Some weekends feel like a sprint. Some weekend feel like a marathon. This last weekend felt like a marathon run at the pace of a sprint. I found myself on gasping for breath & chugging 5 Hour Energy like a crazy man.
It didn’t help that I woke up sick on Thursday. To deal with what I thought might be an impending cold, I went surfing with a buddy at lunch (guys who surf believe in the magical powers of “The Salt Water Flush”).
There was mounds & mounds of seaweed washed up from the recent storms
You will be surprised to learn that it didn’t help at all. I was not doing well on Friday & it felt like the cold was going to my throat. Thanks to all my Twitter / FB people who prayed it out of there, because my voice stayed strong all weekend.
Ah, the weekend. We were finishing up our series “FORMED” with the 2nd half of last weeks message (FORM US) with a message entitled “FROM ME”. It was a really fun message. We had a little fun with Play-doh as my omni-competent friend Greg King demonstrated his knack for Play-doh sculpture.
It was also a scary message in that the message could be taken the wrong way & play into our all too deep thinking grove of western individualism.
SATURDAY: The morning was taken up with the beta launch of something called Monvee. I am really excited about this tool for spiritual growth & formation. About 100 of us were involved in the simulcast with other churches around the country that are going to be using Monvee. It won’t be fully public for a while, but we plan to broaden the use of it gradually over the course of 2010. They are still in the development phase working out bugs & we get to help with that all the while getting the benefit of it.
BETHANY’S GRAD GATHERING – My very smart, very hard-working daughter Bethany, graduated form SDSU in a mere 3 ½ years. Yeah. This last Saturday we had an open house for her & her best friend and fellow college grad, Christina Burns.
SUNDAY: More church of course. Lots of very cool intense stuff. More 5-Hour Energy.
After the services we had our PRAYER MINISTRY LEADERS LUNCH. This is a really important meeting for us. About twice a year we gather the leaders of all the prayer ministries and we try and get all those in ANY ministry at Journey who are lifting up prayer within that ministry together. We try to cast vision. Report on what God’s doing. And try to deliberately see how we can keep the fire for prayer & dependence on God stoked at Journey. For whatever reason, these are the people God has allowed to have their hand on the burner knob of the stove. We try to encourage them to KEEP TURING IT UP! (Hope this analogy made sense). Such great people.
PARENT SEMINAR – the rest of Sunday until about 8:00 was taken up with our “PARENTING SEMINAR”. Since Brian Berry arrived at Journey, this has been a really important & wonderful time. I usually speak and do a Q & A panel at these. This year we also had Kara Ekman Powell who is the head of the Fuller Seminary Youth Institute speak on STICKY FAITH. It was wonderful to see the room packed with parents who want to be good parents & help their kids connect with God in a way that will last. One of the highlights for me was how many new Christ follower parents were there. One woman had only been coming to Journey 2 weeks. She has accepted Jesus into her life. She said to me, “I wish I would has started when they were young, but I’m so new to this myself.” I told her how wonderful it is that she was there & that God would meet her. He has a way of making up for lost time.
I got home and even though I was near comatose, I was still able to enjoy watching the DVR Laker’s victory over the Celtics.
What a weekend! Monday & Tuesday found me on my monthly solitude retreat to the desert. I hope sleep is a form of solitude.
