Burying a Friend Today

I'm preaching the funeral of an old friend today. Ray Sickmiller was an elder in my first ministry in White Pigeon, Michigan. He and his family have been great encouragers to Tracy and me over the years. After many years of living in different states, God brought us back to the same town. What a privilege and blessing it is to be able to share the promises from God's Word regarding Ray's eternity. He finished well.

New Message Series -- 24

Regular readers of this blog (all three of you) know that I'm a big fan of the show 24. I got to thinking, "What if every believer lived a totally intense, sold-out-for-God life? What would it look like?" When Jesus called us to follow Him, His call was one of total commitment – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. He taught us that the greatest commandment is, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and the second is like it, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39).

What if, 24 hours a day, you lived like God wants you to live? Every hour. Every second. Every moment. Every heartbeat. Every breath. What an incredible difference it would make in your life and in the lives of others.

I’m staring a new sermon series this Sunday:
March 4 Worship – Loving My God
March 11 Witness – Living My Faith
March 18 Work – Learning My Role

Say It Ain't So!

The Cubs are going to allow ads on the outfield wall at Wrigley. Ugh.

That Saved and Set Me Free?

Keith Drury has a wonderful post about how some of our church songs are being edited to take the "edge" off. Ick! I need to be reminded of my wretchedness and worminess without Christ. It's what makes His grace all that more amazing!

Date Night

Going on a belated Valentine's Date with my Sweetie. Mrs. Soren was under the weather on Feb. 14, so we're making up for it tonight. Probably will catch a movie, then get some ice cream (yeah, we really live on the edge).

Have a great weekend everybody!

Valentine's Day

Dude, I got a Dell! Mrs. Soren stunned me with a gift of a laptop. Is she awesome or what? (for the record, she was awesome before she gave the gift). But wow. Kinda makes the John Mayer CD that I got for her pale by comparison. Maybe I'd better buy some chocolate too, eh?

Snow is Coming!

Weatherman says that we are going to get hammered overnight. I've heard that snowfall amounts will be anywhere from 4 to 10 inches. It will be the first shovelable (is that a word?) snow of the season.

Sweetheart Banquet

Tonight Cedar Creek is hosting a Sweetheart Banquet. Mrs. Soren (and others) have put much work into ensuring that it is a wonderful evening. A catered meal, romantic music, video clips, and a great speaker.

Congrats to the Super Bowl Champions!

Great job by the Colts. Truly a team effort. And is there a classier coach than Tony Dungy? This state has gone "Colts Crazy." It's a nice diversion during a bitterly cold winter.

My friend Dave Willis has an interesting post for the people who are jumping on the "Dump Rex (Grossman)" bandwagon in Chicago.

The Weekend

Kids are going to Winter Jam with the Youth Group tonight. Mrs. Soren and I are making it a date night -- a nice dinner and maybe a movie.

It's supposed to turn really cold this weekend. A high temp on Sunday of 2 (yes that's 30 degrees below freezing) and a low of -11.

Culture Shift

I'm reading the book Culture Shift by Wayne Cordeiro. He has a chapter about identifying your church's culture. He uses the analogy of a totem pole -- "this is who we are, this is our culture." He also asks some painfully blunt questions:

Are our church cultures transforming the broader culture, or mimicking it?

Are we too susceptible to the latest plug-and-play church program or a pattern of quick fixes?

Do we care more about doing the next event than about the transference of values?

Will we one day find ourselves filing our mission statement away in a drawer rather than living it?

Are we stuck mimicking the best practices from others rather than finding out God's best for our church?

Brrrr!

It's really cold here today. It was 2 degrees when I left the house. You read that right. Not windchill, but actual temp (the windchill is about 10 below).

Oops!

Story here. (thanks Fess!)

Are You Still Cool?

Click here to find out.

Men's Retreat

Our men's retreat this past weekend was great. Our speaker, my good friend Mark Christian, spoke to our guys in a way that really connected with them. He is the king of dropping those little nuggets/zingers at just the right time. He really has a gift. We've known each other since the fourth grade, but at one of the breaks, I said to him, "Who ARE you?" Wow. God really did something this weekend. Not sure what it is yet, but He is working.

Mark and I bunked in the same room together with no one else there. We stayed up late reminiscing and being stupid. I haven't laughed that hard in years.

My Weekend

Leaving tomorrow for Lansing, MI. I have a Trustees' meeting at my alma mater. Tomorrow night I will be joining a bunch of guys from our church at our annual men's retreat. My good friend Mark Christian will be the speaker.



Y'all have a great weekend!

Book Recommendation

I might be a little late to the dance on this one, but I wanted to share a book recommendation with you guys. 360 Degree Preaching by Michael J. Quicke (yes, I'm sure his junior high years were brutal). It was Preaching magazine's "Book of the Year" in 2003. I hope it will cause you to become "fired up" for preaching. It has re-ignited my passion. I stumbled upon the book when someone gave me a copy of Quicke's 360 Degree Leadership (the premise of which is that preaching and leadership are inseparable) -- he refers frequently to his first book, the preaching book. I think y'all will enjoy both books.

Super Bowl

The Colts and Da Bears are going to the Super Bowl. Folks around these parts are pretty happy about it. Lots of Colts and/or Bears fans in this area. Even Coach Dungy said, "Hey we ought to play this game in Fort Wayne." The Colts/Pats game was exciting. When the Pats were up 21-3, I thought, "Oh no, here we go again." But they fought back and won it in the end. I hope the Super Bowl is a good game.

Hey, does anyone besides me get a little uncomfortable when the announcers start talking about how the coaches are African American? Stupid questions like, "Hey, how does it feel to be the first African American coach in the Super Bowl?" Mrs. Soren said to me last night, "Are we ever going to get past that kind of stuff." It's like they are saying, "Um, coach, I noticed that you're black." I thought we weren't supposed to see color. Coach Dungy had enough class to basically ignore the question.

It was funny when Shannon Sharpe said, "These are the first black coaches, I mean, African American coaches to reach this level." Even the black guys don't know what they are supposed to call the black guys. Ya gotta love political correctness.

And did you notice that Jim Plunkett, when presenting the trophy to the Colts' owner, almost said "Baltimore Colts"? His lips were forming a "B", then he caught himself. That would have been quite the faux pas.

Testosterone Night

Mrs. Soren won tickets today from a local radio station for BooKoo Arenacross. So I get to take my son and one of his friends to the Coliseum tonight for some cool father-son bonding (you can't go wrong with gasoline powered death machines, eh?). We're both looking forward to it.

Flooded Basement

You never really appreciate the lowly sump pump...that is, until it stops working. I found about 4 inches of water in my basement last night. Ugh! We don't have a lot of stuff down there, but I'm afraid to see what the damage is. My plumber friend installed a new sump pump late last night (thanks Mark!). Now the clean-up begins.