Well…in the past 2 1/2 weeks since my last post…pretty much nothing has happened. It was cold and rainy for several days and finally broke out of it and has been in the 70’s for the past few days.
I’ve been watching just about every Reds game I can. I don’t know why but for some reason baseball strategy finally started to make sense this year and it has made watching the game a lot more fun. I’ve always liked to watch, but now I just understand a lot more about it. The Reds haven’t been doing so hot this past week or so. Their relief pitching seems to be the weak point and their offense could use a kick in the pants as well.
I undertook a huge sound renovation project at my church which has taken the better part of the past 3 days and looks like it will take the better part of tomorrow as well. It has been a lot of work…for something that most people will never notice or see, but I think in the end it was all worth it.
And finally, our church announced this week that Doug Thompson will be coming on staff to be the “Pastor of Discipleship” (something i knew unofficially for some time). His primary work will revolve around the 20’s age group, but he’ll also have a hand in student ministries. To say I am excited about his arrival at my church would be a huge understatement. I’ll admit that I was initially a little hesitant that we didn’t hire someone for leading worship, but after meeting Doug personally all of my doubts were laid to rest. It’s going to be a great year at W3CU.
I don’t know why global warming has become such a hot topic lately (pun not intended) but it seems everywhere you turn someone is talking about it. The thing I don’t get is why it has become such a partisan topic. What does being a democrat or republican have to do with your scientific beliefs on the earth’s temperature?
In any case I think that global warming is completely bunk…and even if it’s not, there’s little to nothing we can do about it. We would probably have about as much luck in attempting to stop earthquakes from occurring. It’s just ridiculous and a waste of time and money to research if the globe is 0.4 degrees warmer this year than it was last.
With all of this said, this is one of the most intelligent and well written articles I’ve read on the topic: Why So Gloomy?
I have found myself repeating this phrase a lot lately - “That’s Amazing.” Most of it has came while watching the mini-series “Planet Earth” on Discovery. If you haven’t had the chance yet, I highly recommend you watch it…it’s just incredible. There are just so many places and things on this planet that we’ve never seen before. Some of the animals have instincts and behaviors that I just marvel at. For instance, we were watching the episode on the shallow sea and there was a clip of dolphins chasing after fish in really, really shallow water. I mean, we’re talking like less than a foot. They would get their speed up, then chase the fish almost on to the beach, then flop back in to the water. Believe me, you need to check out the series…I guarantee you will say “that’s amazing” at least once. If you have Discovery HD by chance…you’re especially in for a treat. stunning.
part two of “that’s amazing” - the local weather. I’m sure a lot of you have been effected by it but I’m still completely boggled by what has happened over the past week or two. 6 days ago it was 80 degrees. I was outside in shorts and sandals…the very next day- snow. I know Ohio is kind of weird, but we’re talking 45+ degrees of variance in 24 hours. crazy. I’ll be glad to have the warm days back again.
and the last part of “that’s amazing” - Easter at W3CU. 2-3 months ago when I arrived home from the Radio City gig there was already some buzz going about Easter. As time progressed my pastor developed a vision of having 800 in service. One small part of the preparation was to send out a mailer to 3000+ people. Being the aspiring graphic artist that I am, I took the project and ran with it. So 2 weeks ago we sent out 3170 mailers. Additionally there were 1800 handed out personally by our congregation. I also had a hand in a couple of other projects, but my role was pretty limited in it’s reach. Most of it fell to the personal contacts that our people made to their friends, family, and co-workers. To be honest, I didn’t think we would ever reach 800. I thought 600-700 maybe. Now, keep in mind that I live in a town with a population of about 1200 or so. The biggest “city” is Hillsboro, 30 minutes away with a population of like 6000. Our church normally runs around 375…so jumping to 800 was no small feat. With all of that in mind- we did it…806 in attendance today. I mean, that’s just insane, we doubled our attendance! Not many churches can do that, I don’t care who they are. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not all about numbers…but those numbers represents lives. And today we had a direct impact on the lives of 806 people. The service was great, one of the best I’ve ever experienced and I can only hope that a fraction of the people felt the same way and will dig in a bit more to our church and more importantly God.