Some of the more popular search topics that bring people to this blog are searches related to Andy Stanley. I’ve written about Andy Stanley’s (and Lanes Jones’) book, Communicating for a Change before (see One-Point Preaching). This book has been the single most impacting book I’ve read on preaching.
The first part of the book is a story about a truck-driving preacher mentoring a young pastor in the art of preaching and communication while on a road trip. The second half of the book discusses the themes that were revealed in the first half of the book.
At one point, Stanley offers suggestions on navigating the sermon using driving terminology (I’d look up the page number, but we haven’t unpacked our books yet). One suggestion is, “Slow down in the curves.”
By that, Stanley means taking it slow when transitioning from one part of the message to the next. Otherwise, you risk jerking listeners (i.e., passengers) around when moving from one section to another.
I thought about this recently after arriving home with groceries. As you can see in the photo here, the chocolate milk didn’t handle the curves too well!
Slowing down in the curves is a good reminder for communicators. When we navigate the transitions (turns, lane changes, etc.), we have to make sure our passengers make the turns with us without getting knocked around.
Ultimately, it’s about flow. Flow has always been important to me in writing and in communicating. And because I’ve focused on flow for so long, I don’t even really think about transitions anymore.
But I may need to revisit my transitions to make sure my listeners fare better than the chocolate milk!
Looking at our blog now, you might think that posting pictures of Ethan has always been *easy* for us.
Truth is, we struggled with whether or not to post that very first referral picture last September. We ended up posting one (of the 6 photos we received) in the It’s a Boy! post.
When we received the second and third batches of photos, I think we only posted one from each of those as well. We also only posted one photo from our first meeting with Ethan (see 1,000 Words) five months ago in Korea.
Admittedly, posting photos of Ethan has gotten much easier, but our purpose, I think, remains the same — to inform and to influence.
But that kind openness and transparency comes with a price. It makes us vulnerable (I don’t really want to go into details here).
But vulnerability comes with the territory of leadership and influence. One of my last messages at Hope and 12th Street was on courage where my point was …
The difference between courage and comfort is the cost!
Choosing comfort is the natural choice, but choosing courage is necessary for people who want to influence others.
So we’ll continue to write about what God is doing in our lives and in our ministries in the hopes that God will use the seeds that are planted in people’s lives through this blog!
Those are the areas we’ve chosen to write about on this blog. But those areas have developed over time. We started out simply posting the text of our sermons. Later, we began reflecting on, and writing about, leadership.
Over the course of the past year, we’ve begun writing a lot more about what’s going on in our lives — mainly the adoption process. Originally, our main goal was simply to inform family and friends on how things were progressing.
However, we’ve continued to write about the adoption journey, including the process of adjustment since bringing Ethan home, not only to inform, but also to influence.
That makes sense, since as leaders, we are influencers (leadership expert, John Maxwell, has long taught that “leadership is influence”). Our influence through this blog has grown, apparently. We’ve received over 16,000 page views in the last 6 months from all over the world (which isn’t necessarily a lot, just a lot more than it was before that).
Currently, there is a link on a Korea Blogroll of another blog, from which we’ve received 134 page views by people who have clicked on our link over there.
We certainly hope that our story and our experience, ultimately our journey of being faithful to God’s leadership and work in our lives, is helpful to the people, who for whatever reason, choose to come here!
Hhaving brought Ethan home from Korea less than 5 months ago, we find ourselves marking a lot of firsts during this time.
Yesterday was our first Fourth of July celebration with Ethan. And, because of the move, it was also our first day off in a while, a day to catch our breath and relax a little before our first weekend in our new churches.
We grilled out for the first time this year. Ethan spent time in his new pool. And we finished the day with our first trip to the Old Town Road Dairy.
A few weeks ago, I prepared a list of prayer points, at Centre Grove’s request, to help guide people in praying for us during this time of transition. I’ve updated the prayer points for this post and invite you to be in prayer for us as well as Centre Grove and West Side as we get started.
Ask God to strengthen us as we continue to get settled in Clearfield.
Ask God to grant us favor at Centre Grove and West Side and with the people of Clearfield. May God give us a renewed sense of vision and passion, as well as courage to lead others as God leads us.
