I spent around eight hours of yesterday sitting in conference sessions listening to preachers, civil servants, doctors and a whole load of other people talking about HIV/AIDS. I’d love to pass on some quotes or some facts and figures, but to be honest I left my notes in the car and it’s a little too early (CA time) to go hunting for them.

I did like the guy who runs the President’s faith-based initiatives office. He once worked as a volunteer for Mother Teresa and is a very down-to-earth kind of person. He said he still finds it hard to believe he works in the White House and confided that every times he goes into the Oval Office his main concern is not to wet the carpet!

So without my notes, we’re left just to consider what impressed me most. Kay Warren talked about how she became “seriously deranged” when she started to get a grasp of the devastation being caused by the AIDS pandemic. A couple of thousand miles away in Illinois, another mega-church pastor’s wife, Kynn Hybels, was having her own epiphany about the issue. Then both of them, quite separately started to share the burden with their preoccupied husbands. After some time, the light went on for them too and now two of the largest and most influential churches in the country are becoming increasingly involved with the plight of millions of people all acoss the world, but especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

What did I learn? Listen to your wife! – Am I glad Gill seldom reads my blog!!!

Several years ago Gill travelled with a group of ladies ministering in different cities in South Africa. One of their stops was in a colored township in the Eastern Cape where a white woman gathered hundreds of impoverished, neglected children every Friday afternoon. She fed them and shared Jesus with them. Gill went back the next year, but didn’t do the tour, her heart was aching for the children of Kurland. She spent her time in South Africa with Kathy Von Staden and came home to share her burden.

Kids Explosion has since become part of Grace Church’s life – we help support the three safe houses Kathy now operates for at-risk children and AIDS orphans, we send teams to lend assistance and are grateful to God for young lives that are being transformed.

Kathy will be with us in service on Sunday, all because I learned what Rick Warren and Bill Hybels did – listen to your wife!

Following the unexpected success of The Passion Of The Christ and the more predictable millions made by the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, it seems that Disney has got smarter. They have worked out that Christians want to see wholesome movies and that you can make a series a year at a time and have people waiting with bated breath for the next part.

So they have taken the work of one of the greatest Christian writers in recent history, C.S.Lewis and are preparing to make a number of movies based on his outstanding children’s stories, The Chronicles of Narnia. Uncertain of the work their marketers have done in advance, the word is they are waiting to ensure their first offering, The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe makes them at least $200m this Christmas before they start production on the second story.

I predict it will be huge. Firstly it’s a great book, secondly Disney know how to produce outstanding work and thirdly the scenery and effects are said to be breathtaking.

Quite apart from the fact that churches all over America are using special premiere showings as evangelistic tools, Joe Public is going to love Lewis’ work.

I’ve given our neighbors tickets for our own December 8th showing – please pray they come – and am encouraged to see how many people are inviting family and friends to be with us that night. Because we are hosting this special event we will be able to hand out invitations to our series based on Narnia – Discover The Light Of Christmas – that will run for three weeks starting the Sunday after our movie premier.

What a great opportunity to bring people to our church/theater for a non-threatening event that will show them the gospel. I can hardly wait to see the movie, but I want to see the unchurched guests even more!

When we stand still we stop growing, or worse than that we start to stagnate. That’s why I crawled out of bed at 4.15 this morning and got myself on a plane to California. I want to press forward.

It is no secret that I have a great respect for Rick Warren and for the work he is doing both in Saddleback Valley Community Church and across the world. A few months ago I heard him share his heart about the plight of the millions of AIDS victims around the world. He challenged leaders about what their response would be. So here I am now, surrounded by mountains and palm trees, looking for a good night’s rest before hearing Rick and Kay Warren together with Bill and Lynne Hybels from Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois, as they spend two days addressing this huge issue.

I don’t know what they will say or where it may or may not take us, but Grace Church likes to be on the cutting edge of helping hurting people, so we’ll see where this leads.

We must never be content to stay where we are or as we are. Our hearts need to be touched with the real pain of real people and we need to evaluate what God wants us to do. Let’s pray that will become clear.

It’s Friday and I’m back in freezing New York. What a change from upper 70’s this morning to 27 with wind chill this afternoon. But we love Long Island – it’s good to be home.

In any church it’s easy to overlook people who are vital to what we do and yet play it so low key, you hardly recognize their involvement. Yet our Supercool Person Of The Week is someone whose work everyone sees on a weekly basis. If she didn’t do her job, it would be immediately noticeable. Any idea who I’m talking about?

Here’s a bit of history. Several years ago when we were doing church in a catering hall, there seemed to be nothing planned to be sure we had someone to operate the overhead projector we were using. So I asked a young girl to take it on and she did a great job.

When we moved to laptops and LCD projectors, the main program we were going to use had two of our pastors baffled, so I asked this same girl if she would like to look at it. She had it worked out in hours. Now she’s 16, but for several years, Jessica Saponieri has been arriving at the movie theater at 7.15 every Sunday morning, laying the cables, setting up the projector and computer(s), preparing all the data and operating our system for us.

She’s smart and very dedicated. Most people don’t see her doing it, but everyone sees what she does. So thanks Jess – you’re our Supercool Person Of The Week.

Watch her in action Sunday morning as we look at the trailer for the outstanding movie we are using as part of a major Christmas outreach – The Chronicles of Narnia.

Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving. To be honest, I have never fully got into the Thanksgiving thing – I guess it was never part of my life while I lived in the auld country. Some of the best Thanksgivings I’ve had in the States have been times when we have fed the homeless and underprivileged, but unfortunately that wasn’t possible this year as our Youth Shack – home of last year’s celebration – is temporarily out of service until we resolve a mould problem.

But it’s been a good day here in sunny Florida. Slept late, watched football, went to friends’ club for dinner (no preparation and no cleaning up) and then over to some other friends for dessert.

It has been a restful day – a real holiday. Traveling back home tomorrow to finish getting ready for the weekend. Sunday will be a good day. We will have a large group of visitors as Tony Balsamo (who is launching a new church out of Grace Gospel in North Patchogue next Easter) is bringing his whole core team on Sunday morning for them to check out how we do church. So come early, be nice to guests and let’s see what God will do.

By the way, I lied about being stuffed! I managed to have a discipled day, but that heading got your attention, didn’t it?

Woke up to a cool morning on the first day of our brief stay in Florida over Thanksgiving. I know it’s all relative and we weren’t anywhere near as chilly here as Long Island was, but starting the day at 52 is not exactly whay you’re expecting for Florida.

Instead of my normal daily visit to the gym, I walked along the causeway to the romantic-sounding Honeymoon Island for my exercise today. Sure it was cold, but it was beautiful too. The sun was rising over the sea, the palm trees were waving in the breeze and there were pelicans flying overhead – quite another world from Coram, NY!

As I walked I thought about how blessed I was – good friends down here, beautiful scenery and the health to do what I was doing. Add to all that, I had an hour to talk and listen to the One who put this all together.

It’s that time of year when we speak about being thankful – and I am!

For some reason a technically challenged person like me isn’t even going to attempt to discover, the posts on the blog format I had been using seem to have slipped down the screen. So rather than make a pig’s ear of trying to fix it, I have switched to another template.

Heading for Florida in a few hours to spend a couple of days with friends over Thanksgiving – back home on Friday. Due to the miracle of moden science I was able to print our boarding passes yesterday, but there was a slight hitch as they asked how many pieces of checked luggage we would have. I thought that was easy – two people for 2 1/2 days should be one case. However I decided to double-check that with my wife and discovered she planned to take two cases!

I was amazed, but said nothing. I know we are taking some Christmas gifts, but all my stuff would fit into a small bag, so I presumed that she needed a case and a half and that I had better leave it at that. However, this morning reason prevailed (turns out she was anxious about one case being overweight) and we thinned some things out to simplify the journey. So thankfully our luggage will be limited which happens to be just the way I like it!

We thinned out a lot of the junk around our kitchen and den last week ready for the painter. Guess I’m in thinning out mode. That’s good for us in life occasionally too. Before we drive ourselves inbsane running around like lunatics, wearing ourselves out in honor of Jesus’ birth (I’m sure He appreciates it all!), maybe it would be good to adopt a plan and work through what is really necessary so that Christmas is more enjoyable this year?

Have a new look, slimmed-down holiday season!

It has been a very busy few days, so I haven’t been around my Blog since Thursday. That link could have kept you laughing for the weekend. So what happened this past few days?

1. We got the den and kitchen painted – looks sharp – and then got it all back in shape for last night’s visitors.

2. We had a whole bunch of folks new to the church over for a get-together. It was great getting to know them all a little. God has given some outstanding folks to our church.

3. By the way, Jayne Palladino baked for us last night. She is an amazing baker. She has just started a business with her mother Sarah, who looks after our bagel cafe. So if you need baking done …

4. Our son Jonathan turned 32 on Saturday – guess that makes me ancient.

5. I didn’t get to teach the kids in Promiseland yesterday after all. I had to slip into the preaching slot in the main service as Frank Summers was back in hospital. They kept him and are keeping an eye on him. Please pray for a complete and speedy recovery.

6. We had our Ministry Fair yesterday. I love that event. It gives a broad overview of some of the things we are involved in as a church and above all, gives the opportunity for people to tie into the church by getting active.

I believe in involvement. Most of my message yesterday was off the cuff as I was not prepared to speak and only had about two hours notice. I was already at the theater when I found out I was up. So I had not planned to talk about my internal organs, but somehow my now departed gall bladder came into my sermon. I said that there are only two acceptable positions for a gall bladder, functioning or out. It went quiet when I said that’s how people should be in a church too. But I believe it. I know it’s Monday morning, but I hope you’re functioning somewhere in ministry within the church.

If you need to start the day with a laugh, then take a look at this link. If your sense of humor hasn’t kicked in yet, you might want to save this for later.
Be sure to listen to the phone complaint first and then the dance re-mix.

http://www.mmiblog.com/monday_morning_insight_we/2005/11/humor_church_co.html

Sorry, the hyper-link setting didn’t work – you’ll have to cut and paste.

So here’s the problem with having a resident graphic artist, he can take whatever he wants, doctor it and falsify the truth.
Let me make this clear, through thick and thin, good times and bad, I am a 49ers fan. I know it’s getting to the stage where Joe Montana is only a distant memory and Steve Young is almost as old as I am. I know a 2-7 start to the season is not too exciting, but I would not be seen cheerleading for the Giants even if Candlestick Park (I refuse to use it’s modern name!) slipped into San Franciso Bay and collided with Alcatraz.
Nice try Ron Dylnicki!!