About Meetings

Some people enjoy meetings and some people hate meetings.  I happen to lean toward the enjoyment side of things - but I don't like calling them "meetings" when they are with my team members at Grace.  "Meeting" has such a negative connotation to it.  I'll have to come up with some creative name for them - maybe you can help with that. I had a few such sessions with team members at Grace today, and tonight I reflect on some reasons why I tend to enjoy meetings:

1. People are smarter together.  This is almost always the case.  We typically come to much smarter decisions when we work with like-minded but diverse team members than we would have dreaming something up on our own.  I love the collaboration and results that come from working together toward a common goal.
2. Meetings are launching pads for progress.  Since I've been a working man, I've always considered the word picture of a launching pad when it comes to meetings.  Words exchanged around the table of a group of leaders are not empty words - they will eventually impact lives. That's why I try not to take any meeting lightly.  It's pretty amazing to see an idea through from the 'concept phase' with a small group to the 'implementation phase' that affects thousands.  It's quite humbling actually.
3. Meetings allow me to invest in the lives of people.  Email exchanges, conference calls, written proposals are all good - they are effective and efficient means to get things done.  But, there is nothing like sitting eyeball to eyeball with someone - catching up on their life for a while, and then rolling up our sleeves to solve a problem, birth and idea, or facilitate a change together.  It's a really cool dynamic when it's working.

Got any creative new terms I could use instead of "meeting?"

To Those From Warmer Climates

As I was shoveling this morning and as we are bracing for yet another lake effect snowstorm, I was thinking about some of my friends from the south. We have some fun at each others' expense regarding the weather. So, if you live where the weather is consistently warm (and by warm I mean above 40 degrees for the majority of the year) there are a few things that may surprise you about the snowier regions of the country. Here are three of them:

1. We think we're tougher than you. That's right I said it. People who live in frigid places like Erie, PA think they're more rugged than the rest of the country. We chuckle inside as we hear you talk about your problems thinking to ourselves, "yeah but you've never shoveled out of a lake-effect snow dump of 18" in 6 hours." Even people who used to live up north, but now live in warmer climates, still think they're tougher than the rest of y'all.
   
2. Snow gets dirty fast. If you've never been around a lot of snow you probably don't know this little tidbit. A big snowfall is only a postcard-worthy winter wonderland for a very short time. After that the plows pile it up along the streets in a big brownish dirty ole' pile because of the salt and brine that are put on it as a melting agent.
   
3. Staying warm is all about layers. I can always spot the people who have moved here from somewhere warm because they're the one's with the huge puffy coat on and a t-shirt underneath. Five or six layers of shirts and sweatshirts beats one big coat any day.
   

Great Questions from My Kids

Kids spew out some amazing questions. Kim and I have been really bad at documenting this kind of stuff. While we have invested a ton of time and love into our kids - we haven't been the greatest at keeping records, locks of hair, special papers, quotes, videos, etc. But despite our inability to save up this sort of stuff, here is a good question from each of our kids from over the years.

1. What are you thinking about mommy? Caleb (now 11) from when he was 22 months. This one might not seem that incredible, but Kim and I were amazed for weeks that Caleb asked this question. Partially because he was our first child and we didn't realize how perceptive kids are. But mainly because he was barely able to talk, and was still aware of Kim's ability to think about something other than his next need.
2. Have you ever kicked a monkey in the crotch? Chase (now 7) from when he was 3. This question came out of the blue from the back seat of my car on the way home from preschool. I almost drove the car into a ditch. My answer, "I've never been close enough."
3. Why does poop make plants grow? Ayden (now 4) from when she was 3. She asked this as I was raking some manure into our garden at the end of the fall getting it ready for next year. My response, "because that's the way God made it." That's my answer for the ones that really do stump me...

Red Flags from Pre-Marital Counseling

I've done a lot of weddings in my 15 (yikes) years as a Pastor.  I'm estimating that I've done around 40 weddings now.  Along with those weddings comes an awful lot of pre-marital counseling.  Here are three red flags that I've come across during my pre-marital counseling sessions.

