After that a lot of questions popped into my mind. Why did it take me so long to turn around? What kind of question is “So your fine?” in a situation like that? Why didn’t I followup and sincerely offer help to save him the last 10 minutes of his walk? Why had no one else offered to give him a ride? Oh for more compassion.

Over the last six months God has stirred my heart in many encouraging ways. I have come to realize that presenting myself as a leader and being a leader are two different things. The latest stirring has been the revelation that I have been asking what is wrong and how do I fix it vs. what should the children’s ministries here at FEFC look like and what do we need to do to get there. In a position where I depend on hundreds of volunteers throughout the course of a year it seems so much easier to ask them to be a part of a dream instead of asking them to place their finger in a hole to plug the leak.

Recently, I was late to a meet-up with her and some friends.  I was running late, no surprise there.  My sister called all of our phones.  Fretted about me to all of her friends.  Then very joyfully welcomed me to the party once I arrived.  I never detected a sense of frustration for one second about my tardiness and lack of consideration in calling.  

I very much wish I appreciated people like my sister does.  That is a gift.

Since this blog now focuses on reflections, both good and bad, of my own life, I mostly care what comments God has to offer through His still small voice.  If you really have something you feel you need to say or ask, there is always Facebook.

-Short (Less than 250 words per post)

-No Comments (More on this soon)

-Might add more stylistic characteristics later

I didn’t know they were planning on using my idea, so when my idea showed up in their podcast feed I was ecstatic.  They even mentioned my name.

I found myself listening to the commentary they posted a couple of times.  Every-time I heard my name I had felt some pride about having my idea used.  In fact, a little to much pride. What is that? In this situation, sin.

In spite of my pride, I highly recommend New Music Monday.

Ecclesiastes 7:2

A man by his sin may waste himself, which is to waste that which on earth is most like God.  This is man’s greatest tragedy and God’s heaviest grief.

A.W. Tozer

Recently, in one of their podcasts, they played a video about how they felt it was time to lead their church down a more biblical path. Not that they weren’t biblical, they communicated that they want to see more of two things.

1. Community- People meeting each others needs.

2. Every member ministry- The idea that a few should not be paid to minister to all but to equip and train.

For some reason the video left me with a longing. I know there are lots of churches that value these two things. Yet, there seems to be a difference between valuing them and working them into the DNA of a church. We must ask the tough questions… If we aren’t like that why, and how can we become more like that? I am sure Cornerstone has some rough roads ahead of them as they lead their flock into a place of living out this vision. A place where one persons problems become a group of peoples problems. Below is the video from the elders and church leadership, minus Francis Chan, take a look and I would love to hear your thoughts.

If you want to hear Francis Chan unpack these thoughts a little more you can find the full podcast at their web site.

I like being a marathon fan more than I think I would like being a marathon runner. I had read about how you could use public transit to get to about 5 different spots on the race course but that wasn’t quite enough. I had an ambitious goal of meeting Amy at about every mile along the way. To do that we purchased a bike rack for the car and hauled our bikes up to Chicago with us.

It was a beautiful Morning. The scenery was quite amazing.

This is us pre-race. I am sporting my one-of-kind T-Shirt.
Front: I chased my wife for a year before she would date me.
Back: Why stop now? Amy Barker’s Super-Fan “I’ll see you along the way.”

Amy in the starting coral shortly before the race.

Starting line, it was madness here. Only about 36,000 runners decided to run. There were 45,000 registered. It took them all around 30 minutes to cross the starting line. To provide context, the elite athletes were already 1/4th of the way finished before the last person started.

I had used a combination of bike maps, the marathon course map, and google earth to plan my strategy for the day. Amy’s sister Becky would be tagging along. Her company was well appreciated! Google earth was a great tool as we had to cross some fairly busy streets. Using Google Earth we were able to zoom in and see all of the tunnels that passed under the streets.

Due to the confusion of navigating the city and me gaining confidence in what we were doing we skipped straight ahead to mile 4. Holding up our big pink sign Amy ran up and greeted us. Unfortunately, we were slow to our bikes and Amy had passed our second checkpoint before we got there. We waited about fifteen minutes wondering if she had cramped and needed to stretch or something, but eventually we realized that she was long gone. At her pace she would have been about 2 miles ahead of us so we had to go into contingency mode. We cut under the race via a park tunnel and was then on the inside of the route. This pushed us to the half way point of the race where we finally got back on track and was able to meet Amy about twelve more times.

You can see the original race route in light blue and our route in dark blue (Click map for larger image). Every-time you see a red star indicates a successful meeting with Amy.

It was at about mile 18 that they ‘canceled’ the race. We are not fully sure what that means as they still timed them all the way to the finish. They tried hard to get the runners to walk which lasted for 10 minutes or so and then the runners kicked it into high gear and finished strong. Towards the end it was a little depressing as a lot of runners were going down and needing assistance from medical teams. Ambulance sirens were pretty much nonstop for the entire race.

I was too caught up in the chase to take as many photos as I would have liked to have taken but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. Amy finally had a little room to run. For the most part she all the runners were crammed together like a herd of cattle. If you have ever watched videos of the running of the bulls in spain. It looked a lot like that, except through the streets of Chicago.

Post race photo.

We ended the day with a trip to a Giordano’s pizza place and that was by far the best pizza I had ever had. The trip was amazing, but it is good to be home.

She had to be here today by 6 PM or she wouldn’t have been able to race. We had built extra flextime into the schedule but when you wake up an hour after you are supposed to leave it is not a good start to the day.

The trip was quick and uneventful (outside of my unwarranted anxiety). Chicago is kind of confusing as I don’t understand the layout yet, but we’ll get where we need to be and then home safely, Lord willing.

Thanks for your prayers thus far, without them who knows how crazy I might have went.