Tomorrow's Offering

I haven't put much up about my sermons lately. We're in the midst of "The Big Picture" series. Tomorrow I will focus on "Creation" as the beginning of the story that defines us. What we believe about creation matters (in particular, who, how and why).

As I worked on the sermon this week I felt the need for an artist's input. On Friday morning I sat down with our own Tom Root and asked him to riff on creation and the artist's response. It was time well spent (any time chatting with Tom is well spent). The fruit of the discussion informs tomorrow's sermon.

Tom wasn't pleased with me when I took this picture, but he'll get over it.
If you want to read the pastoral prayer for the 11am sanctuary service, you can follow the link to Bob Hall's prayer blog. He has it finished and ready:

Bob's Prayer Blog
http://prayersofthechurch.blogspot.com/2009/07/prayers-of-church-71909.html

Long Time No See--NACC

Sorry for my blog-absence. Sometimes I just don't feel like it. But here are some pictures from the North American Christian Convention in Louisville. The NACC is a yearly event that helps Christian Churches stay (get?) connected to one another.

The NACC gets a fair amount of bad press for its ... its ... convention-ness (I think that's the right word). I quit being hyper-critical of it a few years back when I realized that I enjoyed catching up with folks I hadn't seen in a while and that EVERY thing didn't have to be to my liking.

The main sessions look like this:

The music is pretty loud and drifts from worship into concert. That bugs me as much as anything else. When the lead singer starts holding out notes and bouncing them in R&B fashion, I kind of want to tell him to get a day-job. Be a "performer" or worship leader; you can't be both at the same time. Okay ... enough of the whiney complaining. I don't want to lead that kind of blog.

Max Lucado preached the final session on Friday morning and then our own Ben Cachiaras (senior minister at Mountain Christian and former Grandview minister) received the gavel as next year's president of the NACC. The big event will be in Indy. Check it out if you can.

In the below picture you see a street preacher preaching the gospel to Christians walking from the convention to lunch. I wanted to tell him that he was preaching to the choir ... then I realized that's what some of the main convention speakers were doing, too.

This is our view from our hotel room.Here you see Rob Castens and Ethan Magness (Ethan is our former youth minister) as they explain the Milligan College/Mountain Christian partnership for internships. Very well done. Ethan is doing good work up there (between Mountain Christian Church in Joppa, and First Christian Church in Johnson City, it's amazing we have any staff left at Grandview).

The Kentucky Visitors' Center was almost in the lobby of our hotel. I couldn't help but get a picture with the Colonel.
This interesting photo is one I took while Dr. Hull was introducing me as the speaker at the Emmanuel breakfast. I like how it came out!

This is a picture I took as the breakfast was starting. Everyone was digging into their "support Emmanuel" breakfast.

My talk went fine. I enjoyed being asked to do it.

Here is our own Bill Greer, preparing to lead his workshop. I paid a guy in the audience $10 to ask, "Why do you drive an SUV?" incessantly until the session was over. It was the best $10 I ever spent!

Meghico Update

The youth group is, of course, back in the good ol' U.S. of A. I don't need to update you on them. But Meghan and Katy remain in Mexico, so I thought I'd include a few pictures of her today. Tomorrow I will review the NACC.

Here is the youth group with storm clouds gathering. Here is Meghan during her visit to the monastery.

I like this picture from the Dallas Airport.

She looks like she's having a rich time.

Cindy and I talked to her last night. She sounds good. Host Erin is now on bed rest as she awaits the birth of the McBaby. I think this experience has been an important one in her formation. We're proud of her and we're glad Katy is there with her. They make a good team.

OSRP Update (Orange Shag Removal Project)

With the youth safely home (more on that when I get pictures) I want to report a monumental occasion for me and my ministry here at Grandview. I've been here 11 years and I STILL haven't eradicated the orange shag carpet from Grandview's decor. However, as of last week all orange shag has been removed from the Grandview floors.

I promise to press on to rid the church of the one final patch of orange shag (the old stairwell has orange shag on the wall beneath the hand railing.

Below are the pictures. I'm sorry my iPhone doesn't capture the fullness of the glory of the orange shag, but if you've seen it then you remember it. You don't even need pictures.

