Monday Musings

Sunday Sports. It was a good day for me yesterday – both the Steelers and Yankees won.  Makes Rich happy.  Speaking of the Yankees . . .

World Series Time. The baseball season is winding to a close with what I think is going to be an epic series.  Looking forward to the Phillies & Yankees.  Our home is evenly divided so it should be fun.  At breakfast this morning, Dean said, “This is great! We can start talking trash at each other now.”  Not sure how it will play out in the series.  Phillies are hitting much better than the Yankees right now, despite the Yankees having a string line-up, in my opinion.  Starting pitching looks pretty evenly matched.  Bullpen – I think the Yankees are stronger, at least on paper, but the game isn’t played on paper, now is it?  I think the Phillies have the edge, in all honesty.  The invincible Yankees have stopped hitting this post-season and you can’t win if you don’t hit at least a little.  I don’t know.  Looking forward to it.  I’m ready. Let the dance begin.  :)

Love. I’ve got to tell you, nothing warms my heart the way watching you all demonstrate real love does.  I loved watching what you all did for Jack yesterday with his birthday.  The roars at UG in the morning when his birthday was announced, and the party and gifts last night.  You guys rock!  The sacrifice in time and money to show love back to a leader who you all know loves you so much – amazing and awesome.  I love watching it!  It makes my day.  I’m so glad to have a front-row seat to watch the Holy Spirit’s continual transformation of so many of you.

Jack. Speaking of Jack, even though I know he’ll never see this (he still doesn’t own an answering machine nor will he take a free one!), his dedication, love and commitment to our high school students and this ministry is unreal!  I hope that we all realize that.  Take a moment to thank God today for Jack and his love for us.

Lessons From  Saul & David. I’ve been reading through 1st Samuel in my devotions and right now I’m reading about Saul and David and the relationship that they found themselves in.  Quite interesting.  Over the next few weeks I’ll share some insights from their lives.  I’ll begin with a simple one today.  JEALOUSY WILL EAT YOU ALIVE.  This is so apparent in the life of Saul.  He starts off loving David and then being grateful for David.  But as soon as David gets some credit for something (which Saul empowered and enabled him to accomplish by giving him permission to go fight Goliath), Saul allows jealousy to creep up in his life.  His subsequent and constant attempts to kill David become the theme of the following chapters.  The jealousy eats at him and eventually devours him.  It is all-consuming in his life.  And the same will happen to us if we allow it to even creep in a little bit.  It’ll take over and consume you.

Monday Musings

It Never Gets Old! Watching students serve just never, ever gets old!  Seeing our worship teams and tech teams lead in worship yesterday morning at Elevation just gets me so pumped up.  And the watching the rest of our servant teams come together yesterday afternoon to serve the high school ministry and others just blesses me as I watch.  You guys are really getting it!

New Book. Just started a new book this morning by Francis Chan called “Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit.”

The Boy. The Boy is at an age where he is really beginning to push some boundaries and some of his mother’s buttons. Yet he’ll do things every now and then that leave me cracking up.  The other day, before I finally caved in and put the heat on, the temperature of the house had dropped to 57 degrees.  At one moment I got a chill and yelled, “Whoooh,” to which Dean walking through immediately, without any hesitation, started singing “I fell good. Dadt, dadt, dadt, dadt.”  And then he just looked at me with a big smile as I started cracking up.

Encouragement. I got an email from a recent graduate this weekend that just made my day.  While they’re off and enjoying college, they mentioned that they miss the high school ministry and us.  Those kinds of notes never get old.

Baseball. Those Phillies are looking better than I thought they would against the Dodgers.  Could it be a Phillies v Yankees World Series?  Looks like a possibility.  It’ll be fun in our house, I know that.  Bring it on!!!!

Monday Musings

Sleep. I need some.  Moving slowly today.  Just tired after last week.

Catalyst ‘09. Amazing Conference – as it usually is.  Least favorite part this year – the overall worship.  Favorite part – the opening of the conference and the Thursday night worship time with Aaron Keyes and Francis Chan.  Still a ton to process from the week.  Looking forward to possibly hitting up Catalyst One-Day down in Baltimore in November.

Road Trip. I love road trips! Fun times with Andrew and Lowell and lots of youth group memories from the last 15 years surfaced and laughed about making for a great time driving to and from Atlanta.  The Suburban we had to travel in made the trip fun for me too.  The funk from my road trip buddies forced us to buy an air freshener (thanks Lowell).

Blessings. I’ve said before how incredibly blessed I am.  The memories that were laughed about on the trip force me to realize God’s incredible blessing in my life.  Tammy and I also received an envelope (no name or return address) this week with cash and a Scripture verse in it.  That just flat out blows my mind!  Who does that?!  And why us?  So blessed, so thankful, so amazed.  WOW!

