Ike, Overused Phrases, and Not Really News

My goal is to post at least every other day. My last post was on Friday and today is Monday. As you can see, I did not meet my goal. But it was a busy weekend. Unless you live in a cave, you are probably aware that there was a hurricane. Hurricane Ike. You could rename Galveston Tina. Some of you will get that. It was not a particularly powerful storm. It was only a category 2. But it was big. Bigger than Texas big. That is how I spent my weekend. It was windy and rainy, but it was not really bad here in Tyler. I have a brother and sister-in-law in Alvin who had some damage to their home. Due to their jobs, they were unable to evacuate. I am not even a little bit jealous of them.

During preparations for the storm, I watched a fair amount of the local news for the weather reports. There are always grossly overused expressions in the news media, but during hurricane Ike, there was one that truly got on my nerves. If Mark Scirto told us one more time to "hunker down", I thought I would have to punch him right through the television. Everybody I talked to was hunkered down. Everybody encouraged me to hunker down. My family hunkered down. I was so tired of hearing about hunkering down, I refused to hunker. I was willing to batton down the hatches, hole up in my home, seek shelter, or any of a number of options. But I was sick of being hunkered down. That has to be the most overused phrase of this storm.

Those of us who work in ministry sometimes struggle with being relevant. (Speaking of overused expressions.) Apparently, it is not only churches that strive to be relevant. With almost all the news – even the national news – devoted to hurricane Ike, it apparently could make for a slow news day in other parts of the country. Check out this headline from the Fort Collins Coloradoan. This is a perfect example of trying too hard.

Do you have any good, or at least interesting, stories from the hurricane this weekend? Share them with me and the three others that might read this.

Grace & Peace,

John

On Public Service

I was thinking today about pubic service or community service. I am sure part of this was brought on by last night's political forum at Columbia University. The format was very similar to the earlier forum on religion at Saddleback Church with Rick Warren. I did not watch nor listen to all that much of last night's event, but I did hear part of John McCain's interview. He spoke very highly of service to the nation, especially through service in the Armed Forces. This was made even more poignant by the fact that three of the four candidates have children either already or about to be deployed to the Middle East.

Today I had lunch with she who must be obeyed at a local eatery. Sitting across from us was a lady and a young man who I suspect was her son. He was dressed in his camouflage BDU's. I do not know if he was home on leave or about to be deployed or stationed somewhere fairly locally. Any of those are reasonable. As I watched him there, I was moved in a way that totally surprised me. I was genuinely proud of this young man. I am sure I had never laid eyes on him in my life, but I was proud of him.

I have made a point not to stray into politics here. Regardless of your opinion of the current administration or which one you want to replace it, the young men and women who wear the uniform of our Armed Services are to be respected. We, as Americans, should be proud of those who perform this valuable public community service.

As the father of three sons, I thought about the day they are finishing high school and deciding what to do with their lives. I will not push them in any one particular direction, but I want them to know that the defense of your nation and freedom is a noble profession.

May God bless and protect those who bravely protect us.

Too Many Blogs

I get too many blogs fed into my Google reader. There you have it. I admit it. As I migrated my blog back over to its place on blogger, I made a few very minor changes. One was to update my blog roll. Blogger has a nice little feature that will import them right from reader along with the latest post title. When I did that, I realized just how many blogs I feeds I subscribe to. It is truly ridiculous. I don't have time, or really even the desire to read all of that. The problem is that I don't know what I should delete. I guess I'll just leave them all there for now. I don't read everything posted, but I do scan them all for the things that interest me. I do make a point to read the blogs of my friends. Those are my favorites. Some of you that read mine are listed in my blog roll. So I would like to give a little shoutout to my friends who blog. (I could have turned all these into links, but that would be very time-consuming. They are all listed on the left):

• .Ross (Ross Strader)
• Missio Dei (Mark Kuykendall)
• Larry's Thoughts (Larry Reeves)
• Blessed With Grace (Lisa Morgan)
• Right Here…Right Now (Lana Howell
• Our Blessed Family (Liz Reeves)
• Todd Blog (Todd Wright)
• Bethel Bible Church Blog

Grace & Peace

John

Baptism Sunday

This past Sunday at church was our annual baptism and picnic. There were over 600 people at church and we baptized 23! It was a truly great day. We consumed 400 hamburgers and 400 hot dogs, because as our deacon in charge of fun says, "Nothing says baptism like fine beef products!"

We shot a short video of some of the action. This video is also posted on Bethel's new blog. Add it to whichever reader you use. A link can also be found on the left side of this page. Hope you enjoy it. If you were there, let us know what you thought of the day.

Grace & Peace,

John

I'm Back!!!

Several months ago, I thought it would be fun not only to blog, but to build a website that would tell you all about my family and what we have going on. I was wrong. It was less fun that I thought it would be. It ended up that I even quit blogging for a while. In other words, the thing that was my focus became just another activity. I got distracted by other things. That is just what happens to us in our Christian walk. If our main purpose is to love God and each other, what happens when we get distracted with other things? Our love for God and others becomes less evident. Don't let this happen to you. Don't let the busyness of life distract you from what is most important. 

 Grace & Peace,

 John