OK, so this is kind of a blow by blow recap.... came in early to stuff mailboxes with a letter from the men's ministry... so I have an hour of time to study and observe.... while on the churches wireless network.

First impressions.  Blessed.  I had sent out an email earlier in the week asking for some help with baby sitters while my wife and I take the classes for adoption.  The response has been pretty good, and I come in and see it in the bulletin AND a bit of information on the welcome desk (Thanks Polly!). As a result of that I had one person volunteer for one of the harder weekday nights and another tell me they would be able to do something, just needs to talk the details over with his wife.  And the bulk of the church hasn't even arrived yet.

More later.

OK, now after service, recap.

A TON of new people there today.  4 families I think.  One is pretty much tied in from what I can tell (youth minister's brother) the others... we will see.

The sermon started with an interesting fact that I hadn't put together.  During the summer months we have had seven families place membership at my church.   That's pretty amazing considering our attendance is down a bit from our peak months of near 300 that we had early this year. 

Then the sermon was focused on something near and dear to my heart... small groups.  One comment made by Mike was something similar to , "We don't want to be a church that has small groups, but a church that is small groups." 

Just having a few small groups is kind of a waste of potential.  Having a church that is, at its foundation, is small group driven allows for even the biggest church to be small.  Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

The men's ministry of LifeStream Christian Church will be going over the book, What God Does When Men Lead. So being one of the leaders of the ministry I had to read the book ahead of time AND I had to have it read by this morning... so I did some power reading and I am done.

A very good book, some of it really  hit home to me.  I'll share more about it as we go through it in detail as a group, but the overall concept of the book is that the lack of male leadership has hurt our world significantly. 

A few excerpts from the book that I liked:
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
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Unlike gifts, which God permanently bestows but which need development, passions arise at what might seem like arbitrary times in our lives.
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If a brother has a legitimate immediate need and I have the means to meet that need, then I have an obligation to help him on a short-term basis.  I don't need to pray about it or seek God's will about it; I just need to obey and do it.
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Notice that it is not just the father's presence in the home but the quality of the father's involvement and leadership that makes the difference.
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Statistics regarding the father's spiritual influence on children are compelling.  When a mother trusts Christ apart from her husband, her family follows 17 percent of the time.  When Dad becomes a Christian, the rest of the family follows 93 percent of the time.
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For many guys, church falls into the same category as attending a chick flick with your wife.
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That last comment is HARSH... but soooo true.

I said that my last post would be my last from the weekend, but after the past few hours I just HAVE to post.

At 6PM we went to church to have a meeting recapping the mission trip that my wife and two oldest children went on a few weeks back.

As I sat there and listened to the stories I got emotional about it all.  For such a broken man to have such a wonderful family is beyond my comprehension. Knowing what could have been for my older two had our life not taken the turn it took 11 years ago makes what is my reality that much better.

However what floored me the most about tonight is my wife.  Shy as can be... she was put in a position where she HAD to speak in front of everybody and I was floored.  Like she was born to speak publicly.  Eloquent with words, cracking well timed jokes, and getting her point across.  Was very cool to see.

The mission trip was a great time for the 15 people that got to go and was great to see them bring that impact back home.

OK, so this will be the last of a slew of weekend post.  Sorry for loading you up with things to read.  But READ THIS!  Especially the last part.

Today was the wrap of a 'Summer of Surrender' sermon series at church.  Its been an interesting group of sermons as today was the first time the minister has preached in a month. 

He was sporting a black eye, says it was from moving furniture.... I have my doubts as his wife seemed awful happy about it.

Then the end of the sermon came, in our church setting the end of the sermon is always the invitation.  An invitation to come forward for prayer. An invitation to come forward for salvation. And an invitation to come forward for membership.  Saw all three today.

First some friends from our first church came forward to place membership.  Can't say I expected that to happen just two weeks ago.  Though I was tipped off that it was going to happen during our Saturday morning breakfast with the guys.

Next the youth ministers son came forward to be baptized.  The dad cried like a little girl ;-)  But I know he was proud of his boy, as I will be when that day comes.

