Posted via email from Christopher’s posterous

Here are some lyrics to one of the newer FM Static songs.  I make big connections with music and this one has been comforting lately as I face different struggles.

This time I finally see
The reason why, I can’t do this alone,
It took some time and concentration,
To believe it, this I know

I need to build my faith sometimes,
But I am so comfortable in line,
I’m up, there’s no more time,
To try to mess with this design

Tonight’s complete,
Everyone’s asleep,
And I wanna say these words to You,
I’ll be Your hands, take me as I am,
I just wanna be with You

Take me as I am, ’cause I’m going,
I was too scared to start,
And now I’m too scared to let go.
Take me as I am, ’cause I’m growing,
But it’s so hard to tell
When I’m not used to this so

I am embarking on a new adventure in the blogosphere.  I have experimented with different blogs over the past few years and I have had many new blogging ideas come and go during that time.  Here at Churchpunk, I share with you the story that is my life.  You can get to know me here as I share stories about my family, my church, my job, and many other random tidbits of information that boil up in my brain.  I often have wanted to blog with a more direct purpose.  A niche if you will.  I want to share some goodness with the rest of the world and create a resource that others use and talk about.  I have been wrestling about what I should write about and have finally decided to write a blog all about church small groups.

I don’t claim to be an authority on small groups, but I have a lot of experience and am actively leading one now.  I want to use this new blog to share my small group ideas, studies, resources, and many other nuggets that have come out of current and past experiences.  I have a great passion for small groups and believe that they are a big part of what the church should be doing.  This blog will also help me to organize my thoughts and experiences as I continue to learn how to be a more effective small group leader.  If you are interested in reading my blog that is dedicated to small groups, please go visit http://simplysmallgroups.blogspot.com.  I have only published a few posts to get things started, but I already have numerous ideas for more content.  Consider this sort of the beta launch.  Please check it out and let me know what you think.

I start thinking about new ideas all of the time.  Most of them slip away from me because I don’t have the time, tools, or resources to pull something off.  A few of my ideas get put into action and some succeed and some fail.  I am most definitely a dreamer who wishes he had more time to dream and act on those dreams.

Today I got a new idea that I am excited about.  I know that my plans do not always work out, but it is silly not to try if I have the opportunity to pull something off.  So I am currently in brainstorming mode and playing around with some things.  I am keeping the details to myself right now because I haven’t even worked all of the details out at this point.

By now, Faith is probably worried about my idea as she reads this.  Not to worry though because this one is a zero risk idea.  Those are the easiest ones to try out though.

Do you have dreams that you are waiting on or acting on?

When Faith and I started dating back in 2001, we decided that it was necessary for us to take certain steps to make Jesus a vital part of our relationship.  Part of that plan was to read the Bible together, but we were not able to sit down together everyday to read it.  So we decided to read a chapter a day separately and we would send each other an email on our thoughts about the chapter for that particular day.  It was a great way for us to get to know each other better and more importantly get to know Jesus better together.

Over the years, we have gotten away from our daily Bible reading occasionally, only to pick it back up again for a while and then life happens and we put it to the side for a while.  We even switched it up and read books together as well.  We have been on a really good streak since the beginning of this year and I have been trying something new to help us keep up with the reading.

I setup a separate blog at http://cord-of-three.blogspot.com/.  Every Monday through Friday, I post a blog with that day’s reading.  We are both subscribed to the blog in Google Reader, so when it publishes we get notification of the new blog post.  Because we check Google Reader constantly all day keeping up with all of the blogs and news that we read, it is easy to open that one up and read what we have for today.  We then have comments open on it so that we can share our thoughts about that day’s chapter.  Right now we are reading Jeremiah, so there is not a lot of chatter about it.

This has been working really well for us to read daily together and discuss it even when we don’t have the time to sit down and talk about it each day.

I am so glad that my wisdom teeth are out now and I am pretty much recovered from the removal.  I am still a little sore and I have to keep taking some drugs for a few more days, but I am confidently eating again for the most part with some exceptions.

I kept looking at this procedure as a big inconvenience for me.  I don’t like it when I have to put things on hold for stuff like this.  I kept thinking about how it was going to slow down everything in my life.  Fortunately I have a wonderful wife who managed to pick up the slack for a couple of days with my chores and the kids.  Today is my get back in the routine day.  I had a good night of sleep and am back at work today.  I feel like it will be pretty easy to get back into the daily routine so far.

I have noticed in the past whenever I try to make certain disciplinary changes in my life whether it be an exercise routine, diet, time-management routine, etc….there always seems to be something that comes up to try to slow me down.  I will either get sick or some other crazy circumstances of life become a major inconvenience.  Many times these minor distractions have become the stepping stone for old habits.  But I find if I can maintain my focus and push through the distractions, I can pick up the ball again keep running.  It is all about how I choose to deal with the situation.  I have a choice to let it roadblock me, or I can lean into it, pray really hard and watch God move mountains.

How are you choosing to respond to life’s distractions?  Are you letting them hinder what God has planned for you?

Yesterday afternoon I finally went in to have my wisdom teeth pulled.  They have wanted me to pull them for a year or so now, but they never bothered me until I got a cavity on one.  So I was not very excited, but thought it would be a good idea to get it taken care of.

So I went in for the appointment in the dentist’s office.  I have to mention that my awesome wife brought the kids to the appointment and entertained them the whole time I was in surgery.  I was hoping for a fairly standard teeth pulling unlike Faith who had to go under to get hers pulled.  So I got all of mine pulled using only a local anesthetic.  He numbed my mouth up really good until my mouth felt like the size of a football.  He then worked on the bottom right one and had to dig out the roots using all kinds of tools.  It finally came out and the root had a big hook on the end.  The top right one came out nice and easy and then we took a break.  The appointment was supposed to be an hour and a half, but it took about 2 hours.  He had to work on the last two as well and I got a laundry list of drugs for pain.

Last night I had fun changing out my gauze every 15 minutes.  It was a bloody mess.  The bleeding has almost stopped now.  Had a little on me from sleeping at night, but nothing major.  My mouth is still pretty sore, but I have been able to eat some toast now.  It feels really good to chew.  I have the day off work today for recovery, but I should be able to go back tomorrow.  I am really hoping to get things back to normal quickly especially in the eating department.  I should be okay for now though because I can eat lots of ice cream and I can drink my Coke again.

Wisdom Teeth from Chris Walker on Vimeo.