25 years and counting

Today is our 25th wedding anniversary.

I can still see her walking down the aisle towards me as we prepared to take our vows together. The beautiful white gown she wore paled in comparision to her radiant beauty. Her smile filled the room. As I took her hand and gazed into her eyes, I knew God was creating an inseparable bond.

She's my very best friend. She captured my heart 25 years ago and still hold it captive. There is no one I'd rather spend my time with. The love I have for her is undeniable. God has blessed me more that I could possibly deserve.

Thank You sweetheart for 25 uncomparable years together. You are the sunshine of my life and forever You'll stay in my heart. I love you!

YOU ARE THE SUNSHINE OF MY LIFE (Stevie Wonder)
You Are The Sunshine Of My Life That's Why I'll Always Stay Around
You Are The Apple Of My Eye Forever You'll Stay In My Heart

I Feel Like This Is The Beginning Though I've Loved You For A Million Years
And If I Thought Our Love Was Ending I'd Find Myself Drowning In My Own Tears
You Are The Sunshine Of My Life That's Why I'll Always Stay Around
You Are The Apple Of My Eye Forever You'll Stay In My Heart

You Must Have Known That I Was Lonely Because You Came To My Rescue
And I Know That This Must Be Heaven How Could So Much Love Be Inside Of You
You Are The Sunshine Of My Life That's Why I'll Always Stay Around
You Are The Apple Of My Eye Forever You'll Stay In My Heart
You Are The Sunshine Of My Life That's Why I'll Always Stay Around
You Are The Apple Of My Eye Forever You'll Stay In My Heart

Matthew 8

I'm studying the book of Matthew this week. Today I was reading chapter 8 and below are some reflections from this chapter.

Then a leper appeared and went to his knees before Jesus, praying, "Master, if you want to, you can heal my body." Jesus reached out and touched him, saying, "I want to. Be clean." Then and there, all signs of the leprosy were gone. Jesus said, "Don't talk about this all over town. Just quietly present your healed body to the priest, along with the appropriate expressions of thanks to God. Your cleansed and grateful life, not your words, will bear witness to what I have done."

“If you want to….” I don’t think there is any question that Jesus wants to heal us, to care for us, to love on us. The problem is us, is me. Do I let him do that or do I get so consumed by the notion that I can take care of ‘Bob’ that I don’t let Jesus have a chance at doing what He does best.

“I want to” Jesus said. I believe this. I believe that Jesus desperately wants to hold us close to Him. I believe that He wants the best for our lives, my life. But I often supercede this by thinking that I know the best choice to make, the and best path to follow. But it’s not. There are pitfalls in my ‘stand alone’ decisions that make the outcome far from the expectations I had intended. When I bring Jesus into my decision making process the road may not always be smooth, but I can overcome the obstacles that sway would sway the outcome in the end.

“Don’t talk about this all over town” When I first read this statement I was very confused. If Jesus healed me from leprosy, how could I not want to shout from the top of my voice what had happened! Why wouldn’t Jesus want me to be overjoyed about what he had done for me? Isn’t this version of ‘humbleness’ just a little extreme? I didn’t understand why He would want this to be kept on the down low. I thought we were suppose to show the world who Jesus was and what was possible with Him. However, as I read the next couple of sentences I understood.

“Your cleansed and greatful life, not your words, will bear witness to what I have done.” I can’t imagine what the leper was feeling when all of his spots were gone. What must have been going through his mind....what excitement! What joy! What relief! The comparison of the emotion of winning the lottery came to my mind. When a lottery player wins big time the excitement, the joy and the relief must be overwhelming as well. The winner makes the news. Recognition comes at you from all sides.... as do long lost relatives and friends who want to share in the prosperity. However, its not long until the hoopla is over and then its "whatever became of the lottery winner?" is a mystery.

The example to be learned from this statement (“Your cleansed and greatful life, not your words, will bear witness to what I have done”) is not about the initial reward, but how we live our lives because of the reward. The leper could have disregarded Jesus words. He could have stormed the streets with his good news, but then fallen back into a ‘stand alone’ life that didn’t let Jesus do what he wanted to do in him. But when we follow the humbleness and graciousness that is Jesus, when we let him do what He wants to do in and for us, the impact last longer and spreads further than we can ever imagine.

Living an ongoing life that demonstrates gratefulness through humbleness extends far beyond the temporary limelight that is the result of gratefulness only for what you got out of it for that moment.

Pack that box - a confession

This coming weekend is "Food Drop" weekend at Granger Community Church. For the past several years GCC has purchased several semi loads of food that gets distributed to the community. It's quite the event for our church. The semi's are lined up on one side of the parking lot and on the other are the box trucks that will deliver the food. Lines of people extend from semi to box truck to transfer the boxes of food. When all the food has been transferred, people from GCC go out into designates areas in the community to distribute the food. It's amazing.


Last weekend we learned that the food that had been designated for our food drop has been mistakingly distributed to other people in need already and the only way we'd have our 6 semi loads of food is if we banded together and boxed it up.


I thought it would be a great thing to help with but didn't know if we'd participate or not. After services Lori asked me if we were going to go and I was non-committal.


Monday night Lori and I had a meeting that lasted until after 7pm, which was much later than I'd anticipated. I had bills to pay, the Christmas budget to update and ironing that had been piling up to get done, but my agenda for Monday night had not turned out the way I had planned. I only checked but one thing off on my list, the meeting. My anxiety was mounting because I knew what needed to get done Monday night and it wasn't going to happen.


Tuesday morning I told Lori that I didn't think I was going to be able to go to box food that night because I had too many chores to catch up on from the night before. A friend of ours, Judy, was going to pack food and I suggested that if Lori wanted to go perhaps she could ride with Judy. I had this nagging feeling that I had not made the right decision, but put it aside.


Enter God. I left for Panera to have coffee and my reflection time Tuesday morning and still having this feeling that I probably should just go to Feed the Children that night, but pushing the thought to the back of my mind. I settled in with my coffee at Panera and got ready to read. I'm currently reading the book of Matthew and I got to this passage.....


25-26"If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.

....and it was if God spoke right to me. Worrying and having anxiety about the things I felt I needed to accomplish for my personal benefit suddenly seemed unimportant. I knew that going to box food that would go to people who really needed it moved to the top of my list.

When we arrived at Feed the Children I was blown away. There were so many people already there and production lines were flowing. It didn't matter if your job was filling a box, taking the plastic wrap off of boxes of canned foods, or simply just breaking down boxes to be recyled, everyone and I mean everyone had a smile on their face and was working so hard to get the goal achieved. If a particular task came to an end people would just move to another area and dig right in. It was absolultely amazing. At one point I heard there were over 800 people working to get the job done.

When the last box was finally filled we all gathered for a prayer led by Mark Beeson. I am so grateful I let God in to speak to me yesterday.... and that I listened! I confess that I could be living with regret today because I thought my list was more important. I'm so glad that I was able to set my selfishness aside and do the "next right thing!"

As we were walking back to our car I said to Lori, "isn't it amazing what can be accomplished when people will just commit to join together for the benefit of someone else..."

Morning workouts....arrrrghhhh!

This morning confirmed why, during the work week, I try to limit my workouts to occuring in the late afternoon after work.

Prepared as I may have tried to be, there always seems to be something that happens in the early morning that throws my best intentions out of whack. The thing that puzzles me is that I'm a morning person.

Last night I chose my clothes for the day and laid out my gym clothes for the morning. I even went so far as to even to hang my clothes in my car and put my gym bag in the trunk

I looked at the clock in our bedroom this morning and it said 4:30am. I hopped out of bed and made my way to the bathroom to shave. After shaving and brushing my teeth made my way downstairs. As I laid down to get my crunches done I looked to my side and realized that I still had to pack up my laptop. Delay number 1. Well that shouldn't take too long. I finished my crunches and got my laptop put in my backpack.

As I was putting my backpack near the back door I realized that I still had to pack my lunch. Delay number 2. Well, I didn't really have to pack it as my wonderful wife does that for me, but I still had to put it all in my lunch bag and put it by the backpack by the back door.

I pulled on my sweat pants over my shorts as I was certain it would be freezing outside at 5am (and it was). I bent over to put my Nikes on and it dawned on me that I hadn't put my contacts in. Delay number 3. I finished tying my shoes and raced upstairs to put my contact in.

It was just my luck that my contacts were going to give me fits today. Delay number 4. First I couldn't get them out of the little container that they're kept in over night. Then I don't know if it was flipped or what but I put the second one in my right eye and the pain was so intense I wanted to yell. I quickly yanked it out and washed it in solution again. Course by now my eye is red and watering so getting it back in my eye is another challenge.

