It's been a fun week

Since my comments Tuesday we cut a 10 X 3 ft hole in the living room floor and tore off Aman and Becky's roof. I suppose that requires a bit of explanation.

Tuesday Becky and the boys were here and noticed a gap between the baseboard along the west living room wall and the floor. The floor had settled. Well, Grandma found this to be a problem. So we peeled back the carpet and looked at it. Yep, it had settled. Wednesday morning we cut a hole in the floor to look at the floor joists. It appears the wall between the porch and the house leaks a little water when it rains in on the porch and the ends of 9 beams had rotted. So we cut a bigger hole and started repairs. We had to put a cross brace in, jack the joists up, put permanent jacks under it, then cut almost 3 ft long pieces of treated 2 X 6's and bolted to the end of the joists to set on the concrete plate along the wall. Then we had to replace the flooring. Shot one full day. Future project plans will include what to do about the porch. I fear construction is not yet finished.

Thursday we tore off the west side of the roof of Aman and Becky's house because it had suffered wind damage and was leaking. With Robert Ledermann's help we got the old roof off and tar paper on. Finished up just at dark. Friday Aman and I started laying shingles. Jim Turner came to help, which was good because shortly after he got there I had to meet with an equipment salesman to finalize some paperwork. Then I had another meeting to attend. And while I was in the meeting the carpet layers came to restretch and install the carpet.

I finally got back to the roof to find Robert had returned. We finished up about 4:00

BIG thanks to Robert and Jim for their help. But the old guy was ready for his recliner Friday evening.


And so far today I have installed a replacement medicine cabinet door, put together an RTA wall cabinet and installed it, and tried installing some child locks on the kitchen cabinets. Tried is the operative word. Couldn't get them to work with our cabinets.

How has YOUR week been?

December 18, 2007

I was looking at David's Caring Bridge site this morning ( http://www.caringbridge.org/il/davidbrooks/ ) and noticed something that just blew me away. Down near the bottom it says " This page has been viewed 20964 times." I realize Grandpa has probably done 10% of that, but over 20,000 hits! Amazing!



For those who don't know, David is transitioning to a new phase of life. He has qualified for a lot of aid over his short 3 years, but since he is reaching 3 years of age a lot of it is changing. The responsibility for that aspect of his care is being transferred to the school system. And that is a major simplification and probably not 100% accurate. The ladies David has been seeing won't be coming anymore. He can go see them ... or at least some of them. I don't know (or need to know) all the details. Bottom line is the therapists won't be coming to his house any more. So people who have been a big part of his life won't be there any more and new people will become involved. I guess that is life. But I wanted to pause and tell these ladies Thank You from a grateful Grandpa


Oh, and the new Sunday School class was different. I am teaching (along with 2 other much more qualified ladies) the Junior High Sunday School class. Sunday was our first class. Part way through class my Fire Dept pager went off. I said "Boys, I have to leave" and told the 4/5 grade teacher he had more students. I bet they remember our first class session!

It was a small fire. Outside wood burner caught the shed on fire. That is why you out them outside!

Nobody Visited

Maybe I should pause here and explain a few things going on to those who may not be aware. I've been an elder in my church for 9 years. I can think of no greater honor or higher responsibility. We choose elders for 3 year term, and they must get an 80% approval vote by the congregation to take office. Yes, that is a fairly high standard. This election I failed to get 80%.

That was mid-November. The Sunday following Thanksgiving the elders voted to ask the Preacher for his resignation. I was out of town for Thanksgiving and was unable to make it back in time for the meeting. Last night the board voted to accept his resignation.

There are a lot of hurt people in our church right now. Lots of misunderstandings. And it has caused me to set back and kind of reflect on things and go through some of what I've written since taking the office of elder. 9 years ... it really does not seem that long.

Here is a communion meditation I used 4-29-99:

I read a magazine article this week that had one sentence that really jumped out and grabbed me. The March/April Christian Reader had an article titled “House Fire!” It was written by a lady in Tennessee about a tragedy that struck their family about 25 years ago. Their house caught fire in the middle of the night. Both parents were injured trying to rescue their children. They lost one child in the blaze.

Let me quote one paragraph, written in her own words: ”I stayed in the hospital eight days and had eight units of blood. Not one church member as I recall visited me. An unbelieving friend of mine come by the hospital to sit with me while the family all went to the funeral.”

