Wow..what a weekend..

well..it started with the fact that we now have one full time pastor on staff... then..
A long time member of our church had a heart attack and had surgery and got very sick.
Another long time member of our church passed away.
Another church family member was having surgery.

I talked the situation over with Kathy..our only full time pastor and we thought it might be a good idea for me to go to Dallas and pay a visit to our church family member that had the heart issues. Kathy was handling a funeral and going to visit our member having surgery.. First I was going to make a day of it..run up there and back...Since Donna was out of town and all I have is a hot, un-air conditioned pick-up truck I thought..hmm might be fun to go with my son and then we could take that new nissan cube.. with a/c. I also checked in with my daughter to see if she might like to have a lunch or brunch with me/us but she was busy going to Tyler and couldn't make it.. oh well..

Spoke to Austin but he had to work Saturday afternoon. I decided to get a hotel Friday night to make the trip less hard and we could bum around together a little along with making the visit to our church friend.

He made arrangements to get off work Saturday night and he thought he'd be through around 6:30 Friday and we could leave then.. sounds like a nice relaxing Saturday with my son..

A party shows up at the FUMC CLC that they thought had cancelled their party.. but I guess they didn't...so he had to stay late.. I went to FCC and moved some things around to make room for Jinx to play on Sunday morning.. I then went to FUMC to help my son move things around so he could leave..

and I didn't plan on this part...but that whole moving red padded chairs around in the gym became an amazing spiritual flashback moment for me that night... hundreds of times I moved those chairs around to set up for Upward Basketball on Saturday morning (we didn't have bleachers) and move them around again to set up for church (Center Court Service) in that same gym. A long time ago I said that gym smelled like Jesus...still does smell like Jesus to me!!

Anyway..the unplanned working late got us out of Lufkin around 9:30 and it was raining. Not fun to drive in. We stopped a couple of times to eat and to wake up etc.. of course I'm doing some twitter/fb posts along the way and my daughter calls me to see if we can have breakfast together Saturday morning since we're coming up Friday night. OK...

I finally get in bed around 2 a.m...

I'm up around 6:30 to try and find out if I had decent service at the Ex and to see if I need to be on a conf call.. and I'm groggy and not moving too fast but we finally get going and pick Hannah up around 10 and have a brunch..well really just an early lunch.. then we drop her off for a meeting she has to go to at 11 and we head back to Dallas...FYI.. DFW does not fully impart how far apart the D and the FW are.. especially in rain and slow traffic.

We go and have a great visit with our church family at Baylor... we then decide that we need to find puma shoes.. we drive around Dallas for a while and finally get to the Galleria... we eat there and the Genghis Grill and it was great. One bowl filled us up.. I know it's just a dollar more for the all you can eat but we had all we could eat.. we hang around go to a couple of stores and it looks like the puma shopping is going to be a zero.. I mean we were leaving the mall and I decided to google puma's and the finish line (which we had never heard of) has them.. we go find it and Austin gets these.

We finally head out of Dallas for L-town and drive in more rain. By the way the cube drives great..rides pretty nice and handled the crappy weather very well. We roll in to Lufkin about 9 and I find out our only full time pastor...Pastor Kathy...has the flu.. Sunday morning was not an issue..really except now I was going to have to get up earlier.. but I now had a funeral to do too. My first one ever..

Up early Sunday..wishing I was still in bed... church was great in both services. I went home and read over some notes.. put on my seldom worn suit and performed my first funeral.. it was a blessing to be there and I was glad I got to be a part of that family's celebration of life.

Then home..sat still for a few minutes then went and did music for the youth.. got done around 8:00 p.m....

and then...do you ever get so tiered and keyed up you can't go to sleep? I was up past midnight.

Ugh!!!! and when that alarm went off this morning I did NOT want to get out of bed...I drug my self out.. a little late and got to the Ex around 7.

I am looking so forward to a quiet restful evening tonight...maybe even a nap when I get home. It was a great weekend.. no doubt about it... but hope I don't have any more like it in a while. I do need a day off now and then.

Hello again everyone..

My name is Artie Anderson.. I'm 49 years old..I work for a fortune 100 transportation company and I'm also an associate pastor at First Christian Church in Lufkin Tx and I lead contemporary worship..

