Guarding internet connections - part 2

This is a follow-up to a post from last August. Since we implemented internet access at Grace Church, we've employed a content filter. For over a year we've been using St. Bernard's iPrism content filter. It serves us well. I'll say it forever, like a home security system, it's meant to deter and protect, but it's not a perfect system. Since the iPrism only protects computers accessing the internet at Grace Church, we had to find a different filter solution for our mobile machines that connect through the internet at other locations.

We use Covenant Eyes on our laptop machines so that when those users are on the road, or the local coffee shop their internet use is protected. It too has served us well. In addition to filtering content, Covenant Eyes sends a weekly usage report to an accountability partner. We have it setup that the reports go to the staff members supervisor. This setup has been serving us well too. That covers the Grace Church machines, but what about home use?

For home use I came across two free web-based filters, ScrubIT and OpenDNS a few months back in a post by Tony Dye. I've been using ScubIT myself. It was simple to install, in fact, they have an automated setup that didn't require me to do anything technical other than run it. Once it's up and running, any machine that connects through our home router is under the umbrella protection of ScrubIT.

I've been pleased with the service, in fact, I had sorta forgotten it was active until I was searching for a picture from the movie Men in Black last night. I was blocked from one of the sites that had the pic I was looking for. The URL of the site looked tame enough, but I'll trust the filter to have a valid reason for keeping me out. I made do without the graphic.

If you don't have a filter, seriously consider one of the two free options. They're easy to install and don't cost you a thing. Protect yourself and anyone else accessing the internet on your machine(s).

Responding to challenge through prayer

We've been facing challenges at Grace Church over the past few weeks. In addition to the extra activity surrounding our Easter activities (At the Hop, Easter Egg Hunt, Night of Worship and Easter Sunday), God has been putting us through some additional tests of our reliance and trust in Him. Such tests are common in ministry.

God seems to test us in waves and though we've never studied it, they seem to come in sets of three. Three families will experience some sort of hardship in a matter of a week or three members of the body will pass away in a short period. All in threes. Of the tests of late, I think we're on successive test number seven or eight, far more than we're accustomed to enduring. It's testing us individually and in most cases, further bonding us as a staff. Our leader/Pastor set the tone earlier this week through a fervent prayer study based on Acts 12 and Peter's imprisonment. I'll try to capture the highlights though since I was late for staff meeting and didn't want to disrupt the study, I listened in from the lobby. Fortunately, he projects well so I was able to follow 80% of the content.

The King Herod of Acts 12 was a ruthless guy who beheaded a lot of people
during his reign.

The original Greek word that's translated fervent in Acts 12:5 is a word they
used to describe physically extending a muscle.

Peter was so sound asleep that the bright light didn't even awaken him
requiring the angel to physically strike Peter awake.

My personal commentary on verse 10... this is the first record of an
automated gate system. We like to think that our electronic contraptions are
innovative, but God's been doing this stuff before the beginning of time.

The group gathered at Mary's house had been praying all night.

Though they were praying fervently, they didn't anticipate God to answer.
They didn't believe Rhoda (who, by the way, in her excitement, left Peter
standing outside the gate while she ran in to announce his arrival).

Thomas didn't believe until he saw the nail-scars; several years later the
prayer-warriors didn't believe until they saw Peter; now, over 2,000 years
later, I still struggle to believe - my commentary.

We are praying with exertion for those who are going through hard times at this very moment. We are praying earnestly that through the Easter activities, the people of Lititz would recognize and see who God is. We are stretching our prayer muscles unlike they've been stretched before that God would bind us together in stronger bonds as a staff and as a church.

Automotive therapy

At last year's Leadership Summit, Colin Powell shared his love and hobby of working on his vehicles. In fact, he tinkered with his Volvo at various times during Gulf War - Part 1 as a stress reliever.