That one sentence, “Not one church member as I recall visited me.” Has really hit a soft spot the last couple days. As I looked over the prayer list from last week I saw 5 people in the hospital. I saw eight more in nursing homes. I didn’t count the “Family and Friends” list. How many of these could say not one church member visited me?

We had at least two folks in the congregation in the hospital this week. One had heart catheterization, another had surgery. How many of these could say not one church member visited me?

We have elderly folks who have trouble getting around the house. Not just getting to church, but getting to the kitchen table at times. How many of these could say not one church member visited me?

Before somebody thinks I am getting boastful of what I have done, I have to admit I didn’t go either. But that doesn’t make it right.

We have a nice building. We have a missions program that is fantastic for a church this size. We just had a great Ladies Night. Folks, it doesn’t mean a thing if we lose sight of the basics.
In Matthew chapter 22 Jesus was asked, "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"

Jesus replied: " `Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: `Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

We can’t let our successes and our programs get in the way on the basics, Loving God and each other. This is one of the reasons we partake in the Lord’s Supper, or communion, every week

Communion is basic . The why of communion has not changed over the centuries, and will not change. The bread is to remind us of Jesus body, the juice is to remind us of his blood. We take part in this ceremony to remember, to honor, Jesus and His sacrifice for us. We do it in remembrance of Him. Let us also love each other, in remembrance of Him.

WUCC Revival 2007

Well, Y'all missed it. We just finished holding Revival meetings for the church.
First 2 nights Kevin Brimner spoke,
the last 2 nights Chuck McNeely spoke.

Our music was all done in house. We had a women's quartet the first night, conventional church music the second night, our contemporary group the third night, and the last night we had ... well sorta Bluegrass. If you were a purist the left handed electric bass guitar was out of place, but we really don't care. There was a bass fiddle and banjo and a mandolin and an acoustic guitar. Same guys had our special at church today, but Steve traded his banjo for a keyboard and Michael traded his mandolin for a sax. Big Daddy Weave better look over his shoulder !

But back to the message. Our theme was "If we are the body..." For those unfamiliar with it, that is a Casting Crowns song. You can hear it on at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44dzm71TKF8&feature=related

CASTING CROWNS LYRICS

"If We Are The Body"

It's crowded in worship today
As she slips in trying to fade into the faces
The girl's teasing laughter is carrying farther than they know
Farther than they know

But if we are the body
Why aren't His arms reaching?
Why aren't His hands healing?
Why aren't His words teaching?
And if we are the body
Why aren't His feet going?
Why is His love not showing them there is a way?
There is a way

A traveler is far away from home
He sheds his coat and quietly sinks into the back row
The weight of their judgemental glances
Tells him that his chances are better out on the road

Jesus payed much too high a price
For us to pick and choose who should come
And we are the body of Christ

Jesus is the way

Kevin and Chuck did an excellent job developing the theme ... but it sure was hard on my shoe shine. They just walked all over my toes.

20th anniversary

Lest you think I am tooting my own horn, I am not. But when you have been involved in a project as long as I have you do talk about it. We had an open house this evening at the West Union Library in celebration of 20 years of service.


A Reading Center was started in 1985 by the West Union Merchants Association with donated items. The Wabash-Embarras Public Library Service started bringing a mobile unit twice weekly in November of 1985. York Township passed the levy for taxes to support a library in November of 1986. A grant was approved for one year until funding was received from the township. The library is located beside the Post Office. The library has always offered a summer reading program and the use of four public computers. In 1991 the library began a Summer Story Hour and became a member of LTLS. The library became the West Union District Library in 1993. In 1995 WUDL purchased the building, nearly doubling floor space. WUDL participated in an expansion grant and has annexed two thirds of Melrose Township into the library district. The library owns eight computers and seven offer high speed Internet. I've been a part of this endeavor since the get go. I was a trustee of the library from the beginning up until this summer, when I assumed the duties of the Assistant Fire Chief and decided there were only so many meetings one could attend in a month.

It was nice being honored. But even nicer to think back 20+ years ago to what we started with and look at what we have now. We struggled may years with a tax income of about $1000 a month to cover staff, inventory, building and grounds, capital purchases, and anything else that needed done. We had fundraisers, we applied for grants, we begged and pleaded ... and took whatever we could get to make it work.

To all who helped ... by donating time or money or books or oil wells (Yes! The library has a very small interest in an oil well somebody inherited and donated. It isn't much, but every little bit helps) I say thank you, and keep up the good work.

