WHAT A CHARACTER!

This Sunday we are going to talk about CHARACTER.

Someone once said, "Character is who you are when no one is looking."

• How do you define character?
• What does character look like?
• Can you tell if a person has it? If so when? Why?
• Do you live your life by it?
• Do you instill it within others?
• Is it one thing or many parts?
• Of what benefit is it to me or anybody else?
• Do you wish others had it only when they do you wrong?
• Does character help you determine how and what to do at any given moment?

Character is a big issue in our personal lives, our homes, our leaders, etc.

Have a great day!

MTC!

Mark

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT KIDS

Yesterday was absolutely fantastic!!! What a great day it was: we had a ton of new people at church yesterday, people I had never met. Great people!!!

Then we had our small group yesterday evening. The kids were wanting to play outside and so I took them to the park. The kids ranged in age from 2yrs-12yrs. We had five of them and I'm telling you what, they were hilarious!!!

• they love to have fun
• they love to have fun doing the simplest of things
• they love to play chase
• they love to make their own 'bases' (you remember, safety zones)
• they love to make a base on a bark chip if they know you are going to catch them
• they love to slide down slides and get thrown in the air
• they love swings
• they love to rough house when they know they can hit someone bigger and not get hit back
• they love to laugh
• they love to get dirty because they've never done laundry
• they love to scream really loud
• they love to just be a kid

I was struck once again at their perfect innocence and perfect view of how life should be lived.

What I love the most about kids is their ability to love and accept and trust. We would do exceptionally well to guard these virtues in them with our very lives.

MTC!

Mark

ONE OF THE HARDEST JOBS IN THE WORLD

You've got your Deadliest Catch, Dirty Jobs, and Ice Road Truckers. Sure, they are tough jobs and it really is amazing to see what situations they must contend with.

But I believe that parenting is one of the toughest jobs a person could ever have.

Some jobs are seasonal. Some jobs fall into a mundane, same-old routine kind of job. Some jobs are even highy glamorous.

Parenting is not seasonal, it is a life long process.

Parenting isn't just dirty, it is sometimes quite nasty!!!

Parenting is never mundane or boring and never falls into the same-0ld-routine category.

Parenting is never glamorous.

Parenting, even though a very difficult job, is the best gig around. Really! My kids make me a better person. They keep me current. They challenge me. They test my compassoin level. They look up to me and see how my faith is doing. They want me to make them laugh and then tell me that was 'lame'!

I still highly value my parents' input into my life. I still look up to them. I wonder how they raised four boys.

Today at Design, we are talking about parenting. It is going to be great! If you can't get there, check out the podcast on our website.

Parenting is tough. Parenting is not a science. I need to get better at it.

MTC!
Mark

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT

For a couple of days this week I was at a conference in Vancouver, WA and it just so happened that my dad and I were able to room together. On Tuesday night, I was sleeping soundly and I suddenly woke up to a noise and tried to sit up. As I was doing so, I twisted my shouler and tweaked it. Man, did that hurt!!

The noise part was just my dad getting a drink of water!

Had I just not freaked out and opened one eye, I would have been fine. I freaked and then tweaked!

There is junk in life just like that. We don't need to freak out over things that may not be an alarming situation even though our first response is to believe so. Sometimes we make a good day a bad one by worrying over something that never materializes. Or we ruin our home by being overly worried about something that never ends up happening.

I've had older friends who could have lived life in a much more exciting way. They could have invested their lives and huge money into God's work and other great human need type organizations. They didn't. They feared certain 'bump in the night' things that had nothing to do with faith. And the very things they feared, those 'bump in the night' things like: Do I have enough? I haven't traveled enough. I'm retired now, it's my turn to have some fun. If I actually gave more of my time and resources I may not have enough time and resources to do what I want.

Fear is not faith, but faith always has to conquer fear. If we fear the things that might happen to us in life, we will never go forward. We will never achieve. We will never acquire. We will never realize God's grand design for our personal life.

There are things I'm dealing with that are requiring deeper levels of faith than ever before. And I must say, fear is in there. But, with God's help and the help of others, the fear is pushed out as God brings things together. Faith grows. New challenges are met. People are helped. Needs are taken care of.

The next time you wake up in the middle of the night to a sound or an anxiety, just remember, you might just be freaking out over something that is not a problem at all.

