Halloween Pictures

You gotta love our boys. They are so willing to just enjoy dressing up that we have used our normal play costumes for our Halloween costumes for the last several years. We haven't had to buy anything new at all. That is just awesome! And, of course, the kids are too cute anyways :)

K-LOVE - Matt Maher "Alive Again" LIVE

This song has been a theme song in our church during the last 6 weeks as part of what is called the synergy series. I love the song and have enjoyed singing it every week. I found this version of it on YouTube and thought I would share it with everyone.

May God call and shout and break through the way each of us chooses to ignore, not see and not hear Him.

What's Hot at our House right now?

Thought I would share this as Kristen has been raving about him and we are playing his music in our house all the time. Even Jude is yelling out "Coffey" and "All Ye!" every time he hears the music right now.

Over a year of posts!

Just noticed that I have 367 posts before this one. It just caught my eye as I was on the dashboard page. I started this blog, I think (based on the oldest date it has listed for it in January of 2008...that means I have actually averaged about a post every other day over the last two years. That is pretty good :)
Some of you may be pretty bored with it and the overall theme for my posts are all over the place, but, I am still pretty happy with keeping up as well as that.
So, hopefully I can improve on that and see if it doesn't take 2 years to get to post number 730!

A good Sunday

Not much to tell today. Went to church, we went out as a family for lunch and then we spent the afternoon taking naps, playing and studying. The boys and I even played a game this evening which was very nice.
Not positive that I am really ready for the week to start, but it will be Monday tomorrow whether I am ready or not :)
I did also get to play a little WGT ( www.wgt.com ) with my dad and brother which was a bonus!

Totally wiped out

Kristen and Jude were sick in bed all day yesterday. I took the boys to church, brought them home for lunch and then took them to a friends for the afternoon. I spent the rest of the day working with people from our church to cook, serve and in some cases deliver a dinner to a group of senior citizens in Hopkinton. Totally worth it, but I was totally wiped out!

16 Down, 20 to go

The Leadership Lessons of Jesus: A Timeless Model for Today's Leaders by Bob Briner


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a short book in that it is 150 small pages of content and it could be read in only a few sittings, however, I think that the value of the book would be lost.
Jesus was a great leader and that can be seen in the incredible way He changed the world and those around Him. He established the church which has run for around 2,000 years and it has grown an incredible amount in that time. Can we glean insights that we can use on a regular basis to model His leadership style, to the best of our abilities, and make a difference to those people around us and the organizations we are part of?
Through the 52 chapters in this book, you will see great thoughts, activities and principles of leadership as demonstrated throughout the Bible as Jesus ran his ministry. Take the time to digest the material and work on applying it over the course of a year maybe (which woud be 1 chapter a week...looking to work on that application/activity that week) and see if you are not truly changed as a leader.

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Construction Update

Not too much news really to report, BUT, we are happy to have the final two windows in place. Now, assuming that the weather turns back to fall so that it is warm enough, we will be able to get the siding up, the exterior painted and the garage doors in place.
One other note is that they did come put some new pavement down leading to the garage and the door...so, while the coloring is different than the rest of our driveway (Kristen does not like that), it does make it so that soon we will actually be able to drive into our garage!
I will try to take a picture of the driveway and show everyone, but still it is progress, even if it is slower than we would like :)

Snow

SNOW!
Really?
Really?
I know that Colorado has already seen snow...and I know that when I woke up this morning that it was gone, but, let me still lament for a moment that I am not ready for the snow and cold to be here yet.
I don't feel like we had a real fall yet! In fact, I still have an air conditioner in the window!
And yet, despite my protests and lamenting, as my small group left last night, the first flakes of the year were falling.

Numb3rs

Ever watch the show Numb3rs? I am a big fan and both Kristen and I enjoy watching it whenever we get the chance. I have been TIVO'ing it for awhile and it tends to be the show that Kristen and I will lounge and watch together. I kind of wonder what it is that draws me to the show.
Both Kristen and I have certainly been drawn to crime dramas and such as I think that we both want to see the good guys win...but outside of the fact that I like watching the geek play such an important role (since I know I was/am? a bit of a geek) I feel like it is something more than that. Every episode you watch shows how this mathematician is able to draw these elaborate correlations and produce these equations that give him this new perspective on the situation and ultimately he helps solve the crime and we move on. And I think that it is in those equations that I kind of really love the show.
He is able to help find truth amidst all this stuff that tries to point him away or that seems to obscure it...and I think maybe I see that as what many people are going through as they are looking for God. I may not have a math equation that answers the problem, but I think in searching for truth, you see these patterns that are there that prove out God's existence and then you see it more and more, a lot like Charlie does for each case.
He has saved a bunch of people in these shows and maybe someday (yes here comes the cliche finish), I will help save some people too :)