Since entering car ownership, I've enjoyed changing the oil, adjusting the gaps on the spark plugs and other routine maintenance tasks on my vehicles. But by no means am I good at it. I get oil everywhere and the likelihood of reassembling the engine properly is slim (hmmm, why do I have three screws leftover?). With the ill fated blue van predestined for the recycling yard and the yards requirement that all fluids be removed from the vehicle, I've had the joy of disassembling a vehicle without concern for putting it back together.

What liberation! I've had a blast ripping into the engine with the fervor of opening a gift to get to the various fluid reservoirs. Hoses, wires and screws are flying everywhere. It's been so much fun, I've actually ripped out more than necessary. I've always enjoyed opening up machines to see how they work. There's the old CD/cassette stereo that I cracked open; only the radio works now. I can rarely put them back together right, so I don't indulge this aspect of my personality often. I am trying to restrain my desire to open the entire motor and pull out one of the pistons. Granted, I have little knowledge as to what I'm doing. I pulled out one hose only to be doused with antifreeze, so I quickly reattached that one until I can drain the radiator. I've been wondering which hose is the fuel line.

It's been good therapy for me this week.

I also want to thank the Mr. Smith's and Mr. Jones' of the world for protecting me from the scum of the universe.

Meeting people in the buff

The internet affords one the option of shopping in the personal comfort of one's home attired (or not) as one chooses. As you've probably heard, an individual recently went on a spree at Willow Valley and Darrenkamp Supermarket with the same approach, having forgotten the expectations of our society and the laws of the land. An unfortunate and destructive incident.

But I bring further attention to the event to highlight the actions of one Matt Irwin. He exemplified in an extreme case the Grace Church purpose statement, which was almost quoted verbatim in the article I'm referencing written by Cindy Stauffer and Tom Murse of the Lancaster New Era.

Irwin, didn't see Nicholas Hadzick as a naked guy who was running amok, he says. With God's direction, he says, he saw someone who needed his help. "I wanted to be his friend," Irwin says. "I think what he needed most was recognition that people cared about him, that someone was willing to meet him where he was at the time."

Nicholas was simply a common day version of The Woman at the Well. And in the spirit exemplified by Christ in that scene, Irwin reached out. Though I likely won't, nor do I wish, to encounter a naked man in public, I hope I reach out to those whose paths cross mine.

In that vein, I need to follow up with Terry tomorrow. Who do you need to contact?

A Vote that Counts, at least if you're a Democrat

The value of the Pennsylvania Primary Election was usually lost on me. During the Presidential races I can remember, the nominations were usually locked up by the time the PA Primary rolled around, so it was just a formality. The political climate this year has been quite different and the PA Primary means something, if you're a democrat at least. Though we'll cross our t's and dot our i's and stay away from endorsing any political candidates, we will be one of the polling locations as we've been for over a decade now.

What happens when someone isn't crossing T's and dotting I's

Someone has to fill the role at every church of making sure every T is crossed and every I dotted. If the role goes unfilled, problems eventually happen. Sure, 9 times out of 10, it's only a minimal impact, but that 10th time???

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120511457633523621.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news

http://www.wtvynews4.com/news/headlines/16075777.html

Good to Great and the Social Sectors notes

Here are my notes from Collins' follow-up monograph specific to the social sectors...

All indicators are flawed, whether qualitative, or quantitative. p7

What matters is that you rigorously assemble evidence-quantitative or qualitative-to track your progress. p7

...not finding the perfect indicator, but settling upon a consistent and intelligent method of assessing your output results, and then tracking your trajectory with vigor. p8

Performance is defined by results and efficiency in delivering on the social mission. p8

...you always have power, if you just know where to find it. There is the power of inclusion, and the power of language, and the power of shared interests, and the power of coalition. Power is all around you to draw upon, but it is rarely visible. p10

The whole point of Level 5 is to make sure the right decisions happen--no matter how difficult or painful--for the long-term greatness of the institution and the achievement of its mission, independent of consensus or popularity p11

In the social sectors, when big incentives (or compensation at all, in the case of volunteers) are simply not possible , the First Who principle becomes even more important. p15

Final Hop Photos

Seeing all of this brings the Good to Great quote to mind, "What can we potentially do better than any other company, and, equally important, what can we not do better than any other company? And if we can't be the best at it, then why are we doing it at all?" I think it's safe to say Grace Church does large events well.

