faithrunner

I've been back in ministry for a week now. Kim asked me after my first day back how it felt, and I answered, "it was typical." She said, "Typical! What does that mean?" I answered that typical meant it was just as it had been, phone calls, message prep, planning, seeing God at work in people's lives. You know, typical. I think while I like the adventure and the break from routine of holiday, I prefer typical . As I wrote before, that is where God shows up in the most practical and life-sustaining ways. This week Marcus and Lisa Lloyd joined our staff to lead our children's ministries and influence our commitment to the arts as a means to worship and experience God. I am very excited about what they bring to the team. I'm enjoying teaching the Sermon on the Mount. Check it out at the newly-updated Legacy Church message page . Also, Kenyon and Troy were excellent in my absence. Check out their messages, too, if you missed them. Fact: Barry Bonds has...

I return to the routine of ministry tomorrow. I've been out of these habits since 21 June, and I'm a bit anxious about returning to the office tomorrow. It's not that I don't like the people or the job or that I fear the future, but I am nervous about how to find God in the ordinary after experiencing Him in so many exotic places and events. It's easy to find God hiking on a rock face at 11,000 feet above sea level or walking beside a snow-melt filled stream rushing down a mountain side. It's not so easy to find God on the concrete, SUV-crowded streets and florescent lighted halls of my suburban life. After six weeks of the extra-ordinary I will commit again to the mundane, the daily grind, the live-where-you-are-planted life. For those addicted to adrenaline like I am at times, I will turn again to trust my Mentor and Leader who ultimately changed the hearts of generations while staying within 200 miles of his hometown. I live in an experience-enhanced existen...

The week has been so filled with activity--and the fact this town has limited internet connectivity--I have not taken time to post much. So, here's a summary of the week. Monday afternoon (left to right) Graham, me, Kyle, Clint, and Johnathan headed out to Lost Lake (12,000+ ft) where we camped for the night and the summited Wheeler Peak (13,161 ft.) on Tuesday morning. We got rained on some, but the trails were magnificent, and the view from our campsite was unbelievable. (You could hear that waterfall all the time, and it made sleeping easy.) After our ascent of Wheeler, we headed back down to town for a night at the Community Center and late night talks with friends. On Wednesday, we hiked up to Middle Fork Lake with a group led by Kyle, who is the Community Center rec director and a member of the Red River gang we vacation with each year. Here are some of the adults who made the 4-mile, 2,000 foot elevation change, with us. Most of the trail followed the river down the val...

Saturday we traveled from Vancouver, BC to Red River , NM via DFW. Sunday morning I preached at the Community House worship service. This is a non-denominational worship service that reminded me of my home church growing up in Beaumont 40 years ago. (We ended the service with the old song "Church in the Wildwood" and held hands singing "The Family of God.") The spirit was great, and the people were welcoming and open to what I had to say. The Baylor friends were not disruptive in the service as they had warned they would (jokingly), and a friend I run with on Saturday morning brought his family from Angel Fire to be there. It was a wonderful experience. (We didn't make the "congregational singing" at 7:00.) That evening we gathered at Sundance Mexican restaurant for dinner. You can see some of us at two tables in the picture. We had a table for 25 , and that's down from other years when every one was able to make it. We are so glad Storey and Gr...

We couldn't stand it. We had to go back to Whistler . So, immediately after class and a quick lunch at SubWay , we headed back to our favorite place on the trip so far. Here is one of the official site signs for the coming Olympics in 2010 . We guess the "sliding sports" include the luge and the bobsled. Not sure what else that would be except maybe that thing where you slide rocks on ice and two people sweep in front of it with brooms and you hit a bulls eye ...whatever. We had time to take the trail from the Village to Lost Lake . It was beautiful like the entire place...Kim made a stop at one of the modern washrooms along the trail. I prefer nature. We ended the afternoon with dinner at one of the many cafes along the Village Stroll through the Village. Edamame and soup hit the spot. The ride back was slow because of all the construction to widen the Sea to Sky Highway for the Olympics. A lot of stopping and waiting, but that gave us more time to soak in the beauty ...

What a privilege it is to learn from Gordon Fee . His commentary on 1 Corinthians is a standard on the biblical letter. He wrote it in 1987, and it is quoted by every major work on Paul's letter since then. Reading an author is one thing, hearing and seeing his passion and knowledge is another. Here are some things that sitting in Fee's class has either reminded me or taught me about Paul's message to this culturally entrenched group of people who were at odds with their founding pastor because he would not conform to their values or expectations of him or the message he preached to them while he lived there for 18 months. everything in 1 Corinthians revolves around and flows out of 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 because what was at stake was the very essence of the gospel, which Paul preached and the Corinthian leaders no longer seemed to accept as adequate. Divisions in the church was only one issue that resulted from their perversion of the gospel. the essence of the Christian...

We traveled from Whistler back to Vancouver Sunday evening after an amazing day in the mountain resort. We noticed that while in the winter you have skiers walking from the slopes to their cars or hotels, in the summer you have cyclists doing the same. Mountain biking is huge here. Next week is a big Xtreme style bike festival there. (Watch the video. They are nuts) We did see some skiers and snow boarders who were coming down from slopes on the upper glaciers. You take two chair lifts, a bus, then another chairlift to get to the t-bars that carry you up the glacier...IN JULY! On the way home we continued to marvel at the scenery. The outcrop at the top of the page is outside Squamish . How would you like that for a backdrop for going to work every day? The other picture is toward Vancouver from a "viewpoint" along Highway 99. Even digital pics cannot capture what you experience as you stand and look at God's awesome creation. We made our way to the Carey Centre on th...