Blended & Blessed Summit

The Blended and Blessed Summit was held at Watermark Community Church in Dallas the last few days of September. This summit was the first of it’s kind, calling couples together who are involved in ministry to Step Families in their church.

Hal marking the scene

We came into the picture when Hal was asked to video some interviews that will be placed on the FamilyLife Blended & Blessed web site. So, since Hal cannot run three cameras, direct, run audio and interview,  Charlotte got to ask the questions, while Hal attended to the rest of the tasks involved in a video shoot. The day was awesome, interviewing couples and single spouses about issues related to blended families through divorce, death of a spouse or for a number of reasons. We were able to capture 17 interviews and are now in the process of editing them down into bite size clips. 

Conducting these interviews also came with an education that enlightened us to this incredible need not only in the world, but in churches. Here are some of the things we learned:

Charlotte helping Hal with color balancing the
cameras and asking questions

• 40% of families in any church are either a blended family or connected to one
• the church has ignored this need for the past 20 years due to the ‘D’ word because of the fear of addressing the issue
• blending two families with teens is the most difficult to type of family to blend
• the typical length of time for two families to blend a new family together well is seven years
• the number one resource named that helped them in their blending was the Bible

This was so exciting to have the privilege of being part of this needed ministry to step families.

 

Behind the scenes

New Grandchildren

Lucas Alexander Driver, born to David and Sarah Beth on August 21, 2013

6 lbs 15 oz, 21.5"

Addalyn Jeanne Driver, born to Joel and Bethia on September 6, 2013

8 lbs 11 oz, 21"

CRU Staff Conference Day 5

We had two main sessions today and what we refer to as Super Seminars that are two hours instead of one hour like earlier in the week.

In our morning session we heard multiple speakers talk about evangelism and how our culture has changed. They all emphasized the need to make change and to create relationships with people before witnessing. We also do not need to point out sin in someones life, they already know it. 

Our afternoon Super Seminar featured Jonalyn Fincher who drove the point home that when we talk with non Christians, it is so important to show Jesus love to them and not condemn them. Just like Jesus, who never condemned anyone except the Pharisees, he loved them first. We are also so ingrained with Christianese talk we confuse the person instead of helping them. She also honed in on what we have traditionally made mountains as Christians, are mole hills to the non Christian and mountains to non Christians, we have made mole hills therefore not connecting with non Christians. We should also point others to Jesus instead of debating them.

The evening was headlined by Steve Douglas, President of Cru, casting vision and giving us a snap shot of where we are globally as a ministry.

The evening ended with some comedy from Michael Jr. 

We are starting to feel the effects of early mornings and late nights, but all worth every penny.  

CRU Staff Conference Day 4

Today was a day of connecting with God's creation and our middle son, David. We traveled to Estes Park and enjoyed time together and dodged rain drops all afternoon. Enjoy the pictures.

CRU Staff Conference - Day 3

Our day was probably the best yet. Besides hearing from various leaders, we were lead through a time of worship looking at Christ in our lives from the past, present and future. The outcome of this time was the commitment to return to Little Rock to do what God called us to do at FamilyLife. We get caught up in various things that don't really have anything to do with what our calling is. Of course we know that Satan does not what us to be doing ministry and will try to derail us daily. We also left this time with a renewed passion to continue to build our own marriage and not let Satan dictate attitudes and actions.

The afternoon and evening was dedicated to various ministries holding meetings related to their ministries. We did not have any meetings to attend, so spent part of the afternoon in Old Town Ft. Collins just walking around, then dinner with friends. We also spent part of the time helping at the FamilyLife tent and Charlotte saw the video we are showing for the first time. This is the one Hal spent weeks before the conference putting together. 

Tomorrow is our day off which we will spend with our son David in Estes Park. We are so thankful for the time with him since we only get to be with him once a year now. Sure wish Sarah Beth (David's wife) was here also, but business trips don't allow that to happen very often.

CRU Staff Conference - Day 2

Today is Charlotte's birthday, Happy Birthday!

Alistair Begg presented another awesome talk finishing up the book of Jude. In the evening we heard from 4 of the major leaders at Cru, including Dennis Rainey. 

Our FamilyLife tent saw over 250 people on day one of the conference. We are using the tent to help others become aware of a ministry within Cru and maybe see a few want to join our team in Little Rock or regionally. 

