well back in December our connection theVine brought a cool cat; Jason Sebren, on board as our Outreach Pastor. now this dude is for real! not only does he preach it, he lives it! check this out…one of the many things that jason does is minister to homeless women and children at theGarden by loving on them and discipling them. i invite you to check out his blog and read about his and his wife Nikki’s calling to adopt a 9 month old little boy named Deonte. now before you check out, hear this, the boy had been living with his biological mother on the streets of Atlanta. He was HOMELESS! i can’t help but think of this reading from the Word and be thankful for Jason and Nikki and their inspiration!
ok, if you were to consumed with time to check out the link to Jason, here is the video he just put out of the “family dance party”.
i can’t do everything. i mean, if i did everything that i wanted to do, there would be no sleep. keith with no sleep is NOT good! ask my wife! here are the things i used to do and would like to still be doing preWeston.
1. blogging: i found a new love last year through blogging. no, not of the flesh but of the soul. when i was a kid i use to write…ALOT. there is something spiritual about putting your thoughts down on paper well on a computer in this case . it’s like the soul comes alive and takes on a whole other dimension. i’ve had more epiphonies through putting my thoughts down that i remember and that is cool! however right now my blogging has taken a back seat.
2. serving at theVine: i like to think that i have a servants heart. i haven’t always, but in the last six years God has really changed me on the inside. when i use to ask, what was in it for me? or say i would rather go fishin’ or huntin’…i now yearn for opportunities to serve. theVine is a church that breeds servants and there are some of the most amazing servants in the world who serve there. however, right now my service is to my family first and what i can fit in otherwise.
3. work out: July11, 2008 was my last work out. i was down to a buck fitty and leaning up! my stamina had increased, my cholestorol was down, my connection to the soul was at an all time high and my wife could put her arms ALL the way around me. ok she can still do that but the difference is that now she has something to hold on to. i heart being in shape. God heart’s me being in shape. maybe when this season passes, i will regain my former massive lean physiqueness. is that a word or did i spell it right? maybe that is the french spelling. idk?
bottom line is this. there are things that i would really like to be doing with my time. there are things that i have put on the back burner. there are things that i might not get back to for a long time. there are things i might get back to in a short time. point is this, i WILL get back to them. Ecclesiastes 3 starts off by saying: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens…” this chapter speaks to me. heck, it spoke to john lennon so much he put it to music! i have to keep reminding myself of this passage and remember, my number one mission field is my family. my desires come second to His desires for me. and one day when life does get back to the way it was for me preWeston, i just bet that i will be blogging about how life was “preWeston Moving Out”!
well this is a happy week for many reasons but one in particular. the U.S.A. team won the ryder cup for the first time in nine years! yeay!!! happy days! we dusted those europeans like we were seasoning bacon! i mean, our guys out played them, out thunk ‘em, out gamed them, and out flaired them! how ’bout my boy boo weekley doing his best happy gilmore off the first tee box in the final round?
classic boo! haha! he deserves an emmy for that one! how ’bout anthony kim making sergio garcia look like a high school amateur hack and spanking him 5 & 4. (that means he was 5 holes up with 4 holes to play which mathmatically eliminates his opponent)
how ’bout paul azinger? he perhaps will go down as one of the greatest leaders in ryder cup history. paul exemplified how to lead a team of extremely different personalities and empower them to win! sound familiar? paul didn’t try and do it all himself either. he emplimented a strategy that was brilliant. he chose 3 sub leaders and gave them distint instructions. amazing! how did he come up with such? check this out. here is a cut from the press conference after the matches. try to read between the lines if you will…
Q. For Paul, listening to you this week, you’ve used a lot of language like team building strategy and staying on point. I’m wondering, did you get an MBA that we don’t know about? Where did your ideas for this, the way you organized the team, the strategies, come from? Is it some sort of organizational book you’ve read or does this come from your heart?
CAPTAIN PAUL AZINGER: No, actually about four or five years ago, I watched a documentary, it was kind of like…I won’t even tell you.
I’ve had this idea for about five years, if I was ever the captain, how I would try to approach the team. You know, we just decided to come together in small groups, that was it. Beyond that, I don’t know what else to tell you. I think you guys probably by now[have figured out], if you haven’t, I’m not as impressed with you as maybe I used to be. But we put four guys together [with a sub-captain]in practice rounds and they played together every day, and they were the four guys that stayed together the whole week and they were never going to come out of their little group. That’s the way I did it.
Beyond that, I think you already figured that out.
BOO WEEKLEY: And it worked.
KELLY ELBIN: What was the documentary, Paul?
CAPTAIN PAUL AZINGER: It was about how to take small groups and just to break them up.
wow! WOW! does that sound familiar? ok, maybe not if you are not familiar with how this church ministers. but if you are, then you probably got it. alright, maybe the documentary was not about small group churches at all, i have no idea, but the concept is the same. take a group of people, put them into smaller groups with a leader, and watch them conquer the world! well, at least europeans!
well it’s summer. it’s hot. it’s busy. it’s great. i have so much on my plate and i love it! business is picking up. our baby is coming any day. my house is coming together. it’s great. we are expecting family from all over the country to come in for the birth of baby arnett. i have friends over in the land of jordan encouraging college age muslims to trust JC. my neighbor adam came over last night to borrow my hedge trimmers which gave me the opportunity to serve him. it’s great. if i have come anywhere in my walk with JC it’s this, my outlook on circumstance is to see the good that God is doing and be thankful. what are you thankful for? what is great in your world?
