It has been a month, so I figured I should give an update. Maybe I will add pictures later. So right after our last post we got ready for an incoming hurricane. Ike kept us up most of the night when it got here. The wind was pretty powerful. It knocked over a section of our fence, tore a couple of pieces of our patio roof off, and knocked our satellite dish over. We don't even use the thing, so I got up on the roof once the wind died down a little bit, and cut the wires and got it off our roof. Before I did that, it was rolling around on the roof, and that did not seem like a good thing. Galveston and Bolivar Peninsula sustained the worst damage, but there were several homes that had trees go through the roof in our area. Krissy and I were watching our neighbor's palm tree, swaying in the wind and hoping...
After Ike, we heard on the radio that it could be up to four weeks before we got power back. We were not about to stick around for that, so we headed to San Antonio for a few days. It was nice to slow down a little bit. We were also able to be there less than an hour after Annie delivered Luke Jackson. He was a big boy! 10 pounds 2 ounces! So we have another nephew!
On September 21st, we had a worship service in the parking lot of our church offices (since we don't have a building and the school we meet in was closed). It was good. Several guys in the church went around helping people cut up trees that were down and making burn piles. It was hard work, which is why we had so many people helping others. Ahh, when the body works like it should!
So, since Ike, we have rescheduled my ordination service to October 19th. I also met and interviewed with the elders a week and a half ago. I got a call the next day from David, our senior pastor, asking me if I would like to work for the church...as if I hadn't been for the last 14 months. It was good. I suppose that as I have been reading and studying about discipleship and how Paul built churches, it has been laid on my heart that we must always look for people to pour ourselves into, no matter who we are or where we are in our walk. That was something I emphasized in the interview. So, I am sort of officially the Pastor of Small Groups at Northside Christian Church now. Sort of because I am not ordained yet.
I have been reading several books on church leadership, small groups, and discipleship lately. A few of the books include Growing True Disciples by George Barna, Choose the Life by Bill Hull, The Connecting Church by Randy Frazee, The Seven Deadly Sins of Small Group Ministry by Bill Donahue and Russ Robinson, They Smell Like Sheep by Lynn Anderson, and The Disciple-Making Church by Bill Hull. At the same time, I am going through a leadership equipping study with a former professor, Derek Voorhees. It is basically a study of Ephesians, but focuses on six character traits of a disciple outlined in the letter. It has been a very good thing to walk through. I am contemplating utilizing it as a tool to guide some of our lay leaders in hermeneutics principles and discipleship training.
Overall, this month is flying by, and I am sure it will be a while before your hear from us again. We are so bad at keeping up with our blog. However, we try to let you know where we are at. Maybe some time we will utilize this a bit more efficiently. Until next time, may God be glorified in your life as well as ours. To the praise of his glorious grace! Amen.