Dinner was a celebration of Charlotte's birthday with 3 other FamilyLife couples, all being the ones we started the journey with to come to FamilyLife in 2007. 

Since we have been at conference, we have been able to spend some extended time with our closest friends at FamilyLife, the Mercers, who now live in Pittsburgh and we only get to see them a couple times a year. What a blessing.

CRU Staff Conference Day 1

The first day of staff conference is "in the books", but what a day! 

Opening Day at Cru 2013 staff conference

One of the things we enjoy the most about the conference are the Praise and Worship times in the morning and evening. It has become such an emotional time for Hal especially as sing together with over 6,000 missionaries in praise to God.  Like Charlotte said 'A taste of Heaven'.

Steve Sellers, President of US staff, challenged us at the beginning to lay aside the sin in our lives that hinder our ministry and focus on what God has called us to do. He also talked about being cynical in what we say not trusting God will change things.
 
Alistair Begg ended the day with a great message from Jude and warnings that we need to be careful that we don't overlook sin in today's society and stand firm in what God had called sin. He really keyed in on Jude 4 "For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ."
  
It was fun to hear Alistair summarize Jude and then break out in song with "Hey Jude". Some of you who are not familiar with Alistair Begg, he is a 'Brit' which made it even funnier.

Vonette Bright welcomed everyone to the conference and introduced over 200 new CRU missionaries serving all over the US.

Vonette Bright welcoming staff

New staff being introduced

FamilyLife opened the tent today with a Funeral Service inside the tent. This year's theme is 'Legacy' and the impact of one man's life on everyone that knew him. The service (video) was shot in Little Rock at our church. Hal had the privilege of shooting and editing this project. The purpose of the tent is to recruit CRU staff that may be feeling lead of God to move into a new ministry based on their season of life. We are also trying to make CRU staff aware of who FamilyLife is and what resources we have to help them in their ministries, such as Stepping Up video series to be used with college guys.

Today (Tuesday) is Charlotte's 29th birthday, which we will celebrate with some of our friends at FamilyLife between sessions and seminars. 

CRU Staff Conference - Opening Night

Our day began early heading back to Denver to pick up our son David for church and lunch. We went to a small Bible church in Westminster, CO then on to Red Robin for lunch. We headed back to Ft. Collins for our opening night which was dinner and a small carnival for kids and some kids at heart and for reconnecting with our missionary staff from around the US.

One of the highlights of the evening was to see Charlotte hit the Zip Line along with Jennifer Abbott. (Hal and Duane sat it out, no excuse). It was amazing to see 'prim and proper' Charlotte head down the Zip Line like a pro and pose for the camera on the way down. Charlotte also talked Hal into the farris wheel ride. Some of you may know that Hal has always had a huge fear of sitting at the top with the seat rocking back and forth and then dropping to the ground. Of course Charlotte loves to rock the seat at the top. So, still alive to write the post, Hal made it, rocking and all.

Jennifer and Charlotte harnessed up

Charlotte heading down the Zip Line

Ft. Collins Arrival

We made it safely after three days of travel and Amy driving a majority of the way. It was a bitter/sweet trip realizing that Amy was #6 child driving us and Hal no longer has the privilege of teaching the kids to drive. Maybe Hal will get to teach a grand child in 15 years. We saw a couple of ministry partners along the way plus a nice dinner with the kids in Tulsa.

Today (Sunday) we head back to Denver to pick up our son David and attend Agape Bible church and have lunch with him. David happened (God's providence) to be in Denver the same time we are at staff conference doing a Grand Opening for a new Chick-fil-a. We will also spend the day with him on Thursday seeing Estes Park. What a blessing for us. 

Pray for David's wife Sarah Beth as she is dealing with a lot of back pain with her pregnancy, and has another month and a half to go.

Pictures tomorrow as the conference kicks off tonight.

A Country Wedding

In Oklahoma, Pawnee, about 45 miles west of Tulsa, would typically be referred to as “the plains ”. Of course, when you plan an outdoor wedding, the number one question is, “Will the weather cooperate?” With many prayers, the day was cloudy, but no rain and just a tad chilly. Thankfully, it wasn’t 40°, which happened a few days later!