And to think in less than 24hrs time, we'll be back in 2008, hosting several thousand families for an Egg Hunt. There's a long night ahead.

Still more At the Hop Photos

More contraband photos

We interupt this broadcast...

I have to break in to update you on progress for tonight's women's event. Since men have specifically been instructed to stay away, I figured some contraband photos of what we will be missing might be of interest. Here's the state of things as of 12:30 Friday afternoon, 6.5 hours before the event.

More to come...

Good to Great quotes

During the course of my Master's work, I had the opportunity to read Jim Collins' Built to Last. I enjoyed it, but when I heard about his second book, Good to Great, I assumed it was merely a sequel. Were it not for Daryl Leisey, my assumption would never have been tested. At his prompting I read it and see a lot of ways it can position Grace for future greatness. Here are a few quotes that caught my eye.

You get the best people, you build them into the best managers in the industry, and you accept the fact that some of them will be recruited to become CEOs of other companies. p43

If you have the right executives on the bus, they will do everything within their power to build a great company; not because what they will "get" for it, but because they simply cannot imagine settling for anything less. p50

The purpose of a compensation system should not be to get the right behaviors from the wrong people, but to get the right people on the bus in the first place, and to keep them there. p50

The only way to deliver to the people who are achieving is to not burden them with the people who are not achieving. p53

When in doubt, don't hire - keep looking
When you know you need to make a people change, act
Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems
p54-60

Lead with questions, not answers
What's on your mind?
Can you tell me about that?
Can you help me understand?
What should we be worried about?
p75



Engage in dialogue and debate, not coercion
Conduct autopsies, without blame
Build red-flag mechanisms

What can we potentially do better than any other company, and, equally important, what can we not do better than any other company? And if we can't be the best at it, then why are we doing it at all?
p97

Not a goal to be the best, a strategy to be the best, an intention to be the best or a plan to be the best. It is an understanding of what you can be best at. The distinction is absolutely critical.
p98

A hedgehog requires a severe standard of excellence. p100

consensus decisions are often at odds with intelligent decisions p116

Most companies build their bureacratic rules to manage the small percentage of wrong people on the bus, which in turn drives away the right people on the bus, which then increases the percentage of wrong people on the bus, which increases the need for more bureacracy to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline, which then further drives the right people away, ad so forth... Avoicd bureacracy and hierarchy and instead create a culture of discipline. p121

1. Build the culture around the idea of freedom and responsibility, within a framework
2. Fill that culture with self-disciplined people who are willing to go to extreme lengths to fulfill their responsibilities. They will rinse their cottage cheese.
3. Don't confuse a culture of discipline with a tyrannical disciplinarian.
4. Adhere with great consistency to the Hegehod Concept, exercising an almost religious focus on the intersection of the three circles. Equally important, create a stop doing list and systematically unplug anything extraneous.
p 124

They hired self-disciplined people who didn't need to be managed, and then managed the system, not the people. p125

...budgeting is a discipline to decide which arenas should be fully funded and which should not be funded at all. p140

Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.
p156

thoughtless reliance on technology is a liability... p159

...when grasped as an easy solution, without deep understanding of how it links to a clear and coherent concept - technology simply accelerates your own self-created demise. p159

...they talked in terms of what they were trying to create and how they were trying to improve relative to an absolute standard of excellence. p160

Enduring great companies preserve their core values and purpose while their business strategies and operating practices endlessly adapt to changing world. This is the magical combination of "preserve the core and stimulate progress". p195






NEXT TIME: I look at the monograph Collins wrote specifically for non-profits specifically applying G-to-G principles in the non-profit/social sector

Trolling blogs for information

I formally counted it up recently, I'm tracking 149 RSS feeds. The majority of those are blog sites, but ESPN and the New York Times headlines are also included. Some of the sites I track are feeds of a friend or family member's online photo albums. There's a group of them that are technology related, gossip about Apple and what their latest secret project will be, reviews of new technology products etc. I also follow several Pastors and others who serve in churches across the country. Understand, that with RSS, I'm selective of what I actually read and what I skip. But it is true, I troll 149 blogs on a regular basis.