Fun Post. Tony Morgan, an executive pastor at a church in GA, was at Catalyst this past week, too, and wrote a fun blog that made me laugh and realize that I’m getting old.  here it is . . . and yes, I remember most of this stuff!

Things I Remember that Most Catalyst Attendees Do Not

Hood ornaments

Family pictures at Olan Mills

Corduroy

Floppy discs

The Cold War

Mylon LeFevre & the Broken Heart band

Sanka

The “Glass Ceiling”

Burger Chef

Carrying my girlfriend’s comb in my back pocket

Glass Coke bottles

Avoiding wearing green and yellow on Thursdays

The Mickey Mouse Club

Tube socks and short shorts

Mullets

Three television channels

Sony Walkman

Nothing open on Sundays

Written letters

Moon landings

Feathered hair

Tandy computers

Needless to say, I’m getting old.

Monday Musings

The Boy. I love my two kids!  They are both amazing!!  And neither of them ever cease to amaze me in new ways.  Recently “The Boy” has been listening to some old school 80s Christian rock that I have.  Much to my surprise, we’re driving down the road the other day, and without the music on, he starts to sing Larry Norman’s  ”Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music.”  Makes a father proud!

The Boy – Pt. 2. Speaking of “The Boy,” he started Kindergarten this past week.  How time flies!  It is so weird taking him up to the school every day now too.  Thursdays are quiet around the house now.

Serving Our Community. I am so proud of all of you who were able to make it out last Tuesday night to help serve our community by watching kids for Aldan Elementary’s Back-to-School Night.  The school’s teachers and administration are always blown away by the hearts of our people doing this.  What an amazingly incredible selfless way for you all to demonstrate the love of Christ to people you don’t even know!  You guys are amazing!!

Kickball Tournament. OK, not sure how to express my excitement over Friday night’s Kickball Tournament.  WOW! It was incredible to see all of you out there.  And 21 friends?!  You guys rock!  That’s what the RIOTs are all about.  I am so proud of you all.  I can hardly contain my excitement as I see so many of you “getting it” – reaching out to your friends, serving others.  It doesn’t get any better than this!  It’s just September – let’s keep this train rolling the rest of the year and see what God can and will do.  I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be one incredible ride this year as God rocks our high school ministry as a result of you guys living it out!!!!!

Catalyst ‘10. Only 2 1/2 more weeks before I head down to Atlanta for Catalyst.  Can’t wait.  The leadership training.  The discussions. The road trip.  Good friends.  And Ippolitos!  Yeah baby.  Wish you all could come.

Monday Musings

New Year. I am seriously pumped up about the new year in both MS & HS!  We’ve got some great stuff planned – fun stuff, some great opportunities to serve and demonstrate the love of Christ to others, fantastic mission trips (JAM for MS and Place of Promise for HS), and I could go on and on…

First Day. Dean started his first day of Kindergarten today.  He did OK.  Tammy and I went to breakfast together after dropping the kids off and seeing a guy about some new kitchen carpet.  Tomorrow we go for a bike ride together after dropping the kids off.

Books. I ordered some new books today:  Francis Chan’s newest release, a leadership book by Patrick Lencioni, and a new ESV Study Bible (I hear it’s a great version but its the study notes that are absolutely fantastic in this Bible).

Reading. I’m reading the book “Tribes” by Seth Godin, a marketing expert.   Really good book with lots of practical application to the church.  Just trying to find the time to really sink into it and finish it.

That’s it for today.  It’s been a rather uneventful, yet crazy busy, week.  pray as we prepare for the following major events this week:

• Child care for the school’s back-to-School night tomorrow night
• The opportunity the HS has to paint the vandalized borough buildings Wednesday night
• The HS’s RIOT|Kickball Tournament on Friday.  pray for more students to come and bring friends!

Monday Musings

It is good to be back!  Vacation was very good but it is great to be back.  I miss all of you when I’m away.  because of our mission trip to Peru and then vacation, it has been several weeks since I’ve done a Monday Musings, so here are some random thoughts from the past few weeks.

Peru. Our mission trip to Peru was absolutely amazing!  The team was incredible.  You can read accounts while on the trip and reflections after the trip at www.savedtoserve.wordpress.com.  Some brief highlights from the trip for me:  the team and the unity it had and relationships that were developed; seeing good friends from Peru and making new friends; arranging the marriages of both my children to Lucho’s kids.  Seriously, it was an incredible trip.  If you didn’t go with us but could have, you missed the experience of a lifetime.  Make sure you sign-up for next Summer’s mission trip if you’re in the High School Ministry.  Place and dates to be revealed this week!

