Some recent photos and a couple of thoughts....



Stephanie had some beautiful flowers in the garden this year.  It was hard to not take a lot of pictures of them.


Here is a picture of the church I serve from the foyer looking in.


Our son and daughter-in-law got a new puppy (actually so did our daughter and son-in-law but that will be a later picture when we get to visit them too).  This little girl's name is Mocha.



Here are a couple landmark pictures from our recent trip to Croswell, Michigan during the sugar beet harvest.



It was a great fall of color in the town of Oglesby, IL.  We enjoyed our walks together with our Buddy.


I really like old water towers.  The little shack to the left lets you get a feel about how big it is.


During our couple days away I was able to take a mile walk to this coffee shop to spend some time reading and studying and then a round trip walk of about 3 miles back to our son's home.  What a great way to start out the day.

One last thought was a phrase that came out of my mouth last night at a meeting I was asked to attend to give some input about the church.  Many things I plan to say but sometimes I really understand that verse that says the Holy Spirit will give you what to say.  This was one of those moments.

The question was about what is needed in the church and I would expand that to mean any church.  My answer was about our communication to each other in love.  This is the speaking the truth in love phrase especially when a difficult subject is broached.  I wrote of the "Oreo Construct" in an earlier post. Always Learning 

The sentence that was profound to me was when these words came out of my mouth.  "When someone visits our church and they experience the love and unity they see in this body of believers, they should be able to dig deeper and deeper, pulling away layers of our relationships and still find love and unity.  No matter how deep they dig into our lives, they will find our love for God and each other and our unity to His family."  

The challenging question for me is, "How far can a visitor to the church I attend dig and keep finding love and unity?"

Just some pics and thoughts for the day.

Adam
A simple man serving a great God and the local pastor of Stillwater Community Chapel (stillwater-chapel.org). We are in our 38th year of full time ministry. God directed us to this local body of believers on the Western Range of the Rockies to grow with them in mission and mindedness of Christ.

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