Orange Shaginator: Neal Voke

A crew of volunteers arrived on Sunday night; just one week ago. They moved everything out of the library, foyer, and Fireside Room.

The professionals moved in on Friday and removed the old brown and the orange shag.The concrete floor in my office was able to breathe again.

Then the new blue took over. Welcome, new carpet!

Puebla Update #5

Short and sweet.

It's been an amazing day and an amazing week. We can't wait to tell you all about it. We'll see you Sunday night.

Thanks
Ryan


I don't know how much more information I'll get from them while they are traveling home. If I hear anything I'll be sure to post it, though. I'm sure the cell towers will light up once they land in Baltimore.

Puebla Update #4

More From Ryan (sounds like things are going great!)

We worked a half day today, but we worked hard while we were at it. Most of us got after the large wall we've been painting all week and those combined efforts got us near the finish line. There's also been a good deal of indoor painting going on with Larry leading that charge. They completed their second room today. So needless to say, we've got some painters on our hands. They've done a great job.

Meanwhile Jim Dollard and I, with a little help from Logan, built a swing in the front yard that many of the students at El Pozo are pretty excited about. That was a lot of fun. The blocks to complete the driveway project also came in today and that will be the item on the top of tomorrow's to do list.

After our morning of work we all took cabs to downtown Puebla to eat lunch and walk through the market. Lunch was great, but I don't remember the name of the restaurant. Everyone had a good time at the market and I imagine many of you reading this will be the beneficiaries of some of the purchases made today. Enjoy. We also took a quick look through the Church of San Francisco, Mexico's biggest Catholic church. It was quite a site to see.

After worship and dinner our group spent a relaxing evening at the campus house playing games and telling our favorite jokes. It was a great night. It's hard to believe that tomorrow is our last day, but it's been an amazing week. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. We'll look forward to sharing all of this with you when we get back on Sunday night.

Buenos Noches
Ryan

Puebla Update #3

This morning's report from Ryan:

Wednesday was another good day here in Puebla and one characterized by weather that you might expect in Mexico. The sun was up early and the day was hot. The big project of the day was getting after the big wall. Most of the group was employed either painting or scraping parts of the wall. Now you should know that painting this wall was a project most of the El Pozo staff (as well as most of our leaders) did not expect to get done this week. However, by the end of the day today, most of the wall was covered with one coat. Work will continue as a second coat is required, but things are progressing nicely.

Work has halted on the driveway project, however, as there has been a delay in the delivery of the bricks. Nathan and Heath (another staff member) have a phrase for episodes like the one surrounding the delivery (or lack thereof) of the bricks. "TIM" they'll say; "this is Mexico". We are,however, hopeful of picking up that project tomorrow.

Today was the day for my group to go the orphanage so I can say a little more about that. It's a state run orphanage kept in a nice facility near downtown Puebla. The children, of course do not speak English which presents an interesting challenge for gringos and gringas like us. It was a pure delight though to interact with them and see our own students work through the language barrier to play with and love on the kids. You had Meghan carrying on a conversation with a four year old on the swing, Sydney playing house with two little girls (playing house by the way entailed Sydney being locked in a playhouse and forbidden to exit. She was a good sport), Logan and Jeremy with little boys on their shoulders all day, Xander playing frisbee and Josh changing his first diaper in the nursery. Logan also took the time to convince the little boys that my name was "Careful" which made for some interesting exchanges throughout the day. All the students did a great job and really enjoyed our time there.

Tonight we all went out to eat. Half the group went to a restaurant called "Las Flautas" while the other half went to "Munchis". My group was at Flautas and the food was amazing. Tomorrow we'll try Munchis while the other group will try Las Flautas. It's been a lot of fun to interact in the Mexican culture.

One thing the kids keep talking about is how wonderful it's been to interact with the Mexican students who attend El Poza and are around this week. There's Betty, Carlos, Yuyo, Steph, Mario and others. They are all kind and outgoing and our students are really developing friendships with them that will make a difference any time the McDades are mentioned at Grandview in a pastoral prayer or otherwise. El Pozo is no longer just an idea but a place with faces that we know. We'll look forward to sharing their pictures and stories with you when we return so you too might know El Pozo not just as a place but as a group of people striving to follow the same God we follow at Grandview.

Contine to pray for us. God is at work

Ryan