Ok, so I've been gone a while. Life has been a little stressful..crazy..depressing at times...joyful at times but this has been one of the most eventful seasons in my life over the last few months and I didn't have the time, energy or desire to blog. Facebook and twitter are my outlets most of the time but I would still like to keep this avenue open for communications that are a little more involved..

I don't want to make this too long.. and Lord knows I can but I'd like to recap the last few months.

Hannah graduated

I had to fire someone that I hired over 10 years ago and cared a great deal about

I was very anxious about my own work situation because of what had gone on with my employee

A friend of mine had that female surgery and experienced some very bad things..got very sick..

My wife had that female surgery... I was of course very anxious about what was going on with her because of what had happened to my friend. (She is doing very well by the way)

I found out that 2 of my closest friends and confidants were going to leave my church and become pastors in other churches

I had to take my baby girl to TCU to start her college career

We had a big send off ceremony for my two friends/co-pastors/

I'm a guy that is not afraid to cry..I find it healthy and cleansing for me...I'm also a big baby and can't help it.

It's strange...I've been very guarded during this time... not on purpose.. I just haven't been weepy.. that's weird for me. Hope I'm not getting old and crusty..

I haven't been very good about my eating during this time..too much stress. Donna is making me get back now.

Fortunately I haven't gained back too much.. a visit to my Dr. let me find out that I was still lighter than when I started this a while back.

I won't be as rigid as before but I've got to get back on the program. I have things I want to do and enjoy doing.

This isn't a blog about dieting but food is a part of all that we do. I hope I don't let it control me.

I'll share more about more as time goes on..

Going shopping for a birthday gift for my son... it won't be too big.. he did get this because of the cash for clunkers program.

Peace folks..

Rule of Life

As a licensed minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) I have an educational component that I have to complete each year. This year that educational piece was spiritual formation. It was taught by Dr. Tim Hessel-Robinson from Brite divinity school at TCU.

It has been a very good class this year and has challenged me as well as convicted me. I had 3 books to read. Soul Feast, Thirsty for God and Practicing our Faith. As I read them in many ways I felt so insufficient in my spiritual walk. A few years ago as a lay person I was very devoted to reading the bible and doing bible studies and had a rich, full prayer life. As my plate became more full as a part-time pastor I began reading other spiritual books but my bible reading stopped. My prayer life was still there but not as strong.

As time went on and some work challenges increased my reading came to a halt and my prayer life became more random. I've really not been very focused spiritually over the last couple of years.. Throw in a Disciples history class with a ton of reading last year and my spiritual disciplines came to a halt...

Enter spiritual formation class. I knew it was something I needed but my life had a bad routine and it was not something that was going to be easy to get back in to. I didn't even get the first book read before the first class.

This discussions in class were very good. I enjoyed how Tim led each class like a worship service. It made it different and cast a completely different atmosphere over the situation had he not done so. We had 3 classes through the year. The first one focusing on personal spirituality, the second on community (church/SS etc), and the third focused on social engagement (justice etc).

As we moved through the class I was really feeling my spirit drawn back to a set of spiritual disciplines like I used to hang on to a few years ago..but I just wouldn't make the jump.

The last session began with some awesome discussions on earth care. It is to much to discuss here (may blog on it more later) but it gets my heart beating thinking about it again right now. Here are some links..

http://www.greenfaith.org/
http://www.webofcreation.org/
http://www.earthministry.org/
http://renewalproject.org/

So then we go in to the afternoon session and we go back to that first book that I never finished.. called Soul Feast.. and we go to the end and Tim begins discussing a Rule of Life. They discuss it in Chapter 9 of the book. "A rule of life is a pattern of spiritual disciplines that provides structure and direction for growth in holiness."Marjorie Thompson (author) has some examples of rules of life different people have had. Different things that they do. Tim then asks us to put together our own rule of life to begin on Monday..

Dang.. just what I needed and just what I was not prepared to do on my own. Groups of us at tables put together our own rules and discussed them with each other and then we discussed them in the class for all to hear.

This is what I came up with.

Rule of Life for Artie

Daily
Morning
Get up and walk for 30-45 minutes
15 minutes of prayer
15 minutes of reading
clean up and go to work
be sure and listen to some spiritual music during the day.

