Sorry about that all, I have been a bit out of it, as well as in the thick of it. Since the last time I posted, Amy and I answered God's call to serve in the Teen Ministry, I headed to S.U.D.S. U for work, Amy and I attended our first retreat as a married couple, and then I'm on day four of five of my vacation time.
Well, about the Teen Ministry, Amy and I felt we didn't want to be that uninvolved newlywed couple that wasn't contributing to the mission. On many occasions, Amy had conversations with couples wondering how we could serve the Teen Ministry. With my schedule, I don't know how affective I could be, but the Fleurants were pretty passionate about us being there. When we shared with them our concerns about my time and our future as a newlywed couple, they were surprised that was it, and told us not to worry. Anyway, God is moving and I am excited to see what He has in store for the eight of us (Mike and Jody May, Dan and Kelly Satterfield, Janet and Herve Fleurant, and Amy and I).
S.U.D.S. stands for Seek to Understand Deliver Success. It is a five day program put on by my company for "newly" hired managers. We spend the week in a class room for eight or so hours, learning DiSC profiles, Situational Leadership, Vision Quest (catchy term for our financial plan), how to be the Employer of Choice and other miscellaneous classes about our company. Anyway, it was good to be away for a few days to get a little perspective on being a Restaurant Builder.
The retreat Amy and I went to was the Family Group Leader Retreat for the Denver Church of Christ. The main speaker was Gordon Ferguson from the Phoenix Valley Church of Christ. He has author a few books and has served as Evangelist, Elder and Teacher in many different churches around the world. The retreat was about a few different things. Friday night, we had a lesson called Come, Let Us Rebuild based on Nehemiah and how he lead the people to rebuild the wall. Saturday morning, was Moving Forward: Discipleship, which was a call back to one-on-one discipling. In the later part of the morning we separated in to men and women and we an incredible lesson about having a Visionary Heart, with understanding God only makes our dreams for us. After lunch was a question and answer period with both Gordon and Theresa where there was nothing off limit. That made me struggle a bit, in my gut I didn't feel good about questions that implied our leadership group wasn't able to serve the flock as it need them to. Sunday was epic, and I'm grateful for sending the long awaited mission team to Fort Collins as well as an incredible lesson on faith.
As for day four of five off, we pretty much spent the day not getting much done. We slept a bunch, we ate some, we got groceries and then went out to eat with Greg and Kate Battin, our neighbors. It was right before we went to dinner I realized it's been so long since I last left a blog. Anyway, we're home now, and I have to get on with cleaning up some more and having my quite time.