Interesting discovery about my Administering Grace blog, excluding those who visit the main page on a regular basis, the most visited individual post on my site is Literal or Allegorical - The Book of Job generated by people who are Google searching Job Allegory Literal. I would've never expected that. Maybe I need to expand on the literal interpretation of Job further.

NEXT TIME: Good to Great Quotes

Ministry Partners: Grace Church & Camp Conquest

I had lunch recently with Mike Gehlert, Camp Director of Camp Conquest. Mike shared some encouraging information with me.

• Of the approximate 550 total registrations for the various programs of Camp Conquest, 116, roughly 20% of the registrations indicated Grace Church as their home church.


• In 2007, ninety-three individuals formally volunteered their time at the camp logging 9,488 hours of volunteer service; and that's just the hours Mike could account for.


• Camp Conquest is scheduled to host two Grace Church ministry excursions in 2008: the Women's Graceful Scrappers weekend away and the Men's Retreat.


• Four of the Camp Conquest Board Members consider Grace to be their home church.

I appreciate the ministry of Camp Conquest and the partnership that exists between Grace and the Camp. The strong connection is evident in that we don't just support the camp by sending them money, the body of believers of Grace send their children to the camp and invest their time serving at the camp. It's a wonderful partnership.

Make sure your seat is in the upright position

Without the customary safety instruction card, the steward(ess) demonstrating the proper operation of a seat belt buckle or the pilot announcing that all electrical devices be turned off... I didn't know quite what to do at the outset of today's flight (That's an exaggeration, but it sets up the rest of the post).



Jay and I had our mobile phones with us and with no reminder from pilot, we left them on during the entire flight (maybe that's why we ended up in Harrisburg... just kidding). At an altitude of 1,400 feet, circling over Grace Church, Jay's phone rang.



It was the daycare, a toilet was clogged or something like that.



And with that, Jay jumped, parachuted onto the soccer field and got right to unplugging the commode. Barring any other emergency meetings tomorrow that steal the show, I'll share about Camp Conquest.

An anxious-generating surprise

Dear Staff Members:

I am needing to call an emergency staff meeting for this Monday, March 10, beginning @ 9am around the conference table in the church office. Something has come UP that could greatly affect our upcoming 4 events (Women’s Event, Egg Hunt, Good Friday Worship, and Easter). It is important that I am able to share these details with you all at the same time.

The administrative staff from the school/daycare have not been invited to this meeting nor has any church staff member who does not work in the office as it only directly affects the church staff who work in the office on a day to day basis. As a result, this meeting is mandatory for those receiving this e-mail. If you do not normally work on Monday mornings, you do not need to come in for this meeting unless you want to. The only exception to this is Megan…if you could be there it would be greatly helpful for both receptionists to be at this meeting. I have already asked Rick Bernhardt to have the school cover the phones and doors during this time so that both Charlene and Megan can attend the meeting.

I know all of you are busy right now but I need you to set this time aside. I’m not sure how long this meeting will take so please keep the better part of that morning clear just in case. We will keep the office window closed that morning until after our meeting is done. Please do not ask me what the meeting is about in advance as that would put me in an awkward position. I honestly can’t make any announcement before Monday morning as I will not know all of the circumstances until just prior to our 9am meeting.

