Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Our church staff stole away today for a one-day retreat at the home of one of our elders. (Thanks J & J!) We soaked up the cool fall morning on the screened-in porch...we even stayed out there as the sun warmed up this afternoon, after our completely mediocre lunch from Far East Kitchen in Greenbriar.
As task-oriented as I am, I have learned the essentiality of these occasional "view from 30,000 feet up" sessions. These times always help me shape my view of our church, of the world, of the call of Christ, of God's incredible sense of humor...God is good. To be pulled out of the weeds and forced to look at the important instead of the urgent is critical for a missional organization.

Praise God for our church's generosity for hurricane victims...$80k so far, wow!

One big victory for our new schedule is that our entire church is on the premises at the same time...resulting in much greater fellowship and koininia. Cool word, and couldn't imagine having it with a greater bunch of people. Hope I spelled it right.

Worship team rehearsals kick off for the fall tomorrow night! I'm so pumped. Music is such a powerful medium in our culture. Churches everywhere must continue to use music as a tool, not a master, to communicate / pass along / share, etc. the good news about Jesus. Great days ahead for us.

And hey, I got the new ZOE GROUP CD in the mail yesterday. Loved their rendition of "How Great Is Our God"...a powerful worship anthem by Chris Tomlin (author of Forever, and tons of other cool worship songs that I can't think of right now.) This group, on their 10th release, again provided our faith tradition with solid a cappella arrangements of new & refreshed worship songs.

Baby Sanderson's arrival is 12.5 weeks away...extremely exciting. Recently, I was lamenting to Jaime that we were about to lose our "alone time" forever, and that we would never again have zero responsibility. Thankfully, she reminded me that we do indeed have friends & family who just might babysit for us once the baby is of age. But still, it's the end of an era which I will always cherish...our time before kids. Sort of like "the land before time" only different.