Free WIFI in and around Lititz, PA

A staff member and I were conversing the other day about free WIFI areas suitable for working out of the office. They were thinking of heading down to Panera Bread toward Lancaster. But I shared of WIFI locations I had learned of in and around Lititz. Do you know of others?

Giant Food Store at the Shoppes of Kissel Hill - They've put in a adequately decorated indoor/outdoor cafe that serves Bucks County Coffee, has nice seating areas that appear comfortable and a picturesque fire place.

Brick House Cafe two blocks north of the square in Manheim - a relatively new coffee shop that serves sandwiches and wraps, has a hodge-podge of indoor seating with a second floor seating as well, in addition to a small serene outdoor seating area.

Starbucks at the Shoppes of Kissel Hill - I'm assuming they offer WIFI as 'Bucks has the reputation for offering it at every store, but I can't say I've confirmed it. Their seating area leaves a lot to be desired, especially needing more seats, but I bet you could be in Saladworks and still get a signal. Not that Saladworks is a cozier environment.

Elementary Hallway at Grace Church - Yeah, we've actually offered free WIFI in the elementary classroom hallway since 2000. The signal doesn't reach too far beyond that hallway, but for what it's worth, it's there.

Those are the WIFI hot spots that I know of, can you think of others?

Bringing pets to Grace Church

Did you see the Golden Retriever in church a few weeks ago? One of the families in our body is training a dog to be a seeing-eye dog and asked for permission to bring the dog with the to church for exposure to people.

With a daycare and school, and the potential allergies of the children in our care, we have to be cognizant of the animals that enter our facility. Anytime you wish to bring an animal into our building, we ask that you seek approval from Rick Bernhardt, Pastor Scott or myself. This should not be misconstrued as an anti-animal stance. We are very fond of animals and feel they play a vital part in the education of children so long as the allergen concerns of each child are addressed in advance... thus the need to request in advance prior to bringing your animal to the building.

A mug, 32 packets of gelatin, 1 pack of lime jello

Should you happen to forget a common item in my office, you never know where it might end up...

Tuesday's with Lenny: Ephrata Fair

Dad must've heard an add on WDAC for an upcoming fair or something which prompted him to request that we check one out. If you've never found it, the Pennsylvania State Association of County Fairs is a great website for finding fair dates. In fact, until only recently, I insisted that the local fairs be listed on the master calendar at church due to the impact fairs have on week-night ministry attendance.

We headed out to the Ephrata Fair this evening right after leaving work. Beth and I had checked the fair out several years ago, so this wasn't my first experience. I'm really intrigued at the cultural similarities though physically they're miles apart - Fiesta in the farming town I grew up in the Philippines and the fairs of Lancaster County are eerily similar. Then again, Roots Country Market is almost exactly identical to the town market of Labo; Labo's just has a better fish section... smells worse and has more flies than Roots. Other than that, you could click and drag one market or fair from one country and drop it in the other and you'd see very few differences. So we headed to Ephrata for Fiesta...

Dad and I walked as much of the fair as we could discover. We happened upon the Cornerstone Mennonite Church booth. I was well on my way to keep walking by, but Dad stopped to talk. See, close to 30 years ago he participated in a similar type of church outreach at the Princeton Shopping Center handing out copies of the New Testament. About eight years later Dad was at Washington Bible College recruiting future missionaries and had a conversation with an individual who, upon being asked how he came to know Christ, shared a story about accepting Christ when talking with a group that was handing out New Testaments at the Princeton Shopping Center. The guy returned from his dorm room with the New Testament he received that day with the church's name imprinted on the back. The whole point of this is, Dad stopped at every church booth we passed Tuesday night, Cornerstone, the Bereans and the Gideons to share this story with them. He saw an opportunity to encourage them and seized it. Dad's abilities are limited, but it's not keeping him from constantly on the look for where God is working and how he can become a part of what God's up to. All the while I've got my head on a swivel to identify the nearest restroom and contemplating other matters...

The children's rides amuse me. I was so tempted to ask one of the operators how frequently their ride is inspected and what organization certifies them. As I watched little kids plunging up and down, riding in circles or teens on the ferris wheel, I'm checking my mobile phone and identifying the nearest cross street, at the ready to dial 9-1-1 and state the position of the accident.

And what's with the fish?!? You'd think PETA would be flipping out over the cruelty to those gilly-scaled creatures crammed in itty-bitty living spaces with vibrantly colored water.

Oh, and I'd love to see the financial statements of the whole deal. Like how much income do all of the game booths generate? And the operators, do they have a day job? What about the electric, I noticed the trunk lines running across streets etc.; how much electric does a fair consume?

