a fun week

This past week involved a flurry of activity at church as we had a missions team come in from Alabama and teens from our church going on a trip to serve in the city of Hartford. I had various responsibilities for both of these projects and was a little harried going into the week, but looking back it was definitely worth it.
The team from Alabama lead a children's program in the North End of Hartford, helped train children's ministry workers, and connected with people at our church. The children's program went well after we figured out that we needed to move the start time from 9am to 11:30am.
Five teenagers from our church participated in the Hartford Project, also serving in the North End of Hartford. There were about 140 of us from 10 different churches who, through various service projects, prayer, and loving the community were able to make an impact on a really tough part of the city. It was exciting to be a part of and see God work. There are many neat stories which I will hopefully relay in future posts, but as I had a full week last week, this week I'm going to the poconos with my family for the 4th of July.

graduation thoughts

June is an exciting time for high school students (actually all students) and their respective families. We've attended graduations and graduation parties and moving towards a summer schedule. Kids have more time when they are around, but are gone (vacation, camp etc) more frequently.

Here are my thoughts on a graduation ceremony that I attended at a public high school in the area. The students value service, compassion, helping the community, and turning from selfishness towards the needs of others. Sadly, they find no basis in reality for these values. The question of whether our lives have meaning was raised again and again, but was never answered. Students wanted to avoid the cliche sayings of "giving back" and "paying it forward," saying there was not a basis for telling people to do this, but one girl said, that even though these are cliches I am going to tell you to do this anyway. It was a sad occasion because teens had this sense of being made for loving and serving others, but found no basis for that in their view of the world. If there is no God then we have no ultimate obligation to each other and can't really say that you should love and serve instead of exploiting and using. Each of us wants to say, "you should serve and not exploit. You should love and not use people." Yet without a God who truly exists and provides some external standard we are left with no ground from which to make such statements.

half-way up the mountain

This was a rather action packed weekend here as I was leading our church's participat in Celebrate West Hartord, a large town fair and arts show, and then preaching the next day. We had a booth where we helped kids decorate plastic visors with all sorts of foam stickers. There were animal shapes, letters to spell your name, sports shapes and geometric designs which kids could attach to their visors. We also had candy, dog biscuts, baloons, and info about our church. It was a fun, but somewhat draining time. It was a hot and humid day which ended in a huge thunderstorm that blew over some tents and shut down the fair an hour or so early. We had about a dozen different folks from the church involved in manning our booth, and had a killer team of mothers come up with the ideas of what we would do at our booth. It was a good way to be out and simply deepen our connections with the community.

The second part of the weekend, that was both exciting and tiring was preaching on Sunday. If you are interested you can follow this link and listen to my sermon (just scroll down a little and you'll see it - our webpage is in the midst of being revamped). The sermon went well. People were challenged and encouraged, though I forgot some of the things I had meant to say. It is exciting to be able to communicate truth to others, and I felt a lot of freedom in offering my preaching as my service to God regardless of what people throught. It was good and a little scary that people were helped by what I said. There are ways in which I want to be used by God, but there is a real responsibility which is tied into it all and that is what freaks me out a little bit.

The rest of the way up the mountain will be a children's program and service trip with teenagers, both in the city of Hartford next week.

Vacation and a jump into the river

For about 6 days Hillary and I traveled with her Dad to see Hillary's sitester and her family in Columbia, SC. We had a fun time. Here are some of the highlights:

-Vaughn and Aquilla telling silly jokes: "Knock knock. Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Bannana Peanutbutter. Hahahaha (girls laughing and then retelling the joke substituing just about anything for the punch line).

-Visiting the art Museuem in Columbia

-Jarrett took Vaughn rock climbing and she liked it

-Holding Blaize, Lydia and Chris's newest child (~6months)

-going out for ice cream

-overall, spending time together

Jumping into a river: That is what it feels like coming back into town. There is this flow of events and activities rushing towards June and we feel like coming back we have hopped in and are being carried along in the current. There is a mix of anxiety and excitement as we head into two weeks full of good but challenging things. I've written about most of this in our most recent news letter, so if you haven't gotten that and are interested, let me know. The main thing I didn't mention is that I am preaching this Sunday. This is exciting but adds a lot to my week. Pray for Hillary and I as we try to navigate the next two weeks.