Thursday Thoughts

Every day when I leave the office, I think there is no way they can cram more yard sale stuff in there. But when I arrive the next day, they do. We are now at the point of putting stuff on top of the fridge.

Speaking of the yard sale, that is THIS Saturday at the office at 7:00am.

The Chamber of Commerce is doing their annual business expo this Saturday. To make it more family oriented they asked that we put together a children's carnival up on the stage. So we will be doing that Saturday which will be great exposure for Bridge.

I am really excited to speak at the summer camp next week. I just have to finalize the last nights message and I am done.

I get to talk on the life of Paul. So I am doing the theme of Changed. Monday will be Changed Lives. Tuesday will be Changed Perspective. Wednesday will be Changed Desires. And Thursday will be Changed Legacy.

Leslie and I had a two hour discussion last night about how much sin affects potential blessing. It gave me a lot of good stuff to think about. Now if only she would write down her question for our No Such Thing as a Stupid Question series. :)

By the way, I am still looking for some more questions so that I will have a good variety to choose from. We have gotten some great questions so far that should be fun to answer.

I also got a great question asking about the Holy Spirit and demons. I might put that one off and do an entire series on the spiritual realm.

I need to go the police station and show them my tail lights are fixed today.

I also need to get the pest control back out. The ants have invaded our house full force.

Kind of boring thoughts today, but I am in a boring mood today trying to wrap up the details for Saturday and make sure everything I need done next week is done before I leave.

What's the Difference

We begin a new series this week looking at some of the different religions and what they believe. This week we will talk about Mormonism, followed by Islam, Scientology, and end with Christianity.

A Wild and Crazy Bachelor Night

5:00pm Got home and a took some stuff over to Kevin and Robin that we forgot for Zach.

5:15pm Borrowed Kevin's truck to surprise Leslie with a screen door for our front door. Both Lowes and Home Depot were sold out of the one I wanted. So that didn't happen.

5:45pm Took the truck back and headed over to Jared's for dinner.

6:15pm Ate cheeseburgers with Jared.

7:30pm Got home and watched a Leslie free, commercial free episode of rasslin'.

9:00pm Kept up the wild times with an episode of John and Kate Plus 8 for their big announcement. I was hoping they were cancelling the show, sad to hear they are getting divorced.

9:30pm Headed off to our softball game.

11:15pm Lost our softball game 14-0. Ouch.

11:30pm Got home, ate some watermelon, played NBA 2K8, and listened to a podcast from Jenni while I let the adrenaline from the softball game die down so I could fall asleep.

12:45pm Ended bachelor night by falling asleep.

My Farm

I have spent the last month digging up the second part of our back yard. I finally got all the grass dug up, and then Mike and I rented a rototiller together yesterday for our yards. I was able to turn the dirt into some very fine soil. This morning, I raked out as much of the dead grass as I could and prepped the soil for planting.

One of my retirement goals is to move back to Wisconsin and buy a farm. I think the best way to spend retirement would be to wake up early for my old man meeting at the donut shop where we talk about the Packers, then drive a tractor all day through my corn fields while picking off crows with my pellet gun, congratulating my dog after he retrieves each bird, cutting grass with my riding lawn mower, and then walking along my field as the sun sets with my dog right behind me, before I head off for my nightly chocolate dipped ice-cream cone from Dairy Queen with Leslie. That would be the life. And this is the beginning. :)

Thursday Thoughts

It is starting to get hot out.

For father's day we are taking Zach to the destruction derby! That is going to be awesome. My dad and I used to go to those, so I am looking forward to taking Zach. Especially since he is so fascinated by cars.

The Bring Your Own Meat Cookout is tomorrow night at Rivercrest Park at 5:30pm. Directions went out today by email.

I am craving dinner tonight. We are doing chicken wings as well as grilling our first two ears of homegrown corn, and eating the three big lemon cucumbers that are ready.

Dan needs to finalize a date for the Mexico yard sale because the office is quickly filling up.