I haven't frequented the area fairs enough to observe whether the same stands move from one fair to the next or whether you get different rides and food stands at each or not.

I enjoyed myself, finally getting the pulled-pork bbq sandwich I missed out on at the Rodeo. We sat by a ATM machine that apparently had an appetite having eaten the ATM cards of 4-5 people in a row. The day the fair starts taking cards is the day we'll start accepting cards at Grace. Actually, I'll come back to that topic in an upcoming post.

Dad faired well. Like clockwork, his medications slumped just after dinner time, but trooper that he is, he chose to press on and not miss out on the festivities. Food is amazing motivation. On our way out, we passed the U.S. Marines booth. Dad stopped there too to thank the Marine for his service to our country and his already three tours in Iraq. I hope I'm as tenacious in seeking out ways to encourage others in spite of the hand I'm dealt.

Tuesday's with Lenny

On Tuesday nights during the school year, Beth has rehearsal with the Ephrata Cloister Chorus, so except for when I have an Elder Executive Committee meeting to attend, I often spend Tuesday nights with my Dad.

Growing up, Dad and I didn't have the closest of Father/Son relationships and heading off to boarding school when I entered grade 4 didn't help. I can't imagine how difficult that was for my parents. Until that fateful Sunday night, one of my Dad's traditions with his two sons was to tell us purple squirrel stories. It was only when my parents dropped us off at the dorm that afternoon that it dawned on me that the purple squirrel tradition would end. Lovingly, Dad spend the better part of an hour walking around the yard, recording installments for us to listen to each night on a tape recorder. I don't know to this day whether that was premeditated or not. Sadly, we only listened to one or two episodes; it just didn't fit in with the dorm schedule and I let other interests invade my time. Never would I have guess that 20+ years later, we'd be where we are today.

Since Dad's moved in with us, coming up on 3 years ago now, I've had a lot of opportunities to share new experiences with him as we've traveled to doctor appointments, worked on getting his business matters in order and also pursued items of interest. He's not the man I knew growing up, the shell is the same, but his capacities are but a fragment of what was. Even so, we're able to experience things together and weld a relationship together.

And so many Tuesday's during the school year, Dad and I are doing something together. Last night, we took in the Ephrata Fair - more about that next time...

A silhouette against The Son

I don't consider myself a morning person, but I find the crack of dawn to be one of the most beautiful times of the day. I just marvel at the spectacularity of God and His creation. As I took a moment to ponder daybreak this morning the normally vibrant and colorful plants, trees and fowl were degraded to mere silhouettes, unique in their own right, but devoid of their wonder, overpowered by the magnificence of the rising sun. It dawned on me that we too will be eclipsed and a mere silhouette in the glory of the Risen Son!

Is our love for God evident in everything?

"When you do not pay your bills, you're marketing. When you do not cut your grass, you're marketing. ...You are shaping perception in the hearts and minds of your members and your target community..." Richard L. Reising

We're pretty good at paying our bills on time, and we're doing our best to keep the grass mowed, but I admit the exterior of our property doesn't reflect how much we love God and His people. If you'd like to help us in that cause, contact me.

Do you call Him LORD or Lord?

Ever notice when reading your Bible that you see Lord printed in all uppercase or small caps sometimes? As we print the Bible passage for the bulletin each week, we try to maintain the exact same printing as you'll find in your published Bible and that regularly means manually adjusting Lord using the small caps font feature in our publishing software. The English alphabet/language (who am I to be dissecting English?) doesn't convey the nuances of the Hebrew language like Hebrew text does; for one, English has fewer names for God than Hebrew does.

One minor tidbit I picked up in Bible College is that anytime you see LORD in all caps/small caps, it's specifically referring to YHWH or YAHWEH, commonly referred to as the Tetragrammaton. From the Preface to the New International Version, "...the translators adopted the device used in most English versions of rendering that name as "LORD" in capital letters to distinguish it from Adonai, another Hebrew word rendered "Lord," for which small letters are used.

The profs in Bible College also stressed that anytime we referenced to the books with numbers that we specifically use numerical numbers and NOT roman numerals such as 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings as opposed to I and II Samuel and I and II Kings. Though why this was stressed I'm still trying to figure out. Until I do, I won't require such usages in the Sunday bulletin, but we do attempt to faithfully reproduce the scripture text as accurately as possible.

