Project.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, Bob Mell joined Global Orphan’s medical team the first day and traveled further south and west to Les Cayes.   As you can imagine, due to the devastation in their city, many have fled Port-au-prince (PAP).  The Les Cayes area has been deluged with refugees, almost doubling its size.

The Global Orphan medical team has already been used in some tremendous ways in that area.  One thing the team members have done is to go through the town seeking out and treating anyone in need of medical care. Many folks with injuries were are seeking treatment for the first time since the quake. Doctors are seeing illness, infection, and unset broken bones.  Pray for Bob and his team as they share the love of Jesus through their medical skills.

We had an exciting thing happen today here in PAP.  A little boy named Johnny was brought in with several injuries and was treated by Global Orphan Project doctors and nurses.  Johnny asked this morning if we could help him find his mother.  The team took a picture of Johnny and asked him to give them directions to where he lived.

Following his directions and using his picture, with the help of the Holy Spirit, amazingly she was found!!

On the heels of that huge victory, our team hit a roadblock at the main hospital in PAP when trying to pick up some unclaimed kids that we had previously arranged with hospital administrators to take into the orphanage.  The hospital is literally a collection of tents, and the children would be much more comfortable at the orphanage.  At the point we were literally holding kids in our arms and getting ready to walk out the front gate, we were denied - all due to bureaucratic red tape.  Pray for the team tomorrow, that we will be able to successfully bring these precious children back to the orphanage.

On Tuesday we were also involved in several logistical projects at the orphanage.  We  helped load a truck with 36,000 meals, and we also literally loaded a ton of rice on a truck for food distribution.  We helped organize the warehouse for multiple deliveries tomorrow and fixed a drainage problem.

It was a busy and productive day.  Please continue to pray for our team and the work of The Global Orphan Project.

Check out this quick video:

Haiti Update from Long Hollow Creative on Vimeo.

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Haiti Trip, Day 2

Posted on January 25, 2010 in: Crazy Love, Missions, Prayer

We had a really interesting day today.  Our flight left the US for the Dominican Republic (DR) at midnight, and we arrived at destination at 2:30 am.  We cleared customs and loaded on a bus at 4:00 this morning for a six-hour ride to Haiti.

We arrived in Haiti at 10 am and had a chance to play with the orphans who greeted us when we got off the bus.  We then had an orientation with Mike Fox and Trace Thurlby of The Global Orphan Project (C3).

After that, our team split up.  Most of the team, including Bob Mell, went to Les Cayes (an additional five-hour drive!!) to run a medical clinic.

Lance, Derek, Mike and I left immediately with Beth Fox to pick up some orphans in Port-au-Prince (PAP), taking a form of transportation known as a “tap-tap.”  A tap-tap is essentially riding in the back of a covered pickup truck.

Due to the large volume of traffic going into the city, a trip that should have taken an hour took us five hours.  One cool thing that happened was that the 82nd Airborne took us into their convoy as we made our way downtown.  Seeing those guys gave us a great sense of pride in our country.  The traffic delayed us enough that we weren’t able to pick up the orphans today, but we will be going back on Tuesday to gather up to eight more!

haiti_damage

The damage to PAP was shocking.  Whatever you may have imagined, it’s worse.  It’s like a war zone, and in many places, the smell of dead bodies still fills the air. We saw large numbers of tent cities as people scramble to find shelter.  It is estimated that up to a million people have left PAP, creating significant logistical problems elsewhere. However, there does seem to be enough food now, due to the relief efforts and the mass exodus of people from the city.

Tonight, after 36 hours, we finally got a shower (Lance needed one - he was really funky!) and a hot meal,  and we are looking forward to sleeping in a bed.  Due to the aftershocks, however, like many Haitians, we are opting to sleep under the stars.  Nothing like camping out!

Please continue to pray for the country of Haiti and for our team as we assist the folks at The Global Orphan Project.

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