Archive - November, 2008

thanksgiving postscript

November 27, 2008 in family, personal, thoughts with 0 Comments

just a rambling or two at the end of a good day.  wanted to share some pictures from our thanksgiving eve service at the ashland campus.  a creative time together to drive down the opportunity to get to know some new folks. its been two months since the launch and it was good to sit around a table.  at our table was a family we sort of know already but it was a blessing to spend some time together. all the children (and those at heart) were encouraged to draw with crayons on the table to share stories and words about what we’re thankful for.  pastor bud shared some words from the original thanksgiving proclaimation from lincoln’s pen in 1863. in the midst of our national messiness the closing sentence works to focus us…

and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

we completed our evening with a sharing in the eternal meal of thanksgiving at each table.  each table had a different focus verse from the bible, ours was [youversion] Psalm 7:17[/youversion].

i also found this article over at fox that seemed appropriate from father jonathan…

Our greatness as a nation has relied on our unrelenting hope. If we’ve been good at facing foes, if we’ve been unafraid of work, if we’ve had big ideas and the will to make them work, it’s because our hearts have been accustomed to believing in things unseen.

its in those unseen things that we all need to hang on to…and truthfully the only power to offer us comfort is in God himself. so as come to the close of a day of national thanksgiving i pray that you’ll be encouraged to place your faith, your worry and your fears in the only true God.

personally it was good today to spend time with our extended family. our home grew with amazing aromas today as rose baked her heart out…mincemeat & pumpkin pies and her amazing frosted cookies. our son the marine landed in the driveway home from camp lejuene around 0900…and our oldest made it in from delaware around 2. somewhere in the middle of that the son and i talked about his next steps and his future deployment abroad. a little later we loaded up the goodies and headed out to my parents home and enjoyed a great evening.  praying your thanksgiving day was equally filled with much goodness, blessings and unrelenting hope.

everything is amazing…but nobody is happy

November 22, 2008 in culture with 0 Comments


not much comment…enjoy…louis ck is pretty insightful
HT Ragamuffin Soul (saw this on carlos’s website when it was up…he’s having all sorts of trouble with his isp.)

nurturers of useful virtue

November 21, 2008 in thoughts with 0 Comments

dan henninger nails it again. he makes a great tie in between the econonmy tanking and the movement afoot to only say “happy holidays” at this time of year. for him its all about human beings behaving badly…

Responsibility and restraint are moral sentiments. Remorse is a product of conscience. None of these grow on trees. Each must be learned, taught, passed down. And so we come back to the disappearance of “Merry Christmas.”

It has been my view that the steady secularizing and insistent effort at dereligioning America has been dangerous…The point for a healthy society of commerce and politics is not that religion saves, but that it keeps most of the players inside the chalk lines. We are erasing the chalk lines.

you can read the article here.
 so lets step up the nuturing part and be much more intentional about declaring the Good News, especially as we step off in the season of Advent.

a new community

November 20, 2008 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

early this week, on my day off, i spent a day with a group of 9 other youth pastors from around our conference. it was a really great time. short but incredibly useful in both a personal and professional way. i really look forward to these kind of interactions. i only knew one of the other youth guys, steve storkel from our mother ship, berean in mansfield. the first part of our time together was spent just talking. each of us shared some of our story and then had the person to your right pray for you. very humbling, but very encouraging. i was blessed to be able to talk with men just stepping off into doing vocational ministry and offer them encouragement. the second part of our time together focused on a great conversation about developing student leaders.

the environment was a huge blessing. there’s a family in the district that have a very incredible home and they’ve made it their ministry to bless other ministries with a place that is inviting, warm and relaxed. what a gift. i mentioned several times during our 24 hrs that our hosts were great arguments on why captialism is a good thing.

truthfully these moments, pulling out of the matrix of life and walking with mentors and mentees together is something we don’t do enough of. several of my new younger friends shared their gratitude for sharing of my journey. my rose encourages me to do this things. i’m grateful for her sacrifice. sidetrips like this are great to recharge the batteries.

good morning marines

November 17, 2008 in family, personal with 0 Comments

we got the video from our son jed’s graduation from bootcamp at parris island as a united states marine. i pulled this clip which was one of the more larger impressive moments.  if you think about this morning…pray for our son and those he is serving with…as well as all those who are in harms way this day.

p.s. i think the base commander knew she was setting us up.  it was impressive.

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