This morning as I was reading the bible I came across this proverb, "Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe." This verse, found in Proverbs 29 immediately struck a chord in me. As I have embarked on a journey of healing over the past 15 months, one of the recurring themes I tend to wrestle with is a people pleasing nature, a tendency to place the values and opinions of others over anything else, often at the expense of my own self worth. I do this in just about every area of my life. Yet through the process, it has become more and more clear to me that healing will not happen until I am able to firmly establish my value in Christ as "an unrepeatable miracle of God" as a friend of mine says. I have become a master at self analyzing and contempt, yet I find no basis for this in scripture.
So, that being said, I may still struggle with this tendency, but I consciously strive to reprioritize my value system, finding my identity in Christ, believing in my inherent value as one created in the image of God, and learning how to stand firm in that truth amidst all the voices, opinions, and believes of others.

The time has come! We are on the verge of the new "Third Format" service at Central. This is a new weekend worship service at Central that I have been working on for months, really years now. The last 6 months have probably been the hardest, most personally stretching time of my life, and yet I feel like God is working in amazing ways through this time...as difficult as it has been.
Aug. 20 is our second test run of this service. We had our first on the July 23, and it went very well, though there is still much to work on, but that was the purpose of the test run. I am excited though. We will begin running weekly starting on Sept. 10. If any of you are in the area on a Sunday night at 6 pm, come check it out.
More to come!

I have become a fan of firefox. I love it. If you have not checked it out, you need to. The tabbed pages, the add-on (adblocker plus; flashblocker; Foxytunes), and everything else makes it great. You can even add an IE engine to look at pages with an IE interface if it doesn't look right in Firefox. Just some very cool stuff!

Definitely a happy fathers day!

We showed this video at the beginning of our Jr. High and High School programs this morning...I just had to pass it along...too funny! Click Here

Happy Memorial day!

My Kids.

Ben recently got some clay from Grammy and decided to create a dinosaur. This is a Tyrannosaurus Rex, complete with eyes and a volcano. We were very impressed, because this was all on his own and entirely from memory. We have a little artist going here!

He also decided to make a Brontosaurus as well...

Kate got a new hat from some friends of ours. Showing it off!

Karen and I recently went to a viewing of "A Closer Walk" which is a documentary about AIDS in the world. I have to admit, I have stayed pretty oblivious to this issue in my life. I was aware of it, but tended to insulate myself from it. However, one of the things I have been trying to do is become more aware of world issues and to expose myself to them. This is a very moving and challenging documentary. It is filled with both personal stories and facts about the disease, many of which are very disturbing. I would invite anyone to find out more, or try to attend a viewing of this. Whether or not you are moved to take an active role or not is one thing, but to be uninformed is another. Who knows what God will move us to do out of this, but I can say that my heart is beginning to be more open to the needs of a world that not only needs Jesus, but also needs people to respond like Jesus.

Here is a picture of Ben with the family we built a home for. Juan Carlos and his wife Maria, and their four kids, Leticia, Carla, Estefani, and Carlos. I love this photo! According to the bio, he is a bricklayer who makes $80 a week, but when I was down there, he had been out of work for three months because of an operation, but hoped to be going back to work soon.

Definitely gives you perspective.