Join us Sundays at 10:00 am / 582 Forest St, Seaside FL. 32459 / Map / 850.633.3392
Sarah and I used to work with college students. One day Sarah was talking to one of the students and they said they had never made macaroni and cheese. Sarah asked, “how was that even possible?”
This student said, “I’ve always had someone do it for me, so I’ve never learned.”
We went home and taught our 4 and 5 year olds to make Mac and Cheese.
If you were with us on Sunday, it was hot…like really hot. Not only that, but we had 425 people at worship at 10am. The Chapel only fits 175 people…which means we had about 250 people sitting outside.
Right before worship started, I said to some of our volunteers,
“maybe we should do the whole ‘first shall be last and last shall be first’ and move people who are inside out and people who are outside in?”
This suggestion was not super well received…
Several years ago Sarah, the boys and I went on a quick trip from Dallas, TX to Springfield, Missouri to meet with other churches, campus ministries, and college pastors. It was just a few days over my kids spring break and then back to work.
That quick trip turned into 5 weeks in Missouri.
Most of the world pressed pause in March of 2020 so we ended up going to Sarah’s parents house until we needed to return back to Dallas.
We had no idea or plan to stay in Missouri for so long.
We had 3 pairs of clothes.
And yet during those 5 weeks, it snowed and my kids went sledding, it got into the upper 70’s and Sarah’s parents opened their pool and my kids went swimming.
It turns out all we needed was those 3 pairs of clothes.
If you have kids or grandkids or employees or maybe even pets, you likely have thought about saying something you think is really important, you shared that seemingly vital message, and then you wonder, did they even care?
Did that make any difference?
Regularly, I preach a sermon and I wonder…
“Did anyone benefit from that?”
Now, I don’t need people to send me encouraging words…or worse, tell me,
“Actually, no. No one benefitted from that…”
But I do wonder this sometimes.
“Ummm…Brian…I kicked a hole in your door.”
“What? No way. You’re just trying to get me to open up.”
“Nope. I’m serious.”
I then laid down, because I was starting to crash coming down from the rush of adrenalin and sobering up to the reality of the trouble I was going to be in when my parents got home. So I closed my eyes and hoped that when I woke up, it would have all been a dream.
When I was a kid, I was described as “having lots of energy”. I was energetic, emotional, gregarious, and on occasion, known to be angry. Now let me state, I was the instigator of most of the chaos and typical scuffles between me and my brothers. I liked to poke the bear and get attention. Also, my older brother, who is much more cool, calm, and collected than I ever was or will ever be seemed to like to watch me spiral out.
You know. Brothers.
The other day I had a situation where a bird ended up in The Chapel. We had left the door open for an extended period of time and it seized the opportunity to just waltz right in.
Now, I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried to catch a bird in a 4 story open air chapel…but it is nearly impossible. I am sure we could have hired a professional bird catcher…but I am not one to quit easily.
Unfortunately, the bird kept flying towards light. So he kept trying to escape through the vast amount of windows. I was starting to wonder if this place was actually designed to keep birds trapped in.
I tried for awhile, then gave up and went back to work.
Next thing I knew, the bird walked into my office. Like, I was on a zoom call and he just came walking right in. I had an in-person meeting right after my call, so I had limited time to catch this bird.
I very casually got up, closed the door and trapped the bird in my small office.