Strengths & Weaknesses

I've been thinking about my strengths and weaknesses. I've looked to improve the areas that I've considered to be my weaknesses. In school, the classes in which I received lower grades were the classes I focused on more deliberately in my studies. In sports, the weaknesses of my soccer game have been the areas I've worked on. I've been challenged to look at that in reverse - focus on extending my strengths. The theory is that I have weaknesses because I'm not good at them. Concede that, cut the losses and invest my energies in the areas where I'm good. I've been chewing on this paradigm shift for a while; it's intriguing.

I don't like the light this perspective casts on our weaknesses. It's biased toward strengths, as if that's the only good each of us has to offer to God and His world. From a human mindset, sure, that make sense, but we don't operate in a human-mindset controlled world. Our weaknesses are equally powerful - that sounds hilarious, but as I've thought about so many Bible characters (Aaron, Moses, the disciples, among so many), I see characters with weaknesses that God specifically selected to exploit for His use. God called upon men who were self-proclaimed poor public speakers to speak to His nation. He called upon fishermen to record His message for all mankind.

Yes, I think there's tremendous value in me looking for ways in which God might be challenging me to offer my strengths to further His Kingdom in new and different ways. And yes, to look to do the same for those I oversee. But, even though it goes against rational thinking, to use weaknesses as the sole reason for not giving anyone the opportunity to participate just doesn't sit right with me.

People fascinate me

It all started at a seminar I attended recently, I've been thinking every now and then about the things that I love doing and the things I loathe doing. My wife and I were picking up some groceries the other day and ran into an acquaintance from church. We conversed for several minutes, catching up on what was happening in the person's life... new job, new school, kid growing up etc. I walked away feeling encouraged and uplifted. I was hardly the topic of the discussion, in fact, I'm not even sure they asked how my wife and I were doing, but I came away excited.

People just fascinate me. I enjoy hearing their stories, where they've been, where they're going and what's going on in their lives. My encouragement stems from seeing firsthand evidence of how God is working in their lives.

I love people.

The First Day of School

I remember the anticipation of a new school year, the joy of seeing friends who were as close as siblings that I hadn't seen in several months because they were in another country for the summer and the excitement of what the school year would hold.

As one of the main high schools for missionary kids in Far East Asia, a handful of my classmates' parents were missionaries serving in Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the various islands of the Philippines - so the return of school meant the reuniting with friends. The school's tradition was to gather the entire student body of 700 strong around the school flagpole for a brief ceremony of raising the Philippine and Christian flags and officially opening the school year with a word of prayer.

To my knowledge, no formal opening day ceremony is planned at Grace this morning, though I keep suggesting the idea, but I suspect the excitement is high among the students as they embark on the next year in their educational quest. When we last saw them the members of the Class of 2008 were screaming in the halls celebrating the fact that they were on the cusp of their senior year of high school as the 2007 school year drew to a close. Now they are all of 180 days away from graduation.

Join us in committing this school year to the Lord, that it would be a year full of both academic growth and spiritual growth for each individual and for the student body as a whole.

UPDATE: I didn't have anything to do with it, but the school year kicked off this morning with a 40-minute First Day Worship. Led by the students, we sang choruses, had a time of prayer and launched into the academic year focused on what God wants to accomplish in each of us this year.

The 2008 Church Directory

We are taking a different approach with gathering and checking information for the 2008 Church Directory. We printed out the information we have for every family/individual in the database and mailed it yesterday. Here's how you can assist in making sure we print your contact information in the way you desire...

1. If you find incomplete or inaccurate data, contact us either via email (jlmiller@lgbc.org), by calling the church (626.2155) at extension 1026 or by mailing the form back to the church.

2. If you're information is correct you don't need to respond.

3. Individuals/families that are not in the church database yet can submit their information by using the weekly Connections Card that's in the bulletin or we'll be putting a directory information card in the next month or so.

4. In case you're wondering why we ask you to check "I grant Grace Church and its ministries the right to publish any photograph taken of any member of this family", we do that for promotional purposes. During the year we may take photos of different church activities that we want to print in the bulletin, use on our website or on a church publication. Technically, we need authorization to do that.

We publish a Church Directory to facilitate the Grace Church body connecting with each other. Though Church Directories are often maligned, they are so important that there's one included in The Canon.

What's in a name?

One of the internal jokes among our staff relates to the way the church's nickname, Grace Church, came into existence. It's first use, just kinda happened. However, before we finalized it, incorporated it into our logo, etc., we did some checking. We investigated how many other Grace Churches there were in Lancaster County and the Commonwealth. We discovered there was one church that was officially registered as Grace Church in Philadelphia, but our multiple attempts to contact them were unsuccessful. We felt it was important to use a name that wasn't infringing on the name other churches were using, maybe get their permission or to at least let them know we were planning to use the same name they were using. So much for that.

