Did That Feel Good

What felt good you asked? Well that would be my run today. Was a short run, but man did it feel good. I started running, and next thing you know I am running a whole lot faster. I have not felt that good running since I ran the Marathon on September 14th. I think I am finally over it! I guess it does take that long to recover from a marathon. Now I am tossing around the idea of doing another one. Can anyone talk some sense into me?
I felt so much better after my run. I think we all need to make sure we have some sort of exercise routine. Trust me, the time that it takes you to do it, your productivity will increase even more so.

He loves God a little more

I was talking to a friend today, and he said something that got me thinking all day. He was quoting his pastor who said something to the effect, "He loves the Bible, but he loves God just a little more." Hmm... boy that got me thinking on so many levels. And boy did I toss that one around in my head for a long time. Still enjoying thinking about all the implications of the statement.
Now here is the thing I love about all of this. While I was thinking about the statement I was actively thinking about God. I was thinking about everything I know about God. About every verse that I had memorized that related. About everything that I have learned about God from others and from my own personal relationship with God.
That is the beauty of the whole process. If you spend the whole day thinking about God, that is a good thing. So I hope the statement, "He loves the Bible but he love God just a little more" causes you to do some deep pondering. Enjoy.

Fire at Blanchard House

Right as we were finishing a weekly staff meeting at the Lighthouse, we get a call. This is not the call you want to get. Blanchard house (our transitional house for 18-21 years old girls) is on fire. We all went quickly to the house in Butler, and sure enough it was on fire.


First thing we do is make sure everyone is alright. They are! That was the first and foremost concern. No one got hurt. Praise the Lord!


I also must say that the City of Butler Fire Company did a wonderful job. They responded quickly and kept the damage to a minimum. Thank you Butler Fire Company!


I am overwhelmed at the support that has already come in. As soon as the word of the fire spread, we had people calling and asking how they could help. I am overwhelmed by the compassion of our supporters.


I am truly amazed at our staff. To give you two examples:

1. Our cook (or should I say "Director of Food Services") was not working today. However as soon as she heard, she was at the Lighthouse cooking homemade lasagna for all the girls. Boy did that smell good! Thanks Bobbi



2. When our Resident Manager was allowed in the house, her first thoughts were, "How are the girls? What can we do for them? How can we help them?" What is amazing to me about that is all her "stuff" was in the house. She was not concerned about all of that, she was worried about the girls. When we told her we had some people gathering up clothes her reaction was, "Don't worry about me, let's make sure the girls are taken care of first."

Wow! Eventful day to say the least. We are working through all the insurance and everything right now. I am asking all of you out there in the blogsphere to pray for the girls of Blanchard House. This is going to be tough on them. They need your support. I also ask you to pray for the Lighthouse as we plan our course of action. Thank you so much!

Zoo Fun

It was incredible. For my nephew's 10 year birthday we decided to take him to the zoo. Now of course today was a mostly rainy day and a little on the cool side. But it was just so relaxing and fun. Everyone was in such good mood. It was a Halloween dress up day. Isaiah ran around the whole time in a super man costume. In my total biased opinion there has never been a cuter little three year old. Sam, dressed like a cowboy, fell asleep in his stroller and slept all through lunch. It was so cute too. All and all it was just fun. On the way out, free slurpies! Which were just enough to keep the boys awake on the home. Which was great because they both took a nap when they got home (and so did I). All and all just a fun time

You Just Talk to God

This evening I was giving Isaiah a bath. He was telling me about his friends at school, and said they were his "best friends." Of course I said "I thought I was your best friend." He responded with his famous line "you are my family best friend." So I asked Isaiah what does a family best friend do? He told me "you just talk to God." I followed up with "Is that all I do at the Lighthouse?" Isaiah said "Yeah."
Now the first thought that went through my head was "wow, that would be nice." Just to spend the whole day talking to God. Then I thought about it a little longer. Maybe we all should spend all day talking to God. Now I know there are things we have to do, people we need to talk to. But at the same point that does not mean we tell God to take a hike. He is still there.
No, we can't spend all day everyday talking with only God but, we must realize that God is there and we can talk to Him.