OK, so it's been to long

I know, I know, if I'm gonna do this I need to keep current. Why should this be any better than my desk? Anyway, here is a combine update. We got an axle extension from a guy down the road 20 miles as long as we guaranteed to replace it as soon as possible. Got her up and going in about 24 hours

Now the trick is finding the sheet metal. It is not available from a salvage yard I have found yet. The door is about $950, not counting other shields and hardware.

Here is another of my favorite photos


Gotta run. I'll try and keep it more current.

That was ... Interesting

Machinery breaks, right. Well. when I break it I do a good job of it.
I was turning the end west of the barn when all the sudden the right
side made a noise and lurched. See the attached photos for the end result. Seems the axle extension broke. (that is a factory part that came with the combine when new. It isn't some shade tree stuf that was added, it is OEM)

Oh, did I mention it was about 4:30 ? And that there are no 6" axle
extensions anyplace in the country? If I understood Stan correctly they
are on national back order.

I think I'll try and go to bed and sleep now. Yaaa, right.

Response to Ault

Ault said:

Your comments on church attendance it something I had not really thought about before. I don't really like small talk at church or maybe I am not good at it.We have had ministers who have said we should enter the church ready for worship in a reverent mode and be ready to listen. I am not disagreeing with you, it is something I need to think about. Church is about fellowship.

I guess it is a difference of perspective? The approach Ault mentions is what I often hear called a "High Church" way of doing things. This viewpoint considers the church building to be a sanctuary, a Holy Place. I can't say it is wrong, because it is the way the Israelites treated the temple. However, the Temple was designed as a place for God to reside. Under the new covenant God through the Holy Spirit is residing in us.

I come from a viewpoint more of a "we are the body" (It's a Casting Crowns song. click on the link for the lyrics) point of view. Perhaps we should be more ... reverent ... when we enter the church building. But to my way of thinking the building is JUST a building. WE are the church and the building is only important because we are meeting there.

Perhaps the difference is also because I am a part of a Restoration Movement church (or as a dear elderly Baptist neighbor lady calls us, "Campbellites"). We do not hold anyone more reverent than others. In fact, preachers in our churches generally object to the title "Reverend". That really confuses newspaper editors and funeral directors. So we start out a bit irreverent.

Anyway, I need to wrap this up. I'm reading through the Bible in 6 months with a group at church and I'm 12 pages behind. Ault, feel free to look up the church home page at www.wucc.us or drop me an email at XmwayneX@firehousemail.Xcom (remove all the X's first) It's a throwaway address I use which will forward to my real address.

[edit the next morning: I've been pondering on this and I guess the difference between what you describe and what I am striving for is the basic definition of "church". Is the "church" a Holy Place where one goes to worship the One True God , or is the church those who believe Jesus is the Christ and accept Him as their Savior? I suppose both could be true. But when we look at the example in the Book of Acts we find the believers gathered together to share with each other.

I suppose part of the problem many have with this concept is the fact they never had a good family background to base it on. So may families are fragmented and broken and disfunctional that people don't grasp what they should have enough to try and attain it.

My problem with the other viewpoint is it tends to lead to "temple worship" The building is Holy, everything we do in it must be quiet and reverent and how dare you smile or tell a joke! Nothing wrong with coming together with the attitude of worship, but one must be careful of WHAT he is worshipping.

Anyway, I need to run. By the way, I switched back to my OEM keyboard with wires and my trackball. I hate the wires but it just works so much better.

Oh, and here is what we'll be doing today:]

September 10

I don't feel too inspired right now, but felt I should add something since it has been so long since I posted. I told you I was not very good at this.

Right now we are setting in anticipation. The beans are not quite ripe, corn could be harvested but why pay to dry it when nature will do it? So we wait. The last week or two has been a bit rough on Dad with Aunt Jean's problems. Surgery is tomorrow. More waiting, and he is not gifted at that.

Hopefully I have caught all the typos. I bought a wireless keyboard / mouse system at Wal-Mart for a very good price. I really like it, except the keyboard does NOT have the touch I would like. The keys are too stiff, especially the space bar. Nobody has made a keyboard that compares to the old click click IBM keyboards.

I'm joined a new class at church going through the Bible in 180 days. Problem is this means read 6 pages a day, every day. I'm not that disciplined ... as you can tell by how often I post updates. I better get to reading.

