Poor Scheduling

I made a rookie pastor mistake this week. When the elder board scheduled our annual meeting, I didn't bother to check on other events occuring that day. It turns out that the evening of the first Sunday in February also happens to the Super Bowl! Fortunately the attendance at our annual meeting was not negatively affected. I'm sure at many churches you'd of had a hard time getting quorem...either that or the pastor would not have to worry about scheduling another annual meeting! So at about halftime of the big game, we were voting on church officers and budget. Now, before you leave sympathy comments, I did TIVO it and so was still able to watch the game (though I didn't fast-forward through the commericals).

By the way, as far as commercials go, my wife and I like the Doritos one with the giant mouse, the Bud Light one with fire breathing, the Budweiser one with the Rocky theme and the Pepsi one with Justin Timberlake, especially when he gets bonked on the head by the flat screen tv.

I am now 2-1 all time as a basketball coach (although I'm pretty sure even w/ this win I've lost ground to Coach K). Last night we played against Grant County and had four eighth graders playing with us. This gave us a deeper bench (I only had six guys in the previous tournament) as well as some funny moments. Needing an extra ball-handler, I told one of the junior highers he was going to start and he looked at me with big eyes and said, "who me?" Then during the first half one of the eighth graders asked me if we had any out-of-bounce plays. And although we have about six of them, because the junior highers don't practice with us I answered, "None that you know." But all-in-all they played really well and it bodes well for the future...the present on the other hand isn't going so well. Both JV and Varsity lost. We only have three games before the district tournament starts and we're currently not going in the right direction.

I think I've mentioned this before, but the best (only good) thing about the current state of most "Christian" bookstores is that you can find great deals on doctrinally solid books. Whenever my wife and I are in Bismarck and stop at the Christian bookstore there, I always go to the discount bin first. This time around I found "Living the Cross-Centered Life" by C.J. Mahaney for only $4.99! Great deal on a book that been on my list for quite awhile.

On Sunday I preached on Ezra 6 and we saw that "When God Acts, His People Rejoice." We also had our second week in the "EFCA: What We Believe and Why" Sunday School series. This week we took on the first two points in our statement of faith: Beliefs on Scripture and God. Click here to listen to the sermon.

Please pray that I would continue trusting and depending on the Lord in every aspect of my life including my leadership of Faith Evangelical Church, for the youth ministry to continue reaching out to the community and for Harmony as she gets adjusted to running the library.

By God's Grace, Jeff