As I sit here and write, the polls are open for about another 90 minutes in the special election to appoint a new Town Supervisor. In a while I will be heading to Westlake where friends of Tim Mazzei will be gathering to await the result and hopefully celebrate a victory.

Since moving to Long Island in ‘91, I had nothing to do with Town Hall – apart from paying my insanely high taxes – until we applied for planning permission to put up a church building in Medford six or seven years ago. We were pretty shabbily treated by some people who were then part of the Planning Board and were subsequently steam-rollered by the Town Board who changed the Town Building Code to stop our project.

It seemed like we had no friends up on the hill and there was a good reason for that – we had no friends up on the hill.

I decided to change that, for our church’s sake and for that of other churches in this very large town. (If Brookhaven was a city, it would be the 34th largest city in the USA, with its population of half a million people). So I joined the political party with which I could best identify, the Conservative Party and have since become part of the Executive at Town, County and State level. For the past few years I have actively supported the Conservative/ Republican members of the Town Board and other elected officials these parties have endorsed.

In the process I have got to know some outstanding people.

I now have a considerable amount of interaction both with elected officials and the civil servants who make government work. I am no longer a stranger at Town Hall and am well situated to represent the position of the faith community in Brookhaven as well as the needs and concerns of individual congregations.

All of which goes to prove, you can stand on the sidelines and complain or jump in and become a part of making things change. I chose the latter.

+ Very full day off today – probably doesn’t really qualify as a day off, but that’s okay because there was some good stuff.

+ It was great to go into the funeral home this morning and listen to the family talking and laughing as they shared stories about their deceased mother, grandmother. The sorrow of parting was very real, but the celebration of life was refreshing.

+ Gill and I hunted around for a few hours looking for fabric for backdrops on Sundays – she and I differ on our definition of bright. We didn’t buy anything – everything we saw was boring.

+ Had a third-rate chicken gyro for lunch. Won’t go back there.

+ Bought a good shirt for Sunday – we’re recording the teaching to make it available to other churches for One Prayer in June.

+ BTW – the shirt is pink. I like pink. Real men wear pink.

+ Have been talking throughout the day with some friends who are working through some serious issues. There are no easy answers, but I want to be here for them.

+ I’m going to spend some time at Tim Mazzei’s election office tomorrow, encouraging people to get out and vote in the special election for Town Supervisor. The turnout is always low for special elections, so every vote counts for sure.

+ Drove by a couple of the churches near the Mastic movie theater. Just as I thought, they don’t have room for all of the 60,000 people who live around there, so we won’t be treading on their toes when we start our new campus - I hope!

+ Almost forgot, I did a bit of handyman work today too – fitted a new smoke alarm for Charlotte.

+ Looking forward to a trip into Manhattan Wednesday evening to a Celtic Thunder concert. Don’t worry if you have no idea who they are – they do celtic music on PBS!

Okay, so what was the big deal about today’s teaching that might have ticked some people off?

I was talking about money of course!

I’m a Bible-believing Christian. So that means when it tells me in the Book that when I look at my income, one tenth of it belongs to the Lord, I believe that. I don’t try to rationalize it, go through contortions to wiggle out of it, or downright ignore it, I give the tithe back to him.

I’ve done that since I got my first real paycheck from a rotten summer job I did in a stinking factory when I was 15 years old. I did it as a student who was always strapped for cash and it has been a way of life ever since Gill and I were married almost 40 years ago. We never looked around to see if there was anything left to give to God, we have always given him the first 10% and then added to that as we were able.

I didn’t teach on giving today because we need bigger offerings, I did it because we need bigger Christians. We need people who walk the walk. I laid out what the Bible says for the benefit of the many new Christians who may not have heard it before. I did it for distracted Christians who have settled for putting stuff before God. And I did it to remind faithful givers that they are right on when it comes to doing what God requires.

Too many people think they’re smarter than God – they want to do it their way. So here’s the deal, if you’re content to do it your way, tell me the truth – “How’s that working for you?”

Don’t bother emailing me the answer, I know it already – it isn’t.

But heaven forbid you should do things God’s way!

+ Looking forward to Sunday and to winding up the One To 21 series. It’s going to be one of those Sundays when I’m holding my breath until I get up to teach, then I’m going for it and let the chips fall where they will – and they will! Trust me – Sunday = Funday!!!

+ I seldom do hospital calls, but earlier this week I went to see a dear old Christian lady who is the mother of a guy in our church. She went to be with Jesus this morning – 18 years to the day since she gave her life to Christ. She was over 70 then! I’ll be preaching her funeral on Sunday evening.