Friday, the evening before the wedding and rehearsal, was another story - rain all day, the road to the wedding site was all mud, so we had a sweet rehearsal inside. After a dinner of grilled burgers, our son, David, managed to get a few good, colorful, celebratory fireworks into the moist air.

Saturday was a very busy day, since none of the set-up outside could be done the previous day. The nice, white chairs were covered with mud and had to be cleaned, but by wedding time, you would hardly know it had rained the previous day. Grandmothers and moms were seated, the bridesmaids took their place, and Hal shed a few tears waiting to give our second daughter away. What a joy to escort Kristi Elisabeth down the aisle to begin a new chapter in her life.

The ceremony went off beautifully, and she became Mrs. Joseph Taylor. Everyone followed into the reception hall, the living room of the home Joey built for them on their land. Canning jars, wrapped in burlap and ribbon, were ready for everyone to fill with old-fashioned candy. Pictures were taken, cake was cut, bouquet and garter tossed. Hal’s most memorable part was the “Daddy-Daughter Dance” to the country song, “I Loved Her First”. Holding the tears back, the moment was all Kristi and Hal dreamed it would be.

Please be praying for Joey and Kristi as they begin their marriage.

Art of Marriage Goes Spanish

The Art of Marriage is taking on a whole new look and feel. Through the generosity of a FamilyLife donor, the Art of Marriage will now be seen in Spanish with no subtitles.
When The Art of Marriage first took on a Spanish feel, our intent was to reach the third most spoken language as fast as possible. We took the series and subtitled it in Spanish with a word for word translation through subtitles. Since Art of Marriage is not a movie and there is much more dialog, it was not that effective for viewers to keep up with the fast pace and quickly moving subtitles, thus not having the “reach” we desired.

Beginning just after Thanksgiving, the Global Department took on the overwhelming task of removing the subtitles, and finding Spanish actors that could do a voice dub-over in Spanish. It sounds pretty easy once you find a company that can do that for $10,000?! God led us to a company in Miami that would hire Colombian actors and create the Spanish voice track we needed.

Then the fun began for Hal. Global came to the Video Department and asked us to strip all the English voices and leave only the music and sound effects. Once again, it sounds pretty simple - just turn off the English voice track. Easy enough, until we started going through the original files, only to find that there was no ‘voice track’ and everything was mixed together. We eventually found the files with just the voices and were able to accomplish the task. But no, it doesn’t stop there. If you are using Spanish voices, what about all the graphics in English? Art of Marriage is loaded with graphics and text animations, which also needed to be changed. If anyone is familiar with Spanish, the words are not the same length as English, thus requiring us to change a majority of the animations along with the text to make this work correctly.
We praise the Lord for giving Hal the talent to be able to change all the text and animations, saving the ministry over $40,000 to fix the graphics. What a blessing Hal has, to be a small part in potentially reaching millions of Spanish speaking people with the gospel through Art of Marriage. This could possibly be another reason God moved the Drivers to Little Rock.

Welcome Jocelyn Lily Driver

Born December 24, 6:24pm

Proud parents, Jon & Rachel

Summer Updates

It's been a couple of quiet months at our home this summer, but FamilyLife was extremely busy throughout the summer trying to finish the editing of the Spanish training we filmed in April. Praise the Lord we had a Spanish intern that was able to complete the basic edit and now we have about 6 sessions to complete color correction on.

Life at Fellowship Bible is changing for the whole church. We have changed our community groups to Discipleship Groups or D-Groups. This is a concentrated effort to take the entire church back to what God called us all to do, "make disciples'. We are working through a nine week series in our weekly groups called the Gospel Centered Life.

Hal's mom turned 83 in August along with our grandson turning 10 and we are thankful that Hal's mom is doing well after his dad's passing in March. Probably the biggest news of all in August was the announcement of Jon & Rachel's baby which is due around Christmas. Needless to say, the last two weeks of December will be spent in Tulsa waiting for the arrival of Jocelyn.

September will see both Charlotte and Hal traveling the same weekend in different directions. Charlotte will be going on a Women's FamilyLife Retreat for the weekend while Hal flies to Austin for a training class. No, he's not back to teaching, just attending.

MPD Trip

We spent the last nine days of June making our trip to see ministry partners. Our trip took us to Memphis, St Louis, Springfield, IL, Chicago, Ames, IA, Kansas City, Bentonville, AR and then home. We had a great time ministering and being ministered to, delivering resources and just a little fun.

