For the past two weeks, I have had the distinct honor of visiting some of the “industry leaders” inside the United Methodist Church. We've tied this into a family vacation, and hash-tagged it the #adamtour. As we were planning this escapade we noticed all three churches had lead pastors named "Adam" so the #adamtour was born. Today I am going to write on the first two churches and hit the third church in a future blog.
There is nothing more awkward than not knowing exactly who you are. Am I a kid, am I an adult? What is happening to my body, and why is it happening?
This week on all the church’s social media channels we officially announced that we are rebranding the church. What was once known as Centerville United Methodist Church will now become Restoration Church Centerville. August 19th will be Restoration Sunday, and we have big plans to launch this fresh expression of what God is doing in our community.
So, I know that I am asking a lot of you this weekend. I’m asking (making?) you all to miss games that you would normally love to attend, and games that I normally would love to watch/coach/participate in. And yet, we are going to miss them all.
It has been 121 days since I wrote my last blog. Prior to that, I had blogged faithfully for the prior four years. Lots of writing, lots of thoughts, lots of laughter. So why did I stop? I needed time to focus.
Merriam-Webster defines immersion as; absorbing involvement, and when we set out to go to Cuba the primary task was that of immersion. To become so absorbed and involved in the culture that our lives would forever be changed.
At our dinner, in December we were having a conversation about church shopping and one of the couples with children said, “We chose this church because there were so many young families.” Their words hit me like a ton of bricks. In my three years of being at the church, I had never described our worshipping community in that context. When the board and I met for the very first time that was my primary objective; bring in young families.
Last week marked the end of the 2017 Fall Semester in seminary. I have one semester left in seminary and it has been an absolute grind. Lots of learning, lots of reading, and lots of paper writing.
I am pretty sure I wrote more papers this year than in years past, and I wrote longer papers. And for the first time in my life, like ever – I didn’t wait until the last minute to write them. For the first time in my life (academically) I was ahead of the game.
Three years ago, I walked into the church like a starving man on Thanksgiving Day. I wanted to grow, I wanted to grow younger, I wanted soooo many things for the Kingdom of God. Some things I prayed for but didn’t understand, some other things I thought I understood, but never prayed for.