So we started this church yesterday...

not exactly. to be honest, i'm pretty sure we started a church about 3 years ago and yesterday we officially moved out of mom and dad's house... but what a crazy moving day.

there have been several times, as we've talked about starting this church over the past 6-12 months, that i've thought, 'somebody doesn't want us to do this, and i'm thinking it's either God or the devil.' finding out i needed heart surgery was one of those times. struggling to find a date to 'move out' of Hope and get started, and then finding out that date (Oct 22) was the week we'd already booked a trip to Miami was one of those times. being in the hospital (again) the friday night before our commissioning service a few weeks ago was one of those times. and getting a call at 8am yesterday morning to hear the the guy didn't show up to open the theatre we're supposed to meet in was one of those times.

so instead of meeting in a theatre, we had our first 'official' gathering in the parking lot. what a crazy morning... but a morning that really fit our story, our journey, and our community... what a perfect morning. thanks to whoever brought a generator. thanks to everyone that brought lawn chairs and blankets and your couch cushions and i think i saw a futon cushion out there too. thanks to children's workers and parents for adapting to our kids being on rubber mats in a parking lot for sunday school. thanks to a community of people who really thought it was awesome to be in a parking lot. thanks to all the people across the country who have been praying for us so diligently. and thanks to God who I think has some pretty crazy and unbelievable stuff in store for us. i'm real excited to see what God's going to do (to us) next... like where we're going to meet next sunday morning.

PS
take this with a grain of salt, but i'm pretty sure if it was God who didn't want us to start the church, He'd have killed me by now. i mean, He had a good shot to do it 8 weeks ago and passed it up. that leaves the devil, and i don't pretend to understand what the Bible says about spiritual warfare or how it works, but i think there's something to it and actually find all this craziness strangely encouraging.

life outside the office

so we're planting this church, which is a whole other series of blog posts conspicuously absent from my blog, and for now that means we are homeless. Hope booted me out of my office, which was a little sentimental for me since I've worked there 8 years, but I feel like I've been set free. I realized my desk was a repository for junk I couldn't decide what to do with and I'm hoping to not find space for one in our new building. I feel like a desk just beckons me, saying, "You must spend time with me" and I feel like it's a horribly unproductive environment for me when I'm trying to get a message ready. I do miss my bookshelves. I think the only thing I'll really miss about my office is that my kids knew where I was so they would come into our office suite and run down the hallway screaming, "Daddy, daddy!". I wonder what they're going to do the first time they run down the hallway screaming "daddy" only to find Joe in my office...

For the past few weeks I've been wandering from coffee shop to coffee shop in search of free wifi and a place to call 'office' for a few hours. Here are some observations:

- You can get free wifi almost anywhere in Raleigh and almost nowhere in Cary. One manager flat out told me it's because they figure people in Cary have enough money that they won't think about paying for it. The only place in Cary I've found free wifi is Caribou, and they just started offering it a few weeks ago.

- Cafe Cyclo was my favorite place until it closed a week ago. Great atmosphere, divided their spaces well so you didn't think you were right next to anybody. Too bad for me that it closed, but we bought a bunch of their furniture for the new building where our church will meet, so good for us. And Marissa Byelick made the best hazelnut lattes around.

- Whenever I'm at Helios I feel like everyone's listening to my conversation. Great location, not so great atmosphere.

- There's a new starbucks right by my house. I've been there a few times. Good coffee, no free wifi. I was listening to (eavesdropping, really) a manager evaluate one of his employees the other day. Good manager, but starbucks wants it's employees to eat, drink and breath starbucks 24/7. working for that place must really make you feel like you're working for the man.

- Tried out the Royal Bean on hillsborough yesterday. I'll be back. Free wifi, cool atmosphere, lots of space, and the folks behind the counter were awesome.

Any other suggestions?

My Blog-iversary

Year 1 of my blog is in the books. I made it, just barely... i did miss two whole months in there, june and september. i decided this would be a good time to change the look of things. Probably change the name in the next week. and i looked back at some posts and came up with my 5 favorites from this last year:

A Farewell to Buster (still gets me a little choked up)
My Trip to the Dentist (because the conversation was so fun)
He is Risen (Easter was unbelievable for me this year)
My Birthday (best birthday i've ever had)
Conoco-Phillips Posts $5.19B Profit (30 comments with some hostility... Yes!)

Thanks for stopping by.

I really want a twinkie...

Seriously. Haven't had a twinkie in a long, long time but decided this afternoon that's gonna change.

I was even late picking my kids up from a friend's house (Bobbi-Jo's at work) because I stopped by Kroger to get some. They were out. On top of that, I asked a guy who worked there where I could find the twinkies and he said, 'What?', revealing that he had never before experienced this delicacy. Amazing. I'm all for immigration. We're all from somewhere else and that's what makes America great. But there ought to be a rule that you have to eat a twinkie on your way into the country.

So I have to wait a few more hours until my wife gets home unless someone is so inclined to bring me over some twinkies...


Oh, and the surgery went great...