good to be home

Gary and I had a good trip to DC for a couple of days to connect with other church planters from across the country. I got the chance to run around the Washington Monument yesterday! It was a beautiful morning.
There was a questions that Mark Batterson posed that I really liked. He said, "Is your vision greater than your resources?"
I think too many times we allow our circumstances and situations to define the size of our dreams for the future. We look at what we have and see how far we are off of what we want something to be. The problem is because we have "something" and that "something" becomes our focus. We would probably be better off having "nothing," because then we have "nothing" but God to look to.

My prayer is that I won't allow limited resources to hinder the vision that God is placing in my heart. Because where He gives the vision, He also gives the provision.

home

Sunday, Keri and I literally lounged most of the day in a hotel room. We we so lazy, I almost felt guilty! That night we had a good service at Calvary A/G of Lynnfield MA. We jumped on a plane from Logan airport (Boston) and returned home. It's amazing how much you can miss your kids when you are gone for a week! It's good to be home. I feel refreshed and am ready to hit the ground running. Speaking of ground, the bulldozer was at work on our property today and I can't wait to see it first thing tomorrow morning!

home

Thanksgiving was great! When you mix family, friends and good food all together, it makes for a good time. It's a reminder of how blessed that I truly am. I also got to take my 7yr old son on his first deer hunt. I had the bow and we were crammed into a 1 seater tree stand, 15ft off the ground. He did great......but we saw No deer. Bummer. That's why they call it "hunting" and not "getting." I also ran a 5k race on Thanksgiving morning. There were 1,400 runners, and I placed 29th in 17:35, but it did land me 2nd in my age group! I improved my time by 34 seconds off my last years time. Anyway, when my kids get older I want to make running that 5k a family affair, a Stephens tradition!

home

Home....where's yours? I used to say, "home is where your mom is." Or when I go back to southeast Ohio where Keri and I were Youth Pastor for a few years, kind of feels like home. Perhaps Canton Ohio, where I spent most of my High School and some college years could be my home. Having lived in 20 something homes, it makes it kind of rough to claim one of them as "my home." But really I think home is the place where you feel you are truly alive. The place where you feel that safety and "where everybody knows your name" kind of feeling. Home is where you are excepted for who you are, and can just be yourself. I'm really starting to feel at home at C3 and in Pickerington Ohio. No doubt God has here, now, for this cause. I feel like my family and I are "home."