I can tell that fall is coming because suddenly I feel like a taxi driver instead of a father. I am making more and more trips home to pick up the kids and each time I have to ask them to remind me where we are going. I am considering the installation of a meter in the car so that I can charge them per trip to band practice, football practice, orthodontist appointments, etc. After a while you begin to feel like your only reason for existence is to ferry your kids to whatever they are currently involved in. It really makes me wonder how we will make it once the fall schedule at church kicks in. Sometimes I think that we need to simplify our lives a great deal and not plan so many activities just because fall is here. The alternative is to pray for cloning technology to really take off so that we can clone ourselves and then have our clones go in the other directions that we can’t seem to manage.
All cloning talk aside…I hope that you will be able to manage your fall schedule and include some of the good opportunities that are happening this fall at the Floyd Church. Before long there will be activities once again for the whole family on Wednesday nights, as well as some other fun things that will hopefully help all of us to connect with each other and God more effectively. One such activity is our second annual Floyd Camping Weekend, where we all bring our campers to the church grounds and spend the weekend relaxing together and enjoying the beautiful property that God has blessed us with. We always try to keep the schedule light so that people can relax, and come and go as they please. Last year many of you who didn’t camp still dropped in from time to time to say hello and munch on a s’more, and we even had some people drive buy and stop in to see what in the world was going on. This year the dates are the 18-20th of September and we will again cap off the weekend with our annual outdoor worship service, so no 8:30AM service on the 20th, and don’t forget to bring your lawn chairs and a dish to pass for the meal that will follow.
On the 20th of September we will also be kicking off a series of messages based on scripture of course, but also influenced by Max Lucado’s book called “Fearless”. This book will help us to better understand what the Bible says about Fear, and to imagine what our lives would be like if we had no fear. If you would like a copy of the book, the devotional book, or even a small group study guide to go along with the messages, they will be available for order soon at the welcome center in the narthex, or from links on our church web site, and if you order them from the web site, our church gets a rebate of 10% to help with our general budget. We will continue on Sunday nights to have our prayer time, but we will also use Sunday nights as a “digging deeper” session for those who would like to discuss the sermon and the accompanying materials in a small group setting. I would also encourage some of you to invite a few friends over each week and start a small group of your own to go through the materials. We would be glad to help you get started with the books and even a DVD that you can use to start the discussion. It is my hope that we will learn a great deal from this series, and begin to discover what a church with no fear would look like!
As you try to squeeze in all of your fall plans and priorities, be sure to make time for relationship with God and fellowship with His people. You will find that time spent with God for His purposes is never wasted, but rather is invested into eternity.
You are loved,
PJ