Vacation Reading
I have worked through several books on this vacation. Currently enjoying "Thinking, Loving, Doing" edited by Piper and Mathis and adapted from the October 2010 Desiring God Conference of a similar name. After years of being entrenched with a group of thinkers (primarily) and seeing thought take predominance over loving or doing, this book has found rich soil of agreement.
The conference and now the book seek to encourage balance in the life of the church. Since our foundation, we have swung the pendulum out to our own personal desire of operational faith. Some emphasize love, some deeds and some deep thoughts. Here we have Warren, Mohler, Sproul, Anyabwile, Chan and Piper circling the wagons. Great read! Thanks to my best friend Eric for giving it to me!
Quietly making noise,
Fletch
Happy Birthday and The Butt Call
This post is in honor of my best friend Eric's birthday.
I'm not going to say this happens every week, but at least two times each month I get a phone call from Eric. Actually, let me correct that. I get a call from Eric's butt. I can only assume this is because Eric keeps his cell phone in his pocket and I am at the top of his contact list (Andy).
Well, that is not exactly what I get from my bud.
Normally, when Eric calls me, I get to hear the jingling of change and keys. Interspersed with the jingle is the shuffle of his pants swishing as he walks and if I am very lucky I get to hear a muffled radio program in the background. These calls typically last for more than three or four minutes and if I miss them, I get a full voicemail that I can listen to time and again.
My favorite all time conversation took place when he called me one night about 10PM. It sounded like he was being held captive in a trunk. I started screaming that I was here to help him and then I heard a woman's voice answer me. It was his wife, Lisa. In case you are confused, they were not being held captive in a trunk. Once again, Eric "butt-called" me while he was standing on a ladder changing a light bulb. Lisa was at pocket heighth and could hear me through his pants (wow, that's an odd phrase huh?). Lisa and I continued to talk to one another with Eric on the ladder; me screaming and Lisa talking into Eric's pocket. There is the picture. You fill in the details.
In honor of his birthday, I wanted to "butt-call" him back. I tried several times, but he is way down on my contact list and my mother-in-law Adele (top of my contacts) did not find my repeated efforts humorous at all.
Happy Birthday EK! Love you bud!
Quietly making noise,
Fletch
Charlie Brown, The Gospel and Malaria Intervention
Last night, we wrapped up our 2009 Advent in the Barn party. We welcomed just over 100 guests on a very rainy night to our chilly barn. Our party welcomed guests from all areas of our life. We had old friends and new friends gathered from work, church, family, facebook, high school, college, and even my favorite barista at our local coffee shop! For those that joined us, we hope you enjoyed our time in the barn while the rain and lightning continued outside.
This year we learned all about the real meaning of Christmas from the Peanuts gang while watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" together on the big screen. We were reminded of the good news of the advent by a short message from our special guest, Pastor Tim Stevenson of Horizon Bible Church. (On a side note, Pastor Tim is the guy that married us back in 1991 and it was nice to have him back after all these years!).
Every year we are also very intentional to encourage our guests to spend less on the "junk" of Christmas and invest in true needs around the world. My best friend Eric and his wife are advocates for Compassion International, so this year we targeted Compassion's Malaria Intervention program called BiteBack (www.biteback.net). We showed a quick video and then reminded our guests that for $10 they could purchase a mosquito net. The details are in this quick video I created below:
If you couldn't make it, we missed you! If you were there, we hope you enjoyed yourself with us!
Quietly making noise (and repeating the sounding joy!),
Fletch