Snow and Waffles

Yesterday's snowfall, while quick and high stacking, was the most beautiful snow I've seen in a long, long time. What a way to begin our Sunday!

I was a nervous wreck from 6 am to 7 am, but I finally felt we had made the right decision to carry on with a normal schedule...well, that's when God likes to remind us that He is God. The sleet turned to snow by 8 am, and dumped 4 to 5 inches on our parking lot in about 2 hours!

Thanks to everyone who was a good sport...At least 8 people came for our 10:20 am service, only to discover that we canceled it to encourage people to return home safely.

Since the roads were getting progressively worse, our small group decided to meet for lunch instead of our normal Sun PM gathering time, and we met at Eggspectations in Chantilly. I really really love that place! That's the place I chose when it came my turn for a b'day lunch last month with our staff. The coffee is good, the service is good, and oh yeah, the food is delicious!

We had a great lunch/fellowship time, and oh yeah, we got a waffle for free because BOTH of their waffle irons broke, and they had to bust out a new one for us, so it took a long time...but it was worth the wait!

I love our small group, and I'm so thankful to have people to walk this road of life with. People who are real, funny, authentic, and deeply in pursuit of God.

So that's it, my Sunday was wrapped up in snow & waffles. (Not to mention the great time of praise & proclamation at our 9 am service...great job by our guest speaker)

Psalm 37:4

If you're reading through the "Bible in One Year" Daily readings at www.oneyearbibleblog.com , then you know it's getting tough...we're in the thick of Leviticus! Thankfully, the organizers planned some New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs for each day as well.

One of today's verses is one of Jaime's favorites, and mine as well:

Psalm 37:4
"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart."

What an awesome verse! We've seen this verse come true over & over in our lives.

Like Friday night, we were treated to two tickets to the Chris Tomlin / Louie Giglio event at the Patriot Center. Incredible, awesome, powerful, refreshing, inspiring, rejuvenating...these words don't even come close. Chris Tomlin led worship along with his buddy Matt Redman (author of "the Heart of Worship"), and Louie brought powerful messages from God's Word in between sets. It was such an amazing time of delighting in the Lord under the leadership of very humble yet internationally reknown worship leaders ! They are SO NOT concerned about themselves, but they are totally concerned with God's fame, His renown, His glory....

Jaime and I both left there walking about 2 feet above the ground.

Thank you Paul, Susie, Mike & Wanda for this generous gift of the concert, and many thanks to James & Ramona & kids for watching Faith at our place while we went to the event.

Delight in the Lord today!

www.christomlin.com

3rd Anniversary

Wow, what a week!

We started the week with Jaime's kidney stone, and it's gotten drastically better ever since!

Thanks John & Jena for the abundance of yummy gourmet food from Whole Foods, our favorite "we would so shop there if we had money" grocery store. Don't worry, Bottom Dollar, we still love you. Thanks also for the "feast for 2" from Famous Dave's which we turned in to 3 meals .

Thanks Jeff & Jesse for coming over Monday night and sharing your lives with us.

Thanks to God for a few snow days which make life so fun!

Thanks to Jaime for the delicious Valentine's Day dinner...you + Whole Foods = DElish!

Thanks to Faithy for the Pez dispenser and the sweet card...

Thanks to Morgan & Mallory (and Stan & Sheila) for babysitting Faithy tonight so we could enjoy an anniversary dinner at the Cheesecake Factory...have they got the dining experience nailed or what?

Thanks to Darla for the gift card to above mentioned establishment so we didn't have to use our HELOC for dinner :)

Thanks to Jaime for 3 awesome years of marriage, and to God for your incredible faithfulness. I was 36 when I walked down the aisle, and there was a time I wasn't sure when I would be married! Now look and see what God has done and how He has answered my prayers. 'My cup runneth over' has never been more true...

What's "old" to you?

