With all the holiday business going on, all my efforts and thoughts have gone towards relaxing and recharging for 2009... which means I have absolutely nothing to blog about.  Fortunately, I've stumbled across a plethora of links which are either heartwarming, sad, hilarious, or profound.  So, check it out!

This one's heartwarming:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?page=hotread17/kurtwarner

This one is really sad, but telling of our society:

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=11183630&ch=4226713&src=news

This one is somewhat sad, but also hilarious:

http://www.nintendowiifanboy.com/2008/12/29/couple-come-to-blows-over-wii-gift/

I think this one has some profound lines in it, but I also think it's pretty funny.  It's definitely worth the read, even if it's pretty long:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/25020634/the_legend_of_master_legend

One more thing - we had some technical difficulties this week on the sermon, but we'll have the sermon up soon.  I promise.  Seriously, it needs to go up, especially this week, considering we had holiday attendance...

Happy New Year!

So, I've been thinking for a few days about something inspirational to blog about for the website faithful, and even though I've had a few ideas, nothing seemed to stick.  So, I'll let a better writer do the writing for me.

I'm highly impacted by good writing, and so I think we'll make this a regular thing, me linking to other writing.  So, without further ado, click the link below for the first installment of what I like to call, 'Other People Write Better Than I Do.'
 
http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3789373


Merry Christmas, and I hope to see all of you tomorrow night!  This year's candlelight service is going to be the best one yet!

drew

I don't know about all of you guys, but it's nearly impossible for me to experience weather like we've had the last few days and think, 'man - I hope it doesn't get as bad as the last couple of years!'  You remember last year's ice storm: nearly the whole town lost power, people were picking up limbs for months, and everything (including Ashland Christian Church) had to stop until we thawed out a bit.  The year before wasn't as bad, but it was absolutely as memorable.

It was my first winter in Ashland, and at the time, I was the youth minister at ACC.  I distinctly remember getting somewhere between three and five inches of snow, and they called off school - so, Logan Hall, Seth DeArmas, and Lance Buckner were all hanging out at my house.  The thing was, the snow didn't seem to stop for anything, and three to five inches turned to seven to nine inches, which turned to twelve to fifteen inches, which eventually hit over twenty-three inches... yes, you read that right!  We had 23 inches of snow at my house!

Logan and Seth had gone home, but Lance had decided that it would be fun to hang out with Stephanie and I for a few days - we played NBA Live on XBox, watched crappy horror movies, and ate my wife's famous beef stew for several days.  Truth be told, being snowed in had never been so good, and it really was a good time... but I'll never forget how Lance reacted to the snow.

For me, when I saw 23 inches of snow outside, and I saw that the plows had shoved roughly three feet of snow to the end of my driveway, I figured I would just hang out in my house all day.  I didn't need to see the outside world - I was content just to stay at home.  Lance?  Not so much.  He decided that he just HAD to see how the rest of the town was doing.  So, he jumped in his Jeep, and he backed out... through 23 inches in my driveway... and through over three feet at the end of my driveway.  It took him several minutes, and I feared for my mailbox, but at the end, he was free!  He drove around town and noticed that not much was going on... but he got to see it!

There's a point to all of this: in life, there are always going to be obstacles and difficulties, and it's up to us to decide how we will deal with them.  Through Jesus, we have a relationship with the creator of the universe, and we have at our disposal everything we need to live a godly life.  None of that is changed by the circumstances of our world, and so it is entirely up to us how we choose to deal with what life throws at us.

I don't imagine this is the end of the winter weather... but right now, it's fine.  So make sure you come to church!

It happened early in the service, right around the second or third song.  We were all singing when one of Stephanie's good friends showed up and walked through the door.  She was a little late, but in this church, that's not a big deal at all!  She walked in, and immediately, it was obvious that she had never been here before... at first, she had a beffudled look on her face, like she was trying to figure out a rubik's cube, but that soon turned to sheer terror, like she had just walked in on someone in the shower!  She couldn't find a seat, she didn't know anyone that wasn't on stage, and she was just standing there feeling more and more exposed as the time went on.

It was then that my proudest moment of the day happened (note that I didn't not say 'coolest' or 'best' - that went to the baptism.  However, this moment made me prouder, I think...): one of our members walked right up to the girl and invited her to sit down with her.  Simple?  Of course.  Did it mean the world to the visitor?  Absolutely!

What we have to understand is that walking into Ashland Christian Church for the first time is an absolutely terrifying experience.  We all 'know the ropes,' which means we know what's going on in the service, when to stand, when to sit, when to greet, when we can get coffee, etc.  We know people, we know the preacher, we're familiar with the music... you name it, and we know it.  However, for a first time visitor, that's all foreign, and it's an intimidating thing to walk in and be surrounded by 115 or so people who know more than you do.

That's why it's so important to treat our visitors with love, respect and compassion.  What this member did was so simple, and yet it showed that she understood what it was like to be a visitor in a strange place, and it made Sunday a good experience for the visitor, where it could have certainly been a bad one.  So, thank you to the mystery member (you obviously know who you are), and let it be a lesson in how we should treat new visitors all the time - knowing that our goal is to Connect, Call, and Cultivate!