Occasionally Courtney and I get into “name that tune” battles usung YouTube videos. We go back and forth trying to stump each other with 80’s songs and some 90’s. Courtney usually wins b/c my music knowledge ends in about 1993 since I am “old.” Anyway…after our match last night that ended with “I can’t believe it’s 11:41pm”, I searched a few more songs and landed on this David Crowder video below. I love Crowder and I appreciate his remakes of the older hymns. I wish I could play this song.
I’m sure if I keep writing about meaningless things like BBQ, people may stop reading my blog. But, I had reason to go through Wilson today at lunch time and you’d better believe that Tim and I went through the drive-thru at Bill’s for BBQ sandwiches, hushpuppies and cornsticks. Tim wasn’t a huge fan of the cornsticks – but it’s an aquired taste!
Oh, and by the way, the reason we were driving through Wilson was to get to Greenville to pick up our portable “bapistry.” We are having baptisms at church this Sunday. We have shared the price with 2 other churches on the cost of purchasing a portable baptistry that we can share and move anywhere we’d like.
Anyway…more on baptism and what that means in a future post in the not too distant future.
Unbelievably, my friends Dave and Heather are now the proud parents of their 2nd baby girl, who was delivered in the front seat of their minivan on the way to hospital! I’m sure the news reporter can tell the story better than me, so here’s the link:
http://wral.com/news/local/story/2768911/
I’m not so sure how I would have done in that situation! But I think God gives us the abilities we need, when we need them!
Our church celebrated its 2-year anniversary yesterday! Or was it our birthday? Who knows? If you think you know, let me know. But at any rate, Happy Day! It’s been a great 2 years at The Bridge! I am truly grateful for all that God is doing in and through our church. I’d like to think that we truly are a “different kind of church.” We don’t claim to be better – just different. Our aim, of course, is to honor God, but also to be a church that extends open arms to people who may not be connected with God and a little disenfranchised with traditional church. We try to create an environment where people from all kinds of backgrounds can join together and worship and encourage each other on our spiritual journey. As I consider all the people that have connected with our church, I really believe we are reaching our aim! I am so proud of the community that God is building among us as we ask hard questions of life and faith and seek answers that are not always as “black and white” as we’d like them to be.
Anyway…I’m rambling. Thanks to everyone who helped make our 2-year celebration a success yesterday. I’m sure I’ll forget someone, but here goes: Joanne, Fred, Rochelle, Ben, Abbie, Joy, Courtney, set-up and break down team, our Bridgekidz workers, our greeters, our facilty host – Kids R Kids, our band, our tech and sound guys, Brad for MCing our game, Tim for creating our game, and everyone who chipped in to help clean it all up when all was said and done! THANKS.
Here is another Bridge video (produced by Russ) from our workday with Habitat for Humanity! Don’t you love to serve!?! Do check out the Habitat website and hopefully join us when we next schedule another workday!
Here’s our “Doors” video that Russ created for our last message series on “Doors.” Thanks Russ! You did a great job and we appreciate you sharing your gifts and abilities!
A big part of the vision of our church is to be “outwardly-focused.” In other words, every organization, particularly churches, have a tendency to turn inward and forget that part of their mission is to serve others. One of our goals is to be as involved in as many community events as we possibly can. Thus, Litter Day. No, not a day to litter (I hate litter!), but a day to pick up litter around the community. Morrisville sponsors 2 Litter Sweeps a year. This past Saturday was our church’s second chance to help out. We had about a half a dozen volunteers who met at the town hall, met some nice folks from the town, received our vests, bags and gloves, and then were sent out to McCrimmon Parkway to collect trash. As you can imagine, we found a lot of trash and very few treasures. We found several skeletons of small animals. It was great to have a Vet on our team to help us try and identify what kind of animals they might have been.
Anyway…we had a lot of fun serving together and met some great people. I did find a Harley-Davidson trailer hitch that I’ve cleaned up and would gladly give to any Harley owner who might want it. Below are a couple of pics from the day. Thanks to Matt, Dana, Joy, Anna, Carter and our new friend Laurin for serving!
What do the Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament and 2, 616,346 have in common? Well, according to ESPN.com, I tied for 2,616,346 place with my predictions to the outcome of the men’s tournament. That ranks in the 17.7 percentile! Out of 8 paticipants in our “office” bracket contest, that total got me all the way up to 7th place! So, congrats to our esteemed worship leader, Cary, who took first place overall and actually ended up in the 94.1 percentile over all, tied for 186,065 place. That’s actually not that bad! Had Memphis pulled out the victory, Cary probably would have been in the 98th percentile or higher!
Anyway…I didn’t even watch the game last night because I lost complete interest in the tournament when Carolina lost on Saturday night to Kansas. Besides the fact that I was so tired last night that I fell asleep around 8:30 or so.
In my message yesterday, I talked about how our hearts are not necessarily the best source of wisdom for decision making. Our hearts can be very deceitful and lead us in the wrong direction. As I was praying this morning, and asking for God’s direction in my own life, it seemed as if He was causing me to examine my heart. So often it seems that much of my prayers stem from selfish motives. On the outside, I’m praying for good things. But in my heart, if I’m honest, I often want these good things because they will serve me – to make me feel better or to make me more successful. I think I am praying for the right things, but I’ve got to make sure I’m praying in the right spirit. With that said, this verse came to mind as I was praying:
“Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.”
That is from Psalm 139:23-24. May our hearts be changed that we desire God, not just for what He might do for us, but because He is ultimately the only thing worth desiring. May we have the courage to examine our hearts and get to the place where we are free of self and truly open to following after God in a right spirit.
“If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair. Because five minutes at the fair, you’ll be going, ‘you know, we’re alright. We are dang near royalty.'”~Jeff Foxworthy
If you have 3 quarters, 4 dimes, and 4 pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
MikeWindley.com 