Consistency

My friend Steve is a great mentor to me, because he often reminds me of great and important things without even saying them to me directly.  Some are more general issues, others more specific.  He reminded me a few days ago about the old story of if you want to get the most rocks in the jar, you have to start with the big rocks first.  The point is that the little projects for which we have responsibility are often easier, we think take less time, and so we put them into our world first.  When we do that, we prevent some of the most important things from ever fitting into a packed schedule.

He also reminded me yesterday that if you don't blog regularly, your regulars will quit reading your posts because they don't see something new consistently.  So....my goal is to ratchet back up the consistency on posting.

I'll also attempt to keep this rather short.  In the last two weeks, we've lost a family member (Carlotta's grandfather, Don) and a close family friend (Juli Heller, from LaGrange FCOG) to death.  We've also heard about friends near to our hearts (our friends the Steffens, also through the LaGrange church) who are grieving a tremendous loss now.  In some ways, some of our church plant stuff has been put on hold as we've travelled for these last couple of weeks.  Ironically, it's also been during these last two weeks when some of the best strategic words from the Lord have come our way.  We've also begun conversations with some strategic people who really resonate with what we're doing (some of them have even done the same thing in the area in the somewhat recent past) who are just pouring encouragement and mentoring into me faster than I can take it in sometimes.  I probably need to start carrying a recorder or something, because I know God is speaking prophetically through these people.  We're learning.  We're finding a groove.  Our house is inching (there's still a lot of paint to be put on a lot of walls, but we're moving forward) toward a level of completion we can accept.  

Camden is growing.  I'm working toward improving some disciplines as it relates to time and basic spiritual practices like study and journaling.  So, while I would not say we are finding a normal just yet (that day is a long way down the road), we're getting there.

I want to say two thank you's really quick.  One, thank you to our life group.  None of you may ever read this, but it seems like in some unique way each week, you "save" us.  You pour the little encouragement, or laughter or hunger into our lives that just give us the strength to get to Tuesday.  I can't tell you how you have made our lives better just by being with you.  

Second, thanks to the LaGrange church.  We were there this past Sunday/Monday for Juli's funeral.  You let me come in and just kinda act like I still worked there.  We laughed and talked and for a moment, all the natural feeling of our time together (almost 10 years) came rushing back.  And when we left there wasn't this sadness that we were driving away again.  Instead, there really was joy because we know that our relationship is not based on proximity.  There's a deep love and affection we have for one another that no distance could ever diminish.  Someday, there will be a church in this area that we lead.  My hope is that that kind of love and fondness would permeate our new place here in a measure similar to that of our friends at LaGrange.