I Thought Life Got More Relaxed in the Spring...

The past couple of weeks have been crazy nuts around here. So much going on and so much that I would love to be blogging about... just haven't been able to find the time to get to it. Here's a bit of a brain dump this morning.
  • My neck and shoulders are really stiff! I started working out again on the Bowflex gym I have in my garage... great work out but I really wish exercise didn't have to hurt so much!

  • This weekend the family and I are heading up to Joy Bible Camp for the long weekend. I'm going to be teaching four sessions at the youth retreat happening there. I only have 2 of the sessions nearly completed so I need to get cracking on finishing this up!!

  • We had a really nice Mother's Day yesterday. The kids surprised Danielle with breakfast in bed. After church we all spent the afternoon in Stratford. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate but it was still nice to get out of the house.

  • I'm reading the book The Big Idea by Dave Ferguson, Jon Ferguson and Eric Bramlett. Great book! I'm just LOVING the idea of focusing what we're teaching as a church and get everyone on board with one really Big Idea. Church can so easily be filled with information overload and in reality absolutely no life change happens... we just go through the motions and sit through all this information... but by focusing on a single big idea covered in all areas of ministry (Sunday service, youth group, kids program, mid week small group, etc) then we have a much bigger impact and see lives transformed. LOVE THIS!!

  • I'm actually quite stunned that it's already the 12th of May! Where does the time go?!?!? I was really hoping to have so much more work done by now...

  • Our church's building campaign had some great news this weekend. In order to go forward with the building construction we had a target pledge amount of 1.5 million. After 4 weeks of teaching on stewartship, a FANTASTIC church celebration and 2 weeks of collecting pledges, the total amount was announced on Sunday. The total amount pledged was $1,512,000! Very cool! So now the planning begins and the details of the construction should be announced at the next congregational meeting in June. If all goes well, the shovel should be in the ground this fall!

  • With the building going forward I'm doing a TON of praying and planning on how we go about ministry here at Woodside... I'm sure this will be very exciting and very challenging over the next few months :-) Looking forward to it!!

  • My wife is awesome!!!! Just wanted to throw that in here :-) And my kids are very cool as well! I'm so blessed with such a wonderful family!

Comments

Robin said…
Sounds like an exciting time in your life!
5:17 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Practical Atheist

Image
Over the past few weeks our church has been doing a preaching series called Practical Atheist. This is based on the book The Christian Atheist by Pastor Craig Groeschel. I've been blown away by how God has worked in the hearts of so many people over the past few weeks. Mind you, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Pastor Craig's ministry has had such a huge influence on my personal walk with Jesus so just is just a continuation of that blessing. This week we're probably going to hit the hardest topic for me to preach on, I Believe in God but I Pursue Happiness at All Costs. I'm going to be using Jesus' parable of the sower and look at how our pursuit of happiness causes us to miss out on truly how God wants from our lives. This topic hits me right between the eyes as I'm being open and honest with God about what allow to be entertainment or how I go about trying to be happy. Do I allow myself to be entertained by sin? Do I pursue the world's view
Read more

Revitalized Pastors and Leaders

Image
On March 15, 2023, the Barna Research Group released the "The Resilient Pastor Initiative". Its goal was to explore and share the state of pastors in America in the post-COVID climate we find ourselves in. According to the data, the state of pastors may not be as good as it appears from behind the pulpit. From 2015 to 2022 Barna notes the following where pastors responded "Excellent" in a number of categories: Spiritual well-being dropped from 37% to 14% Physical well-being fell from 24% to 9% Mental and emotional health plummeted from 39% to 11% The overall quality of life dipped from 42% to 18% The level of respect they felt from the community tanked from 22% to 10% Level of ‘true friends’ dropped by 50% from 34% to 17% The data also showed that this drop in wellness was more prevalent in younger pastors! Older pastors are riding it out to retirement. Now, before anyone from my church begins to panic, I'm OK. As shared in a blog post from January 2023 entitled
Read more

The Worship of our Worship

Image
  Every once and a while an idea pops into my head that I just can't shake. It keeps me up at night. It consumes my waking hours. It turns around and around in my head. It shows up in my dreams. It starts coming up in more and more conversations. I pray that God would just get rid of this idea because I know a lot of church people are not going to like what I have to say. This doesn't happen to me often. When it does, it's usually because I need to get this out of my head and into the world. Because I always find that I'm never alone. Others have been wrestling with the exact same idea.  I don't put this out to be confrontational or to cause division. I write this as a simple man who loves Jesus, who trusts in the teachings of Scripture, who tries hard to listen to the Holy Spirit for guidance, and who has been pastoring a local church for 14 years. What Started It Recently I heard the current COVID-19 pandemic's impact on the Christian Church compared to the Ba
Read more