I made my way back downstairs and took my backpack and lunch out to the trunk of my car. I grabbed all of the other paraphanalia that I had to take with me; cell phone, watch, IPOD....etc, oh and of course a cup of coffee and made my way out the door. I had hoped to be at the gym by just a little after 5 am and the clock in my car already said 5:10. Arrrggghhhhh!

Fortunately there isn't much traffic at that time of the morning so I made it to the gym in about 10 minutes. I park the car and open the door and its like being in a wind tunnel. I'm trying to hold the car door open and get into the back seat to get my hanging clothes to take inside. I finally get my clothes out of the car and make my way to the trunk to get my gym back. Then wind is blowing. The clothes I have on hangers are flapping in the wind like a flag. As I grab my gym bag and go to shut my trunk, the t-shirt and boxers I have just flipped over my jeans blow off the hanger. I could just see me having to chase my underwear accross the parking lot. Fortunately when they hit the ground they just stayed put and I was able to snatch them up.

Head down I fought the wind across the parking lot into the gym. I made my way into the locker room only to find that, once again almost all of the lockers had keys missing except those that are the highest to reach. Arrrghhhhh! I found a locker and made my way out to the elliptical machine.

I like to watch the news while I'm working out so I grabbed the remote on the machine next to me and turned on the tv above me. It came right on but everytime I punched in the number for a local station the tv went black. Arrrghhhhhh! So much for the news. I did luck out a few minutes later though when someone got on the machine next to me and turned the tv on above them and put on the news. I had to look to the side but it was better than nothing.

Despite all my challenges my work out was good and I was glad that I got it in for the day. I was still able to get out by a little after 6 and have my reflective time at Panera. I just never thought it would have been this hard to do!

Pumpkin pancakes

Being the fanatic that I am for anything pumpkin, I finally made it to IHOP for their pumpkin pancakes tonite.

I'd already had my share of pumpkin pie over the past couple of days. The "Starbuck's Girls" had spoken highly of these pancakes a couple of weeks ago and when Lori said she was up to going to IHOP I thought I'd better take advantage of it.

A few weeks ago I had discovered the pumpkin mousse at Martins which was incredible. When we were in Las Vegas 2 weeks ago I had pumpkin cheesecake. I bought some pumpkin butter at Amish Acres for bagels not long ago. These pumpkin pancakes would only add to my list of pumpkin delights.

Unfortunately I was sorely disappointed. The IHOP pumpkin pancakes did not live up to the hype I had been hearing. They were ok, but they tasted more like regular pancakes with just a slight hint of pumpkin flavor. I was bummed to say the least. I was anticipating the robust pumpkin flavor I'd found in everything else I'd already tasted this fall but it just wasn't there.

We don't go to IHOP often and it's not likely that when we do go back that I'll ever order the pumpkin pancakes again. If I'm going to splurge on fat grams and calories its gotta be worth while and IHOP's pumpkin pancakes weren't worth it.

Changing it up (part 2)

As I anticipated, I was quite stiff and sore today after running on the treadmill yesterday. I was hoping that the pain would decrease as they day went on but I wasn't so lucky. As a matter of fact, it got increasingly more difficult to get out of the chair in my office.

I was dreading going to work out and despite my best intentions to want to run again today that just wasn't going to happen. I was definitely opting for the elliptical machine today.

I knew I had to keep moving and so I made myself go to the gym after work today. I was prepared to not be able to do a full workout and had told myself that 'no pain - no gain' didn't apply today.

Surprisingly my workout went exceptionally well. I was able to go at my normal speed on the elliptical machine and put in the 6 miles I would normally do. I was pretty pleased with myself. I really want to run on the treadmill tomorrow. As I was leaving I thought perhaps I could start out just running every other day.

So I got home and had dinner, still feeling pretty good. After dinner I went upstairs and when I came back down the stairs to the kitchen my legs were killing me. "Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch....." one for every step I came down. And I think I'm gonna run tomorrow? Well, I guess it could happen....or NOT!

Changing it up

We returned from vacation Tuesday afternoon and I hadn't been to the gym since the previous Thursday. I was expecting the worst when I went after work on Wednesday but it actually wasn't that bad. However, I ended up working late on Thursday and we had plans right after work on Friday so I got one whole day in this week. We did make it to the gym on Saturday morning so I was feeling like I was going to get back on track.

Saturday afternoon we went to METRO WALK & RUN on Grape Road because Lori wanted to get some new work out shoes and she heard that this places would be able to fit her to the shoe that best met her needs. While we were there I had mentioned to the clerk how the elliptical machine was killing the front part of my feet. The store clerk said that the shoe I was wearing probabl didn't have enough support in that part of the shoe and asked what I was wearing. I said they were NIKE SHOX. She said the brunt of the support was in the heal in those shoes as they were designed for running.

A while back we were in a conversation with our friend Reta about workout plans and she mentioned that after a period of doing the same work out your body gets used to doing that type of exercise and your benefits either plateau or even diminish somewhat.

I've been toying around with the idea of running for a while but never had the courage to start doing it. I've been only doing the elliptical maching for months and thinking I needed to change it up. When the clerk at METRO WALK & RUN said my shoes were designed for running it prompted me to think maybe now is the time to make the change. So this morning when Lori and I went to the gym I opted for the treadmill instead of the elliptical machine.

I wondered if I could even stay on the treadmill as it's so different than the elliptical. I can go at a pretty good pace on the elliptical machine, 9-10 miles per hour and usually average 6 or 7 miles in my workout. I got off to a fairly good start on the treadmill but learned by the end of the first mile that this really was way different than the elliptical and I needed to slow it up or I was never going to make it through the entire workout.

After slowing my pace somewhat I found my rhythm. I was able to continuously bump up the speed, but never did get up to that that I can do on the elliptical machine. But I figured, hey it gives me something to work towards. Before I knew it I had made it to the end of the workout time that I always do on the elliptical machine. What do you know, I could do it!

Now if I'm not increadibly sore tomorrow I plan on giving this new running thing another shot..........

Hot Stuff

My wife, the perpetually cold one, felt the heat today!

After a "grueling" workout, we went to Panera for a bagel. Lori was elated when we arrived that not only was the fireplace going, but there was an available table in front of it. Since we always order the same thing (I know that's a big surprise to many of you reading this, NOT!), and not wanting to risk losing the table, she exitedly informed me she was going to snag the table and promptly got out of line.

I placed our usual order and made my way back to the "prime" table location. I often wonder waht the people at my credit card company think when they see the same charge amount every weekend to the same restaurant. Anyway, when I got to the table I saw that Lori had opted to not even sit in a chair, but had pulled the table close to the fireplace so that she could sit on the ledge that surrounded it.

Not long after we had finished our bagels and were enjoying our coffee, Lori leaned forward and realized that she was stuck to the grid that was in front of the fireplace. Startled, she pulled herself off of it and pulled on her jacket to see if had burned. I helped look and sure enough, the hood of her "hoodie" been cooked. It had grill marks singed into it.

Now if this had been me it would have pushed me over the edge. But my wife is far more laid back then I. She said it didn't bother her. You pay good money in stores for clothes with holes in them, so whats a few scorch marks. It's fashion!

The price you pay to be warm.....not so much!

Trick or Treat ......or expired!

Since we've become empty nesters we dine out quite often. How often we don't cook at home became very apparent last night.

About 6pm I noticed a group of girls pulling a wagon and walking up to our front door. Lori answered the door to find out they were "Trick or Treating" for a food pantry, collecting canned good and boxed goods. Of course we wanted to contribute so Lori went to the kitchen to get something we could give.

She was gone for the longest time. I kept hearing things shuffle around and cabinets opening and closing.

Soon she showed back up at the front door with some boxed goods to donate. When she opened the door she apologized for taking so long and explained that we hardly every cook at home anymore. As she was inventorying the cabinets to find some things to donate she discovered that many of the things we had were expired. She had finally gone through enough things to find a couple of boxed goods that weren't. The girls thanked Lori and went on their way.

As Lori was closing the door she turned to me and said that everything she pulled out was expired. There was a can of tomato juice that expired in 2004, some instant pudding that expired in 2006 and the list went on.

We must eat out a lot cuz we certainly aren't using the food we have in our cabinets!

Cheerful

This morning verses 16-18 stuck out for me when I was reading in 1 Thessalonians 5. “Be cheerful no matter what…..” Wow! I’m really not very good at that. Often, what I am good at is letting my environment or my situation dictate my mood. How does one be cheerful no matter what? I think I could be a lot more cheerful than I am.

Webster's defines cheerful as: a: full of good spirits : merry, a cheerful host b; ungrudging, cheerful obedience

It was interesting to me how the definition of cheerful mirrored God and how we are to respond to God. God is ‘full of good...’ God is good. So then if we’re are cheerful we are likely full of the goodness of God. Therefore, uncheerful has the potential of being void of God to some extent.

