I read the message and could hardly contain my excitement. I had to tell somebody. Anybody! So at supper I told Uncle Jim and Aunt Julie the exciting news, “I get to be the captain of my soccer team this fall!”
After finishing my third season of soccer, I had a lot of reflecting to do. After being a starter for the first 10 games of the season due to a pre-season injury to one of my teammates, I once again returned to the bench where I had spent most of my first two seasons.
Trailing Calvary Bible College 0-1 late in the game, we sat on the sidelines hoping for something, anything good to happen. Our guys had fought hard in the Saturday afternoon heat, but still we had little go our way.
All of a sudden, defender Aaron Nilius cleared a ball from midfield, and from 35 yards out midfielder Jay Nihart barely managed to deflect the ball off his head toward Calvary’s goal. Fortunately for us, their goalkeeper was standing too far out and the ball cleared his reach and bounced into the net. We erupted on the sideline, and in that moment we had tied the game at one apiece. We were back in the game.
On Sunday morning Pastor Eric preached from Luke 5:1-11. In this Scripture, Jesus preaches to the multitudes from a boat before telling Peter to push out into the deeper water to go fishing.
Having just washed his nets after a fruitless (or should I say, fishless) night of work, Peter replies, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net” (Luke 5:5).
I love how Hebrews 12 begins: “Seeing then that we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…” In the context the author is urging his readers to live in faith, following the example of the many men and women of faith mentioned in Hebrews 11.
As I begin my church planting internship and anticipate many years of church planting ministry in the years to come, I love every opportunity I have to interact with the church planters who have gone before me.
The plane began its descent on American soil, and shortly before 6am EST we were on the ground in Atlanta.
A new day, a new month, a new city…and a new perspective.
My ministry trip to Brasil is over, but life continues on. I could not just come back the same person that I was when I went there. But I’ll talk about that later.
What should I write about next? Are there issues that you are facing or that the church is facing today that need to be addressed? Take 15 seconds to let me know!
