I learned a valuable lesson yesterday.   I had a very long day of preaching, visiting, counselling, talking and  praying for people -  essentially pouring everything I had into other people’s lives.   I was exhausted and all I wanted to do was lie on my bed, read a favorite book and veg.  Three chapters in and 9:30 at night, much to my surprise,  my cell phone rang.  It  happened to be a good friend of mine who was on a layover at the Calgary airport.  It was  short conversation, we didn’t answer life’s pressing questions – we just talked. 

What was the lesson I learned?  Sometimes a phone call or a face to face visit is exactly what we need.  My friend Mike didn’t rely on an e-mail or text to let me know he was around; he thought of me and he phoned.  What he didn’t know is that his phone call encouraged me immensly.  It encouraged me that he took the time to phone and that’s exactly what I needed. 

There are times that texting, facebook, twitter or e-mail are sufficient.  But sometimes what is needed is a phone call or a face to face meeting.  In our day and age of technology – don’t forget that personal contact is still appreciated.

I don’t claim to be a good singer.  I’m good at sleeping but not singing.  This guy made me laugh today

I thought I’d dive into the hysteria that is the H1N1 flu.  I don’t want to get into the topic of whether to vaccinate or not (I think the threads from facebook have covered that) or whether it’s going to destroy the world as we know it (I think Chicken little that he has that covered).   From my perspective I see the H1N1 flu bringing something into the forefront that each and every single one of us deal with; FEAR. 

We fear what will happen to our children if they get the pandemic.

We fear what hill happen to us if we come down with this terrible flu.

The life we thought we’d live comes to a skreetching halt when we realize that we are all open to this deadly sickness. 

Fear overwhelms us, fear controls our emotions and fear sucks our joy like a mosquito sucks our blood.

Here are some great words from a favorite author of mine, Mark Batterson;

I think there are moments in life when we have to make major decisions that will determine our destiny.  And we will spend the rest of our lives managing those major decisions.  And if you let fear dictate your decision you’ll end up with a ton of inaction regrets at the end of your life.  Fear is a great friend, but it makes a terrible master!  Don’t let fear dictate your decisions.  You have to face your fears.  And what you’ll find is this; the thing that scares you to death is very often the thing that brings you to life.

 Fear is present when you think about H1N1 but it doesn’t have to preside over your life.  1 John 4:18  says “Perfect love drives out fear.”  In times where   you are fearful and uneasy about what the future holds – keep growing in your relationship with Christ and you will find out that it’s his love and care for you that will sustain you through fearful times.  A major theme in scripture is “do not fear”.  Take advantage of these words and know that there is a God who takes your fear and puts them on his shoulders so that you don’t have to. 

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged and some of you (paige) have let me know about it!  Today  I will give you a list of things that I can’t believe lately.

• how fast my kids have grown – I can joke with Caleb like I would with a teenager … and he is funny!  Abby has much better fashion taste than I do and she is starting to make up songs that actually rhyme  … and she’s good at it.  Hillary ate on a T.V. tray for the first time today … next she will be going on dates  
• how halloween crazy some people are – This might sound like a “back in my day” statement but it seems like people have gone crazy in regards to halloween and decorations lately.  When I was young we just walked around, rang doorbells and collected candy.  Nowadays everyone has blow-up ghosts on their front lawns, scary decorations on their door and a virtual haunted house inside.   
• that I pastor a church – I have to pinch myself regularly when i think that I have the responsibility of leading such an amazing church.  I can’t believe it (many people can’t believe it either – trust me, I get that response often).  I don’t ever take it for granted and want to do the best job I can do. 
• how much pressure I put on myself – here’s a glimpse into my life (I’m trying to be transparent here).  I put so much pressure on myself as a leader that it affects my sleep at times, affects how I relate to people and it stresses me out.    I want to be the best in whatever I do and it frustrates me when I don’t see it happening.  I have such encouraging people around me but there are times where I am my own worst enemy.   People ask me “what stresses you out” and i would probably say that the pressure I put on myself stresses me out the most!
• how much I enjoy listening to Jay-Z – I love his music even though I don’t love his lifestyle. 
• how much I love watching Extreme Home Makeover - Every single time I watch the show I cry.  Karen and I watched it last night and it inspired me in so many ways; creatively, emotionally and motivated me to act on what i believe – not just preach it.   It’s up there on my top ten list with Biggest Loser and Lost.

