Ramblings On. . .

Last weekend I got a really bad cold from my son, Judah.  I was thrown for a loop.  And I don’t know what it is but my brain still feels mushy.  I think it’s a combination of things, being really busy over the past few months with working from home, watching Judah and not really having a break.

So I am really looking forward to a week from today when I will be in Disneyland with my wonderful wife Kathy, and two of our friends, Scott and Alyssa.  No kids, no work, no real agenda of any sort.  Just a time to rest and recharge.

As a church we have been going through some really stressful times, and we are about to engage in another season of battle against the enemy who wants to shut us down.  But we need to just keep on going.  We have a lot of things that we are rocking and rolling.  We are starting a mid-week program for the whole church.  We are looking at the holidays and starting to plan what we are going to do there.  And my prayer is that Jesus will be made big in our Church, and that we would not get discouraged or frustrated by our circumstances.

So this vacation falls right in the beginning of all of this and I know that it’s going to be a great season of ministry, and I am really looking forward to see what God does.  I am praying that this time away will help Kathy and I fall more and more in love and I hope that I can recharge my batteries so that I can give everything in me to the mission that God has called me to.

When I return from Disneyland we are going to be talking about authenticity at our >>beyond>> gatherings.  So I’m really looking forward to that.  I am praying that Jesus will really start to do a work on our hearts and help us to be real with him and with each other.

Peace!

Hey everybody,

So I was reading my interweb friend’s blog and he mentioned that he was working on some free XBOX360 action.  So I thought I would help him out, and that maybe you can help me out too.  Here’s how it works.  Follow this link.   And sign up for one of the trial offers from netflix, or Blockbuster, or gamefly.  I need 9 referrals.

So please take a minute to try this out.  If you wanna come over and play my free 360 then follow this link.  And let’s make this happen.

Went to the mariners game tonight with Kathy and Kelly and Takeshi.   Good times.

Summer Camp 07

You can see all the Summer Camp Pictures here.

Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.

s. wright

I love movies, and I recently completed watching all the best picture academy award winners, and I think my next project will be to tackle the AFI list. They just released an updated version and I’ve seen many of these but here’s the list

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One of the biggest challenges that I have come across in our current ministry situation, since we don’t have offices for the time being, and all the staff are scattered is communication. We have been trying to stay on the same page and for the most part we are doing a good job. But something that I have come across that has really helped me to stay on tabs on what I need to stay on tabs of is a website called BackPack. Here’s a neat little badge

Anyway, I have been using this to keep track of current projects, initiatives, sermon planning ideas and all kinds of odds and ends, also I am using it for event planning, writing cell group outlines, basically anything that I want to share with other people. It’s incredibly helpful for me to get everything off my desktop and out to the people who might need or want to see what we are doing. It’s brilliant. This company 37 signals has all kinds of web apps that I am finding helpful. So if you are interested click on the banner above and check it out. It’s really nifty.

So I’m still getting some feedback from last week when I spoke on Sunday Morning.  And It’s good, and people think that I’m down in the dumps and depressed. And I don’t think I am but who knows.

But I will tell you this.  there are days when I want to throw it all in and just drive a truck from here to Iowa every week, because that sounds like a nice predictible job where it’s just me the road and my iPod.  But that’s not what God has called me to, so I’m not going to do it.  God has called me to be a minister of the Gospel, and he’s teaching me in struggle, and he’s building something in me.

And even if you are not a pastor you know what I’m talking about, where you feel like the world is crashing in and you just don’t know what to do.  It’s those times when you need to just trust God and the call that he has put on  your life.  And it’s when you can do that, that you can really worship, and you can Count it All Joy!

If you are feeling that way, let me recommend a couple of messages that I have to go back to over and over again because the speak to me deeply.

Both of these are from last years Resurgence Conference.

Darrin Patrick’s Opening Session is incredibly honest and powerful.

The Second is Gravity, from Matt Chandler.  Both of these messages have spoken to my heart and they both have really helped me in the struggles and frustrations and trials that ministry and life in general throw at me.

I hope that you download these and that you find encouragement in them.

So here we are a day before March, when the Seattle area is generally raining and warming up. But here we are yet again with snow. I can’t figure out what’s going on this year with weather. It’s crazy, and it always seems to be snowing on Wednesdays which has messed up Transit more than once.