Evening
30 minutes of reflection/meditation/prayer

Weekly- Some kind of recreation -softball, racquetball, dancing, biking, bowling, hiking, whatever but something that moves and is fun.

Quarterly-
24 hours of silence and fasting
serve at cisc, love inc., or other charitable organization
find something I can change about my life to make it more green and do it daily.

Annually-
Emmaus walk or other spiritual retreat
Mission trip

Tim told us to type it up with fancy letters on nice paper and frame it and post it someplace where we would see it daily...in our office, home etc. He also told us to not make it a burden.. it is a framework to live in to create a rhythm for living and spiritual growth.

He also told us that we should try what we put down for a couple of weeks then tweak it and make sure it works for us.

Well I've been at it for a week so far. It has been hard getting up at 5:00 a.m. and beginning my walk.. I've had some late nights and I've hit the snooze and put me a little behind. I've traded a few minutes of sleep for a few minutes of prayer/meditation a couple of mornings but I know I can also do that on the road with God as well.

The toughest part has been the evening time of reflection/meditation and prayer. Too much going on around the house and too much going on in my life it seems. I may have to re-think this part.. either that or just make it a little shorter but I'm going to work on it for another couple of weeks before I adjust.

I've also got to give myself a little time to get over my jet lag or whatever you want to call it. I get in to a sleepy funk every time we do a time change so this has been much like this.. so it hasn't been easy...but I guess if it was, everyone would do it. Well that sounded kind of arrogant..didn't mean for it too. How about this.. If it were easy it really wouldn't be a sacrifice.

So overall, living in to the rule has been good so far and I'm looking forward to my quarterly activities. I really appreciate the fact that Dr. Hessel-Robinson came and taught our licensed minister classes this year. It was a real blessing. He did a lot to enrich my life and the lives of others in the class.

It also got me walking more...7 1/2 miles last week. Big change from weeks before. Kinda holistic I think.. thanks Tim!! Very much!!

Sunday's worship.. 3/8/09

This Sunday we did some cool creative/experiential stuff... it really touched some people to actually write "Child of God" on a name badge and wear it.. it was very meaningful.

On the other side they wrote all the things that they were, could be names or titles .. I wrote husband, father, song writer, worship leader, freight guy, friend, bald guy, fat guy, friend, lazy, workaholic, but the key thing is no matter what I'm called I'm a child of God.. here's how worship flowed..

March 8: Blessing

Prelude – Nelda (announcements on screen)

10:45 AM - Lighting of candles

Opening Praise Set

Give Thanks-Smth

Hallelujah (You’re Love is Amazing)- Brown/Doerksen

Stethoscope video

“I got a name” (Croce) – Artie

Welcome to FCC/Announcements (Mike)

Children’s Sermon (Kathy)

Greeting (introduce yourself with label – “Hi, I’m an accountant”)

Worship Set

Every Move I Make -Ruis

Wonderful Cross- Reeves, Tomlin, Walt, Watts, Mason

Short Prayer & LP (Cory)

Sermon – Genesis 17 (Mike)

Transition Music (Sing Hallelujah)-Stassen

(Elements and Guitars lead procession to FH)

Name Making Experience (Cory sets-up, background music on iPod)

Words of Institution (Mike)

Communion – at multiple stations (choir music)

Invitation (Wonderful Cross) Reeves, Tomlin, Walt, Watts, Mason

Prayer of Dismissal (Mike)

Postlude -Give Thanks-Smith

It was a very good Sunday, The experiment with recording practice and posting it on youtube for at home rehearsal for those who need it or can't make practice is still proving to be a big help to the Sunday morning offering by the team.. I really appreciate the effort they are putting in to making worship a priority.

Check out other Sunday worship offerings here

A comment on Perfectly Timing your Communion Walk

I posted this comment here.. read it...it's funny...his blog that is..



The silver spaceship comment had me rolling... Loved this one. We don't have to time our walk in our church though. But we do offer about all the ways you can do it without a common cup.

Early (casual..our code name for contemporary) everyone comes up by rows. They can 1. receive communion by intiction.. pull off a hunk of bread.. dip it in the juice and eat the elements at that time.

