Life @ Montrose, July 31

This Sabbath one of our elders, Carlton Mason, Jr., will be sharing God's Word with us. Stick around after church for our weekly potluck in the park for delicious food and fun fellowship.

We're sad to see Sharon and Edith move back to Washington. This Friday evening (tomorrow), beginning at 6 pm, we're going to have a haystack supper at Pastor Campbell's house. The theme is haystacks. Pastor Michael is preparing two crockpots full of beans and the chips. Please bring a favorite haystack topping of your choice (or two or three depending on how hungry you are!). We want to make this a special season of fellowship to let Sharon and Edith know how much we appreciate them and wish them well as they transition on to a new part of the country.

Now is the time to get your child or grandchild signed up to receive a quality Christian education. Registration runs from 3 to 5 pm. Afterward there will be a corn roast with sandwiches. If you like to play soccer come over earlier in the day (10 am) for a pick up soccer game organized by our principal, David Swinyar.

On Thursday and Friday evening I went up to Gunnison for the conclusion of our evangelistic meetings up there. We also went back up on Sabbath for a "high Sabbath" for our Gunnison members. These meetings have been a tremendous source of inspiration and revival for our church family up there. I'm thankful that Jon Gardner and Nate Cranson were able to hold these meetings over the past two weeks. It has also raised the level of awareness in the community that we have an Adventist church in Gunnison. In the afternoon we went for a Sabbath afternoon hike to Gothic, just behind Crested Butte, to enjoy the wildflowers at their peak. It was spectacular. Then later on we had the last meeting in the series followed by a church social in the evening.

On Sunday I dropped Heidi and Emma off at the airport. They are spending a week with Grandma and Grandpa who wanted to get their dibs in to spend time with Emma before the summer is over. So I'm learning how to "batch" it again this week. I've been very appreciative of church members who feed their hungry pastor!

Monday we had our monthly pastor's meetings. We meet for the morning and then go out and have lunch together. This month we discussed the book, The Leadership Challenge. Have you seen it? It affirmed a number of things that we have been doing and challenged me to think of new ways to affirm our core values as a church. I believe it is important that we celebrate the values that drive our church. I saw this very distinctly this past Sunday when Lance Daniel, our head deacon, took a gentleman who was stranded here in Montrose to Grand Junction to help him get a ride to Denver. I think this is a good example of how community involvement and compassion combine by God's grace into being able to help another human being. I praise the Lord for people like Lance who go out of the way to help others.

On Tuesday I made a lot of pastoral visits here in Montrose. Tuesday I tackled a new hike with Bob Springer. He decided he would test my hiking endurance by taking me up to Mount Sneffels. Have you climbed it? I bet not very many people although we enjoy the view of the San Juans here in Montrose have ever hiked up there. We decided to climb up to Blaine Basin to about 12,000 feet. The wildflowers up there were terrific, and there is still a fair amount of snow bubbling down in torrents from those alpine heights. It just reminded me of what a loving God we serve who created so many different varieties of wildflowers. I have a better picture of how beautiful heaven will be by seeing such a beautiful place.

Yesterday I decided to cancel my trip to South Africa. We've got a lot of things going on and recently Heidi's brother is also getting married so we decided to hold off on this international trip as fun as that was going to be to be able to go there and do evangelism. I'd really like to see our church organize a mission trip for next year.

Well, I had better wrap this up because I have more pastoral visits to make today along with sermon preparation (not to mention that I need to clean the house and do some grocery shopping before Friday night!). I praise for each church member daily and please know that I am here to serve you. Please let me know how we can help you to grow to know Jesus better.