Grr.

1. We have the Hatfields and the McCoys at our church. And their kids got married this past summer. The two mothers are fighting like cats. My husband and I counseled with one of the parental couples shortly after the wedding when they threatened to leave the church because of their differences. We advised them to stay and try to work things out with the other set of parents for the sake of their kids... that they needed a healthy relationship with their inlaws. We should have let them leave. What's the line: "Leave the back door open?" Apparently it all hit the fan this week- the kids came back to visit for Christmas (they were smart enough to move away) and mom #1 let Dad #2 have it. And she spouted off some very wrong and inappropriate stuff from our counseling session. Put us right in the middle. Said we said stuff we didn't say (and never would have said). Twisted our words in the heat of the moment and put us in a terrible position. Luckily Dad # 2 came to us to get the truth- but I'm pissed.

and totally unrelated...

2. Toxic relationships will ruin your life. Threaten your ministry. Blur your focus. You can't hang on for the sake of history. Trying to figure out how to let one go. Pray for me. I need the supernatural here.

it feels good

to have our Christmas program laid out. It was so darn good last year I've felt a lot of pressure for this one to be a phenom as well. I've been worrying about it since May- and am finally satisfied with what we've put together. We got our graphic design work done today and are submitting ads and starting to work on the program and handout.

Don't get me wrong... I know this isn't about us... and our reputation. But there is a great amount of pressure for quality- because there just isn't much of that out here- mostly small town stuff. Not that there's one little thing wrong with shepherds in bathrobes... :)

finally...

after another hour on the phone with Adobe customer support, i'm finally up and running. now i can start all the crap i was supposed to have done yesterday... and it's only 11:30!

and by the way, cs guys who have their mikes so close to their mouths that you can hear every breath they take are creepy. he sighed. a lot.

creepy.

Thanks a lot, Adobe Creative Suite.

By crashing today, by giving me a "Catastrophic Error"... you insured that my former two-day Thanksgiving work week is now a three, possibly four day work week. GRRR. I've already spent 45 minutes on the phone with a guy in India to no avail. Going in tomorrow when I should be preparing for Thanksgiving dinner. Have I said GRRR yet? Is frick a cuss word? I vote no. FRICK!

Am I a Sheep or a Goat?

I have always assumed I was a sheep. After all, I've been a Christian FOREVER (hear the little kid from The Sand Lot saying that in the tree house with it echoing over and over). I am a pastor's wife... I minister to those around me... I'm a youth group sponsor... I do hospital visitations... I work about 50 hours a week at the church... I do my devotions and spend time in prayer every day... I work every month serving food to the homeless with a group from my church... that makes me a sheep, right?
Then, Viktor and Leia came into my life. My husband and I were downstairs watching a movie when our doorbell rang. We paused it and he went up to see who was at the door. I heard him talking to someone, but I was already in my pajamas so I stayed downstairs. After about ten minutes, my husband poked his head downstairs with a ridiculous grin on his face and said, "Come up here. I have someone I want you to meet." I protested that I was in my pajamas and he assured me that "they" wouldn't care. So I went upstairs to find that a young couple was moving into our guest bedroom for the night.

Being the displaced southern belle that I am, I waited until after the genial introductions and some cheery small talk to get my husband alone and nearly strangle him. "What were you THINKING inviting people we don't know to SLEEP in our house? What if they MURDER us in the middle of the night? I am going to be so ticked at you if I wake up DEAD!" (Ok, I was slightly irrational.) He very calmly explained that he spent a lot of time talking with them and their story checked out and that they were biking across the country to New York to where her family lived. Oh, yeah, and he felt like the Holy Spirit was prompting him to let them stay. Well, that completely deflated every argument that I had in my arsenal. He said the scripture kept coming to mind from Matthew 25:35: " For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in..." What was I to do but trust that God would take care of us and submit to my husband?

I was thankful that our son was, by chance, spending the night at a friend's house, so I didn't have to be concerned about his safety. That helped a little. It also helped that they were really nice people (and in the back of my head, I was thinking, "so was Ted Bundy...") and very open. Viktor was from Belgium, with a thick accent and mad-crazy body odor. Leia was from Canada. They had biked down from Canada and were now headed across to New York, traveling about 60 miles on a good day. We got on Google Earth and zoomed into his hometown in Belgium and even on to his mom's house- which brought tears to his eyes.