Ask God to bless Ethan who’s making his second major move in less than 5 months (of course, this time, he gets to keep the same parents, culture, language, etc. ). We plan to say more about how he’s handling the transition sometime later.
Ask God to give us wisdom (knowing what’s right) and courage (doing what’s right, even when it’s hard).
Ask God to bless our walks with God, including our daily time with God. May God give us listening hearts so that we may discern God’s yearning for ourselves, our family, and for the communities God calls us to lead.
Sometimes “tomorrow” is a bad word — “Instead of doing (fill-in-the-blank) today, I’ll do it tomorrow!” (i.e., procrastination).
But, other times, tomorrow is an inspiring word. Tomorrow gives us the opportunity to dream, envision, and plan for the future. Tomorrow is an opportunity to take what we’ve learned yesterday and today and apply it on the next leg of our journey.
Scripture cautions about how we view tomorrow, though. James wrote …
How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil. (James 4.14-16)
And, Jesus said …
So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today. (Matthew 6.34)
However, Jesus also talked about the importance of looking ahead in counting the cost of being his disciple, saying:
… don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. They would say, ‘There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!’ (Luke 14.28-30)
I think one lesson is that we need to entrust our tomorrows to God — don’t take them for granted, don’t worry about what may or may not happen — but be prepared to pay the price of following Jesus and helping others follow Jesus, too, for the transformation of the world!
So tonight, June 30, 2008, we look ahead to tomorrow when we (officially) begin the next leg of our journey in Clearfield. We look forward, with great anticipation, to all that God will do in and through us as we seek to serve God faithfully!
Picking up where I left off in The Move 1.0, we arrived in Clearfield just before 6:30 am, Thursday, and the movers showed up a few minutes later.
Overall, it was a pretty smooth day of unloading.
But the big news of the day here in Clearfield took place at Trinity UMC, where a shooting occurred in Trinity’s basement (at about the time we arrived in Clearfield, ourselves).
The incident is being covered by several media outlets, including: The Progress, The Altoona Mirror, and WTAJ TV. According to these reports, the latest news (as of this post) is the shooting victim has died and the shooter later shot himself (after a confrontation with police) and is listed in critical condition.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the friends and families of those involved as well as everyone in the community who’s been touched by this tragic occurrence!
Aside from the news of the day, we are glad to have the move behind us. While we have a lot of work to do, unpacking and getting settled, we do not expect to have to put in any more all-nighters!
We are grateful for everyone who has made (and are making) this transition as smooth as possible. Some people the Manor Hill Charge (as well as Joleen’s mom) watched Ethan while we packed over the course of the past week or so. Without them, we’d *still* be packing!
And here in Clearfield, members from West Side and Centre Grove are providing evening meals Thursday/Friday and Monday/Tuesday, respectively. They’re also setting up baby sitting for Ethan on Monday and Tuesday so that we can get as far as we can in the process of getting settled!
Thanks to all who are helping with our transition!
I wanted to write this post yesterday but as you’ll soon discover that wasn’t much of an option!
On Tuesday (the day before our loading day), we got up around 6:30 am to finish packing. We knew we had a good day’s work ahead of us, but we didn’t know we had *that* much work left to do!
We had planned to finish packing, then spend the night at Joleen’s mom’s house in Williamsburg (35 minutes away). Toward late afternoon, it became painfully clear that we were going to be up late. Around 7:30 pm, Joleen dropped Ethan off and her mom’s house, then returned home to continue packing.
As it turned out, we were indeed up late, so late, in fact, that we *never* got to sleep — we worked all night. Ironically, we did one final walkthrough shortly after 6:00 am. We arrived back down stairs at 6:32 am, just as the movers were getting out of their vehicle.
Needless to day, it was a challenging night. But, of course, our work wasn’t done at 6:30. For most of the day, we supervised, answered questions, and after the movers left, we had some final work to do. All in all, we were up for 34 to 36 hours (I can’t remember for sure! ), working virtually non-stop.
When we arrived in Williamsburg (late afternoon), we joined Ethan, whose nap was already in progress, and got about an hour of sleep, ourselves.
After 7 hours or so of sleep overnight, we got up at 4:30 am to drive to meet the movers in Clearfield for the unloading.