The second part of the definition impacted me as well, cheerful obedience. As Christians, we’re called to be obedient to God. Jesus was the epitome of obedience. He could have chosen another path but He didn’t. Was Jesus then ‘cheerful’ in the midst of his most grueling moments. I can be un-cheerful in some of the simplest situations.

So why then, do I struggle with being cheerful? I think the world has taught me that if things aren’t going my way then I have a right to a pity party for myself. But isn’t there something positive in every situation? Being proactive means finding that 'positive' and holding on to cheerful.

Jesus, You did it. Show me how I can do it.

Pumpkin Mousse & Martins Deli

I have been against going to Martin's Deli / salad bar for dinner. I dunno, its just something about having dinner in a grocery store. But our persistent friends and my wife got me to give in yesterday. Although I still found it a bit 'pricey' for eating in a grocery store, I was quite pleasantly surprised with how good the food actually tasted.

I had a cup of wild rice and mushroom soup and some potato salad. The soup had a really good flavor and the potato salad....it was potato salad. But the "piece de la resistance" (not even sure if I spelled that right and I took 4 years of French in high school.....but then again that was a lifetime ago)...anyway, the pumpkin mousse I had for dessert was outstanding! I could have whaled on the whole container of it! Pumpkin pie is by far my favorite fall dessert. Pumpkin cheesecake comes in a close second. My mom makes a pumpkin roll that is pretty doggone good too. And you can't forget Ritter's frozen pumpkin custard. But this mousse really ranks right up there in my top 5 favorite pumpkin delicacies. I was blown away at how good it was.

If you're going to the Martins Deli in the near future I highly recommend you get some. (but leave some for me!)

A branch visit

I had the privilege of making a visit to the license branch today as I needed to transfer the plates from my old car to my new car. I wanted to get 'in and out' as fast as I could so I decided being there when they opened would be the best option. The last time I had to go to the license branch I decided to do the 'first thing in the morning' thing only to arrive and find a line going a long way down the side walk in front of the branch. So today I got there at 8am thinking I'd be first in line and there was no line! Another person pulled up and went into the vestibule entrance in front of the license branch so I decided I probably should go stand in there too.....yah know, just in case the line started to form.

As we were standing there in the entirely glassed vestibule, several license branch employees started to arrive. They all seemed to gather at the back of the huge room that made up the branch. I noticed there was a huge box of doughnuts in the back of the room. By now a few more people had joined myself and the other lady in the vestibule, otherwise known as todays line.

The doughnuts seemed to be big hit. I wondered if anyone would or could resist getting one. A younger girl entered the office area and walked past the box, hesitated, but kept on going to the other side of the room. She did a few things at her station and walked to the back of the room passing the box of doughnuts again. I thought to myself, someone can resist! But I was wrong. A few minutes later she made another trip past the box, stopped, grabbed a doughnut and made her way back to her station.

More and more of the branch office workers arrived, all stopping at the box of doughnuts. It became a feeding frenzy and what appeard to be the highlight of the morning. They were eating and talking and laughing and eating and talking and laughing. Every once in a while a few of them would look out at the small crowd of us that had gathered in the glassed in vestibule, and then right back to eating and talking and laughing.

They were looking at us. We were looking at them. It felt like I was at the zoo. But I wasn't sure if we were the exhibit in the glassed in vestibule, or there to watch the feeding time at the license branch.

The clock on the wall finally rolled around to 8:30, opeing time. Social hour at the doughnut box had come to an end and each branch worker was at their station. And just then, when the doors were suppose to open, it was time for the staff meeting. Shouldn't this have happened during the feeding frenzy?

The staff meeting didn't last long and the doors were opened. I was directed to one of the clerks and presented my paper work to transfer my plates. The clerk entered and entered data into her computer and then got a puzzled look on her face. She mumbled about something that wasn't working right and when and got a supervisor.

While the supervisor and the clerk were trying to get whatever it was fixed I was observing other people. I was sitting near the place where photo's are taken for drivers licenses. An elderly woman and what I'm presuming was her daughter passed behind me. The daughter was guiding the older woman who was getting her picture taken for her license. You have to sign an electronic signature that transfers to your license after the picture is taken. The elderly woman couldn't find where to sign her electronic signature and her daughter had to come help her with it. I'm sitting ther thinking, this woman can't see the signature machine and she's going to get a drivers license. YIKES!

After two addtional time outs for a supervisor to come over and assist, they finally ended up deleting all of the information that had been entered to transfer my plates and started from scratch. My plates are due to expire in March but for some reason they couldn't get it to register anything but a January expiration. Fortunately the computer still properly credited me through March for the amount still left on my plates. I'm not sure why but the re-entry of all of my information went without a hitch and before I knew it I was on my way out.

I went out in the garage tonite after dinner to put my new plate on the back of my car. I happened to notice that the expiration sticker the clerk put on my new plate said March!

Could it just have been a sugar rush?

I caved.

I caved today. I said I wouldn't give in but I did. I had to. I was weak.

Yesterday was painful and I didn't want to go through it again. I tried to pretend that it didn't bother me but it did. I even lit candles in my office. Yeah like that was gonna help. (Although it did smell good!) I closed my office door thinking it would insulate me, but no such luck.

And leaving for the day only made it worse. It was the longest walk to my car. I thought maybe it would be ok when I left the gym, but sweating only made it worse than the walk from my office to the car.

Yeah I caved today. I said I wouldn't give in but I did. I was weak. Yeah, I wore a coat today and no flip flops ....cuz it was colder than yesterday. Where did summer GO!

It's a hard habit to break

I can't tell you how long it's been going on. I know it's been several years. But I have a habit that I cannot break....its my quiet time in the morning at Panera Bread. Prior to Panera it was Grains and Grinds. I was so very sad when they closed.

I've been a regular customer at 6:15 am at Panera since the day Grains and Grinds closed. Well, thats not exactly true. I did try Victorian Pantry for a while. They walnut coffee there is stellar but they just didn't open early enough so Panera won out. However, lately I've been wondering if it's time for a new location. I keep toying with the new Martin's at Heritage square. Their flavored coffee is pretty good and the upstairs seating might be pretty cool. But today I made my mind up that I'm not changing.

Every morning when I get to Panera Marie is there behind the counter with a smile on her face a good morning to accompany it. Marie is a faithful employee who really steps up to her job. Sometimes I feel sorry for Marie as the line can get pretty long between 6 and 7 am and often Marie is the only one working. Regardless of the stress, she always maintains a pleasantness that you often don't find in a fast food restaurant.

And then there's all the regulars. Some of their names I know and other just their faces. But it doesn't matter. All of us always speak to each other and sometimes try to solve the worlds problems. Though I don't really know many of them well, it would just be weird not seeing them every day. Some have stopped coming in for whatever reason. And some come back after a hiatus. New regulars come and before you know it they're part of the group as well

Course, I do have my favorite place to sit and there was this 'temporary' regular who seemed to always get there before me and nabbed my seat. I got razzed by several of the other regulars for losing my chair to the 'new' guy. Not sure if he was a drifter, in town on a project, or what but he's been gone for a few weeks and I got my chair back!

It was funny a few weeks ago. I had a morning appointment so I didn't get to Panera until around 7am. Randy, one of the regulars was there at 6 and wondered where I was. He came back in a little after 7 to get another cup of coffee and stopped by my chair to 'harass' me about getting there so late.

I get some of my best scripture reading and journaling done when I'm at Panera. Add to that the friendships that have evolved, confirm for me that I don't need a new place. Panera is home.

Sundays

Like clock work, our ancient dog woke us up again this morning at 5am hacking and gaging like he was 100 years old. Well lets see, 7 years for every dog year, he's 12 or 13, ok so I guess it's more like he's 80 some years old.....but just the same it would have been nice to sleep a little longer. Course everyone knows that sleeping in for us is usually 6am so we really only lost an hour....but it was a VITAL hour!

Because we got to get up so early we got to the gym earlier than usual for a Sunday morning. After an exhilerating workout we made our way to Panera to meet our friend Dixie for breakfast.

Dix is usually waiting for us at Panera but when we got there she wasn't there yet. We ordered our bagels and coffee and still no Dixie. I decided to text her to see if she was still coming to meet us. She responded that her alarm didn't go off and she was on her way.

We meet Dixie nearly every weekend for breakfast on Saturday or Sunday. Our conversations are always great and we laugh so much. It's great sharing life with her and is definitely one of the highlights of our weekends. We've been truely blessed by her friendship.

