Post Valentines

I took Kathy to Beaches restaurant last night and we arrived at 5:40pm. They said that we could get a table in an hour and a half. Yes, that's 90 minutes. No thanks. We went down to Joes Crab shack and had shrimp. The lesson is, check to see if they take reservations before you just show up on Valentines day. Lesson learned.

Rick

Valentines

Well, I am going to take my wife Kathy to Beaches tonight for Valentines. What do you think are my chances of getting in? I don't have any reservations. What are you doing tonight

Rick

San Diego

This last week I was in San Diego at a conference learning about "multi-siting". I know it sounds very exciting but that was only part of the reason for going. It was a chance to take the campus pastors along with some key leaders away so the we could get to know each other better. I don't know about you but when you get people away from the normal office stuff, you find out a little more about who they are. You see who the early arisers and the late nighters are. You get to see what kind of food that people like or dislike. You even get to see what kind of drivers they are. One person that shall remain nameless likes to watch cartoons in the evening.
My getting to know each other began with my 3 roommates. That's right 4 to a room. It seems that everytime I go on a trip I have no less than 2 others in my room. I am beginning to wonder, "what is God trying to teach me?" Well, trying to rally everyone up so that we can leave by 8:00am is not an easy task especially for the ones that like to stay up late and watch cartoons. Remember there are 4 men that have to take a shower, shave, eat and gather their belongings. We also had 15 of us that went together, so it wasn't just our room, if you know what I mean. We had 3 vehicles and none of us knew the area that we were in. It made for some exciting times.
We met Pastor John and Michelle at the conference on Monday and had dinner with them and another church group from Chicago. We found that there are many like minded churches across this country.
That's when I was reminded of why Living Hope has experienced such growth and success. It is because of the people. Each one of the staff that went on this trip are very special. They all have such great hearts and willingness to do whatever it takes. The other thing that has been a strength is community. Not just doing what needs to be done but doing it together as a team. Life is so much more enjoyable when we do it with others. We went down to the waterfront in San Diego and spent hours just walking and talking with each other. That is what God wants us to do, share our lives with others. It opens up such opportunities. We find out what brings joy to someone, we find out what struggles they are facing and we find out how we can pray or help them. I want to share one story with you. We decided to take a dinner cruise as a group on Tuesday night. The weather was beautiful, the food was good and we had the whole lower deck to ourselves. As the evening went on our waiter told us that his manager was going to find out if she had cancer the next day. He asked us if we could pray for her. So we asked him if she could come down to our table and she did. Several of our group were able to pray for her. Her name is Christy. I can't even imagine what was going through her mind. Many times the enemy tries to tell us that nobody cares. I was glad that God gave us an opportunity to show her that someone does. No one should have to go through something like that alone.
There are a lot of lonely people. God has made us to do life together. Ask yourself, how are you doing in this area?

Pastor Rick

Interruptions

I don't know about you but I have difficulty with interruptions. Have you ever noticed how many distractions and interruptions that each of us go through? Well this week actually Wednesday I received a call from Pastor John and he said that he needed a favor. I said, "what do you need?" He said, "I need you to do the message this coming weekend." There was a long pause on my end. Then I said, "You mean this coming weekend, like in 3 days?" Oh ya! Now that is an interruption from my normal week. So I started thinking about it. What if I were to share a message about "Diving Interruptions?" You know, the times where something happens that you didn't expect and it dramatically changes your coarse. I know that we all have them. So why do these things happen? And where is God in all of that? Well, stay tuned for this weekends message because you will see the rest of this story.
I would love to hear about your divine interruptions. If you have a chance, reply to my blog.
Until next time

Pastor Rick