New Hobby

Since I don't have enough hobby's as it is, I have decided to try another one. My uncle Jerry decided to give me (or lend me) one of his older compound bows. Thus, I am going to take up some archery. I have all the things I need in order to shoot. I still need to sight in the bow and then I should be good to go...just need a lot of practice.

What makes this even more fun is the fact that a few of my good friends (primarily Dan, Matt, and I believe Harry) all have bows as well so this should allow us all to shoot/learn together. Now the only problem is finding time amongst my other summer hobbies of disc golf, tennis, xbox, cell group, church, and volleyball!

Out of Town

It has probably been around 3 months since we have gone up to the homes of our parents. We figured it was about time to make the trip again. We will be visiting my parents, Wanda's Mom and Grandma, and Wanda's dad. It will be a rather busy weekend from the sounds of it, but I think we will manage to squeeze it all in. Now...if only those gas prices weren't so steep right now :(.

Going to another Twins Game

I came in to work yesterday just to find out that my boss couldn't use the tickets he was given for the Twins game tonight. He offered them to 4 of us here in the IT department so 4 of us guys are going to be going to the game. I always enjoy going to the games so I am looking forward to it. And the seats are the same seats that Wanda and I sat in the last time we went...which are good seats on the 3rd base line.

Hopefully I can get out and play some tennis on Thursday if the weather is still nice.

Drive-Thru Difference - Pay it Forward

For any of you who are avid KTIS listeners, you would know that today is another Drive-Thru difference day. Basically it is a way to get you to bless someone else by paying for the person behind you in the drive thru. It is designed to be annonymous, but it doesn't have to be.

I love listening and hearing the stories that people have about this. It is real encouraging and lifts my spirits. It really makes you want to do something to bless someone. The awesome part about it is that it doesn't just bless the other person...it blesses you too!

If you don't typically go through a drive thru then I would encourage you to be creative and try to come up with some other ways. I read through some of the stories on the KTIS blog (http://ktisblog.skylightradio.org/main/2008/04/10/drive-thru-difference-tell-us-you-stories/) and one idea that was pretty practical for me was to put a coffe gift card to Starbucks or Caribou on someones desk with either the KTIS note or one of your own. You can even do this anonymously which is always fun too.

Have any of you blessed someone else in this way or a similar way? Have you been blessed by someone else? I'd love to hear your stories.

Time to rip up some carpet

I am about to go run a couple errands and then go to the Cromers to help them tear out their old carpet. I have never done it before but I hear it shouldn't be too hard. It's always fun to do stuff like this for other people rather than on your own stuff! It should be a fun project though. After that I get to go to the Twins Game and will likely then be able to come home and relax a bit.

Take me out to the ballpark...AGAIN

Well...not only am I going to the game tonight, Wanda and I will also be going tomorrow! I just won 2 tickets on the 3rd base line in row 19. Fun Fun!!!

The seats tomorrow will be much better than the ones tonight, but both will be fun.

Take me out to the ballpark...

Wanda and I are going to go to the Twins Game tonight. Michelle will join us once she gets done selling tickets. I am looking forward to it. Hopefully they can pull off a win tonight over the Royals who swept their series with the Tigers. This will be our first game to attend this year and hopefully we will make it to quite a few this year. I know that Wanda really enjoys going to the games and thus it is something we can do together.

Warmer weather means....

TENNIS! That's right, Matt and I are going to be going out to play Tennis tonight after work. I am looking forward to the nice weather and about playing Tennis again. Hope you are all able to enjoy the warmer outdoor weather that we are having. It's hard to believe we got 8 inches of snow just a few days ago!

Winning in Church

Ray had just left the baseball mound after throwing the opening pitch...a strike. His new friend asks him, "When is the last time you left a church service or a meeting feeling the way you did when you left that mound just now? When's the last time you won at church?"

How do you define a "win" for a church? The concept (and above story) is coming from "7 Practices of Effective Ministry" by Stanley, Joiner, Jones. The first practice is defining what a win looks like. For a sports team a win is defined as who had the most points at the end of the game. For a sports team owner a win may not just defined as winning the game, but also the number of fans that show up and/or how the team worked together.

One of our tasks last night at our PESC meeting was to try and define what a win looks like for our team (I was on the Family Life team consisting of Young Adults, Cell Groups, Mens/Womens Ministry, Discipleship & Education, Marriage & Family, and Ministry Matching). Trying to define a win that covers all of those is no easy task (it would be much easier to define a win for each individual one...but that was not the task).

We had some great discussion about this. A win needs to be measurable in some way or another. However, a win is not necessarily measured by numbers (such as the number of people involved), although I think it can be a valid measurement in some situations. Ultimatly we want to get people involved in bibical communities (ministries). But on top of getting involved, we want people to be living out God's calling in their life and be involved in a ministry where they can grow spiritually.

What are your thoughts on this? How would you define a "win" for various areas of the church such as "Worship", "Family Life", "Next Generation", etc?