They were exhausted, so we fed them, let them shower, and we all got ready to go to bed. While Viktor was in the shower, I gave Leia a great book called "Under the Overpass" about a guy who chose to live on the streets for a period of time and traveled across the country, much as they were doing. And I gave her my bible. She accepted both gratefully and I went to my room and got ready for bed. I heard Viktor get out of the shower and Leia get in... and out... and the house got quiet.

I didn't sleep a wink all night. I laid awake listening to every creak and groan our house made... and worried about being murdered in my sleep. My husband, on the other hand, slept like a baby... which made me mad. He had put me in this situation, after all... the least he could do was stay awake and worry with me! I think he even snored, which was annoying because it covered up the possible squeaking of the door that would happen as they came in to murder us.

The next morning, I was exhausted, but definitely not dead. We all got up and took them to breakfast in the little town next to ours. Afterwards, we drove them about 75 miles east to get them a day ahead of the snow storm that was about to blaze through our state. As my husband and I talked on the way home, he never really did understand why I was so afraid having two people that we didn't know at all in our home overnight. I guess that's just the difference between men and women? He never understood the vulnerability I felt. I don't know.

I' still feel guilt over the worry... the fear I experienced that night. Was I not "holy" enough to trust God to take care of me? Was I not taking care of "the least of these" with a pure heart? I still don't know the answer to those questions... but I do know that I did the best I could. I was kind and friendly, and didn't let them know I was worried or afraid. I was the consummate hostess~ I just hope Christ was happy with my heart.

Here they are after our drive east- getting ready to hit the road and move a little closer to New York.
I've prayed for them every day since they left. I put my email address inside the book I gave Leia- they are supposed to email us when they safely reach New York. I hope I hear from them again. And I do know that I'd let them stay in my home again if they came back through... and I'd probably sleep this time, at least lightly. :)

Church in the dark

Our plant church had an interesting Sunday this past week. We don't yet have our own facility, so we meet in a school. We are in the middle of a series about the things that hold us hostage and this week was the biggie- the week on pornography. There are several families in our church struggling with this issue; some still together, some not. It's huge everywhere. It's the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about in the Christian community. We went to xxxchurch.com and planned our own "Porn Sunday".

As my husband and I were getting ready around 6:45 am, we were talking about how a lot of the service was video/computer-driven today: our drama needed the computer, we used an accompaniment cd for the song "Slow Fade" (usually all our songs are live), and even the bulk of our message was a video. Our computer has crashed in the middle of the service before, causing huge problems with sermon notes on the screen, lyrics, etc... I told him that we needed to gather people together that morning to pray for the service, the technical stuff, the computer, etc... My husband said, "We need to pray to ban Satan from the room this morning..." and that very second, our power went out. Literally, his words were still hanging in the air. Our first reaction was to laugh and say, "Of course this happened... there really must be some people who need to hear this message today."

We quickly came to find out that the outage covered the entire corridor where we live, and included five different towns, and the utility company said it would be several hours before it was restored. All this happened right before setup at 7am. Last Sunday, we had 389 people attend and we were thinking it was possible again this week... we had rented a way-too-expensive plush elephant costume and planned to use it to greet people as they came in and to sit on the front row during the service (representing the elephant in the room)- we had all these huge plans... can you say stress?

Our set up team showed up right on time to discuss, and eventually solve the problem. We found out later that evening that we were one of the only churches on the corridor that continued with church that morning. Several of our guys ran home and grabbed their generators- I think we used three total- and we did our best to conserve power and have "church as usual". We didn't have our normal lighting because we didn't want to waste too much power on that, so it was a little dim in the room. But that played right into our drama and the video. It smelled a little bit like gasoline (or whatever the generators ran on)... but you know what? Our little church barely hiccuped- someone called us the church that "kept on ticking". The band sounded fantastic- and everything was so well received. I really believe that the service was better for what happened. It was so powerful, and I believe that lives were changed. It was incredible.

The power came back on about ten minutes after the second service was over while we were tearing down- which pointed a big, fat finger at exactly who our adversary had been that morning... and he was waving a white flag.

It was a complete miracle that we pulled it off, but once again... God provided and we are still standing in amazement.

whew...

A great Sunday- almost 400 people and a very generous offering. wow. thanks, god. we needed that.