1. We want to keep our finances seperate.  I'm not saying that this arrangement can't work.  But regardless of any financial wisdom in such an arrangement - the relational message that it sends is divisive.
2. We've never had an argument.  If a couple gets to their wedding day and hasn't had an argument yet - they're not ready to be married.  You have to know that your partner can fight fair before you commit the rest of your life to them.
3. Once we get married he/she will change this behavior that I don't like.  I'm amazed that really smart people actually think this will happen.  Read my lips - nothing gets easier after you're married.  If it's bad now - it will get worse (not better) after you get married.  Marriage is an amazing gift, but it takes tremendous commitment and hard work to make it great.

Reasons to Come to Grace this Weekend

If you read this blog and live in Erie- this would be a great weekend to check out one of the services at Grace.   If you already attend Grace this should not be the 1 in every 4 weekends that you don't come!  Here are three quick reasons why:

1. Mike Watson is going to tear it up with his message this weekend.  He's going to be giving a clear and simple presentation about why Jesus came.  Mike is one of those guys that was deeply changed by the love of Christ.  Jesus took his life that was really screwed up and made it whole.  It will be an awesome weekend to bring friends too - the more the merrier.
2. This is our big Thanksgiving Outreach weekend.  The church has seriously shattered expectations.  Last I heard - we had raised almost $27,000 to provide Thanksgiving dinner to those in need this year.  That is unbelievable!  Last year we raised $17,000 and thought that was ridiculous.  Our facility will be abuzz this weekend with hundreds of people volunteering to pack bags to be sent out into the community on Monday morning.  Check out some pictures from last year.
3. You can pick up your tickets for The Sounds of Christmas.  Our annual event that is going to be absolutely breathtaking this year.  It will also be coupled with a brief celebration of Pastor Al's 30 years at Grace.

3 Quick Things

OK - so I'm updating the feel and flavor of my blog. Up to this point I have written about general musings of life and leadership and God stuff. That variety will still be there, but I'm going to use the unifying principle of 3's. So from this point forward I will either have 3 points in each blog or I will do 3 part blog entries. If you look at yesterday's post I was practicing - it was the third post in a three part series AAAND had three points in it. Yes - that's right - I went mental ninja on you. Anyway- most of my posts will begin with an introductory paragraph like this one and then move to the 3 points. So today I present 3 quick reasons to organize my posts around 3 Quick Things:

1. People like lists - blog readers can tend to be lazy and are more likely to scan lists vs. reading whole paragraphs. Lists also are more interesting, look neat, keep thoughts succinct, are more likely to be linked to, and help to organize concepts.
2. Three is a good number - you have the whole Trinity thing but then you also have the little pigs, amigos, stooges, blind mice, wise men, ring circus, strikes you're out, etc. etc.
   
3. I'm a Pastor OK? - and the whole stereotype of Pastors is that they have three points for everything. So I'm just gonna go with that.

What do you think of my new format?

The Progression of Sin: Part 3 - Reverse the Curse

There is a simple act that God put into place to counteract the progression of sin. It is confession. Mastering the art of confession will lead to other critical things like repentance (changing behavior), and humility (changing attitude), and the ability to resist temptation (changing thinking), etc. But the starting place is confession. Three quick things about confession:

1. Confession is agreeing with God that we have done something wrong; that we’ve either done something He says we shouldn’t do, or failed to do something He says we should do. No intermediary is necessary - we can go directly to God with this
2. The scope of the confession should match the scope of the sin. Sin should be confessed as widely as it affects others. Private sin requires only private confession to God. Personal sin that involves others requires interpersonal confession to the people involved. Public sins (those that affect a large group of people) regrettably must be confessed publicly as an example and as a warning to others.
3. Confession should be specific. We have a tendency to throw all our sins in a big pile like dirty laundry and ask God to forgive all of it. There is power in getting painfully honest: God, I told those people I was late for the meeting because the traffic was bad. Truthfully I just procrastinated and didn’t give myself enough time to get there. I knew that I was going to be rushed before I left. Telling them that it was traffic was a lie. I am a liar. Please forgive me. Usually the root of sin goes even deeper than that. The reason that I lied was that I wanted to control their impression of me. I wanted them to think better of me than is real. The result is that now I am living an image rather than living in reality. And it is an image I'm going to have to work to keep up even if it's not really me.

The Progression of Sin: Part 2

Yesterday's post covered the progression that leads up to the act of sin - today we pick up with that act and then look at the effects. Read part 1 first.

