Life. Liberty. And the pursuit of God.

Poor Anson was feeling green around the gills today. We’re hoping tomorrow is better!

We had a great day of worship. The person bringing our soft drink coolers did not show up until 10:00 (when we start service), which left a bunch of people without cold caffeine, but I think they pushed through it.

We had 70 in our kids area which is our attendance record! That really feels like a big win for us. We have to work hard for parents to trust leaving their kids with us, since we meet in a movie theater.

We are rapidly approaching our 1-year birthday for Dayspring. We are planning a great fellowship event for that October 12^th.

I have some next step decisions to make for Dayspring. We have some growing pains right now. I am excited to see what the rest of this year brings!

We have one more week left in our Dr. Seuss series. It has gone over really well for our crowd – who doesn’t love Seuss?

I have a hard time saying ‘no’ to people. Most pastors by nature want to please others, which is one reason they go into ministry (besides the whole God told me to). I keep attempting to free up my schedule. I always end up saying, “After this is over, then I will have more time.” However, there is never enough time.

I have about 6 weeks of utter craziness ahead in my life. Over the last couple weeks, I have come to realize that in order to finish the projects that I have going and keep a family I just have to say “no” to more things. These are some of the things that I have had to say “no” to recently:

• Saying “no” to serving on a committee to help plan worship for annual conference
• Saying “no” to teaching a one day class at a local college
• Saying “no” to several people over evening pastoral counseling
• Saying “no” to new programs at Dayspring

I realize that I have to say “no” so that I can say “yes” to other things – family, rest, Sabbath, fun. What do you need to say “no” to?

Each week when my sermon is uploaded to iTunes, it is automatically classified in some mystical manner. This week my sermon was classified as: “Hits” by Joni Mitchell. I’ll keep you posted as to some classifications of future sermons. Now I wondering if there is some way to rank my sermons by iTunes titles?

I enjoyed a post by Craig Groeschel this morning at (http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/2008/09/22/the-people-pleasing-pastor/). I felt it was worth re-posting for you. Even though he wrote it for pastors, I think we all can put ourselves into the scenario.

Craig wrote:

If we’re not careful, we might ask the wrong questions.

• Did you like my sermon?
• Do I have enough funny stories in this message?
• Did I do a good job at the funeral? Did they like it?
• Do the people think I’m a good pastor?

The focus of these questions is “me” instead of “God.”

Without knowing it, our best intentions of pleasing God in ministry become clouded and we become people pleasers.

I try to remind myself…

“Becoming obsessed with what people think about me is the quickest way to forget what God thinks about me.”

I like what Paul said in Galatians 1:10:“Obviously, I’m not trying to be a people pleaser! No, I am trying to please God. If I were still trying to please people, I would not be Christ’s servant.” (NLT)

How are you overcoming “pastoral people pleasing” tendencies?

I started the Seussology series this morning. I had a ton of fun preparing the message and preaching it. Everyone seemed excited about coming back for next week’s continuation of the series. Of course, what are they going to say, “That really stunk preacher, I’m not coming back until this series is over.” This is a great series leading up to our one-year anniversary service on October 12^th.

I announced our next Man’s Breakfast (not men’s breakfast – this is a MAN’S B-fast) this morning by saying that we are going to smoke cigarettes and drink bacon grease. Now I will just have to wait and see if attendance is up or down – either way I guess it will tell me something about the congregation.

Small groups are going well and I have ours this evening. This is our second semester of groups and my observation is this “Small groups are hard work, but the relationships that are formed are worth it.” I really believe that they strengthen the entire church.

This week I am planning:

• The one-year service
• The one-year party
• Our stewardship focus for November
• Our next sermon series

Theodore Geisel, Dr. Seuss, was committed to improving literacy among America’s youth. In May 1954, Life magazine published a report about illiteracy among school children. It inferred that children weren’t learning to read because the books were too boring. “Look, Dick, Look, See Jane run.  See Jane and Spot run, Dick” was apparently responsible for the death of the imaginations of millions of school children. Geisel took that information to heart and developed a list of 220 words that children must know and wrote many of his books using just those words. Riding a wave of excitement that followed, he accepted a dare to write an entire book using only 50 words, which soon became Green Eggs and Ham, a story which reminds us of simplicity, an open mind and imagination. Join us this week as we talk about what the scriptures say about these themes.

I am just finishing my 8^th week of a six-week program to do 100 push-ups. I should have known it would take longer than 6 weeks – at 1 push-up a day I am guessing it will take me about 100 days to get there (ok, just kidding).

Seriously, this is much harder than I originally thought, “Hey, I am in good shape. How hard could 100 push-ups be, I could probably do them now.” NOT. After 8 weeks, I can probably only do about 50 “good form” push-ups. And I think the “good form” part is killing me. I can just plain hammer out some sloppy looking push-ups, but doing them properly really adds some difficulty. (Get down on the floor RIGHT NOW and using your best form going all the way up and down see how many you can do!)

I am about ready to call “myth busted” on this 100 push-up program. I am going to give it until 12 weeks (double the normal program) and if I cannot do my 100 push-ups then this program is bunk.

I have been thinking a lot about all of those who were in Ike’s path. I know it will take a long time for many people’s lives to be put back together. I am sending lot’s of prayers their way. Tyler had a few problems but for the most part we got through everything fine. Yesterday, I thought about calling off this morning’s service, but I am glad I did not:

• Considering the storm attendance was pretty good.
• We had 5 new members today.
• The music was fun, with a more minimalist feel today.
• I finished the Urban Legends series by talking about myths on Heaven.
• Next week we will begin out Seussology sermon series with “Green Eggs and Ham.”