I don’t know what I did last week but I sure was busy. It seems like all the days merge into one. The biggy was the Joyce-inspired women’s luncheon. I guess it had been eons since the ladies had done anything together so Joyce got a few to meet and plan a lunch for yesterday. She had lots of help but still a lot of the work fell to her. The whole event had a “you are someone special” theme. To put the two hours in a short simple sentence, they eat luncheon stuff, had a “style” show based on the fruit of the spirit, heard a devotional, and worked on notebooks by pasting magazine pictures of things special to them.

As it developed, they were short a person for the style show. So some guy who should know better but never seems to learn his lesson volunteered to be one of the “ladies.” Can you imagine? I hope not!!! Each of the ladies was one of the fruits and this guy was the last fruit (I know what you’re thinking. Don’t say it!) – self-control. I think he lost his somewhere. Here are a few pictures of the event.

Who let this guy... er, lady in?            The "guest" speaker

All of the lovely models pose for a photo.

I am in a “try not to do too much but do what really needs done” mode. That means I’m letting Trevor and Shanette do most of the work but picking up some loose ends that are either critical or temporary. One of the temporary jobs I’m working on is getting the new church directory done. It is now a month past the promised date and really needs to get finished quickly. Maybe by the end of this week?! It is hard to feel productive but not “do anything.” I find myself prodding Trevor to quit procrastinating and plan ahead. I want to go ahead and do it, but that won’t do him any good so I hold back.

We had a good planning meeting with the ladies who are doing KidZone (remember, we are technically just helping). They want to continue with the kind of program we are doing. I brought some more old VBS material (used by Fir Point Camp in some past year) and they chose Avalanche Ranch for the next unit. This is encouraging. The BIG issue is finding someone – or a couple – to take our place. They do need at least three leaders to make the club concept work for the 15 to 20 kids we have.

I close with this photo of the full moon rising last night and reflecting off the canal behind our house. 

Blessings

A Trip to GP

Hello, and happy Monday. I didn’t blog yesterday because I didn’t want to! I heard somebody say that retired people could do whatever they want to do, so I thought I would try it. I didn’t want to blog so I didn’t. How did it feel? Well, just so-so. No great high associated with it.

The big thing last week was our trip to Grants Pass. I’m happy to report all is well. The house is still standing and there are no water leaks. We did the usual hometown errands and I had a doctor’s appointment. It was one of those medication check ups. He looked down my list of lab work results and declared, “You are doing great in every area except one.” I knew what he was going to say. My glucose level keeps creeping up and is now at the place that he is starting to shake his finger at me. So, no sugar for me. I’m on the same diet Joyce is now. How boring. Oh, plus the exercise.

One of the fun things we did while we were in Grants Pass was have another one of those “Allen Creek Gang Potlucks.” We had this one in the clubhouse in the mobile home park where Delma and Reggie live. Thirty-seven people showed up (including five children). Three were true nonagenarians. Look that one up in Webster’s if you have to, but it is getting pretty well up in years. One still drives! One had a stroke but is doing well. The other just keeps ticking – kind of like Timex. The whole evening was lots of fun and a good time of staying in touch. These people really care for each other and miss “the good old days” of Allen Creek. Someone said I should go back and restart the church. That is not realistic. First of all, most of these people are tied into new churches and enjoying the new friends they are making. Second, it takes more than a few interested people to start a church (it takes dedication, leadership, talent, sacrifice, to name a few). I’ll leave it to someone else to start a new church in Grants Pass.

On the way back to Lebanon, we stopped in at Sutherlin for a leadership meeting regarding Camp Fir Point. The plans being laid will make for a super camp next August. And when we got back to Lebanon, we attended a community production of “Larceny and Old Lace.” It was produced by a local retirement facility as a fundraiser. The dinner was “ok” but the play was hilarious. Lots of laughs.

Trevor preached Sunday and we started our own version of fasting during the traditional Lenten season. And now we are into a new week. Wonder what it will hold? Seems there is always something exciting – or at least interesting. Have a good week.

Happy Valentine's Day

Yes indeed, it was a fun evening. Last night was the youth sponsored Valentine’s Banquet as a fundraiser. They did a tremendous job setting up and serving. A man in the church brought his homemade barbecue and did some delicious chicken. I hear he has a reputation in the area for his barbecued chicken. You should have seen the baked potatoes! They were huge! In fact, so huge they cut a lot of them in half – and the half was still big. The kids dressed up, served us, and did a great job. I’ve been to a lot of these youth sponsored events, but this was by far the best one (sorry Galen, but this one topped yours).

