What’s On My Mind?

I took a day off from my church today.  Nothing personal.  I just had a busy week traveling to a missions conference and I got back late Thursday.  I had plans with the kids Friday and Saturday so I scheduled another person to preach and the family and I traveled to downtown Denver to hear Dr. Jim Shaddix preach at the Riverside Baptist Church.  I haven’t done this in well over a year.  I told my wife it almost felt sinful just leaving and taking the whole group with me.  Every member of my family is so vital to the work at our church plant but it felt nice to actually sleep in a bit later than usual, get up and enjoy a NORMAL breakfast, and then drive in the pleasant weather to downtown and just blend in with the crowd.  I’ve loved Dr. Shaddix’s work for a long time.  His book on preaching is one of the finest I’ve read to date and his messages are always chock full of information.  It’s not necessarily the style that I preach in but I enjoy his insight into God’s Word.

As I considered the rest I enjoyed, I stumbled across this post from Bob Franquiz’s blog tonight.  His book review on “The Rest of God” is spot on in its admonition to all of us to heed the need for a Sabbath.  I’ve denied myself this for many years but as I danced with my youngest daughter last night at the annual “Daddy-Daughter” ball, I’m reminded that I’m now 40 and my “baby” is 8 and growing up quickly.  My oldest turns 16 in a few months and it seems like only yesterday she was 8.  Sometimes in the business that is church planting, we neglect the very ministry we were called to first.  That doesn’t mean being lazy but I’ve stopped scheduling appointments by the dozens so as to leave my calendar open for my son’s hockey games (he’s 13) and my daughters’ dancing recitals.  There’s band concerts that I couldn’t attend a few years ago but not any more.  And there’s also that wonderful time in the evening when I can go spend time with my love and light in this world, my wife Rebecca.  Jesus gave her to me as a gift and a precious one at that.  I’m thankful she’s so good about understanding the need for me to be places as a church planter but sometimes, I’ve taken advantage of that for stuff that could wait another day or two.  I did this just to get another thing off of my “Next Actions” list.  (Getting Things Done junkies understand this)

Thanks Bob for centering some of my thoughts.  I have a wonderful church family here.  My sound man called me just to see if I enjoyed myself on my first day off in “a hundred years” as he put it.  The church hummed along just fine without me.  That’s as it should be.  I’m looking forward to being back in the pulpit again next week but it was a refreshing time away if only for one day.