Life at 3 miles an Hour

Way back before my paid ministry days I was involved in a life changing event. It actually wasn't my life that had been changed. The life I'm talking about was a man named Bill. Our church was looking for a new way to jump start our outreach to the community and honestly to find a new channel of visitors who would then become part of us and eventually contribute financially to our cause in the community. In other words, to help us balance the budget. It might sound cynical to you...I've been accused of that before, but it's ultimately true. I'm not really sure that our motivation would have been pure if it weren't for the fact that we were behind in our budget. For whatever reason, we became involved in a program called "Phones For You". Basically what happened was that we set up a num ber of phone lines, six I believe, and got volunteers to work for 3 weeks calling literally thousands of people. The idea was that we call them and invite them to a spec...

Someone once said, "into every life, a little rain must fall." I've come to appreciate that statement recently. Although it does cause me to wonder if anything I've ever said will ever classify as a "someone once said" item. That's probably another whole piece of writing. Anyway, like I said, I've come to appreciate the rain. It might not sound like a huge revelation from someone who lives in Seattle. What I mean is that I no longer accept, expect, or merely tolerate rain. I've come to appreciate it. I only realized this just this morning when I woke up fully expecting another bright morning sky and instead found showers outside of my window. It made me happy. It also startled me that I was actually very relieved to pick up a very wet newspaper from my sidewalk. I 'm not totally sure about the transformation in my life. I think that it has progressed gradually to the point that I guess the universal need for rain outweighs my need to have thi...