40 Days - Monday, October 25

In an effort to fill some of my time and help the church while broadening my spiritual boundaries I'm starting to explore some of the services my church is providing. The senior pastor just started a series called 40 Days of Community based out of a book similar to Rick Warren's "The Purpose Driven Life". Pastor is trying to get everyone involved in a small (bible study) group that will meet for 40 days and hopefully evolve into a permanent slot in everyone's weekly activities. The 40 day program is also collecting food for the local food pantries in preparation for the holidays, and collecting blankets for the poor in Mexico. They even planned a mission to take a weekend trip down to Mexico to deliver the blankets.

My group is going to be meeting after the Saturday evening service. We (Brooke, Brendon, James, and I) will be meeting with one of the associate pastors and another couple every week to discuss our lives and how it relates to God's will. We met the first time this Saturday to meet and get a general idea of what it's all about. I really like it so far, it gives us an opportunity to share our feelings and discuss with others who share the same beliefs.

I'm also exploring volunteer opportunities within the church. I met with the tech team at the church Saturday afternoon to check out their little area in the back of the auditorium. They are the guys that control the lights, sound, and video during the service. They were all pretty cool and seemed grateful to get another guy on the team but it all seemed a little overwhelming because I've never done any type of production like that. I told the guy I was going to check out some other things and get back to him later. What I really want to do is get into youth ministry. If all goes well, I'll end up working with kids in middle and high school. I'm not really sure that I'm ready for that, but I'll just leave it in his hands and see what happens.