Life. Liberty. And the pursuit of God.

Me: “What is one word to describe how Jeff feels.”

Alex: That is correct.

This morning Paul’s words hit me like a bug in the eye. Acts 20:24, “But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus – the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.”

Tomorrow we will end our “One Prayer” series. Rev. Rick Sitton who pastors HERE, will be our guest preacher in the morning. I am not sure if “One Prayer” will take place again next year, but if it does, we are in! Our church fasted, prayed, was unified, served, and gave. What a blessing it was to be part of this larger work in the Kingdom of God.

Next week we begin a series called “Signs” – Which sign will I begin with? Well, Jesus turning water into wine (of course). BTW – We had an ecumenical Bible study at a church I once served break up over this miracle. Jesus always has caused controversy.

My son is a collector. He collects rocks everywhere he goes. He gathers them and calls them his “Lucky” rocks. I have thrown away more rocks in the last year than I can remember. Here are a few that were washed yesterday. All of his denim is stonewashed since inevitably some rocks end up in the machine. One is a black foamy thing that he insists is an animal.

I used to go to Burger King every morning for my coffee. When my son wants to go to Burger King he says, “Can we go to King Burger # 1″ – apparently he has some secret numbering system for store locations. Anyway, I think my wife got jealous of the ladies who work the drive thru window at Burger King because she started making me coffee at home, which prevented me from going up to Burger King every morning and talking with the girlz.

Anyway, this morning we were out of coffee, so I stopped by and it was like a reunion. They had even had conversations about what happened to me, and they still remembered my order, which for you Starbucks people might not be that impressive since it just consists of a coffee with one sugar and two creamers. Anyway, if you are easily offended just keep on moving and don’t click on the video below. By this way, this never happens to me at BK.

I have been reading a ton of books for my doctoral class in mid-July. I have two more books to read and one more paper to write. I love to read as long as the reading is not assigned. I will even go back and read required texts from seminary that I did not read while I was there. There is something about being able to read what I want, when I want. It is like a crazy book rebellion. Wow, I am such a rebel I scare myself. Bibliophiles beware!

Also, bibliophilia is not to be confused with bibliomania, which my friend Rick has. Rick has also slimmed down of late which leads me to believe he may have gone to bibliophagy. If this habit worsens, it could eventually lead to bibliokleptomania. Next time Rick comes to visit I will probably resort to bibliotaphy in order to preserve my collection. (ok, these last three word definitions can be found on the bibliomania link above, which is where I learned them tonight).

Tomorrow evening the kids and I will finish the third book in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s series. Here is a slideshow of the little house on the prairie. Next, we will begin On the Banks of Plum Creek. We have been mixing in some other books so this one took us a little longer. Sharla has been reading The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo to the kids this past week.

Ok, here’s the deal. The sermon series title for the rest of the summer changed earlier this morning. As I was contemplating which miracles to preach, I kept going back to the book of John. In John, miracles are referred to as signs. They are signs because the miracles are not done for the miracles sake, but to be a sign that points to the fact that Jesus is the messiah.

Therefore, although I am still preaching on what we might consider miracles, the sermon series will simply be titled “Signs.” I will preach the signs in the book of John straight through. Now that leaves me wondering how many signs are there. The debate ranges from 6 to 8. So, is it 6, 7, or 8? I am thinking at least seven, but I am unsure whether to count the miraculous catch of fish at the end of John. Hmmmm…

I think that for many churches it is easy to slow down during the summer. Many people take a vacation and some, even when they are in town, decide to skip for a week or two. I think as leaders in the church, it makes it easier for us to pull back and justify a little slow time for us as well.

Certainly, we all need a break and we all need some time away, but this does not mean that we pull back the reins on ministry simply because it is summer. I have seen just as many guests at Dayspring the last few weeks than I ever see during “peak” season in the life of the church. I believe that as much (if not more) planning and prayer should be put into the summer church schedule as it is the fall. If we do, we might even see a miracle.

This Sunday we will wrap up our “One Prayer” series and then I will begin a sermon series on the miracles of Jesus for the rest of the summer.

It was a busy morning. Unfortunately, I’m sick with a cold, as is my wife. Aaron (Dayspring’s Worship Leader) is also sick with a cold. We pushed through this morning, however, and our service went off great. I felt like the walking dead this morning, though.

One of the difficult parts about Sunday is trying to meet new people. I get to see a lot of new faces but am having a hard time getting to know more people. I am going to try to free myself up a little more on Sunday morning to meet new people, but I also know there will be a limit soon on the number of people I will really know. We had close to 200 this morning, which means that there is no way that I can connect with everyone. Now I have to see parts of my pastoral role transition as we continue to grow.

Next week is our final Sunday of “One Prayer.” This morning we took up an offering to help start new churches in our global community. I think the offering for the new churches will be about $2,000. That is amazing for a church that is just 8-months old.

One of the wonderful traits that Dayspring inherited from our mother congregation is a spirit of generosity! Here is a clip from a PBS program “Religion and Ethics” that features our mother congregation.