Community

On Tuesday night I had the privilege of sitting down with some dear friends from my childhood in Seattle.  Marian and Mark were here visiting and reuniting with long time colleagues of her husband (Mark’s dad) at the air base in Fort Worth.  Dan was a heavy influence upon my young life growing up in Seattle.   He passed a while back, and it was good medicine to visit with his wife and son.

As we sat there at a restaurant in Richardson for nearly 3 hours, something dawned on me.  Marian is older than my mother, and Mark is more like an uncle to me.  The conversation was non-stop, yet there was really nothing to point at as a commonality between nearly three generations represented at that small table.  I wondered to myself how can these three adults sit and talk like best friends with such a varied age distribution and life station?  

My wife made this request.

My wife has been reading this blog for some time now.   It is an incredible story, and one that has readers from all over the globe.  You should check it out. 

http://www.mycharmingkids.net/

Much to share…

Sorry for the delay in updating this thing… I keep saying that! 

There is so much to share about what’s happening in my life and those around me.  It’s been a surreal last few weeks for my family, staff and ministry.  Case in point – one of my staffers was punched out at a local gas station last Sunday night after our services.  FBC is in our Transform Your World season.  This is a time where the church really ramps up its efforts to impact the local community.  Our global efforts are year-round, but we make a special effort to reach out beyond normal ministry to our region in April.  This stretch is usually referred to “Go and Be.”

We had t-shirts made this year that read “Don’t go to church” on the front, but on the back they read “be the church!”  Well some ignorant soul thought he was doing God and the church a favor by assaulting my staffer and decked him for what the shirt said.  My team member ended up waking up, picking himself up off the concrete and driving the 15 minutes to his house.  As he stumbled into his own home, that was when his wife took him to the 24hr clinic for attention.  He hasn’t pressed charges, and from what we know there weren’t any witnesses.  Long story there, but he felt that pressing charges wouldn’t really accomplish anything in the grand scheme of life. 

Bottom line is that this nut had some real issues and was probably used to getting his way and abusing others.  The t-shirt simply provided a trigger to beat on someone new.  Never-the-less, the shirt sparked a manifestation of this guy’s world view of God and church… and that my folks is why it is so important to engage culture.  We have to put to death this mindset that we have to answer the opposition to the Kingdom by various acts of social, relational and even physical toxicity.  We can get on our soap boxes and shout, scream,  wave our arms to get the unbelieving world’s attention and figuratively punch them in face with the “Gospel” or we can love them and share the real and literal truth of God’s forgiveness and grace. 

So much more to talk about… maybe I can get to that later in the days ahead.

LT and his swing set

Some very gracious church members gave us their swing set.  My parents wanted to see it in action.

Homecoming Recap

Last weekend I attended a few of my alma mater’s homecoming festivities out in West Texas.  I had made contact with a short list of old friends ahead of time.  It was really inspiring to see how old stories, and probably many wrongs, were forgotten through old age, maturity and even grace.  Whenever you get a chance to witness life change it always leaves a lasting impression.  That was certainly the case last weekend. 

I also had a chance to buy lunch for my 90 year-old grandmother, my aunt and her granddaughter.  It was wonderful spending a brief time with them… always feels like home.  In addition to Wayland’s homecoming and a lunch with family, I was able to sneak away and make the 2 hour drive to Pampa to visit a dear friend.  He and his family just moved there from Midland.  Ryan is doing so well in his role as Market President of Happy State Bank.  Yes, it’s called Happy State Bank.  I didn’t make that up.  Anyhow, Ryan is doing well and I am very proud of him on a number of levels.  Jennifer, his wife, just lost her father to cancer.  Her mom died of cancer as well, so it was important to me to drop in on them. 

I have included a photo I took of Ryan’s mug on a local Pampa billboard.  Ryan M. Monroe everyone…

Ryan said he had no choice... uh, huh.

Good stuff!

Had small group tonight.  We have been hosting since our normal host home is now occupied with a newborn!  A few weeks back, one of our couples announced their new pregnancy.   Tonight we were presented with yet another announcement… another baby!  The uniquely exciting component to this announcement is that this couple has been trying for years to get pregnant and were disappointed a number of times, but now they have huge smiles on their faces…. good stuff! 

It’s always a exiciting to welcome new life into this world.