"I wish we sang more of the older hymns"...we can do that. But FXCC is made up of people from across the country who are transferring here for a short duration, and what is 'old, familiar and encouraging' to you may be perfectly unknown to many others.

For example, I grew up singing the OLD communion hymn "In Memory of the Savior's Love", a beautifully, musically-sound hymn to set our minds on the Lord's Supper. The first Sunday I led that at FXCC, you would have thought I was speaking in tongues. What was old to me was obviously not old to many at FXCC.

So let me know what you mean by older hymns, and we can work it out! Thanks to Jerry, Alice, Kathy and Melissa who have been very good about requesting hymns that mean a lot to them.

By the way, the response to the congregational survey was outstanding...we ran out of Scantron forms! A great problem to have...Thanks to the VMV team for crafting and conducting such a thorough survey. May God receive the glory as we fine tune our activities and leadership strategies to more gloriously accomplish Matthew 28:19-20.

We had a great attendance yesterday as well, praise God. The singing was incredible, and I'm not paying myself a compliment b/c as you could tell if you were there, I've got a horrible cold...but you all sang out so strongly! What a joy.

On a minor chord, we were $10,000 under budget yesterday...let's keep on digging deep for God's work at FXCC.

Thanks for your concern & prayers for Jaime...we're hoping that kidney stone has passed, but the after-pain still continues. We're hoping to see the doc today. When I first called to make the appt, the secretary said, "our 1st available is Feb 20th", I should have said, "It's obvious you've never had a kidney stone!" She quickly got a nurse on the phone when I further explained the situation....

Have a great day in the Lord, and bring on the snow!

Heart of Worship - a new idea?

Exodus 25:1 says… 1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Tell the Israelites to bring me an offering. You are to receive the offering for me from each man whose heart prompts him to give."

I love this little phrase from Ex. 25…”whose heart prompts him to give”. Sometimes I think we envision the OT being about law, and the NT being about heart. We got it wrong there; that’s a gross oversimplification. God always wanted our hearts…He always wanted a relationship with his children. He expressed it beautifully and plainly in both testaments.

The new-ish worship song “The Heart of Worship” seems to be expressing what so many in our congregation feel right now. I say that based on the response to the song the two times we’ve sung it in the past 3 months. (overwhelming, enthusiastic participation followed by positive comments post-Sunday)

It's cool to know that God has always wanted a heart of worship from his children…even back to the very beginning…that’s not an idea from a modern day songwriter, it’s a desire of God from the beginning of creation.

So worship on, and tune in to your heart! It’s ok to do that!

(and let me just say I'm learning lessons every day about obedience and discipline as we work with Faith on obeying us around the house...like not touching the electric outlets (even though they're safely plugged with a plastic insert)...she'll do that sometimes even in spite of me breathing down her neck saying, "no touch, no touch". It breaks my heart when she deliberately disobeys, but only in a minuscle amount compared to what God's gone through with me, no doubt.)

Tomorrow is Sunday!

I love Saturdays...Faith & I spent the afternoon together while Jaime went to a scrapbook crop session. Faith's been a sleep for about 2 hours now, so that's been wonderful, in a tired parent sort of way.

Tomorrow is Sunday.

What are you going to wear?
What's for breakfast that will ensure you have energy to speak, sing, listen, encourage, fellowship, lift others burdens?
With what attitude will you come to church?
How will you approach the throne of grace in worship?
What will you bring to God as an offering...time...talent...treasure?
What are you expecting from a half-hour message in His Word?
Are you praying for the spiritual success of our corporate assembly?
Are you praying that God will speak in a mighty way through Bruce, so that we are all changed and matured in the study?
Are you praying for your Bible class teacher, that the Word might truly go out and not return void?
Did you check the worship order on the website to see what songs we are singing? (Ok, that would be truly the 2nd mile if any of you have done that...www.fxcc.org but it is a good idea to do that weekly).

COME with an EXPECTANT HEART! See you then.