Lloyd and Laverne showed up. That was a hoot. Lloyd and Laverne go back quite a few years to a time when Joyce and I decided to use our middle names, dress up like back hills people, and make fools of ourselves. We (they) have appeared at various events a few times over the years. So we felt this church needed a little L&L. Last Sunday Lloyd interrupted the announcement in church looking for Laverne – and of course promoted the dinner in his comments. Last night we didn’t do a “special something.” We were just there dressed like… well like the stereotype back hills people (my apologies to anyone who lives back in the hills. No offence intended). But, on the other hand, we did play the “Newly Wed” game with Trevor and Shanette. So it was like the Newly-Oldly Wed game. We gave some weird answers to the questions and had a lot of fun. I think everyone else did to. Oh, Trevor and Shanette won. Even if we had been serious, the game was weighted to those with fewer years and experiences to remember. Trevor and Shanette only had 1 ½ years to reflect on, we had 43 ½ years to remember.

Enjoy the pictures:

Lloyd and Laverne had a formal picture taken.

Harold, the barbecue, and the chicken.

The dessert table. Yum.

Tuesday, we invited Eric and Marilee over for dinner. They live in Woodburn (about 40 miles away) and he was a pastor in our Conference. He still is one of our ministers but has been serving in another denomination for several years. Because of that, we haven’t seen each other for a long time, and haven’t socialized for a long, long, long time. It was a great evening. Lots of laughs. If you know Eric, you know what I mean about laughs. He is a funny guy.

There is a bit of sickness going around. Family Night and KidZone were down in attendance because of illness. So was worship today. This morning Shanette and I preached – sort of a tag team arrangement. Since it is Valentine’s Day, I took the topic of God loving us; Shanette took it from there and emphasized our love for God and for others. The ensemble from the East Linn Christian School in Lebanon sang and led us in singing. They are high school students and very talented. After worship, I took Joyce to brunch at the Lebanon Coffee House. Two friends from the church joined us. All in all, it was a good day.

Happy day of love to you. Enjoy.

KidZone Pics

Enjoy some pictures of KidZone. The first one is me telling the story of Jonah from inside the whale, err.... big fish. Notice the fan? That is how we keep the plastic inflated so we can all crawl inside (the fan blades are actually turning but the camera makes them look stationary). The kids loved this.  

Our kids love to sing. They are learning to sing and do motions. They are watching a DVD showing kids singing and doing the motions. Words to the songs are on the bottom of the screen. We have an abundance of preschoolers who can't read but they learn the songs quickly. We just recruited an 8th grade girl to lead the singing and set an example in doing the motions. Why motions? Those little muscles need exercising, it lets them burn off energy, and gets them involved with the music.

Another energy release is playing games. Here they are playing broom hockey. We were dividing our large group (we had 18 again last week) into three small groups -- we call them crews -- with older and younger together. This worked at Allen Creek but is not working here. I think we will divide them by age and see if that works better. We have 3 or 4 who are very young and inexperienced at sitting still. But they're sure cute.

We had a fun evening Thursday evening eating dinner at the Macedonia (Greek) with our conference superintendent Gary and his wife, Pattie. It was a fun, relaxing evening and we weren’t supposed to talk business. We did pretty well at that. We talked about their trip to Europe seeing the sites and some our churches. And we talked about our trip to Alaska and other places.

Let me brag about Ginger. She has been studying and practicing for 15 months to be able to teach a class that has some name I don’t remember. However, the objective is to teach fellow employees how to fend off attacks from out-of-control clients – that is, attacks on the employee, another client, or themselves. Anyway, she passed it last week and we are proud of her. The “test” was actually teaching the principles to a class on two evenings. This is a state program and a state certifier judged her.

Church was good today. Trevor preached and we had two singers, one guitar, and one drummer from our church plus an excellent guitarist who sort of led the group. I am turning more and more over to Trevor and Shanette. At our Leadership Council meeting after worship today, I presented my plan for transitioning out of here. On March 15 we will move back to Grants Pass and then return here for about a week once a month for three months. Basically, they have it now or they will never get it. I’m just tweaking it a little (and pushing for more).