Fall Festival

The West Union Fall Festival was today. The weather was nearly perfect. The crowd was one of the largest in some time. I think I heard someone say they served over 900 dinners.

The Ruritan had its annual wood cutting contests. In the event below the goal was to start with your hands on the log, at go start your chain saw, and cut 3 blocks from the log. The winner did it in under 15 seconds.

Later the Fire Department held its second annual Firefighter Challenge. In the event below 2 firefighters unroll 2 coils of hose, connect together, put on the nozzle and connect to the truck, pump water, and try to knock over the barrel with a stream of water. The goal is to do it the fatstest.



Other events includes a water ball fight and a dummy drag. Now, in the heat we sometimes have for this event the question is which end of the rope the dummy is on ...


Yes, it really is that dry here. That is the WU Park behind the Missile. Here is a photo from last year's water ball fight. Look how much greener the grass is.

I didn't get photos of this year's water ball fights, the ARCH helicopter that landed, the car show, or the various vendors. But they were there! There was good food, lots of fun, very good entertainment, friends and family, overall a great fall festival.

BumpusReunion.info

Ever just jump in and do something and then wonder why you did it? I got a newsletter from GoDaddy.com with a promo price on xxx.info domain names. In a burst of "That's a Great Idea!" I registered and paid for the domain for (our family)reunion.info . So now I have to figure out what to do with it. Right now it is parked for free by GoDaddy.com

But fortunately I have family geeks who can deal with that part of the problem.

Well, I better wind this up shortly. It's our Fall Festival tomorrow (I know, August is not fall) and we old guys need our rest to get ready for the FireFighter's Challenge. Here's me last year

2007 family reunion

We did it! We survived another annual family reunion ... and no broken bones or other severely damaged body parts. Well, there was one bee sting incident, but no professional intervention or prescription medication was involved.
Jillbee Curlysis, and the Blonde One all made it and a good time was had by about everyone. But looking through not nearly enough photos this one is my favorite of this year.



However, to give you a real taste of what our reunions are like, these 2 photos are very representative. The first is family members just setting around talking. You might notice a camper or two in the background. Our family reunion is a multi-day event at the old home place. This year we were down a bit, with under 100 people, a few tents, and about a dozen campers involved. In the past we have had nearly twice as many campers and over 30 motorcycles there.

Some of our activities may go late into the night. But rest assured food is definitely involved at some point.

Well, I must go recover some more. Later Y'all

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

That's Romans 8:25. 89 times in the Bible the word wait is used. Wait for the Blessed Hope, wait for each other, wait for the Son. I got my practice in waiting last night...and we're still waiting.

Friday evening I was getting ready to take my evening drive and check irrigators before dark when the phone rang. It seems #1 son missed the train so he was driving here from Madison. Mom was not pleased, but he is over 18 and it was his choice. While we were discussing that they dispatched the ambulance to an address a long way east of West Union. If you are not familiar with my neck of the woods a long way east of West Union is 3 miles. Much more than that and you end up in the Wabash River. The call was for a deer / vehicle accident with one injury. Since I was heading that direction anyway I decided to see what was going on.

Turns out my friend Kip hit a deer on his motorcycle. 2 wheels and 4 feet are not a good combination. He hit the deer about a mile up the road and had to walk to the nearest house. He's fortunate someone was home, because the next house is a 2 1/2 mile walk. The ambulance crew was taking care of him, and he asked me to go get his wife and meet them at the hospital.

I went back to town, told her what was going on, and went home and switched the pickup for the car. Picked her up and discovered we were ahead of the ambulance. So we waited for it and she rode with them. while I followed along to the hospital. I called Preacher Dave and told him what was going on . He didn't beat us there, but he made it before the paperwork was done.

And then we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally they decided he needed to be transferred to Terre Haute. But the receiving hospital made them wait for some time before OK'ing the move. Then we waited for an ambulance to come pick him up. And before it arrived it was decided the gentleman in the next bed was more critical so "our" ambulance went to Vincennes while we waited for another ambulance.

Eventually the next ambulance arrived. So Preacher Dave took Kip's wife to get her car so she could go on to Terre Haute, while I waited with Kip until he was loaded up. Then there was another problem and it was a half to 3/4 hour wait before he was released for transport.

So everything is going well, I come home ... to wait for #1 son. Whose Mother dearest has been waiting all evening for me and him.