4. Disobedience (3:6b) - …she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

• This is the act of sin. Sin is a violation of God’s design. When desire is coupled with deception and doubt, our actions will be affected. We will eventually act on our intake.

5. Shame (3:7) - Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

• Compare this verse to Genesis 2:25, “they were naked and they felt ‘no shame.’” Shame is built in to all of us at some level and it is ten times more powerful than embarrassment. Raw shame causes division between people and between us and God. It leads people to turn inward and build boundaries. Suddenly it was more natural for Adam and Eve to hide from each other than to "cleave" to one another as per God's design. Shame is powerful force.

6. Fear (3:8-10) - Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?” He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

• The unhealthy response to shame is fear. Specifically the fear that someone will find out about our sin. Fear causes people to try to hide from God. Again, this progression fights agains the natural response that God created in people. Suddenly it was more natural for them to run from God than toward Him. This is the first time that hiding ever happened.

7. Scrambling (3:11-13) - And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?” The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

• When shame and fear are combined, people panic. We no longer care what happens to anyone else – it’s self protection time. People "scramble" differently – but it always involves doing things that don’t make sense. We hide, we build walls, we blame others, we lash out in anger, we turn to addictive behavior, we start to ooze selfish negativity.

Tomorrow a word about the very practical activity that God has given us that will stop this negative progression of sin in its tracks.

The Progression of Sin: Part 1

Each month - the staff at Grace has been going through some personal discipleship stuff together. We just finished our third such training at our meeting last week. We discussed the danger of sin and temptation as a leader, and the power of confession to counteract the advances of sin. In the first part of our study we walked through the progression of sin as outlined in Genesis 3. Today I'll list those that lead up to the act of sin itself - and will conclude the list tomorrow.

1. Deception (3:1) - Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

• There is a deceiver who knows our vulnerability. His strategy is to strike at the relationship between people and God. It is amazing to imagine how powerful the force of deception must have been to make unfallen people fall, and sinless people sin. It is a very powerful force. All sin begins by believing things that aren’t true - this is deception.

2. Doubt (3:4-5) - "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

• Doubt takes on two forms. First we begin to doubt sins consequences, “I can get away with it – in fact, I’ll be better off if I do it." And second, we begin to doubt the goodness of God. We begin to believe that all the good things God has given us are not quite good enough.

3. Desire/Enticement for that which I don’t have (3:6a) - When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom…

• Desire by itself is a good thing, but not when it’s paired with deception and doubt. When the heart is deceived, the head begins to doubt, and the eyes become an accomplice to sin. The forbidden thing began to look good and desire took hold of Eve. This is lust - giving in to that which is "pleasing to the eye." We can lust for things like power, greed, success, fame, thrills, stuff, people, etc.

2 Years From a Teenager

Caleb turned 11 years old on Monday. He woke up this morning - on his birthday - to a winter wonderland. Ironically, there was also a big snowstorm the day he came into the world 11 years ago. I'll never forget Kim's call to me at work from the hospital saying, "We're going to have a baby today - swing home and pick up my bag on your way down here." (She was at the doctor's for a regularly scheduled checkup - only to find that she was already dialated and ready to have a baby).

Caleb is an amazing kid. He's overcome a bunch of adversity already in his short life with his many allergies growing up and continuing battle with asthma. I can sum up Caleb best by quoting his teacher in our recent conference with her. She said, "A teacher gets the privilege of having a student like Caleb about once every 10 years." He's consciencious, brave, he stands up for what's right, he's a good influence on his friends and siblings, he already loves the Scriptures, he's an amazing big brother, he's respectful and trustworthy, he's honest, he's smart and funny. He's the whole package. What a great kid - happy 11th birthday to my firstborn son. What a gift he is to our family.

The Scariest thing about This Election

We all know there is media bias - it has been very evident this election season. I suppose it's something that we've come to expect. It has been tolerable as long as one of the branches of government was led by Republicans. In that regard it can be justified as a necessary "check and balance." My concern is that if all three branches are controlled by Democrats and the media is also left-leaning - the system is set up for corruption. Not because the left is any more corrupt than the right - but if the balance of power is already tilted one way and then the the media jumps on that side of the scale too - it makes for an interesting scenario. Check out this study of this year's election coverage.

