Yesterday was an outstanding day with a lot of emotion. As for my musings …

-We said good-bye to my Associate Pastor and his family yesterday morning. We had a special breakfast in their honor and during our worship time we gave them a few gifts to remember us by and had a special time of prayer surrounding them. A few tears were shed by many of us.

-It was great to be back with our church family yesterday. We enjoyed our time away and being with some family and we enjoyed being back with these people who call me pastor.

-On Friday I was honored to share the message at a very special man’s funeral. He was a retired pastor. He served this church at one time and is the longest tenured pastor this church as ever had. He was a member and regular attender of this church in his retirement. He was a great encourager to me and many others. He will be greatly missed.

-Last evening our church was host site for a discipleship training that will last until Wednesday morning. Hal Perkins and his wife Debbi are leading these sessions. There will be 2 more evening sessions and 3 morning sessions beginning this morning. I am always for things that help with discipleship.

-Yesterday morning I resumed the sermon series “Dream”. The focus was on what we expect. Because what we expect greatly impacts what we do and what we do determines our results. We looked at David versus Goliath and how David’s expectations of what God would do were different than everyone else at that scene. We have 2 more Sundays of this series, or maybe 3.

-I have had a few nights recently when I could not turn my mind off and sleep. It culminated on Saturday night when I slept for an hour total. I am hoping that trend is over.

-Our mid-week ministries had another good week last week. The number of children attending has stayed up in a range above what we anticipated. Our teen number is growing. The adult studies are going very well, though with lower numbers than we hoped. However, the main reason our adult study numbers are down a bit is because we have a lot of adults serving with our children and teens. Our mid-week ministries have become a source encouragement for our whole church.

-Saturday was my wife and oldest granddaughter’s birthday. My wife says that our granddaughter’s birth was her greatest birthday present ever. That present came 13 years ago. We now have 4 grandchildren who are teenagers. Wow!

-My fantasy football team appears to have squeaked out another victory, since neither of us have anyone playing tonight.

-I am struggling getting a handle on my Christmas sermon series. I like to have a direction for it by now.

-My Cubs split their first two games of the playoffs, since those games were on the road, I am good with that outcome. But I am very nervous for the rest of the series.

Here’s hoping you are expecting God to do great things in your life this week.

Dennis