This is the remark a leader of our church said to someone else about my hiring 18 months ago. This person thinks, even in an off the cuff moment, that the previous senior pastor completely bypassed the process as outlined in the church constitution. Of course, what is missing in that statement is the facts of the matter.

Unless the guy was a liar, he was told to go look for the person he wanted, screen the candidate and then forward his person on to the search committee to screen. I’m not sure how that didn’t happen. Perhaps the previous pastor is guilty of under communicating to the search committee about the process, but he did pretty much what is described in the churches by-laws.

It says, “the committee shall thoroughly investigate and prayerfully consider candidates.” They did that… Or if they didn’t it’s not the pastors fault. “They shall present one candidate at a time.” They did that. “All candidates shall be thoroughly investigated as to doctrinal belief, personal and ecclesiastical separation.” I don’t know what that second half is, but the previous pastor did the first half. “In no case shall anyone be considered without the recommendation of the Pastor.” That happened.

So why the weird comment?

I will add that I’m not mad about it. There are certainly more important things in the world to be worried about. But I don’t like being slapped with a label that isn’t fair. Particularly 18 months later! What’s up with that? Why shouldn’t the senior pastor be allowed to go out and secure people to work for him? It’s a left field backslap that I don’t appreciate. Again, I’m not mad about it… But it is irratating. Maybe I should wear that as a badge or something?

Gosh, I feel so compelled to act on this. I wish there was something I could do tangibly. I wish that I could be one of those Red Cross people that hears about a disaster and you see them at the airport the next day headed to some far away place with a backpack and a heart of gold.

I wish I could have a ministry like that too. I was listening to a radio program yesterday on the local Christian radio station on my way to Best Buy. On the program there was a sweet sounding old lady giving her weekly ministry report. She keep saying words that haunt me, “and no one was turned away.”

That phrase, repeated throughout her 20 minute report, nearly brought me to tears as I drove down M-53. I have turned many away. Physically, from the door of the church. Emotionally, as I live my life. Physically, shutting down relationships. Spiritually, in not doing my job to the best of my abilities. I was just hammered by my own selfishness. It made me think about how I covet that alone time when the weather is warm. I drive to the golf course when it is barely light out and make sure I am the first person to tee off. I get aggravated when I pull into my parking spot to see that there is someone else warming up and who will likely interrupt my solace by asking me to join him.

I have got to figure out a way where I can still be “Adam” but live my life in such a way that no one is turned away.

It seems like it has been an awful long time since I actually went to the office to put in some work, but in reality it has been only a long weekend.

I am ready to get to the office, dust off some projects, and get ‘er done, By “‘er” I mean 2004. There are still a few lose ends to tie die on 8 Crazy Nights and I need to do this ASAP.

Tonight, we are regressively eating dinner. This is kind of like a progressive dinner, just backwards. It should be fun.

Other projects that need some work are a Winter 2005 Sunday school syllabus, a lot of reading for my winter class at Huntington (if my books ever arrive) and finalizing the NI team. That last part was due yesterday but I haven’t heard back from the last screener. Likewise, there is still an adult that is thinking of going. She’s leaning towards “yes” but hasn’t decided just yet.

OK, I officially feel bad.

I played a little prank and posed as another forum member on the alternative YS boards… Unfortunately it looks like it has backfired and the person who I was pretending to be wasn’t all that happy about it.

Looks like I’m going up the creek without a paddle. Aw man! While I thought “imitation was the highest form of flattery” I forgot that to some it’s not flattering at all, instead it just pissed him off.

As with a million other times in my life, I’m stuck with my tail between my legs having taken something a step too far. Drats! I hate it when I screw something up.

Probably time to mia culpa on this one before he gets too mad.

We’ve spent several hours just resting and watching the children learn how to play with all their new toys. Now, the rest time is over and it’s time to head to the dreaded in-laws. (I like to make it sound evil even though it’s no big deal. Perhaps this is just something that we expect in America?)

The only thing bad about going to the in-laws on Christmas is that everyone has new toys. Some kids are just fine with letting a cousin play with something new… But I have a feeling that there will be some drama and wrestling between a few of the them.

The best part is that Megan and Paul will get to see their grandparents. Megan loves grandpa… They seem to have a special bond. I am sure that they will get gifts as well, which makes everything more fun. Hopefully, Eric and I will just get a chance to play some Xbox while everyone else gets nuts. Maybe one other bright side… No booze to make matters worse. It’s just grin and bear it for a few hours then happy trails back to Romeo.

I can’t believe tomorrow is Sunday. Work again? We really get robbed this year with days off. Oh well! (Just happy I am not at Blue Cross and working 16 hour days through the holidays as usual.)

Well, it’s over. As the pictures indicate, we’ve had quite a morning. Megan and Paul got everything a little kid could imagine. It was fun!

Last night, Bob said over and over again that Christmas is really all about the kids. I’d disagree with that from a biblical perspective, but practically speaking he is correct.

Before the kids, Christmas was vary meaningless. I would buy Kristen whatever she wanted and visa versa. It was mostly an exchange of vanity. Once we had the kids though, we started seeing the holiday through their eyes and having much more fun with it. I can see that as the years go by I will continually be erasing my cynicism towards the day and gradually gravitate from Grinch to Santa Claus.

Now, if only I could figure out how to have a holiday with no in-laws! That’s another story. (I’m sure I’ll have more fun than I am imagining.)

Here’s Megan outside of our house the other day when we got all that snow! 

This is Megan opening her present last night.  

This is Paul, hiding behind the Christmas tree for safe keeping.  

I am a huge fan of our Sony DCS-P52 digital camera. I use it all the time for family photos and ministry stuff. Practically every single picture I’ve taken in the past 2 years has been on this camera.

But I have a new problem. The handy Lexar 256 MB memory stick that I bought last year is acting up and I’m having a hard time diagnosing the problem. It does read on my PC but it won’t read in the camera. At first I wondered if perhaps that something was dirty in our camera… But that theory quickly faded once I placed a different memory stick in there.

So right now, I am contacting Lexar customer support to see if there is anything I can do or if I’ve just worn the poor thing out. It is under warranty… But we have to see if I have all the right stuff to get it replaced.

UPDATE: I just chatted with Lexar and they are going to replace the card. Unfortunately this means that I will need to buy a card today so we can take lots of pictures of the kids on Christmas, but the good news is that soon I will have two cards! I was actually planning on buying some more cards for the Northern Ireland trip this summer. Maybe by then I’ll be able to upgrade to a better camera?