For those of you who don’t regularly read my wife’s blog, here’s a snapshot of what our two youngest get into when no one’s looking:
Click the picture (or here) to read the hilarious tale of woe.
Field notes on life and mission with God after Christendom
For those of you who don’t regularly read my wife’s blog, here’s a snapshot of what our two youngest get into when no one’s looking:
Click the picture (or here) to read the hilarious tale of woe.
For those interested, I’ve posted a few photos from our recent vacation to Virginia Beach on my photo page.
We spend a week vacationing with my extended family every year, which is always a lot of fun.
And now just a few random thoughts about what’s going on, and what I am thinking about blogging this fall, just to get the blog rolling again:
Music:
Books:
Movies I’d love to see but will probably not see until they come out on DVD:
Stuff I’m thinking about that will probably end up in this blog:
So those are the happenings in my world as of late. I hope to continue conversing with y’all soon!
I’m back from a two week vacation, just got done clearing a very full email inbox (after carefully reading and responding to them, of course), and am ready to resume blogging. Before I left I had created all four Cross-pollinator posts, and scheduled them to appear throughout my vacation, just to keep you on your toes. It seems to have worked! Of course I wasn’t able to respond to comments, but that will come in time (hopefully this week isn’t too late to do so).
I feel rested and ready to re-engage, which is a great way to come back from a vacation. If anyone is interested, you can check out some of the photos from the trip here.
Watch for posts coming on more Faces of Innovation, as well as some more musings on Church 2.0, including some thoughts on how realistic it is, given the current cultural climate. So much to think about, talk about, pray about, converse about…
Most of the time you don’t know the full extent of the effect you’re having on other people’s lives.
Last weekend I took my 8-year-old son Ethan down to Indianapolis to watch a Pacers game (vs. the Minnesota Timberwolves) and spend the night. It seemed to me that things went "fine", judging by Ethan’s reaction to everything. Kevin Garnett didn’t play, which was too bad, but Ethan seemed to be enjoying himself, so I told my wife, when she asked how things went, that things were "fine."
Then today Ethan brought home a brief story he wrote in class about something that happened to him recently. He wrote about the weekend watching the Pacers. After gushing about how great it all was, he ended with this line:
It was almost the best day of my life.
It brought home to me again how much of an effect we have on each other’s lives without really knowing it most of the time. When we talk about "missional church" and "emerging church" and all that stuff, it really boils down to things like this, where a human life touches another human life. Missional church starts with how I treat my spouse and my kids, it starts with my attitude toward my neighbors, whether they’re good ones or not. It doesn’t start with grandiose schemes to evangelize cities, it starts in much more humble, boring circumstances: learning to put away anger, becoming more self-controlled, exercising patience (again), learning kindness, actually preferring others above myself.
You won’t make the headlines with accomplishments like that, but you will probably have a far greater impact than you imagine.