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Monday, April 23, 2007

A Reason to Celebrate

We had a good day at Church yesterday!

Four people were baptized in the morning service after making professions of faith in the last couple of weeks. We have ended every morning service with baptisms for at least two months now. That is a reason to celebrate!

Two teen girls made professions of faith in their CONNECT GROUP yesterday. They made their decisions public in the morning worship service. That is a reason to celebrate!

We voted to approve our new Worship Pastor at the end of the morning service. He has accepted our call and will begin serving on the field on June 19. That is a reason to celebrate!

Our Global Focus missions emphasis begins this Wednesday. I was just in the worship center and saw the hundred or more flags they are setting up in preparation for the first service. Things are coming together. I believe we will see people's lives change in the next seven days. That is a reason to celebrate!

I won my fantasy baseball game last night. I am second in the league, but more importantly, I'm ahead of Pastor Wally. That might not be a reason to celebrate, but it is at least a reason to smile really big.

Pastor Noel Dear

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Ohio Weather

I guess when you live in the south all your life, you get used to how weather is 'supposed' to work. The things you 'Ohioans' take for granted are really odd to us southerners...

Last night we had a thunderstorm with hail. Big hail. In the south hail is something they talk about on the news and issue warnings for, but I had probably only seen it a half dozen times in my life before I moved here (unless you count tiny, tiny hail). Because of the the upcoming move, my garage is filled with boxes so my cars were in the driveway. I'm scared to go look at them. Last week we had one or two days that got into the 80's and three days of SNOW! That is just cruel.

Other news...

I am looking forward to this weekend with our new music minister candidate being on the field. I expect Sunday to be a great day.

My uncle in Dallas passed away a couple days ago. I will be doing the funeral there tomorrow. I will actually be flying out of the Columbus airport at the same time Shawn, our music minister candidate, will be flying in. I hope to be able to speak with him in the terminal prior to departing, but I'm thinking the Southwest terminal (his airline) and the American Airlines terminal (my airline) are not connected in Columbus.

Can I share some humor with you even if it is a little PG 13? (I don't suppose kids read this blog.) Donna was gone somewhere a few days ago and I was watching one of my favorite television shows, Modern Marvels, on the History Channel. The girls had sat down to have a snack and were watching it with me. As you probably know, television commercials have really changed in the last few years and while you can be very careful about the programming your kids see on TV it is more difficult to control the commercials they see. Well the first commercial was for medicine for genital herpes which led to a difficult question from Hannah, my eight year old. As I was talking to Hannah trying to half answer the question and half change the subject, another commercial came on. Emily, my five year old, was watching the second commercial while I was trying to explain the first. When my explanation to Hannah was over, Emily referring to the second commercial asked, "Daddy, what is REPTILE DISFUNCTION?"

What do you say?

I told her it was when a lizard or a snake had emotional problems and didn't fit in with society.

Noel Dear

Sunday, April 8, 2007

A Great Easter

What a great Resurrection Day! Well over 800 people joined us for worship this morning; the choir and praise team did a good job; several people baptized; two people made professions of faith...

(Did you know the reason we worship on Sunday is that Jesus rose from the grave on Sunday. So, in some sense, every Sunday is Resurrection Day. Why can't we have a day like today every Sunday?)

There is a great deal coming up the next few weeks. Here are the biggest two...

  • This coming weekend, we have a worship minister candidate coming in view of a call. I believe Sunday will be a great day. I am looking forward to where God is leading us as a church!
  • The Global Focus missions conference is just around to corner. This will be a pivotal event for our church.

Be in prayer for these events...

Noel

Monday, April 2, 2007

Five Baptisms

We had a great day at church yesterday. Good crowd, good spirit, good response at the invitation and FIVE people baptized. What a great way to kick off Easter week.

Our deacons did a great job with the crucifixion drama and Lord's Supper last night. I've had calls, emails, and visits throughout the day with people talking about how much it impacted their lives (and then there was Lindy :)).

For the first time ever, I'm playing in a fantasy baseball league. I don't know anything about baseball. Two weeks ago, I couldn't even name a baseball player. But I survived the draft and today the season began. I'm not even sure whether or not I have a good team, but as of 8:52 p.m. I am beating Lowell Jump's team 11-10. This is probably the only time this season I will have any kind of lead so I thought I would write about it. If I don't mention it on my blog again, you will know I'm losing pretty badly. The neat thing is that one of the guys in the church who is playing in the league (Jimmy McCrillis) is playing from the battle field in Afghanistan. He was even able to participate in the live draft although I think it was something like 4:00 in the morning when he did.

I'm looking forward to Easter Sunday. We've got two worship services in the morning. We're hoping for a big crowd. Pray for those who might come to church this week who would not ordinarily attend.

I'm blogging because 'Dancing with the Stars' is on, but the OSU - Florida B'ball game will be on shortly.

I'm trying to get Donna to make strawberry cobbler, but I'm not having much luck. Maybe she'll read this in a minute and make one. Maybe.

Time for the game...

Noel