Up There Down Here

Why I Love The Christmas Season

2009-11-30T20:33:00.001-05:00

I love the Christmas season! I can't believe Thanksgiving is already past and before you know it it will be Christmas. There are so many reasons I like the Christmas season let me name a few:

-Jesus birth.
-Holiday music (Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby).
-Christmas lights.
-Christmas food. :)
-Spending time with the one's I love.
-Holiday candles (warm cinnamon pumpkin, apple spice).
-Snow (only on Christmas).
-Hearing Christmas music when I enter a store.
-Starbucks in hand while watching the snow fall.
-Christmas carols.
-Sledding.
-The joy on my kids faces when they open presents.

Gets me all excited just thinking about it. For me, the things on this list make the freezing weather and snow up to your knees bearable. The only bad thing about all this is that once Christmas is past all these things that I like pretty much come to an end. This is why I wish there was more time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Winter in the midwest lasts a good four months. What if we had two months between Thanksgiving and Christmas to enjoy all the things on my list? One month just doesn't cut it. From December 26th until late March we have to put up with winter. No lights, holiday music, holiday smells, or Christmas cheer to accompany us along the way.
I know what your thinking "we have God to get us through" but wait, who do you think made the things in my list? I know a lot of people that hate this time of year. For some it's very depressing and lonely. For me it's a season with so many heart warming things.
So if your like me this time of year, make the most of it because it will be gone before you know it. Feliz Navidad!

Hospital For The Hurting

2009-11-18T15:24:00.001-05:00

Yesterday at work something happened that to others might seem insignificant but to me it was a very interesting. Let me explain.

At work a co-worker starting talking about the "Relationslips" series at Granger Community Church. I was busy getting my things together to start my route but when I heard what this guy was talking about it caught my attention. Now, I knew he went to same church as me but it's a big church with multiple services and I have never seen him there before. I hardly know him and really ever see him at work for that matter. I have a Frito Lay route so everyone comes and goes at different times.

He asked another guy that goes to gcc if he caught the weekend they talked about "Leadership slips". The message basically talked about working with people that you don't always see eye to eye with. That pretty much includes everyone. Then during all this another women chimed in and said her daughter just started going to gcc and since going there deleted her myspace and facebook accounts. I guess those must have been an negative issue in her life.

I know your wondering what's the point? Hear it goes, for the first time in my life we go to a church that is not all made up of Christians. I know, duh what church is? Right? What I mean is, in so many churches it seems like the vast majority of attenders are believers not unbelievers, or at least they come across like that. Is that a bad thing? Decide for yourself. That's the kind of church I grew up in. Not many unbelievers or at least that how it seemed. At Granger Community I'm in an environment where any given weekend a good majority of people around you might be unbelievers. I don't have a clue what the percentage of unbelievers vs. believers are at Granger Community. To me it seems higher than the average church though. Which I don't think is a bad thing because it means they are getting the un-churched to walk through the doors.

Hearing these co-workers talk made me realize that I work among people that go to the same church as me but are not committed to God yet. For me this is a very refreshing realization. Not the fact that they are causual church goers but the fact that gcc is a church that is not a waiting room for Christians but a hospital for the hurting. It's easy to think weekend services are all about us (Christians) when really in many ways they should be about leading the unbeliever to Jesus. Not sure if any of this makes sense but bottom line, I know Granger Community is having an impact in the area and its nice to see a church getting the unchurched through the front doors. :)

Their Point Of View

2009-10-30T21:38:00.002-04:00

It's Halloween weekend and my wife had to work so my mom, the kids, and I went to a church that was having a Halloween alternative. Earlier this afternoon I got on the Internet and found a local church that was having a “fall fair” and said lets go to this one. No one recommended this one to me and it wasn't one I had heard great things about. It was a total shot in the dark. I figured it can’t be that bad can it?

I must be honest with you I was extremely nervous. I have pretty much spent my entire life going to these kind of events at the same church or worked at the church that was holding the event. So tonight was a first for me.

It was a really good experience to go to an event and not know a single person. I got to live out an experience that we expect total strangers to do by showing up to our thing.

When I look back it’s actually sad because the whole time we were there not one person introduced themselves to us and even said hi, except for the registration lady but you know she doesn't count. I couldn't even tell you who the lead pastor was. Did our kids have fun? Sure, but their only four and three, going to the grocery store is exciting for them.

It was nice to be the outsider for a change.