Less than 3 weeks ago, I wrote It’s Time to Pack. While packing has progressed fairly slowly, we have made some real headway in the last few days.
On Tuesday, Mary Ayers came to the house and spent the day entertaining and caring for Ethan while we packed. It was a cool day so we spent a lot of time going through boxes and stuff in the attic (which can be a pretty hot place sometimes). And, after dinner with Ethan, Joann McCrum took Ethan for a walk while we did some more packing before EBT (our acronym for “Ethan’s Bed Time,” which we usually use when talking about what things we need to get done after Ethan goes to bed). Anyway, Tuesday was a very productive day.
Ethan spent Thursday at his grandmother’s house in Williamsburg, so, after spending the morning preparing for Sunday, we were able to get some more packing done in the afternoon.
We have Friday through Tuesday to complete our packing. And, to get it done, we’ll have to work around several activities — a Juniata Valley Ministerium farewell picnic for us, a 70th wedding anniversary for Joleen’s great uncle/aunt, a graduation party for Joleen’s step-nephew, and some visits with people before we complete our ministries here. On top of all that, this Sunday will be our last one here. It looks to be a pretty intense several days!
We’ve got a long way to go, but, fortunately …
Our house is filling up with packed boxes
We are donating a lot of items that we no longer use to ES Ministries Thrift Store, a ministry that grew out of Joleen’s charge which operates in one of Faith UMC’s buildings (the one in Mooresville)
We are throwing away a lot of other stuff that isn’t worth donating
We will drop off a bunch of cardboard boxes (mostly shipping boxes that we’ve collected over the last several years that are too small to be used for packing) at the recycling drop-off spot in Pine Grove Mills (where we regularly drop off plastics, metal cans, glass bottles, and cardboard)
Several larger items are sitting in our front yard with “for sale” signs on them (desk and chair, grill, coffee and end tables, and an exercise bike) with all proceeds going to E.S. Ministries
Just a couple quick observations (things that you probably already know!) …
It’s amazing how much stuff we hang onto that we never use (and probably never will)!
It’s amazing how hard it is to throw some stuff away, even stuff that we never use (and probably never will)!
Ethan was baptized Sunday (we’ll say more about that in another post). We intended to include a slideshow presentation at the beginning of the service, showing photos from the last 4 months. Unfortunately, I was not able to get it to work.
I’m not exactly sure what was wrong. My Apple PowerBook detected the projector, but apparently the projector didn’t get the message (I used this projector last fall at “community day,” but with a different cable). I should have conducted a trial run the day before and/or allowed more time beforehand (time was short due to Sunday morning activities and having family from Tennessee with us).
Anyway, we were extremely disappointed that it didn’t work; it would have been a good segue into Ethan’s baptism service. We invested a good bit of time on the presentation (on the slideshow plus shopping at Best Buy stores in Altoona AND in State College to get the necessary cables to connect the projector to Faith’s sound system so that the accompanying soundtrack could be played through the system).
A number of people got to see the slideshow during the fellowship time after the service on my laptop. And thanks to the latest version of Keynote, an Apple presentation application that I used to create the slideshow, I was able to send the slideshow to YouTube and then post it here.
I love the slide transitions available in Keynote (you’ll see a few of them in this slideshow). My favorite transition, and the single most biggest reason we were disappointed that it didn’t work Sunday, is the final photo and subsequent “droplet” transition (water ripple effect), which was intended to be a good lead-in to the baptism service.
BTW, I left the soundtrack out of the slideshow on YouTube (due to copyright), but you can preview or buy/download the song here at Amazon.com (see lyrics below).
“You’ve Given Life to Me”
(The Praise Baby Collection)
You are my hope, you are my light.
You are the way, the truth, and the life.
You have created all I can see and
You’ve given life to me. You’ve given life to me.
Though you are God, you became man
Walked here beside us so we’d understand.
All you created, all we can be
Lord, you have set us free. Lord, you have set us free.
And we praise you. And we praise you.
And we love you. And we love you.
So, without further adieu, here’s the nearly-5-minute slideshow; just click on the image. Please be aware that we have NO control over any of the other video/content/links from YouTube!
