I was looking forward to today.  Rich Higgins was preaching this week at my church.   This is the third time I've heard Rich preach.

The first time he did really well, the second time was at the men's retreat.  He shared about some of his past and how he ended up at LSCC. That inspired his preaching today on the same topic.  We are in the midst of a sermon series called "Summer of Surrender" and it is being preached by folks who made their way to LSCC in odd ways.  He hit it out of the ball park on this one.  I really enjoy dynamic preachers that, for one reason or another, aren't given the opportunity to preach very often.  Because when they do get to preach... they BRING IT.  Will be interesting to hear from Jason Case next week as his story is a bit of an unknown to me.  Was also stoked to see Jason and his wife place membership at church today as well.  Ironically when my wife saw he was preaching next week, she asked me if they were members yet. While my wife is brought up, pray for me... she and the older two leave for a short term mission trip next Saturday.... I feel bad for the younger two being stuck with me for a week :-)

Now onto what will be the life of this blog over the next 40 days.  The 40 Days of Focus.

My goals were already posted on this blog.  But now I have the goals of two of the other participants.

Tom C and I worked through his today as he and his family hung out at my house after church.  And as a side note I will say that this is a friendship that I have really come to value.  Val and I have had a lot of friends that we served and served and served, with little of that coming back our way.  And while that is OK in certain relationships, I will say that ours have been a bit to unbalanced in that way.  Tom and April have really gone out of their way recently to serve my family and I deeply appreciate that. But lets touch on Tom's list.
1. Read 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, and James. This equates to about a chapter a day. 
2. Pray twice a day.
3. Put his wife 1st, after God.  This is an interesting one as it deals with priorities and such.  Tom and I had a conversation last week about priorities, and lets just say originally his wife was a bit lower on the ladder.
4. Less chewing tobacco.  This is something I've been working on Tom with.  He is addicted to chewing tobacco, and I challenged him to make this one of his goals.  The minimum goal is no chewing tobacco every other day, though I challenged him to go even longer.

Scott W sent me his via email.
1. Study the Bible for 10 minutes each day.
2. Pray each day.
3. Read the Bible to his children at least three days a week.
4. Exercise at least 15 minutes per day and to eat right.

I'm really looking forward to what I see happens here over the next 40 days.  Stay tuned!