OR

at the same time option 2 is available..you can come forward eat a piece of bread and pick up a shot glass out of the silver space ship and drink.

OR

at the same time option 3 is available.. you can come forward, eat a bread chiclet and pick up a shot glass out of the silver space ship and drink.

OR

at 11:00 traditional service you can sit a la drive through and wait on the silver space ship to arrive in your lap along with it's smaller satelite sister ship carrying the bread/chiclets.
Option 1 here is eat a bread chiclet and take a shot glass out of the silver space ship...hold the glass..

OR

break off a piece of bread and take out a shot glass from the silver space ship..hold the glass.

We then say aloud our affirmation of faith and we partake of the cup (the little shot glasses) at one time.

I heard this part (the unison cup) is somewhat new from some older parishioners just last night as little shot glass holders had to be made and affixed to the back of the pews so everyone would have a place to put them once they have received the cup.

I think this is a wise choice as I think I might get confused at times with all those little cups in that big space ship and accidentally pick one up that maybe someone else just didn't do a good job of finishing off properly.

I think we do a very nice job of offering a wide variety of options for communion in our church..we're not little but we're not huge. Actually pretty amazing now that I think about it...how many options we offer.

My Friday..

I got up this morning.. I drank a cup of Starbucks coffee... ate some frosted mini wheats and some biscuits and gravy.






I loaded my luggage and the luggage of several people that were with me on to our church bus. We then left the T bar m resort in New Braunfels TX and drove across Texas back to Lufkin. On the way I dropped my son and my wife off in Conroe so they could go to a baby shower tomorrow.. ewwhh.... not for me. Hannah came with me because she has to work tonight.

I'm now sorting damp clothes and washing them so they don't mildew.

If I get enough done I might go see The Dark Knight tonight.. if not oh well. I do get to sleep in my own bed tonight.

4th of July Weekend

This weekend was an eventful weekend. First I have needed to replace the turn signal bulb on the left rear of my truck for a while now... surprised I haven't gotten a ticket yet.. on top of I have to get an inspection done..

I knew it would be a little different. I hadn't had to replace one on my truck before and I didn't see any immediate ways to get to the bulb. I looked it up on the internet and it looked pretty simple except I didn't have a star wrench. So I head to Advanced Auto parts and pick up one of these.














and a bulb..but of course it was the wrong one.. oh I checked the reference book in the store and it wasn't easy to tell which bulb I was supposed to buy so of course I get the cheaper one and of course it's the wrong one.

But I made my repairs in the auto parts store parking lot so frustration levels were very low because I wasn't driving back and fourth from Mantooth St and Gaslight Blvd.

Exchanged the bulb, made the repair and all was well.




























After Hannah got home from working at JYF camp we headed to Conroe to have a 4th dinner with family and shop for her a car. She now drives a 2006 Kia Spectra..



Yeah, she used to have a 67 mustang. Well I still do but I'm gonna sell it. She needs safety features not found on 67 mustangs. No more need be said. Learning experience for me..costly one.

We now have 5 cars in a 4 person family.



Came back Saturday and got up early Sunday and lead worship with Melissa Smith at church today. It was great. She sings so beautifully. Many nice things were said about how we sounded today. It was just great singing with my old friend and worshiping our God together.

Took a nap after having lunch with Mike and Enid..thank you again for lunch Mike. I enjoy our times together.

Then joined the rest of the adults to beat the kids of our church at softball and had some great grilled burgers and dogs after. And a grapette grape soda..mmmm mmm good!

Now I'm tired and about to go to sleep. It was a really good weekend.

CYLS last update..

some insight t0 my morning routine while I was at camp...

One of my video's evaporated..There was one more that would have been at the beginning of this video but it was just showing my phone as it goes off in the morning @ 6 and that explains the odd commentary at the beginning of this video.. Overall it was a great week. I was so blessed to be there and I hope that I was a blessing to others..

CYLS Region Rep Installation

Friday night Hannah was installed as a region rep for the Southwest Region of Christian Youth Leadership Council in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).. I like typing all of that.

Anyway.. it's an awesome honor to be called to such a leadership role.. servant leadership role.

This has been a huge..magnificent week spiritually and this really capped it off. Wonderful. Video isn't the greatest but it's all I had..

