Call to Prayer

In case you haven't already sensed it, now is the time for prayer; prayer for discernment and action. How will Jesus followers be able to respond to the financial implosion we are witnessing? How will God's people participate in the upcoming election, and shape the next era of our country? How will we creatively and honestly express the good news?

I'm struck with how people in my congregration repeatedly "go without". Embarrassingly, our congregation does not have an action plan in place to assist those with needs. It bothers me greatly. We give and we give well, at times and when we hear about it, but I want to be more intentional. Pray that our church would be able to pull together and respond appropriately and generously.

Thanks.

Dollars and Sex

I live in Michigan, where the financial cruch that the rest of the nation is now feeling has been felt for the past 2 years. More than that, I live 80 miles from Detroit and 45 from Flint--two cities incredibly affected financially. It has affected our small town for some time now.

We have great people we know who are struggling financially. Some people in our church are losing their homes. Others are coming to our church for some finacial assitance. It has been a cause of real concern for me and we have only been able to make small dents along the way. I pray we can do more.

With all the layers of issues wrapped in the financial crisis I don't pretend to know too much about it and I don't pretend to know how to fix it. But I would like to make one observation. I wonder if anyone else has made the observation that the only man who is given any network airtime is that guy from Mad Money? Other than him, NBC and ABC (from what I've observed) has a female-only staff of Financial Consultants/Reporters. Nothing against women but I wonder what the driving force is behind this. Has anyone else made this observation? They seem to give sound advice and accurate reporting but where are the boys?

Hey, thanks!

So if you stop by my blog with any sort of regularity, thanks. I've been away from it for several weeks. Since the beginning of August loads of good things have taken place:

1) the Olympics were fun to watch...in fact William will see Matt Lauer on TV and ask if we're watching the Olympics.

2) William celebrated his 4th birthday. He's a star, we love him.

3) We visited my family in SD for a week. It was great seeing family and great to leave the church in the hands of our very capable layleaders.

4) NBWC has hired an assistan pastor! Josh Hilty and his wife, Jamie, will be moving to North Branch on the 17th of this month. It's weird to think that Pastor Tony's former office will no longer be our office storage space, that a living breathing person will occupy it instead. It's going to be good to have Josh here.

5) The brakes on our '96 Subaru Outback (absolutely amazing car) were shot. Out of the blue we had someone give us a check which covered all but $24 of the mechanic's bill. It was an amazing gift not to have to pay the other $300!

6) Kate's vocabulary is exploding. She still enjoys pulling funny faces and now has verbal expressions to go along with them. She is hilarious.

I could go on. Suffice it to say the latter part of this summer has been great.

Thanks for reading.