Slow Down in the Curves!

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 … Read more

Ethan’s First Mission Project

Ethan completed his first mission project just before leaving Manor Hill, with the help of the Manor Hill congregations. At Dave and Jean Norris’ retirement dinner, there was a Mission Central “relay baton” at each table. Because of his birth date (the baton went to whose birthday was the closest at the time), Ethan received … Read more

Transparency and Risk

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 … Read more

Influence

Life. Leadership. God’s Mission. 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 … Read more

Ethan’s Adjustment

All along, Ethan’s adjustment through this transition has been a primary concern. We’ve been here less than two week so far, but his adjustment is going quite well. He certainly has been through much the past couple of weeks, not to mention the last 5 months: different people coming over to the house at Manor … Read more

VBS

Ethan attended his first night of Vacation Bible School Monday at West Side. The ages really begin at three years of age, so I stayed with him and we joined the preschool class. He did very well. The theme is a beach theme, and during the opening songs when the kids were “surfing,” he put … Read more

First Sunday

We have our first Sunday in! And all went well. I attended the Saturday evening praise service at West Side, but the SPRC was gracious in lining up someone else to preach this week. I said a few words of introduction and made the announcements and prayer concerns (good practice for Sunday morning) followed by … Read more

First Fourth

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 … Read more

Prayers for the Transition

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 … Read more