Opposites Attract

I have to make a confession. I am a morning person. I never wanted to be a morning person. But it happened. I'm almost to the point where if it is after 7:00 a.m. the morning is 1/2 over. I know I am sick.
Now enter my wife. My wife is not a morning person. Far from it. My wife thinks if the day starts before 11:00 a.m. it is way too early.
Needless to say this creates some interesting events. Like me up in the morning ready to go and wanting to talk to Heather and Heather responding "huh?" Or Heather trying to talk to me a night and me responding "huh?"
Now I know we are not the only opposites like this. I just always have wondered why these things happen. Oh well.

Relying on others

Last week my computer caught a cold. I guess I should say I got a virus on my computer. How sad. Now as soon as it happened I started to think, "How am I going to fix this?" I knew it would be tough, so I started thinking, "How much coffee do I have? Is it going to be an all-nighter?" Then I wondered if I could I even do this. So at that point I decided to give it to my brother, Phil. My brother has always been there when ever I needed him. So I take it to him, tell him what is wrong and he says "no problem."
As a man who likes to think he can do everything himself, I don't like to get help. But God has put people in our lives to help us out. Phil helped me out big time.
I got my computer back today, and it is working great. Thanks Phil.

Reason #213 I love my wife

One of the things that I would highly recommend to any one dating is that long distance relationships are actually a good thing. Heather and I always had a long distance relationship. The closest we ever were to each other is after I graduated college and she was still in college we were only 250 miles away. Due to that fact we were forced to develop a good system of communication. Fast forward to the current, and I love the fact that we still have that system of communication. It is great to have someone you can talk to about everything. It is not something I take for granted. It is not something that I can just forget, we still have to make an effort at it. I honestly want this for everyone. To have someone like that in your life is truly a gift from God. I am not saying any of this to earn brownie points, or to get out of the dog house or anything like that. It was just on my head, so I thought I would blog about it.

Poor Little Samuel

Can I ask you all a favor? Could you be praying for a little guy Samuel. The poor kid caught a nasty cold. The worse part is the feeling you get when you know you can't do much. It is tough when he wakes up in the middle of the night. Makes everything so much more difficult to deal with. So anyways please pray for Sam? Thanks, it means a lot to us.

Post #300 Celebration

This is post number #300! Wow! Impressive huh?
Today, I celebrated post number 300 with 20 people. We went to the Oil City Railroad with the Lighthouse Golden Age (60+) group. The train trip...that was...wow...ahhh....interesting to say the least. Every car has their own "tour guide." Our guide was Matthew. Now Matthew's fiance was supposed to be there, but she was not there for some reason. Matthew had never played tour guide before. You know those tours where there are memorized lines. Well I don't know what Matthew was thinking or talking about. I heard the words "bomb, kill, died, murdered" and we were talking about drilling oil. Very odd. Now Jaimie went on the trip too, and we were amused, disgusted, and just wanted him to shut up. Funny he actually asked "should I shut up now?" More funny, 1/2 the car said "Please." Of course, it gets better. On the way back we got to listen to high school karaoke that well...was just not good.
After the eventful train trip, we had lunch at a nice restaurant when all of a sudden the conversation turned to the new "health club" in the area that teaches pole dancing. Well for the remainder of the trip we had a bunch of Golden Agers talking about pole dancing. Some had no idea how to polka with a pole. So you have 1/2 the Golden Agers trying to explain to the other 1/2 what pole dancing is. Wow! The whole trip was definitely legendary!

Ready to help people realize their dreams

My vacation has been amazing. My time off has been wonderful. Hanging with the family has been great. Kind of sad to see that all come to end. I must admit it has been a blast. I love my family. Being able to spend all day with them every day has been great.
Tomorrow I start my new job. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to being able to work with everyone. The one thing that I did miss on my vacation, is being able to help people realize their dreams. But I get to begin to do that tomorrow. I am excited.
Now this is not the end of something legendary. It is the beginning of something legendary!

How much Is $18?

Today I had to get the propane tank filled. I had been putting it off for some unknown reason. But wanted to cook some kielbasa on the grill, so I got the tank filled. Now the total cost to get a tank filled is $20.32. No problem right? So I scanned my card, entered my pin, everything worked great. I was walking out and I actually glanced at my receipt. Turns out I only paid $2.32. Somehow the "0" did not get punched in. At this point I had a choice. And let me be honest with all of you, I did debate it with myself. The choice between celebrating, or telling someone. Ouch. $18. I could use $18. I am sure all of you out there could use $18. But however, I thought about the cashier who could get in trouble. I thought about all the times I have talked about honesty. I knew what I had to do. Now I did not like spending the $18, but I feel good about it.
Listen, I am not trying to make myself out to be this great super hero or anything like that. I know times are tough. I know the economics in the country have all of us worried. But choose to follow God, choose to trust God, and it will work out.