I should have mowed the lawn when it needed it on Tuesday but didn't and had to mow it today because it was getting pretty long. I thought about bagging it to pick up some of the leaves but talked myself out of it and mulched them right back into the ground. Aren't they suppose to be good for the soil?....that's what I told myself anyway.

Our afternoon was pretty laid back. Lori took a nap and I surfed the net. I was kind of nice to just not have anything to do for a change. Well, there was probably plenty to do but it was nice just not doing any of it.

About 4 o'clock our friends Richard and Reta called and wanted to know if we wanted to meet them for dinner. We ended up meeting them at the East Race and walking for an hour our so. The afternoon, though a little windy, was perfect for a walk. It was unbelievably warm again (yeah global warming!) for October.

After our stroll along the river we made our way to Applebees in Mishawaka for dinner. Our dinner and conversation was great. We love spending time with Richard and Reta.

It was a great Sunday. Good workout. Great weather. And outstanding friends. What more could you ask for!

My new Honda

Yesterday I took delivery on my new Honda Civic ES Coupe. I've never had a car with so many fun options. The color is metallic galaxy gray. It's a really unique color. It looks gray but at times has a brown tint to it. It's an unusual color and I like it!

It's also has a power sun roof. I've never had a sun roof before and today we lucked out with another sunny 75 degree October day so I proudly drove around with my sun roof open.

Another fun thing this car has is that the radio controls are on the steering wheel. One more feature I've never had in a car before. Sad thing is I forget that they're there and I've found myself reaching for the radio knobs evertime I want to adjust the volume or change the station.

I was estatic to find out that this car was MP3 compatable. I can and did plug my IPOD into the adaptor today and was able to listen to my favorite songs. This is so cool! I have wanted to be able to listen to my IPOD in my car forever. I bought one of those adaptors and Wal Mart for my previous car. You know the kind where you dial in a fuzzy FM station and your IPOD is suppose to play through it. DONT BELIEVE IT! They dont' work. It is so awesome that this car is factory compatible. Sad thing is when I got back from lunch I forgot to turn my IPOD off. The battery in it was already low and by the time I left work to go to the gym my IPOD was dead. I was not a happy camper as I having it for working out really helps the time pass. Not so much today.

The dash is very cool. The speedometer is digital which has taken some getting use to, but way cool just the same!

I can't wait to drive it again tomorrow!

REVERB

Last week I was in Atlanta, Georgia with my wife and 26 other staff people from Granger Community Church at the Catalyst REVERB leadership conference. I gleaned a ton of relevant and inciteful information. I was going to write a post about each session that impacted me but I've decided, instead, to just share some of the impactful statements that I noted.


Session 1 "The Most Powerful Person in the Room" Andy Stanley


If God has put you in a place of leadership, you yield power. Power yields influence. Follow 'me' isn't any better than follow 'we' if you don't understand your power from God. What happens when you realize you're the most powerful person in the room....it either makes or breaks a leader. What ever you do says volumes about you and your trust in God.


Your fear of power, or how you've seen power abused may make you the very person God wants to entrust with much power and influence.


Refuse to leverage your power for your own sake but leverage it for other peoples benefit. Leveraging power to only benefit ourselves is declaring that we are greater than our Creator and demonstrates our weakness and now our power. Break the power of self-centeredness of leveraging power to only benefit yourself


Session 2 "The Ministry of Management" Patrick Lencioni

3 signs of a miserable job

Annonymity - when we feel 'unknown' at our jobs is the first sign of job misery. Some of the reasons cited for not needing to invest in the people we work with are:

• we think we're too busy
• we've forgotten what it feels like to be in their stage of career
• we don't want to be disingenuous - I didn't talk to them before,why should I start now?

Irrevelance - Feeling irrevelant occurs when people feel like they don't make a difference in someones life is the second sign of job misery.

Immeasurement - Not having a sense of measuring how they are doing and not being able to fulfill this causes job misery. Measurement is not strictly monitary. People need verbal feedback on how they are doing in their jobs. It gives them an understanding as to whether they are succeeding in their work or not.



Session 3 "Un Christian" Chris Seay, David Kinnaman, Gabe Lyons, Tri Robinson

Today's Christians are being critisized for the similar things the pharisees were saying in respect to their time in history.

'Christians are not righteous but self-righteous' is a growing perception

If you focus on morality, you won't get morality. You can't preach to the people 'go feed the hungry....etc. if without giving people a means to follow through

Session 4 Shane Claiborne


I cannot fully recover until I help the world that made me sick, recover.


Session 5 Francis Chan


Are we willing to help the needy at the risk of our own inconvenience? Is it not better to plant grass and have church on the lawn rather than build a massive sanctuary. Where did Jesus do the bulk of his preaching? Is it not better to do without so that those without can have a roof over their heads?


Session 6 Sunday Adelaja


I didn't take any notes during Sunday's presentation but you have to admire a guy from Nigeria who is called to ministry in the Ukraine and has grown an amazing church there.


Session 7 Rick Warren

If you want God's annointing on your life then you have to get with God's agenda and not your own. Ask God to bless what he wants you to do and not just to bless you.

God's agenda is the church.

God wants us to love the real church, not the ideal church. And then he wants us to serve in it. God is love. We were made to be loved by God. Our hearts are beating today because God loves us. We are Gods' family and God's family is the only thing that will last. Everything else will be eliminated.

Stop trying to create culture. Change culture.

Session 8 John Maxwell

Intentionally add value to people everyday.

The greatest way you can add value is to find your strength gift.

The greatest sin of a leader is putting themselves first.

Sew and don't worry about reaping, it will come automatically.

4 ways to add value to people:

1. You have to value people


2. Make yourself value-able


3. Know and relate to what other people value


4. Do the things that God values

Session 9 "Practical Atheist" Craig Groeschel


We need to be disturbed. God Disturb me. What aren't you doing that you could be doing? What does God want you to do that You walk away from? What sin are you not confessing?


Practical Atheist - someone who believes in God but lives life like he doesn't or doing ministry as if he doesn't


Isaiah 29:13-14 honoring God with your lips but your heart is far from him


Is the way your doing the work of God destroying the work of God within yourself? Have I become a full time minister and a part time believer.


Are my efforts better than God's power? If I just do a good enough job, God will bless it.

When I blame myself for the decline in something, someday I might take credit for the increase.


We believe that our private life doesn't affect our public ministry. God, disturb me.

We believe that we must please people more than we please God. Why do we get nervous, because we afraid what people around us will think, not what God will think.

Session 10 "Making Money Make Kingdom Waves" Dave Ramsey


We are called to manage dangerous things for the kingdom of God.


Stewardship is the management of God's stuff, all of it - time, money....etc.


God will 'reverb' your future when you let him manage it


"Too much month left at the end of the money"


Prosperity is having the money to do God's will in your life.


Session 11 Erwin McManus


I saw Erwin speak at Willow Creek's Leadership Summit 2 years ago and was really looking forward to hearing him speak again. However, I didn't take one note. The one thing that I did take away from his session was his honesty. He made a comment about worship that was bold but real. The words of one worship song say "You're all I need" but Erwin said for him thats not always the case and he often has trouble singing those words. He said more often than not he finds himself needing other things. Aren't we all like that.


Session 12 "Liberating Your Organization" Andy Stanley


Some systems impede ministry. Some systems obstruct leaders. Systems create behaviors


The systems you inherit, adopt, or create impact what your staff and volunteers do.


A family has systems. Andy gave an example of his childrens chore to take out the trash. He had to ask at least 3 times per week for them to take it out. He had created a system that required 3 'asks' which frustrated him. One day he came home and he decided he was taking the trash down to the road. He took one trash can down and was coming back for the second when he son came out and asked what he was doing. Andy said he was taking the trash out. His son replied, "thanks." Andy said, no problem. You don't have to take it out anymore. He son said "really!" Andy said, thats right, but I get your allowance.


Components of a system:

• Expectations/Rules


• Rewards/or lack of


• Consequences/or lack of


• Communication


• Behavior

Whats rewarded is repeated

When something goes wrong the first impulse is to blame the person when in actual reality its a system failure.

An system exercise you can do:

1. list 3 behaviors that you wish characterized your group
2. list one thing that was being done systematically to encourage those behaviors
3. list the things that are being done to encourage wrong behavior
   
   
   

Did we miss our turn?

This past week about 28 of us from GCC went to the Catalyst Leadership conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Since I easily get car sick I volunteered several weeks ago to be one of the designated rental car drivers while we were there.

After a few minor roadblocks at the National counter, we all managed to get our car keys and our designated groups followed us to our car of choice. We had reserved SUV's but our group walked past a Saturn minivan and decided it would work well for us so we hopped in.

