Christmas Gifts

It was a pretty interesting year in terms of Christmas gifts.

My dad always wants me to give him a "Christmas List" of what I want, so that he just has to pick something. The last two years, I've refused.

A Christmas gift should says "I get you," not "I got you a gift." So I've made him do it on his own. Last year that whole concept was a struggle for him. This year, he made strides. He got me a half-dozen really nice goose decoys . He also got me a package of four AAA batteries. The batteries I opened first, so I figured they went to some electronic device I hadn't opened yet.

Nope.

He just got me some batteries.

The gift I got him totally surprised him, I think. He got a new fishing reel I knew he'd been interested in, but didn't really need and definitely didn't expect.

After opening presents at my dad's house, my brother and I headed over to my mom's house to do Christmas stuff there. My mom's husband's son and his wife (Chad and Kelly) came over, along with my mom's husband's mom (Grandma Peach - I don't actually know her real name, we just all call her Grandma Peach).

I loved it when Chad and Kelly opened their gift (in a bag instead of a box) from Grandma Peach. Rather than having one or even a few individually wrapped presents, they had a ton of little presents inside one giant bag. They just kept coming! I kept expecting to see Kelly pull a hat rack out of the bag next. (P.S. - Julie Andrews was a total cutie).

My brother gave my mom's husband (Mike) a bag of ham (okay, not really, it was actually a couple of steaks... but they did have drawings for bags of ham at the Halliburton Christmas party a couple of weeks ago).

A while back my brother asked for some recommendations for books on Godly guy-girl relationships. I loaned him a few, but afterward I sort of thought about it that he already had the best book on Godly relationships. So I gave my brother the best book I know of on how to read / study the Bible.

Mom gave me a scarf. I am so metro. I'm not real sure how a guy's supposed to wear a scarf, so I've been googling it a bit tonight.

Anyway... it was a pretty great Christmas. It's great to give, and I love to give other people the gift of giving (aka, it's also pretty great to receive).

What was the best gift you gave / received for Christmas this year?

Still meandering

Sunday's meetings with people in Tulsa did little to clarify the timing of God's vision He is casting through me.

I am going to plant a church. Most likely, in either Tulsa or Fayetteville, AR. I don't know where yet. I want to know where - but God hasn't revealed that. I'm going to meet with some people from the Fayetteville area early next week. I'm hopeful that those meetings will spark a light to the vision.

Headed to T-Town

I'm headed to Tulsa tomorrow to each lunch with a friend and talk about the vision I have for launching a church. I've had this vision for launching a church (and I'm thinking in Tulsa at this point) for a while, and every time I think about it, God keeps putting the name of this certain person in my head. What's weird is that I don't really know her that well. I called her a couple of weeks ago, though, and told her about what I wanted to do and that God kept giving me her name to be a part of this. Through our brief conversation, I just felt really confirmed that God wanted her to be a part of this. Even though we'd never talked about it before, I came away from that conversation feeling that we share the same vision.

So now I'm going to Tulsa to talk about the vision over lunch and see where she stands on this whole thing. This discussion tomorrow will, more than likely, determine the timetable for the launch.

If things go well tomorrow, then I will probably be looking to move to Tulsa in the Spring with an eye toward a fall church launch.

This is all very exciting, and very, very scary. But I'm probably pretty sure that's what faith is.


I'd appreciate any and all prayers and I leap forward into this.