Good enough?

I was reading a bunch of stuff today and I came across a quote that really messed me up:

"It's rather sickening that so many settle for mediocrity in the name of Jesus Christ, but demand quality in the name of Starbucks - sounds backwards to me."

Now let us be honest. For those of us who are coffee addicts, we do not want bad coffee. We want good coffee. Now I don't think I am some sort of coffee snob or anything like that, I just want my coffee to be good.

A phrase that I have heard more times than I ever would want to hear: "oh, it is good enough for church." Come on! You serious? Good enough for the Savior of the world?

We demand excellence from our coffee, but we don't demand excellence in the name of Jesus? That is messed up.

Be the change that you want to see in others. How? By doing whatever you are doing for God with all your heart. By putting forth your best effort. By striving to serve not the best coffee, but to serve the Living God.

The cool thing is, you are not responsible for how others do (or don't do) their job. That is not your problem. You do what you can do to do your best to serve God. And please don't ever use the "it is good enough for church" line ever again, especially to me!

Things I might miss...

It is weird to sit here on a Saturday night not thinking about tomorrow morning. Kinda feels good, but kinda sad at the same time. Hopefully I will have the opportunity to speak one or two times per month. So it is not like I won't get to do it again. But the weird thing is I will not be doing it every week. It is funny when you have been doing something week after week for six years and now you don't. It is a funny feeling. Now with that being said. In a "perfect" world I would like to speak only 35-40 times a year. I think I was averaging like 47-48 times a year. Now with all that being said, it is quite possible I will blog about "how glad I am that I don't have to speak every week anymore" in a couple of weeks. Just the way I am.

I could get used to this

This week in my "week of transition" I am not doing much. I knew I needed a break, so I have one this week. Man does it feel great. I have been hanging out with Heather and the boys and having a blast. And now that I have been doing this for a couple of days my mind is starting to race with all sorts of ideas and concepts. By the time this little rest is over, I will be ready to go at it. Man is this is exciting!
Just goes to prove the value of rest. A little rest will get you recharged. I know you are all busy, but take the time to take a break. You will be way more productive.

Change

I think that is one of the most overused words lately. Every politician is promising change. I am in the midst of change right now. It has effected my blogging lately. I have been unsure of exactly what to say and what not to say. So I have basically stayed quiet. But it is time for me to start sharing with all of you out there. I imagine there will be several posts over the next several days dealing with all of this.
I have always had a respect for pastors who stay at the same church for thirty years. I see the value of that. I see the opportunities to effect three or more generations of a family. With that being said leaving Bakerstown Alliance after 6.5 or 8.5 years (I was the assistant for 2 years before becoming the lead pastor) is tough. In a lot of ways I would have liked to stay there a lot longer. Did I accomplish all the goals I set? No! Did I feel like I have done all that I could there? No! Do I feel that there is no room for growth at Bakerstown Alliance? Absolutely not! So leaving a place I love was tough. I love Bakerstown Alliance. I know the future is bright. But I also had to be sensitive to God's leading.
There is more I have to say about all of this, just keep checking.

Giving Blood to Get Something

A couple of weeks ago, I got a flier from the blood bank asking me to give blood on October 6th. Here is the deal, if you gave blood you got a free "Enjoy" coupon book. Wooohooo, free stuff! (might be my hidden love language) Of course, I gave blood. Of course I had my free cookies and got my free coupon book. Yes, I am willing to give my blood to get something. In college they gave us t-shirts for giving blood. For a while my wardrobe consisted of blood t-shirts.
Now here is the part that is almost incomprehensible for me. Jesus shed his blood, not to get something for free, but to free us. Think about that. That whole idea just has me really thankful today.

TP and the Government

With all the junk that congress is trying to add on to the "bailout bill" I would like to put in my suggestion. In this bill I think we need to have a ban on the production of single ply toilet paper. Single ply toilet paper is just wrong. For all you people who say "but it uses less"; that is just not true. You end up using twice as much toilet paper. So with everything else in that bill I don't think it is unreasonable to put that ban on the single ply.
Sorry just two things that were on my mind today that made me upset. So I thought that I would have a little fun and combine the two.