Vacation day five was a very relaxing day. We started the morning by continuing our church hunt, trying to find something closer to home where we feel welcome, comfortable, and moved to worship the Lord.Prior to moving to Indianapolis, we attended Maryland Community Church in Terre Haute, where we still return on occasion for the eXchange Community Worship led by Pastor Scot Longyear. It's a ninety minute drive to go there, so we have been hoping to find something closer to home. We have visited several Indianapolis churches in the past few months, and have had a difficult time finding a place that we can call "home." In most cases, my wife and I both know right away whether the church we're in feels like home or not. More accurately, we both have known right away that the church doesn't feel like home. We haven't yet found a church that we have felt we could call home. Until, possibly, today.
Our church hunt took us this morning to Common Ground Christian Church on Illinois Street in Indianapolis. We were running a bit behind this morning, as my wife wasn't feeling well, so things were already under way when we arrived for the 11am service.As we arrived, we were shocked to see the sanctuary so full that we were concerned there might not be two seats together for us to sit. My wife thinking she might have seen some place for us to sit, we decided to drop off the kids and join the worship service.
We had to find our own way to the children's worship area. That wasn't difficult, as there was one main hallway directly outside the sanctuary, and there were signs clearly marking what each room was. We first took our daughter to the toddler class. We were greeted there by a nice gentleman who made us feel welcome and told us how to get to the Kindergarten class to drop off my son. We were greeted there as well, and for the first time in quite some time, my son wasn't resistant to being left in the class.
When we returned to the sanctuary, we found that there indeed were not two seats together for us. Instead, we went up to the balcony and took two seats in the back row. Not normally where we would want to sit, but we were latecomers to the service.
The service today opened with five or six people on the stage reading the entire book of Jonah. We arrived to our seats just as they finished reading and the worship leader took over.
The worship was led by one man, playing an acoustic guitar, with no backup band. There were drums, keyboards, and other band equipment on the stage, but for some reason today the worship band consisted of one person on acoustic guitar. Interestingly enough, that was all that was needed, as you could actually hear all the way up into the balcony the entire congregation joining in the singing. It was quite inspirational. In fact, before the Pastor even took the stage, my wife jotted a note to me that read:
I think I like this church. We'll see after the message.Communion took place before the Pastor took the stage, and once again we were exposed to the unusual form of Communion that I have referred to as a modified form of intinction. Though it isn't the form of Communion we've grown accustomed to, it appears to be quite commonly practiced in Indianapolis, and we are starting to get used to it.
The Pastor delivered a message from the 4th chapter of Jonah (see link above), about choices. Most notably, we were not created to live outside of Eden. Are we choosing to move toward Eden, or away from it? I won't share all of my notes here, as I'll likely post some commentary on it this week at Soapy Joe. I'll add an updated link here
After the sermon, the worship leader returned to the stage during a time for people to make a decision for Christ. As I stated in last week's article, my wife and I prefer a longer time of corporate worship after the message to give people more time to make a decision. No church as of yet has done it this way.
One of the most notable things about the service was what appeared to be the total absence of a time to take an offering. Unless this happened at the very opening of the service before the reading from the book of Jonah, then there was no offering taken during the service.
Most importantly, I think, was the fact that both of my children said they enjoyed the children's worship, that they wanted to return again, and my son actually remembered what his teaching had been about (Esther).
I think we'll be returning again soon to Common Ground, though we will certainly plan to arrive early enough to be seated closer to the front of the sanctuary and to ensure we don't miss the beginning of the service. I'm not completely decided yet, but we may very well have found a local church that we can call home.
After church, we did a little grocery shopping and returned home, where I grilled one of the juiciest, most tender steaks I have ever eaten, as well as veggies for my wife, garlic & onion corn, and hot dogs for the kids. It was our Labor Day cookout, since we'll be spending my son's fifth birthday tomorrow at King's Island.Today was a nice relaxing day, getting the kids to bed early so they can get plenty of rest for tomorrow. I have just three days left before returning to work, and tomorrow will likely be the busiest of them all.
Your comments?
Joe
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This fourth day of vacation has been all about my son. He turns five on Monday, and today we had some family and friends over for his birthday party. With nine adults and seven kids here, we had a pretty full house.
