We're kicking off a new teaching series at Mountainview called "Hope Lives." Here's a quick blurb about it: "The sheer enormity of the problem pins Christians to their couches. What can we do? Where should we start? And didn’t Jesus himself say the poor would always be with us? Beginning August 1 and 2, Mountainview is embarking on a one month journey in weekend services, LifeGroups, youth, childrens ministries, and in our personal lives to nudge us beyond the horizons of our 401ks. Not just to save the world… but also to restore our souls." (read more). This is a church-wide emphasis on how we can better engage the poor and disadvantaged. I'll be starting the series this weekend by talking about how God has designed every believer to be an impact-player. As Christ-followers, we all have the ability to make a difference. I'll be sharing one of my favorite…
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I've spent my first two days in the office at Mountainview going through employment papers and trying to get my laptop fine-tuned on the network. The papers were fairly simple. My laptop is another story. It's a Dell laptop running Windows Vista (need I say more?). Everything works pretty well except it won't install any of the network printers -- even though I've downloaded the right Vista drivers from HP and others. Vista is visually appealing but I'll like it even more when the printers get working. On another note, we set up our Colorado bank account. We went with Chase because it's close to both the church building and the house. They also have a good online banking interface. All is well. I've got a Starbucks close by, friendly co-workers, and a laptop that won't print!
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As usual, I was up early this morning. In our new house, all the bedrooms are upstairs and the kitchen is downstairs ... which means I get to putter around and not disturb anyone. I made my coffee, opened a Bible, and read the last chapter of Hosea. Here are the first three verses: 1 Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for your sins have brought you down. 2 Bring your confessions, and return to the Lord. Say to him, “Forgive all our sins and graciously receive us, so that we may offer you our praises. 3 Assyria cannot save us, nor can our warhorses. Never again will we say to the idols we have made, ‘You are our gods.’ No, in you alone do the orphans find mercy" (Hosea 14:1-3, NLT). A few things struck me about these words. First of all, the prophet reminds us that…
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We had our first taste of Colorado thunderstorms last night -- including a tornado warning. It rained pretty hard for about thirty minutes, during which time our satellite TV lost signal (which didn't make me too happy). Found out this morning that a tornado touched down about 15 miles south of here in a town called Castle Rock. The kids slept right through it. The cats? Not sure ...
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We made our required trip to the Colorado DMV yesterday to register our cars and get our new driver's licenses. Having experienced the California DMV, we anticipated a long wait. Not so! At the drivers's license office, we were the only two people there. It took about 15 minutes for both of us to finish. Getting our cars registered was a bit trickier because we had to get an emissions test (we passed) and prove our out-of-state insurance had high enough coverage (it did). Even so, the entire process ran smoothly and didn't take nearly as long as it would have in California. Now we'll have to wait a few weeks to see what our driver's license picture looks like.
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