Hey, how ‘bout that Super bowl? A saintly horde from New Orleans rode those ponies into agonizing defeat. Manning wouldn’t even shake hands after the game. I didn’t really care who won but I’m glad for the Saints because of all NO has gone thru.

Do you like to root for the underdog? The Bible tells us that in the end Christians win. So that means we should be cheering for those who aren’t Christians. I wonder. So how should we root for them? Think about it.

Another One Goes By

Whoops… there goes another week. Boy, they sure go by fast. Blink a couple times and you lose one faster than you can say, “no water again.” Yep. We drove to Grants Pass Wednesday after Family Night – got home about 11:30 to a nice warm house because I had Mike go over and change the heat from “vacation” to “we’re home now” (or whatever its called). Anyway, Thursday late afternoon I flushed the toilet (sorry about being so intimate here) and no water. A brief survey of the system revealed smoke coming from the capacitor in the relay box in the well house. It seems the flat piece of plywood I use for a lid now acts like a sieve when it rains. Water got in the thing and water and electricity don’t mix very well. It was easy to fix – for 40 bucks. I just bought a new box and used the half that had the needed parts – and this half just snapped onto the other side that was semi-permanently mounted. It works, but that was one of three.

We go back to GP once a month to take care of things. It seems things always need taking care of. I knew the batteries in the pickup were dead. So Thursday morning I called the tow company for a jump start. I mean, I’m paying big bucks for the towing service so I might as well use it. Right? The guy shows up in one of those big flat bed rigs -- the kind he would use to haul away a monster truck. But he couldn’t get the pickup started. My neighbor had the number of a guy who makes house calls to work on diesels. I called him. Told him the problem. He said there has to be 10 volts getting to the computer or it won’t start. I knew we weren’t getting 10 volts because the thing would hardly turn over. My best new telephone friend said to put a trickle charger on it for as long as possible. So I did. Over 24 hours. Friday afternoon it started as if it had been running forever. So much for the tow guy. That was #2.

So Friday I’m mowing the lawn. Yeah, mowing the lawn. It looked like no one lived there and that is the last thing I want when no one lives there. Joyce comes out and says the washing machine smells funny. Sure enough, it smells like hot wires. I’m not sure what that will be. When it cooled off she was able to finish the laundry. We unplugged the thing but next trip home will be a washing machine repair – or maybe the trip after that. And that was #3.

So these kinds of things come in threes, or so I’m told. So I simply said, “okay, Jesus, this is three” and we went to a movie. We saw Sherlock Holmes. It’s not that great. If you haven’t seen it, take your chances on something else. The scenery sets of old London were really interesting, though.

Family Night is doing well. There were 52 last week. During the autumn months we usually had about 25 to 30. KidZone was up to 19 with lots of workers. Really nice to see this happening. Trevor preached today. He will be doing more and more of that. We have been struggling with our music but today a guy (whom we are borrowing from another church) came with his son and 2 other young people. We had guitars and a drummer! Great. Good. He will come often – maybe every week. We haven’t worked that out yet. It sure gave a new sense of energy to the service.

And so it goes. Blink and its gone. Love ya.

Another Week Goes By

Another week retreats into history. That sounds somewhat boring, doesn’t it? It wasn’t. Let me tell you about KidsZone first. It is very exciting seeing our attendance climb from 4 the first week to 16 two weeks ago to 18 last week. For all of Family Night we have jumped from 23 to 42 to 50. I think there is a new sense of excitement and everyone feels it.

Wednesday morning and part of the afternoon, Joyce and I went into Salem and helped some friends pack up a house so the movers could take everything into storage. The house was damaged by a massive water leak and the inside needs major renovation. Our friend is the contractor doing the work and it was his responsibility to get everything out of the house – now, quickly, pronto, immediately … you get the idea. We got a call Tuesday late afternoon and showed up for work Wednesday morning. There were 6 of us so it went quickly and pretty efficiently. Kind of fun. I used to do that for Mayflower in St. Helens a few decades ago.

We had lunch with Dennis and Sandy on Thursday and then Doris, Beth, and Betty came for a visit Saturday. Also, we took Monday as a day off – a real day off. So you can see it’s not all work. However, since I preached today, there was a fair amount of preparation for that.

Next week will be different. A Conference Board meeting on Tuesday then to Grants Pass Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It will be good. Stay tuned.

