Last week we moved from Frederick to Brunswick.  This week we have annual conference.  Our days have been filled with packing and unpacking boxes.  As of late we have been in sessions doing the business of the church, worship and ordination practice.

Tomorrow (Friday) Katie and I will be ordained as full Elders in the UMC.  hopefully after all of this we will be able to resume some normalcy before the hecticness of the summer hits us.

I will be posting more, and more regularly very soon.

Be God’s

The folks at Livechurch.tv are a really great resource, and so when I saw that they had put out a Bible app I was all over it.  Best part is that it is…that’s right free.  There are a ton of different versions of the bible you can reference and a wide array of languages.  You can get the full library if you are connected to the web (wi-fi or 3g), but you can also download a number of the translations to your device.  It also has daily reading plans that you can follow, comments and discusions and customization.  The app is available for just about everything out there iphone, andriod phones, palm, your web browser and the list goes on.

I am finally posting about it because a couple of days ago I realized that one of the versions I can download to my Ipod is the New Living Translation which has become one of my favorite’s to teach from for youth group and classes where poeple are getting into scripture for the first time. Also, I am going to be upgrading my phone soon and this app would be compatible with most options so i am excited about that too.

Check it out, there is nothing to lose…did I mention it is free.  Go to youversion.com to get your hands on it.

Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.

I couldn’t help think about how our joy is stolen.  What takes our laughs?  Are our lives more boring or are we just taking ourselves too seriously?  Why do we allow the sun to set on our laughter?

Perhaps we need to reclaim the childlike joy we encounter in the simplest things in life. Take joy in slowing down and playing outside, being silly just for the sake of being silly.  Laugh out loud rather than holding it in.

I just thought this “Snapple Real Fact” was a bit depressing.

As I was getting ready for worship today I was flitting back and forth from my office as I usually do.  I find my time on Sunday mornings split between unlocking the building, setting up the media stuff, communion elements, wrangling Eden (when she is with me), being asked  questions, making up answers, remembering where the rope to my robe went…the list goes on.

Usually I am focused and determined to check off the next thing that is on my list.  But something stopped me in my tracks when i went into my office and saw a 2 little pieces of heaven sitting on my desk. They were the most beautiful things I had ever seen before 8:30 on a Sunday morning…

Two count them Two OREO cookies bathed in fudge made their way on to my desk on this beautiful fall day.  All morning I plotted what their fate would be.  Then Finally I made my decision.  One would be the fuel i needed to get through our 11:00 service because I am always in need of some sustenance for our 3rd service of the day.  Goldfish are the typical offering to quench my 10:55 hunger, but my salty friends were put on hold for one that was oh so sweeter.

Thanks to the sugar packed pick-me-up I was going strong after the morning services.  And in fact I felt so good that i ate the second fudge covered delight without a second thought.  If you think about it, it would have been rude of me to take such a gem home to my wife who can’t eat them anyway. It was the gentlemanly thing to do.

Thanks Amber for the great start for my day.

I Found this post the other day on Mike Slaughter’s blog.  I really thought that it was awesome.  Kind of thought provoking.  I guess that is because in the past two weeks we have has 4 funerals.  What are some of the ways you remember or find out about people after they have departed from this world? Now, go pull out those Bibles and mark ‘em up

Yesterday
I went to the Memorial celebration for Karen Smith’s stepfather, John
Young. The pastor used John’s Bible for the readings. He noted how worn
it was and read from passages that John had marked. He pointed out
notes that had been written in the margins. “I always ask to see a
person’s Bible before I preach their funeral,” the pastor stated. “It
reveals everything about their life.”
Check out his blog for more mikeslaughter.com: blog