I hate waking up early but I love being up early. The best time of the day is before the sun comes up, before the phone starts ringing and the emails start to fly.
The best part of the day is early but you can’t enjoy it unless you get out of bed. This is my problem – there are days where I miss the joy of the morning because I’m too comfortable in bed.
I like to compare this with my walk with god. I want to spend quality time with him but that means rolling out of bed, turning the tv off or stopping what I’m doing (usually snoring for me). It is when I actually get off my butt do I enjoy this incredible time.
I want to experience the “full life” that he offers but I can’t experience it if I’m too focused on my own comfort.
It’s only when we get out of the comfort then we can experience the gretest of the day

Random Monday Thoughts;

• Happy birthday Blog – you’re two years old.  Two years of funny Abby stories, not-so-smart thoughts from me (brad) and general tom-foolery two or three times a week (for some reason I thought of Marc when I said “tom-foolery”.)  
• Over two years, the most read post is Pastors Kids. Google “pastors kids” and I’m #3?  Every week I get e-mails from people telling me their reflections on being a pastors kid and whether it was a good experience or a bad one.  It’s crazy how many terrible stories I hear – I think my kids will  need counselling   (Not because they are a pastors kid … just because of who their dad is!) 
• These past couple of weeks I’m really experiencing “sermon hangover” on mondays.  It’s a feeling like nothing I’ve ever felt like before.   It’s a mixture of tiredness, release and a feeling of “I should have done better”. 
• I spoke on “finances” yesterday and I’ve heard some great responses so far.  Some people have contacted me for some financial guidance (I’m not giving the guidance – I’m pointed them to people who can) and some people have talked to me about some decisions they have made.   I always feel weird talking about topics like this b/c I know I’m not a pro!  My prayer is always “LORD … HELP”. 
• My kids are taking me to Red Lobster tonight – I love Red Lobster.  (I have a funny feeling that I’ll be paying for the meal even though they are the ones doing the “taking”!
• If you attend MTC I’m assuming that if you came yesterday you realized how incredible of a guitar player Dwight is.  WOW the guy is incredible. 
• I’m slowly becoming a Calgary Flames fan.  It’s not that I haven’t been but I grew up watching the Canadians play and I have a special place in my heart for them.  I still have my Bob Gainey, Larry Robinson and Claude Lemieux posters … but karen won’t allow me to put them up in our bedroom.  If I could only find a poster of the greatest player of all time I would be happy … Bobby Smith. (for a non hockey fan you’d never heard of him … for a hockey fan … you probably don’t remember him)
• I’m sceptical of the new instant coffee from Starbucks.  “Instant” and “coffee” should never be in the same sentence. 

There you go – Have a great week.

Do you have any habits or idiosyncrasies  that would make people think “you’re kind of weird?”?  * btw I think “idiosyncrasies” is the biggest word I’ve used this week … maybe this month.  On second thought – ever! *

Here are a couple of mine;

• When I navigate a website I always have to have the edge of my cursor arrow aligned with the edge of the page.  If I can’t do this I naturally find the side of a square and align it with that.  It drives me crazy when the cursor is sitting anywhere on the page.
• In my journal I have to use the same pen to write with.  There is nothing more annoying than flipping through pages of the past and see different colour writing – I’m not a 13 year old girl who likes to write each note using purple, pink, blue, red and greeen.  I’m strictly a black pen kind of guy.
• When I speak on stage I HAVE to have everysingle word written out in manuscript form.  If I don’t then I am secretly stressed out.  It makes the preperation process very long but it keeps me mostly on topic (I say mostly because there are times that I vear from my notes and say the dumbest things!)
• This may not be considered to be a habit or and idiosyncrasy (*I just wanted to use that word one more time)  but when I sit in a coffee shop I love listening to other peoples conversations.   It’s even crossed my mind  to buy one of those hearing aids for seniors that look like a bluetooth adaptor just to be able to listen more closely to what’s being said. 

There you have it.  I’d ask the question “what about you?” but since my mother is at my house and we don’t have access to our computer right now (It might have died) the only person reading this blog is computerless   O.K. I might be exxagerating b/c i know there are other people reading my blog but I really feel sorry for people who facebook questions on their status and nobody answers them!

