Jason has attended our church, Grace Fellowship, since he was a child. Now on staff, Jason came up with the new name, “Grace Kids”, for our children's building because he was a Grace Kid. Jason also designed the new children's logo and he spent literally months working on special lighting for the children's building before it opened. When the doctors told us we would probably never have children we were devastated. We made ourselves go to work and keep going even though we wanted to just close ourselves away from everyone. At least twice a
week Jason had to walk those children's building halls, knowing he would never have a child who would benefit from the fruit of his labor. Late one night, Jason went to Wal-Mart and purchased baby stuff. He arranged it in a big basket and set it in our bedroom as a faith statement. Soon after, Jennifer Hatch, a teacher at our Christian school gave an interpretation of Ezekiel 37:1-10 during staff devotions. We held on to this scripture. Simone even taped it to her computer monitor. “So I prophesied to my dead dreams like God told me to. And I commanded
life to come into my heart's desire. And that inner dream God gave me lived and rose up fully manifested.” When Simone took Jazz to the nursery the first time, she was given a new mom's gift pack that contains a bib, bottle, rattle, and fridge magnet all with the Grace Kids logo that Jason designed!! After Jason took this picture he realized the sleeper Jazz is wearing was one of the ones he purchased that night. Our once empty sleeper, purchased as a faith statement, now is filled with a beautiful baby boy. What a testament to God's never ending mercy and faithfulness. Now the “inner dream God gave us lives and has risen up, fully manifested.” His name is Jazz David Paul.
Sometimes, in the chaos which is life, you lose sight of the amazing things God has done. When we lose sight of these things is when we start to think that we can do it ourselves.
God, never let us forget your amazing power at work in our lives. Let us continuously reflect on the love you have shown to us.
My status was: "Chicago. Summer. Night. Exhale." 
At Park, we are using texting to better connect with our people. We use many features of our provider, Jarbyco, to keep people informed and to find out what they are thinking. Tim Schraeder, Park’s communication director, manages all the texting options. I manage the implementation into our projection system.
A couple of weeks ago, we did a texting poll. It was very useful for Jackson Crum to understand where our people stood on the issue of speaking in tongues. We did this live during our service with results in real time on our screens.
Click here to try the poll for yourself. After the flash app opens, text your answer to the number and watch it change in real time. The poll will reset itself when reloaded or refreshed.
We have some fun ways we are going to implement texting in the near future. I will let you know how it goes.
Balance. Life is filled with always having to balance priorities, this is an area that I have always struggled with. Historically I will get busy with a project and things start falling off the end of the table. In my mid 20’s I was forced to start balancing this aspect of my life. For me it’s like an addiction, you are never over it you just have to learn to deal with it.
The introduction of a wife brought one more aspect of balance in my life. Although we flowed pretty well. She would spend time and help with projects. This continued until I was 29. That year brought the birth of our son, yet another element to have to balance. All of a sudden my table was getting fuller of things that could not fall off, the price was to high. This kept Simone from hanging out and helping as much.
The next couple of years were pretty smooth. When our son was three we introduced another element to balance. Our daughter was born when I was 32, at the same time my work load increased. I literally felt like I was spinning plates - just going from plate to plate just spending enough time to make sure it did not fall. I missed simple things like playing in the snow, I look at those pictures and still regret it.
I am 35 now and don’t feel like I have made much progress. I am convinced that this is not something that ever gets easier you just have to make daily decisions about where your time is going to go. Maybe by 40 I can get a handle on it...
I wrote this on the plane on my way to be a part of the the Worship Facilities Expo Tech Talk. One of the questions that was asked from the audience was about how we balance work and the rest of our lives. Jill Gille one of the panelist said “I wish I had been brave enough to end the meeting, or just leave” It made me think how many times thing have been rearranged in our personal life because a meeting ran long.
For Good Friday this year we did a short theater piece where a man beat a cross on stage. While he was beating the cross a figure representing Jesus was hanging from a rope on the other side of the stage responding to every blow. During this scene a sin would flash on the wall with every hit.
For Easter Sunday, we took one of the crosses he beat on stage and hung it in a stair case that connects our two main lobbies. The Good Friday theater piece was very moving for a lot of people and they are reminded of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us every time they enter the building.
Late last August my wife went to visit her parents. I took the opportunity to go see The Dark Knight. I first went to Navy Pier to see it at IMAX but it was sold out. I took a bus to the next closest theater. After the movie I started walking to the L station. It was one of those amazing summer evenings and after seeing Chicago in the Dark Knight it was an amazing feeling to walk down those streets.
They shot this on top of 311 Wacker. It is the building Jazz, my 6 year old, can see out of his window and judges whether it's bedtime by whether the light is on or off.
