Meetings and trip

September 27, 2007 by Mark · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Religion

It’s been another busy week in Mark-land.

Sunday we had the real Sr. High youth group kickoff session. We had fun, got introduced to each other, played around, and ate ice cream. It’s a good group of youth including not one but TWO exchange students.

Monday evening we had the first meeting of the Welcome and Outreach Task Force that I am co-chairing. As I’ve said before our charter is to study visitors, inactive members and the local community and then to make recommendations on what the church could do to create an atmosphere of hospitality and invitation. It was a good meeting – mainly kept to start up tasks and ideas. We have two challenges. First is scheduling meetings – the folks on the team are really busy and it’s hard to find a 1.5 hour time slot that works for everybody. Fortunately I discovered (after some hints from the pastor and another team member) Meet-O-Matic. That should help. The second challenge is that we have one team member who has no Internet access (or inclination to get access). We’ve appointed a team member to be that member’s “Internet buddy”, and we’ve covenanted not to make any decisions via e-mail without getting her input.

The team is very diverse (as diverse as we could get given the congregation’s demographics). We have people who have only been attending our church since last spring and people who have been members for over 25 years. We have a pretty good age spread, and the gender balance is good. The skills and interests of the group members are fairly well balanced, too.

One interesting concept that came from this meeting is the definition of our “mission field” – the land area that we are targeting. The traditional idea was that we serve a 3 mile radius from the church building. However, over 1/2 of the team lives outside of that radius. This means (by extrapolation – and it does work out that way) that a significant percentage of the church membership drives past another Presbyterian church or three (not to mention other denominations) to get to our church. We are thinking that we might have two tiers – the 3-mile “local” tier and a larger area. We decided to add “active members outside the 3-mile radius” to the list of groups studied to see what draws them to drive a distance to be part of our community. We’re also going to be mapping the households using software yet to be determined (Google Maps?).

So that was Monday evening. Did I get a break Tuesday evening? No. Carolyn decided that this was the week to re-seal the driveway while it is still warm enough. (It did need it) So I got home Tuesday evening and it took the two of us just about 1 hour to put a coat on the driveway. She was nice to me Wednesday evening and put the 2nd coat on herself (a thinner coat). I just had to cook dinner.

Tonight is laundry, and then Friday evening I’m going with the Sr. Highs up to Camp Johnsonburg for a quick overnight retreat. We’ll be home about 3pm on Saturday – just in time to see Rutgers play Maryland (my brother’s alma mater) in football.

Sunday I’ll have church in the morning. I’m attending an adult forum on what makes Presbyterians different from other denominations. I have homework to do – matching the names, dates, and a short summary of the Confessions. Sunday evening the church is doing the first ever Jazz Vespers. The youth are attending together, and I’m probably going to bring Carolyn along too.

Who was it that said “You can sleep when you’re dead.”?

Tags: camp johnsonburg, driveway sealing, football, google maps, jazz vespers, laundry, lawrenceville, meet-o-matic, mission, pcusa, presbyterian, project open door, retreat, rutgers, worship in a new key, Youth

Holiday Roundup

January 1, 2007 by Mark · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Flying, Life, Religion

Here’s a roundup of how the holiday went.

Flew with my flight instructor for the last time before my instrument rating checkride. Checkride is scheduled for January 6, weather permitting. If I didn’t mention it previously, I got a 95% on my written test.
Went to 4 hockey Trenton Titans hockey games. Went with friends, family and co-workers the first two (they lost). Went with just Carolyn for the last two (they won).
Went to 2 services at church on Christmas Eve. First the morning 4th Sunday of Advent service. Then the 11pm Candlelight service, which was lovely and included wonderful music. Then on New Year’s Eve I went in the morning to the regular service (2 baptisms!) and then to the special intimate New Year’s Eve Communion service in the evening (which was also lovely).
Went to see Mom, Dad, sister, brother and sister-in-law at Mom and Dad’s on Christmas Day. We did the gift exchange thing (which is always hilarious for some reason) and had dinner. Good time. Everybody seemed to like my gifts and vice versa.
Discovered a flat tire the afternoon of 12/26. 30 minutes to replace with the spare – 1 hour to get it fixed and reinstalled at the local Goodyear.
On 12/26, Carolyn’s parents came for the Christmas thing and stayed overnight.
Watched the Rutgers football slaughter of Kansas State in the Texas Bowl. Go RU!
Got the 15,000 mile service done on the Highlander Hybrid (three days after the tire repair).
Rested early and often. I’ve been overscheduling myself lately between church, flying, hockey and the rest of my life.