Merry Christmas to you and yours.
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I have a gift certificate for $5 to a local coffee shop. It’s literally money waiting to be spent. I’ve had it for two months now and I still haven’t gone it to get my free coffee.
Why?
It’s simple: I don’t like the shop as much as the other ones I go to; the ones where I pay to get coffee. The gift certificate is to a shop that serves better coffee than the ones I frequent. But I would rather pay for coffee and sit in an atmosphere that I like than sit in an atmosphere I don’t like and receive free coffee. How’s that for logic?
Coffee, for the most part, is coffee. Atmosphere is not quite as simple. Atmosphere takes a little more work. Anyone can brew a decent cup of joe; not everyone can create a place where I feel welcomed, invited, and comfortable.

I’d like to officially invite all of you to the “Immersion 10/10 Challenge”.
For those who don’t know, I’m on staff with Immersion (link opens in iTunes) – a 20s and 30s ministry in West Des Moines, IA. We meet on Thursday nights at Lutheran Church of Hope. 7:37pm. Worship Center.
At any rate, next week we’re asking everyone to bring 10 people to the 10/9 service. (We’re calling it 10/10 because on the Jewish calendar, the next day begins at sundown. Booyah!)
I’d like you to be one of my 10. Would you consider coming? Besides if you don’t, that little boy will seriously come laugh at you. Consider yourself warned.
Below is a post off of my blog on dmJuice.com. I included it here because I think it could prove valuable for discussion.
I have been thinking about writing a book lately. I would call the book, “No More Sundays” (a play off of the hugely popular “No More Mondays” by Dan Miller).
“What’s behind the title?” you ask. Well, it seems that in my life I tend to segregate what happens on Sunday mornings as “church” and the rest of the week is “not church.” I don’t make these distinctions intentionally, but years of cultural conditioning have programmed compartments in my brain to better categorize this experience called “life”:
Work = Monday – Friday; 9-5pm.
Drive = Right side of the road.
Eat = Three meals per day.
Church = Sometime on Sunday morning.
I have been really challenged lately by some words I read regarding what “going to church” should look like. The author I’m reading says this to some of his friends about what “church” is all about, “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. This, my friends, is your spiritual act of worship.” Simple words if I’ve ever heard them.
So back to my book, “No More Sundays”. I am certainly not saying that we should all stop going to church on Sundays. That would be missing the point. Or, as a mentor of mine likes to say it, “throwing the baby out with the bath water.” What Iamsaying is that we need to re-evaluate what we consider “church.” Is “the church” a place that I go to or is the church an identity that I have whether I am in a church building or not? An identity that follows me around in my “everyday, ordinary life”?
I say “No More Sundays” because I am becoming increasingly more fond of resting on Sundays. As in “sleeping in until noon” rest. As in not going to church. As followers of Jesus, we do need to be in communication with other believers; reading God’s word together, worshiping together through music and prayer and the sacraments. This much is true. But does this have to happen on a Sunday morning? What about a Saturday night? A Tuesday night? Or, I don’t know – just throwing this out there – a Thursday night?
I don’t have all the answers so in the meantime, my wife and I are really enjoying our Sunday mornings together. Not to sound trite, but it’s in those moments – resting next to her, making scrambled eggs for her, having a hot cup of coffee in between – that my soul, my spirit, is most at rest. After all, isn’t that what the Sabbath is all about?

And that, my friends, is what you call a Greek @$$-kicking. If you’ll remember, I did not fare so well on the last Greek quiz that I took. This, I’m afraid, feels good… Maybe even “very good!”
From Robert Kegan’s The Mental Demands of Modern Life:
“When burnout occurs, it is almost always an indication that the person’s goals have been externally imposed. Somehow he embarked on his present course because it was expected of him… He was never the authentic source of his choices and consequently they afford little real satisfaction.”
I thought that was pretty great.

Status: Stuck in a small, 4×4 room. Studying for Greek quiz. Needed a break. Took picture of self from ceiling of said small room. Back to the salt mines.
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