celebrating diversity within the Sublett house

We value the differences between our kids, even those that distance them from who we thought they'd be.

I played baseball through college. Levi decided that this year he's not playing baseball. OK, not that big of a deal, really. I love the sport, but he doesn't have to! He's landed a role in a pretty cool musical (The Sound Of Music) done by a top-notch local theater. He is learning to play guitar, and he totally destroys me at Madden.

Kim's a Mary Kay Sales Director, former sorority girl, and a self-proclaimed "floofy girl." Lilly couldn't be happier than when she's saving worms from getting stepped on when they end up on the porch, or when she's saving a slug who crawled out on the road..."Hey, I think he peed on me!" she says with a smile...

I wish that I had taken pictures of Sadie last Friday night. She'd been asking to go rock climbing for a couple of months. We grabbed some gear and headed to the Y for a first attempt for her. She loved it. She never complained of the height, never said, "I can't..." never got tired of trying. She climbed every moment that I wasn't trying, and even a couple of times when Pete would belay her. As the night went on, she got more confident, stronger, and more adept at the nuances of climbing.

Who knows, maybe we have a climber in the house.

I love our family!

a good weekend by all standards

Mother's Day, family time, preaching and worship with people I love, and a ton of rain...and a good time was had by all.

Kim and I took the kids (and Kim D) to Bedford for the weekend. Kim's dad invited me to preach at their campground/church for Mother's Day, and Kim D went with us to help lead worship. I could listen to that lady sing all day long. Such a sweet/powerful voice, such a sweet spirit...

It was Pentecost Sunday, and I spoke about the effect of the the descent of the Holy Spirit on the ragtag group of Jesus' followers. We took a whirlwind tour of the early church through the first 8 chapters of the Book of Acts. It's amazing to see how the church grew, and there are some remarkable truths that I think we're on the verge of capturing for our local expression of the body of Christ.

I believe that the thing that I want to grasp--the low-hanging fruit--is that Good Deeds open the door for Good News. When we are aggressively engaged in meeting the needs of the people around us, we earn the opportunity to share the life-changing, life-giving message of Jesus. People are drawn to love in action, and that's one of the primary messages of Jesus. That's part of what it means to live on mission with Jesus in our community.

On top of all that, we had a great Mother's Day with Kim's family.

the waffle shop meets quaker steak & lube

Tonight we honored some of our friends with a night out at the Lube.

Almost every morning of the week, at least one of our small groups finds their way to the Waffle Shop for a breakfast before school. The staff at the Waffle Shop always treats us great, and we wanted to say "Thank You" in a special way. So we invited them out to eat at the Lube with us. Our leaders and students wrote notes detailing the thing we love most about the WS, which our 9th grade ladies turned into favors for each place setting.

Some of the folks were hesitant to join us. I guess they were afraid that we'd preach at them or try to get them to join our church. But there was no hidden agenda. There was no program or talk. We simply wanted to say thanks and buy them a meal.

We believe that we are blessed to be a blessing to others, and this was a small way for us to show our appreciation. We had a great night talking with our friends over wings and pulled pork.

I think we'll do it again in the fall!

what in the world is going on?

Our church has some ties with orphanages in the Dominican Republic and Myanmar. Unless you've been hiding under a rock (or studying for finals), you've heard the news about the cyclone that has brought destruction to Myanmar. Yahoo has a bunch of pics. I just read that the death toll could top 100,000. 1 million people are homeless.

Tonight, while browsing Boatertalk (a kayaking web forum), I learned that a volcano in Futaleufu, Chile has erupted for the first time in 9000 years, shooting volcanic ash, steam, smoke, and gas more than 19 miles into the sky. Everyone within 50 miles of Chaiten is being evacuated. All the livestock and farms will be lost. The land will be infertile for as many as 20 years, and life as they knew it will cease to exist for those who lived near that volcano.

I don't know about you, but it makes me stop and think about all the things that I find myself grumbling about. It's time for a little perspective, a reality check...

now that's just weird

I meant to post this last week...

Kim mentioned to me that she watched the demise of a baby bunny at the hands of the neighborhood cats the other day. Have you ever seen a cat with a small animal in its mouth? They play with the poor animal like a toy. But eventually, the game ends.

Well, late that night Sunny (the orange boy cat we have) kept nosing around under the baseboard heater in the kitchen. I shooed him off; he went back. I grabbed him and moved him off; he went back. I remembered another time when we had a chipmunk in the kitchen, and thought, "Maybe there's a reason he keeps digging around in there." So I let him go at it.

A few minutes later, he was at the front door, waiting to be let out. I noticed that there was something else at the door, so I turned on the light--baby bunny. So I opened the door and let the circle of life run its course.

I debated about telling Kim the story, and decided to let her know about the hunting prowess of our little Sunny. She wasn't too grossed out.

a rare Sunday night post

I don't normally post over the weekend, but I had to share a little good news:

The Prodigal has come home!

We've been missing our eldest cat for about 8 days. We'd pretty much given up hope for his safe return. Last week we got a call from a neighbor asking if we had a black cat--she'd found one dead on the road below our neighborhood. I went down to check it out, only to find that it wasn't Percy. It was, however, one of our neighbor's cats.

But tonight, right after House Party ended Kim got a call from our daughter Lilly with the good news. He was covered in mud, stinky, and skinny. Kim gave him a pretty good bath, and he ate a bunch.

I'm not really a cat fan, but what breaks the hearts of my kids also breaks mine.

We won't be killing the fattened calf, but we're celebrating just the same!

true sportsmanship defined

Have you seen this story? Class.

lots of late nights, and good stories

I'm up late again, getting ready for a seminar that I'm teaching at Calvary tomorrow night--er, tonight, I guess. I think I'm about ready to go. The seminar is part of our WoW life series--Without Walls living. My topic is Telling Good News, and, as you can guess, it's about sharing the gospel with others.

One of the coolest parts of my week has been hearing the stories from students who took part in our CityServe last weekend. We canceled the weekend worship services and mobilized close to 600 people, sending them out into the community to serve. Our students had a great experience doing good deeds. It's our hope and dream that we can re-shape the way people think about being the church. We want our good deeds to open the door for the Good News about Jesus and God's reconciliation plan throughout our neighborhoods.

My family took some time Sunday morning to head down to the creek that runs through our neighborhood. We walked through the creek pulling out the garbage that had accumulated from the winter's melt-off. Well, the kids and I walked in the creek, while Kim stayed out of the water! It was coooooold water, and we gathered 2 big garbage bags full of trash.

It felt good to serve our neighborhood. We're going to start prayerwalking our little 2 street neighborhood, too.