Personally, it was kind of hard to catch a breath this weekend. It seemed like every moment was spoken before I even got near Friday. Although that can wear you out, it’s nice that it was packed with great stuff.
PASTOR’S LUNCH AT FOOTHILLS CHURCH – Foothills Church in El Cajon has a lot of stuff going for it, and one of those is their heart for the Big C church as we call it. I know that most of you think that pastors are perfect (I know I give off that glow of perfection, but let me assure you…) but we can easily get focused on our own little worlds just like everyone else. Which is why Mark & Dave Hoffman are such an encouragement. They are constantly finding ways to serve the work of God in other churches and that means they go out of their way to share whatever God is
SD PASTORS LUNCH – Our friends at Foothills church shared their weekend’s guest speaker Charles Simpson with SD pastors on Friday. I’ve found Charles to be remarkably insightful and always feel encouraged whenever I’ve heard him speak or been around him. So we got the whole Journey crew there. Amazing. Thanks to Mark & Dave Hoffman of FH for your heart for the “Big C church”!
WEEK 2 OF “IN*CARNATE” – The services at Journey were powerful this weekend. It’s pretty clear that God wants to work in people’s lives in this area. As we looked at the Cracked Vessels part of “Life in Our Bodies” we focused on Genesis 3 and where it all went wrong. Although that sounds like kind of downer message, you have to figure out what’s wrong before you can fix it. We concluded the message with a side-by-side comparison of Adam 1 and 2. The gospel makes a lot more sense and we can really see it’s beauty when we see it not as a solution to my biggest problem (of course it is that) but as the Bible puts it, the fulfillment of the great story! Check out the slide below – I may have a separate blog post about this later in the week.
MOM VISIT – Saturday I headed up to what I call the real OC, the OG of the OC to see my mom. Bethany, Linda and I drove up to take her to lunch. It was long overdue. I’m just bummed out the Mexican food place we went had such small portions.
It was great that my brother Ken was able to hang out with us. We talked a little Bolsa Grande smack (our old High School) and surfing – he’s an amazing surfer.
Karen Carlson our missionary to international students was interviewed by Daniel!
SELAH – We capped off the weekend with Selah. Love the unstructured worship and waiting on God time.
CONGRATS TO PHIL & SHEILA – I threw on a suit after the Friday service to head over to some friends 25th Anniversary party at the Prado. Rod and I were talking how much sense it makes to have the big expensive party THEN rather than when you get married. I mean 25 years. You’ve done something wonderful worthy of a kicking party!
WRAPPING UP WITH SPORTS – It was a rough weekend sports wise. Charges lost (3rd straight). Huskers got beat by Northwestern??? I could see it if it was a science-fare competition but I’m pretty sure this was a football game. Ouch – there goes top 10 and a BCS bowl.
ONE COOL STORY – I love being in the middle of an obvious Holy Spirit conspiracy to love someone extravagantly. Sunday morning I was making my way to the worship center and ran into a lady who is a single mom who is struggling – health, finances. She share with me that she was totally committed to tither here $300 check. She really wanted to trust God. Of course I’m impressed and moved. So as the service begins someone hands Daniel (our Creative Director) a couple of tix for the Chargers game. He handed them to me and I was thinking when I got up I’d have some fun and give them away. Then I had the obvious thought – give them to this mom and her son. Duh! She’s all the way across the auditorium but off I went. She was ecstatic. She’d never been to a pro anything game. Sweet. Walk back to my spot. Another thought hits me: you can’t go to a game and park without it costing you at least $20. Obviously that’s serious cash to her. Of course I don’t have any money on me and I grab my friend and prayer partner Barry. He throws me a twenty and back across that room I go. This time there’s people looking at me with a “what the heck’s going on and will you please go back to your seat and stop bothering people look.” But she again is blown away (take that all of you giving me that look). At least a half-dozen people grabbed me throughout the rest of the morning to tell me about this lady and how God gave her Charger tix. The fun thing: I was just in the middle of it. Not my money, not my tickets, not even my idea.
“God, keep me in the middle of Your stuff!”
