Oh, Deer
On the way back from Alabama we had a close encounter with a deer. At 70 mph. I don't think the deer got out of it very well, but we didn't do too badly. After the adrenalin started wearing off (I think I had bionic hearing for a minute there...), we pulled over to survey the damage and found that the front bumper was broken and dragging the ground, so I pulled a third of it off with my bare hands (there are more than just super hearing powers around here!) and what I couldn't pull off I tied up with Jessica's shoelaces. There was no other damage, thankfully!
I bought her new shoelaces today.
Labels: miscellaneous
Thanksgiving
We started with an evening at our aunt/uncle's house here in Roanoke where Daniel got to meet some of his great-grandparents and he was good for a few minutes... then he cried a lot. Wednesday we drove to Alabama and managed to fit an 8 hour drive into over 11 hours. We made it, though (and we stopped at a hotel on the way back - much better!). In the several days we spent in 'bama, Daniel got to meet another great-grandma as well as some aunts/uncles and cousins. We had Thanksgiving dinner with some Chinese students who attend a Christian ministry that Seth's parents have been involved with. Plus we did lots of other family things like games, outings, etc, and had a wonderful time. hooray for Thanksgiving!
make sure you check our pictures/media page for some Thanksgiving pics!
Labels: family, travel
5k and pie
Jessica ran in a 5k race in Roanoke yesterday and did well - not as well as she had hoped, but she got a good time and proved that she's back in the game after her c-section. Right now (Sunday evening) she is at church with the youth girls throwing a progressive Thanksgiving dinner for the ladies of the church - and she did most of the cooking!
Labels: family, our ministry
Karma
The other day somebody mentioned how every religion has the concept of Karma in it - that if you do good things than good things will happen to you, but if you don't, they won't. It's true that basically every religion uses this kind of system with different names. But there is one glaring exception: Christianity. Yes, Christianity acknowledges that there are consequences to our bad actions, but only Christianity says that there is nothing good enough that we can do to make up for the bad - instead, the good was done
for us by God's Son and the punishment for the bad was taken by Him on the cross. How freeing to know that we don't have to please some impersonal measuring system - we can actually be the adopted children of the King!
Labels: miscellaneous
If someone asks you to pray... do it!
The other day at work a fellow server asked me (Seth) to pray for her because she was mad about something. I said okay, but promptly forgot in the midst of the dinner rush. Later, she said "you forgot - I can tell". At that point, I started praying like crazy for her - and later she came and said "Thank you, I feel a lot more peaceful and I know you've been praying for me". So, if someone asks you to pray - make sure you really do!
Labels: our ministry
Thai'd
Today our Sunday School class went out for Thia food after church - Seth had the "Amazing Duck" and liked it, Jessica had something that wasn't quite so "amazing" and it was kind of gross. But it was all spicy... in a weird, not-what-you-normally-think-of kind of way. The main difference, I think, is that water works to take the sting out - unlike some hot wings in our past. Amazing. Then we went bowling.
Labels: family
Church Model
Our church has basically followed Rick Warren's "Purpose Driven" model for several years now, but last Sunday our pastor presented a new direction that he would like us to go - he called it "Mission Driven". No, it's not a total emphasis on cross-cultural missions...
Rick Warren's Purpose Driven model uses five purposes (Evangelism, Fellowship, Discipleship, Ministry and Worship), which are taken from the Great Commission (go and make disciples...) and the Great Commandment (to love God with all your heart, soul strength and mind).
The Mission Driven model focuses on the basic command directed to the church: "Go and make disciples...". Instead of breaking that command down into Evangelism ("go and make disciples"), Fellowship ("baptizing them") and discipleship ("teaching them"), the Mission Driven model sees all of these things as aspects of the same command - to make disciples.
The key to the Mission Driven model is to define what a disciple is, then take all the ministries of the church and focus them on doing what it takes to help people become disciples.
So what is a disciple?
Luke 14:26-27; 33 show us that a disciple must make their relationship with Christ their first priority above anything else. John 15:5-8 shows us that a disciple should be self-feeding and should be bearing fruit that glorifies God. Matthew 4:19 shows us that disciples are "fishers of men" who should be actively sharing their faith. This list may not be complete, but it's a good start towards defining a standard of what it means to be a disciple - and what our goal is as we "go and make disciples".
This is still a work in progress - what do you think?
Labels: our ministry
Four Months
Daniel turned four months old today and went to the doctor to celebrate. We found out he's still in the 10th percentile in weight, only the fifth in length, but he's made it to the 50th in head circumference! No wonder he has trouble holding that thing up!
Labels: family
A Real Weekend
For the first time in a while we actually got to have a weekend where we could take it easy and relax a bit - so we went for a drive up on the Blue Ridge Parkway and got a good look at some of God's great fall colors! Here's a little of what we saw:
Labels: family
Random News
Jessica got to teach Spiderman a piano lesson on Halloween. Evidently he's trying to branch out and develop some new skills.
In other news, Daniel is laughing and smiling a lot, Seth is working a lot, and Jessica is busy with the baby and a steady stream of ministry opportunities. We have had several new folks say that they want to start supporting us, so that has been very encouraging, especially after finding out that our support need is now greater due to the rising housing costs in Ireland. It seems like an impossible task sometimes, but we know that our God is in the business of doing impossible things :)
Labels: family, our support
