I wonder what the deal is . . . I just haven't been drawn to blog or read other blogs very much lately. Perhaps it's a phase, perhaps not. Over the past couple of years that I've spent in the blogosphere, I've noticed that a lot of bloggers go through times when they either go on a blog sabbatical, quit altogether, or just post sporadically like I've been doing. Maybe this is just my time.

I've been faced with some directional questions lately regarding what my "side job" should be. I've worked at a Starbucks shop for about seven months now. I've had a lot of fun with it and I've met a ton of people there, which was my real goal. My problem is that at the time I took the job, I chose that particular Starbucks because it was in the area where we were planning to plant the new church. Since that time, our church plant location has changed, and I find myself selling coffee to/making friends with people who are about 20 minutes away. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with representing the kingdom and making friends like that, but I'm really feeling the need to do something else. I could either a) get a job in my church home area that fills the same function of meeting people and announcing the kingdom of Jesus, or b) get a side job in which I could make better money in order to free up more time for the church plant. This past week I was ready to make a move in one of those directions, and then some new information became available which threw things right back into questioning mode. Uggh! It's not like these are monumental life changing kinds of decisions I'm faced with, but they are important enough to be a pain in the butt.

In happier news, I was able to hang out with Chad the other day. I had met his wife, Kristi, (while working at Starbucks, by the way) a few weeks ago and found out that they are planting a church not too far from here. So Chad and I met to introduce ourselves to one another and see how we can encourage each other. We come from similar church backgrounds and have some common motivations for church planting. We are employing different approaches to church and probably don't see eye to eye on some of the socio-cultural aspects of church, but that's o.k. He's a cool guy, and I'm glad we could talk. We'll probably continue to meet about once a month to encourage each other and hopefully enhance both churches' vision and direction.

This week may be an important one for our new church. We're going to have a dinner at our house and invite everyone we know in our home town (which will only amount to a small handful). We have some things we're planning to share with them. They all have churches of their own, so we won't be trying to recruit them (truth is, most of them wouldn't be a good fit for us and vice-versa). But we're trying to extend our web of relationships in our community.

Oh, and one final note . . . I've been testing out a new toy which may be making its home in my kitchen soon. It's a most fabulous espresso machine:


Is there a twelve step program for this stuff? If so, I don't want to know about it.