MTC!
Mark

To

LEAD WHERE YOU LIVE

I get a good laugh at people who want to lead everyone else but refuse to lead where they live. These are the people who offer you advice on how you should do this or that even if they have never done what you do! These are the types who believe they have a knowledge base large enough to tell just about anybody how to do their job, run the governmnet or fix transportation issues.

Leading where you live is a strong rule to live by. Leading, as others have put it, in your sphere of influence, is always best. Of course that implies you must first have a sphere of influence.

Leading where you live starts with you and it starts with me and then flows out to others we have input.

Leading where you live starts inside of us; our thoughts, our motives, heart, how we view others and our relationship with God. Once we get these things right, we can then effectively begin to lead where we live and that might mean leading a few or many people.

Leading where you live is needed, necessary and not an option if we are going to fulfill God's design for our lives and be a help to others!!!

MTC!
Mark

FANTASTIC!!!!

What a great day yesterday!

We had a ton of new people visiting as we kicked off our FLIP THIS FAMILY! series. It was really great meeting all of you.

We talked openly and honestly about marriage. I've been challenged to step it up in some areas in my life where I could be a better husband!!!

God wants our marriages to be great. He invented the whole idea. Sex is His idea, too and He has boundaries for that. GOD IS NO PRUDE! He made it for us to enjoy within the confines of marriage. We talked about a ton of stuff. We also talked about God's love and desire to help us out of and over our hurt and pain and sorrow for things run amuck in our lives regarding marriage.

If you weren't there check out the podcast.

MTC!
Mark

GREAT DAY!

Today is going to be a great day!!

I can feel it! I know it is!! Even though it is snowing right now and the 82 degrees from last Saturday seems like some odd dream, today is going to be sunny and warm!!!! Well.....in my head anyway!!!

I am totally pumped!! We kick off a new nine week series on the family today. It has been amazing to me as I have been studying for this series, how the family is precariously perched on any number of precipices that could lead to their undoing. It doesn't have to be that way. There is hope and help for all of our families.

So today, we kick it all off with a talk on marriage: FIRE UP YOUR MARRIAGE! Should be fun!

God wants you and yours to be a great family!!!

He can Flip Your Family!!!

MTC!
Mark

OPPORTUNITIES MISSED

Taking responsibility is one of life's greatest opportunities. However, it is an opportunity that is more often than not ignored in our society.

People would love to come up with their lists or items they feel you should be responsible for, but I'm refering to those basic and good and honorable areas of life that as humans, we have the opportunity to take responsibilty...to own.

I have found it interesting to watch this whole Hatfield (Seattle and Co.) and McCoy (Bennett and Co.) feud heat up revolving around the Sonics. He said. She said. They said. Good faith. No faith. Recission. It all comes off at times like immature teen-agers name calling on the playground.

Our benchmark for behavior should never be as low as being demonstrated by the afformentioned groups. Yuk!!!!

Rather, we have the opportunity to step up and take responsibility for some wonderful things in life like:
Being a great spouse
Being a great mom or dad
Being a great teen-ager or young adult
Being a great neighbor
Holding up our end of the agreement
Saying kind words and not hurtful words
Being a great employer or great employee

You get the point. So, let's not miss the opportunities we have right in front of us in the area of taking responsibility for things we should!

MTC!

Mark

DRIVEWAY CRASHING

Having spent six years in SUNNY, WARM, even HOT Cali, I picked up a few lessons on life that were really quite fun!

One of those lessons was how to hang out with your neighbors and just talk and be neighbors!

I'll never forget turning the corner into our court on one SPECTACULAR, SUNNY, HOT late afternoon, and being totally surprised to see my neighbors in their beach lawn chairs, sitting in the driveway. The dude was checking out the latest PotteryBarn catalogue!!!

My first thought was total Blue Collar TV type thoughts. Who in the world sits in their driveway in lawn chairs!!!!!!!

Bret and Juree and the kids became some of our dearest friends. You know, life-long, deep, rich in relationship, kind of friends.

But, my buddy Brett taught me the art of driveway crashing. Just grab a cold beverage of choice, a beach lawnchair and crash. Hang out. Chill. Talk. Laugh. Philosophize. Good times!

One day, Brett and I were DC'ing and we were evaluating people who were coming to check out the house that was for sale across the street from his home. Absolutely hilarious!!!!

