Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Be There.

Good morning family. I wanted to say thanks again for the input about Wednesday nights. Some where back in time someone(s) came up with the innovation of services on Wednesday nights. This innovation caught on with other churches and then made the move from innovation to tradition and then to dogma. We plan to do something very dangerous in the next few days; we’re going to (prepared for the “s-word”) “survey” our church family as to their feelings and needs for Wednesday nights. It should be interesting.

We spent a drizzly night in Indian Harbor Beach last night at Steven’s first game back since his trip to Pascagoula, Mississippi and John Dobbs Church. The other team had to forfeit due to only having 8 players but the teams and surprisingly the Umps decided to allow them to play a 4-inning practice game.

Having been gone for a week Steven batted at the bottom of the lineup. In his first at-bat he laid down a killer bunt down the first base line that moved the runner from first to 2nd. That ended up being our first run of the game. He was hit the second time up and he ended up stealing 2nd.

It drizzled most of the game so Barb and I were a bit damp when we got into our Expo for the ride home. We were talking about how miserable a night it was when I told Steven, “Despite all of that there is no place I’d rather be – watching you play baseball.” His response was in one of those glimpses of an adult voice when he answered, “You don’t know how much that means to me.”

Patrick Mead (http://www.patrickmead.net/) made a comment on his recent post about the theme of “family” in the Bible when he said, “You can’t help but notice how much God thinks of family.” It’s a great post and I highly recommend you read it.

His thoughts and my experience last night made me think of another Biblical concept – “Being there.” In the very beginning we see God understanding that Adam needs someone to be there for him so he creates Eve in Genesis 2.

When Lazarus dies in John 11 Martha says to a “late arriving” Jesus in verse 21, “……..Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Jesus himself understood the importance of folks being there for each other in Matthew 26 when he asked his Disciples to go to Gethsemane with him as he prayed and faced crucifixion. This is probably not the best example of being there for someone. Come to think of it, Greg will probably bust my chops since in the past I’ve fallen asleep (not at church, I think) at his home.

Bottom line family – We need to be there for those around us and I guess try to stay awake in the process. That is the beauty of our blog church in that we are there for each other despite the facts that many of us have never met or we’re separated by many miles.

But we do have those that we live with every day, at our churches, and those we come into contact with that we can be there for when they need us or even when we think it isn’t a big deal but they do. Have a great day family. Make a difference today.


Comments:
Good thought and good theme for the week!
 
Your "self chops-busting" will suffice.
 
I stumbled across your blog a few weeks ago and am often encouraged by your insights. Thanks man.
 
djg - Thanks. Our theme came in handy when one of the "boys" (all 49 and older) sliced his finger with a gas-powered trimmer at our church this morning.

Greg - I actually "headed you off at the pass" for once.

Jordan W. - Welcome to our blog church community and thanks for the kind words.
 
I've said it before, and I'll say it again.........I wish you were one of my elders! :)
 
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