Follow Jesus. Lead the church. Change the world.
While at Asbury for proposal hearings earlier this week, we received an unexpected phone call from our adoption agency informing us that we have a referral for a child! The call was a surprise because we were told to expect a referral much closer to Christmas. The call came on Tuesday, a day after Randy’s … Read more
We both received “provisional passes” on our proposal hearings. As you may know, we were at Asbury in Kentucky this week for our long-anticipated proposal hearings. We both received provisional passes, which basically means that we’ve been given the green light to move forward on our dissertation work but that we both need to further … Read more
The books we want to read have been piling up! If you’ve been following our doctor of ministry journey, you know that our personal growth time has been somewhat tied up. As a result, our reading time/schedule outside of the program is pretty limited. So, as you can imagine, the pile of books that we … Read more
Reflections on our Asbury experience while we’re in Kentucky for proposal hearings. We’re here at Asbury this week for our proposal hearings (more on those in a later post). Once we receive the green light from our dissertation committees, we will each begin our respective ministry projects. We hope to spend the next 2-3 months … Read more
On Sunday (09.23.2007) area United Methodist churches came together for a day of worship, lunch, and a concert. “Community Day” at the local Shaver’s Creek Firemen’s Park, in the Juniata Valley area, has become an annual event, running six years now. This year’s focus was “God Can!” Joleen named several stories in the Scriptures that … Read more
We recently posted a prayer guide for leaders that’s a couple of years old. We’ve since started working on a prayer guide for married couples. This guide grows out of a desire for us to be more intentional about praying together and/or praying for one another. It’s a work-in-progress, which means it will probably go … Read more
Andy Stanley has written a must-read book for leader/communicators who want to maximize the adhesiveness of their vision! Andy Stanley, founding and lead pastor of North Point Community Church, is one of a handful of writers that I read everything they write. The latest book I’ve read is Making Vision Stick (see Google Books’ limited … Read more
The movie “Hitch” highlights the importance of believing in what you do. Hitch, starring Will Smith, who plays Alex Hitchens, or “Hitch,” known as the “date doctor,” and Eva Mendes as Sara Melas, is a great movie, especially if you like romantic comedies. Hitch basically helps guys get dates. Sara is a gossip columnist for … Read more
On Wednesday, we mailed corrected copies of our proposal drafts to the D.Min. office! Yesterday was our deadline to mail the drafts so that our dissertation committee members (3 each) will have around 10 days to prepare for our hearings (Randy’s on 9/24 and Joleen’s on 9/26). We had our proposal drafts edited by the … Read more
Here are a few questions that keep coming up … and our responses. Since we first announced that we were adopting a child (January 2007), it’s been interesting to hear what questions keep coming up. Here are a few: “Have you heard anything about the baby yet?” We hear this question often, mostly from people … Read more