Finally came the truly inspiring part.

There is a man in my church that needs a kidney transplant.  A lady in the church (and also a long time friend of this mans daughter) is giving him a kidney.  I've actually debated this before... would I be willing to give a kidney to somebody else?  Would I have the faith in God to allow one of my perfectly functioning kidneys to be given to somebody else?

But here she is, giving her kidney to help another man (not a young man either) live a better life.  THAT is an inspiring faith.  It is things like this that separate the church from the world.  Its days like this that make staying faithful EASY.

Oh, about forgot the new name of the church is official.  It passed 68 to 17.  Many more no votes than I anticipated, but a pass is a pass.  So now I officially attend LifeStream Christian Church.  The Batavia Church of Christ is no more.

Today was one of those moments where I'm just humbled by God.

As I've mentioned on my blog, my neighbor used to be my neighbor.

10 years ago my young family was living next to Mary and Greg and their children.  Greg was in a BAD car wreck and the place we lived in had a strict set of guidelines of lawn care.  So for several months I was taking care of both of our lawns.  I knew Mary had a full load on her hands. 

Some things happened to where we moved, but I left my lawn mower with them because they didn't have one. Figured that was the last I'd ever hear from them...

Fast forward 10 years later, and I find out that the house we bought has a familiar neighbor in Mary.  Life had taken some curvy roads for her and now Mary and her husband Mike were my new neighbors! 

Then a few weeks later we were down in the Village of Batavia handing out invitations to the community for our Vacation Bible school, and who did my son and I run into?  Mike and Mary!  We gave them the invite and they brought their daughter to the VBS.  She loved it, they came to church, they loved it... and it was all capped off this morning when both of them were baptized!

How much did I play in this scenario?  Really I don't know.  Would they have shown up at LifeStream Christian Church anyway's? Maybe.  But what role do I know I played?  I wasn't a jerk!  Imagine if the situation was different and I was one of 'those' neighbors?  Imagine their reaction to my church when we gave them an invite, if I was one of 'those' neighbors.

Its truly humbling to see how a seed of being nice, blossomed into what I witnessed this morning. You never know how what you are doing today will play out 10 years from now...

OK, here is an odd post... I'm going to bring some church politics out to the open.

On August 3rd, my church will be voting on our 'new' name.

This was a bit unexpected as the Elders fully expected the last vote to pass, and thus the new name was able to be changed by the Elders without a vote.  Well we all know the result of that vote, and now they are wanting to move forward a bit and step one is to put the old bylaws up for a vote with the new name in it.

Let me be clear here, and frankly Bob Stewart (an Elder and reader of this blog) may have some heart mummers as a result of what I am about to publicly say.

1. I voted no on the last vote.  Some things in it I just didn't feel great about voting yes on, and when the affects of a YES vote are so far reaching... its honestly better to vote no until you are at a place where you can vote yes.
2. I really am not a fan of our new name. 

HOWEVER a name is just a name.  I'm going to take the Elders word for the fact that 75% of the feedback they got was positive and accept it as the will of the congregation and vote yes.  And really, God forbid, the 75% is misleading... the church needs to move forward and another issue on something like this is work of the devil, something I won't be a part of.

And for my fellow church members... I highly urge you to do the same.  There are fights worth fighting... this isn't it.  BUT if you are at an impasse with this situation, be an adult and talk to the Elders.  How can they adjust or be aware of the issue without knowing how YOU feel? 

But I put that last part there just because it probably needs to be there... but my expectation is that this next vote will pass with a HIGH majority. 

Well as mentioned in my previous post, I spent most of my day helping friend Matt K move.  I am wore out.  Started at 9:30, went till 11:30... then started again about 12:30 and finished about 7.  Starting to really think I'll need surgery on my shoulder next year (when my Flex Spending account re-ups...) as it is not doing well at all... think I've got some rotator cuff issues.

One thing that really stood out to me today were the children helping out.  Matt K had his four children helping out, and another guy had his daughter helping out (more on her in a second).

