Okay, so as promised here are the pictures of them installing the pier system that is necessary for our foundation. They are about 6 feet long, and they bolt sections together as they go deeper so they can be quite long. The tractor’s attachment screws them into the ground and when they hit solid rock they twist so you know they are firmly planted. Otherwise the put two to three sections together and they are deep enough not to move. it is pretty cool to watch!
Archive for April, 2008
I love Colorado! I am sitting on my deck cooling down from my morning run! Yes I did it! 2 miles, which isn’t a lot, but for me it is about 25 minutes of sweating and panting. We have a great view off our deck, and this time of year it is cool in the morning so it is a great place to wind down and blog! Here is the view off our porch and a picture of the kids this morning…
God makes good stuff!
I wound up working yesterday, (I was debating making Mondays my day off instead of Friday) but it was primarily running errands, making phone calls, stopping by the property to see the progress, and parsing Greek words (We are going through a series on the book of Ephesians and the New Testament was originally written in Greek. To be sure you get all the nuances of it you go back to the original language to study it. I don’t know Greek, but I have great software! I only wish it was available for my Mac so I could use one computer instead of two – it runs on Windows – I hate windows!) to prepare for this weeks message. Not a bad day at all! They were putting a fence around the foundation hole we have on the property so no one messes with the work that will be done, or falls in, and today at 10:00 A.M. the piers will be dropped off so they can begin installing them! Finally progress! I will post pictures as soon as I get them. The last time I was able to post progress pictures was some time ago, so I am really looking forward to that!
We go to a parent meeting for the charter high school that we are considering sending the twins to tonight, it will be a step into a whole new world of having and raising high schoolers! Man I feel old!
I am about to run out of battery power, and need a shower bad, so it is off to my day… see ya tomorrow!
What a weekend! I am always amazed at the things God does for His churches. If you have been reading this blog for any time you know that we have been in the middle of a worship leader transition. We are looking for someone that can play guitar or keyboard and lead our church in worship on the weekends. So until we find that person I have been making a lot of phone calls trying to fill the position from week to week. Last week was no exception, I had talked to about 4 people, the last one was a worship pastor at a church north of us. I got his name from a friend that didn’t know he had a job at a church, but said he had done a great job when they needed a fill in worship leader. I called Russ and found out that he leads at Black Forest Chapel. He said he might have someone on his worship team that could come out and help us and that he would talk to her and get back to me. He did. Friday morning he called and said that as he was talking to Mickey – the woman he was thinking could lead us, she suggested their entire worship team should come! They thought it would be great, so after they played their set at their church, they loaded all their instruments in their cars and drove out! They brought 3 singers, a bass guitar, keyboards, two acoustic guitars, an electric guitar AND a full drum kit! They blew us away with not only their talent but their willingness to come and help! They put themselves out there, went the extra mile, harried and stressed with all that had to be done in a very short time (they arrived at 5 till 10:00, and we start our service at 10:30 – our sound guys have never had to deal with a band yet – so we were all scrambling) but it was AMAZING! Truly it felt a little like God was showing off. I went from thinking we would have to have CD music to sing along with to watching an entire worship team come! It was really cool. We are very thankful.
Thanks Russ, Mickey and all the rest of you that so willingly went out of your way to help! May we all be like you – sharing your talents with others in need!
We also found out last week that our foundation permit is in, so we should see the piers and cement start going in on our property this week. That will be a really good thing!
I am now wrestling with what day I should take off during the week. It seems, as with everything else, if I don’t do it first thing it doesn’t get done… if I don’t work our in the morning I don’t work out, if I don’t study in the morning I don’t get Bible study in my day… and if I don’t take a day off early in the week (Fridays have been my official day off, but everything that crowds in during the week makes it hard to protect) I don’t seem to have a weekday off. I am not sure yet how I feel about it, so I may experiment a little until I find a good solution… knowing that there is one less day to prepare for the weekend stresses me out too – we’ll see and I will let you know…
Until tomorrow – have a great day!
