New Life Assembly

Random, Disconnected Thoughts

With no particular order or flow:

• Last night's Red Sox game was depressing.  I hope they can bounce back today and get a win from Beckett.
• Had a great night writing last night with the thunder and rain while listening to the foghorn and the sound of the waves out the window.  I felt inspired.  Hopefully it translates to the writing I did.  Though, truth be told, nothing ever seems as good in the cold light of day (or the cold gray of day, in our case here).
• I've been on a bit of a reading binge lately after reading through a list of top 100 books related to New England (either by topic or author) from the Boston Globe.  Recently finished John Adams' biography by David McCullough, Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson and am just about done with Three Junes by Julia Glass. 
• I'm really looking forward to starting a new series this weekend called "The Table".  We're going to explore the connection between meals and spirituality in the Scriptures by focusing on three places where the two cross over:  grace, fellowship and thanksgiving. 
• I'm amazed that while our economy has been in probably the worst state of the years I can remember, that the giving of our church community has been steadily on the rise.  To date we're about 23% over our projected budget for this point in the year.  That's definitely a testimony to God's faithfulness!
• We're in the process of working two major projects that I hope will expand our influence in the community:  (1) A renovation of our garage into a better equipped food pantry which will allow us to expand hours and services that are definitely needed (2) A back to school block party that I hope will help bring our people together around a common, exciting project and will allow us to invite others in the community to see what the people who occupy that strange-looking building on the corner of Post and Tuckertown are all about!
• I'm getting very excited for my missions trip in just over a month.  Pray for me if you think about it, but also particularly pray for Rita and the kids while I'm away.  Our family structure is definitely such that both parents contribute a lot to the managing of the house, so a lot of my burden is going to fall to Rita.  I'm sure she'll handle it superbly, but I know it's going to be a challenge for her.
• Last, but not least, I'm looking forward to a vacation at the end of August like I can't remember looking forward to vacation before.  Usually I don't get that sense of longing to get away until just a couple of days before we leave - at this point I'm already feeling like I need the time away, and we need it as a family.  We're going to visit friends in Baltimore, spend time with Rita's family in West Virginia, and then spend a few nights just the four of us touring D.C. 

Random, semi-connected thoughts

Lots of thoughts cluttering my brain this week, so I thought I'd unload some of them here:

• Had a brief conversation with Rita last night about our personal giving to the church and mission of the kingdom - I've been feeling challenged while preparing the messages on managing our money, so I think we're going to make some changes coming up.  I think there's no better way to lead than by example.
• Coaching Jacob's instructional league baseball team could be the most draining thing I've ever done.  An hour and 15 minutes has never gone by so quickly and never taken so much out of me.  My assistant coach and I agreed - you could not pay me enough money to be a first grade teacher. 
• Speaking of first grade teachers, my son has had the privilege of running into one of the best.  After our first interaction with her on a parent night in the first week of school I told Rita that she reminded me of my own first grade teacher, Mrs. Stack.  When you can still remember your first grade teacher in a positive light at age 33+, I'd say that's a good comparison.  So thanks to Mrs. Stack for being an incredible teacher to me, and thanks to Mrs. Sauro for the incredible effort you've given to Jacob this year.  I have no doubt he'll remember you at 33.
• Speaking of kids... I woke up this morning to the sound of my kids reading to each other in Aislinn's room.  Some days they amaze me, literally.  As a parent you wrestle over and over with the constant shaping of their character, the incessant need to give them sound direction and the agonizing hope that they will "get it".  I laid in bed listening to them while a wave of thanksgiving swept over me for a moment when they were speaking to each other with kindness and interacting with each other positively.
• I haven't been to the gym in almost two weeks, the result of an unfortunate meeting between me and poison ivy.  I can't wait to get back to it.  My gut is begging for a beating.
• I've been working on the writing for a new book on character that we can use in our partnerships at the church.  The idea is to explore the beatitudes in Matthew 5 as a manifesto for character in the kingdom of God, and I hope to finish up the first manuscript in the next couple months.  That will require, however, that I get my act together.  And then editing.  Gotta love editing.  Or not.
• There's been some discussion with a few people here at the church about the possibility of hosting some kind of a block party event for the community this summer.  More details to follow, but the key is I've already had somebody say they love to organize things, which is music to the ears of this organizationally and administratively challenged person.
• Looking forward to two things tonight: (1) Worship practice - I love playing with these guys!!  (2)Celtics/Magic, Game 2 tonight.  Hopefully the C's play with more energy than they did in Game 1.

Thanks for indulging me in offloading these thoughts to a page.  Now, back to work on the message.

Rumbling and Stumbling towards Sunday

Thoughts on the surface of my mental desk this afternoon:

• Just started reading Revelation (been a long time since I ventured in there...) - God nailed me with the beginning of chapter 2 in the letter to the church at Ephesus.  Talks about knowing their deeds, their perseverance and their endurance - all commendable - and then he tells them that he's upset with them because they've left their first love.  God was reminding me that he sees my faithfulness and endurance in the work he's called me to, but that he wants more than that - he wants my heart, my affection, my love and devotion.  He wants me to work with him because I'm passionate about him, not to work for him because I have to.  Big distinction.
• Went along with a sermon I heard Monday (maybe) by Matt Chandler of The Village Church somewhere in Texas.  He was preaching (this dude preaches; no "sharing", no "talking", just preaching) about having affection for Jesus, and that at the core of some of our sin struggles and ineffectiveness for the kingdom is our lack of affection for Jesus.  Hard to hear, but right on the money for me.  
• I've got just one more Mark message to prepare and then we'll be on to the new topics for the new year.  Changing up the teaching schedule a bit for 2009.  I'm going to break up series into 3 week chunks.  The fourth Sunday of every month we're going to hang out on one Biblical theme - redemption.  Going to look at how it plays out from the beginning to end of Scripture.  So we'll have three weeks of series, and then one week off as we touch on redemption.  I'm excited about it, we'll see if anyone else is in a couple of weeks :)
• Excited for Rita to have some time off around Christmas.  She works Christmas Eve but then she's off until the following Tuesday.  We'll be in CT for part of it, and home for some of it as well, but I'm looking forward to the down time together with her and the kids.
• Looks like the mini high school reunion is going to happen for sure on the Saturday after Christmas as well, just adults, no kids is the plan.  Should be fun to reconnect with old friends to see where their life journey has taken them!
• Trying to get under 180 pounds before Christmas.  Haven't seen numbers in the 170's probably since college, maybe High School, so that would be a significant achievement for me.
• Cleaned out some junk from the file cabinets in my office on Tuesday - man I had a TON of stuff in there that was totally unnecessary.  Got most of my sermons into binders, but let some of them go into the trash.  For those of you who suffered through the "early years", my apologies :) some of those were probably terribly, terribly boring.
• I love Mike Lowell, but I hope the Sox sign Mark Texeira to play first base - I think they could use the help in their lineup that he'd bring.

That's all for now...I may be back tomorrow with a preview for Sunday, but no guarantees.  If not, hope to have you back on Monday.