Just go over right this minute to Tally Wilgis’s blog and read this post.

Then, after you calm down from wanting to smack the mom, and after you wipe your eyes from hurting for the kids, just find a minute somewhere to thank God for how He trusts You to work in His service – even when it seems you’re not really “helping.”

Thanks, Tally.

Except, it often seems, when it comes to church planning. Especially planning creative and innovative worship experiences with impact. Most of the time, it is the senior/lead/grand poobah/big kahuna pastor who just can’t – or won’t – grasp the concept that God just might speak through other creative and gifted people on the team.

What do you do if you serve with one of “those” pastors? How do you change if you’re the senior/lead/grand poobah/big kahuna guys who can’t get their minds and hearts around the concept of team planning?

Len Wilson and Jason Moore over Midnight Oil Productions have some good ideas.

Langston Hughes wrote about it. Fantine sang about it. What happens to your dreams when you get older? Do you lose them? Do you sit around and have a pity party, inviting any and all who’ll participate?

So many people live with regret about the things they dreamed about but never got around to doing. Second Wind Dreams aims to change all that. They specialize in making the dreams of older folks come true. Their aim is to…

…[enhance] the quality of life for those living in Elder Care Communities and [change] the perception of aging.

It is never too late to dream. You’re never too old to give up on your dreams. And it’s never too late to help those around us fulfill their dreams.

What are you doing to help people around you live out their dreams?

Link via Worthwhile

“You never know…you might have to cook for twenty guys someday.” So said Pete Clemenza in The Godfather.

Cue the music.

Remember Clemenza’s advice to Michael Corleone…

Heh, come over here, kid, learn something. You never know, you might have to cook for twenty guys someday. You see, you start out with a little bit of oil. Then you fry some garlic. Then you throw in some tomatoes, tomato paste, you fry it; ya make sure it doesn’t stick. You get it to a boil; you shove in all your sausage and your meatballs; heh?… And a little bit o’ wine. An’ a little bit o’ sugar, and that’s my trick.

(Well, not exactly, but it’s the only Eye-talian sauce-making scene I could think of right off the top of my head!)

This is what I’m doing on a rainy Monday afternoon. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by around 6:00. It’ll be ready then!

Last year I posted in this space something entitled “And the Answer Is…”.

Tonight, I’m pointing to it it in honor(?) of my good friend, Gary Lamb.

From Arthur Miller’s Introduction to Death of a Salesman…

…if Willy’s is an American dream, it is also a dream shared by all those who are aware of the gap between what they might have been and what they are…

One of the old Foxworthy lines goes something like this…

You Might Be A Redneck If…
The fireworks stand gives you a volume discount.

And judging from the sounds all around my neighborhood tonight, that outfit in the parking lot of Wal-Mart has been plenty busy, with volume discounts for all! (I wondered why that church van was always parked out there by the TNT tent. Turns out it’s a fund raiser for the church! Which may just spawn yet another Foxworthy line…). Dang, Gary, you missed a great opportunity!

Anyway, I like fireworks as much as the next guy. I’m as patriotic as I can be. But it sounds like Baghdad tonight.

Somewhere, sometime, between now and tomorrow night at this time, the TV news in Atlanta will report a fireworks incident/accident, which, in real time, will have begun with some guy uttering that immortal phrase…

Hey! Hold muh beer an’ watch ‘is!

Just wait…

OK, so here’s another good reason to leave the blogging to people who can.

I’ve got a buddy (long-distance, of course!) who works in a homeless shelter in Canada. He’s become quite an encourager and challenger of faulty thinking. Here’s what he posted the other day…

I’m running out of patience with the emergent church ‘conversation’. I can no longer fathom our never-ending quest for a profound worship experience. I have no stomach for anything represented by a Christian market moniker – fiction or music or tee-shirts or bumperstickers or little silver fish on the back of the mini-van or any of it. This job has absolutely ruined it for me and normal Christianity. I’m through. Why? Because it’s all sacred. Every single heartbreak, pain, sob and gasp and cry are the world-bound expressions of Christ Himself, who aches and pains and longs through those who are wounded, abandoned, starved for love and starved for life. All that pain is sacred, every bit of it, and I’m beginning to understand that we intersect with God in the world – in it’s wounded, raw agony, in its insatiable longing to love and be loved, in its blood and tears and in the absolute despair that is the moment of one’s realization of hopelessness. That’s where God is most real, where love is most powerful and where Christ is most present.

It’s all sacred, every bit of it – it’s all sacred.

Right now, I’m enjoying watching…I mean, listening to Mrs. Costello’s CD The Girl in the Other Room.

Man! Great stuff! (And the music ain’t bad, either!)