Category Archives: Reflecting
Katrina Memories
Rode out Katrina’s aftermath in Waldheim, LA while planting Hope Church, between Covington & Bogalusa, LA. The community lost about 30% of its trees. A few memories still stuck in my head:
- The weatherman saying, “a little jog to the west.”
- Preaching Sun, Aug 28, 2005, to a small group of people who mostly had their bags packed for a nervous trip north.
- Seeing my family drive away into the endless stream of cars heading north.
- The sound of generators running from miles around.
- The smell of pine sap, sweat, and chain saw bar oil. It’s forever burned into my nostrils.
- The trees. So many trees….
- 10 weeks without electricity.
- MRE’s and Southern Baptist cooked pastalaya.
- Countless volunteers (I wish I could remember all their names) who cooked, cut, constructed, & deconstructed, hugged, cried, sweated, & bled with Gulf Coast folks for more than a year.
- Rice crispy treats!!! Our church received a call, “Can you take the contents of a truck from TN?” “What’s in it?” “Not sure.” It was a 40′ truck load of rice crispy treats. Took forever to get rid of them. Still have night mares about rice crispy treats.
- Saying good-bye to friends who had to move away.
- The heart breaking sights and sounds in the city of New Orleans & the Gulf Coast of Mississippi.
- Seeing the heartbreak of St. Bernard Parish residents as volunteers pulled the flooded, molded contents of their homes to the curb.
- The day my family came home :)).
- Laying down in my bed for the first night with electricity and realizing the trees were no longer there to cover the street lights. Couldn’t sleep for a week.
- Hearing my atheist neighbor ask, “What is God trying to tell us, Pastor?”
- Hearing people say Katrina was a good thing because it helped me realize I needed God and needed others. (Also, see my post on What’s worse than a Cat 4 Hurricane).
The Church Planter’s Wife
In honor of my church planting wife on our 16th Anniversary
Sunday’s have been abnormal for my wife for the entirety of our marriage. They’ve included:
- never having her husbands help getting the kids ready for church because he’s setting up for church.
- very seldom sitting by her husband in a worship service because of preaching/sound/nursery/etc.
- going to church in weird places like apartment complex clubhouses, fire stations, former bars, & gymnasiums
- not having Sunday lunch till 2pm most weeks because he’s doing teardown & cleanup
Why? Because her husbands a church planter. I’ve never heard her complain about any of this as she has accepted this role as who she is. It’s OUR calling, she says. A calling that’s led her to:
- Lead worship for a new church’s first worship service in an un air conditioned fire station in August, WHILE 9 MONTHS PREGNANT.
- She cooked for & hosted the first new members class for a church plant, JUST BEFORE checking in to the hospital to deliver one of our children.
- She’s started worship teams, children’s teams, Bible Studies, Book Club’s, women’s ministries. She’s painted faces, painted buildings, scrubbed floors, scrubbed toilets, changed diapers, etc., etc., etc.
- She’s prepared the home for meetings probably a thousand times by now! Many times 2 or 3 times a week. Sometimes twice in one day.
- She’s never complained about short vacations & creatively inexpensive date nights or about having to work outside the home because the church planters salary was, to say it nicely, below the average income for the area.
- She’s cooked & cleaned for thousands of volunteers that have served through our ministries. Many of them in the emotional aftermath of Hurricanes that had damaged our property & the property of most of our friends.
- She’s faced the emotional ups & downs of having a type A church planting husband who has faced criticism, made bad decisions, said yes to too much, & wanted to quit every Monday.
- And during all this, did I mention WE’VE GOT KIDS! Yep, she’s also an incredible mom, sister, friend, coworker, etc.
Dr. Reggie Ogea, who recruited me to plant our first church tells me every time I see him – “You know we only hired you because of your wife. We thought you were the real deal, but we knew Heather was the real deal.” And she’s proven him right over & over again.
Sometimes as I think about all of this I want to say “I’m sorry.” But she wouldn’t get it. So I just have to keep saying THANK YOU! & giving her the praise she deserves (Proverbs 31:28, 31).
