We had an awesome turnout, and more importantly, we had a blast at our Trunk or Treat last night! ?We gave out a ton of candy to kids and had a whole lot of people there. ?Here are some pics that Taylor Orr, our photographer, sent me of the event. ?Here are some of my favorites. ?There are more from all three FP Trunk or Treat locations as well at this link…TRUNK OR TREAT BEST.
Taylor’s school had a “costume parade” this morning.? Some fun shots of his principle, a sweet girl’s outhouse costume as well as Taylor in his Roman soldier costume.? Got that baby done at about 1 a.m. this morning.? Why do I always wait too long to get these costumes figured out??
I am still in shock from our people at Forest Park Carthage!? They surprized us with a HUGE gift for Pastor Appreciation Month!
We “got a good deal” on our house here in Carthage.? Don’t get me wrong, we are totally blessed and very thankful for everything we have.? However, we moved into the house and it is about 20 years old and everything seems to be breaking.? The house inspector’s report was like a broken record on everything…”make plans for replacement. End of life cycle.” or something like that!
The first thing is/was the wall paper…it is/was everywhere!? There were only two rooms in the whole house that didn’t have any wallpaper in them! Second, the cabinets are getting old and breaking…I am getting pretty good at making repairs to keep them together. The final straw was our air conditioning.? We have a heat pump because we don’t have gas for the furnace.? So…last winter we simply turned on the “furnace” and had outrageous electric bills!? Come to find out, there is a refrigerant leak in the air handler under the house that is causing the unit to run on the electric heat strips 100%–not just to supplement on those below zero nights.? Needless to say, after I learned a little about heat pumps, I knew we were going to need to do something before the winter came again.
Enter our church family at Forest Park Carthage!? Some “little birdies” told some other “little birdies” about our situation and they wanted to bless their pastor and his family.? Boy, did they bless us!? Take a look at this brochure!!? This thing is being put in our house this week!
Absolutely blown away by the gift that our people sacrificed to give to us!? If you look closely on the picture…they gave me the brochure and it says “Paid In Full” across the front! It was a really cool time last night telling the boys about what our church family did for us!? They are really excited and thankful for our church family.? What is really cool is the technology increase in this unit compared to our old unit.? Our old unit is about a 5 or 6 SEER and this one is a 14 SEER.? So even if the old unit was working properly, we still are going to have a substantial energy savings cost.
Thank you doesn’t even cover what we would like to say to our church family!? You all are the best!
Check this out! ?What a cool deal! ?This couple got married on Saturday and then were baptized on Sunday at Buckhead Church in Atlanta. ?Click on the link below and watch their baptism videos. ?I absolutely love to hear stories of changed lives!
I am waiting on a couple as I write for some premarital counseling. ?I actually enjoy hearing each couples’ story. ?I get to hear theirs tonight here in a few minutes.
Camille and Kevin?s Weekend?|?The Official Buckhead Church Blog .
For those of you who read blogs on a reader, like I do, you could care less about “how” my blog looks. You simply pull up your Google Reader, for example, and read my post (which happens on average once every two weeks!) I am going to try to work on the extreme length between posts.
I am a perfectionist (I know that seems like a load of rubish if you have seen my office, or garage). But I can’t seem to work unless everything is working properly and in its place. I don’t like to clean up my office, for example, because I can’t ever “do it right.” This blog is kind of like that…I simply don’t have time to keep tweeking and making it “just right.” The problem is that I get into a funk and don’t want to write anything because I want to say it “just right” and it needs to look “just right.” I can’t tell you how many drafts I have sitting ready to be published but haven’t been because I don’t have it just right.
Ok, so I am turning over a new leaf. (I say this about every three months…but I really mean it…at least until midnight or so!!) No, I really am turning over a new leaf…I am revamping the ol’ blog and making a commitment to do a better job of communicating what is going on in our lives and on my heart as a pastor. I am making a commitment to post more often and post entries that aren’t “totally cooked.” This might be a dangerous thing…especially to you English majors and teachers.
It may be a few weeks before everything is up and going smoothly, but I am working on it. I won’t be able to work on it much this weekend as we have SEVEN kids staying with us on Friday and Saturday nights! Taylor’s friend, Dakota is staying the night on Friday and our friends, the Clements have a funeral and their four are staying with us on Friday and Saturday night! That is a HUGE prayer request there my friends–seven kids and three dogs! Bright side=good blog-worthy stuff to write about, I bet!
P.S.–My mom has already voted against “all the changes.” She was very frustrated to have the Twitter feed on the “wrong side,” for starters. Then the colors, it is hard to see, etc., etc. etc. My dad laughed and said, “we love change…I mean, we’re Baptists…we love change–within reason!”
Hopefully a CHANGE for the BETTER!
David
Each Sunday night I will be summing up the previous week’s events in a “numbered” list, along with the “sum total” of our attendance for the week…even though “I’m not very good with numbers.”
Here are some pics from my phone this week…
Taylor was 3 for 3 in his game tonight!
It is interesting to think about the small differences between batting 1.000 and .000. Even the difference between .200 and .300. An extra bit of hustle. A good bounce. All lead to the ever-elusive hit. Almost every Hall of Famer gets out 2 of 3 times he is at bat.
In life and leadership, we all need to realize that more often than not…we will make an out. That shouldn’t keep us from swinging for the fences! We need to realize that even the best strike out–a lot!
Keep swinging!
Here is our new rock star singing Linkin Park’s “What I’ve Done” at his talent show on Tuesday.? He did an AWESOME job and we are SO PROUD of him!? He was originally the 53rd act out of 56 acts!? Crazy!? They didn’t turn ANYONE down…the ultimate “ALL SKATE!”? So, three hours later, Taylor finally got to get on stage and show his stuff!? He actually missed his first baseball game because of this.? He could have played in both the 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. games and STILL gotten to the talent show to perform with time to spare!
I can’t wait until we get into our new building which we share a property line with!? My heart would be to offer up our auditorium to them to have a great facility and better sound system for their special events.? We really want to be a good neighbor and they can definitely use the help it seems.
Hope you love it like we do!!
Each Sunday night I will be summing up the previous week’s events in a “numbered” list, along with the “sum total” of our attendance for the week…even though “I’m not very good with numbers.”
Each Sunday night I will be summing up the previous week’s events in a “numbered” list, along with the “sum total” of our attendance for the week…even though “I’m not very good with numbers.”
Here is a gallery of pictures that I posted on twitter and from my phone this week (and last week)…
The Week In TwitPics….
