Cathie has the flu. Had it last night, actually, but still sent me off to the concert without complaining. Rough day. I suck at trying to get stuff done and hang with the kids at the same time. I get so frustrated when they're getting in the way of me completing a task. God forbid that a 2 year old doesn't jive with my plan for the day... I guess 2 year olds are like that. We've got Madeline's 5th birthday part on Saturday and we're at my folks all day tomorrow for the 4th, so we have to have most of the stuff ready to go tomorrow. Sounds like a dumb thing to lose sleep over, doesn't it?

Between Cathie going to Mexico and some things Noel talked about at Velocity has gotten me thinking about the serving ministries that I support with my time and resources. Crossroads as a church is great at being involved in helping the poor - both locally through Active Faith and different inner-city ministries like Gleaners Food Bank. Those are good ministires, and pretty typical of the kiind of ministries that churches support. In one of Noel's teachings, he mentioned how their church had a food drive for the local AIDS support center. He described how no church had ever done that for them. Jason told me about a buddy of his from school who has a ministry to abused and homosexuals, and he can't get a church to support him. It seems crazy that churches aren't jumping at the chance to support things like these. At first I thought this was a problem with the ministries our church is involved in, and then I came to the conclusion that I need to start with looking at what I'm doing in terms of serving the poor, the hurting and the outcast. I asked God a while back to change my heart towards serving others, so that I could be transformed, and in turn convey a credible vision to my kids in Fusion around the value of service in terms of spiritual formation. I'm trying to line up all these data points, points that I'd never really spent much time considering. Not sure where they'll lead.

I'm looking forward to hanging out with my family tomorrow. We always have a blast. Lots of squirt guns, hoses, people getting soaked - my Mom and Dad typically get in on the action as well. My Mom has this tradition of buying all of the grandchildren matching Old Navy and doing group pictures. Goofy, but fun. I really have a pretty amazing family.