A mosquito, small but deadly, and something we overlook every day can take a child. In Africa for children under 5 years old the number one killer is malaria. Carried and transmitted through mosquito bites. With the knowledge of the devastating effects of this small bug, imagine being a parent of a young child in Africa. Every time they go out to play you worry, every time you tuck them into bed you worry, the smallest buzzing noise brings terror to your heart, and trying to defend you son or daughter against these flying terrorists is so difficult.
But there is a easy way to protect children at night. It is as simple as a net that they sleep under. It brings peace of mind, and safety for at least portions of the day. And here is the best part – they are cheap. You can have an impact in a family’s life with as little as $10.00. You probably spend more on coffee in a week. It is one third of your cable bill a month, a movie ticket, so small it is an easy thing to do – and you can possibly save a child, a family, a mother, from devastating effects. World Malaria Day allows a swarm of small amounts to add up to dramatic results – we can, if we all help, stop the devastating effects of this problem. Do you have ten bucks? Do you have friends you can tell about this… ten dollars is a huge help to those that need it…
Click HERE to get to a website that will allow you to buy a net or two for someone that needs it!
A Few Steps Forward – Working Out & Our Church Building
Published April 24, 2008 Daily Blog Leave a CommentI did it… I actually convinced my wife that we should bring the Bowflex into the house. It is way more likely to get used inside than out in the garage. If you wanted to use it out there you have to move the car, and here in Colorado when it snows they sand the streets, so when you pull your car back into the garage the sand filled snow that has collected on your car melts and leaves behind a small dirty beach. So it is less than ideal to work out in the garage – and it was a good excuse not to! She agreed that we could put it in the room downstairs that the treadmill is in, so I gladly disassembled it moved it, and reassembled it. I have actually used it twice this week! Today I may even run on the treadmill!
I was talking to some friends yesterday about how hard it is to start working out. It is a whole lot easier to keep going than it is to start. I am the kind of person that when I am not working out loses all discipline too. If there are cookies in the house I am way more likely to grab a couple at various times throughout the day when I am out of the routine than when I am. I can be really hard on myself about it too. So here is to regaining some (self) control over my workout routine and sweet tooth!
Good news, the permit came in for us to begin the foundation work on the church building project. That is what we have been waiting on to take a dirt crater and begin laying concrete and helical piers. Soon the actual building will begin to go up. Finally! It is hard to grasp that this building project should have been completed in July and we are just now getting to a point we can do construction type work! Every week we delay is a later completion day – and with everything that is riding on this project we need to finish as soon as possible! I am not sure how much you know about church starts, but most public schools are rented out on the weekend for churches to meet in. That is kind of the way new churches get started until they can afford to build. We are doing the reverse of that, we are leasing our church building to a public high school. It means we will build part of the building to suit their needs, but it also means we don’t have to figure out how to pay the entire mortgage as a growing congregation and we can put more money into helping people and less into our facilities – a huge problem for most churches. When you figure any building $2 million or more, which is about average for 400 or so people, cost about $20,000 a month you can see how quickly a church’s income is used up on facilities, and how much less goes into helping people. Partnering with a school or business is a great way to use the space that would normally sit vacant during the week. It allows us to give back to the community by capitalizing on something we both need, and a multi-use building lessens the footprint and impact of needing more space for a church, a daycare, and a school. If each of us built a building it would take up three times the area, three times the resources, and would be three times the cost! It is a win-win situation for everyone involved, but in any partnership there are things that will have to be worked through. I imagine we will see a lot more of this kind of collaborative meeting space being built as costs increase and make building less and less affordable for smaller business and churches. Plus it just makes sense!
Enough building talk, as you can imagine dealing with all the permit issues and building setbacks, my blood pressure needs a little attention, so I am going to get on the treadmill now! Wish me luck!
