Steven Cole

This past week was the district conference for the Northern California district of the Brethren Church.  It was great.  My pastor, Rickey Bolden, from New Community Church in LaGrange, GA was our speaker.  He did a great job of motivating our congregations and encouraging us in our evangelistic efforts.  For our church, he challenged us to not wait on our building revitalization efforts.  He was successful in coordinating churches to help us with our building project and giving us the confidence to complete it in 6 months.  Our goal is to finish it by the end of October so we can celebrate the completion of the project and reintroduce ourselves to the community.  What was great was that we had people who had not pledged toward our building project turn in pledge cards!

Even more exciting was that we had people volunteer their gifts toward making our church better.  One guy volunteered to help us organize our efforts to connect people as they come into our church community.  I am excited to see how we get ourselves organized as we help people connect with God and our community.  Thanks to all of you who helped make our weekend so great.  Please stay motivated about what God is doing in our community!

“The last information revolution, triggered by the invention of the printing press and moveable type, took only 50 years to put the monks out of their centuries-long monopoly in the information industry.  The latest information revolution carries implications just as far-reaching for the church today.” - A Work of Heart by Reggie McNeal

Ok, I don’t know if it is California, the books that I am reading, or my unwillingness to pay nearly $4.00 per gallon for gas, but I bought a bike the other day.  For 2 takes of gas in my truck, I can more that pay for the bike I purchased.  Beth and I talked about me buying a bike even before we moved out here…so I finally did it.  It isn’t an expensive bike, but it does look cool! I have ridden it to spanish class a few times now and this morning, I rode it to a breakfast meeting I had with a guy from the church. What makes my bike really convenient is that there is a bike trail that runs right next to our house. I can get on the bike trail and go all the way across town with very little traffic issues!

Here is a picture of it locked to the lamp post outside the coffee shop I am in now! It is RAD! (I think that is what they used to say about bike stuff when I was a kid!)

Sunday is Maggie’s Birthday.  She is 4!  Read Beth’s blog here.  It says it all!

I have started spanish classes at the local adult school here in Manteca.  I am trying to use my spanish in everyday situations, so I asked the girl at the local Taqueria if I could order in spanish…I was sucessful and it was delicious.  I just finished my spanish class tonight, so in honor of spanish class, the rest of this blog will be in spanish!

Hoy, Yo ordende mi comida usando espanol.  La muchacha estuvo muy util porque respondio solamente en espanol.  Debo hallar otro oportunidades practicar mi espanol si quiero estar mejor.

Yo espero este es correcto.

Adios

I am off today and Maggie and I are hanging out. We just finished cutting out paper worms and we watched a few “Ask a Ninjas” on iTunes, so she and I decided that she would help me with my next blog entry!

So here goes!

Princesses fairytale blogs!

When Cinderella went down the stairs, she lost her slipper and everything went back to normal…and it was the same with Ariel and prince Eric met each other and Ursala stole her voice…and so does beauty and the beast…the beast was scary and then the beast got nice and the beast got married to Belle

Tinker Bell has all her fairy friends, but she doesn’t have any prince charming or anything

This is Maggie’s first blog…I love princesses…

Maggie’s Next blog will be about Mickey Mouse!

Go…Mickey Mouse club house song goes like this….”The Mickey Mouse club house…it is fun inside, so come inside!”

Pluto is Mickey’s dog…Goofy is so silly…Donald is so silly after goofy! And sometimes Minny gets shy about stuff…Minny was taking some soup to Goofy and Pete was following her…it was kind of like “Little Red RidingHood”…it was silly that Pete was following her…

That is all from Play house Disney…

Maggie’s next blog is about her imaginary friend “Logan”

Have you ever heard of Logan flying a plane…he really likes flying planes, so we built him a plane that shoots out rainbows out of the back and the front…he loves to fly planes, so we painted it rainbow color…so he flied it back to California…

That is it for Maggie’s blogs…she is tired of blogging…she will write more later if she is up to it!

Beth and I went to have breakfast/lunch today and stopped to take this picture in the Walmart parking lot…on top of the snowbank is the picture of Maggie in her bathing suit…she, Evan, and Aiden played on the water slide on Easter Sunday!!! TWO DAYS AGO! You got to love warm climates! You can click the picture for the full effect!

Beth and I are now here in Ohio for a pastor’s conference.  On the plane out of San Francisco we sat next to a man from Alabama.  We told him that we had lived in LaGrange, GA, and he started talking about how he loved to go eat at a restaurant in LaGrange called ‘Hoofers.’  For those who don’t know, Hoofers is about 500 yards from our house back in LaGrange…Then, when we had finally made it to the hotel in Ohio, we were being checked in and the front desk attendant started telling us how her son was attending college at Toccoa Falls College in north Georgia…

In another “small world story,” Dan, my friend from college and roommate in Georgia (BB…before beth!), called me today and told me a story about his sister having a conversation with her small group leader.  She and the small group leader were talking about Dan and he asked what his last name was…well, it turns out that Dan’s sister’s small group leader was Dan’s first roommate in college and someone I added to my Facebook friends list just 2 days ago…Jack Griffin!

I love stuff like this…You can go anywhere and find a connection with someone!

A couple of days ago I changed my ringtone on my phone to “I can still make Cheyenne” by George Strait. Today Maggie and I were driving to lunch and she started singing that song on her own. I was completely shocked that she remembered the words even though she had only heard it a couple of times since changing my ringtone. I asked her about the song and she told me it was her “favorite cowboy song” and asked if would play it for her from my phone. She a Texan even though she has never lived there!

I knew my daughter was smart…she has a genius mother…but now I know she is a genius with common sense and incredible taste in music. George will aways be the man…and that song is one of his best!

Here is the song…I found it on youtube without some really bad home video attached to it!

Yesterday I went to listen to Reggie McNeal speak to a small group of pastors.  He said a lot, but this has been stuck in my head.

During our time together, he often spoke about how people did not need more buildings or places to come to, but the church should be taking the gospel to the people who need it.  Gone are the days of “if you build it, they will come.”  When asked how the church of the future will resolve itself with buildings and property.  Reggie’s response great.

“I know I am not going to talk you out of building new buildings.  Instead of building a something just for the church, build something the community needs and then the church can figure out how to borrow it.”

He went on to tell stories about how people are now building community centers and other places that are built so the people in the community can have their needs met.  How awesome would it be if our communities saw our churches as places where they can get their needs met? (Matthew 25:31-46)

That is what I have been thinking about since yesterday.  I will blog some more thoughts on Reggie’s talk later!