Cheerios, Chicago, Churches and One of the Best Sermons I've Ever Heard (sorry, ran out of "c" words)

Okay, so four quick things.

I woke up this morning and went to the top of the fridge, where we conveniently keep all our boxes of cereal. Now, my wife buys the cereal, and usually there is a modicum of selection. Total, for the days when I want my grains whole. Shredded Wheat, on the day where I feel like I want my grains shredded. Sometimes, even a heathy granola with raisins. Today, here was my selection

• Berry Blast Cheerios
• Yogurt Burst Cheerios
• Honey Nut Cheerios
• Cheerios

That's it. Cheerios. "Justus like them," my wife said.

*sigh*

Barney is not far away, people. Not far away.

ITEM TWO: The Zimans
So Nicole and I are flying out to Chicago this weekend to visit our dear friends the Zimans. Not since post-college have I been so intent on making a long-distance relationship work. Nicole and I are already packed. Not that we're that excited.

ITEM THREE: The New Building
YEsterday, after our third and final Sunday service, folks stuck around and helped FCC move everything out of it's current facility at 20 Great Oaks Blvd to the new building at 478 Piercy Rd. We had slated Sunday-Wednesday, in hope that we'd get enough volunteers to move every single thing out fo the building and still have time to clean by Wednesday night, which is the 1st of the month. We figured four days, with a big enough volunteer force, would probably get the job done, if we coordinated everything right. So we started yesterday at 2 p.m.

By 6 p.m. the 20 Great Oaks building was empty and cleaned.

By 8 p.m., we were sending masses of volunteers home because there wasn't anything left for them to do.

I will blog more about this later, but the whole experience was unbelievably spiritual and shocking. I don't know if I've ever seen that much work get done that quickly. If you go to FCC and you didn't get a chance to help out yesterday, man, you missed out not on hard labor, but on a living example of the power of community. I can't wait until Wednesday, when we have another volunteer day to get things finalized on the campus for our first service. It's going to be even better.

Item Four: Maybe The Best Sermon I've Ever Heard
To say that something is the "Best Sermon" you've ever heard is an entirely subjective judgment. Oh, sure, there are elements of rhetoric and style that preachers use. And then there's things like humor, insight and stick-in-your-head-one-liners. But when you say that something is the "Best Sermon" you've ever heard, it usually means that God used it to impact your life and shift it in a real and powerful way.

So in that way, it's kind of like saying, "This is the best movie I've ever seen." Sometimes, you try to share your favorite movie and people are like, "What? That's your faviorite movie?" I did that with the movie "MIllions," which made me really cry hard, and everyone else is like, "Uhh...the movie was okaaaay."

It's just the way it hit me, I guess. So, with that in mind "The Best Sermon I've Ever Heard" up until this point, has been a three-way tie between a sermon I heard T.D. Jakes give at a Willowcreek Leadership Summit (which made me realize I have a place in God's church), a sermon I heard John Ortberg give during the OTC about Job (which made me want to preach the Bible so beautifully at some point in my life) and a sermon by Scotty Smith in Steven Curtis Chapman's church in Nashville (which made me realize that if I was to call myself a Christian, I had best get up and serve somebody).

I have a new contender. Maybe not top 3, but definately top 5. As I link to it, and if you choose to download and listen to his podcast, realize this is entirely subjective and has everything to do with where I was spiritually in my life, and the things that God was speaking to my heart. But this is the most spiritually impactful sermon I've listened to in a long time. Paradigm shifting.

Erwin McManus: Prayer - Spiritual Activism

p.s. And if you don't like it, please don't email me. It deflates me. Just like when people don't like "Millions."