Several years later what was known as the Grace Brethren Church of Willow Valley started calling themselves Grace Church. And in the past week I've heard the Ephrata Grace Brethren Church refer to themselves as Grace Church on WDAC. Oh well. What's in a name anyway.

How to give anonymous gifts

There are several ways to give someone an anonymous financial gift. I have to state that unless the leadership of Grace Church has announced that a special collection is being taken, any such gift, according to IRS regulations, does NOT qualify as a tax-deductible gift. But that shouldn't stop you from making the gift. Here are several methods you can use to keep your financial gift anonymous:

1. Go to your local bank and ask the cashier for a Cashier's Check in the amount you want to contribute. From what I've seen a Cashier's Check has not identifying information on it other than the bank institution used to produce the check. I think you can have the check made out directly to the person you want to give it to. With the check, you can hand it to someone to deliver it for you.

2. You can give a cash gift, put it in an envelope and ask someone to give it to the person on your behalf.

If you're looking to give a tangible gift, it's just a matter of how you deliver it. You can again ask someone to be your delivery person, you could also drop ship it directly to their address. Or, if you could make it a family deal and plan a covert operation to drop the items at their home without being noticed. Just some ideas.

Christmas Card 2007 Design Phase Begins

My wife has been creating and hand stamping/making our annual Christmas card for the past 9-10 years. She does a tremendous job and invests a lot of effort. The design phase for the 2007 Christmas Card began this week. Yep, it's 95+ degrees outside and so humid the earth itself is sweating and we're contemplating the Baby Jesus, Wisemen and snow and all the winter chills that come with it.

In light of the current weather I think it's entirely appropriate to say, come quickly winter, come quickly and more importantly, come quickly Lord Jesus, come quickly!

Weekday Evening Schedule for 2007-2008

In all the places I've lived I haven't experienced a culture like Lancaster County that was so built around church schedules. It's slowly changing, but remnants are still there. Take for example Wednesday evenings.

I think there are still business that close early on Wednesdays so their employees can go to Wednesday night church.
It's an unwritten rule in the school's athletic league that there are no games on Wednesdays and in some cases, no practices either.

That was the traditional church schedule, services Sunday mornings, Sunday night and Wednesday night. I'm excited that we're adding to that schedule this fall. Our children's ministry is going to make use of break out groups Wednesday night to the point that they need additional room space. Our youth ministry is also planning to use break out groups and was looking for more rooms too. Those two ministries are essentially going to have the majority of our building in use on Wednesday nights this coming academic year.

Meanwhile, that didn't leave enough space for the Worship Arts ministry, so they're moving their rehearsals to Thursdays nights. Our assumption used to be that families would come Wednesday nights, the adults would go to choir practice and the kids would go to the children's/youth programs. From what we can tell, that doesn't hold true so much anymore. So we can make this shift without creating an inconvenience for the average family.

So the building should see even more use and more importantly, we see God working in and through our children's and youth ministries, so we're making adjustments to join Him in what He's doing.

Musical Chairs

We've been playing our own version of musical chairs at Grace in recent weeks. The Worship Design Team (a group that works with Pastor Scott and Matt to plan different elements of each week's service) wanted the Auditorium in a centered-stage configuration for the Samson series. We've used a centered-stage config two times previously and by luck of the calendar, Jay was out of town or unavailable those weeks, so I took charge of laying out the chair setup. For this third time, Jay was around and thankfully, he didn't use my notes.

The setups I used were very boxy and used unusually long rows. Those setups worked, but there downsides:

-with more than 12 chairs in most rows, some event topping out at 30, it was hard to get into a row having to crawl over others who were already seated.

-with each section parallel to one of the walls, we needed to setup additional video projectors.

-with each section parallel to one of the walls, if you sat in the corner you had to turn in your seat to actually face the stage and it felt like you were a long ways away from the stage.

The setup Jay used for the current configuration improves, if not eliminates all of those issues. I give him credit.

We're also working on a revised configuration for the regular chair setup that we hope to roll out in September. We're looking to accomplish a couple of things:

1. We want the main aisle at the back of the room to directly connect with the main lobby entrance.

2. We want the center of the room to be filled with chairs, not an aisle.

3. We want to see if we can put full-width aisles on the outside of each side wall.

It's still in research and development, so we'll see if it becomes reality. We're also exploring other a chair setup system to replace the longstanding ABF-reliant system. Thinking most ABFs view their chair setup responsibilities as a chore, if not a drag, we're investigating whether there are people at Grace who view chair setup as a ministry opportunity. It's a long shot, but we're investigating.

Musical chairs, Grace style.