Thank you!
Scott


That's the message we all received last Wednesday morning. The varied reactions/responses of staff members reveals that for those who've been on staff at Grace for a decade or more, there are still tender spots from past wounds. Emergency meetings usually don't involve good news or happy surprises. I know I lost a lot of sleep over the past week as I fought to keep my mind from speculating about what could be wrong. I attempted not to conduct a full FBI analysis-parsing of each verb, font usage, let alone reading between the lines - having to write similar notices at various times, I know I don't appreciate it when a message gets dissected - but it turns out there were clues embedded in the message.

As the caravan headed south on Rt 501 this morning, the speculation mounted. "I think we're going to the airport where there will be a helicopter that will be used to drop the Easter Eggs from the sky for Saturday's Egg Hunt." I could corroborate that there were two helicopters at the airport this morning that I hadn't seen before.

I learned quickly that bosses prefer as few surprises as possible and that I don't like them either. Due to confidentiality matters, surprises are inevitable and you learn to deal with them. Turns out all of my internal turmoil was completely unnecessary. The "UP" in the original message as indeed intended as a clue. 'Course, I figured it had to be a good news emergency meeting with the tease that went out in Pastor Scott's email update on Monday morning. I guess, though it was just a 10-15 minute flight around Lititz, I'll be suffering jet lag this week from all the sleep I lost in anxious anticipation. The loss of sleep was worth the exhilaration of being in the air on a work day with my co-workers.

How cool a boss do we have that he arranged for each of us to fly over Lititz for the purpose of seeing a birds-eye view of the people we are trying to reach?

He'd actually attempted to give us a celebratory day off after Easter as well; but he hadn't realized that we get a Easter holiday anyway, rendering the day off idea moot. I hated sharing that news with him because I knew he was attempting to show appreciation to all of us.

No doubt about it, Grace is a fascinating place to work and God has assembled a unique team that takes each of our ministries and responsibilities seriously, but at the same time, we know how to have fun. I don't know many places that are given a morning off to go for an airplane ride on a Monday morning.

A Future in Flying?

I wonder if flying is in my future? There was the JAARS flight last summer which I chronicled in an earlier post and just last week I had a fascinating conversation with an American Airlines pilot who was at the school for Career Day. And today we were surprised with a short flight around Lititz. Each conversation, each flight keeps feeding this yearning I have to fly. Here's what the church looked like from around 1,400 feet...

Jodi, Charlene and Jay were in the plane during our flight. Jodi was in the co-pilot seat, Jay and I were next to each other facing the rear of the aircraft and Charlene was at the back facing us (she was the easiest to capture on camera).

Pastoral Impersonations

At a conference I attended several years ago, Ed Young, Jr. did great impersonations of Joel Osteen and Bishop Jakes. He pulled the Osteen impersonation out again at the C3 Conference a few weeks ago. It's always good to start the week on a light note!

Hacking BibleGateway.com

I've always liked a good practical joke. The challenge with practical jokes is knowing where the line of demarcation is that indicates when the joke has gone too far. I do not condone hacking into someone else's website and this crossed the line because of it's global ramifications, but there was a funny side to it.

http://mondaymorninginsight.com/index.php/site/comments/hacker_attacks_biblegatewaycom_switches_kjv_and_amplified_bible/

Imploding Churches

To my knowledge, the churches in Antioch, Jerusalem, Ephesus and the others mentioned in the New Testament, are long since gone. I wonder what led to their demise. Whatever the cause, they eventually ceased to exist.


I know of a recent church (not in our area) that blew up over how to handle an unruly child that was disruptive during the worship services. The Pastor of eight years is gone, the congregation split and the ministry has deteriorated. Like any living organism, it doesn't take much to suck the life out of a church and kill it in an instant.


In recent years, two friends of mine who Pastored churches, saw the O-rings of their ministry erode to result in a cataclismic explosion. Fortunately, they and their families have weathered the collateral damage and God's plugging them into new avenues and channels of His global work. But their experiences have made me very aware of the reality of church ministry.


Without the grace of God, the unity of the local church is susceptable to fraction and in the cases I've seen, it's often a simple little rubber O-ring that's the root cause of the major explosion, not a large issue. Thus every issue must matter and be handled with enormous amounts of prayer. And any time the unity of the church is threatened, a proportional response is necessitated.


