Monday Morning Quarterbacking

My weekends are always so full and so much happens that I think I should mention, but usually when it's all over my head is just spinning to the point that I don't know where to begin.  So the result is that I normally blog nothing about my weekend.  Alot of other bloggers have started doing "weekend reflection" blogging, so I think I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and start these "Monday Morning Quarterbacking" posts.

A lot of stuff happened this weekend, most of it great:

• Thursday night a couple in the church invited me to go to a Sacramento Rivercats baseball game.  They had two extra tickets so I brought Isaiah.  He has a friend who has been talking a lot about the Rivercats, so he'd been asking to go to a game.  He was soooo excited!  When we arrived at the ballpark, we didn't go in through the normal entrance.  We headed down this tunnel and to our surprise were seated on the first row, right behind the plate.  IT WAS AWESOME!  We could literally reach out and touch the backstop.  We didn't have to get up and stand in line for concessions.  Ballpark staff waited on us and brought our food/drinks to us.  Then to top it all off, seated right next to us was Ruthie Bolton - former WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist.  She and her husband were so friendly and gracious.  They passed out about 10 cases of ice cream cones to the crowd and she had her gold medals with her and she let us hold them.  Very cool night!  One of those nights where Isaiah said, "This is one of the best nights of my life!"
• Saturday we attended a banquet for Little Flock Orphanage in India.  I love this organization so much and its founder, Viji.  She's an incredible lady.  We're going to do a mission trip to India and Little Flock in October of 2009 and I can't wait.  I'm excited to see what team from Living Hope God puts together!
• Saturday night Mollie had her friend Mia stay the night.  She's a sweet girl.  I'm so thankful that Mollie has made good friends here in Dixon.
• Sunday's worship gathering was great!  I think the summer slump is finally over, so our attendance has started coming back up.  We had 112 yesterday.  The worship music was incredible.
• I've been preaching about the need for authentic community in my "CONNECT" series.  God is really using it.  I talked with one guy before service who was saying he was discouraged and feeling himself want to isolate from everyone.  I told him that the sermon was going to speak to him especially.  Afterwards he said it was exactly what he needed.  Another lady came to me after the sermon and showed me her prayer card.  She said, "I just wanted you to know I wrote this BEFORE you preached."  It was all about praying for more authentic community in her life. I love it when God connects the dots between a sermon and a soul!
• Sunday afternoon we had small group leader training at my house.  I'm excited about kicking off our small groups next week.  God is going to do great things!
• Jamie cooked a couple mean chocolate pies for our meeting yesterday.  She is so good to me and for me.  I definitely married UP.
• Sunday evening I headed to Vacaville to speak to the college group from Valley Church.  It's a great group and many of our college-age folks join them regularly.  I spoke from 1 Kings 12 about the need to heed the wisdom of the older generations.  One of the best things I've ever done is to intentionally surround myself with a handful of older, more experienced pastors who will invest time in me and give me Godly counsel.  I'm eternally grateful to these men.