My Little Girl is 4 Today

I can't believe it - 4 years ago on Halloween night - Kim sat at our door passing out candy as she was in labor with Ayden. We were both hoping that she could hold off until after midnight so that we didn't have a Halloween Birthday. Of course my wife is amazingly controlled and was able to hold out until about 3 AM. I remember the night very well. We did the Halloween thing - tucked the boys in bed - had Kim's mom come up to the house to spend the night and snuck off to the hospital. Caleb was suspicious that something was up - but we didn't want him to be worried or up all night - so we didn't really tell him that it was all going down. Chase drifted off into oblivion like his normal-laid-back self.

Ayden Joy is the perfect name for our girl. Ayden means "fiery one" and joy means... well ... "joy." She is the perfect combination of both. She knows what she wants and can be assertive and even demanding. But she is also the happiest little kid and very funny. I never thought having a little girl could do to me what it's done (despite the warnings of many dads with daughters) - but it has. I'm amazed at how precious she is to me. I'm posting a little shrine in honor of my big girl - 4 years old today!

Multi-Site Church - Part 1

A couple of weeks ago in my sermon "Outside the Walls" in the We Will Tell Revisited Series I talked about our plans as a church to launch our first satellite campus in the next 12-18 months. We are planning to launch a multi-site model in which Grace would have a number of satellite campuses around the region. I wanted to use a few posts to unpack the multi-site concept. Some of the info in this post is thanks to the Acts 29 Network.

What Is a Multi-Site Church?

• A Single Church
• With Multiple Worship Services
• In Multiple Locations
• Some use live speakers and some use video venues

Advantages of a Multi-Site Church vs. a Church Plant

• Oversight by One Board
• One Budget
• Allows the church to maximize it's staff
  
• Shared Resources

Why initiate a Multi-Site Church?

• Evangelism Potential
  
• A Creative Way to Manage Growth
• A Strategy for Reaching Different Communities

Our intention with our first multi-site would be to use live worship and live preaching, but that the satellite would use the same sermon series, website, ministry philosophy, etc. We are taking a look over at the Harborcreek/ Wesleyville/ Penn State Behrend area right now to see what God might be up to. Stay tuned...

Thoughts on this Weekend

This weekend at Grace was amazing! We have such an awesome church. Here are some thoughts:

• We had the largest non-holiday attendance in our history as a church. We had 1017 people at church this weekend. That rocks! Keep bringing, keep inviting, keep watching God change lives.
  
• We did our version of "cardboard testimonies" this weekend and it brought the house down. I'm serious when I say that this is only a small portion of the stories that are being written at Grace these days. What a great reminder of the life change that is happening all around us all the time.
• Al did a great job talking through what it might have been like for the Acts 2 church to celebrate their existence one year after Pentecost. It was a new angle that was really intriguing to think about.
• Despite the difficult decisions and conversations we've been having about some changes at 9:15 - many of those 9:15 folks were at church and still engaging with what God is up to. I'm looking forward to getting a "task force" together to keep working toward implementation of the new weekend service arrangement.
• Met with Josh last week - we are trying to connect with everyone after their 3rd visit. He was a 3rd time guest that I met at Starbucks last Wednesday. It was awesome to hear his story and meet his fiance after services on Sunday.
• It was also great to catch up with Jim following the services and provide him with some resources for a talk that he's giving at his school. God will continue to use Grace folks to spread His fame around the Erie region and it's always a privilege to be a part of that!
• I can't believe that we've been in our new facility for almost a year! Dave's video tribute to our 1 year anniversary was very moving and it set the tone for the amazing services this weekend.
• Brian and his teams were awesome. Who Can Stand is one of my favorite Brian Lusky songs and one of my favorite worship songs period. Don't miss the worship event that is coming next weekend. It is going to be a blast to both honor God with our worship and to be a part of a live worship album recording session!
• Got a chance to meet with Jim, Matt, and Sam on Saturday to talk about small group leadership and personal spiritual formation. It is so fun to hear what God is doing through our groups that meet all over the region during the course of any given week. This is where spiritual growth happens!

All in all it's just an awesome time to be at Grace. To have a front row seat to see what God is doing through our church and all over the city is amazing. This is only the beginning.