Which leads to the next point, if you have stuff you want to donate to the yard sale, give him a call. (no more clothes as we already have an abundance.)

We finish up our "Losing My Religion" series this week and then next week start a new series called "What's the Difference" and we will take a look at four different religions, their beliefs, and what makes them different from Christianity.

This is what I really want my Father's Day to be like. :) And on the plus side, Leslie has always said she wished that she lived in the 1950's!

Speak in soft, low tones.

I am thinking that we will need to get a game of Ultimate Frisbee going at the BYOM tomorrow night.

Secret Confession #1: I watched Annie for the first time in about fifteen years the other night, and still liked it and have had the songs stuck in my head for the last two days.

Secret Confession #2: Growing up, one of my greatest mysteries, was why the heck were there rail road tracks going up into the sky at the end of Annie and why she would start climbing them in the first place. Being a little wiser now, I understand the concept of drawbridges that have rail road tracks on them. Mystery solved at the age of 27.

Secret Confession #3: Watching Daddy Warbucks and Annie kind of made me want to have a girl next instead of another boy. But that could all change next week if I were to watch a few episodes of Home Improvement. :)

Wow, after that I might need to wait another 15 years before I ever watch that movie again. :)

I got invited to be the speaker at a summer camp in two weeks down in Barstow. There is going to be around 175 high school students and that is going to be a blast. I love talking to youth and they are going to let me talk twice a day!

I have been camp counselor a number of times and really didn't like doing that, but I was always jealous of the camp speakers job.

My goal is to make it through the week without doing a throw your sins in the camp fire moment, or a stand up if you really love Jesus moment. I always hated that part of church camp. :)

The theme for the week they gave me was, "The Life of Paul." I am thinking about introducing myself by taking the camper who starts the "I love Jesus yes I do" chant before the meal and having the other campers stone him while I look on and smile. And then coming back that night and repenting just so they get a clear picture of who Paul was.

Loving God and Loving People

Tuesday morning at men's group we were talking about integrity. And someone asked the question: Is love greater than desire or is desire greater than love? And he gave the example, if I love my wife, but desire another woman and have an affair, what does that say about my love for my wife? Which then left people asking, "can we seperate the two?" Do we love what we desire or do we desire what we love?

It was a question that really challenged me over the last two days. I had a guy come back into my life last week after a six month absence. And this is a guy who has tested my patience and ability to love people more than anyone else ever has. I will admit, when I saw him walking into the office, the first words in my head were not good ones. And I was very short with him as we talked last week and I really showed him no patience.

As Christ followers, we have the two great commandments. Love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and love our neighbors. So Monday, I prayed that God would allow me to have more patience to deal with this guy. Only, he never came by the office on Monday. And then Tuesday morning we had men's group. It left me asking who do I love, and what do I desire? If I say I love God, but desire the stress free days of not having to show love to this guy, what does that make my love for God worth? I am guessing not much more than me saying I love my wife, but desire a different woman. So I changed my prayer. I prayed that I would desire to help this guy get back on his feet and come to know the Lord not because I wanted him out of my hair, but because I wanted to demonstrate love for him that flows out of my love for God.

And I think God heard that prayer. Because I have seen this guy the last two days and I have never seen him more positive or even as happy as he is right now. And before he left this morning he said, "hey why do you think I am acting like this? You think it is God? You think God is making me be positive? Why would he do that to me?" And I told him, "you know, I think He is doing it for me." He laughed and left for the day.

So my question is, how do you love people? Does the way you love people match the way you say that you love God?

A Busy Weekend

I spent another Saturday digging all day. Except this time it was in my own yard. We have two sections to our backyard. One is really nice with green grass. And the section on the other side of the fence is dead and weeds. So I took a shovel to that section and only have a small ten by ten square left to dig out.

The hardest part will be that this section is still alive which takes a lot more effort than the dead stuff.

After five years of marriage, I let Leslie take me clothes shopping that night with my birthday money. Jamie said that it took her about five years too before Mike let her pick out his clothes. So I am on par with that.

