It has been dawning on me lately that we are getting increasingly closer to launching our second campus in September and also that there are a million things still to be done. Today helped me to get a few things straight in my mind, to start some stuff rolling and to end it feeling more on top of things than I have for some time.

One very helpful part of the afternoon was a phone conversation with a church planter I know who is about to kick off his 973rd church plant in a remote part of Texas – by which I mean he’s not in Dallas or Houston which are the only two places down there I know. www.skylinevalley.org

Tim Fowler is only in his 30’s yet he already has an outstanding grasp on what it takes to get a new church under way. So I figured I’d run a few things by him about our Mastic launch. While I appreciated all he said, the biggest thing I came away with was I think I’ve got a good idea about how we’ll angle our advertising.

I love the theme and think it will work well for the start of fall on both campuses.

What is it? I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you – because I haven’t shared it with our pastoral team yet. Sorry, but you’ll have to wait!

God has blessed me with some very good friends – thanks Timbo!

Monday is my down day and the request I received from she-who-must-be-obeyed was that we spend the afternoon at the beach doing nothing. Since summer has made a long awaited, brief appearance on Long Island, I had no problem complying and headed out to Cedar Beach with a book, beach chairs, an umbrella and some cold drinks.

However, I do have to confess I do not do well at sitting and doing nothing. When we went to Puerto Rico for eleven days last August, I spent the first three bored and irritated and the last three looking forward to home. (But I did enjoy the five middle days!) So I wondered how I would fare sitting on the sand today.

Much to my surprise, the five hours I eventually spent in the sun today – and I do have the sunburn to prove it – were very productive indeed.

Re-reading Andy Stanley’s book Making Vision Stick was definitely time well spent. Of course it was painful to admit he was right when he wrote that if people didn’t get the vision it’s generally the leader’s fault because he didn’t make it clear enough.

After finishing this small volume and reading the paper, I lay back and thought a lot, clarifying some things in my mind, finalizing the look of Sunday’s teaching, deciding on a suitable video and prioritizing the long list of things I need to address this week.

With Beatles music playing in the background from some inconsiderate sun worshiper’s boom box, I honestly think that a few miles away from the office, the phone and 101 other distractions, I accomplished more on my afternoon off than I do some afternoons sitting at my desk.

Maybe I should open a north shore office about 20 feet from Long Island Sound!

+ Just back from JFK, dropping off our son Jonathan and his children for their return flight to Dallas this evening. So good having them here. The place is very quiet without the kids.

+ Watching the Mets/Yankees game since I’m a loyal fan. Not expecting much from this Mets line-up, consisting of substitutes for the greater part, but you never know – that’s why they play the game.

+ Church was great today, band did great and Craig Groeschel brought an outstanding message for the final part of our One Prayer series. That guy is the real deal.

+ I haven’t checked the figures, but I have the notion that the last Sunday in June is one of our smallest attendances of the year. Looked that way. Several high schools did graduations today and that affected us. I heard that the NYC Schools’ Chancellor will personally present her diploma to a Jewish student in the city who can’t make her graduation ceremony because it’s on the sabbath. They don’t give a darn about Christians out here, so they do everything on a Sunday instead.

+ Met some new folks today – some good people.

+ We were down four key guys for set-up this morning, but those who were there did a phenomenal job.

+ Talked to an excited lady who had been praying for a neighbor for years and saw here come into the movie theater today. She told me she’ll be back.

+ Four weeks from tonight I fly to India – not really ready for more travel at the moment, but hopefully I will be by then. Flying Air India for the first time after avoiding it for years. I hear they have better planes now – we’ll see!

+ This week we’re checking out some of the equipment we already have that we will be putting into service in Mastic. Need a ton of stuff over the next few weeks so that we can be fully operational out there from day one.

+ Yankees fans weren’t very gracious today.

+ We had lunch at the Metropolis Diner on Rte 112 in Medford. I reckon it’s the best diner around and though it’s a hike from Ronkonkoma, it’s well worth it.

+ New series starts next Sunday – Keepin’ It Real. Looking forward to a few weeks in Acts, seeing church as God intended it.

