Update time . . .

Tommorrow morning I open at Starbucks - for the last time. Then I'll hang up the green apron and walk away. Mixed feelings there. I'm glad for the time I've spent working for the company. It's given me the chance to meet a lot of quality people and drink a lot of free coffee. But I feel good about leaving this behind. I live in the Seattle area now, and it's time to explore the rest of the coffee world.

So, we've lived here for a month now. It's been good. The weather has been all over the place - a little snow, a little rain, but a good lot o' sunshine. We've met some really cool people. Had a lot of kingdom conversations. I've met quite a few church planters - in fact, we're having dinner with one tommorrow night. I've had a chance to preach in one small church, and in a couple of weeks I'll start a four week run preaching in another. I've had meaningful conversations with a door-to-door sales person, a coffee shop barista, a missionary kid who is trying to make sense of faith in a different world than seems to fit with how she was raised, and a couple of established pastors in the area. There are some good people.

It's interesting to me that different people have very different perceptions of the spiritual soil here. Some believe that the Northwest is very dark and difficult. Others think that it's a very open place - one where conversations come easy and people are willing to talk about faith. My perception is probably in the middle. I've found spiritual conversations very easy to come by, but I'm not so sure that means that people are really willing to get personal with their faith. I would say that people are spiritually permissive here, but I can't tell yet whether they're spiritually motivated or involved. We'll find out.

I'm looking forward to the next phase of life. I'll be shifting in a decidedly bi-vocational direction. I'll be a tentmaker by day and active in ministry by night. Thankfully, I believe my tentmaking activity will be of ministry value, even though I'll be limited in what I can do. We haven't gotten a real clear direction just yet as to where we'll be involved in ministry, but we'll be active.