CYLS installment #1..

This week I'm at CYLS.. as I stated earlier. It's Tuesday morning as I type this..almost lunch time.

The video stuff has been driving me nuts trying to get Family Reunion stuff edited and uploaded and to also video stuff from camp... but it's time to give you all an update.

We arrived late Sunday evening to meet with all the leaders that planned and arranged all the activities for this event. We went to eat and Humphrey Pete's and it was some good food but we were there a loooooooong time. After all day at family reunion on Saturday and then up bright and early for church on Sunday it was wearing me down...so thenwe went to Wal-Mart to get stuff.

Then we came together and had a brief meeting to get spiritually focused and ready for the next day..then to bed.

Monday was a day of set up for all, making posters, doing decorations, setting up sound, lights, AV etc. it was a good day.. not gremlins...yet.

All the students started arriving and registration was done then there were opening ceremonies some activities and evening worship.

Opening rocked.. these kids were pumped and getting after "No One Like You" and "Every Move".

When we came back for worship we re-visited No One Like You, then did Not to us.. not as well received but still rocked out pretty well and then Revolutionary Love.. the kids blew me away.. they sang it like they loved it.. I guess there are a few Crowder Heads here.

We then had a responsive reading that was focused on challenging us to be the church that we were meant to be...a brief prayer lead by a student leader and we went it to "A Beautiful Collision".. they loved it.. got great feedback later on how much they loved it..they were in to it.. I spoke of Christ's arrival on this earth was the collision of His perfection and love with our sin and weakness... then transitioned it to the fact that God loves us how we are and for who we are but he does not want us to remain languishing in our weakness and we have to seek that out and turn them over to him.. then lead it to "Search and Know" by Todd Wright... and Todd, they sung it like they loved it. Either they all have your CD or the could just feel it. I think that leads back to something I said about the CD a long time ago.. it feels good.. it feels comfortable.. they picked it up immediately and were pouring it out. It was awesome. I transitioned straight in to "Lay it Down" by Dave Lubbin. They were in to it.. all the way.

The keynote speaker is Rev Verzola Law and let me just say she transitioned in to some pretty spiritual and energetic prayer with the end of that song..hands raised.. hearts open..she was praying.. I was playing and singing.. Oh my.. it will me a moment I will remember forever. It was awesome. The word was brought.. students were giving an opportunity to lay down their burdens in sand.. to wash their hands.. and to receive communion before going in to a night of silence... Wow..

I was spent and overjoyed at the same time. We had a brief meeting with some powerful prayer then off to bed.

This morning started with students pouring out their feelings via sidewalk chalk drawings.. then breakfast then morning session...It was mostly fun and energetic songs and camp "energizers".. Star Trekkin.. .look it up.
Announcemenets...

Rain Down by Crowder and Pick it Up by PlanetShakers.. pretty fun.

Rev Law brought a message that was challenging and eye opening.. and then on to..In the Secret.. it was perfect for the Phillipians message.. then off to take pics.. its time for workshops and planning and I have some down time to do this..

Monday's are hard.. and not so hard

I feel pretty confident that my Monday blogs will be insignificant at best. Go to work at 6:30 work till 8:30 go to First Christian Church, hang out and visit a little then pastor meeting at 0900, Staff meeting at 10:15, Pastor lunch then back to FedEx around 1:00 to 1:30. Get reoriented to being FedEx guy and then I have a conference call at 2:30 till around 3:30. Deal with a few e-mails, customer service calls, work on a thing or two, talk to staff and make sure they are doing ok and bam it's time to go.

I love my freight job but I do like it when I can be productive. I love my church job.. I love going and being with the other pastors, discussion pastor relations items, plans for upcoming weeks, working on special Sundays with the music director. I feel really good there. Starting Monday's with time at church is really an amazing blessing that I have in my life right now. I have such a wonderful staff at my full time job and they allow me the ability to step away for a while and be Pastor guy. Then I go back to face conference calls and catch up. It's a day that is a blessing but it is also a day that is pretty much a throw away too.

I'm not griping mind you, just giving you a glimps of what it's like. May not have time for much on Monday. So hard to blog.. not so hard to "work".