This was an extraordinary weekend. It had some extraordinarily awesome moments and it had some extraordinarily confusing ones as well. In many ways that sums up a pastor’s feelings most weeks. As for my musings …

-Saturday night at my 10:30 church we had 30 people experience the movie “War Room”. It is a powerful story of the impact of prayer. I had seen it before and I think it was more impacting to me the second time.

-My wife and I had a wonderful surprise as our 2 youngest grandkids decided to make a trip to stay with us for a couple of days, they brought their parents along too. These granddaughters are 16 months and 6 weeks old. This was the first time I had been with the 6 week old. It was great to hold them, read to them, watch them, listen to them and spend quality time with our daughter and son in law as well.

-Last week was one where I got to spend some time attempting to clear up misunderstandings with some people in the church and out of the church. Most of it turned out very well. Some of it has me still confused. Such is the life of most people, pastors included.

-My 9:00 church continues to do pretty well with the service time adjustments and dealing with having a pastor that also pastors another church.

-My 10:30 church had a huge day yesterday. We had a dozen precious young girl scouts who ministered to us. They served by being greeters, ushers and they gave us cookies following worship. It was so cool to see their joy in serving. Some of the girls brought their parents and it was a wonderful opportunity to meet and minister to them. We also had a great meal following our worship service and our fellowship hall was full. There were people who responded to the sermon and our attendance was outstanding. In fact our attendance was larger than our attendance was on Easter Sunday last year.

-There was great energy in our worship time at my 10:30 service yesterday.

-I began an Easter series of sermons yesterday. The series is entitled “Seeing Easter Through the Eyes of …” Each week we will look at Easter through the eyes of a different person or group in the Easter story. I am really stoked about preaching this series.

-Have you ever felt like you really need to take a vacation but know it can’t happen for a while? This is not a whine, it is just one of those times and it won’t be the last time it happens.

-I am very excited as I am preparing to lead a new midweek Bible study on Spiritual Gifts.

-I have gone backwards a little on getting healthier in the past couple of weeks. The only reason is because I have not made good food or exercise choices. No excuses, it is all on me. Ouch, no one to blame it on.

-It is really exciting to be praying for and following the ministry of a couple of college students who gave up their spring break to go to another county and serve. One of them is from my 10:30 church and the other one is from the church where pastored for 8+ years before moving here.

-Had a great praise this past week as one of our vehicles was having major problems but the solution turned out to be minor.

-A 90+ year old lady in one of my churches gave me three cartoons or jokes yesterday. I had told her a couple of weeks ago that it had been a while since she had brought me a joke. So yesterday she gave me 3. They were great, but more than anything I loved seeing the smile on her face as she handed them to me. I love my job/ministry.

Here’s hoping you see joy around you this week. If you are facing something you don’t like this week try changing it, if you can’t change then commit it to Jesus.

Dennis