Here's the latest illustration in my growing file on the topic.


O-ring references... see the NASA Challenger disaster


Have a great weekend!

Input statistics: Giving and Attendance

The response to the McWorship series, otherwise known as an expository study of Malachi, was overwhelming; the Super Size challenge in particular. It might be helpful to put that response in perspective.


The Super Size Sunday offering was roughly four times the amount of our regular weekly offerings; from July through the end of December, average weekly offerings are around $44,000.


Giving is tracking about 12% ahead of giving for the same period a year ago.


Attendance is tracking about 2% ahead of attendance for the same period a year ago.


The last time we saw giving growing at a higher rate than attendance was in 2004, just as we entered a strong attendance growth period. Eventually, I'm going to get around to explaining why I think that giving and attendance tracking, while important, are not the measure of a church's health and what measures I'll be using to assess the health of Grace.


NEXT TIME: Imploding Churches

Another reason to get a pickup

Putting Super-Size Sunday in context was pre-empted by unusual circumstances this afternoon...

I was transacting some paperwork with one of my co-workers when I heard Gene's voice in the lobby, "Where's Andrew, Andrew's gonna want to know this..." With curiousity piqued I met Gene at the door. "You're about to lose a light pole in the parking lot, there's a semi truck about to run it over." And such began an entertaining hour or so of my afternoon today since it was but 30 minutes before classes let out and that of course is the main entrance parents and school buses use for picking up their kids.

The rest of the story... it was the truck driver's first day. He was enroute to the Johnson & Johnson plant to pick up a load, new to the area he apparently missed their entrance and had hoped to turn around in our parking lot. In his words, "he misjudged the turn". He was on the phone with 9-1-1 when I reached him, of course, he couldn't tell them his location. While a tow truck was dispatched the Police arrived. We all stood around and looked at the situation for about 20 minutes just waiting. Then David took a look at things (he's in the white shirt)...




photos courtesy of Elaine

Even the Policemen told him his truck couldn't do it, 'course with David, you tell him something can't be done and that just increases his resolve (see Christmas Walk-Thru, Beach Blast and now At the Hop). So ended an entertaining hour of my afternoon. Who knows what will be next.

The light pole is fine and unscathed, but the berm is ready for spring planting.

NEXT TIME: Putting Super-Size Sunday in Context

Car search

We tried a Ford Crown Victoria for a weekend, a V8, rear-wheel drive beast of a car that made me feel like my Opa (he loved driving his 1967 Chrysler Imperial). Each time I looked over at Beth in the passenger seat, I'd bust out in laughter at the picture of the two of us in this boat of a vehicle. Though the kick of putting the accelerator to the floor and sensation of being thrust back into the seat was a thrill ride, I didn't want the liability of rear-wheel drive in poor weather. After looking at some Buick's and an Impala, on a whim I thought I'd look at a used Cadillac, naive as to whether it was even remotely in our price range.

We tried a 2004 Cadillac Deville for a day, never anticipating how much I'd enjoy it. My brother and I derogatorily referred to Cadillacs in our younger years as Fladilcats, but recent friends have touted their benefits and started to win me over; the test drive sealed the deal. Though less than a foot shorter than the Crown Vic, the Deville drove like a much smaller car. I was infatuated by the luxury and blinded by the emotions not only of driving such a car, but of looking at it parked in the parking lot. In the end, I pried the keys out of my grip and returned it to the dealer. It was one of the hardest things I've had to do in recent memory. Returning to the blue van was never such a let down and that thing felt like such a huge pile of sheet metal.

It's rare that I allow myself such indulgences and frankly, the Deville experience freaked me out. It was clearly beyond our needs, exceeded our price range, though it was a good deal for a used one. The feelings it generated in me were deceptive. For once I felt like I was driving a car with status, not just a four wheel transportation device. As a speaker I heard this week affirmed, our vehicles are not status symbols, there just cars to help us get from here to there. I had lost that mentality.