What should have been an eventless trip to our hotel became anything but that. Somewhere along the way we took the wrong fork in the road and ended up taking the entire 285 beltway around Atlanta before we got the exit that we actually needed to get to our hotel. What shouls have been a 45 minute drive became about 2 hours. As we pulled in to the Hyatt many of the other in our group were on their way out to dinner.

The next day, Thursday was our first day at the conference. It was suppose to end at 5:30 but went long and it was after 7 pm before we were actually let out. There were 11,000 people at this conference and 11,000 people trying to leave one parking lot all a the same time. We sat in the parking lot for a good 50 minutes before we finally made it out to the road. As if this wasn't bad enough, we misread our directions back to the hotel and again missed a turn. As we tooled down the highway in the dark, we started noting that nothing looked familiar. Before going too much further I pulled into a Walgreens parking lot and ran in to confirm our directions. Now that we were pointed in the right direction, things began to look familiar and we finally made it back to the hotel. We had a group dinner at the hotel that night to debrief on the days events. As you may have imagined, we were late to the the group dinner but fortunately there was some food left for us. We scarfed our food down and started in on the group debrief.

When we arrived at the convention center Friday morning for some reason the traffic directors sent us down to a lower lot. I'm not sure why because there were plenty of parking spaces left where we had parked the previous day but you go where they send you. The parking was actually closer to the center and an exit as well so we thought we had done good! The conference got out on time Friday and we made our way to the minivan. Just as we thought, because we were close to the exit we got right out of the parking lot. Problem was we didn't exit onto the road we entered the convention center on. The street we needed to be on was Sugar Loaf parkway. Lori saw a sign that said Sugar Loaf Circle so we figured it must either run into or be close to Sugar Loaf Parkway and it actually deadended into it. Problem is we turned the wrong way and ended up venturing into more unknown territory. After realizing, once again that things didn't look familiar, we turned around. Land marks became more and more familiar and we were once again going the right way.

This morining we were bound and determined that we were not going to get lost going back to the airport. I went to the front desk and got fresh directions from them and we asked one of the other groups if we could follow them as well. How could anything possibly go wrong! We were on their tail all the way back to the airport. I was so relieved when we entered the airport and thougth to myself we've got it made now. We got to the National lot and I wasn't really sure where we had to turn into so I kept following the car in front of us. But he went past the National lot. Next thing I know we're leaving the rental car area. How can this be happening!! Not long after that Jeff called from the car ahead. They forgot they had to fill up their SUV before returning it. Fortunately all we had to do was follow the signs back to the rental car area as they turned off and went to get gas. Even our best laid plan ended up with a glitch.

The good thing about all of our mishaps was that no one ever got upset about it. We laughed about it and reminded ourselves that we were "making memories!"

Starbucks

My favorite lattes at Starbucks

Iced

• Light ice, nonfat, sugarfree vanilla
• Light ice, nonfat, 4 pumps sugarfree vanilla, 2 pumps peppermint
• Light ice, nonfat, 4 pumps sugarfree vanilla, 2 pumps pumpkin
• Light ice, nonfat, sugarfree carmel

Hot

• Extra hot, non fat, sugarfree vanilla
• Extra hot, non fat, carmel macchiato
• Extra hot, non fat, pumkin

But my ultimate favorite Starbucks favorite season is closing in.....
which means the reintroduction of the Gingerbread latte!!

My least favorite Starbucks

• A mocha in any form - chocolate and coffee should not be mixed!

Forbidden Starbucks...(even though they are delicious)

• Any Frappuccino

what's yours?

Information overload

Information. How do you gage what you feel is important verses what others deem as essential? What is overkill verses pertinent? How do you separate the applicable from worthless? What is helpful and what is a waste of time?

When you're communicating to the masses it's not always so easy to determine. It's easy to take the things that you believe are essential, pertinent, applicable and helpful and impress them upon co-workers, friends, or family. But in reality, they find them to be unimportant, overkill, worthless and a waste of their time.

Information discernment has become a huge challenge for me. All to often, my goal is to pass on information that I'm certain will divert people a potential problem and save them time in the long run. More often than not, however, it's received as overkill and non-essential.

I don't understand why someone would not want preventative information, but I guess everyone is not me. What I perceive to be helpful isn't always useful to the masses. Despite my best intentions to save them from potential grief, I think I just add to it.

As I continue to strive to understand what is applicable across the board I hope to become less reactive and more proactive. But wait, I already thought I was being proactive......apparently not so much!

Rushing things

Today is the first offical day of the Fall season. I'm not too excited about the prospect of cold weather coming. Its been in the upper 70's and low 80's for the past few days and I'm holding on tight to that for sure. No need to rush having to getting the coats out of the closet.

Speaking of rushing things, however. We were at Target today and the west side of the store is where they display seasonal and holiday fare. It's only September 23rd and they had 3 aisles full of halloween costumes and decorations. And right next to those three aisles were three aisles with Christmas cards, decorations and lights!

How much preseason marketing must we endure!

Labor Day Weekend

It's so unlike me to something that is, for the most part, totally unplanned but I did just that this Labor Day weekend. Saturday morning Lori and took off with our friends Richard and Reta to destinations unknown. Well, they were sorta known but we just didn't know which destinations for sure!

Richard and Reta move here a few years ago from Kentucky and have not seen much of Michigan so we decided that we were going to Michigan and drive north and see where we landed. We decided to pack an over night bag as when we left we didn't know how far we'd go nor whether we'd come back or spend the night somewhere. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Not a cloud in the sky and the temperature was perfect. We couldn't have picked a better weekend weather-wise if we'd tried.

Our first stop was South Haven, Michigan. We dined on our picnic lunch at a park near a channel that led into Lake Michigan. We munched away as boats of all sizes traversed the channel. Following lunch we wandered into town and browsed the shops and enjoyed a South Bend Chocolates coffee. It was a great kick off to our adventure.

We piled back into the car and decided that Sleeping Bear Dunes near Traverse City would be our next destination. About 3 hours later we arrived in Glen Arbor, a wonderful little town just outside Traverse City and right on the lake. We had dinner at this great restaurant that had a blue grass band playing on its patio. After dinner we walked down to the beach and skipped stones, well Richard skipped stones cuz none of the rest of us could, into Lake Michigan. We walked down the beach and back through town taking in the all the attributes of this quaint lakeside town.

Once back in the car we made our way to Sleeping Bear Dunes. And quite the dune it was. Tower Hill take a step back. We took one look at how high and how veritcal the dune was and decided the scenic drive was more to our liking. And it was a much faster way to get to the top, although it didn't do much to work off the ice cream we'd had after dinner. The views of the dunes and the lake were spectacular from the look out point at the top of the dune. Reta and Lori snapped some pictures with their digital cameras and back to the car we went.

By now it was getting dark so we decided to find a hotel and spend the night in Traverse City. Little did we know that every hotel in town seemed to be full. I remembered that my Choic Privileges Visa has a reservations number on it so I pulled it out and checked to see if there were any rooms available in Cadillac, the next closest town. Bingo! They found a hotel and I took the rooms. We got to the hotel and went our separate ways to CRASH!

Saturday morning we woke up to sunshine and a bright blue cloudless sky. We packed up the car and headed off to Ludington. We headed straight to the beach when we arrived. Reta and Lori were feverishly snapping pictures with their cameras as Richard and I made our way to the long pier leading out to a light house. We kept watching what appeard to be a huge kite in the sky. It was fairly windy and this "kite" was flying all over the place. As we made our way up on to the pier we found out that it wasn't a kite but a guy wind sailing on the other side. We stood their mesmorized by his abilites for several minutes. It was amazing how he could control the kite part and ski along the water flawlessly. There were times when the wind would blow hard enough that he'd be lifted several feet into the air and then come crashing back down into the water but never loosing his balance or falling down into the water. He would sail into the shore and then manuever the kite somehow so that he would go back out into the lake. Back and forth, back and forth. My arms and legs ached just watching him.

We found our way back to the car and had to make a crucial stop at the Starbucks that we passed on the way into Ludington. Latte's in hand we were on our way to Grand Haven for lunch.

As we entered Grand Haven we started seeing several chain restaurants that we could have lunch at but Reta thought it would be nice to have lunch at local place so we ventured down to the waterfront. At the waterfront we found a few places to eat along the channel so we parked and decided to check things out. We decided on a pizza and grinders place. While Richard and I waited for the food the girls went out to the boardwalk area to snag a table for us. During our weight for the sandwiches a huge freighter went down the channel on its way out into Lake Michigan. I believe that was the biggest boat I've ever seen in my life. We snarfed down lunch and made our way to the ice cream shoppe next door. Our addiction to ice cream took over and before you knew it we were all enjoying the specialty of the house, a cone filled with chocolate and peanut butter swirl. After strollling down the board walk and admiring the boats that were docked we decided it was time to hit the road once again.