Craig Groeschel hits it out of the park tomorrow morning when he teaches on God Is Love in the final part of our One Prayer series. You’ll love the way the lead pastor of one of the country’s largest and most progressive churches speaks with honesty about the fact that he doesn’t question that God is love, but rather has difficulty grasping that God would love him.

This has been a great series, with some top notch teaching and tomorrow is the icing on the cake.

I know the sun is shining for the second time in living memory, but you really want to be sure you don’t miss Sunday at Church At The Movies.

+ Sometime while I was sleeping, I aged a year – at least I’m saying it was then as I have no idea what time of day I was born on June 26th, 1950.

+ My mother always told me I was a surprise. The doctor told her she wasn’t pregnant, though she thought she was – and she obviously knew best, having been there a few times before.

+ I was born in the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital in Exeter, England one day after the start of the Korean War. The tension between North and South Korea is continuing and thankfully, so am I.

+ Anyone else remember 5 and 9, the Brighton Line?

+ I was born again on May 13th, 1962. I know the phrase has been brought into disrepute by narrow-minded bigots, but that’s what happened to me. I found new life, eternal life and a purpose for living.

+ I don’t miss Exeter because it’s just a place. No one really close to me still lives there. Life is about people and not places or things.

+ This year I am celebrating my birthday with my wife, our two children, our three grandchildren and my sister. That makes it very special.

+ I’ll be 60 this time next year – I don’t cherish the thought of that.

+ The Mets play the Yankees tonight – I hope they kick the Bronx Bombers’ butts to honor this special day.

+ I like to think I’ve got wiser as I’ve got older. I’m certainly less idealistic and far more understanding than I ever used to be.

+ I only honestly think about getting older when I look in a mirror. Physically I’m probably in the best shape I’ve been in since I was a child. Mentally, despite popular opinion, I reckon I’m as sharp as I’ve ever been and the best thing for me is that I’m thinking about cranking things up in life and not slowing down.

+ My father retired at 61, mainly to spend time helping my mother, who was not enjoying good health, but retirement is not on my radar. I don’t want to call it a day until my tank is on empty!

+ So at 59, I’ve learned a few things, enjoy life, love ministry, have a great church, enjoy a wonderful family, have more friends than anyone should legally be allowed and simply want to thank God that life is so good.

+ This really is a happy birthday, even if it’s my 59th!

It took me just a few moments to answer the question posed by a friend of mine on Facebook this evening. Tony Liston who leads a great church in Davenport, Iowa, asked people who have been pastoring for fifteen years or more if there is anything they wish they had taught better or more often than they did.

One month from now marks 39 years of pastoring for me, so there’s a long span to look back at and see where I fell short!

What do I wish I had taught better?

Let me say first of all that I think teaching is one of the stronger aspects of my ministry – and if you don’t believe that, you (wisely) never came to me for counselling or had me try to encourage you when you were lying in hospital sick. I love teaching and I guess I’ve done it thousands of times over the years.

But as I look back, on my earlier days in particular, I wish that I had made my teaching more practically applicable to the good people sitting in front of me. When your life is falling apart, you don’t really care that there are three main Greek words for love used in the New Testament, you just want to know how to survive.

Too much explanation and not enough application!

What do I wish I had taught more often?

That’s easy, grace.

I spent way too much time telling people how bad they were, how short of the mark they came and that they needed to shape up, without realizing they knew that already and if they could have fixed it they would have done so a long time ago. I should have preached way more about the grace of God that looked for us, found us, rescued us, took us in, is cleaning us up and will finish the job. I guess I understood it far less myself back then.

But it’s not too late to make amends – there is always the next 39 years to get it right!

The photo is me in 1976 when I was pastoring Bethesda Chrch in Swallownest, Sheffield, England

Took a ride to JFK this afternoon to meet my sister, who was arriving from the UK to spend a couple of weeks with us. Friday I was there to meet Jonathan and the kids off a Delta flight from Dallas and I’ll be taking them back there very reluctantly on Sunday.

I sometimes think my Expedition could easily makes it’s way to JFK unaided, as ever since we moved here 18 years ago, hellos and goodbyes in one or another of its terminals have become a regular part of our lives.

