On my mind today

This morning, I'm at home. It's Friday and that usually means I'm off for a little R and R. The last couple of weeks have been a little on the crazy side, so I haven't taken my Fridays like I usually do. It's a great day to take time off - watching the rain fall and sitting with my dog while Julie exercises. Thus, here are some random thoughts. - CBC is a great place to serve the Lord! I'm seriously pumped about this weekend! We've a 6th grade discipleship weekend beginning tonight. We've got the men's ministry "Beast Feast" tomorrow night. We've got a full slate of events coming up Sunday. More on that next. I've been here 5 mths now and I say this with full assurance - I've not enjoyed pastoring this much since I graduated with my PhD in 2006. - Sunday is the beginning of a journey for our friends going on our Mission: Germany trip this July. For two hours following our morning worship service, we'll train our m...

When I got my iPhone a couple of years ago, I got teased mercilessly by some of you. You know who are. To that, I offer the story of Mr. Dan Woolley, a Compassion International worker who was making a film in Haiti when the earthquake came. He was trapped for 65 hours while needed medical attention. He aided himself and kept himself from going into shock - but how? By using his IPHONE! It has a medical first aid application that guided him in what to do. Click here for the full story. Wow. There are some good stories coming from Haiti. Take time to thank the Lord for them.

Jonny Diaz did a song a couple of years ago that sums up this week's message wonderfully. I don't think I'll use it Sunday, but I might. One way or the other, here's the song.

It's been awhile since we last spoke, so let me just be completely random for a moment. - We're still living in our Frankston home, but more sure than ever that the Lord is going to sell it soon. We had a couple of "lookers" over the break - one rather serious - but no serious offers on it yet. I've got every confidence we're where the Lord wants us to be right now. - I'm coaching a Little Dribblers under-14 team this year. We're the Hornets! Good kids! It's been a blast thus far. I think we won last week, but we had such a good time, it didn't really seem to matter. - Julie and I got our passports over the break. Although we did have some excitement about it (we had to order an original copy of Julie's birth certificate), we're ready now! - We leave Feb 24th for a scouting trip to Germany. Julie's never been to Europe and I've only been there once and even then I didn't leave the Paris Airport (I was on my way to...

I've had some time this week to consider what our church will look like in 2020. Thinking that way made me reflect on the last decade, what's changed and what I've learned in my first 10 years as a pastor. In 2000: - I had no idea what a text message was. - I had dial-up internet - and was proud to have it! DSL / high speed internet was just too expensive. - Until May of that year, I was still a single guy with no concept of the joy of a loving, committed relationship with my wife. - I had a beeper. Cell phones were too pricey. - My email address (I only had one - now, I've got three) was with AOL. - I had done exactly one wedding and one funeral. - The church I pastored then had less than 75 people. They passionately taught me about loving the Lord and how to serve Him. - I thought being in PhD work was the most important aspect of my life. - I had no idea how to leverage a website, a Facebook account, a Twitter account and a blog for the sake of the Gospe...