First Day of School 2009

On Monday, August 24th, our three kids went off to school. Isaiah and Jacob are in fifth grade and Bethany is in first grade. I cannot believe that they are in those grades. Time definitely seems to be flying by.

The first week of school seems to have been a good one with the exception of Bethany already having to miss a day of school. They like their teachers and are settling in nicely.

The boys are definitely not wanting to walk with dad and little sis, so they take a few minute lead going and coming back and they seem to be good with that and it makes mom feel more comfortable knowing that I am not too far behind.

I am a Alive

Yes, I am alive. It has been a very long week and I am working on a few different projects and the time is slipping past and I am not coming to the blog to type out any thoughts and I am not checking any of my favorite blogs either and that is a little sad.

One of the quotes that I mentioned that has been swirling around my head is the following: Your direction, not your intentions, will determine your destination.

We, at Zion, are in the midst of changing our direction as it relates to children, youth and family. The change in direction ( in my opinion ) is absolutely necessary because we will not end up where we want to be by going in the same direction.

Over the last 2 years, we have had good intentions and we have made a few shifts, but not a true directional change and those intentions are not going to get us where we want to be. Thus, we are changing direction.

I do not know if the directional changes will completely lead us to that destination. I am not sure if the changes that we are implementing will be successful. However, I feel very strongly that God has been pressing these on my heart.

In the end, I did not want to sit in staff meeting next May evaluating program/ministry and go, this year was not too successful. I wonder what the ministry would look like today if we made the changes.

So, what if propelled me to change direction.
I fully believe the change of direction will lead us to our destination.

We have the potential to reach individuals that we normally would not reach.

To some, the change is going to be very small.
To some, the change is going to be very large.

For me, I am looking forward to the change and the adventure that is about to occur. There is still alot of work to do over the next 31 days till we "launch" the new ministry.

More details coming.

Breathe

A few individuals came me that advice today via facebook and they are absolutely right that I need to breathe. I also need to pick-up my morning walk (maybe not as early or as far). I need tothink and clear out the mind a little and create some "space".

There is change in the air or at least steps to make changes that will occur in 37 days and there is a lot to do before it happens. In a sense, I am not really worried about that because I think that it will com all together just like VBS but here is hesitation in my step and I need to have that removed.

There are a few quotes that are pouncing my head and I am going to blog about them the next week. The first one will be the following:

Your direction, not your intentions will determine your destination.

I believe for us to end up where e want/need to be then our direction needs to change.

Sound of Music | Central Station Antwerp (Belgium)

I was given a heads up about a video to "brighten" up my day. Here is the story about the video and then the video. It really is worth 5 minutes of your time. When you watch, make sure you take time to look at some of the passer-by faces.

More than 200 dancers were performing their version of "Do Re Mi", in the Central Station of Antwerp. with just 2 rehearsals they created this amazing stunt! Those 4 fantastic minutes started the 23 of march 2009, 08:00 AM. It is a promotion stunt for a Belgian television program, where they are looking for someone to play the leading role, in the musical of "The Sound of Music".

At The Cleveland Clinic

We are at the Clinic again. Stacey was not doing well, so she gave the nurses/doctor a call. They were in contact with the surgeon and she put her on the surgery schedule.

It was a whirlwind getting a sitter for the kids and getting her up to the hospital but it all worked out. I am in the waiting room right now. The surgeon has come out and talked to me, the procedure went fine. She is not in recovery yet, should be very soon.

They will watch her for 60-90 mins (most likely) and then release her, we will then be bac on our way down to Woo.

Very Odd ... Stat Tracker

I only have a few handfuls of people that check in my blog, but occasionally, I get "spikes". Sometimes, these spikes are amusing over why the came here. Here is a sample: the photo is small but if you click on it, it will come bigger.



On Sunday, July 26 (typically a slow day - om 7/19, I had 5 hits), I had 83 hits with 130 pageviews (110 were the same post) and the next day, Monday the 27th, I had 9 hits. All the hits came from a 2007 post on born again lazy .... weird I tell you.

