Tonight is a good time for a blog post of odds and ends. In other words, there is no real topic for the evening. It does make me a tad envious to read other blogs that are so eloquent and well written. My best hope is to just avoid needing the spell checker too often on any one post. This was just an interesting few days that may or may not be worth sharing with you. My family got in tonight after a weekend away so life is back to normal. That means the dishwasher is going while clothes are being cleansed in the washer. Those are the usual sounds around my house.

It is my privilege to report that the 150 mile goal is a finished accomplishment. My body held together to get in three more miles this evening. It became clear yesterday that the first 147 miles wore down my running shoes. My body is not built for serious running so a new pair got purchased today to ease the stress on my feet. Most serious runners weight about 150 pounds or so. My last check showed me to still be holding around the 215 mark. That is a lot of added strain on my running shoes. Now we can start mapping out what a decent goal may be for the holiday season.

Part of today was also spent Christmas shopping. Yes, it was over 90 degrees here in Texas but one of the stores held a very good sale. Three of our male relatives are covered for gifts thanks to that sale. One of my rules or habits when shopping for presents is to be sure there is also something for me. The reasoning is that if I am going to fight crowds in a store to buy for others then my reward is to find something for me. This may not be exactly what is known as the giving spirit but it works.

Now it is time to turn my attention to next Sunday. We concluded our series of studies on eschatology yesterday. Each summer usually gets a special topic to take us through these months of heat and vacations. Now it is time for me to pull together another set of studies that will take us to the holiday season. There are preachers much more gifted than I who sketch out their sermons a year in advance. This never works for me. My best approach is to look at the calendar in segments to think through what would be good to study. For example, as the holiday season gets closer then it is time to think about what to say this year. Some holiday seasons it is really helpful to use the church lectionary to map out my ideas. The lectionary simply lists suggested scriptures for a preacher to cover. Some holidays season it may be that a decent idea comes to my mind so I follow along with that.

Let me share with you how the fall series is shaping up. I am researching the most common habits or traits of "successful" churches. This does not mean the focus is on humongous congregations but rather on tools any church can consider. My library has more than a few volumes that speak to this subject. Last week, a list was made of the most common practices of healthy church life. The idea is to whittle that comprehensive list down to the ten most prevalent characteristics. We will then spend the next ten weeks thinking about the overall ideas as they relate to us where we live. The information gathering is a great deal of fun but the hard part comes as we move the studies to the next phase.

A healthy or successful church does not happen without people of that same character. You cannot have unhealthy believers yet still hope against hope for good things to happen. We cannot move any further as a church than we do as individual believers. The very concept of revival refers to followers of Jesus who respond to His challenging call. My prayer is this set of studies will move us from where we are to where God may want us to be. My core thesis is that a church that is enjoyable will not be known for any one niche or definition. Over the last 30 years we went from churches that bus tons of people to the building to the church that sings soft rock contemporary music to the current fad of the cowboy congregation. We will rise or fall based on our response to a living God in our midst. My hope is that we will discover just that over the next few weeks.

Bro. Trey