The drive from Grand Haven to home seemed the longest leg of our entire journey. We were all getting pretty tired and the drone of the drive and the hot sun beating down into the car didn't help. We arrived back at our house around 4:15 pm and were wiped out. While Lori and I went to pick up our dog from the kennel, Richard and Reta stretched out in our living room to rest from the long drive.

We ended our weekend with dinner at the Mishawaka Brewing Company and ice cream at Ritters. Have you ever seen 4 people consume so much ice cream in your life. The longer we sat at Ritters the more tired each one of us began to look. We decided it was time to call it a weekend and piled into our separate cars and made our way to our homes.

What an awesome weekend. Great friends. Neverending laughter. God's outrageous landscape. What more could we have asked for!

Leadership Summit - DAY ONE - Session II

Willow Creek's Leadership Summit (http://www.willowcreek.com/) kicked off today and I, once again had the privilege of being the producer for our satellite location at Granger Community Church (http://www.gccwired.com/).

In session II of the Summit, Bill Hybels interviewed Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett Packard (HP). Fortune named her “The Most Powerful Woman in Business” and she was recruited to be chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard—the first female CEO of a Fortune 20 company—with a mandate to shake things up. And then her story really gets interesting. Carly Fiorina led HP through major internal changes, the worst technology slump in decades, and the most controversial merger in high-tech history. Yet just as things were about to turn around, she was abruptly fired, making front page news around the world.

This was a very compelling session and I was glued to the screen. Although there was a abundance of great leadership information that unfolded from this interview, Carly's differentiation between management and leadership stuck out the most for me. She said that management is about getting the job done within predefined constraints. This is what it takes, these are the steps....this is the predicted outcome. Leadership is facing the fear of failure and creating a vision of where you can go.

Where is the influence, the leadership potential I could have. short changed because I've opted for the prescribed management style? I going to take some time over the next few days to reflect and identify the fears that confine the potential opportunities and how they can be redirected into a vision blossoming with potential.

How incredible that tonite at our mid week service we had a guest speaker from National Community Church(http://theaterchurch.com/) in Washington, DC., Mark Batterson. He spoke on his book "In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day," a book on overcoming adversity and fear in your life. What a tie in with Carly Fiorina.

God is listening. God is speaking.

Rub a dub dub, Lori in the tub

Our last night in Minnesota found us staying at a Quality Inn's and Suites on our adventure to the Mall of America. The room was "Ginormous!" and the best part was it was free because of points we'd earned.

I showered and went down to the lobby to get some coffee while Lori got into the tub to get cleaned up for the day. When I got back I parked in a chair and was flipping through channels on the tv and drinking my coffee when it happened. The fire alarm in our room went off!

I scared the crap out of me. My hand holding the cup of coffee jerked and coffee spilled all over the chair I was sitting in (but none on me...yeah!!!). It was so loud. I got up and went to the bathroom to see what Lori was doing and she was still in the tub, shaving her legs! I asked her if she was going to get out ...."what if someone comes down here from the front desk?" So instead of getting out she shaved faster!

I told Lori I didn't see any smoke or fire but was going down to the front desk to see what to do. She continued to shave her legs at mach 1 speed.

When I got to the front desk there was no one there. I started yelling..."hello...hello" and finally an older gentleman who accent made his english barely understandable came from across the hall. I explained what was happening but he seemed to care less. I told him I didn't see any smoke or a fire. He shrugged his shoulders and asked if I'd just take an shower and maybe it was the steam. By now I cannot believe this guy doesn't care. I can hear the alarm going off from all the way down the hall and he is doing nothing. Finally he said he would call a technician (whatever a technician is) and he would send them down to the room. I left and went back to the room.

By now "shaving girl" was out of the tub and dressed but he extremely loud alarm was still going off. I sat down and finished what coffee was left in my cup and waited for Lori to finish getting ready to leave. It stopped. What a relief. We packed up our stuff and headed out.

The same guy to whom I reported the alarm to checked us out. But not until we started to walk away did he say anything about the alarm. Also behind the counter at this time was a woman, apparently the manager. She spoke up and said she was going to come down but it stopped so she didn't.

Fortunately we found an Einstein's Bagle shop with some delicious vanilla hazelnut coffee. All was right with the world once again.

Customer Service......or the lack there of (pt4)

After my last post about the service I was getting from Verizon Wireless I didn't think I'd have a part 4 to this nightmare, but I do.

Thursday morning of this past week Verizon topped themselves once again. As we were getting ready to leave on our get-away weekend to Minnesota, I picked up my phone to make a call. After pressing send I got a recording from Verizon saying to stay on the line and that I would be transferred to Financial Services.

When Verizon Financial Services came on the line they wanted to know if I wanted to make a payment right then. I asked why because my bill wasn't due until the end of the month. The financial services rep advised that my service had been suspended for lack of payment. I was livid! Not more than 3 days ago did they finally credit my checking account for money they had no business taking, now they were saying I was late and cut off my service.....and, and...they were going to charge me a reconnection fee. ARRRRRGGGHHH!

I explained, AGAIN, all of what transpired over the past 2 1/2 months (which I remined the person ont the phone that all of it should be noted on my account) and that none of it was my fault. She then took the time to read the notes on my account and said she would remove the reconnect fee and I would have service restored in30 minutes. I demanded to speak to a supervisor about what had happened. Of course this meant 10 minutes of Verizon commercials while I waited on hold. I'm convinced the supervisors must be on another planet and they have to beam up and get them and come back. When the supervisor came on the line I said I wanted it noted on my account that none of this was any error of mine and asked for an email confirmation of that. She told me that she doesnt' email but she would give me her employee number. Unbelievable!

I am so tempted to pay the $174 to have this account closed and move to another provider. On a credibility scale of 1 to 10 (1 being low), Verizon has about a .5 with me right now.

Pump up the volume

This is the second really dumb thing I've done this week. It's a good thing I'm taking a pseudo-vacation long weekend this weekend.

We have this really cool thing at work with voice mail. Instead of it going to our phones its set up to go to our email. For the past couple of days when I've received an voice email there hasn't been any sound. The first time I just wrote it off to a wrong number and they didn't hang up but then it happened a couple more times and I thought this just can't be coincidence.

Today I receive another "soundless" voice mail so I decided to put in a support ticket to our IT people to get some resolution. I prefaced my email with the known fact that I am hardware challenged so if it was something I could check and they told me where to check it I'd be happy to and save them a trip down to my office.

After putting the support ticket in, I decided to crawl around under my desk to see if anything had been disconnected. I was able to find all the right cords and cables and it was all hooked up. I thought it probably was as there is a green light on the speakers and its been on all along.

I don't know what made me think of this but my eyes focused in on the volume button on the lower right of my screen. Sure enough there was a red circle with a line through it over the top on it. Sudden and unbelievable embarassment rushed through my body. How stupid can I be!

Instantaneously I started an email to support that said "Disregard my previous email on sound from voice mails.......You don't want to know."

Customer Service......or the lack there of (pt 3)

I have some, ok it's miniscule, faith restored in Verizon. After countless calls made to customer service to rectify the auto bill payment they erroneoulsy took out of my checking account.....and after numerous promises to re-credit my checking account.....and after waiting 15+ days to receive the credit.....it was actually posted to my account this morning.

Rest assured, my days of auto bill pay will Verizon has come to an end. From here forward they'll get their money when I send it to them and not when the want to take it.

Thank's Verizon. Although it took much longer than it should, you finally came through.

Strike while the iron's hot....

Always trying to utilize my time to the utmost, after getting home from working out Friday I decided that I would catch up on some of my ironing until Lori got home from Manowe. She actually called while I was ironing so I was trying to cock my head so that I could be hands free to iron and then, duh, I forgot I had speaker phone. Lori arrived home not long after our call and I wrapped up the shirt I was ironing and we took off to go out for dinner.

Fast forward to Sunday evening. Over the weekend we did several more loads of laundry which meant there were several more things to be ironed. We'd been gone much of the day and when we got home around 5pm I decided I'd go up and do my ironing before having some dinner. When I got up stairs I stood in disbelief. The iron had never been unplugged since Friday night. And furthermore, its doesn't have an automatic shut off. Talk about God being on the look out for our well being!

Lori happened to be upstairs when I finished what I had to iron. I passed her on the way to our closet to hang up what I'd ironed and said, "I opted to unplug the iron this time!"

