Yesterday had some powerful moments. As for my musings …

-The whole worship service at my 10:30 church was filled with a sense of God’s presence and it was a powerful experience. People were very engaged and there was a sense that everyone was seeking God. It was exactly what my spirit needed.

-There were several visitors in my 10:30 church. Some of them were attending for the second or third time and a few of them for the first time.

-I was not operating at 100% compacity physically. On Wednesday evening a cold hit me with a vengeance and knocked me down for a couple of days. This was a major drain on my energy and impacted my voice as well. I changed my Sunday morning preparation routine to conserve my voice and energy.

-Yesterday’s message was about living an “Even If …” life. Being a person who follows Christ even if circumstances don’t seem to be going as we had hoped. The Lord was speaking to me, hopefully it spoke to others as well.

-Last week my wife and I got away from Sunday afternoon until Wednesday afternoon. We stayed in a little cabin in the woods that I referenced last week. It was exactly what we were looking for and what we needed. When we parked our van upon arriving, we didn’t drive it again until we headed for home. We read a lot, slept a lot and spent time talking. There was no internet access and no television reception. We will return to one of these cabins in the future. While we were there we scouted the other cabins for future reference.

-I read four books while in the little cabin in the woods. Two of them were fiction, one was a business book that had a lot of crossover for ministry and one was a personal spiritual growth book.

-The attendance at both churches was down a little from our averages.

-In two weeks, I will be partnering with another pastor in our town to teach a class about fatherhood in the prison located just outside our town. This is very exciting.

-With Easter being less than 3 weeks away, a lot of time is being spent putting things together for this very important Sunday. We are changing a few things from what we normally do on Easter in hopes of having a larger, and longer lasting, impact.

-One of my conclusions from my few days away was that I am spinning my wheels much of time. I am spending too much time wondering what to do instead of doing what I already know to do.

-Another conclusion is that I need to eliminate a lot of negative thinking and stop focusing on a few people who are not looking to grow personally and therefore do not want to see the church grow.

Here’s hoping you find some time to reflect and refocus.

Dennis