Especially KidZone

KidZone is fun. Fun. Fun. Lots of work, but fun. This week we built Elijah’s altar. The short (very short) story is this: Elijah and the followers of a false god enter a contest to see whose God is real. They both construct altars, put on wood, add a sacrifice, then pray for fire. Of course, the false god doesn’t deliver but Elijah’s God sends fire that not only consumes the sacrifice but also the rocks of the altar and the water Elijah had poured over it and even the wet soil. Okay, with that bit of Bible story behind us, here’s what we did – in pictures.

I told the story -- again (told it last week, also)

Then we built an altar -- in a long storage container with a gravel base. The altar was fist-sized rocks and the boys needed a little help placing them.

Two of the kids added sticks. Another added the sacrifice -- a big, yummy, mouth watering chocolate bar! Well, we couldn't kill a cow! After that a boy added water like the Bible says -- actually three times. Now we're ready to pray down fire from heaven!

But, alas, a fireman rushed in and sprayed everything with a fire extinguisher because, as he said, fire was too dangerous in a room full of children. I know he was a real fireman but I'm not too sure about his extinguisher. It looked a lot like a can of whip cream with red paper wrapped around it. Hummmm. Maybe this was a setup?

Well, whatever it was, the kids loved it. After this, they made cupcakes into altars with candy rocks and strips of red licorice as fire. Then games. Some music woven in there. Fun. (but they learn about the Bible and Bible principles during all this fun stuff).

Our leadership planning retreat went really well. Trevor did a good job planning and leading. Friday evening he had us make an eco-map telling our own stories. This built a good sense of community. Saturday we tied this into the story of our church. Which then led to what we want our story to be in the future – what would we like our church to do (become) and how do we get there. Some good ideas and mini-plans. We have more to do, but that can be done by pastoral staff with approval of the leadership.

Sunday was different. Trevor and I decided to have a worship time with no singing – just a lot of “here’s the good things the Lord is doing.” We didn't have a pianist. She quit -- long story. Our usual song leader is gone -- another long story. Would you like to move Lebanon and be our worship leader? The morning went quite well I think. I closed with a very short meditation from Psalm 103 on the “benefits” of the Lord.

So be blessed. The Lord is good.

Fun at the Beach

After working 52 hours last week (I know, it's not a lot by many pastoral standards but I'm only supposed to be working 30 hours), Joyce and I decided to treat ourselves to a day at the beach. We splurged on a nice motel in Newport and simply enjoyed ourselves. The weather was not too bad by Oregon standards – overcast and a little foggy, but no rain and almost no wind. I walked on the beach with just a coat and it was great. These pictures are FROM our room and looking back up AT our room. We were one floor down from the top and little to the right of the walkway. You can tell from the pictures, there is a little bit of fog.

Okay, let me confess. All this is true, however our trip to Newport was actually motivated by a search for some ocean-oriented items to enhance our SCUBA theme for KidZone. Wow! That calls for a lot of explanation, doesn’t it? Ok, back to the beginning. On Wednesday, we started a new, more club-like program for the children (pre-k through grade 5). We are using some old, old material from Allen Creek called SCUBA (Super Cool Undersea Bible Adventure). We have a big poster and smaller pictures but the setup was lacking. So we conceived this bright idea to go to Newport, scrounge through old shops, and come home with lots of treasures.

Sunday evening we called Larry and Cheryl, friends from our Agate Beach Community Church days in Newport, to have dinner with us. In conversation with them, Larry said he knew someone who could help us. Monday we met a really delightful retired commercial fisherman who loaded our trunk with old nets (they call them webs) and floats. We have enough to use for next summer’s kids camp. It will have a “high seas adventure” theme. We still prowled some shops we knew about, had a relaxing day, and headed for home.

Another fun thing this week was our dreaming session Sunday after church. The down side was only 16 people attended (Apathy? Lack of vision? Poor promotion? I don’t know). But on the up side, it was a really good dreaming session. Lots of good ideas and plenty of enthusiasm. We will take these ideas to the Leadership Council meeting this coming Friday-Saturday and refine some of them to a working plan – or perhaps simply direction to a working plan.

This last photo was taken just a little way down the beach from our motel. The house is kind of like a sentinel looking out over the ocean. But it is really quite vulnerable to storms. I suspect it was build before laws were passed to prevent construction like this. All the other buildings are up ON the bluff. But since this one faces the setting sun, it can symbolize looking to the future.

We are. Does that work for you?