Church was great yesterday. I loved having the worship team back together after so many people were gone the last few weeks. They didn't miss a beat and brought a lot of energy.

One of our high schoolers Steven is now video taping each of the services. So if you miss a Sunday and would rather have video than audio, let me know and we can get you a copy.

I really do believe that the best way to fight spiritual warfare is with the truths of scripture. There is nothing more true than God's Word.

We had some of our youth show up to play basketball yesterday. And of course it was all fun and games until someone got hurt. The only problem was, the person doing the hurting was me. Poor Robby caught my elbow on the back of his head going up for a rebound and got a minor concussion. The doctor said he was okay and will be cleared to play again in four weeks. I don't think I will be playing that week. :)

But when Robbie could still remember things he told me that he has really liked this series on James 1:22-27 and even referred to it in a conversation he was having with some friends about religion this last week. Those are stories I never get tired of hearing.

Dan let me borrow the youth van to take some of the kids home after basketball. Now that is one sweet ride. We call it the creeper van as it is this giant blue 10 passenger van, with blue carpet all up and down the walls and on the ceiling, no a/c, mini blinds and purple curtains on the windows, a passenger door that you have to manually set the door hinge in place for it to shut, and a rocking sound system. And if I were to drive up to you in that and tell you I had candy in my van, I wouldn't be lying. It is the ultimate youth van. :)

I got home just in time for Zach to wake up from his nap. So we went outside and filled up his ball pit with water.

I came inside around 5:00pm and finally sat down to play NBA 2K8 while the finals game recorded and realized how tired I was when I woke up and was losing 34-2.

After we put Zach down, Leslie and I watched Dan in Real Life. One of our favorite movies only because I can't wait for the day Emily calls Mike "The murderer of love!"

I went to bed dreaming of a way to build a taller crib bumper. Zach's new "I don't want to go to bed" routine is to lift his foot over the bumper and get it stuck in between the crib posts and start crying.

Thursday Thoughts

I got suckered into giving blood tomorrow at Greeters this morning. Seriously, I am a sucker for peer pressure.

We finish up our "Losing My Religion" series this Sunday and next week start a series called "What's the difference?" We will be taking a look at what other religions believe and separates Christianity from all of them.

I have loved the rain the last two nights. Rain is so much better when it is not freezing cold outside.

Actually, Leslie just told me if I go get a tattoo, then I don't have to give blood. Hmmmmm.

I love how ESPN's reporter Ed Werder is in full recovery mode right now after all of his Brett Favre reports haven't come true. So let's recap. He said that Brett Favre didn't go through with the surgery. A week later we find out Brett did have surgery. He said that Brad Childress gave Brett a deadline of one week to report to Vikings camp. Brad Childress said last night that he never said that and hasn't talked to Brett. He said that Brett failed to show up to Vikings practices this week. Brett never once said he was coming. (which means I would also like everyone to know that John Elway failed to report to Vikings practice as well.) So in other words, Ed Werder is full of it, and desperate for any story where he can mention the name of Brett Favre. So my point as always, hate the reporters, not Brett.

I'm getting excited for family camp in July. Although I heard we might have some slackers who are getting a hotel or staying with family rather than sleeping in a tent. :) Yes, I am calling each of you out! If you need an extra tent, we have one.

And as pastor, I would like anyone getting a hotel room to know that they are then responsible for all of the kids from 8:00pm to 8:00am.

It was said, that Davy Crockett could grin a bear to death. Well, when I find my biggest strawberry yet, pecked to death by a bird, I don't feel like grinning, so I am going to shoot it death.

I have nine ears of corn getting bigger by the day!

Leslie and I watched Valkyrie the other night. It was like the last ten minutes of The Sound of Music except with explosions.

My right leg looks like a piece of raw meat after sliding into second Monday night.

After three and a half years of blogging, I am two posts away from 700. I need something good for that one.

I made some awesome lettuce wraps last night.

Our new favorite show this summer is "Here Come the Newlyweds."

Don't forget, membership class this Sunday from 5:00pm to 6:00pm at the office.