My first encounter with the former New York International Airport (and even earlier, Idlewild Airport) was in April 1984 on my first ever visit to the USA. My British Airways flight from London heathrow touched down early in the afternoon at Terminal 7, but I didn’t need to venture outside the building as I was traveling on to Norfolk, Virginia.

Over the next few years, it would become the hub for my ministry to churches all around the country as I flew into there and then off to other cities, north, south and west.

I would stay in airport hotels in Queens whilst preaching in Brooklyn churches and would be in awe of the busyness of this huge complex serving millions of travelers every year.

Little did I know back then that JFK would become part of my life and that one day, arriving at any of its terminals would mean that I was home. I never dreamed of possessing an American passport, or of passing through immigration in the U.S. citizens’ channel, but what did I know?

It has been one heck of a ride.

And the best is still to come, right here on Long Island, NY – just down the road from JFK.

Really good stuff over at my friend Tony McCollum’s blog today -

http://tonymccollum.com/2009/06/more-than-sunday

+ It was a dull, rainy morning again, 15th or 16th out of 21 days so far this month.

+ Grandsons were up and dressed at 6.00am, saying they wanted to leave for church early with me. It was fun to have them along.

+ It was not fun to have no on there to unlock the movie theater for us. For the first time in almost two years at this location, someone had dropped the ball. We owe our regular Sunday morning manager, Mike, who was meant to be having a late start today. He responded quickly to my phone call and helped us out by coming over asap.

+ We got into the building 42 minutes late, but our guys had the basics all set up in a record 45 minutes. God bless them, they worked their tails off.

+ Gremlins in the sound system today. Joey did a great job battling with it the whole morning.

+ Everyone was slow coming in, but we had a decent crowd for a June Sunday. I had a great time in NC last weekend, but it was good to be back with our folks. Some even said they missed me – well, one actually!!!

+ Because we have a very relaxed environment, a lot of folks don’t hussle to get into service. The hallways were crowded with groups of people shooting the breeze 15 minutes after we had started. Don’t want to be oppressive, but I do wish we could get everyone to see the benefit of joining in the opening worship.

+ Dino Rizzo brought a great message about the deaf and dumb man Jesus healed, entitled God is here and anything can happen. He talked about how faith happens, love happens, spit happens and hope happens. Good stuff. Looking forward to Craig Groeschel finishing the series off for us next week. His opening story is hilarious – if you have a slightly twisted sense of humor, like me!

+ Good lunch at The Curry Club with the family (minus Jace who was off to watch the Mets with his father), plus our adopted son Rohan and another young friend from India who is studying in NY, Aldrich. Ate way too much.

+ Mets are pretty sad again today – taking the family to watch them on Thursday afternoon. Let’s hope they can scrape a win then behind Santana.

+ Got a great Father’s Day gift – tickets to see Paul McCartney in concert next month, at the first ever concert at CitiField. Looking forward to seeing one of my teenage favorites live after almost 50 years.

+ Looks like Obama is recording a “no vote” again when it comes to the Iranian situation. He got away with that during his brief career in the US Senate, but as leader of the free world, maybe he could venture to offer a significant opinion like other world leaders? A boy doing a man’s job!

This has been a very busy couple of days, since returning from NC and without question the highlight has been the arrival of our son  and his children from Texas to be with us for ten days. With Charlotte away for a couple of days, we have also had our other grandson here, so all three of these great kids are under our roof with the ensuing chaos you might expect.

I grew up in a good family – dirt poor, but good.

While we didn’t have a lot, we did have each other and though separated by several thousand miles, our good relationship continues to this day.

Family is important to me. Very important. While the past couple of years have presented serious challenges and heartaches, it is a wonderful thing that we have been able to go through those trying times together.

It’s so good to have all the family around. Over the next few days we’ll talk a lot, laugh a lot, eat more than we should, enjoy interaction with the kids and generally enjoy each other.

There’s a family flavor to this wekend as Fathers’ Day is a family celebration. I hope yours is good – mine has been made for me by having three very special young people around.