People outside of the church are often surprised at how long it takes to write a sermon. My pastor friends are surprised at how short of a time I spend writing a sermon. I heard a quote from Jerry Seinfeld this week that nailed it for me. It takes all of the time.
If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks’ vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days. – Dorothy Canfield…
Here are two excerpts from “The Forgotten Ways” by Alan Hirsch A Note to Leaders and Introduction: http://www.cmaresources.org/files/ForgottenWaysHandbook-excerpt.pdf and Introduction and Chapter 1 – Confessions of a Frustrated Missionary: http://assets.bakerpublishinggroup.com/processed/book-resources/files/Hirsch.pdf? 1362591025 I’m not sure if I’m allowed to link to these or not, which is why I am not hosting them on my own pages but leading you back to their original sites.
Here are my notes from the Verge13 conference. I took copious hand-written notes and then captured them with the notebook feature on Evernote for the iPad. If you scroll to the end, you can save them to your own Evernote account. Some of it is more detailed than other parts, so fire away if you…
This week we took the final pieces of the old Evansville Rescue Mission down and prepared for our grand opening of our new building at 500 E. Walnut st. One of the last things to do was to take down the cross in our old chapel and bring it over to the new chapel. Who…
Here is an interesting quote from the opening pages: “Temples were still erected for the old gods, priest continued to serve and sacrifice to be offered, but these were obsolete; and the myths about the gods were a spent force, no longer capable of satisfying the individual’s longing fr protection and blessing, salvation and redemption, in this world and the next. … “This is the background against which we have to view Judaism with all its differences and strangeness, its belief in the one, invisible God, Lord of heaven and earth, the rigor of its law, its ethical and ritual commandments (observance of the Sabbath, the dietary laws, etc.), its uniform way of life throughout the whole world, the venerable antiquity of its history, its call to turn away from all idolatry and moral confusion, and its proclamation of the judgment about to overtake the impenitent and of the peace and righteousness which the Messiah, soon to come, would bring in his train.” – p.7 It kind of boggles my mind to realize that people were attracted to the rule of law and the moral standards of Judaism.
If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.
…It’s like He doesn’t even care if you’re a good guy or a bad guy, if you want wisdom, He will give it to you!”
His talk was really good. 
After a day of some religious and worldly wisdom it was really good to focus on the fact that the most important things in this world can only be done by God. It’s worth it to read this passage from 2 Kings 3 
(Might have something to do with the fact that I’ve become an entrepreneur in the last year and a lot of what he said was really promising and exciting, vs. the usual song you hear when you are starting your own business that has a repeating chorus singing “you will fail, you will fail, you will fail.”) … I think they would have benefited a lot from just focusing on the next month rather than thinking they had to discover their lifelong vocation at 22. 
When you fail at something, like say, running a coffee filled backpack business, you learn something that nobody else knows.