Baptism. The day we arrived back from Peru, I had the incredible privilege of baptizing Becca Williamson in the evening service.  What a special night.  I was supposed to baptize Becca down in Honduras.  But when our plans to go to Honduras needed to change and the Williamsons needed to leave the country, we were able to arrange things so that we could baptize Becca up here.  A very special night for me.

Gift. The week before we left for vacation, I received a very unexpected gift from a friend. As I opened this gift, I unwrapped a new iPod Touch.  Totally blew me away!!!  What a blessing.  And just “because I felt God wanted me to bless you somehow.”  So amazing.

Vacation. We had a good time together the last two weeks.  We really didn’t go anywhere, just took a bunch of day trips and stuff but had a good time doing it.  We spent two days in Toms River visiting family, celebrating my mom’s birthday, and attended First Baptist Church of Toms River where I grew up.  We spent a lot of days at the pool at the Springfield Country Club due to the generosity of a student who signed us in as her guests.  Spent a day in Lancaster with friends after going to Willowdale Chapel in the morning and seeing Dave Walker.  I took the boy to a Camden RiverSharks baseball game with my brother, Nick, and his girlfriend, Caitlyn.  We went down to Baltimore for a day and Dean and I toured a couple of baseball museums, looked around Camden Yard, and then we all spend some time at Inner Harbor and ate dinner at the ESPN Zone. Dean wanted his dinner delivered to the Men’s Room where he could watch SportsCenter while standing at the urinal or sitting on the can.  We also went up to Bushkill Falls for a day to hike and enjoy the outdoors.  On the way home we swung through a little town near Allentown called Germansville.  I lived there when I was five – just one year.  Hadn’t been there in at least 30 years.  It was very cool.  Spent a day with the kids and went bowling and shot off hydro-rockets with them.  All in all, a very good vacation with the family.

Summer’s Over. Well, while I’m sad to see Summer go and this year over, I’m even more excited for The New Year! The coming year in the MSM and the HSM are going to be incredible!  We’ve got some great stuff planned and I can hardly contain my excitement as we jump into a new year!  You don’t want to miss any of it !  I promise.

Monday Musings

Death & Celebration. Pastor Kevin was speaking about some of the paradoxes that exist in the Christian life yesterday (the first will be last, to be strong become weak).  Death for the Christian is another paradox.  While we mourn for those Believers whom we love dearly and deeply when they are no longer with us, we also celebrate that they are now with their Savior for eternity.  Such was life for me this weekend.  I learned Friday that a former student, Tashan’s grandmother passed away, as did my former 7th grade Sunday School teacher (who was 72 when he had me!) a month before his 102nd birthday, as did a former assistant pastor at the church I grew up at.  Sad weekend but one of celebration at the same time.

Peru & Potential Worship Pastors. What is it with me going to Peru and potential worship pastors?  Uggghhh.

Blessed. I mentioned last week just how blessed I was feeling for the people God has placed in our lives.  I saw it again this weekend.  Saturday night, Dean was up out of bed several times over a two hour period after putting him down.  I finally asked him what was going on, fearing he was having trouble because we would be leaving for Peru.  Instead, what he said to me was, “Dad, I just can’t sleep.  I am too excited to get to the Baumanns’ for the next two weeks!  I just can’t fall asleep I’m so excited!”  That is so cool!!!!  We are so blessed that Dean has such a good friend in Adam and that the Baumanns love Dean and take him like this for us.  We love how he considers them his 2nd family!

Peru! 12 hours from now we should be in the sky on our way to Peru!  So excited about what God has in store for us!!  Can’t wait to get this started.  Thanks to everyone who prayed for and over us yesterday.  So awesome!

Monday Musings

Good & Bad. Tammy and the kids are away enjoying some time together at the beach.  This is really good for the kids, I think, to spend some time with Tammy before they get “shipped off” for two weeks while we’re away on the missions trip.  I miss them all terribly.  On the other hand, I can get a lot of what is left to get done and prepare for being gone for two weeks without the guilty feelings for not being home and with them.

Baseball & Fireworks. Took a few from the MS group to the Camden RiverSharks game Saturday night.  What a great venue for a ball game.  After the game, a nice fireworks display.  What beats a beautiful night that includes baseball, fireworks, some great students and having your son there, too?

Blessed. I just mentioned the ball game and the fact that I brought Dean along since we had extra tickets.  God keeps showing me just how blessed we are.  To see a couple of our middle school guys take Dean under their wing and make him feel a part of stuff was so cool.  To see Austin take Dean’s hand and walk with him down to the field so they could run the bases after the game was just too much.  So cool.  We are so blessed.