Are You Enjoying The Journey? Through American Idol Eyes…
Published April 23, 2008 Daily Blog 7 Comments
I noticed something last night, and if you are a fan of American Idol you probably did too. (Remember that there was no good TV because of the writer’s strike so we had to watch something!) As the season has progressed there are two kinds of singers, those that are getting increasingly nervous and flustered, and those that are enjoying the experience and stepping into it with confidence. It is really easy to see when they are alone on the stage singing, those that lack the confidence and are caught up in the nervous moment are faltering, even cracking under the pressure. Those that seem to be hitting their stride are coming out of their boxes and hitting home runs every time they get on stage, even if the music is not their thing. (Last night it was Broadway tunes and I think most of them never had heard or seen an Andrew Lloyd Weber production) It is sad to watch the very talented crash and burn on live TV, but it is exciting to see the other stars rising to the challenge.
You can see the panic of some of their faces when they start their songs. It can be almost painful to watch as they wrestle with trying to attach to the music to the crowd. The judges take all of it in and are very clear when it doesn’t connect – even Paula, who doesn’t seem to make sense most times, will indicate that something was missing. I can identify with the contestants. I have had times in my life when what I was doing didn’t seem to connect with where I was at that moment. I was so caught up in the end game, becoming something else, wanting to be somewhere else or being the best or better than I was at the time, that I missed out on all the great experiences along the way. I was so focused on getting through that time, or achieving certain results I missed the journey.
What I am enjoying watching now is the AI contestants that are caught up in the moment. They are star struck and wide eyed. They are fully aware of the incredibly experiences they are getting, the coaching, the celebrity mentors, the publicity. They seem to soak it all in… you can even tell when they are on the stage singing that they are caught up in the moment. They are totally living in the present, knowing at any moment it could end and you can see the joy in their eyes for their time in it. When I realized that this life is all about the paths we take and not about the goals we set, I began to see the differences in my own life that are so evident in the contestants performances. If we get so caught up in the end results we miss the journey to get there we will be disappointed in all we have missed. If we focus on the journey, the learning’s along the way, the lessons we glean from our experiences, the friendships and relationships we develop on the pathways we take, become the best part of the experience – the satisfaction of accomplishing a goal pales in comparison to the blessings of the journey. If we are goal oriented we can miss ALL of the blessings that come on the journey, and if the goals are not achieved then the disappointment can be overwhelming. But if the focus is on the journey then the blessings along the way are just as satisfying as reaching the goals!
I read a quote recently, not sure where it came from, but it makes a lot of sense;
Get used to enjoying the journey, because the destination is just a mirage!
Sorry this post is so late – I had to run to our bank this morning to pick up some documents, then Trish and I ran them to the complete other end of the city to have them signed by one of our trustees and faxed back… so we stopped for lunch afterwards. Chili’s Mushroom Jack Fajitas – man those are good!
Now it is off to more studying and research! Hope you had a great day, see ya tomorrow!
We had an awesome weekend! We had great family time and one of my daughters paid for dinner last night! Yesterday at church I talked about being incredibly generous, and what can happen when we re-organize our priorities to be generous with our lives. Generosity is not just found in giving financially; it is also found in giving your time and talents to help others. Imagine if you had a pitcher of water representing the blessings given to you in this life, and a cup to catch the water in being your decisions that affect how the blessings are handled. Half of the American population has decided that their cups must be incredibly huge – they over estimate how much time is in the pitcher every week and over schedule, they don’t understand their talents and minimize their potential – limiting what comes out of the pitcher, or overspend what they make. (the majority of Americans spend $1.22 for every $1.00 they make.) These decisions impact us, and others because the pitcher’s water never fills our cup. And worse, it never overflows to help others!
If however, we decide to take an inventory of who we are and what we have, and change our habits and behaviors, we can change the way we view our time, treasure, and talents. We can reduce the size of the cup we fill up, we can limit our spending to give more, we can limit our activities to volunteer more, we can better understand our talents and use them to help others. By doing these things we reduce the amount needed to fill our cups and the water poured from the pitcher fills us up completely and overruns into the lives of people around us! We can give to places that help meet needs, we can touch someone’s life that needs help, we can become a generous person and be known by our giving! You have heard it said, “it is better to give than to receive” but there are many that need to receive and if you are reading this you live a blessed life and most likely are in a place you can help others! There are so many around us that don’t have clean water to drink. 1 child dies in the world every 80 seconds because of unsanitary drinking water. If all those that have extra, or have reduced what they need to find excess, then we could solve problems like this in the world. If we limit what we need to live on and how we spend our time, we will find incredible blessings by giving time, treasure and talents to help those that need our help! We need to take the blessings we have received and pass them along to be a blessing to others, or we will miss out on being the generous people we all long to be…
What Are You Learning? What Are You Unlearning?