The $20,000 watch

When I arrived at the gym yesterday afternoon and made my way to the locker room there was a guy in there on the phone. I've seen this guy a zillion times at the gym and we always say "Hi" to each other and maybe join in some surfacy conversation about the weather. As I'm getting dressed I can telll by the tone of his voice he is very angry. I bent over to tie my shoes and apparently he had been put on hold at that point. He looked at me and said "you'd think when you buy a $20,000 watch you could get it serviced without so much hassle!" I responded "you'd think" and returned to my shoes. I mean, really, how do you respond to something like that? He rolled his eyes and about that time was taken off hold. His much aggitated and aggrivated conversation continued.

We started a tithing series at church last weekend called "Deal or No Deal." First of all, either you believe that God owns everything or you don't. I do. And if he owns everthing then I am just a steward of the resources He provides to me. If He says that its my duty to take a portion of what He provides and reinvest that in His church then I believe that is what I should do. However, not everyone believes this, perhaps because they're afraid, they don't understand or they just don't want to.....I dunno.


Last weekend our senior pastor made a huge ask of our attendees. He asked them in two weeks to make a committment to tithe 10% on that weekend. To some people 10% is a huge amount for them to give up to others its a drop in the bucket. Either way it means giving up something.


I was reading the book of Haggai and I came across these verses:



2A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies: "The people procrastinate. They say this isn't the right time to rebuild my Temple, the Temple of God." 3-4Shortly after that, God said more and Haggai spoke it: "How is it that it's the 'right time' for you to live in your fine new homes while the Home, God's Temple, is in ruins?" 9-11"And why?" (This is a Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, remember.) "Because while you've run around, caught up with taking care of your own houses, my Home is in ruins. That's why. Because of your stinginess. And so I've given you a dry summer and a skimpy crop. I've matched your tight-fisted stinginess by decreeing a season of drought, drying up fields and hills, withering gardens and orchards, stunting vegetables and fruit. Nothing—not man or woman, not animal or crop—is going to thrive."

The people the prophet Haggai is addressing seem to be so consumed by "keeping up with the Jones'" that they've totally neglected returning any part of what they have to build God temple. How different is the world today? Not much.

I remember when we first committed to tithing. It was scary. It was a risk. But in the second chapter of Malachi God says go ahead test me and just see if I don't take care of you.

"The tithe and the offering—that's how! And now you're under a curse —the whole lot of you—because you're robbing me. Bring your full tithe to the Temple treasury so there will be ample provisions in my Temple. Test me in this and see if I don't open up heaven itself to you and pour out blessings beyond your wildest dreams. For my part, I will defend you against marauders, protect your wheat fields and vegetable gardens against plunderers." The Message of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

I don't necessarily think this means that God is going to pour buckets of money on you if you tithe, but He might. Who am I to say? But I do know that you will get blessed because we have been blessed abundantly over and over and not just with money. We've never went without food nor shelter. I've always been able to pay my bills. And I have more savings that I ever dreamed I would. God will take care of you if you tithe. It's a promise.

I can't say that Mr $20,000 watch doesn't tithe. I have no idea. But I do know how easy it is to get consumed by what the world tells you is important and what really is important to God. Been there, done that. So don't let your $20,000 watch stand in the way of giving back to God what is due Him. You'll get some much more than an expensive watch back in return.

contact in the shower

Finished a milestone workout Sunday morning. I made it a record 6.5 miles. I headed for the locker room to shower and go to Panera for a bagel and coffe with Lori and our friend Dixie. When I finished showering I grabbed my towel on the hook just outside the stall and started to dry my face. As I rubbed the towel across my eye lids I realized that I'd used too much force and I could feel my contact come out and it was on my eyelashes. I quickly wrapped the towel around my waist and headed for the mirror above the sink across the room.

As I was on my way I was trying to dislodge the contact from my lid and lashes but wasn't having much luck. When I made to the sink I put my face as close to the mirror as I could to see where the contact was lodge in my eye. During my attempts to get it off my eye it fell to the counter top. Of course I couldn't see it. I'm searching around the counter top and finally find it. With no solution to clean it the only option I had was to run it under some cold water and put it back on my eye. As I'm putting it back on my eye, my towel comes loose and falls to the floor. The contact is still not in my eye and my towel is on the floor. Choices...choices!

I pryed my eye open and stuck the contact on as quick as I could and immediately dove to the floor to get the towel. Quickly, I wrapped it around my waist and walked back over to my locker as if nothing ever happened.

Note to self, only pat dry face when contacts are in or pay the price!

Smokin' fireworks

After we'd had breakfast at Panera Sunday morning we headed over to Super Target to browse around. Just inside at the end of the never-ending row of checkouts (that I've never seen all open at one time) was a fire works display. Lori stopped and was pointing at and cracking up.

Posted in front of the display was a no-smoking sign. Yah think!

Isn't Target non-smoking anyway!

Can I take your order?

Lori and I went to a local restaurant the we frequent quite often for lunch. The place was virtually deserted when we went entered. Shortly after we seated ourselves the waitress took our order and brought our beverages.

Not long after that another family came in and asked if they could get served if they sat outside. The response of the waitress peaked my interest. She replied that she would prefer they not sit outside because she was the only one working. I was dumbfounded by her response. Lori and I were the only other people in the place.

I just completed a book entitled "You don't need a title to be a leader" by Mark Sanborn. In the book he speaks of a situation in which a customer went into a diner to have breakfast but had previously purchased a cup of coffee at a STARBUCKS, or something like that, and had brought it in with them. The waitress in the restaurant told the customer that they were not allowed to bring coffee in from another establishment. The customer took his STARBUCKS and left. Mark suggested that the better response from the waitress would have been since we don't allow customers to bring in coffee from other places, let me pour that coffee into one of our cups so that you can enjoy it while you have breakfast.

I think the waitress in the restaurant Lori and I were at today could have taken a more proactive, positve response to the request of the customers wanting to be served outside. She could have said that they certainly could enjoy their food outside, however since she was the only one working, if the dining room got very busy it may take a few extra moments for her to get outside and tend to their needs. It was a beautiful day outside. I don't think the customer would have had a bit of problem with that response.

I'm just stunned at the decline of service that is given today. Every day it seems that it becomes an its more about "me" world than what can I do to make your life better.

Customer Service...or the lack there of (pt 2)

So Friday came and still no credit to my checking account for the erroneous withdrawl that Verizon made as a payment. So once again I called customer service. As I was waiting for someone to pick up the call Verizon's recorded customer service pledge was playing over and over. It said that Verizon's objective was to solve your problem the first time you report it. Ha! Finally a customer service rep answered the phone. After a brief discription from me as to what had transpired, again, she apoloigised, again.

Then she put me on hold so that she could read all of the notes that had been put on my account. She came back to the line and said it would take about 30 minutes for her to research the problem and wanted to know if she could call me back. I was going to the gym and wasn't going to be available for about 90 minutes so she agreed to call then.

The 90 minutes turned into about 100 minutes but she called. She advised that the paper work to generate the credit back to my checking account had never been filled out nor processed since I originally reported the problem on Tuesday. What was that customer service objective I heard on the recording...."fix it the first time!" apparently not so much! She apologised again and said that her supervisor was right there with her and that they would submit the paper work and some action should be taken on Monday. I asked for a call back on Monday so that a status of the situation could be determined.

So we'll see what Monday brings!

Home Improvment

As I was driving to work this morning I passed a truck for a local home improvement company. The side of the truck was adverstising the name of the company- ConCreation. I chuckled to myself as it turned off on a side road.....if they really want business to multiply....shouldn't they rename it ProCreation! ..........Ba dah bup bup!

Customer Service or the lack there of....

About a month an 1/2 ago I ordered a new phone from Verizon for my wife. A day or so after I ordered the phone I decided to look at my account online and found a new phone number had been added. Apparently when I ordered the phone something got screwed up and Verizion added a new line along with the phone. Her new phone came a few days after that and a day after her phone arrived, yet a second phone came. I had called Verizon when I saw that the bogus line had been added to our account and now had to call them back about the extra phone. I was instructed on how to return the phone and was assured that my account would be credited for the line and the phone.

I had signed up for automatic payments for my Verizon bill back in February. It actually was working out quite nice. They debited my checking every month on the same day and it was one less bill I had to remember to pay. I decided because of all of the screw ups with my account that I didn't want my June bill to be auto debited because I was afraid they would take the incorrect amount.

The June bill came and it was less than $20. I paid it this past weekend. Today, I logged on to get my Comcast emails and saw an email from Verizon. When I opened it it said that my June bill of $98 would be debited from my account on Tuesday. Sure enough when I checked my bank account it had been deducted. So had the payment I'd made over the weekend.

