a revolving door

It’s early here in Phoenix: 5.30am. The sun is just beginning to peek out over the McDowell Mountains to the east. My inlaws, Randy and Carol, are leaving for the airport to fly back home to Indiana. And my mom is already on an inbound flight from Afghanastan – she’ll arrive at 9.30am. I can’t wait to spend time with her, my step-dad Richard, my grandma…and even my brother Pat is coming over from San Diego. It should be a full week.

It seems as though since Charlie was born we have been so busy. I think part of it just has to do with how busy the other two boys are. But it does seem like we never slow down. I’m excited for the summer. We’re going to get away for at least a week and I think I’m going to take the boys away for a little ‘excursion’ for a few days.

I am so thankful for God’s goodness – His grace and mercy. I am thankful for our family, our friends, our church community. I’m thankful for my wife. Life is good.

Contributors…not Consumers

I read this thought from a pastor I have a great deal of respect for:

We are spiritual contributors not spiritual consumers. The church does not exist for us. We are the church and we exist for the world.

So what are you contributing?

weekend madness

It was one crazy weekend at la Anderson casa. Our besties from OKC were in town. LOVED hanging with them. It is so easy to be with them. Russ and I played 30 holes of golf at Grayhawk (we couldn’t finish the second 18). We ate In N Out a couple of times since it is something they never get to experience. Anna Banana and Robin spent a few hours playing Rock Band. But the best part was the conversation. Love the McNellis tribe.

Saturday, I ran by the M2M Hike to raise awareness for our summer mission trip to Sierra Prietta, Dominican Republic. There were 70-80 hikers there. It was awesome. Pictures…

Sunday at MMCC…where do I begin? The Elephant was definitely in the house this weekend. The ‘sexy’ elephant that is. I think there was some tension built around what I would say about sex. This week, we built a foundation to understand God’s design. Next week, we’ll go a bit further. Here are a few thoughts from the morning…

• Sex was God’s idea…and He commands it.
• Sex is sticky. And the more we pass it around with multiple people, the more we lose our stickiness.
• Sex is more than skin on skin – it is spiritual and sacred.
• It’s not that we want too much out of sex. It’s that we want too little.

We’ll have more next week. Then, we have the political elephant, the apocalyptic elephant, and the divorced elephant.