Orphans

We are studying the book of James at church and all our sermons for 6 weeks as well as our bible studies dive into James to understand how our faith will bear good fruit and that God has specifically called us to engage to take care of those that can not care for themselves. Our church is outfitting over 200 children with winter coats, feeding people at the salvation army and at a senior center and donating used clothing to groups over the course of the next few weeks. While it is exciting to see the piles of stuff showing up a I witnessed on Sunday, it also made me sad as I realized that while our engagement will make a difference, there is so much need out there that goes unmet that it just breaks my heart. The scriptures specifically call out orphans and this group below has started a site that they are aggregating people's energies and activities towards working on this problem...they have a number of 143 million orphans in the world on their site. How they came up with it, I am not sure...but regardless, what an incredible number. The population of the US is just above 300 million, just to put it into perspective...
It is easy to be overwhelmed by that number and not do anything, but I am glad we are starting with the local area and helping out in a few small ways and hopefully we will see a revival across the world and see that number tumble dramatically.
http://143million.org/

Leadership and discipline

I have been reading a book called the Leadership Lessons of Jesus. I will finish it in the next week or so as I have been taking it very slowly for a small book. It is very challenging as each chapter is a lesson with scripture references that really makes me question how I feel I play out that particular trait, role, activity, etc...
This one has stuck with me for quite a while as this was back in chapter 7...Leadership requires discipline. And of course, you say "yeah, and?"...it is not that this is a new insight or anything...the authors reference Mark 1:35-39: Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed..."
Jesus disciplined himself to a time of prayer and solitude...and it should not be a question of whether we do that, it should be a requirement. If Jesus needed time regularly to prepare himself for what was to happen that day, we do as well.

15 Down, 21 to go

This has been on my to-do list for a long time. I had picked it up and read part of it many months back and just didn't get through it. Now, it came up as part of our congregations suggested activities for October as part of a growing deeper opportunity for people's faith...it was a good and quick read and I am glad I finally made myself get to it.



The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence



Brother Lawrence sets an example that we should all strive for in how we are to perceive the world, our relationship with people, work and ultimately our relationship with God through this simple and short book that includes letters that the Brother wrote to various friends and other things that were collected from him or written about him.
To acknowledge that God is sovereign and that we truly exist and take each breath because God wants us to and that our greatest joy and fulfillment in our life comes through our relationship with Him which goes against everything that you see on earth...that was what Brother Lawrence accomplished and what he pushes everyone who reads the book to understand and embrace. That we might find joy in the constant presence of God while doing any and every task according to His will and desire...that we might embrace God truly being with us in everything we say and do and that it would have such a profound impact on who we are as we become more like Jesus...what a truly remarkable achievement.
Many of us are Christians and we exist in a state much as Brother Lawrence did at the beginning of his walk...with trepidation, miss-steps and agony as we fell and started again and fretted about being good enough for God...even when we knew in our head that being good enough is not what we are called to be...May we all progress as Brother Lawrence did to an entirely different realization and relationship with God where we truly embrace God's love and forgiveness and want to spend as much time with Him as possible.

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Baileigh's letter and picture!

I am sending out via this blog a BIG Thank you to my niece for sending us this wonderful letter and picture!
Baileigh, I was very impressed with your cursive writing and the picture is beautiful. It made me smile when I received it and when I showed it to Aunt Kristen, she smiled too!

Windows and Siding and Doors, Oh my!

A few more pictures since things look different now that they have some of the windows, doors and almost all of the siding up...


They have installed the shower and the bathtub...and Kristen has a beautiful window above her tub :)

The sliding glass door that will someday go to a back deck...

You can see that one more window has to go in on the back of the house and then the siding can be completed...

A door! Very soon they will have the front porch area put up and it will even be usable :)

Almost looks finished, huh? Definitely looks nice with the windows and siding done right there...and the view from those windows is awesome.