My week started yesterday fairly normally. I made the

, uploaded it to the web server, published our podcast, and started to tick things off the list of “things to do when PB is on vacation.” A big accomplishment we’ve had this month is that Shawna and I have been integrating Youth Track across all ministries of the church. [Our youth group management software.] Well, long story short. When I was installing the software on PB’s computer I had to link it to our network database. I was doing like 10 other things and when a dialogue popped up that said “Do you want to overwrite your database?” I meant to click no but instead I clicked YES. Within 10 seconds we lost 4 days of work. Not a good start to the day.

So the rest of my day was spent trying to repair the damage. I got most of it done. Amazingly, Shawna got a lot of her families back on line and I got all of her programs up. But nonetheless, it was a bad day.

On my way home, it got worse. I checked our cell phone bill on my phone. Bear in mind that our contract is for $59.99 a month. Our bill… $175! I was livid. Apparently there were about 3 add-owns we were paying for that were ringing our bill up. Plus, it appears we went over our minutes by a mere 180. Kristen made a 30 minute phone call to a neighbor that cost us like $30. I called Cingular and screamed at them. There is simply no way that a normal person can understand their bill. When I asked why they didn’t contact us to let us know we had been going over so badly in the past few months they told me “Well, we have 50 million customers and you want us to call you? Yeah right.” That sent me over the deep end! In typical Cingular [Understand this is just SBC in sheeps clothing, the worst non-airline company in America.] fashion I could have avoid $90 in overage charges if I bumped our plan up $10 and doubled our minutes. Fantastic customer service. AT&T wireless never did this to me. Ugh.

In other news… the master bedroom is 99% complete. We slept there last night as I finally was able to put up all the moldings. I have literally 2 more small things to do in there and then I am done. Kristen’s design is coming together now… Pretty soon our bedroom will be a Moroccan oasis.

This post is based on the thoughts a friend of mine began in my brain a few days ago with his post “church vs. business.” In this post, while I don’t agree with his thoughts, I completely disagree with the analogy. I hate it when we compare a church to a business. Todd’s point [again… A true and valid point] is that the church should act more like a business would when it comes to the way they spend money. His justification is that since student ministry is growing and bringing in new families… It should be a financial priority. Makes sense business-wise… But is completely unbiblical in it’s ramification. The church cannot and should not be run by a “do what works” mentality. Simply because a student ministry may generate more income than expense doesn’t mean it justifies more spending. In fact, this doesn’t even make good business sense.

As I look out over the scoop of what churches have become and where churches seem to be going… It does look more like a business. Decisions are often based on “stuff” and not on people. Let’s face it, our focus as ministers is often only about people on a cursory level. Sure, we do a lot of things for people… But our focus is often times on the program and not people. How can we reverse that? How can we make our primary “thing” people again? How far do we have to go? What do we need to get rid of?

Meet Stoney. Stoney is our families new dog that we adopted on Saturday.

Stoney is named after a creek in our area… we thought this was pretty relevant considering he is mostly yellow lab and I am 100% positive he will love being in and around the water.

So far, he’s been a great dog. He loves the kids and is especially cuddly. He came to us crate trained and everything. So far, his home has been down in the workshop and he’s done pretty well. He had a bit of an accident last night… but I think that has to do with his new surroundings and his new food.

So… I am sure we will all be adjusting to Stoney in the weeks to come. The cat, Violet, isn’t too sure about this pooch just yet. But I am certain that Stoney will learn that she is really in charge and he’s just the dog.

This morning as part of my talk for church, I used this illustration. I thought it was worth revisitng here. [Read talk, listen to mp3 Tuesday or later]

The Pier
Growing up we had a pier at our cottage a lot like the one in this picture. Each year, we had to repaint the pier to keep it nice and white and nice and slippery.

When I was about 11 my dad decided that he was going to allow me to paint the pier all by myself. So, he handed me the brush and a bucket of paint and told me to get to work. And so he sat on shore and watch while I started painting.

I’d paint a couple of rows and scoot back. Paint a couple more and scoot back some more. It wasn’t too long… ok, I had almost finished… but I realized that I had started from the wrong end. The more I worked, the further from shore I had gotten. I was left with a few choices… I could wait for the paint to dry, I could jump and swim it in, or I could hope that my dad would come out with a boat to get me.

It’s a lot like the passage we studied today. The more we got into it… the further we felt from God. The harder we worked to get out of it… the further we felt. But in reality… unlike my dad, we are all given the chance for mercy. While God the Father may allow us to make that mistake and wonder further and further from shore, we can be assured that because of God’s great love for us… he will go more than just halfway. It’s called mercy.

I know I am starting to sound like a broken record, but things are going so well!

Last night we had a really nice time at the tailgate party and FREEZING cold football game. Let’s face it, it was a miracle that we made it to halftime. Just after the king and queen we announced… We took off. I took Paul with me to the game since he had such a great time the last time we tailgated. Well, he made it to kickoff and promptly fell asleep. It was 7:05 PM! I had to hold him and he got really, really heavy.

Even more “fun” is that a student spent the night at our house. This student has basically become a part of our family since she is here so much. If it weren’t for the difficulty this creates with the child protection policy… I wouldn’t care at all. But I also realize that our pseudo-adopting of her does create problems. Here’s my thing… the more I can share my life, the more that all the students know Kristen and I are for real. One thing that I am sure my students get… What they see on Wednesday and Sunday is what you get.

Today will be another busy work day at our house. I hope to re-stain the woodwork I bought last week and get that up on Monday. I hope that this means that the room will be 100% done.

Today I will be focusing on my text, Romans 3, for Sunday’s message. This is a unique challenge in that I am not doing a “stand alone” fill in message while the pastor is away. Instead, I have been asked to be a part of his current series on faithfulness. I don’t like to teach topically… so this is a stretch for me.

Here are some sermons I reading as part of my research today.
Objection Overruled
Let God be True Though Every Man a Liar (Piper)
God is Righteous and True
Why God Inspired Hard Texts
God Justified, Though Man Believes Not (Spurgeon)

Everywhere I look, I just read “this is a very hard text to preach.” Great. Looking forward to it. Thank God for commentaries.

Last night went pretty well. We had a gaggle of students there and the whole thing felt like home again. I really enjoyed it. The talk went pretty well too. I felt like it was one of my stronger talks… though Kristen just thought it was OK.

My attention is now turning to Sunday mornings message on Romans 3. I have absolutely no idea what I will be doing. More on this later.

I have finished my talk called “Mary & Joseph’s Story.”
Check it out here.

It’s a pretty simple talk… straight forward and to the point. Luke 2:21-40 pretty much teaches itself. I’ll be spending some time contrasting human vs. supernatural responses.

I am working on tonight’s talk at my favorite coffee shop. OK, it’s my favorite coffee shop until I find a coffeeshop that has FREE wifi. I mean, $2.95 for 2 hours kind of sucks.

But, at least I can nibble on my hot apple blast while writing about Luke 2. The talk should be up on the web in a few hours.