What's happening with Grace athletic nights?

Monday nights have been associated with pick-up volleyball at the Grace Auditorium.
Thursday nights were associated with pick-up basketball, more recently replaced with floor hockey.

Pickup basketball's been on a break for something like three years now and in 2007-2008, volleyball and floor hockey will be joining basketball taking a break as well. While not something we've prescribed, we see it fitting in with the ongoing morph of Grace Church.

The leaders of pickup volleyball and floor hockey were ready to pursue other involvements at Grace. We encouraged them in their desire to shift, but saw it as an opportunity for the church at large. Demand for rooms has increased in the past 2-3 years and having the Auditorium signed out Monday & Thursday night's left little room for other ministries to get in there.

Though they'll be on a break for at least the next year, we're interested to see where God works in the coming months and how we can join Him, and however than applies in the way the building gets used. In the meantime, the Auditorium will be used by other ministries on Monday and Thursday nights in 2007-2008. I'll describe exactly how in my next post.

Grace Church Bible Reading Challenge - Home Stretch

We're getting close to the home stretch of the Grace Church Bible Reading Challenge. Are you still going strong? I got behind last weekend and spent most of this week catching up and finally caught up this morning. Commitments are tough and they take... commitment.

We've been pleased with the traffic on the Reading Challenge blog. As of Friday night (8/3) at 7:15, by my quick count, I came up with 38 unique contributors to the comments out of the total of 213 comments posted. I'm guessing that about half of the 213 comments are Pastor Scott's, but I'll let someone else count them up while they're waiting on hold during a telephone call or something.

As you can see from the following graph and table there's a sliding trend on the blog as well. The blog spiked to 853 visits on July 18th whereas today, Friday 8/3 registered 264 visits. All in all though, it's been a neat forum for the church body to interact.

The individual pages views listed in the table below report the number of times someone actually clicked on the post for each particular day whereas the chart above reports the daily number of visits to the general blog site blog.lgbc.org.

2007-07-04 to Today

Title	Views
Psalm 119:1-40	369
Psalm 119:81-128	365
Psalm 119:41-80	298
Psalm 119:129-176	275
John 10-12	253
Judges 13-16	247
John 1-3	235
John 4-6	206
John 13-15	181
John 16-18	165
John 19-21	162
2 Peter 1-3	154
1 John 1-3	150
Philippians 4; 1 Peter 1-2	139
John 7-9	137
About the Challenge	121
Philippians 1-3	109
1 Peter 3-5	95
1 John 4-5; 2 John; 3 John	84
Ephesians 1-3	59
The Challenge	37
Ephesians 4-6	33

If you've fallen behind or dropped out of late, I encourage you to get back in the game. After all, it's not so much the challenge that's the point of this, it's our immersing ourselves in our Saviour's Word.

Heat activated alarm

Around 1 or 1:30 yesterday the normal Grace Church summer routine was interrupted by the sound of an unscheduled fire alarm. Well versed in the drill, everyone evacuated in a calm, orderly and timely fashion. I on the other hand was scurrying. First of all, I was in the bathroom at the time the alarm sounded. As I washed up, it dawned on me that I didn't recall seeing Jay Hall's motor scooter in it's normal parking spot, meaning Jay was likely not in the building. When that's the case, I'm the guy that's responsible for handling the alarm.

When an unscheduled alarm sounds, there's added pressure to figure out whether someone inadvertently pulled an alarm or where the problem lies, all the while making sure the building is being evacuated. So I'm running around, trying to assess all of this.

Turns out one of the heat detectors in the attic popped. It was set to trip if the temperature exceeded 135 degrees, which gives you an idea of how hot it was up there. It's been replaced with a 194 degree sensor - otherwise we'd probably have another unscheduled alarm again today and from what the forecast says, tomorrow, the next day, the next day and the next again.

Anyway, it was another chance to chat with the Lititz Fire Chief, Ron Oettel. He and I have developed a casual acquaintance over the past 10 years. I appreciate his demeanor and attitude to these sorts of deals. He's usually very professional, cordial and expresses his best interest in protecting the people and assets of Grace Church. As is often the case with these kinds of alarms, we can spend 30-60 minutes trying to track down exactly which sensor (out of over a hundred in the building) is the one that's reporting trouble. It's often because of dust or like yesterday, overheating. Anyway, during that troubleshooting time, we get the chance to talk and catch up. Of course, all the while the daycare kids and staff were out in the sweltering heat of the parking lot. I regret not letting them at least come in under the main entrance to get in the shade.

Thankfully, we were able to get everything cleared sometime after 2pm and the kids were back to nap time in no-time.