Take Two

Iz on ur well

Granting ur wishez

This is our own LOL cat (although she doesn’t laugh that much) in our backyard.

If you’re thinking this is a watershed announcement from me regarding my last post relax, it isn’t. Peace, be still.

Anyhow, I have started reading the blog of Mark Beeson who is the Senior Pastor of Granger Community Church in Indiana. I actually had a chance to visit Granger a couple years ago when I was preaching from my Sunday School counterpart in Indiana, Mark Johnson. Anyway, Mark (Beeson) has some sobering stats up in this post regarding attendance, conversions, and church plants in the United Methodist Church. I would be interested to see the same results from the UPCI. Clearly, through Global Impact, our leadership is addressing this but I’d like to see where we are in comparison to other organizations.

I will put Mark Beeson in the blogroll. Fascinating stuff.

I received an email from a friend of mine who is about to go through a great transition.  I’m happy for him and how God is using him and his family.  Side note- I’m a tad jealous but he knows that so I think we’re okay.

It got me thinking about transitions.  Really, aren’t we always going through a transition of one type or another?  Our lives are never truly static.  There is always change whether it is macro or micro.  If you’re a person of faith like me (and my blog stats tell me most of you are), you need to look at the purpose behind these transition.  As a side note, it is not an accident that The Purpose Driven Life has sold over 25 million copies.  People want to know what the big picture is (even though it is not always readily available).

The key here is to look at what you’re in right now (good or bad) and see what is God is preparing you for.  The best way to do this is to look retrospectively ie, see what you’ve gone through and see how that has prepared you for where you are now.  Some of the worst times in my life have, after an appropriate period of ranting, made me significantly stronger and wiser.  It was a transition.  I could not appreciate the mountain top without the experience of the valley.  And, while I’m there, I gain strength on the mountain to sustain me in the valley.  Mark Lowry once said that his favorite phrase in the Bible was “it came to pass”.  It didn’t come to stay but it came to pass.  Really, it all comes to pass because life is a series of transitions preparing you for the next transition.  The question is, what are you going to do with them.  Will you receive them and become better or resist and become bitter.

More random thoughts.