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Friday and Saturday was our annual Children’s Retreat. The theme for the weekend was “Double Vision,” and we were encouraged to “throw off anything that entangles us” (Hebrews 12:1-2), and to keep our focus on Christ.

While this was our fourth annual retreat, it was a first for Joshua and Caleb. We had a wonderful time and the weekend was a huge success. I got about four hours sleep last night, so I’m off to bed.

As part of our Special Exception process we have been through an eight month (or more) process of developing a site plan, traffic brief, architectural plans, hiring a lawyer, dozens of meetings, lots of prayer, etc…. It all culminated into a packet of information that was presented to Frederick County on Monday. They will review the information for one month and let us know if we can build a building on the property or not. There are five requirements in order to pass a special exception for a piece of property, and we meet all five. But there is always the chance that there will be a snag because the process involves people who are subjective and given to vary in how they respond. So pray that the board approves our appeal and that everything goes smoothly.

The hard part of the process was the things that I thought we had plenty of time to think about and plan over the years of development of the property had to be planned NOW. For instance I knew that our church would eventually have a day care center, or mom-morning-out program, or something similar but I thought I had plenty of time to think about it. I just wanted to begin with our church building. But in order to eventually have a child care center we have to include it in the plans NOW. It has to be included because of traffic counts, turn lanes in the into the property, sewage treatment, etc… We had to show ball fiends, phase two and three of the building for the eventuality of our having a thousand people on the property at one time, a school, and how they would all relate together.

So yesterday I had the privilege to drive the stakes in the ground and placing Daybreak’s signage showing to the public our intention to build and develop the property. Many will drive past and never even notice it, but it represents months and months of work and thought and planning.

Each phase of our building process has had it own frustrations and challenges. It is important to celebrate the mile markers as you pass them. This project seems to grow in difficulty at each level of development, but today I celebrate a sign going in the ground and all that it represents.

Beginning in October Daybreak will begin promoting our Christmas missions effort; Operation Christmas Child.
During the weeks of October we ask that you gather shoe boxes and begin to fill them with the suggested items.
These boxes will be sent to children around the world that need to see and experience God’s love. We will then gather these boxes on November 2nd, 9th, and 16th. Please pray for this effort and how you can be involved.

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Just about every year that I have been in ministry at least once, I will take some time to review the past year. Yesterday and today I updated my calendars (it’s back-to-school time you know), and in order to do this you have to look back over the past year. I look for events that need to be repeated (added to the current calendar) and evaluate events that don’t need to make it to this year.

While I did not intentionally set this pattern of yearly evaluation, I have found it to be very helpful. If you don’t have a time to step back (out of the system) and ask the hard questions, you will continue to do what you know (what you are familiar with). Often times when you keep repeating something simply because it was on last years calendar, and don’t evaluate, it will eventually lose it effectiveness and freshness. Get your people to ask, “Why are we doing this again?”

Also, people’s schedules are so busy – so if you keep adding things but never take anything away, the calendar becomes crowed and people will just tire out. So, focus on what’s the best and let the good and the bad go to wherever deleted items go in cyberspace.

So, for this year, I have decided to cut a couple of events (that to be honest probably won’t even be missed) and I am adding some new ideas and events to the calendar. I also think there is something to trying new things, simply to try something new. (By the way, it doesn’t always have to something “new”, it can be something old just repackaged.)

Anyway, the future is bright or at least clear of clutter.