In case your curious, here are the top 4 posts (reviewed)

# 1 - William Paul Interview

# 2 - Badaboomz-Ale-House-Grill

# 3 - Gandhi-Christianity

# 4 - Ray-Boltz-Out-Of-Closet

My highest day by far was on November 5th, 2008 with 185 hits and they were almost all on my Ale House Grill post, a cook linked to me because of the burger.

Words of Thanks: Ray Nagin

Words of Thanks - New Orleans Mayor, C. Ray Nagin, New Orleans City Councilwoman, Cynthia Willard-Lewis, and ELCA Presiding Bishop, Mark Hanson express their gratitude.Mayor Nagin's delivered his remarks to the Youth Gathering on Saturday night, July 25th at the Louisiana Superdome

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On Saturday night, Mayor Nagin came out during the general session and gave a special thanks to us. Here is the video:

We Will Rock (Love) You

The House Band did a "parody" to We Will Rock You - it was We Will Love You. Take 4 minutes to watch - feel the energy of 37,000 Lutherans ... see, we can have fun.



By the way, are you truly loving people ?

Back In Ohio

I am back in Ohio.

It was a great trip to New Orleans. We had an absolute blast.

The 19 hour drive down there ( 2 days - hotel stay in Tuscaloosa ) was great and very uneventful. We did run into some heavy rain in Alabama and Mississippi, but nothing that was over-bearing. We decided to park in the Park-N-Fly by the airport and ride the shuttle to the airport and then ride the hotel shuttle in (smart move). All of that was fantastic and smooth.

Our hotel was unbelievable. It was the nicest hotel that I believe that I ever stayed at. The hotel was the Chateau Bourbon and is located at the corners of Iberville and Bourbon and Canal ( a whole block ). It is in a fantastic location - great walking distance to everything.

The one thing that I love about NOLA is the food, it is out of the world and we had some great times at the restaurants. There is probably only one that I would cross off my list for the next time that I am in the city and that would be Deanie's. We only chose that because it was very late - Sat night - and it was next to our hotel.

I think that my favorite few hours of the trip was our Saturday morning walk to Jackson Square to go to Cafe Du Mounde for beignets. We sat on the steps across the square and enjoyed the morning. We then walked back to the hotel and swam for 90 mins - we were the only ones in the pool and then went to the Red Fish Grill for lunch on Bourbon Street. Those 5 hours were a total blast.

The main sessions were great. It was wonderful being there with 37,000 people worshiping God. The house band was excellent, the variety of speakers were very good and the musicians were good (especially Skillet).

Our drive home was once again excellent and this time we stopped in Cullman.

The 7 youth and 3 adults that went made up an excellent team and I am extremely thankful for them. I also am very thankful for the awesome support of their parents and churches who made this happen. It will be an experience the youth will not forget.

Post 1,000

I have had numerous blogs before Thoughts From Jeff but a couple of years ago, I switched to Thoughts From Jeff for the "catch all" of most things. In the blog, I throw everything in here and that drives people crazy because they never know what to expect.

I am logged in tonight/this morning from New Orleans. i was going to make a post on The Gathering and share a few thoughts about The Gathering and New Orleans and as I did that, I noticed that this will be my 1,000 post on this blog, so I decided to make a note of that - not that many people care about it.

I am going to put a video up that is poor quality - a great thing to do on my 1,000 post; right ???



The video is from the Skillet concert that ended a few hours ago. The song is called Last night and it is a very powerful song. As mentioned, the quality is pretty bad. I "filmed" it on my old camera that is not meant for videos of this sort.

However, I wanted to show it because of the pyro and the excitement that you can see of the 37,000 people that are at the gathering. I am at over 500 photos already. I am not sure what I am going to do with getting some of them on the blog. They are all loaded on facebook if you are there and a friend of mine. Maybe, I will do my Top 20 when I get home.

I am looking forward to tomorrow - it is Cafe Du Monde morning. Yum.

I am out, I should have done something fancy for this post, like my top 10 posts of all times .. but that is too much work :)