Vacationlog Day 1

My oh my. So, both my kids wanted to spend the night last night with their friends Christian and Patty. These are the same two kids we brought with us on vacation. Somehow, all four teenagers thought it would be a great idea to stay up all last night goofing around. They thought they would do that and then sleep all day in the car thus making the trip go by faster.

They failed to realize that they are all as big as adults and that made six full sized people in our van. Not exactly enough room to stretch out and sleep. To say that today was a festival of crankiness would be a massive understatement. In fact, I had to go old school pastor on them and bind the spirit of argument and cast out that demon of complaints.

On the plus side it was pretty funny when my boy and his friend did fall asleep and the girls tried to shave the boys legs. That was funny. 12 1/2 hours and 769 miles later we survived the first day on the road. Tomorrow we only have about 5 hours to drive and we are stopping off for lunch with an old friend of Aprils.

Pray I don't hurt anyone. I can see the news headlines now. "Local Pastor Kills Kids While On Vacation: His neighbors say he was so quiet.

I better get to bed. I am rambling.

5 AM

I am up at 5 Am. Why do we decide to get up so early the days we leave for vacation? All that happens is the kids are tired and cranky. The wifes tired and cranky. What can we possibly do at this time of the morning that I cannot do at 8 Am......She beckons......Yes Buttercup....how may I help you this morning.....gotta go!

Gotta Love Mornings!

101

I have spent the last two days writing a handbook that is going to become our churches 101/membership class. It has been a big undertaking but I am really liking the first draft. I am going to work on edits and the like over the next few weeks. Most likely, I am going to teach the book to the church as a whole sometime soon. There after, we'll have classes a few times a year for newer people. This class will really help get everyone up to speed on who we are called to be, what we believe in, and how we operate.

Look for it soon!

Couldn't Sleep

Ok, so last night I had a hard time sleeping. I got up and got on the computer and did a little reading. God began to hit me with the notion that we need to look at everything we are doing in church and ask ourselves if those things are effective and accomplishing their purposes.

Some of the questions I am asking myself:

• Am I teaching as effectively as I could be teaching?
• Am I doing enough to grow the church?
• Am I doing an effective job communicating the vision of the church?
• Am I growing our leaders?

I could go on...but it's important to understand all of us need to self evaluate honestly. Some of the things that I need to be working on are:

• Relying less on notes and speaking more from my heart.
• Sharing more of myself with our people.
• Becoming less the face of the church and more the heart of the church.
• Speaking our vision in and through the messages.
• Encouraging our leaders and helping to empower them.
  
• Providing opportunities for our leaders to grow.

There is more I am kicking around but this is a start. Over the next few months I need to be more intentional about my teaching and leadership.

Sad News. Prayer needed.

For those of you who are Greg Laurie fans I just saw this come across a news wire. I am sure that his family could use our prayers about now.

Statement on the Passing of Christopher Laurie, Son of Pastor Greg Laurie

Christopher Laurie, son of Pastor Greg Laurie and Cathe Laurie of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, Calif., passed away on July 24, 2008 in a car accident. A resident of Huntington Beach, Laurie, 33, served as the art director at Harvest Christian Fellowship for the past three years.

In addition to his parents, Christopher is survived by his wife, Brittany, and daughter, Stella, as well as his brother Jonathan. Christopher and his wife are expecting another daughter in November.

Memorial plans for Christopher are pending. More information will be posted at harvest.org as details become available.

Sunday Mind Dump

First off, the band sounded great today. Everyone played their butts off. I loved hearing that! So lets dump a little shall we?

• The new camera killed the web cast today. We think the video card was the problem. We will be working to get that fixed and soon. Not sure if we are going to go back to the old camera style for now or spend bigger money on a better video card.
• The coffee was killer again. I think I preferred Johns recipe (no offense Sheryl!) Johns was a lot stronger. Some of us need that on Sunday mornings!
• We didn't have any of the pecan caramel brownies today. I almost couldn't preach. It really through me off my game. I am going to have to put those into my contract!
• I turned all the files for the worship CD over to Trezzo. It'll be done when he and the rest of the guys are happy. Hopefully we are looking at 2 weeks.
• Off for vacation in FL this week. Sweet!
• Just had Chelsea's B-Day party. The cake was a little rough. Long story~
• My Mom and Grandparents hit the kids up with quite a bit of cash for birthdays and vacations. Where were these people when I was a kid? I got pudding.
• Off to go movie shopping at the Trezzo home.

Have to get moving. I need to go tanning or I'll burn. See Ya'll!

Lotsa Work

Been putting in a lot of work hours over the last few days trying to get ready for our vacation next week. We'll be gone for 10 days. It's a much needed family vacation, but it's also a little nerve racking because next weekend will be our first weekend away from Church since we started holding public worship services. That is a little scary but we have full faith and confidence in our people and know that they are going to be fine without us!

Next week, Stuart Rickart will be giving the message. I met Stu a year ago at sort of a down time in his life. It's been interesting to see how the relationship with Stu has progressed. A year ago when I met Stu he was talking about wanting to find work in kids ministry. After talking to him for five minutes I could see his passion was in teaching and leading adults. Be he, like many of us thought he wasn't able to do that. I don't want to give away too much of his story because he is telling some of it next week.

For me, this is neat. I am really happy that Stu was open to God using him at Real Life. I just know that everyone is going to be blessed with his passion and energy!