Happy Reformation Day

For some it’s happy Halloween, others it’s happy harvest day, and yet still others today is Reformation Day.  The day that Martin Luther put the worlds biggest sticky note, on which he wrote his 95 theses.  This act was the catalyst that led to what we call the protestant reformation. 

The reformation was the mother of all church splits, wars were fought people were killed nations were formed.  It’s a pretty big deal.  If you have never read anything about the reformation I would highly recommend that you google

Martin Luther

Martin Luther,

Calvin

Jean Calvin,

WycliffeJohn Wycliffe, 

TyndaleWilliam Tyndale,

ZwingliUlrich Zwingli  

or just Protestant Reformation.

One of my favorite classes at NC (now NU) was Church History with Dr. Heugel.  Brilliant guy, brilliant class. 

Antsy

Today I’m having a really hard time sitting still.  I haven’t been to the Gym in a long time, and I think my body is wanting to move really badly.  I must go tomorrow morning.  I MUST! 

I can feel my muscles start to atrophie and my stomach is getting a little flabby again.  This schedule is killing me.  Kathy and I were talking about her picking up shifts and then me quitting Cutter & Buck.  And today that seems like a really great idea.  But I’m nervous that Kathy won’t be able to consistently pick up the shifts that we need.  We are praying about it. 

It sure would be great to get my schedule back, and even if I’m not getting paid full-time from the church, working full-time for the church is better than splitting my brain in the middle of the day.

And if Kathy were able to pick up these shifts than I would be able to get to the gym more easily.  I think Judah will be at an age where the childcare at the Gym could watch him too, so that’s something to consider.  I don’t know, so many things going on.  So many decisions to make, so many bills to pay.  And on and on and on. 

I guess the biggest hang-up with leaving cutter and buck would be the relationships that I’ve built here.  I’d really like to continue building these, and I really value being outside of my christian little bubble.  But I don’t know if I can continue this schedule much longer.

Pray for us. 

Oh and while I have you let me post a picture of the cutest little kid in the world.

JudahPumpkins

Secret Shopper

So this past Sunday we had a friend’s day at church.  The basic premise is that you invite friends to church. (As an aside, shouldn’t every sunday be friend’s day? Yes.)  When your friends arrive they are greeted warmly, We talked about why friendship is so important.  We had some food afterwards.  Everything went really well.  The service was one of the best that we have had in a while.  The Food was a great time of fellowship.  A couple that I invited came, had fun, made some great connections. 

I used to work in retail and one thing that they always talked about was the secret shopper.  The basic premise is that to get the best analysis of any program you have to examine it when it doesn’t know it’s being examined.  And it usually provides pretty honest feedback.  And knowing that there is a secret shopper about causes everyone to step up their game a little bit and make sure that they are always providing great customer service.

Well on sunday I thought I would employ this model of evaluation and I invited a friend whom no one at this church really knows, and who would be a good evaluator of the service, our overall friendliness and all that.  And he had some really good things to say, overall, based on our discussion we were probably an 8 out of 10. 

There was one hang up though.  When we had our coffee break, we encourage people to meet people that they don’t already know.  We are big on building relationships, so this is a great time to get relationships started, at least on a name and face basis.  Well the family that was sitting right next to my secret shopper never even introduced themselves.  That’s a problem.  As a church we need to always be eyes open for new faces.  And especially on a day when we are expecting new faces. 

I think our church has come a long way since I got here as far as breaking out of our comfort zone and meeting new people, but we will always have room for improvement. 

 I think I should note that I didn’t do this to embarass my church or any fellow church-goer.  But I wanted a real evaluation of our church’s friendliness factor.

My Prayer is that we would continue to grow in this area and become all that God wants us to be, and to see that the love of Christ can be expressed in something as simple as an introduction

Beautiful Seattle Morning

Today is a typical Seattle Autumn day, which means raining.  Last night Judah slept better than he has for the past couple of nights so that was nice.  I woke up with him and fed him, changed him put him back to bed.  When I was done getting ready I decided rather than watching the news and the Today show I would focus, and get some much needed writing done.

I have been loving transit so far.  Each week we have 9-12 folks meet in my living room and talk about Ecclesiastes.  It’s not a feel good book by any means, but it’s got so much great wisdom and brutal honesty about life, that I can’t help but love it.  So I wrote that discussion this morning.  Something that I have to constantly remember is that less is more.  If I can get the point that I want across with less words then it is better.

My writing music this morning is Greetings from Michigan from Sufjan Stevens.

Greetings From Michigan

I love Sufjan’s music, it’s very melodic and light.  He is a musical genius and he takes elements from all over the board and weaves them into a beautiful song.  I highly recommend it, you can buy it here.

I’m still working through Mark Batterson’s In A Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day.  Dang this is a good book.  Go and buy it, and enjoy it.

Well today is Tuesday so that means staff meeting.  It’s gonna rock.  We just came off a really great Sunday Morning, we packed the house with friends day.  I’ll write more about this later, I’m sure, right now, I need to finish my cofffee and go brush my teeth.

Happy Tuesday.