Well, some of or waiting is over. He just called (6:50 AM). He stopped at a friend's house and fell asleep in a chair. Now we are waiting on him to get here from there.

Oh By The Way, I am still learning about this blogging thing. I discovered I have to sign in and approve comments before they are posted. So if you made a comment and wondered where it was...it's been WAITING.

Saturday evening PS: More waiting. Kip has more injuries than thought originally. So now he is waiting in the hospital in Terre Haute to be transported to Indianapolis Sunday or Monday for surgery early in the week.

who am I

My wife was talking with her sister on the phone last night, and commented about something I was involved in. She had no idea I did that. So I thought I'd kind of put down in one place the various things I'm involved in. First of course is the family. I'm Dad of 3, grandfather of 2. Which doesn't include several third daughters. Maybe that needs a bit of explanation.

We have 2 daughters. But daughters have friends. Sometimes close friends. And some of those friends are almost like daughters. I started to include a few photos, but I'm afraid I'll not have one of someone and leave them out. But these are my third daughters. I have several. We saw one last night at a restaurant who came up and gave us a big hug. Can't get too many big hugs.

But anyway, our family is not like most. We get together every year for a big family reunion ... a multi-day reunion with campers and motorcycles and 4 wheelers. It's a little overwhelming for the potential new family member to experience the first time.

But that takes some of my time and involvement. Because even though I am a dad and granddad, I am also a son and brother and nephew and cousin.

I am also a farmer. Now, some farmers are in the enviable position of having lots of free time in the summer and winter to go do whatever. We are a cash grain farm, but between irrigation and a few other things we don't have bunches of down time.

For several years I worked off the farm in the winter delivering propane with a friend of mine. That has kind of slowed as dad has started moving toward retirement and I have taken over the farm.

I am also a Christian, and member of my local church. Well, I do a little more than that. I am currently a Sunday School teacher (I team teach 4th, 5th, and 6th graders with 2 other guys), elder, Chairman of the missions committee, and church clerk. And next week I am a group leader for VBS. I think that was the term. What it means is I'll be right in the thick of things with the kids. Visit our web site at www.wucc.us Guess who is in charge of that as well ?

I'm a member of my local volunteer Fire Department. As of last Tuesday I am the Assistant Chief. I asked for a job description and everyone laughed. I was serious! Over the past few years I have been the guy responsible for grant writing and fulfillment, and this past winter took over the online filing of reports.

Its not always fun and firetrucks.

For many years...in fact since before the beginning of it...I have been involved with our local library. I'll put West Union's library against anybodies and we'll shine. From the size of our collection versus our tax provided income, number of patrons using the library per hour it is open, per capita circulation, any standard you want to use our library is outstanding. But I became so involved in so much I had to cut something out. And my leaving would have the least impact on the library at this time.

So that is a brief description of some of the things I do. Now if you'll excuse me, I feel exhausted. I'm taking a nap.

Sometimes you just have to celebrate

Palestine, Illinois, home of the largest rodeo east of the Mississippi River, and home of the Lincoln Land AgriEnergy ethanol plant, is having its first annual Betsey Reed Festival.

Who? The only woman ever executed by hanging in Illinois (1845), who poisoned her husband with arsenic-laced sassafras tea. While at the Palestine jail Reed attempted to escape by burning down the jail. Some reports place the crowd estimate at close to 20,000 for her hanging.

From their flyer:

Like many small Midwest towns, Palestine has been trying to find something truly unique about it’s heritage that can distinguish it from the hundreds of other Midwest villages that celebrate their annual “farm harvest”. Every village has an event like the fourth of July parade. It’s not that we knock that, but we wanted to be really, truly
remembered. We noted that small towns have festivals honoring local celebrities. Abilene, KS (Pop 6543), another Midwestern small town, has Dwight D. Eisenhower who was a born and raised there. Plains, GA (Pop. 636) has Jimmy Carter. Ronald Reagan was born in Tampico, IL (pop 772). Unfortunately, Palestine has
not had any presidents born here to date. Yet we wanted a festival that would be unique; that would stand out. That’s the kind of thing that Palestine was looking for. So we put our crack tourism committee to work with the charge: “Finding us some kind of festival that makes us unique and that no other town, large or small, can claim.”

