Weekend Wrap Up

From the superficial to the spiritual realm, this was a good one.

The superficial first—Penn State wins, the Steelers make a comeback to beat the Brownies. Hines Ward (go, Georgia Bulldogs!) might be the toughest guy in football. I beat a 5th grader in my first chess match in 15 years. My wife spoke at a Mary Kay retreat, which meant that I got to hang out with the kids for a few days as Mr. Mom. It was a good weekend!

Sarah (a girl in my wife’s Bible study) emailed my wife to let us know that her brother has made a decision to become a Christ-follower. I have been teaching through the big reasons that the Church exists, and this past week was the night we talked about sharing the story of Christ. In the process of teaching students to share the story with their friends, I encouraged students to ask Christ for the new life that he offers, and 4 students (including Sarah’s brother) responded and talked to their small group leaders. That’s a good night!

This weekend, our pastor’s sermon was titled Life’s Too Short to Die Rich. Talk about hitting me where I live! This is the very stuff that I have been dealing with for the last few months. How do I become less of a consumer and more generous. How do I help my family process through this? How do I avoid Me First and the Gimme Gimmes? (We actually find them to be pretty amusing, but that’s us.) Here’s a helping hand: Christmas is not your birthday.

Last night we baptized six 11^th graders! What a blessing to hear their stories, to see God moving in their lives (and their school). It is absolutely thrilling to see young people who are genuinely letting their relationship with God shape their lives. Randy took a lot of pictures, and my beautiful wife got to baptize her first student! All of these girls are in her Bible study, which says something, don’t ya think?

OK, Levi’s out of school and headed to the doctor (swollen glands), and I’ve got to give the dog a bath today. He broke his cable/chain thing yesterday afternoon, and took off for the pig farm. My wife has said it about a hundred times since we got home last night (my nose doesn’t smell)—the dog stinks like pig poop.