Let me give you a glimpse of my life lately.  This isn’t a full view but just a quick peek into the life of a pastor;

• Visited with a family yesterday who’s child is in the hospital.   I tried to go in to see him at the hospital but a crazy mean lady “punted” me out of the ward because I didn’t have proper “clergy identification”.  When I asked her “where do I get that?” she scowled and ignored me.   It cost me $1.50 for parking just to get yelled at. 
• I recently ran into someone (during the week) who had been “church shopping” recently and showed up at one of our services.   She introduced herself and let me know that she’d been to MTC but chose to go to another church instead.  I told her “that’s great, I’m glad you’re going to a bible believing, Jesus loving church”.  I think she was expecting me to try to convince  her to come back … but when I didn’t she was puzzled.  I knew she was puzzled so I told her “I don’t care that you didn’t come back”.  In hindsight I think the words “I don’t care” were a bad choice of words.  
• My office is the size of this computer so when meeting with someone I tend to meet them at the local Starbucks or Second cup.  Yesterday someone picked me up and we went to Starbucks.   After our meeting he drove me back the church where I hopped into my car immediately and drove to the same Starbucks for another meeting.  I found out that you can use the same cup and get a refill for half the cost. 
• It is a priveledge to be able to see God work in so many people’s lives – many ways in which no one hears about or gets to see. (I’m working on getting more people to share but it’s like pulling teeth! One day … One day!)  Here are some examples (without names and I’ll keep them vague):  A family giving of themselves just to make sure that another family has food on their table and a roof over their heads,  friends sitting at the bedside of a sick friend praying, laughing, reading and just “listening”, people serving their neighbours with God’s love by cooking meals and giving them away “just because”, men getting together to pray for their neighbourhood, people regularly inviting unsaved family and friends to church because this is where they met Jesus, men repenting of their sins and desperate to live a God honouring life.  *I could go on and on

There’s a glimpse of what’s going on in my world.

I’ve been talking all day.  Today seems to be conversation day in my world.   6am till now (2:57pm) I’ve had no less than 10 fairly heavy, serious conversations.  Some have been refreshing and enjoyable and some have been hard hitting and draining.   Some I have “listened” more and some I “talked” more.  Today has been long.

In the vapour that has been quiet time todayI came across this quote from Ben Arment (church planter, blogger, organizer of Story) It scratched me where I itch right now so I thought I’d let you read it.  Enjoy

Have you ever noticed that God never used kings to speak truth to other kings in the Bible? He always used grungy vagabonds who ate insects and lived in the desert.

Disqualifying truth-speakers because of personal achievement would be like the entire Washington Redskin offensive line telling Joe Gibbs to sit down and shut up because he never played pro football.

It pays to at least process our emotional flare-ups. That should tell us something. Conviction feels almost indistinguishable from personal offense. Remember what Paul told the Corinthians:

Besides, when we ignore the prophets, God has to send in the real jackasses. (Numbers 22)

If you attend MTC you’ll know we’re looking at the book of Proverbs for the next two months.  Proverbs is chalk full of very practical advice of  how to bring God into every aspect of our lives.  I have to tell you that my favorite quote so far has been “It may not be sin but it’s stupid”  (Is it wrong to laugh at your own quote?)

This coming weekend we’re looking at our social life; who we have as friends and how to be a good friend.   At first glance it looks like a very simple topic that is fairly simple to understand but as I study it’s more complex than this.  Friendship, from a biblical perspective, is much deeper and important than we realize.  From what i see in my life and the life of others, most of us have many aquiantances but we have few good friends. 

Here’s a quote I read from Mark Driscoll as he defined biblical friendship

A friend is a trustworthy peer whom we mutually choose to lovingly live with by seeking unique access and service for God’s glory and our mutal good

That’s a mouthful of definition.  What’s he’s saying is that your friendships should be mutual (not one sided) completely open and honest, trustworthy and should point towards growth in your relationship with Christ.   

The many verses in Proverbs that talk about friendship all point towards a relationship like this.   It’s been good for me to learn about this aspect of our lives and to be able to share on Sunday about how important our social life is in the game of life. 

Who knew mom was right when she said “choose your friends wisely”?