Amy had her friend, Bethany, along for the trip and they had the privilege of going to "Worlds of Fun" amusement park while in Kansas City thanks to a very gracious partner.

Work has picked up again with much editing to do for all the training of regional and international staff. Hal took a short trip to Orlando to interview a couple for our staff conference the end of July and now begins the editing process. Thanks for making it possible!

Updates

It's about time for another update covering Thanksgiving to the present:

Thanksgiving was spent in Tulsa with Joel & Bethia who graciously invited us, just weeks after their wedding. Joel and Hal shot an interview for the Weekend to Remember on Saturday with a couple from Broken Arrow! We swung through Bentonville, AR to pick up Katie and bring her back to Little Rock for a recovery period. Christmas took us to Burlington, NC to see David & Sarah Beth. We went through Atlanta to see Hal's brother and parents then returned to Atlanta four days later, since Dad was admitted to the hospital. He had surgery to remove a tumor in his wind pipe only to see him pass away on March 6 being unable to recover from hip surgery and cancer he had been battling for a few years.

January was actually quiet, but we were gearing up for a busy February and March.

February brought us to the cruise with FamilyLife, where Hal spent the week shooting video, the Missions Conference in Tulsa, and trips to Tahlequah, OK multiple times due to Dad's failing health.

March saw Dad peacefully pass away on the 6th, Jonathan and Rachel's rehearsal dinner on the 8th, their wedding the 9th, and Dad's memorial service the morning of the 10th. It was such a blessing to see Jon and Rachel come to honor his grandpa on the first day of their honeymoon.

Two weeks later, Hal headed to Miami, FL to shoot a Latin America Training session, teaching couples how to speak at a Weekend to Remember Getaway.

April started with Charlotte having parathyroid surgery, successfully removing a gland 6x the size it should have been. Easter will be in Tahlequah with Mom, since this will be her first holiday without Dad.

The rest of April and May seems to be quiet until Memorial Day when Kristi and Joey come for the weekend. June brings a missions trip for Amy to Nashville and a short ministry trip to Kansas City and Chicago to see ministry partners.

Hal

Weekend to Remember Approved in CHINA!

Many of you may remember from issues of the “Driver Herald” about a year ago, we told about the project Hal was working on for China. He was asked to capture the “Weekend to Remember” in Dallas and edit it into a set that would then have Chinese subtitles added, so that we could get approval from the Chinese government to hold public conferences in China. That project was finished and sent to China about six months ago, in hopes that we would get approval within the next year. Praise the Lord! We were officially granted an ISBN number that now makes FamilyLife materials legal in China. Below, is an email from Jim and Judy Burrows, our FamilyLife Missionaries in China, with the good news. Thank you for praying!

Kirk & Lynn Murray are a couple who started the process of coming to FamilyLife the same time we did and reported about three months ahead of us. They have become dear friends, and Hal worked directly with Kirk on this project. When Kirk told Hal the good news on Friday, September 9, 2011, he also made this comment: “... you know Hal, this may be one of the reasons God brought the Murrays and Drivers to Little Rock, to help FamilyLife reach potentially billions of Chinese people for Christ.”

Email from Jim & Judy Burrows:

“Dear Kirk,

If you already read Perry’s email, he may have beaten me to the punch. We Got It! We Got the ISBN! meaning the material is approved, and like Perry said below, we have approval even before having the finished product. Also, that means we can do fully public events now since we now have the approved number. We can even use our existing (pre-ISBN) WTR manuals until we have the finished product.

So you can pass this on to Dennis and Bob, that the bi- lingual WTR manual, 9/9/2011, has been approved as is and now legal in the People’s Republic of China. The title of the manual ‘The Real Meaning of Family Life’, we found was the best in translation. WTR, does not communicate to a Chinese audience.

Please give everyone there at Little Rock, Hal Driver, and all the others a big thank you for helping us get to this point. Now we can finally shift out of first gear.

Jim & Judy”

With your faithful prayer and financial support China now has a Biblical blueprint for marriages. Thanks, again, to all of our partners, you who make it possible for us to serve in God’s ministry.

Wednesday July 27, 2008

We left Ft. Collins this morning around 9a and headed to Trinidad, CO for our first stop with a cousin of Charlotte's and stay overnight in a B&B. Trinidad is a really expensive place for hotels, a Holiday Inn EXPRESS was going for $155 a night, but we found this historical B&B for much less.

Day 8 - Staff Conference

Tuesday is the last day for staff conference. The day began with an email from Spencer (leader of the tent tours) with the numbers of people who toured our tent. Here is a segment from his email that tell it all:
Highlight of the day….
Kathi & I were visiting Staff Depot w/Don Zerbian, and in walked Mrs. Bright w/her asst. Sarah. When we greeted her, she was adamant that she needed FL resources; she knew a young couple in trouble and wanted to help. We invited her over to “The Journey Home”, and Sarah drove her over to our tent. After her tour, we gave her Dennis’ book for the husband and Life Ready Woman for the wife, in addition, a few extra copies she wanted to give to other friends. We also gave her a “WTRG Guest Pass” for the couple to attend – Vonette was extremely grateful. Big moment was when she stepped in the front door to our home, and she saw the photo of her and Bill and she got teary eyed. A very special visit. Oh, she really wants the audio to listen to again, and share. What a great day!!! What a wonderful Lady!!!!

Today was record breaking guest attendance with 403 guests. The Lord blessed us with a total of 1,434 Cru Guests – that’s about 29% of Cru Staff attending CSU!!! Wow!!!

Singles and/or Couples filled out one card each – so, out of the 820 cards filled out when our guests finished “The Journey Home” experience, 646 checked one or more HomeBuilder tool boxes, 79% of our guests have joined us, and God, as HomeBuilders!!!!! Another Wow!!!!

God blessed us in helping us beat our attendance goal; we beat our HomeBuilder goal, and beat our Staff Interest goal. We can’t wait to see what the days and weeks ahead will be like for the 53 couples that are interested in pursuing joining God’s HomeBuilder movement w/FamilyLife!!!! Giving Him ALL the glory for this time here at the tent!

The morning session was a bit different after the praise and worship. We were able here from the 4 speakers conducting the afternoon Super Seminars. After hearing Phil Cooke, I realized this was the seminar I needed since it was about marketing and I'm in the marketing department at FamilyLife. Much of what he said reminded me of some of the things I taught in the marketing classes I did with National Seminars. He was also behind the name change 100% because of our changing audience and the people we need to reach.

We were able to hear Dave Platt, author of the book Radical share his heart. He has a church in Birmingham and knows Crawford Lorits, one of his mentors and board members of CCC and FamilyLife. We had a farewell for Bob Horner who hosted the staff conference for over 40 years. In the process of him saying a few words of farewell, he mentioned that part of his job of hosting was to make people think a bad speaker was great even if they weren't. All that to say, Dave Platt was over intimidated when he got up to speak. He didn't was to be one of those 'bad speakers'. He was over the top as a speaker even though he felt he was 'in over his head'. He used Isaiah 6 as his text, emphasizing how great our God is. What a way to end our conference.

The day ended with a 'circus' (mostly just a bunch of circus food and a couple of acts. Some of us bailed and went to a coffee house near by for some fellowship. These people our a few of our closer friends, the Damiens and Davaults.

We head home this morning taking 4 days to get home seeing a few people on our way. We may by-pass Oklahoma City, since the people we wanted to see are not available, and just get back to Little Rock early.

Harold

Day 7 - Staff Conference

Monday turned out to be an extremely busy day, we had 2 shifts at the tent and normal meetings and seminars during the afternoon. We helped in the hospitality area in the afternoon and started people on the tour in the evening. Another hot day, but fun. I ended up being the bouncer (keeping people from coming in the exit) and Charlotte was the waitress give people soda, water, and tea after their tour of the tent.

The David Crowder band played at 9:00p but we were too beat to attend and went to bed.

Harold

Day 6 - Staff Conference

It is now Sunday and we headed off to a small Community church close to campus. The pastor was great and spoke from his heart being transparent with the congregation. We headed back to CSU for lunch then off to 'Old Town' where we toured a late 1800's home. It was very close to period in all the furnishings and restoration. Amazing how far we have come.

We headed to Denver about 5 to meet one of my friends from National Seminar days and had a great dinner with them. We got back to CSU about 10:30p and crashed. Busy day for a day off from meetings.

Harold