Ephphatha

what a wonderful holy week- i was surprised again and again by the awesome power of the living God. although, by the time sunday came and went, i was getting tired- physically- but spiritually and emotionally i felt the best i have in a long time. our community came together in an awesome way beginning on Good Friday- a tenebrae service of darkness that about 90 percent of the people gathered had ever been to. when it was over i was approached by one woman, in tears, who felt she had just been to a funeral...but knew the story did not end there. another man approached me (he has been a regular attender since we started worshipping but has not taken the leap of wanting to be baptized yet- we are working)and asked me if we could chat for a minute. he said "pastor, this might be odd but....can you teach me to pray." guh- ah, hmm, not sure how i responded at first but pretty sure it was not graceful....,but in the end we had a wonderful conversation on prayer and how one may do so....anyay, can you say humbled!

on saturday i attended an easter vigil which other than the choir was a complete uninspiring time....

easter morning was so awesome- we had a breakfast which was attended by 80 or so, followed by a kids' easter egg hunt. then came worship- we only had one and we pulled it off. we ran out of chairs at 137, and managed to make some more by bringing in park benches, and other things- total number ended up being 153....the most wonderful part of that number is that many of the extra folks WERE NOT visitinbg family but rather wanted to check out what the noise was about regarding Advent....and they are interested in meeting with me, and coming back-wow God continues to be so good, and so amazing.....i wonder where is all this leading....and much of the time i find myself a bit scared of the unknown....always coming back to one of my guiding principles from my developer training- always expect to be surprised by the work of god.

i preached a pretty challenging sermon i think- that challenged me the most. i got to thinking what are we really going to do about the fact that christ is risen? am i doing enough? no- i know i fall short...,but man our world really needs us to stand up to the injustice that we see every day...but how do we do it? how do we truly bring the good news of the easter promise into the world without being that annoying bible-beating person? what is the key?

i thank all of you for the continued prayers regarding this ministry- i continue to pray for all of yours- and look forward to when i can see some of you. e....get your butt out here so we can golf!

god's peace to all of you as you continue to do the good work that you do

today was a great day in so many ways. the bishop came to worship with us just to experience advent- the service went very, very well and we had a wonderful turnout with about 97 people- good thing for the bishop to see. he stuck around after worship for education and then the two of us had lunch together, drove around and looked at land, and just had a plain-ol-good talk. the one thing i so appreciate about my bishop is he a down to earth guy, that listens so well to any concerns i have- so important if you ask me. it was really nice for him to be with us- it stoked those that were gathered as well (like, we really matter- he wants to see us, etc, etc.)- but more importantly he was able to see the space we are hoping to rennovate- and was very excited by it vowing to to help put some pressure on some churches in our conference to give some more mission support. he calmed many of my nerves, and challenged me to continue pushing forward on this incredible journey.

also today, i was able to mess around outside for 7 hours- working, with my neighbor on raking and dethatching our yards and hauling all kinds of crap away. tomorrow i will try to fertilize and get our lawn actually growing. it was so awesome to be outside, with good company, and enjoy god's creation while actually getting to do some manual labor. the kids played, anna got her work fix in as well- plus we ate pizza and drank beer- nothing can be better!

and now we are into holy week- i am so thankful i had today to refresh my spirit and body. my dad is home now- back to the doctor this week to try a new med, and maybe be shocked back into place again....basically if he uses again he will surely see death- so hopefully (please god) this is the warning and wake up call he needed. thanks to all of you for your prayers.

only bad news for today is that i did not watch any of the masters final round- way to go phil!