Last year I talked her into telling her story to a group of church planting wives. I told her she should write it up, but she didn’t. However, I hijacked her notes (after 16 years of marriage, we can usually guess each others passwords). Here’s her outline – the commitments of a Church Planting Wife:
- I will love my husband well.
- I will not allow chaos, conflict, & criticism to completely freak me out.
- I will be who I am created to be & not compare myself to other women.
- I will take a posture of love to the lost in my community.
Grateful that she’s fulfilled & lived these commitments out. And looking forward to many more years of planting, ministry, & life with my good thing (Proverbs 18:22) Heather Corley!
Team Corley Deer Season Report 2014
Had some great young bucks on our family property this year, but due to work, weather, & sickness during most of the holidays, only got to spend about 8-12 hours hunting, so no luck. Good news is, no one else had much luck either, so barring redneck poachers, they’ll be there next year :) with greater mass & more weight hopefully.
But we did have lots of deer hunting excitement jammed into Thanksgiving holidays thanks to our family on Una Mas Ranch in Bandera, TX. Spent the week in the hunting lodge & thanks to generosity of the Sako’s got to harvest a couple of this years culls. Beautiful place! Beautiful deer! Learned some good Whitetail tips. If you’re looking for a good place to do some trophy buck hunting, check out Una Mas Ranch. Here’s a few of our pics:
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- Unforgettable sunrises from the porch of the hunting lodge.
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- Breeder buck, full mount in the hunting lodge.
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- One of the breeder bucks on the wall in the hunting lodge.
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- Beautiful Texas Hill Country.
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- Nice no brow tine 4 point.
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- Jack’s first buck.
Top Blog Post of 2014
Added 38 posts to the old Blog this year. Here’s the Top 10:
- 8 Things You’ll Never Hear An ON Mission Christian Say
- Before and After: The Way Church of Denham Springs
- 5 Things You Must Do Before You Plant A Church
- 5 Ways to Have Fun and Reach Out This Fall
- Believing for the Hard to Reach Areas: Church Planting in Avoyelles Parish
- “The size of a church does not determine its health, but…”
- 5 Things You Must Do the First Year of a Church Plant
- Stillwater Making Waves through Church Planting and Multiplication
- The Importance of Initiating New Relationships
- Outreach FAQ: “What if we’ve tried that already?”
Thanks for reading.
“The good Lord was watching out for you” – Bunkie, LA
My aging pickup left me stranded in Bunkie, LA this week. Wasn’t that bad at all. Good people there. And everyone – tow truck driver, mechanic, 2nd mechanic after the first couldn’t fix it, 1st mechanic again – told me something I needed to hear. “The good Lord was watching out for you!” I only had the chance to talk to one of these individuals about their relationship with God, but when you’re going through a trial, no matter how small, assurance of God’s presence, no matter where it comes from, is like a sip of cold water on a hot day.
Hope to pass on that reminder to someone today and everyday as well.
.
13 Things I Found Useful in 2013
Here’s my list of things that made life easier this year. Share yours or any upgrades so we can both make the most of 2014.
- Feedly – My new newspaper is my online feed reader. When Google Reader went down, I jumped onto Feedly & love it. If you do any reading online, try it out. And now the App allows you to read your feeds on any device. The Chrome Extension allows easy content adding.
- Delicious – I’ve been using Delicious for a few years now. Allows you to save articles online in your own data base. Greatly beneficial for sermon preparation. Also, now catalogues all your online activity including facebook, twitter, & instagram posts, etc. Also available as an app, so your catalogued articles & posts are available to you on the go. The Chrome Extension allows for quick tagging of articles & pages.
- YNAB – We started out with Microsoft Money, then jumped to Quicken for our household financial management. Got tired of the updates, so I looked into some cloud based solutions. We’ve used YNAB for a year now & love it. The app makes it easy to record purchases when you make them or check the budget while you’re in the store.
- Mailchimp – Tried almost all the others & found Mailchimp far easier, more affordable. Now doing about 5 e-news pieces each month & looking to add more this year.
- Dollar Shave Club – $6 a month for raisers, mailed to your house automatically. Heard about this during a church marketing training & decided to try it. Satisfied customer.
