Since this is a website about the life of Chris Taylor I thought that I would go ahead and tell myself Happy Birthday.  So…Happy Birthday Chris Taylor.

Last night Nicole and I went with my mom, dad, and brother Victor to Baudean’s on DIP.  If you don’t know what happens there on Tuesday night you really need to check it out.  All-you-can-eat Snow Crab Legs.  I think I sinned a little bit as well as everyone else around the table.  The greatest thing about the night was that I didn’t have to pay for my meal.  I guess my dad felt sorry for me and offered to pay.  Honestly, the greatest part of the night was spending time with my favorite people.  Though today is my birthday and I get to spend it with 100+ crazy students that I love dearly, I loved being able to go and spend time with mom and dad last night.

Cherish those special moments, even if you are stuffing your face with crab and oyster stew.

Started a new Bible study a few days ago called “Blended” through www.youversion.com.  It is a 1-year blended New & Old Testament Bible study.  Today’s scripture was reading two chapters in Genesis, 23 & 24.  Pretty easy read, and something that I have read a couple of times.  I probably should have read this a couple of times before I got married because I would have saved a whole lot of money.

I could be totally off from what this actually means, but this popped into my head when reading.  From what I understand I was totally wrong scripturally based when I purchased an engagement ring.  I guess it’s one of those things that is just understood…plus when you get emailed pictures of ring after ring after ring during your relationship you kind of figure out what your future mate wants.

In Gen 24 Issac didn’t have to hunt for his future wife, all he had to do was drink a little water and give up some rings and bracelets.  Onward into verses 22-29, Issac gives her a gift.  A nose ring and some bracelets.  I wonder if Rebekah thought ”Has anyone worn that nose ring, because I don’t want someone else’s boogers in my nose,” probably not.  I look at this and think, dude, I could have done the whole biblical Genesis 24 thing when proposing to Nicole.  A quick version probably would have went something like this:

Chris – “Yo girl, you fine! Lemme get some of that water”
Nicole – “Ok, I guess.  Do you need some for your busted radiator?  I’ll go get that too”
Chris – ” Yeah girl, you know, this is just my work truck.  My Lambo is sittin at the hizzy”
Nicole – “Whatever, I’ll go help you out and get some more water for you”
Chris – “Thanks girl! Look, since you did all this imma give you this nose ring & these bracelets”
Nicole – “OMG! This is sooooo nice!”
Chris – “Yeah, that’s how I roll girl”  BTW, who you from anyways”
Nicole – “From Larry son of Delaney, and Lisa daughter of Nana”
Chris – “That’s tight! I think we are gonna make a good pair”

To think back on it, I should’a got a nose ring.

When I was 12 years old I moved to my dad’s at 11925 Argyle Rd.  If you are not familiar with that area of Irvington, AL then I’ll explain.  We lived at the intersection of Four Mile, and Argyle Road which was a 2-way stop.  (I think you can figure out where this is going.)

I was 13 years old at home one night playing some video games when I heard one of the loudest noises ever at that point in my life.  I looked outside and 2 vehicles were in my front yard, one a dark colored sedan, and another a van.  They had collided with each other at the intersection where my house was at.  Dad and I ran out to help and we went to the closest which was the car.  There were two people, a boy and his grandfather, in the car.  The grandfather was bleeding from his neck and dad trying to contain the bleeding.  The 13 year old grandson was in the drivers seat.  While dad was trying to stop the bleeding he told me to go check on the people in the van.

As I ran to the van there were two people trapped in the van.  Understand that this is all in my front yard. I checked on those and they were screaming because of the pain and then I seen something that changed my life.  One of the girls that was in the van had been thrown from the back out of the window and died on the impact.  She was wrapped around the broken round wooden fence posts in our front yard.  Honestly, I still have that image in my brain and I hate when I think about it.

Saturday, February 19 was another one of those days I will never forget.  On our way home from seeing a couple of wedding venue’s with Rachael and Shane we got the experience of a lifetime:

(This part gets a bit graphic) Around mile marker 56 going West on I-10 we decided to switch to the right lane because the white suburban behind us moved over and the car behind it was moving up fast.  We were traveling about 75 mph and as I moved over I checked my rear-view mirror and saw that the SUV was coming up beside me and the Suburban was behind me.  As soon as I was about to look back forward the Suburban run off the road a bit.  The driver tried to correct the move but over corrected and the Suburban went out of control.  As I’m watching this I’m yelling, “Oh my God” over and over.  Nicole, and Rachael are watching it happen also because they had turned around when I starting saying that.  The Suburban then started flipping and as I watched in my rear-view a person was thrown from the vehicle.  Given we are traveling at 75mph, it seemed like this guy was shot out of a human rocket launcher.  The Suburban kept flipping and ended up in the East bound lane and the person also landed in the East bound lane.  Immediately I started dialing 911 and gave them all the details, but that was all I could do.  That is when it hit me.  What am I doing?  Did I have a chance to save that person, no I didn’t.  Do I have a chance to save others, yes I do.

The image of that person flying from the car will probably never leave me, but I pray that it makes me stronger in my faith.  I pray that because of that person’s life I may be able to save the lives of others by sharing Jesus Christ with them.  Honestly, that was one of the most horrific things I’ve ever seen, and hopefully will ever see.  Given that I’ve seen stuff like that on the T.V. show “Wildest Police Chases”,  it doesn’t compare to seeing something like that happen in real time.  I told Shane as we traveled home in silence that in 5 seconds that guy was taken from this life.  5 seconds before, he was just switching lanes.  5 seconds after he was hitting the pavement at 70mph.