The hit of the day, I think, was the new basketball goal that we got for our son. He first started playing basketball when he was three years old, learning the basics in a program at the 
And on a note that is only related to my vacation by the fact that I'm on vacation at the same time that this was unveiled, I want to share with you the stage being set up for the Republican National Convention. I don't know yet if this is actually where Senator McCain plans to officially accept his parties nomination for President, but compare this stage with the 
Day three of my vacation was no less eventful than the first two, but most of it was spent at home.
At some point before Senator McCain made his announcement, my son and I headed up to the play room to finish our new design on his Thomas and Friends Wooden Railway (can't quite see it all in this picture). We completely rebuilt the entire layout of the track, and I then proceeded to spend a couple of hours anchoring it down with screws so that the kids can play with it without the track sliding out of place or the upper levels of the track falling over. We must have done a pretty good job of it, as my son played with the thing for hours after we finished it. He used to spend a great deal of time playing with his wooden trains, and now that my daughter is starting to show an interest in it, too, I hope to see his interest resparked.
In the middle of our wooden railway project, I took the kids out for lunch and ice cream while my wife put the finishing touches on my son's birthday cake. He'll turn five on Labor Day, and we're having some friends and family over tomorrow to celebrate (we'll be going to 
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Vacation can be such a wonderful thing. Even though we don't have any major travel plans, I think I'm actually having my best vacation yet.
My wife had some crazy coffee concoction to drink that isn't really coffee at all, I had a cup of coffee, and my children both had juice boxes while we sat down and started working on our masterpieces. I never claimed to have any artistic ability, and the mug in the picture (I'm sure you can pick mine out quite easily) proves it. I thought it would be cool to have a mug with a hand painted logo of the site, which I will certainly use whenever I partake of my coffee. We had fun, and we were treated very nicely -- they even remembered our name, but that's just a result of the squeaky wheel getting the grease -- and were told that our items would be ready in a couple of weeks (sounds like they may have learned something about under-promising and over-delivering, as well). My wife and I are both anxious to get back our coffee mugs. My son, of course, got a little carried away and painted one of the meanest looking snakes I have ever seen.
After leaving Rock Paper Scissors, my wife decided to drive a little further into Greenfield to see what we have missed (we usually turn left at that intersection and have never driven straight through). We came across 
I then took my son upstairs to the play room while my daughter was napping, and we began the process of reassembling his Thomas and Friends play table. We had to run to 
While making music selections and working on the show, my wife and I watched Senator Barack Obama make his formal acceptance speech on the last night of Obamafest. To say that I found myself inspired, moved, or in any other way affected by the rhetoric would be an overstatement. I just pray that voters across the country will open their eyes before November and cast a smart vote, not an emotional vote.
Today is my first of eight vacation days. We don't have any major travel plans, just plans for some day trips and some things to do around Indy. Today, we took the kids downtown to the 
There's even a "theater" area, with a large seating area that faces a stage with a 
After leaving the library quite disappointed, we decided to go for a walk along the 
After more than three hours of walking, we decided to stop for some dinner before heading home. My wife had heard of a place called 
But not impossible, as 
I'm no superhero, and no better than the next guy. I simply love my God, my wife, and my children. I would never want to do anything to hurt any of them. I know that if I was engaged in viewing pornography on the Internet (or anywhere else, for that matter), and my wife discovered it, she would be devastated. She would feel victimized and violated by the man who professes to love her with all that he is. While my daughter is not yet of an age to understand what pornography is, any impact that such behavior might have on my marriage would affect her. And the last thing I want to teach my son is that it's okay to exploit women in such a way as pornography does. I want my son to learn respect, not exploitation.
I don't consider it acceptable for we as a society to label every undesirable habit that comes along as addiction just because we don't have the conviction or determination to break these bad habits. I once was both physically and psychologically addicted to smoking. Physically addicted to nicotine, and psychologically addicted to the need to smoke a cigarette. The very act of lighting up, holding the cigarette between my fingers, and blowing the smoke out of my lungs was sometimes heavenly. Seriously. If you're a smoker, you probably understand.
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