- All Pro Dad – I think one of the most challenging things I’ve done is be a dad. Love it, but as my boys get older, I find my inadequacy often. Lots of great encouragement & resources at AllProDad.com.
- YouVersion.com – Best Bible Study resource online & in the App Store. Love to use it to scan different translations when I’m doing my morning devotions. Also, love the easy sharing features for texting encouraging verses to friends & sharing on social media networks.
- Church Planter Magazine – Found Peyton Jones book Church Zero this summer & loved it. Found his podcast & digital mag soon after. Great resource for planters & planting leaders.
- BBC World News Podcast – In search of serious news from a world wide perspective, I love downloading the BBC Podcast in the mornings & listening while getting ready or commuting. So many things we miss with American media’s fascination with what the stars are eating for breakfast, etc.
- Allowance Manager – Helps manage allowances, while teaching budgeting, saving, wise spending to kids. They can have an app on their gaming devices that allows them to check their balance & learn to love managing money.
- Evernote – I’m not using this near to its potential, but love to be able to take notes & have them on all my devices or type ideas on my phone while I’m waiting in the barber shop. Best note taking & info saving advice there is.
- Plugged In Online – I’ve never been interested in video games & don’t read a lot of entertainment news. And my boys generation is devouring games online & on devices like crazy. Plugged in Online provides reviews of games, music, & movies from a Christian perspective. Saves a lot of time when you get, “Hey dad, can I download this game?”
- Lose It – Ok. I love & hate lose it. Allows you to keep up with calorie intake & exercise. Every New Year we get reacquainted. Gonna use it all year this year :)).
What hacks, tips, & tricks made you’re life easier in 2013? Would love to know. I need all the help I can get.
Church Planters Never Quit
The Church Planting journey can be lonely and discouraging. My journey has had its moments. Few friends have kept me going like Larry & Pat Badon. Larry would often call just at the right time to say, “How’s the family?” “How’s the boys?” “You been hunting lately?” And other questions that make you feel again after tough times. Yesterday was Larry’s last day as Church Planting Strategist for the Louisiana Baptist Convention. He retires after planting church in New York state & training hundreds for the church planting journey in Louisiana. I’ve learned a lot from Larry & have appreciated his passion for the unchurched & for doing life at full speed. When asked yesterday what he’s going to do in retirement, he just said, “I want to do what I can to reach more people for Jesus.” Church planters never quit, but hopefully they’ll get the chance to retire with as much fruit to look back upon as Larry has.
Faith-In-Action in Response to Hurricane Isaac
Hurricane Isaac was a non-news maker for most of the country, but devastated a few of our communities in South Louisiana. Here’s the story of the faith-based communities response in Madisonville, Louisiana.
Video by Matt Marrs, of Harmonic Films.
One Year After Isaac
Isaac was a non-newsmaker for most of the country, but devastating for a few of our communities in the Greater New Orleans area. One being the town of Madisonville where our church is currently located. I’m grateful for a strong recovery for our community, for a tremendous surge of Disaster Relief Volunteers from September-December. Then for the opportunity to bring a few folks back home January through August. A few pics:
Intersection of Hwy. 21 & Hwy. 22 in Madisonville.
As usual, tree damage was significant on the Northshore.
Volunteers pray with an elderly homeowner after cleaning up his yard.
The Jenkins family moved home January of 2013, thanks to the work of volunteers from Hosanna Lutheran, FBC Mandeville, & Bridge Church.
Laura Mae Chatallier, 97 years young, had repairs completed in March 2013.
Our last project is getting Ms. Pat Stein back in her home. Should happen any day.
Thanks to the volunteers that gave time, talent, money, materials & more to these projects. And glad the sun is shining outside on August 29th, 2013.
14 Years Later!
Yesterday was our 14th Anniversary! And I’m getting old enough to do some of my own time lapsed photography. Yikes! Visited one of our favorite spots on Southwestern Seminary’s campus this week with our now expanded families. No camera phone’s back then. Kodak all the way! Lot’s of great memories & hard learning between these two shots. Would I do it all over again? Indeed!
Lane Corley 