Matt and his wife raise their children with the expectation of obeying (odd concept I know)... and they did a great job today.  They worked their tails off and hopefully made their parents proud. 

But I knew those four children, the other guy and his daughter are new to me.  He's had a bit of a rough way to go with it over the past year or so... so I'm not 100% sure of his current status in my church... but I've heard his name mentioned more than once by my circle of friends.  He had his daughter with him... and she was doing a great job... and during a down time I thought I would chat with her a bit and asked her what grade she was in.... was stunned when she said sophomore in high school.  I would have guessed (and felt good about the guess) 12 yr's old.  She was very small and looked very young.  But at 15, almost 16, (her emphasis) she did an unbelievable job.  I reallllly hope my baby girl is that respectful when she is that age.

I couldn't imagine how much longer we would have went without these five great children.

I was looking forward to today.  Rich Higgins was preaching this week at my church.   This is the third time I've heard Rich preach.

The first time he did really well, the second time was at the men's retreat.  He shared about some of his past and how he ended up at LSCC. That inspired his preaching today on the same topic.  We are in the midst of a sermon series called "Summer of Surrender" and it is being preached by folks who made their way to LSCC in odd ways.  He hit it out of the ball park on this one.  I really enjoy dynamic preachers that, for one reason or another, aren't given the opportunity to preach very often.  Because when they do get to preach... they BRING IT.  Will be interesting to hear from Jason Case next week as his story is a bit of an unknown to me.  Was also stoked to see Jason and his wife place membership at church today as well.  Ironically when my wife saw he was preaching next week, she asked me if they were members yet. While my wife is brought up, pray for me... she and the older two leave for a short term mission trip next Saturday.... I feel bad for the younger two being stuck with me for a week :-)

Now onto what will be the life of this blog over the next 40 days.  The 40 Days of Focus.

My goals were already posted on this blog.  But now I have the goals of two of the other participants.

Tom C and I worked through his today as he and his family hung out at my house after church.  And as a side note I will say that this is a friendship that I have really come to value.  Val and I have had a lot of friends that we served and served and served, with little of that coming back our way.  And while that is OK in certain relationships, I will say that ours have been a bit to unbalanced in that way.  Tom and April have really gone out of their way recently to serve my family and I deeply appreciate that. But lets touch on Tom's list.
1. Read 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, and James. This equates to about a chapter a day. 
2. Pray twice a day.
3. Put his wife 1st, after God.  This is an interesting one as it deals with priorities and such.  Tom and I had a conversation last week about priorities, and lets just say originally his wife was a bit lower on the ladder.
4. Less chewing tobacco.  This is something I've been working on Tom with.  He is addicted to chewing tobacco, and I challenged him to make this one of his goals.  The minimum goal is no chewing tobacco every other day, though I challenged him to go even longer.

Scott W sent me his via email.
1. Study the Bible for 10 minutes each day.
2. Pray each day.
3. Read the Bible to his children at least three days a week.
4. Exercise at least 15 minutes per day and to eat right.

I'm really looking forward to what I see happens here over the next 40 days.  Stay tuned!

Well I stumbled across something on another blog and I'm stealing it.  With permission :-)

It has been called 40 days of focus.  Basically commit to doing things for 40 days.  Now when I saw this I had the idea that inviting some men from my church into the fold to go through this with me would be a great idea, so the invite went out to a few select men and here we are.

In August I will be involved in starting a new small group in Bethel and there are three of us guys (the fourth guy is a maybe for the small group) who for the 40 days leading up to the group launch will focus on our spiritual lives. 

Tom C, Scott W, Matt K, and myself have laid out our own goals and we will be moving forward with them.  I will post personal updates here daily, and on occasion will update you on the status of the other guys.  Plus I will encourage them to make comments on each thread as well.

From July 7th until August 15th we will be in focus.  I am really stoked about what I know God will do during this time.  I am scared about what I know the devil will do during this time.

So what are my goals?