Our crack committee came back to us with the Elizabeth “Betsey” Reed Festival. Well, she’s not Eisenhower, Carter or Reagan, (although some might argue she’s only marginally below Carter just a joke, you Democrats), but she is all that Palestine has. So we have designed a twisted, dark humor, weird festival based on her life and death just for fun! We hope you can come and participate and that you are not offended.

The flyer has a photo of Jimmy Carter with the caption: "Betsey Reed is no Jimmy Carter, but she’s all we’ve got..."

Is it just me? This sounds like something Boss Hogg would come up with on Dukes of Hazzard.

See the promo at www.betseyreed.com/betsyreedflyer.pdf

Oh, and you're already to late for the diner theater:

Evening meal catered by the Palestine Preservation
Society and the Proud, Pitiful & Pathetic Palestine
Players will present their not-so-accurate show at
the Fife Opera house. It might be called; “Tea for
Two” or “All Choked Up over You”, or “Swinging in the
Breeze”. Make your reservations now to find out
the real title. Advance ticket sales are required

Just waiting

So far it has started out to be one of those weeks, and it's just Monday. Yesterday we lost a good man. Don Snyder passed away. Snyde has been a fixture in West Union for longer than most people can remember. He had an aneurysm that needed repair, and they finally got around to it late last week. Apparently it was a bigger problem than expected, because he spent a bit longer in surgery than expected. Then his blood pressure went low and his kidneys failed. Anyway, the end result is we lost him. Gonna miss that guy.

Right now I am setting around the house in the middle of the day just kind of waiting to make sure Sue doesn't have a reaction to some new meds she is taking. Don't tell her I'm doing that by the way. She thinks I am actually doing something on the computer. HA! We are getting ready for an MRI this evening. Her pain doesn't allow her to lay flat on her back. Think that might be a problem?

I'm going to try and keep this up better than I have been. Once a month isn't enough. I think I'll put a few photos in as well. Here is one that has no meaning to most anyone outside the family. In 1940 Dad's Uncle Howard painted Gramp's corn crib. Here is where he signed it. Dad wanted me to take a picture of it. I need to get it professionally printed for him.

You never know what tidbits I might pull out of nowhere.

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

I seem to be getting good at this lately. Last month I had the phone call the widow whose husband died several months earlier (for more see http://www.christianchurchtoday.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4573)

Sunday I visited with a member after church that had requested prayers a couple weeks ago for a friend with medical problems. I hadn't had the opportunity to talk with him since then. His response to my asking how his friend was doing was "Ummm. He died"

More total silence, except there wasn't a telephone to hide behind.

I asked on the ChristianChurch Today forums how others handle these open mouth, insert foot situations?

Mike in Montana said: Did you forget to check your crystal ball, that tells you everything that is going on in people's lives again?

He also told me not beat myself up too badly. Wayne in West Virginia said: What else can you do brother?

"I'm so sorry, I wasn't aware of that."
You could still offer any assistance to them...they are, no doubt, still grieving.

Whatever you do, do not use this line:

"Well, we all gotta go sometime."
I just can't (don't want to) picture you with BOTH feet in there.

Well, give me time ...

Wrong headed ideas about Revival

I sent an email to some of the leaders in my church this morning. I thought maybe I'd post it here:

I've been looking over the minutes getting ready for the board meeting and was reminded the board voted to hold a revival. But nobody was designated to do anything.

Part of the problem with revivals is a generational difference that Keith Ray (President of Lincoln Christian College) and I discussed one time. I am at a middle spot in a generational difference. People about my age and older will come to a meeting just because there is a meeting. People about my age and younger will come, but only if there is a reason and something is expected to happen.

I'm not against revivals, but it is my opinion they are rarely effective. And I think that first paragraph is a prime example of why. Everyone thinks it is a good idea. But nobody wants to do it. The other part is the attitude toward a Revival. It seems to me a lot of people have the opinion "We need to hold a Revival to get people going again". I think that is, for lack of a better term, backwards thinking.

In March of 2003 when Stan Icenogle was here for revival he wanted us to start laying groundwork quite some time in advance. I get a monthly newsletter with an article in it that kind of points the direction I think we need to be moving if we are going to have a fall revival. Oddly enough, it is titled "Wrong-headed ideas about evangelism". If you just replace "evangelism" with "revival" it fits what I am thinking almost perfectly

If we as a church are going to hold a fall revival we need to be laying the groundwork now. I don't mean just the planning and scheduling, although that is part of it. Let me go through the 7 points in the article I mentioned and try and apply it here.