If you are still reading please pray for that family.  There are no news reports as of yet, and if there is one posted I will link it here.  Let me leave you with this:  Be real and honest with yourself.  If you do not 100% faithfully know if you are going to Heaven when you die please adhear to what Romans 10:13 says, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” If you do not 100% faithfully know you are going to Heaven, right now ask God to save you and ask Jesus Christ to be Lord of your life.

Here is the video I posted earlier if you would like to watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG71Ys0Bjdw
And please Buckle Up!

Nicole and I are planning to go out of town to Los Angeles to visit her sister for Mardi Gras break.  We have a lot of activities planned as it is but I mentioned that we need to go visit a church when we are there.  The first church that came to my mind was Saddleback.  If you don’t know anything about Saddleback church let me fill you in.  For one: Rick Warren, author of the best selling book in the nation, is the pastor.  They have several different campuses and minister in an impactful way in California.  After talking with Nicole and looking at our schedule it seemed that it would be a little far to drive.

I did not know any other churches in LA so I did what anyone with some tech knowledge would do; I googled.  One of the first churches that came up was a church called “The Dream Center”.  My first impression was, “wow that is a cool name let me search into it further and make sure it’s not one of those crazy churches.”  As I went to the website there was a link to Pastor Matthew’s new book.  About 5 minutes before this search I received an email about a book called “The Cause Within You”.  Guess who the author was….Matthew Barnett.

At this time I’m almost convinced that we are going there but not 100% sure yet.  I went ahead and added him to my Twitter account so I could follow his tweets and then I wrote this: Trying to find a church to attend when we go to LA.  @matthewbarnett’s church The Dream Center looks to be a possibility. A couple minutes later guess who messages me back….Yes the Pastor of a church that has a weekly attendance of 35,000.  No that is not a typo, thirty-five thousand people in one week attend his church.  I then tweeted him back and he told me he was speaking that day and wanted me to come and say hi.

I’m not sure if that makes a difference to you, but it made a remarkable difference in my life.  As a youth pastor I don’t have a lot of time to sit around and tweet people, but this guy is in charge of a mega-church and he makes time to write a few words to me, a youth pastor at a church in Grand Bay, AL.  His short tweet really made a difference.  This makes me think also about my life and how Jesus would live in our day.  Maybe if Jesus was walking on the earth today he would have a Twitter, maybe not, but I know that Jesus would be Making A Difference by doing the small things to get people to hear his gospel.

Remember to Love Jesus and Love People,
Chris

Well first I want to thank you for tuning in to another great story of my life. If you are not aware, Alabama played Penn State this weekend and ESPN GameDay was on site.

The story starts somewhere along the lines of Thursday night. Kyle Bryant and I had been talking for a number of weeks about going to GameDay and trying to get on T.V. We thought it would be really cool if we had some funny signs so we starting thinking of ideas. After a little while we come up with two. Before I tell you about the pictures let me setup the scenario.

At 2:00am on Saturday morning Kyle and I leave Grand Bay, AL headed for Tuscaloosa, AL. Being the great friend that he is he opted to drive, and being the great friend that I am, I opted to “pray” for 3 and 1/2 hours on our drive up. Needless to say it was a quick trip up for me. We arrived there and found a parking place about 6am and headed to the front of the stadium where ESPN Gameday would be broadcasting from. Honestly we were welcomed with open arms because of our signs. I almost felt like a celebrity for a short time, except all the pictures I took with the sign I was behind it….

Celebrity status or not, a whole lot of people loved our signs and wanted to take pictures of it. After taking some pictures we moved into the line where the Gameday entrance was. When we were moving to the front we heard some of the security or “GameDay Nazis”, as I like to call them, telling people that if you have a stick or pole you cannot enter. That was not too bad of news given that everyone else was standing on the outer portion of the circle and was still very close to the cameras. So we took our signs and moved to the outer circle. At that time we met more people that wanted to take pictures of our sign so we did.

About an hour went by and GameDay was about to start so I took the sign I was holding and started putting it in the air waving it around and honestly acting like a complete idiot.  At that time some of the GameDay Nazis come over and asked it they could take a look at the sign.  After examining it they told us that we could not hold our signs up because they were derogatory.  I then told them that I’m a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ and that nothing I would hold up would be derogatory so he could take his security badge, brown pants, and greasy hair and shove……just kidding, but that is what I was feeling at the time.  We graciously put them down in disappointment because we did not want the sheriffs to come and take us away.

At this time our goal of getting on T.V. was cut down to nothing, but we still had an idea.  We knew that they would be broadcasting a large view so we walked back to the steps in front of the stadium and actually was on the opening clip of GameDay that morning.  If you were watching you probably could not see us because we were so tiny, but our goal of getting on T.V. was accomplished.  An A+ for effort, but more like a C- on the actual examination.  Below you can checkout our signs we made:

This represented the story of Auburn QB Cameron Newton.  While attending Florida he “allegedly” stole a laptop and used his internet access card to get online.  The school traced the laptop to where he was located and when they banged on the door he then took the laptop to the window and tried to throw it into a dumpster.  Funny part was that he missed the dumpster.

Click here for the actual story on Birmingham News

Click here for the song remake.