I do miss DC'ing with my good friends, and I think that is one thing we lack miserably up here in the Western WA because of our cold weather.

I'm hoping for a hot summer and I plan on transporting the whole DC'ing concept to my neighborhood.

Thanks Brett for the schooling!!!

MTC!
mac

WHAT DO YOU DO?

Have you ever had anybody ask you that question? And then you try to explain it.

Some jobs are pretty obvious as to what is invovled: garbage truck driver, fireman, policeman, dentist, doctor, teacher, professor, banker, etc.

How 'bout....church planter!

Now there's one for the old, 'what in the world do you do all day????" file! Trying to explain this to people is like trying to have the farmer explain how he goes about germinating the corn crop!

A new church, ex nihilo, being made out of nothing, is much like planting a garden or shrubs or lawn. It takes time, care, protection, nutrients, patience, attention, focus, determination, an ability to shrug off discouragement, proper maintenance, and time. Did I say time???

Before stepping out to do this 'church planter thing', the supporting cast around me was quite large. All that to say, there are no other departments to handle this requisition or that, no media department or graphics department.. it's just the planter and the people that have made the huge decision to jump on board and see this thing through! God bless them!!!

All in all it is a daily dose of faith and function squashing out the fear! God is so cool. He is in this! It's a far cry from a human perspective from being in front of 4,000 people each week, but I wouldn't trade it for the this world!!! For sure, the next one!

So, what do you do?

MTC!
mac

TAKEN FOR GRANTED

Everyone of us understands how life really can grind to a halt when we lose our health. It might just be the common cold or worse, the dreaded stomach flu. When it really gets tough are those prolonged medical situations that everyone dreads.

I'm amazed at how often I take my good physical health for granted. What an incredible creation the human body is. It functions without me having to think about it and I just keep on living. I don't think about breathing or walking or talking or swallowing or how to regulate my temperature...make up your own list of amazing things that you take for granted related to your excellent physical health.

I'm grateful today to God for my excellent health and I apologize for taking it for granted!

Have a great day!!!

MTC!
mac

BOWLING AT MIDNIGHT

Last night we went bowling with a bunch of the students from the church. What a riot!! I would starve on the PBA...if they even still have one!

The kids were totally cool. We all laughed at each other and everyone had a blast. The highlight for me was when one of the chaperones, Casey hit the hardwood after a mighty hefty release of the ball!

What was really great was just hanging out with the kids. They are really great!! Sharp. Intelligent. Good looking. Funny. Their future is exceptionally bright.

For all the stuff you hear about in the news and read in the paper about how today's youth are all jacked up, well, if you could have been bowling with us last night at midnight, you would have seen some great kids heading in the right direction in life...not on the lanes, however!!!!

MTC!
mac

GREAT PEOPLE

There are certain people in life who make your day brighter and better. They come in all shapes and sizes and personalities. They are the kind of people who have learned from life that you don't need every question answered ahead of time and that sometimes you just figure it out as you go. They have experienced enough diversity and adversity in life that diving in and helping is the point, having 'every duck lined up in a row' is not.

My car broke down the other day, the heater core (now I know what that is!) sprung a leak and I had coolant dripping inside the car. I was in rush hour coming from Bellevue back to Maple Valley. I had the windows down and the steam was belching out of the car. I'm sure somebody was wondering when the car would explode.

Made it home just fine. I was calling around trying to figure out how and when to get it fixed when my wife said I should call a friend of ours..H.C. So I did. He said, 'great! Bring it over.'

H.C. is really a gifted guy. Great mechanic. One of those guys who can look at it and know what everything does and where it goes. I'm looking at it wondering 'what in the world is the first step?' H.C. get's after it and after a few hours of wrestling with a metal bear, get's everything put back together and it runs like new!

H.C. didn't ask 'how', 'why', 'what if', he just said 'Bring it over!'

When we can and we know how to help someone in need, we should.

Thank you H.C.! You rock!!!!

MTC!
Mark

April 1

1. I'm amazed at how fast time flies by.

2. There are good people everywhere.

3. I need to listen more.

4. Getting in shape always used to be easy.

5. Every day I thank God for how He has blessed me with such a wonderful wife and kids.

6. Each day I am more aware of my need for God in the best of ways.