wow! it’s been a very flat-out few weeks, so pardon the lack of traffic here. here’s a quick download of a few things…
- we ran our annual aquacarols event yesterday at the aqua jetty facility next door to us. it was a different format to what we’ve done in the past (primarily due to some interesting developments with council permissions, etc.), but i think it went off really well. we had great weather for the day, which is kind of helpful when you’re running a pool party!
- i’ve really been enjoying preaching the “heroes” series we’ve been doing for the past few weeks – just so much to learn from the heroes of old, and it’s been really challenging to me personally.
- i can’t express how grateful i am to the Lord for bringing mark jones onto our team as our ministry support team leader. i came to a point earlier this year where i knew that i couldn’t keep going with the load i was carrying, and my awesome elders encouraged/pushed me to finally do what we’ve known we should have done a couple of years ago – get someone on board to share the admin load of the church, and allow me to get back to focusing on what i do best. mj rocks! God has blessed us over and over again with great people. anyways, i feel somewhat sane again, which is always nice!
- got my grades back from my first doctoral class i took mid-year – yeah! still got a little of the old magic running in the veins… :-) actually, i was a bit nervous, because academia is a bit of a game, and the trick is figuring out where the lines lie so you can meet the expectations. anyways, i was pleased with what i got back, and even more pleased because i felt like God really used my case study to teach me some stuff, which is always a lot better than just jumping through hoops.
- God has been teaching me a lot about love lately, and really challenging me about my love for him and others. it’s good, but in my face. it seems like every page of scripture has been whacking me between the eyes with love – ok, so, in spite of my previous comment, i’m a very slow learner!
- we’ve been working through “simple church” as a leadership and staff, and God has been really using this simple text (no pun intended) to help us gain clarity and focus for next year. i’m really serious about the next couple of years – i feel like the Lord has been giving me a pep talk about getting moving over the next 24 months and seeing some cool things happen in our neck of the woods. i’m excited by that, because for all that we’ve achieved so far, we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface yet of really connecting with our community, so i’m ready to roll.
- and, since it’s late and i need to go to bed, i’m very excited because the dallas cowboys finally have a team, and it’s been a long time coming. just finished watching the scrappy 1-point win over detroit, and it felt good knowing that your team was going to win, in spite of it being a close thing – you just have a sense of confidence that it’s a do-able thing, and we haven’t had the feeling as dallas fans for a decade. nice! the perfect way to start a week!
- ok – off to bed. i’m realising more and more how important sleep is to me… too stupid to realise it before. doh.