This Weekend is Going to Rock

This weekend at Grace is going to be unbelievable. The church is gathering to celebrate our one year anniversary in our new building, and to celebrate the many changed lives that have occurred since our move. It is going to be moving and powerful and a "can't miss" service! We will also be re-committing ourselves as a church to the vision that God has laid out for our future. Our dream is to continue to reach out to more people and to see hundreds and thousands of more lives changed and affected by the scandalous life and death of our savior. At the end of the services this weekend we will be inviting people to commit money to this vision. It is going to be a beautiful expression of devotion and commitment to our Lord. It's going to be awesome. Get there early and be eager for what God will do. The cardboard testimonies segment is going to be off the hook!

Long Stretch

Sorry for the long blogless stretch - I'm ready to re-commit to some consistency here. I have to get more consistent in order to get ready for the blog section of the new Grace website which is getting ready to launch in a week or so. The last several weeks I've been busy working on some changes that will affect Grace for a long time. It's a really exciting time to be at the church. Want to keep the momentum and innovation going so that we don't become a barrier again to what God is trying to do at Grace. We waffled around decisions before for fear of hurting feelings - can't do that any more -the stakes are too high.

Anyway - I'll post some leadership learning from my most recent trip to Newspring in South Carolina and Tony Morgan's coaching Network this week. But the first one is just a funny exchange that happened over our lunch break.

What Tony actually said, "Hey Jack, how do you like your Mac Air?"
What I heard... "Hey Jack, how do you like your back hair?"

I'm thinking - holy crap - Tony really gets close with his mentor-ees - above and beyond the call of duty if you ask me...

How to Study the Bible

I find it such a privilege to preach the word of God at Grace. This past sermon was an absolute uphill struggle the whole week. At 3 AM on Saturday morning I found myself still wrestling with my manuscript and got the point of pretty much ditching it and starting from scratch. God used the preparation to point out some shortcomings in my own life and my own walk -so part of the struggle was just letting God do business in my heart.

Anyway - it was a message about the importance of the disciplines in our efforts to follow Christ. The word "discipline" comes from the word "disciple" so the two concepts are pretty intertwined. I challenged the church to practice their faith by committing themselves to become "deep of soul" when no one is looking. To commit to a training regiment so that when it comes time to live, and make decisions, and stand up for Christ, and do the right things in a relationship - that they will be prepared and free to do the right thing.

Midway through the sermon I threw out an offer (totally short notice and without even having a room reserved) to come back on Tuesday night for a 1 1/2 hour training session on how to study the Bible. 96 people came back on Tuesday! I was blown away! I offered a bunch of resources that night and talked through two study methods that really work with any passage of Scripture. One is called the inductive Bible study method and is geared more for a deeper study of the word - the other is called, well I'm not sure there is a name for it - but it is more of a devotional study method. I plan to offer the session again sometime. Shoot me a comment here if you want me to email you a packet of the stuff that I handed out that night.

The 5 Year Getaway

So from the time Caleb (my oldest) was 5 I decided that I was going to do an every 5 year getaway with each of my kids. We'll do 2 days and 1 night away from home doing some different stuff that they love to do and just hanging out for a couple days without the normal distractions. I have found it to be helpful in unlocking the hearts of each of my kids and getting to have conversations about stuff that we don't usually to talk about in the course of everyday life. This past weekend I took Caleb who is now 10 and on his second go-round of this getaway, to watch the Browns and Steelers in a Sunday night football game. We stayed overnight with some dear friends from college who also have kids and a PS3 - so that was killer for Caleb. Then we went to Dave and Busters the next day for some video game madness. It was a great football game in the remnants of Hurricane Ike (60 mph wind gusts at the stadium - it was so cool), and just an awesome time together all around.

Anyway - one of the conversations we had was about life goals. I talked to him about the passage in Luke 2:52 that is the only passage of Scripture about Jesus' developmental years when he was on earth. It simply says, "And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men." It's such a complete picture of development in a short verse.

• He grew in wisdom - mentally
• He grew in stature - physically
• He grew in favor with God - spiritually
• He grew in favor with men - socially

So we used that verse as a jumping off point and we talked through some of our goals in each of those areas for the next year. Caleb really enjoyed the conversation and really wrestled through some stuff that he wanted to see happen in this next year in his life. Here were a few things he came up with.

• Mentally - straight A's all 4 quarters of this year
• Physically - at least 60 minutes of active play every day
• Spiritually - read his Bible before bed every night with me and fully engage by asking questions
• Socially - reach out to one particular kid in our neighborhood of another ethnicity who doesn't really have any friends here yet.

