These past two weeks have been extremely busy for me as I've been helping Linda with her annual piano/vocal recital that took place last Sunday evening, wrapping up Redeemer Ministry School year #1 (commencement this Sunday evening!), after-glowing about the 5-day Bethel School of Supernatural Evangelism at our church, studying/prepping/pondering for each Sunday's Real Jesus message (this Sunday we begin the Olivet Discourse - fun!), meeting with people, and so on.
I'm looking forward to summer reading and some good, long alone-times with God. And, because "church" is a movement of people and not an institution, my life following Jesus remains as adventurous as ever. This week I was invited to speak (fall 2010) at a pastor's conference in Kenya that involves 80 churches. More imminently, our church has been invited to have a prayer & counseling tent at Monroe County's Relay for Life this weekend, and I'll speak at 6 AM at the worship service there. Shampa Rice from Iris Ministries comes to Redeemer June 13-14. I do a wedding the following weekend. Then to our annual summer conference in Green Lake Wisconsin with J.P. Moreland and Chris Overstreet (June 27 - July 2). Linda and I fly out of Milwaukee to Philadelphia July 3 where I'll speak at a conference at Villanova University (July 3-5 - "Evangelism & the Kingdom of God"). Then we fly back to Milwaukee where we'll take 3-4 days to meander back to Monroe, have some pure vacation time.
As for today: the sun is shining, I'm living in God's beautiful kingdom, I get to do sermon work on the Olivet Discourse for several hours today, a few meetings with some Redeemer people, talking briefly tonight with our church's children, and the Red Wings in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. This is the day that the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it!