You betcha I was on the phone to Verizon pronto! The customer service rep advised that if an account was set up on the autopay that sometimes it takes two months to stop it. I said that isn't what I was told and now there wasn't going to be enough for my mortgage payment when it was deducted. Again the Verizon rep apologise but restated that there wasn't anything she could do. I could feel my blood pressure begin to rise. The rep kept telling me that my credit would carry over to my July bill. I said that was find and dandy but I didn't have an extra $98 to make up for the difference until next month. Nonetheless, the rep maintained she could do nothing about it.

I was maxed out on patience. I asked if I could speak to a supervisor. She asked me to hold. I waited for about 5 minutes and she came back to the phone. Her supervisor wasn't available but she said she was going to issue a credit back to my checking account and said it should be effective before noon. So I'm thinkin' to myself, "thought you couldn't do anything!" She then asked for a phone number that I could be reached at to confirm that the credit had been issued.

By 3:45 this afternoon I still hadn't received a call back so I called Verizon back. Of course I had to explain the entire story including what transpired today to the new customer service rep that answered the phone. She too put me on hold and then came back to the phone after 5 minutes. This customer service rep apologised (the sure know how to do that!) and said that it takes 48 to 72 hours for the credit to get applied to my checking account. She assured me that it would show up on my account by Friday at the latest. I thanked her and ended the call.

I wonder how many people just take the word of the first customer service rep that I spoke with who insisted that there was nothing she could do until I pushed a little harder. What is up with customer service! Why should I have had to ask to speak to a supervisor to finally get some action that could have been taken care of in the first place. I'm locked into a contract but I will definitely consider a different provider once it comes to an end.

Won't you be....my neighbor

Lori and I are sitting at Panera this morning having a bagel and reading the Sunday paper. A woman walks in the door smiling and mouths "hello." I assume she is looking past me to someone sitting behind me. Lori looks at me and says "do you know her?" I said I have no idea and thought she must have been saying hi to someone behind me. Lori said she was looking right at us. I shrugged and went back to the paper. A few moments later I looked up and there was a man standing with the woman who'd just come in. It was then that the light bulb came on. They were our neighbors who live directly across the street from us. How sad is that. We've lived across the street from this couple for 9 years and I didn't even recognize them.

Of course, after I recognized him I said hello to both of them and said how sad it was when you don't even recognize someone who lives right across the street from you. We all laughed and then went back to what we were doing.

I think it was about a year, maybe 2 years ago, we'd gotten a floral delivery at our house. It was for a neighbor and the delivery person asked if they could leave at our house because the people the flowers were for weren't home. I waited a while and called the phone number on the card of the people who should have received the flowers to see if they could come pick them up. They answered the phone and I gave them my address and they said they would be there in a few minutes to pick up the flowers. A few minutes passed and there was a knock at the door. It was this same guy from Panera this morning. He'd drove up and down our street trying to find our house not even realizing that I was right across the street. Again...isn't amazing how you can live 500 feet from someone and not even realize that you do.

As we walked out of Panera this morning, our neighbors were sitting at one of the outside tables. We stopped and had one of those surface-y 'how's life' kinda conversations. We talked about the weather, our dog, their dog....etc. We bid our farewells and went to our car.

As we were driving home I said to Lori, "we should invite them over for coffee sometime, we know they drink it now!"

Relationships. It means being intentional.

Two by two

Lori and I had the opportunity to attend a special private viewing of "Evan Almighty" last week while were at the Willow Creek Art's Conference. We're typically not big movie fans. Once in a while we'll rent something but rarely go to the theater. But, hey, we were out of town and it was a great opportunity to spend time with some friends.

The theater wasn't far from Willow but we opted to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory at Woodfield Mall first. We had to watch our time as we had a further distance to get to the theater and we're talkin' Chicago traffic. All was good until we decided to order dessert. But c'mon....who can go the Cheesecake Factory and not have cheesecake. It was delicious but it also made us get to the theater about 15 minutes later than we wanted but everything worked out fine. We got great seats and saw a awesome movie.

Morgan Freeman plays God again in this movie and does a phenominal job. Steve Carrells (The Office) does an awesome job in his Noah-like role. The movie is well written and very funny. I don't recall any language or nor any other objectional content.

One of the very thought provoking nuggets was was when Morgan Freeman, posing as a waiter in a diner, was talking to Evan’s wife about life’s struggles and how God will put us in the midst of something we struggle with to see how we will react and grow from the situation. Do we take the high road, the path that God desires us to take, or do we take the low road and try to deal with a situation like we assume it needs to be dealt with only to find more struggle and disappointment.

Hollywood did good on this one! I recommend you see it whe it opens this Friday and come back and tell me what you thought.

weekend recap

Reflective, insightful, contemplative and maybe even a little pensive are just a few of the words that describe the weekend service at GCC (Granger Community Church) this weekend. Last week ended a 5 week series on the enemy that lurks within us. Topics included temptation, revenge, selfishness, insecurity and gossip. All of those topics were somewhat culminated giving us all an opportunity to ponder how all of those things are affecting our lives.


I think most of us, I know its true for me, hear that little voice inside our heads telling me what the right choice in all things that we do and say. Yet it can be so easily cast aside and ignored.

A common scripture weaved into the message was Romans 7: 14 -16.....

I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise......

There is no doubt how quickly I can get caught up in "me" and when I allow that to happen I'm only opening the door and giving the "enemy within" a prime, tactical position. When life becomes all about me, temptations, bitterness, selfishness and insecurity begin to fester and the road out of the land of "me" seems unsurpassable.


This weekend reminded me how I have to guard myself from the "enemy within." But it seems that I often live in the land of "me" and only vacation outside of it. Kind of reminds me of the lyrics to Hotel California..."you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave"

But I have a way out.

Romans 7:24-25 24 I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? 25The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different


....because people matter. Because I matter.

Renaissance Man

So, I've been in Chicago with my wife for the last 3 days attending a conference on using Arts in the church. We were staying in this really nice hotel. The guest rooms were much plusher than the hotels where I usually stay. The king size bed had a "comfy" pillow top mattress. There was a large flat screen tv on the bureau. Next to the complimentary coffee and coffee maker was bottle water in glass bottles imported from Norway (course it was clearly marked $4.00 on each bottle). The bathroom had a tv in the mirror. Nothing like shaving and catching the morning news all at the same time. And there was even a STARBUCKS in the lobby.

Last night, after a long day at the conference Lori and I returned to our room around 9:30pm. When the light flooded into the room when I opened the door it was obvious the bed had never been made. I flipped on the light and it was quite evident the room had not been cleaned. I opened the door to the bathroom and the towels we used in morning were still in the basket that was provided for used towels. The entire day had gone by and our room was never cleaned! I just stood there in disbelief.

I walked over to the phone and called the front desk to let them know what had happened. Of course they were very sorry and wanted to know if we wanted the room cleaned right then. We were very tired and I wasn't in the mood to wait for someone to come tidy up what should have been tidied up hours before we returned so I declined. The person at the front desk offered to send up some clean towels and I said that would be nice and hung up.

We waited and waited .............and waited and still there was no knock at the door. Finally after 30 minutes had passed I called the front desk again. Once again the clerk was very sorry and advised that she would bring the towels herself and shortly thereafter the knock at the door came.

Fast forward to this morning. I got up around 6am and found the room bill had been shoved under the door and was laying on the floor in an envelope. After showering and going down to the STARBUCKS to get my much needed coffee, I told Lori I was going to go check out while she finished getting ready. She asked if I was going to say anything about the room not being cleaned and I said that was my plan.

I get down to the front desk and am greeted by a friendly young man who asked if I was checking out. I said I was, set my STARBUCKS cup on the ledge separating us, but also said I had something that I would like him to address. When I had finished telling him about the status of the room when we returned last night he offered to take the $15 charge off of the bill for the one day of internet access and he'd give me coupons for a free STARBUCKS. I looked at him and said I appreciated the fact that he wanted to accomodate my, but we paid over $150 per night for this room in, what I considered a more upscale hotel, wouldn't you think our room would be clean when we returned? And then I said that I already had STARBUCKS, and pointed to my cup. He looked at the bill again and said he would be right back and disappeared into the back room.

A few moments later he returned and said that they were not only going to refund my one day internet access but they were also going to take 25% off my charge for last nights stay. I thanked him for the efforts that he made to rectify my issues and took the new bill back up to the room as he also advised that if checked out I wouldnt be able to get back into the room.

I didn't want to make a bigger deal out of this than it was but I did want to get my point across. Addtionally, I was quite impressed that the front desk clerk took the time to make it right with me. He had several options. He could have just apologised and done nothing. He could have said that his original offer of removing the internet access charge and the free STARBUCKS was the best he could do, or a variety of other things. But he didn't do any of those things. He chose to go above and beyond to ensure my satisfaction and that isn't something you often get in todays world. Thank you Marriott Renaissance.