We ended up with a base model 2004 Impala. It runs and hopefully will take us 174,000 miles like the van did though I'd love to take a pickup 1,000,000 miles.

NEXT TIME: Putting Super-Size Sunday in context

It's out in the recycling

We owe Dan and Lynn Libby one gargantuan thank you...

The night before leaving for Dallas, I picked my Dad up with the blue van and took him to the facility he'd be staying at while I was away. The battery had drained on the vehicle, an unidentifiable electrical problem that had plagued it for the past four years, requiring a jump to get it started after the weekend, so for fear that I couldn't get it to start again, I left it running the entire hour or so that I got Dad settled. With Dad I settled, I pulled out of the parking lot to discover the van had leaked a nice sized puddle of dirty oil. She was bleeding, severe internal bleeding.

We'd anticipated that this day was drawing near and had been courting a replacement, so we weren't caught off guard. But it was clear that there wasn't much life left in the once beautiful machine that was now a blue bomb. And so, after 234,xxx miles, the blue van has made its last official voyage.

We laughed unabashedly in the face of the auto dealers who questioned whether we'd be trading in our current vehicle, with us insisting that our vehicle had absolutely no worth. It's final trip will be to the recycling yard to be turned into scrap.

It has completed it's service to us, having taken us about 100,000 miles ourselves, in addition to the 100,000 the Libby's traveled in it. Dan and Lynn sold it to us for $1 some 11 years ago. We owe them a gargantuan Thank You!

Adjusting to jet lag or the end of daylight saving time

Daylight saving time begins this Sunday at 2am - don't forget to set your clocks forward otherwise when you'd planned to attend the first service, you'll arrive just in time for Pastor Scott's last message point or two.


I dread this week. While there are lots of American's who've never travelled far enough to experience jet lag, in reality, most American's already have in the form of daylight saving time. For once, I'm going to employ the gameplan I worked up several years ago.


Beginning Tuesday morning, I'll be awakening 15 minutes earlier than my usual wake up time. For security reasons, I can't post the exact time here. Wednesday morning, I'll awak another 15 minutes earlier than I did on Tuesday. Same thing Thursday and Friday, so that by Saturday, I'll be awakening an hour earlier than normal and will have shifted to daylight saving time gradually as opposed to cold turkey.


Hey, some guys can obsess about showers others can obsess about numbers.

BTW, if you haven't checked it out yet, head over to blog.lgbc.org to read and/or post your testimony of how God has been faithful through times of pain and heartache in your life.


NEXT TIME: What happened to the blue van?

How God has been working among the Elders

There have been occasions when the hours after an Elder meeting were some of the most discouraging and frustrating hours of my week. But I'm ecstatic to say that for the past several years I've experienced the complete opposite with last night being the latest episode.


I come away from Elder meetings today inspired and motivated by the men who serve with us. Our partnership is tighter than I've seen in my decade of serving with them. Last night, I sought their feedback on a decision I have to make and to a man, each of them challenged me to take courage and boldness in following God's leading. Tim and me reflected on the moment after the meeting concluded and reminded ourselves of the number of times we've heard of or seen firsthand Elder boards that were reluctant in leadership and wishy-washy about what God was calling the church to do.


I appreciate each of them for their humility, their understanding as to what God has them to do and their passion to follow that calling each step of the way. Their recognition that their sinners saved by Grace, just like the next person and their complete reliance on Our Savior.


Like many other aspects of our ministry, our staff/Elder partnership is not the norm. I consider it a real privilege to have the kind of relationship we have with one another and feel truly blessed by it; I don't take it for granted.


So as I drove home from last night's meeting, my heart was filled with joy as I contemplated all that God is doing and my mind was excitedly filled with ideas of all the things I need to be working on next in pursuit of serving the Lord.



COMING UP NEXT: Adjusting to daylight saving time one day at a time