Sunday Mind Dump - April 29, 2012

CAN YOU BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED TODAY?

There was more spiritual warfare taking place in our service than I have seen in a long time.  The distractions were everywhere… all in an attempt to interrupt the morning message, which happened to be one of the most important that I have ever preached.

Some of our sound equipment was unplugged, a piece of equipment got knocked over in the middle of the singing, and the batteries in my mic failed.  If that wasn’t enough, at some point during the sermon about seven men from our ushers dept and security team rushed out of the sanctuary into the atrium, and then out the front doors!  I was mid-sentence on the stage and all I could think in the back of my mind was, “Has there been a medical emergency or has some combative person showed up?"

The text I preached from is one I have NEVER preached from in all my years in the ministry.  It’s so challenging that I didn’t think I could handle it skillfully (i.e., exegesis), so I’ve always left it alone.  Today, all that changed.

And the devil showed.

And PCC turned a corner.

I have turned a corner too.

The current discipleship emphasis I am teaching right now is the message of the gospel.  I will not deviate from it.  Ever.  I have learned so much, personally, in the last year or so that I will never be the same. 

I think our church is headed for a turnaround and a new era of leadership too.

I’ll write about this in a day or two.

After church today Renae and I spent the afternoon touring the parade of homes in Pace.  It was a lot of fun.  We got to see new custom homes that had really nice features.  All out of our price range, of course.  But since we are still planning to build our empty nest home, we’re looking for ideas.

Our garden is doing real good.  We picked squash over the weekend; enough to fill two five-gallon buckets.  Gave most of it away.  We’ll pick again in two days.

I finally got water to the back the property.  Up till now I’ve had to use 550 feet of hose to water the garden.  But over the weekend I got 600 feet of PVC pipe installed with three spigots (hose bibs).  Thanks to Curt Schepper who made it happen.

Having access to water will change everything out there.

I’m going to begin landscaping soon.  My vineyard is about to materialize. :-)

Renae and I are going fishing.  Hope to haul in a few keepers.  I am so ready for a day on the water.

I have been preaching/teaching at PCC for fourteen years.  I want to last for fourteen more, and the only way I can do that is to assemble a teaching team to assist me.  New voices from the stage are in our future.