Over this past weekend I was given an amazing gift: the chance to take part in the wedding of my little brother. This is the same brother who found a way to push every button I had growing up. He had the superhuman ability of being annoying at the same time he was being extremely endearing. I can remember days where he would seemingly push the limit to no end.Over this past weekend I was given an amazing gift: the chance to take part in the wedding of my little brother. This is the same brother who found a way to push every button I had growing up. He had the superhuman ability of being annoying at the same time he was being extremely endearing. I can remember days where he would seemingly push the limit to no end.
We’ve been in vacation-planning mode for the past several weeks, carefully planning out everything we want to do and see, and deciding what adventures we want to have. I love planning everything out, looking at options, and deciding what is going to work best for our situation. I have huge dreams for everything we can do, then – right before I book it -- I need to do one more thing: Look at the price. That’s when the decision gets tough.
I’ve held quite a few titles in my life: father, husband, son, SGT, and several more. The one thing that I can say is that none of them are as broad as the title of pastor.
I would never have guessed that I would get to have a relationship with an entire church. It truly is mind-boggling how God uses the church to communicate with me about the people of God and how I can best act as their servant leader....
The next three blog posts are going to be an honest review of what I am learning as a new lead pastor. Today I will start with a reflection on myself. Next time I will deal with the church. And, finally, I will consider pastoring in general. If you want to stay up to date with all that information, sign up to have the blog sent to you via email.
So, there I am trying to decide between a pin and a pen when all of sudden it hits me: Is this in alignment with what God is calling the church to?
This spring we took “Spring Cleaning” to a whole new level at the church. We rented a dumpster for one week and aggressively started throwing things out. I can personally tell you that the 1980’s were a successful decade for VHS curriculum...
This month I did something I had only dreamed of: I spent the weekend with Superman. It was amazing. I saw things that I thought would have been impossible, things that no mere mortal could have accomplished, things that gave me hope in something bigger.
At the last funeral I was presiding over, the co-celebrant made a great statement about joy and pain. He said, “Without the depth of pain we could never celebrate the fullness of joy.”
Am I living a life worth emulating?