+ Picking up my stuff from the accountant this evening – didn’t fare as well as I had hoped!

+ Tuesday is the election for a new Town Supervisor. If our town was a city, it would be the 34th largest city in the USA – over half a million people. Looking for a Tim Mazzei victory.

+ Some drama going on today with a CR member – we have some interesting folks in the program. Glad we have a competent director and the problems aren’t mine!

+ Lesaya and Debbie are on their way back from their missions trip to South Africa, but I hear they’re stranded in Dakar, Senegal. Not my choice of a spot for a weekend break.

+ Gill’s taking Jace to see Monsters v Aliens tonight. I  wouldn’t have minded going myself, but I have that appointment with the accountant.

+ Fridays I’m holding my breath as I look at the weekend. I love weekends. Weight Watchers has developed into a seven hours commitment on Saturday mornings – more people keep coming! – and it’s pretty non-stop from then until Monday afternoon.

+ So they’re not going to call the WTC replacement the Freedom Tower after all. I guess they lied when they said they’d never forget 9/11. Shame on them!

+ Mets season opener in ten days! God loves the Mets.

+ Meeting up with some real old friends on Facebook. It’s interesting that several guys from my Bible School days are now pastoring here in the States. Maybe the streets really are paved with gold – just not in NY!

+ Sounds like loads of folks are reading our 200 Days Of Prayer daily devotionals – we have dozens of requests from people wanting to be added to our emailing list.

Looks like everything is falling into place for this year’s One Prayer events being put together by Craig Groeschel and the folks at LifeChurch.tv in Oklahoma. Things went so well with the first ever One Prayer last June that several thousand churches all around the world are expected to participate this summer.

The heart of the concept is that these churches join to pray for one another, their cities and their nations during the month of June. They also focus on the same theme for their Sunday teaching on those weeks.

This year’s theme is God is ……….. You fill in the blanks. The idea is that the local pastor preaches on that theme on the first Sunday of the month and then video teaching by dozens of pastors is available on the One Prayer website for downloading and using on the other three Sundays.

It’s a great way to get some of the nation’s best teachers into your church – for free. Last year we had Craig Groeschel, Perry Noble and Gary Lamb teaching for us and it was an outstanding experience.

This year by popular demand – two pastors asked me! – I’m going to be recording a message to add to the pot so that if anyone wants to use my teaching in their church that month it will be on the One Prayer website for them.

My subject will be God Is Amazing and it’s what I’m going to be teaching in our church on Palm Sunday, April 5th – I guess there’s the potential for the message to be heard anywhere in the world in June.

Isn’t technology a wonderful thing?

It’s tough to think about Easter when the temperatures are struggling to get into the 40’s, but hopefully it will feel a lot more like Spring by Sunday April 12th.

We’ve had some great Easter Sundays in our church’s brief history. There was the year we did three services when we were in the Crystal Swan and almost wore out all our workers. Then there was the year we rented the Theater For The Performing Arts on Main Street in Patchogue – I loved that place, but they turned us down when I asked about renting it on a weekly basis.

One of our first Easters we did a cantata-style thing and a woman threw a hissy fit because the guy playing Jesus wasn’t wearing a shirt! Good job we didn’t go for historic accuracy.

We don’t do that kind of stuff nowadays anyway. When people come in Easter Sunday I want them to see our church as it normally is, so the service is very much along the lines of our regular weekly style.

We do have some great music planned this year and I guarantee you won’t forget the teaching – your unchurched family and friends won’t either, because for some of them that day will make the difference between eternal life and eternal death.

So while you’re working on who to invite, be assured from our end we’re pulling out all the stops to ensure they have an encounter with a very real church and a very real Savior.

The summer of ‘66 was a special one for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that England won the World Cup (and if you need me to clarify what sport that applies to, just don’t worry about it!). In addition to that momentous event, I went on my first missions trip – to Belgium – starting what would become a pattern for a lifetime.

It was also the time that Dr. Billy Graham came to Earl’s Court in London for a crusade lasting three or four weeks and I traveled up there to hear him on two of those nights. Those were outstanding events. I had never been in anything like it before and probably never have since for that matter.

Since mass evangelism is part of a bygone era, I have never been too impressed at what appeared to be attempts to mimic Dr. Graham thirty or forty years too late. I had no inclination to get involved in Greg Laurie’s Madison Square Garden Crusade a couple of years ago – anway Manhattan is hardly local – and when I started getting info about one of his Harvest Crusades this year, I paid scant attention.

Then one day I actually read a communication, realized he was doing two nights far closer to home – the theater at Jones Beach – and saw an outstanding musical line-up.