1. Most people come to faith through steps, not a big sudden dramatic change. If a revival is to be effective it needs to be the end action, not the beginning.

2. To be effective this mus be the entire church's revival, not the Preacher's or the elder's. Everyone must get involved in it. If we want a revival instead of just a week of meetings we need to get everyone in the church started on it now.

3. Most of the time it is soft sell, not hard sell. Most of the time you don't start with "We're having a Revival and you ought to come". A longer term relationship is involved.

4. It's only hard if we make it hard.

5. True revival is not about getting people to church. It is about getting people to Jesus.. The church building just offers a place for education.

6. What makes a revival work is not beating people on the head to get them in the door. What makes it work are repeated acts of concern and kindness that cause them to want to come.

7. You can have some and even vital effectiveness on your own. But primarily a revival is a community activity. A movement of revival in a church is what brings the great fruit.

After I got this all worked up, before I hit the send button, I asked myself "Why am I sending this?" To be honest it is directed at me as much as anyone. Because when I look back over what I wrote, and the article I read originally, I see one over-riding theme that keeps popping up. If we want a revival instead of just a week of meetings we need to get everyone in the church started on it now.

The article I mentioned is Wrong Headed Ideas About Evangelism

Why are you here?

This is something I am working on for a communion meditation. I'm having trouble paring it down. it keeps developing into a mini-sermon. I've changed it a bit for use here, and may use a variation for my monthly turn at a daily devotional for the www.ChristianChurchToday.com forums the 23rd of each month (http://www.christianchurchtoday.com/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=29).

Why are you here ?

No, I don't mean why are you reading this. And I'm not asking some deep philosophical question...well, maybe I am. It is actually a question to ask yourself the next time you are at church. When you are in your church building, ask yourself "Why am I in this building right now? " Maybe a better way of asking is to ask what is our purpose in meeting together ?

The stock answer is to (PAUSE & TAKE LOUD BREATH & SPEAK IN SLOWLY DESCENDING NEAR MONOTONE) praise God and evangelize the kingdom.

That's true, but a lousy description of what we should be doing.

This is where the family gets together. We need to be sharing our lives with each other. How are we going to work as the body the Bible describes us as, if we don't know what is going on with our other members?

Now, there are considerations. Some folks don't get around too well, some can't stand too long, and some once they get set down have trouble getting up. But as a rule of thumb, if you come in the door, head for a seat and plop there until service time, you are missing your opportunities to minister to others and be ministered to.

But back to my question, what is our purpose in meeting together ?

We meet together to worship God and to learn how to put God's truths to work in our lives. Part of that is through communion, something we do as an act of remembrance. But something else we do is offer what we call an invitation.

This is a time when we give people the opportunity to publicly proclaim their belief, to publicly accept Jesus as their savior and be obedient to the Word of God by being publicly immersed.

It doesn't matter if you have attended church for years or if this is your first time through the doors. Coming through the doors won't do a thing for you. The Word of God tells us we must own up to the fact we can't save ourself. Our only hope is accepting Jesus as our Lord and as our Savior.

We are to publicly admit to our sins (which by the way doesn't mean you need to list each and every one. God already knows them), repent of them, accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and then, as it says in Acts 2:38, be totally immersed for the forgiveness of our sins and to receive the Holy Spirit.

So the question is, right here, right now, in front of these people who want you as a part of their family, who want you to join them as a body of believers, is "Are you ready to do that?"

My first shot at this

I wasn't really wanting a blog. I just started the sign-up process to make a comment on someone else's! But it seems to be fairly painless, so we'll just see what happens. Might be interesting.

You might notice all kinds of weird times on my postings. Tonight for example I sat down in front of the TV after being on my feet all day at a farm machinery auction... I woke up about 1:00 AM all rested and unable to get back to sleep. So I got online to check my email, the local obituaries (gotta make sure I'm not listed), and a couple forums I'm a regular on. And it's getting close to 2:00 and I'm still not sleepy.

I'm known online most places as either n9gik or Mike SE IL. I started out several years ago on the @g online forums as Mike SE IL, and that has kind of stuck on the farm forums. It made it easy to know where I was at, especially when talking with folks from Montana to Australia to Belair, Illinois. About everyplace else I'm known as n9gik.

So here's my first attempt at this. From the suburbs of Walnut Prairie: