Filed under: Church Planting
Sometimes, it’s not. This week I was extremely busy and got minimal work done on my sermon. It was one of those difficult weeks for me in writing my sermon. I have been trying to take Fridays off but spent most of today with my bible and pen, staring at the text for Sunday.
This evening I spoke with one of my clergy friends and told him I was blocked for Sunday. Anyway, he said he had been thinking about a particular point on receiving ‘bad’ gifts, which we all politely try to say that we like. The idea sparked my sermon for Sunday and I sat down tonight and outlined it in about 20 minutes. I will write it out and practice tomorrow but I am glad to be done for tonight.
I hear about those kinds of things happening to playwrights and songwriters. They have a block and then all of a sudden write their best play or song in a matter of hours. If my sermon works on Sunday, I won’t tell you who gave me the idea, but if it stinks I will tell you that it was my former friend Rhett Ansley who pastors at Noonday UMC.
DON’T MISS SUNDAY AND JUDGE FOR YOURSELF!
Filed under: Uncategorized
This post was full of all of the things I wanted to say. I wrote them out and then deleted them. When I am more confident, or more open to vulnerability, or more careless, or more real I will post them – or try to post them.
Why is it that being transparent with people is so difficult? (That’s rhetorical, I know the answer). Humans love to shape people’s perception of them. We crave acceptance, but we fear if people really know us, they might not accept us. Thus, we put on our masks and walk through life never really living life.
I am thankful that we have a God who sees our every move and knows the depth of our hearts. There is no hiding from our Father in heaven and I am grateful to live transparently before him. I long to live my life fully devoted to God. I long to model Christ in all my life, but I fall short. Then I get up, dust off my pants, and try again. I will not give up! I will not quit trying until I get it right no matter how long it takes.
How are you doing at becoming all that God made you to be? How are you doing at living a life of transparency? I look forward to small groups starting at the end of January at Dayspring. We were created to have and hold each other in accountability and prayer. I look forward to having that in my life once again.
Filed under: Family
Anson’s kissable lips are back! I love to get kisses from him, but he wipes them off most of the time. I am going to get all the kisses I can while he’ll let me. I can’t get enough of my kids. I think I’ll cry the day I discover he is too old to kiss me.
Filed under: Dayspring
Dayspring’s web-site is updated. We still have some tweaking to do, but I really love the simplicity and yet resourcefulness of the new site. Knowing how people view and use web-sites I am surprised that more church sites are not moving in this direction. Nevertheless, check out the progress on our new site!
Filed under: Family
As we were finishing dinner tonight, my 3 year old son turned to my wife and said, “my lips are falling off.” We took one look at him and scooped him up to rush him to the emergency room. We both immediately thought of some kind of allergy and we gave him Benadryl while we were waiting in the E.R. My big concern was that his airway might close and all I could think of were those crazy shows where people shoved straws through their necks so that they could get air (I did not try this by the way).
While waiting to see the Dr. his lips slowly began to shrink so that by the time we actually saw someone he was almost back to normal. He was diagnosed with an acute allergy (Really!). Now we are off to see an allergist next week.
So, I cooked a stir fry tonight, would anyone like some leftovers? The only thing he ate tonight that he has not eaten before is soy. By the way, those are not actually his lips, I just found the picture on Google – looks pretty gross.
Filed under: Church Planting
I am getting a ton of hits on my blog each day from people looking for Christmas Eve service ideas, so if this is you, then here is what we are doing this year:
We are already working hard on our Christmas Eve service. We had another meeting today to finalize the structure of the service. We are holding the service at a local park and inviting the public. We don’t have a back-up rain plan and I have no clue what to do IF it rains.
Anyway, a group from Dayspring is practicing a play/skit tonight that they will perform on Christmas Eve. We are having a modern Christmas Eve. No mangers, no live farm animals, and no hay bales. Instead, we are having Christmas lights, a Christmas tree, a skit where Mary and Joseph ride a motorcycle instead of donkey. We will certainly share the story of Jesus Christ, but we will put it into a modern day parable. I like to think that Jesus would do the same thing today.
The whole service will be modern and quick paced until the end. At the end of the service, we will slow it down, bring out one lone guitar, light our candles from a Christ Candle and sing silent night with candles raised. It should be a powerful and reflective ending to the beginning of the greatest story ever told.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Aaron our worship leader, Sharon our children’s director and I are having an afternoon conversation about if we were a cereal what kind of cereal would we be. Don’t ask me how that got started because I have no clue. Don’t you wish you worked here? For those of you wondering:
Jeff – Frosted Mini Wheats
Sharon – Cranberry Crunch (what?)
Aaron – Cheerios
If you were a cereal, what would you be? Come on now, let’s hear it!
Filed under: Church Planting
We have two of these 24ft. trailers that we load and unload every week for service. I really do love being portable, although it presents many challenges. The first of which is volunteers. We need more volunteers on one Sunday morning than an established 2,000 member church. On the other hand, it means that most people are serving in the church and not just attending. This week I’ll be looking for even more volunteers. I am looking to break everyone up onto teams so that we can rotate people in and out.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Heros is one of my favorite shows on television right now. I know there are some other great shows on right now like The Office, but I don’t TIVO and really don’t have that much time to watch too many programs. Plus Lost is going to start up again and it is on my must watch list. My final confession is that I have watched some Ultimate Fighting lately. Those guys are absolute bruts – something of the caveman still exists in me because I secretely like to watch them pound each other.
Now its your turn, what do you watch?
Filed under: Family
Last night my kids and I finished Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House in the Big Woods.” Tonight we started her second book in that series titled “Farmer Boy.” Her books are a small slice of classic frontier Americana. They are slower than the usual literature we read, but the kids just seem to love the books. Here we are on the couch enjoying what God has given to us – each other!
