Category: reflections

Lazy weekend at Casa de Blundell

Well Laurie and I enjoyed a great fairly lazy weekend the past few days.
Jen and Jed came down from Dallas Friday night and joined us for some fajitas and margaritas at Campuzanos. Doesn’t get much better than that.
We came back to our place for a while and enjoyed some hot apple pie and vanilla ice cream while they looked at our wedding and honeymoon pics.
We crashed around 10 or so, shortly after they left.

I don’t think either of us were out of bed till after 11 a.m. the next morning. I woke up a couple times after 8 a.m. but said there’s no way I’m getting out of bed today unless I have to.
Finally around 1 p.m. or so we spent a couple hours geocaching around Waxahachie.

The batteries on our GPS unit were going bad so we struggled to keep it alive long enough to get two caches in.
On our hunt we were the first to find one cache and also spent some time looking at homes in two of the neighborhoods near the caches we found.
We grabbed some Chick-Fil-A on the way home and then jumped in the pool for an hour or so.

After swimming, our friends Amy and Josh came down from Dallas and joined us for some more Mexican food at Don Jose’s Mexicant Restaran (yes – that’s really how it’s spelled on their sign :-)).
Josh was actually one of the few people this weekend to notice my “psuedo-beard” (or at least make mention of it).

After breaking out with poison ivy in a few places on my face this week I thought it would be best to not shave those areas directly, so rather than keeping my gottee and pretty scraggly face, I just decided to trim it all on Saturday afternoon and make it a lot closer to the same length.
The jury’s still out. I’m not a fan and Laurie said she’s still trying to make up her mind about it as well.

Either way, after dinner we headed over to the Texas Theater to watch Shari and Smiley and their improv group, After Hours Improv.
They had a great show with over 130 people in attendance. If you think about it, do say a prayer for them. They got some bad news after the show regarding their plans for the next year or so.

Amy and Josh came back to Casa de Blundell after the show and looked at our wedding pics, as well as a photo album Laurie put together for them of pics we took at their wedding in June.
Sleep came soon after they left as well.

We wrapped the weekend up with church on Sunday morning, where Brian talked on the context of Christianity and how so often we view Christianity out of it’s intended context – but inside it’s proper context it can be a beautiful thing.
We came home, enjoyed some homemade pizzas and then Laurie spent the rest of the day studying for a skills test she has to take for work today.

While she studied I uploaded the podcast for the week, did a couple loads of laundry and took a nice nap.
Around 9 p.m. or so I started getting a little stir crazy and after our Internet went down (for some unknown, frustrating reason) I spent the rest of my evening wasting time playing with our camera and coming up with new Myspace angle photos.

I also did a goofy animation with our camera.
stairs.gif
Now I just need to extend it by five minutes or so and add music from The White Stripes “The Hardest Button to Button”

So there you have it – a photographic recap (somewhat) of a lazy weekend at Casa de Blundell.
For more entertaining stories, be sure and drop by and read Brandi’s recaps of Summer Camp.

More from Batterson

I had to head out for awhile today to help one of our road crews but I’m getting a chance to finish listening to Mark Batterson’s opening message to the 2007 Buzz Conference. More good stuff. Listen for yourself especially if you’re in a leadership role in ministry.

More quotes:

“Pacing yourself is one of the great challenges we face as leaders.”

“(God) said, ‘Mark, I want you to know it’s not what you can do for me but what I have done for you.'”

“My greatest fear is that my kids would grow up and regret being a pastor’s kid. If I knew they would regret being a pastor’s kid I would quit today – or maybe after the Buzz conference. I’m not going to sacrifice my family on the alter of ministry.”

“Are you living your life in a way that’s sustainable over the long term?”

3 Resolutions Batterson made this year:

  • Don’t check work related e-mail on my day off “The second I look down at my Palm I’m not 100% with my kids anymore.”
  • Use all of my vacation days this year “My kids deserve all of my vacation days”
  • I’m not going to be away from my family more than 30 nights

“My most important ministry this year by far was coaching my son’s basketball team”

“We as leaders are not real good at keeping a Sabbath. It is one of the 10 Commandments… God instituted the Sabbath for one simple reason, to remind us that we do not keep the planets in orbit.”

“Good routine can become bad routines if we don’t change the routine.”

“After singing a song 30 times you stop thinking about the lyrics. Maybe the role of a worship leader is to keep the worship from becoming this empty routine. Maybe the role of a teaching pastor is to keep the Bible from becoming routine. Maybe the role of a discipleship pastor is to keep the spiritual adventure an adventure and mix it up… good leaders confuse people.”

“Everything is an experiment.”

I love my life


Laurie gets ready
Originally uploaded by Jonathan D. Blundell.

I can’t begin to tell you how much I love my life Laurie.
She continues to amaze me with her strength, patience, joy and life.
God knew exactly what He was doing when He brought us together, when He brought us together.
I love you Laurie. Thanks for loving me like you do.

Quotes of the day

Mark Batterson talked about the Moscow Rules at the 2007 Buzz Conference hosted by his church in Washington, D.C.

Here’s some great quotes from the message:

What Batterson says is the core value of his church:
“Irrelevance is Irreverence. God is not just omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. He’s omni-relevant. He knows 6 billion dialects. He speaks our language. Where we’re failing is in incarnation. We need to incarnate the truth in ways that make sense to our culture.”

“When we quote the Bible we gain credibility with Christians. When we quote non-biblical sources we gain credibility with non-Christians.”

“All truth is God’s truth.”

“Every ‘ology’ is a branch of theology. Because God made it all.”

“You can preach for two reasons because you have to or because you have to. You can preach because you have to because you’re on the schedule this week and you’re up to bat. You’re in the batters box. Or you can preach because you have to because there is a message that’s burning into you and you are like Paul compelled to preach. His fire showed up in your bones and you need to say something.”

“I want to study less and live more so my sermons are less theoretical and more experientially. I don’t think what NCC needs is a sermon well preached. They need a life well lived. I need to make sure I’m not just talking about things I’m living things. It’s our example that we set. I think the best thing I can do is try to be a great dad. Try to be a good husband. Try to live my life in a way that honors God and then more people will get it because we all know that Christianity is more caught than taught.”

Listen online: http://buzzconference.com/media

Praise God for his grace, mercy and protection

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Received an update on Kathryn from Matt and her mom late last night…

PRAISE THE LORD AND HALLELUJAH!!!
I hope all of you’ve heard the miraculous way in which the Lord answered our prayers for Kathryn and the Buckner team. Ron and I have been away from our email most of the day and are just now able to send our tremendous thanks to you for your prayers. Please pass it on to others who were also praying.
Please continue to pray for the team, for one-on-one conversations with the kids, and for Kathryn’s arm and wrist that has been hurting since she arrived in Russia. Your prayers are part of the way in which GOD IS WORKING! Please keep it up.
For those who may not have heard, here’s a brief account of the results:
The government officials came out and had a great conversation with one of the Buckner staff members. The official apologized for everything and the caregiver was fired. The Buckner team had a really great day with the kids. Keep praying for this time for the team to present God’s love and salvation to these precious children. Please also keep praying for SVETLANA’s salvation, the caregiver who was fired.

“Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of thy redeeming love.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for thy courts above!”

Wow. I can’t even read the lyrics of that hymn now without tearing up.
What great words of encouragement and grace and mercy.