• After 6 weeks away from preaching, it feels nice to be writing a sermon.
• It was nice the last 2 weeks just being at Revolution and not preaching. So good for the soul.
• I love summer for the vacation, the down time, but also the reading time.
• Here are some of my favorites from the summer.
• I can’t wait to kick off The Bible this Sunday and spend the next 3 weeks answering common questions about the bible.
• I can’t say enough, how much the last 6 weeks off from preaching have meant and how helpful they have been.
• Pastors, you need to take time off in the summer.
• It doesn’t have to be 6 weeks, but you can’t have a sustainable rhythm and last in ministry if you preach 48 or 50 times a year.
• I know because I tried to do it the first 3 years of our church.
• It was great to see how much Joe and Erik have grown as communicators as they got the chance to preach while I was away.
• But I’m excited about spending the next 10 weeks preaching again.
• 10 weeks is my limit right now for how many times I’ll preach in a row.
• That’s another thing a pastor and his elder team should figure out, what keeps a pastor fresh. For you it might be 6 or 12.
• After we do The Bible series we’re going to spend most of the fall walking through 1, 2 and 3 John.
• We had our newcomers lunch yesterday and it was packed.
• Blown away that we have grown over the summer.
• Always amazes me.
• Speaking of growth, I am so excited about the addition of Derek to our team.
• He spent his first 4 weeks working while I was away, but the last 2 weeks working with him have been incredible.
• Someone texted me while I was away and said, “Derek is exactly what our church needed” and I couldn’t agree more.
• His gifts and personality are a perfect fit for what we needed and God’s timing in it has been cool to watch.
• I’m in the middle of book 4 of the Harry Potter series with our kids.
• We took a break from Lord of the Rings after The Two Towers to read this and it’s been fun.
• The writing it so simple and the storytelling captures you.
• I’ve been asked how our kids are handling it. Our kids haven’t seen the movies so their imaginations are driving what they see (which I think makes a big deal).
• The conversations we’ve had about witches, wizards and spells have been great too.
• I’m speaking Thursday afternoon on base to a group of young leaders in the Air Force about purpose and mission.
• I’m getting more and more chances to speak on base and I love the time with them.
• Then Saturday morning I’m speaking at Vail Family University on how to build an intentional family.
• If you’re there, come say hi.
• Lots happening, so back to it…

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