Here were a few things that I shared with him for me:

• Mentally - take one Master's level class again beginning this Spring
• Physically - lose 10 lbs before October 17
• Spiritually - journal my application portions of my personal study of the Scriptures
• Socially - invite 3 different neighbors to our house who haven't yet been in our home by Christmas.

All in all it was a great time for us together - and when I kissed him good night tonight and hung out in his room for a bit - there was a whole new level of closeness, trust, and spiritual fervor. Mission accomplished.

Some Takeaways from Tony's Coaching Network

As some of you know, I traveled (by car) to Anderson, SC last week as I was invited by Tony Morgan from Newspring Church to be part of a coaching network for Executive Pastors and other guys in that tier of leadership in their churches. It was a great experience. It was the first of 6 trips down there for mentoring, accountability, and mutual learning from some really smart and very amazing guys. You can check out some pics of Newspring at my flickr site. Thought I'd post some leadership takeaways from the event - some general and some personal.

1. The church across this country is in good hands judging by these guys I was with - they are smart, humble, hungry for God, and ready to lay everything on the line to do church right.
2. I have to be more disciplined in blocking my time for effectiveness. I need to do a better job in achieving a good flow to my week between tasks and people.
3. Aside from things that only I can do -every other task that comes to me I should be asking, "who can I empower to do this?"
   
4. One's area of greatest strength is usually also their area of greatest vulnerability.
5. Leading Up: what are some things that I can do to help my boss be more effective?
6. Leading Laterally: I should always be putting myself in a position that will bring out the best in my peers.
7. When it comes to creating and executing new ministries - everything is an experiment.
8. Leadership often involves letting people make their own mistakes even if you can foresee problems ahead. Parents do this with their children all the time.
9. Any inter-relational issues within a staff are only compounded when a church decides to go multi-site.
10. A great question to ask staff members regularly is, "what are you doing this week that you shouldn't be doing?"
11. As close as I am to him, there are some things that a Senior Pastor goes through that I simply can't relate to from my current chair. I will never know the burdens that he carries until I've sat in that chair.
    
12. Books I need to read soon: Death by Meetings; What Got You Here Won't Get You There; Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It; Execution: The Art of Getting Things Done (this is a re-read)
    

Back From Vacation

Well today was my first day back in the office after an extended vacation - just over 2 weeks (this also explains my lackluster blogging during this same period). We had a great time. I have an absolutely quality family. Wow. We went to Plum Island in northern Massachusetts for the first part, then on to Boston for a few days, and then back home to work on several projects we have going on right now.



Some observations from our trip:

1. My family is killer. I know I already said it - but my wife and my kids are the best on earth. We had a blast together.
2. My pace is a little too frantic. This was the first beach vacation we've taken as a family. The change in pace was crazy that first day. Going from 100 mph to 0 mph is a shock to the system. I sat on the beach shaking the whole first day!
3. The Atlantic Ocean is cold in northern Mass. even in August. Can you say "no feeling in your extremeties?"
4. The sunrise and sunset on the island were both beautiful. I was able to take in both. A close second to Presque Isle in Erie.
5. Ayden is a girlie girl. I don't know how it happened becuase Kim is not that way... and ... well... neither am I. She played Barbies with her cousin for hours on the beach and spent a lot of time stuffing sand in her bathing suit in "all the right places."
6. I had access to some of the best seafood in the country and yeah... still really don't like it. But if you batter it and fry it and I can at least get it down...
7. We had the best pre-trip prayer. I asked the kids to pray for our trip as we were pulling out of our neighborhood - the boys tore it up - great prayers about safety and fun and relationships - Ayden prayed, "God, help our house to not catch on fire while we're gone."
8. There are so many things I love about big cities. Everytime I'm in one I fantasize about living there - probably aint gonna happen - I like where I'm at more.
9. I love Grace. I always have a lot of time to think and reflect on ministry and church while I'm away. I wouldn't trade our church, our ministry, our future for any other.
10. It's good to be home. Vacations are lovely- but it's nice to be in our own house - our own bed - our own life rhythms again.

I'm heading off to South Carolina for a coaching network with Tony Morgan tomorrow. I'm totally pumped about it. I'll have more to report after that I'm sure. But for now - it's good to be home - that is - until I leave for South Carolina in the morning...