Lent

I'm a fairly private individual when it comes to religion, political views, etc.  I'm a Christian, in fact, I'm Methodist, but I don't wear it as a badge or use a bullhorn to announce it.  My friends and I have religion discussions fairly often and I have friends from many denominations.  It's just not something I'm usually public about.  I was raised in the church I attend.  I left it for many years after my first marriage, and after trying other churches and other denominations over the years, I came back to my church when Steve was diagnosed with the brain tumor.  (We had been back before because Steve was confirmed in this church when he was 13).
Anyway, Bill and I joined this church again in 2008.  We had a female pastor at that time, but in 2009 we got a new pastor.  His name is Christopher Druce-Jones and I have to tell you that he is the most dynamic speaker I've ever heard.  He leads our bible study groups and I hate to miss any of them because we have such great discussions and I have learned so much since he came to our church.  In our regular bible study we are reading "Heaven is For Real" by Todd Burpo.  I read this book a couple of years ago and loved it and now we're reading it together and discussing it chapter by chapter.  We have all walks of life in our bible study groups -- so many stories.  It's really wonderful.

For Lent we have a special Lenten study going.  This year we're reading this book.  Adam Hamilton is a Methodist minister in Kansas -- young, like Pastor Chris -- it so amazes me the knowlege they possess.  Pastor Hamilton started his own church and his congregation numbers in the thousands.  (My church is very, very small -- we might have 60 - 75 people on a Sunday).  This book is accompanied by a dvd --each chapter shows the actual sites that we read about in Jesus' journey of the last 24 hours of his life.  I would recommend the book and the dvd.

Like I said, I hate to miss any of the bible study groups and I had to miss last week's Heaven is for Real and chapter 2 of the 24 Hours because of this lousy cough -- now I only have my thoughts on it and nobody else's insight -- I miss it alot!

Okay - enough whining!