There are Christians, and even Christian leaders who try to divorce elements of their private life from their Christian life. For some this manifests itself in Friday/Saturday behavior that would not be admitted to Sunday at church. For others, it is a homelife that is in trouble while the public persona is polished. Too often it is felt that our private lives are just that and it doesn't matter. I reject that argument for all Christians and especially for Christian leaders. Christ is not our profession, He is to be our life. It doesn't mean that we are to be perfect. That is impossible, but every area of our lives speak to our walk with God. That is why the personal life does matter. Scripture holds a very high standard on this, especially for leaders. James 3:1 "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment." 1 Timothy 3 gives an extensive list of standards for leaders in the church. Much of the list concerns itself with general lifestyle behavior, in the home, out in public. It is not a statement of what happens "in church". This is seen clearly in 1 Timothy 3:7 "And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church, so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil." I write this today because I came across an article about a recent publication by a computer engineer who works for Google. This security tech found a bad flaw in Microsoft Windows XP. He reported it to Microsoft so that they could work on patching it, but then within the week he published the flaw publicly, allowing others to know about and exploit the flaw before Microsoft could fix it. This violates the standards that Google itself has for such reporting and Microsoft is angry with both the man and Google. The man and Google argue that what he does on his own time is soley his business/responsiblity. The writer of the article disagrees

What you do on your own time reflects upon your employer whether you or your employer wants it to or not; this has been true since the beginning of time. The closer the connection between your personal activities and your employer's business, the brighter that reflection will become. When, as is the case here, your personal and business activities overlap, your choices are almost always to toe the company line or start polishing the resume.

I like this. "What you do on your own time reflects upon your employer whether you or your employer wants it to or not". This is true of us a Christians and our "employer" if you will, God. What we do on our own time reflects on God and it will reflect on how others see not only us, but Him. True in the business world, true in the church.

June is always one of the busiest months in my year. The only second place is probably a toss up between May and December, but June is always the busiest with graduations, graduation parties, VBS prep and execution, preparation and beginning camp, plus all the other events that June is perfect for, like weddings, first picnics, birthday parties, end of school year picnics, and the like. It is directly as a result of this that it is June 8th before I post my first June blog post. :) I want to share a couple of highlights of the last week. Although it was saddening to lose Patricia Ellsworth last Sunday, her memorial service on Thursday was a wonderful affirmation of her life and love. It was great to meet her family, including three wonderful adult children who were obviously raised in an atmosphere of love. Their care for Ralph and each other was so affirming. The number of people who turned out for the service was a great testimony to the lives this quiet lady touched. Speaking at Jay's Baccalaureate and Oxford Hills Christian Academy's Graduation were great times. It was wonderful to see people and share with the grads. The relationship God has given me with the kids at OHCA is especially meaningful to me and I was very humbled by their love, calling me another dad. I am coming to accept and embrace more and more that God has called me to be a Dad to those who need a spiritual dad, or at least one more spiritual dad. Every time I turn around he seems to place more "daughters" in my path. It is a great responsibility but an honor as well. I know I have expended plenty of electronic ink on this subject already, but I want to comment again on working with Nate. This last week we got together for a quick meeting at his request because he needed a little input on his sermon for Sunday. We had a great time of studying the Word together and he got excited as he saw things coming together. Sunday I eagerly awaited hearing what God and Nate had prepared for us and I wasn't disappointed. Another strong and well formed sermon. I cannot express how proud I am of the work Nate is doing and how he is growing in the ministry. I have always enjoyed Nate's preaching but the maturity and depth that he has and is developing are awesome! I want to add an additional note on our working relationship. I will probably put this into a newsletter when I finally get one ready. :) My goal in working with Nate is to prepare him and promote him. God has called me to make disciples. Nate has been called to our church to be a pastor, and as the older pastor in residence, it is my job to disciple him and make him into a senior pastor. I can't do that by being protective and defensive about my position. He needs plenty of preaching time, exposure to all the aspects of the pastor job, and training in how to do such a busy schedule without neglecting the all-important family time. The only way to truly teach this is to have him do it, not just see me do it. This is one of the reasons that Nate preaches as often as he does on Sundays. He shares the radio show with me. We share youth group. Anything I am doing in the ministry I need to make him able to take over for me. If I worry about my position, if I forget that my job is not to do everything but to equip others, then I will begin to fail. To be effective in this job requires me to set aside self protection and pride and be open and honest with Nate about my failures, my struggles, my challenges. It is in the areas where I am weak that I can be most effective as a teacher as I show him how to deal with his own weaknesses. Pastors tend to hide their weaknesses, deny their weaknesses, or cover them up. I have watched first hand how incredibly destructive that can be and how that tendency leads to a front and performance rather than authenticity. I want to make sure that Nate does not follow that path. I am glad that he has repeatedly shared from the pulpit his areas of weakness and struggle in authentic ways. I am so proud of him. Well, I am waxing long here. I still have lots of other stray thoughts, but I guess I should save them for another day to keep the blog posts from being too long.

