LIfe comes at you fast...

Sometimes a lot faster than I thought it would. Last Saturday one of my best friends, Jeremy, got married to a beautiful girl named Stacey. It was my privelege to be one of the groomsman. I can honestly say that it was the most beautiful wedding I have ever seen. I haven't seen many, mind you. But of the ones I have seen, I have yet to see a more Christ-centered wedding. It included testimonies of both of their faiths from their closest friends. The vows were perhaps the most beautiful I have ever heard (they were a variation on I Cor. 13 - simply beautiful and amazing). And then they followed those up with communion. While I stood there I couldn't help but be blown away by God. Jesus Christ is our groom and we are his beloved bride. In order to win his wife, Jesus partook of the cross and all its suffering and shame and he sacrificed himself in order to make us his own. Our weddings are but a pale shadow of the awesome love and sacrifice that Jesus has and made for us. We are his bride!!! He has won us and loves us with a love beyond all understanding and comprehension! He gave himself for us as the Lamb of God and he will fight for us as the Lion of Judah. I am my beloved's and he is mine! I have loved seeing Jeremy and Stacey's relationship and how Christ-centered they both are and how much their wedding showed that.

Beyond that, life continues to change for me. My role at Christ Community continues to change and develop. I don't know if I announced it here, but I have given up the Sunday morning duties of being a youth leader. I still teach on Wednesday nights and lead a small group of seventh grade boys, but the Sunday morning instruction has been passed from me to my friends Rex and Jessica Griffin. I'm actually really happy for this. Because of our Sunday format, we only have about half-an-hour for the youth and we are using for sermon application. Due to the fact that we combine youth groups with Wasatch church on Wednesday nights the Christ Community parents wanted to have seperate events from time to time with just the CCC youth. I wasn't the guy for that job, so, with the approval of my pastor and others, I have passed that to Rex and Jessica. So far, it has really turned out well. We are both enjoying and growing in our roles and can work with our particular giftedness and don't have to go outside that. However, that means more work for me in other areas of the church. I recently wrote a position paper for my pastor, Tom, supporting the vision he has for starting a charter school. If you guys are interested in my reasons for it I would be happy to e-mail it to you. Just leave a comment indicating that. And now, Tom's next assignment for me is to help him develop a Member's covenant for the church and work on a new member's class. I agreed to it (about an hour ago) and I'm starting to realize that this is going to be a lot of work, especially if we try to make it a relatively short course (like 4-6 weeks).

The other big change for me is something that I have to keep under wraps right now, but if it happens it will greatly impact how I go about planting a church. It's really exciting stuff, but unfortunately I will have to leave you with that. Nothing has been nailed down so I need to keep it pretty quiet. Hopefully I will be able to say more about it in the near future.

Anyway, with everything going on my heart and mind and energies have been going a million different directions at a hundred miles per hour and I'm still without a job. So I would appreciate all the prayer you can muster for me. I need humility, work, and a continued focus on Christ and his work on the cross. Apart from him, I have nothing, I am nothing, I do nothing. May God bless you and keep you and cause his face to shine upon you and give you peace.