• To read the New Testament.  ALL OF IT.  That equates to 6.5 chapters a day, so on dates that are odd I will read 7 chapters on dates that are even I will read 6. 
• To pray daily AND log my prayers. Sometimes we overlook our answered prayers.
• To wake up at 6 AM.  I am very inconsistent on my wake up time, six am gives me some time to do some of my list.
• To play with my kids when I get home.  Before I do anything else to see if they are clinging for my attention, and give it to them.
• To love my wife more.  She deserves it.

I could add more, but maybe that will happen after this 40 days.  As I could easily see this taking on a life of its own.

However I will also lay out one soft goal.  Things I'm just not sure if I can do it due to time, but we will see.

• Walk the dog (and thus walk myself) every night.

If you are a reader of this blog, are you up for the challenge?  If so grab a friend or two (or you can just do it yourself) and DO IT.

One more note to make, due to the nature of this challenge my blog will be silent of other things unless the other things warrant a double post. 

HT: Josh Young
HT: Aron

I've delayed posting anything about this, as it contains some things that could be considered inflammatory if the person doesn't read the whole post.

So if you read past this, you owe it to me to read the whole thing.

Last weekend LifeStream Christian Church sponsored a concert in the Village of Batavia.  This involved the need to close Broadway Street, a lowly traveled street during non-school times.

The Village Administrator also happens to be an Elder at LifeStream Christian Church, so he was involved in this event in two roles.

1. Elder.  It was a way to get our church name out in the public, and the fee wasn't to bad ($1200 according to the paper... more on that in a second).
2. Village Administrator. This event was also 'sponsored' by the Village of Batavia for the purpose of letting the band use the village land and advertise with a large banner over Main Street in Batavia.

I arrived about 20 minutes before the concert started and I saw my friend Bob (the Administrator/Elder) getting a verbal lashing from a middle aged (but not small) man.  Also involved were two, IMO, not fit for battle police officers and the mayor John Thebout.  I initially assumed this was an angry citizen so I headed in his direction to give some, um, personal backup.  As I approached I heard this man say to arrest Bob for disorderly conduct!  So I figured it was the police chief, Michael Gardner, and kept my distance. 

Turns out the dispute was over the closing of the street.  Gardner feels that Bob has to get a permit to close roads.  Bob feels that in his role as Village Administrator and more specifically street commissioner can shut down a road anytime he wants to.  And this concert, planned well in advance, was a reason to shut down this small and sparsely traveled road. 

The truth in the matter is that nobody, in power, apparently knows who is right.   So now Judge Anthony W. Brock will have to decide who is right in a pending court case. 

Now this could have been avoided had Gardner taken a few precautionary steps before hand (he apparently knew he was going to cause issues with this for a period of time before the actual concert).  Gardner had two options that would have satisfied his problem.

1. Talk to Village Solicitor George Leicht and ask for his legal opinion with the situation.  That is Leicht's job by the way.

2. Go to the village council and ask them to pass an ordinance making the 'right decision' here very clear.  Now this is pretty easy for Gardner considering his wife, Michelle is on council. 

However, and this is where I fault him, he decided to put the village in the spot light in a negative manner over what, at its root, is a political power struggle.  There is a very small minority that wants Bob Stewart AND Mayor Thebout out of their positions.  This movement hit its peak in the past elections when two pretty vocal opponents ran against Thebout, though one was significantly more negative then the other.  After the elections Thebout won handily, and you'd hope that this minority could accept that elections have consequences and move forward for the betterment of the village.  However they couldn't so the next council meeting will likely be a waste of time focused on this incident. 

I just wish that Gardner would spend his Sunday evenings fighting crime rather than a public service to the village of Batavia.  I lived in the village until I recently moved, and right across the street from me was a group of people that were constantly involved in shady things, and there were sometimes when I couldn't get much resolve from Mr. Gardner to fix the issue.

So why do I post this now?  Two reasons, the second because of the first.

1. The Cincinnati Enquirer has picked up on this event and written an article (Front page, section C).

2. The article mentions my church.   So I figured I'd give at least a non-partial third party opinion to the situation.

Aren't politics grand?

Though I will confess, I had my share of fun ridiculing Bob for getting arrested. :-)