The end of the week got pretty crazy, so I didn't have a good chance to update the blog. Life sometimes overtakes the best laid plans that we make. :) Sunday was a good day even though it got off to an inauspicious start. The children woke Sarah and I up around 4 in the morning because they were awake and playing rather loudly. I had to go down and remind them of their duty to sleep quietly during the night hours. They all fell back to sleep and eventually so did their parents. Needless to say Sarah and I were very tired today. It is a good thing that Nate had an awesome sermon this morning because I doubt I could have stayed awake and followed him otherwise. As it were, he did a great job and I followed the whole thing. It is so encouraging to have him handle the Word of God with such skill. I really enjoy sitting under his teaching and learning what God has shown him. He is really growing in the craft of sermon prep and delivery. It was also great to see everyone at church today and just touch base with people. Some people need encouragement and some are an encouragement, but it was great all the way around. The rest of the day can be described in one glorious word. QUIET. I did a run into Hannaford to pick up some supplies for Sunday night and Monday afternoon and listened to the Red Sox game on the radio (they won!). I hung out with the kids while Sarah got a nap and then she hung out with the kids while I did. We then fixed them a lite supper and got them ready for bed. Then I grilled steak for Sarah and I and we sat on the couch, ate our steaks, and watched a movie together. A fun night and a quiet time. Tomorrow Sarah is going to go do some vegetable gardening with a friend and I am going to do yard work. The kids will help us and have a great time just being with us. In the afternoon we are getting together with friends for more quiet fellowship and just hang out time. Life is good. June is going to be another fantastically busy month with so many things going on. This week ahead is going to be busy with me speaking at a baccalaureate and a graduation both in the same week. So it is nice to have a couple of days to really devote to family time and togetherness. I love my family and never want the ministry to become so demanding that I do not have time for them. So this was a rather personal note about my weekend. Hope your memorial day also centers around family time, and good fellowship with the family of God.

Had a great day today, and its not over yet. Today I traveled down to Portland to speak at Greater Portland Christian School. Before chapel I was able to have lunch with my friend Trent who is a pastor down in Buxton. It was great to just connect as friends and co-workers. We had a great lunch and a great time sharing. He gave me some good things to think about as a bonus. I am always glad to learn and by challenged by a brother. He gave me a good piece of husband advice that I need to work on. Chapel with the students was fun. This was my last chapel of the school year with them and I challenged them to remember that heaven is our real home and that we are only visiting here for now. I also challenged them to trust God because He is worthy of trust even when we don't have all the answers or understand what He is doing or why He is doing it. Managed to get home in time to catch a little office time and now I need to go get supper on the grill and help get kids ready for bed. Sarah hasn't had a chance to watch the LOST finale and we are going to try to fit that in tonight if we can. I am looking forward to watching it again now that I know how it ends to see what else stands out to me. If you haven't checked out Nate's blog he has a good post about the finale. I agree with what he says there. At some point I may post a LOST entry if I can put it together. For now I am going to delight in an evening with my family (with a brief interruption for prayer meeting).

Sarah and I went to the marriage retreat up to Blueberry Mountain on Friday night and Saturday. It was a great time! We were able to tent out which was a lot of fun, and the sessions and times together were very helpful. I would go so far as to say that it was the best marriage event I have ever been to. I think there are a couple reasons for that. One: the couple that led the retreat divorced after 2 years of marriage. Stayed divorced for 11 years and lost track of each other. Both got right with God and found each other and remarried. Talk about a cool story! As they taught us, they taught us as people who have discovered things in their own life and learned from their failures. It wasn't a lot of great philosophy, it was a whole lot of real life presented in a real way. Very accessible. Second reason: Me. I'm continuing to grow and mature and one big part of that is getting past fear and pride. I always hated going to anything like this because I was sure it was going to show me all these things that I was doing wrong and I didn't want to feel like that. What guy (or anyone) wants to feel like a failure? Well that is just pure pride on my part. I didn't like feeling like I had things to learn so I didn't expose myself to things I needed to learn. As I am growing in my marriage and walk with Sarah, I am coming to understand the joy of being humble and teachable ESPECIALLY in this area. I have found as a result that Sarah is much less interested in my perfection than in my openness to growing towards her. Who knew? :) As we deal with the issues and imperfections in our marriage and talk honestly about them, we can feel the greater health, the greater joy, and the greater closeness. I have to tell you, it's AWESOME! Husbands, having a lot to learn is not a stain on your honor. Being a afraid of learning will in the long run hurt a lot more than the learning itself.