Published April 18, 2008 Leadership Fridays Leave a Comment21st century illiterate
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” ~ Alvin Toffler
Today on Leadership Friday, I wanted to explore this concept a little. I have talked before about how leaders are learners, but this makes it hit home and takes it a little further. This idea can fly in the face of our needs for routine, and for things not to change, but if we don’t we can become so stagnant we will not move forward. Yesterday I was in a meeting and there was a man 70 years old in it. He had been a Marine and in the early 80’s retired because there was going to be a “computer on every desk” and he didn’t want to learn about how to use a computer. He never has… Imaging living in today’s world and having no computer knowledge. He is not literate in what it takes to lead in this day and age.
So if Alvin Toffler is correct we need to ask ourselves at least three questions:
1. What do I need to learn – what is new around me that I don’t know, understand or participate in?
2. What do I need to unlearn – what habits, paradigms, thoughts, systems, possessions do I need to let go of?
3. What do I need to relearn – think about the software upgrades that constantly have us learning new features on a program we already know well. A system or process that we may have not adjusted to that we need to because that is how it will be in the future, maybe it is something as simple as the kind of music I listen to in the car, or at church.
Keep in mind this is not an easy process… we are all change resistant, but if we fight change too much we get left behind or possibly miss out on things that can be incredibly beneficial!
5 A.M.? 6 A.M.? 6:30 A.M. – If I Have To
Published April 17, 2008 Daily Blog 6 CommentsTags: routine, sleep in, wake up call
In the past, I don’t know, maybe 6 years I have been an early riser. I have learned that if I want to get some things done I have to do them first thing, even before the kids get up, so it was necessary to get up around 5 A.M. I would make coffee, do some Bible Study, pray, and then work out. Usually by the time I got back from my run the kids would be into their morning routine, and I could breeze in and help, maybe a little sweaty, but help non the less! This was a fantastic routine, I would get ready as they were on their way to school and I could be at work by 8:00-8:30. It was cool because when you develop this kind of discipline in your life, things get a little easier to maintain. I would watch what I ate because I was working out and didn’t want to make thing harder on myself, I had a fresh mind from the exercise, a great time to learn as I listened to leadership podcasts as I worked out, I felt good about myself and liked being prepared for work and getting the jump on the day.
Recently, well honestly since we moved back here from Texas, 5 A.M. wake up calls are non-existant. I set my alarm, and every week day it goes off at 5, but guess what… it gets promptly shut off. The second alarm goes off at 6:30 A.M. and this one I HAVE to get up to otherwise I am the only one still in bed. I hate being the only one in bed, it makes me feel lazy. I get to help Trish with lunches and make coffee – sometimes I only make coffee, I call it the ministry of presence; I may only be sitting on the couch watching everyone get ready, but at least I am there! Seriously sometimes I do help with lunches though!
I go to bed at the same time I used to, I have no reason not to get up… I just don’t! It frustrates me because by the time the kids are off and I do my Bible study and take a shower I feel like I am late. I don’t work out in the morning anymore because that would just take another hour of time and I already feel behind! I keep telling myself I will do it in the evenings, but that never happens. So I find myself in this inner battle, turmoil of the mind, spinning the thoughts over and over and around and around. Am I suddenly lazy? Am I undisciplined? Am I just getting old and cant do what I used to? Am I lacking the motivation? What is it? And when I am not working out I feel like, “what’s the point?” and I eat a cookie – or two. It starts a downward spiral… I have to break the cycle. I need to get up early again… it may be hard but I will be so satisfied when I am back in that routine. I will tell you how it goes, but next week – I am giving it another shot!
What kinds of routines do you find yourself in? Have you ever felt undisciplined if you fall out of the routine? What have you done to get back into the swing of things?
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