Thank God for Snow

This past Sunday, the teaching was on the ways God speaks to us. One of the ways I said God speaks is through godly friends and family. And God doesn't just use them to guide us but to point us toward Him as well.

When Andrew, my 10 year old son, woke up this morning he was so excited to see the blanket of snow on the ground. I was upstairs but could here him, in his insistent voice, telling his mom they had to stop and thank God for the snow. "No Mom, we have to do it together, right now!" Wow!

Two things:

One, I'm glad we have a God who can use even 10 year olds to teach us. And two, the question that's guiding me today is "What have I overlooked in my life that I need to stop and thank God for?"

Inauguration

I'm at work today doing things that I can get done while still watching the Inauguration on TV. It's so exciting to be so close to history as it's being made. My office is 15.2 miles from the White House.

Worship Experience

As a pastor, it's great to be able to worship where, as the song goes, "nobody knows your name." I had the chance to do that this weekend while on vacation. We were still in the Fairfax area so we went over to Fairfax Community Church's Saturday night service. I loved the 5pm Sat. service.

Rod Stafford is a great speaker. It was the first time I had heard him or met him. Got a chance to talk with him for a little while after the service. When I mentioned where I pastored he said "you guys have a lot going on over there and are making some great changes aren't you?" Turns out his good friend Kevin Ford who runs the church consulting firm our church is working with had been talking with him about our church and some of the things we are doing. I hope to get with Rod in the future, I'm sure I can learn a lot from him and his success.

2009 Off to a Great Start

2009 is off to a great start. Had an awesome time this past week spending time with my parents and my family. I've already seen three movies this year, which is probably my total count for last year. I recommend Bedtime Stories. It was hilarious. The Spirit was OK but nothing spectacular (I was actually going to see Grand Torino but it was sold out.)

Andrew got the new Monopoly game. I felt really old playing it. The game no longer uses play money. Rather it uses an electronic banker and each player has a credit card with a $15 million line of credit. You can even pause the game an come back days later.

Looking forward to 2009 and all that it will bring.

Seven Pounds

No, I'm not going to tell you to stay away from the Christmas goodies and lose seven pounds.

I saw the movie, Seven Pounds, starring Will Smith, this past Saturday. I highly recommend it. I think it's a great look into the potential of the human heart.

Christmas Moments

My definition of a Christmas moment is when something happens to remind me of what Christmas is all about. I had two of those moments today thanks to my kids.

It's been pretty crazy the last couple of weeks and as I freely admit it easy for me to get caught up in all the things surrounding Christmas. Mind you most if not all are good things, even necessary things.

This morning I was taking Abbey to school. Usually I drop the kids off at the school curb but today Andrew was home sick so I parked and walked her into the school. As I got ready to say good-bye to her she grabbed my hand and asked me to walk her to class. Any one who knows of Abbey's independent nature will understand why that was a special moment for me. I jumped at the chance.

As I said, Andrew is home sick today. I was staying with him until his mom got home at 3pm. I had my plan: he would watch TV quietly, the dogs (one new puppy) would sleep in the corner, and I would pull out the laptop and get loads of things done. Didn't happen. Not even close.

So I scrapped that idea (not an easy thing for me to do) and went with plan B. Andrew and I took care of one of our Christmas traditions, watching Home Alone together.

Now I'm at Wegmans trying to get at least half of my list done.

I'm thankful to God for today's Christmas moments and that I did not miss them.

The American Humanist Society has unveiled a $40,000 ad campaign in the DC Metro area. The campaign will use the Metro trains, buses and stations to advertise their message "Why believe in god? Just be good for goodness sakes."

The spokesperson for the group had this to say about their decision to run the campaign at Christmas: "Our reason for doing it during the holidays is there are an awful lot of agnostics, atheists and other types of non-theists who feel a little alone during the holidays because of its association with traditional religion."

I think the church needs to respond to his statement, but probably not the way many churches will. I believe he's right. A lot of people are lonely during the holiday season. But the church has a message of hope and so we need to get that message out there, not to counter an anti-religious group's campaign but because the second greatest commandment given to us by Christ is "love your neighbor as yourself."

With the help of one of our pastors, our church put together it's own message for the holiday season to help share the message of hope with lonely people.