Rando

Lot's of stuff going on:

-Leigh Ann's pregnant for anyone that didn't know. Tomorrow, we may find if it's a boy or a girl, if the baby (we call it Oscar for the time being) isn't too modest. A lot of people have asked me if I have a preference, but I really don't. I answer, "I hope it's a child!" Anyway, it will be exciting to see the little person on sonogram finally. Last time I saw Oscar on sonogram, it was at 6 weeks, and he/she was the size of a grain of rice (not long grain either!).

-Serving at GP is such a priviledge. We had a meeting today where Devin casted the vision for Crew (our setup and teardown team), and we had around 20 people sign up. I realized that all of these people came for perhaps one or two reasons: they want to connect and/or they want to serve God. Everyone needs community and service is faith in action, our spiritual act of worship. At GP, service isn't just the way to get things done, it's an opportunity to allow a person to worship God through action. We need to make this opportunity available to everyone, and not allow just a few to hog the priviledge!

-Just finished a great book called "The Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God: Spirituality for the rest of us," by Larry Osbourne. It's not contrarian for contrarian's sake, but it does challenge a lot of the linear thinking methods to growing in Christ that we have been taught for a long time. Osbourne doesn't claim these methods are bad or wrong, but he does challenge the thinking that everyone must grow in God by reading your Bible for 30 minutes each day, praying for 20, journaling consistently, having an accountability partner, etc (what did people do before Gutenberg, for instance?). Again, not that these things are wrong, but they don't all work for everyone. He claims they are tools, not rules. Use what works, drop what doesn't, and there will be periods of your life that you need some tools more than others. There were some pretty challenging ideas for me in the book. I'll blog on those in the future.

-Also finished another book called "7 Practices of Effective Ministry" by Andy Stanley. Great book, especially if you're in church leadership. However, one particular chapter of the book was especially poignant for me. It was Listen to Outsiders: Focus on who you're trying to reach, not on who you're trying to keep. I'll blog more on this too, but two quotes: "If you are surrounded long enough by people who think like you think, you will become more and more certain that's the best way to think. Over time you find yourself inclined to completely disregard the concerned voices of those positioned on the outside." And "So if a large portion of the population is not going to church and the majority of churches are not full, that means there's a lot of room in the churches that exist for people who are not going. And yet most churches now being built are patterned after churches that already exist...The church today is primarily characterized by insiders reaching insiders." GP is very good at creating engaging environments where anyone can connect to God, no matter where you are on your spiritual journey. I had a friend back in Florida that I was doing my best to point to God. I invited him to our baptist church, and he said to me, "You know, I just don't feel comfortable there." I couldn't argue with him. Looking from an outsider's perspective, I wouldn't have felt very comfortable either. And it wasn't because of the truth of the message being spoken either. It would have been because of the strange music, the dress code that no one told me about, the unknown language being spoken, and the fact that everyone that was a bit older seemed to have the first name "Brother." Should getting used to these things be a prerequisite to coming to know Jesus as Savior and Lord? No! The pharisees had tried to make things very difficult to come to know God, and ended up not knowing Him at all. Jesus made things very simple. Shouldn't we, without compromising God's Word and the eternal truth of the Gospel, make our presentation of that crucial message in such a way that the most amount of people will hear it? Stanley says "Invest and Invite." Use relationship evangelism to reach people to Christ, and invite them to a place where they can take another step in their spiritual journey towards Christ.

-Got back from TDY to Eglin last Thursday. It was good times. Saw a lot of my friends, went shark fishing, but didn't even catch a regular style fish! I flew three times, and only puked once! Seriously, I'm surprised I didn't puke more on the 3.3 hour flight, no a/c, hot and humid day in FL, making continuous circles on the flare track. The H-60 CTF is turning out to be a really great place to work, and if I don't get my security clearance for another couple years, I won't be disappointed. Oh, by the way, if your boss asks you to "monitor" the progress of a conference room remodel, run! The monitoring has turned into a 20 hr a week, making miracles happen with people who don't really feel like helping, all before the end of the fiscal year which is rapidly approaching. That's ok, though. I take solace in the fact that conference rooms are the new key to air power.