Blessed, Part 2. Thursday night some friends (and partners in ministry) took us out to dinner to celebrate out 15 years here at AUC.  Amazing.  Absolutely incredible dinner and even better company and friendship and conversation.  Have I mentioned how blessed we are?

Blessed, Part 3. Last night after LIFT went to dinner with another good friend who I’m also privileged to do ministry with.  Another great time where the fellowship was even better than the food.  So blessed.  I’m beginning to sense that maybe we’re really, really blessed.

Blessed, Part 4. OK, this one starts with headache.  Got my motorcycle back from the mechanic on Wednesday.  Rear tired repaired, inspected, oil change – all completed.  Put about 40 miles on it Wednesday and Thursday, about 20 of those with Tammy.  Friday, Dean had a “show” up at camp at the Haverford School.  Tammy and I met up there sicne she was going to hang out after the show and I needed to get back.  I took the bike.  After the show, I’m getting ready to leave, start the bike and notice oil flowing from the filter area.  It’s leaking way to quick to try and get it home.  Tammy drives me back to the church and then she calls the towing company to come pick it up and bring it back to my mechanic.  Around 5:30 she calls me to tell me the truck is there and that the guy drops the bike putting it on the truck.  I’m thinking, “You’ve got to be kidding me?!”  I head down to Frank’s and wait there with Frankie for the truck to get there with my dropped bike.  After inspecting it, the “only” damage was one of the mirrors being snapped off (Only is in quotes because a it’s about $200 to replace the mirrors with the integrated turn signals).  Frank fixes the oil leak which turns out to be the seem in the filter that split.  We talk about the mirror and he asks me if I know a good machinist.  I tell him, that as a matter of fact, I do.  Yesterday I ask Dan Hegman if he thinks he could fix the mirror.  This morning at about 9:00 I got a txt message saying that the mirror was fixed and ready to go.  The word “blessed” comes to mind again!

Can’t Wait. I can’t get out of my mind what God might have in store for the team headed to Peru a week from today!  I’m baffled by the “route” God took us to get us headed in this direction.  After all the work planning and preparing to go to Honduras only to have to change directions two weeks before the trip – what does God have in store for us?  I can’t wait to see!!!

Monday Musings

Honduras ‘09 Peru ‘09. Mark Twain once said that the only people who like change are wet babies.  One of the things we always pound into every team going on a mission trip, but I never expected we’d have to be this flexible.  As things have heated up in Honduras, and appear to be getting even hotter in the near future, we have had to pull the plug on our Honduras Mission Trip which we are scheduled to leave for in just 12 days.  As this reality was becoming more and more clear, we prayed and looked for a potential “Plan B.”  In miraculous fashion, as only God can pull off, ministry in Peru with some good friends and missionaries from our church appears to be a change of direction that we can make rather quickly.  So, if all works out with airfare and other costs, we’re heading a bit further south in 12 days – to Peru!  can’t wait to see what God has in store for us that it took changing things like this to make it all happen!!!

Anniversary. My brother, Matt, and his wife, Amy celebrated their one year wedding anniversary yesterday!  very excited for them

Camp. The kids are off at camp this week.  We are so blessed.  They go with no expense to us because my brothers Chris and Nick work for ESF.  I think next year Dean is headed to The Phillies Baseball Academy instead of daycamp.

SSSS & Reverb. Both youth weeks were fantastic.  Good times.

Monday Musings

Reverb. The High School’s first ever Reverb far exceeded my expectations.  It was great having Rob from Place of Promise with us for the first three days, sharing his story.

Ozzy’s. That place never grows old.  What could be more fun?  And bringing 50 people just adds to the excitement.

Super Slammin’ Summer Spin-Off. The Middle School’s youth week started at Ozzy’s on Saturday as the High School’s “Reverb” came to an end there.  Good fun so far at SSSS.

Honduras. Please be in prayer for the country of Honduras and pray for wisdom as we decided whether or not the team should still be going.  Waht a mess eruppted the other day in that country.  The next week or so will be key.  Will everything die back down or will it escallate as other countries get involved?

Tired. I’m tired.  I need some rest.  I am planning on actually trying to take Friday off since it is an office holiday.  I rarely take them off – always too much to do.  But a three day stretch from Thursday through Saturday may be just what the doctor ordered as I try to refuel for the rest of the summer.

Bitterness. I’ve been around some people this past week who are really, really bitter.  I saddens my heart to see.  Not only does their bitterness create an atmosphere that causes no one to want to be around them, making them more lonely, but their unwillingness or inability to forgive robs them of the joy that should be theirs as a result of walking with Christ.  It really saddens me.  I pray for them that God would help them to forgive that they night be released from the grips of unforgiveness in order to experience the joy that could be theirs.  it really is a much better way to live.