When it comes to seriously good music, few bands ever make it to Long Island. Hey, this is not exactly the Bible Belt, so it’s tough to get an impressive size crowd here and I guess that’s why they don’t travel this far.

But Greg Laurie is bringing Kutlass, POD, Delirious? and Jars Of Clay. It sounds more like two impressive concerts with an evangelistic message thrown in than an old-style crusade, so I’m going to start promoting it as an event folks can invite their unchurched friends to and see them come to faith in Jesus.

I’ve never heard Greg Laurie in my life – to tell you the truth, I’ve hardly even heard of him, but if we can fill some of those 14,000 seats with people who need Jesus, he can really help us in our mission. June 13th and 14th should be very good!

www.ny.harvest.org

Ever since I graduated Bible College and started pastoring back in 1970, I’ve never had the traditional weekend that much of the workforce seems to long for from Monday to Friday. You see, Sunday isn’t a day off for me, rather it is the high point of my week, the climax towards which all the effort of the previous days is focused.

And then my weekend is Monday. So what do I do with a Monday weekend? Well, this was today -

6.40am    Gym

9.05am    Home

9.45am    Weight Watchers meeting with Gill

11.15am   Food shopping with Gill

12.30pm   Lunch

1.00pm     Weight Watchers paperwork

1.30pm     Checked emails, etc.

3.00pm    Took Gill to podiatrist

4.00pm    Went to Charlotte’s

4.40pm    Got killed by an eight year old at Monopoly

6.00pm    Dinner at Charlotte’s – salad pizza

7.00pm    Home for the evening

Riveting stuff, eh? Just a quiet day, doing whatever we wanted, which I think is what God intended for all of us ever since the world was six days old.

+ I’m offcially fried. Had a three and a half hours Weight Watchers staff meeting right after church – more than enough for one day!

+ Our missions team to the DR had a final get-together this morning. Two weeks from now they will be down there. I love the heart our folks have for missions.

+ Band did a great job despite having no drummer. Of course it sounded different, but it was good.

+ I’ve preached better, but it was a good, solid message on the Church in Philadelphia from Revelation 3. Next Sunday is the last part of the series and we’ve covered some important stuff as we’ve developed One To 21.

+ Easter in three weeks. I wonder if that means the temperatures will be more like Spring?

+ Not into March Madness at all. I saw the Knicks at the Garden once, I guess that was enough to turn me off to basketball once and for all.

+ Reflecting on Friday evening at the movies in Mastic. The place will certainly need a lot of brightening up when we move in there for our second campus in September, but there’s a ton of scope in that area.

+ The Ronkonkoma theater had an inspection by corporate high-ups last week and passed with flying colors. They do keep the place looking good. The towel dispensers in the mens rooms even work nowadays!

+ Got my passport back on Friday, with extra pages added. The immigration guy told me I needed to do that when I got back from India as he had no clean space to stamp! I end most years by saying I’m going to stay at home more next year, but that didn’t happen yet.

+ Looks like a bunch of bikers are going to be visiting us the Sunday after Easter for a “Blessing Of The Bikes”. Not sure about the theological implications of that, just know it’s a great way to get dozens of the guys into church!

+ Watching a news story about Twittering. Still not into that – does that make me a dinosaur?

A friend of mine made a very good observation a few weeks ago that made me rethink an essential, even fundamental component of our church’s life – the coffee we serve.

When we switched to Starbucks a few years ago, serving their coffee in their cups with Starbucks sleeves and Starbucks napkins there was a reason behind it. The idea was to provide something familiar for those going through the daunting experience of coming into the CATMO world for the first time. It was intended for the coffee to be the friend we always look desperately for when we walk into a room full of strangers – something familiar to latch on to.

Of course all the Starbucks paraphernalia was also intended to say – “We’re cool!”

But as my friend pointed out - in the new reality of life in the AIG, Bernard Madoff, hope-I-can-hold-onto-my-job era, what Starbucks says is something quite different. It says, “Look at me, I’ve got money to burn on a vastly overpriced cup of Jo!”

Few people know that we got our coffee at a bargain price through a good connection inside the company, but I think my friend is right on when he suggests that changing times mean that brand names might convey different messages.

So over the next couple of Sundays we’ll be using up our stock of what has never been my personal favorite when selecting my choice of poison and will then be moving onto a different brand of quality coffee served in simple, patterned cups. Hopefully it will communicate something positive and we will still save some money too.

Anyway, I think it’s the outstanding, friendly service that really makes our cafe rock and our volunteers do the best job of putting guests at ease!