It’s a rainy, potentially stormy Thursday in my neck of the woods. I’m sitting here thinking, reading, and praying. And some of those thoughts are leaking onto the pages of my Moleskine…

  • My buddy Gary Lamb is in the war room right now. For something like only the second time in the history of the ‘Stone, they’re departing on short notice from the scheduled plan for Sunday. If you’ve got a minute in your busy schedule, lift up a word for the RidgeStone team.
  • I know people die. I know death leaves a void in the lives of family and friends who are yet alive. I do have compassion for grieving people, especially when the death is particularly drawn-out or whatever. I know we have a responsibility to help meet others’ needs, especially those of the household of faith. But the mission goes on. And I need to have at least as much compassion for those who are dying spiritually, facing a Christless eternity separated from God, as I do for those whose physical death, while saddening and maddening, is a transition to an eternity in the presence of the One who makes all things new.
  • Our denomination reports that 103,585 people live in a 5-mile radius of our church’s location. Median age, 35.6. Mostly “Up and Coming Families.” Mostly disconnected. Mostly unchurched. Mostly overwhelmed.