The Life...

It's Sunday night, and Jennie and I are exhausted after a long, fulfilling weekend. Life as a Senior Pastor and Pastor's wife so far is going great. I remember when I started this whole journal, it felt more like a place of personal reflection. It felt more like a hobby, a place to share random thoughts - sometimes even meaningful thoughts.

For whatever reason, it's easy to let this evolve into a place for factual "updates" on our lives, more pictures, and creative (I hope) observations about life, sports, movies, God, etc. Maybe that's because a lot of people are reading this. Actually, there's not that many people reading this. Well, okay, some people are reading, but I never really know who is reading. Not that it matters.

Plus, my updates usually contain something about Allison and Jennie. They are pretty much the main attraction. We're hoping to get a picture of the three of us. Something for either Christmas or New Year's cards. We'd love to send some sort of Christmas update. I wonder of those cards with the "Here's a summary of what happened in our lives in 2004" inserts are being replaced by bloggers. An online journal. Do you really want another letter from us?

My friend Jeremy sent an e-card last year, and it was terrific - animated, with their voices giving updates about their lives. It felt like we were sitting on a couch across from them. Anyhow, it remains to be seen what we're going to do for Christmas cards. That's okay, we still have 12 days to figure it out. Yeah right, it just seems like it all goes so fast.

Ah, this post is titled "The Life..." Being a Senior Pastor at a growing, apparently healthy, and friendly church that is focused on Jesus Christ is a high privilege. So I crash on the couch Sunday nights feeling exhausted but very fulfilled.

Yesterday, I spoke at our men's breakfast for the first time. Similar to The Chapel's "Quarterback Club," but on one Saturday a month. After that, it was several meetings with other pastors and leaders, and then later that day working on the sermon both at church and at home. This morning, I was at church by 7AM, preached two services, attended a meeting of our deacons, visited with friends from Akron (Bob & Lora Beasley - thanks for stopping by, guys!!!), spoke at our church's Daycare Christmas program, and attended the reception afterwards. We had potentially two more parties to go to after that, but just were both (or all three of us) spent!

Anyhow, things are going well down here in Delaware. We really like the town, the people, and the location. We aren't far from Polaris, which has a ton of places to shop and eat, including "Buckeye Corner," "Chimi Changa's Mexican Grille," Panera, Chipolte, Best Buy, and a huge theater named "Marcus." The church is great, and the people have been great at encouraging and welcoming us here. A bunch of people helped us paint various rooms in our house, watched Allison, and given us just a lot of love and support.

A little strange missing the Mosaic Christmas party tonight, missing my first "Super Day" in four years, and not reading the Akron Beacon Journal (except online), but we're enjoying a good start here in Delaware. Even now, I feel obligated to let you know that I'll have future posts about Allison or Jennie. But I like doing posts like this too.