Dirt

This Sunday we will launch a new series called "Dirt" at Relevant Church.  I have been looking forward to this series for quite some time because I have this keen association with dirt.  You see I am a dirty guy and I can identify with dirty people.  You know the kind of people I am talking about in fact you may even be a fellow dirty person.  Here is what I mean by dirty: I am the guys who when I was a kid and I was told not to do something because it might be harmful to me I did it anyway.  Do I have a few takers on that?
When you are a kid that just means that you may get burnt with the stove or ruin a pair of jeans, shorts, or shoes or all of the above because you played outside in them and ended up ruining them with dirt.  However, the older you get the harder it is to clean off the dirt and it sometimes ends up staining us for the rest of our lives. As adults we have dirt on us like: cheater, backstabber, liar, thief, addict, manipulator and the list goes on and on.  Sure we have become pretty good at covering our dirt with the right clothes or the right job or even the right relationship.  But sometime the dirt raises its ugly head we are exposed for how dirty we really are. 
Have you ever been there? Exposed by your personal dirt.  Well you are not alone in fact the bible is full of characters who were every bit as dirty as you and I are and in some cases even dirtier. Yet, God found a way to allow them to grow through the dirt in their life and actually go on to do amazing things.  Over the next 5-6 weeks we are going to journey through scripture together and dig up some of this dirt on these people in the bible and in the process our own dirt is going to be exposed.  However, when our dirt is exposed I am going to encourage you to not try and cover it up but to embrace your dirt and allow God to begin the process of growing you up through it. 
Don't miss this weekend as we launch into DIRT it is going to be amazing.  I cannot wait to see all of you this weekend. Plus I hear Carl and our tech guys have re-rigged our lighting for a whole new look.  I cannot wait to see that as well.

For the 5400 and beyond,

Paul

Anniversary number 22

So right now I am sitting in the Denver International Airport with some great friends and my best friend @susiewirth.  Susie and I are celebrating our 22nd wedding anniversary and our friends @darrenpearson and @Jplovesdp4ever AKA Julie are celebrating their 23rd wedding anniversary.This got me thinking what does an anniversary represent?  Sure they are milestones in our lives but they are so much more. Here is my quick list of things I have experienced with the greatest woman in the world, my wife of 22yrs, Susie Wirth.  I love you baby.

• 2- amazing children Ashlyn and Anthony
• 3- miscarriages (we will see each of these precious babies one day)
• 7- missions trips 
• 22- incredible Christmas vacations
• 4- different ministries all in which she supported me in a huge way
• 4- home building projects 3 of which we lived with my parents for 6 months (WOW)
• 1- almost devastating failure on my part that almost cost us our marriage
• countless youth camp bus trips that lasted hour upon hour
• 8030 amazing days
• 192720 incredible hours
• 11,563,200 unforgettable minutes
• 693,792,000 priceless seconds

With a life like this I know why the Bible say this in Proverbs

Proverbs 18:22 (NLT)
The man who finds a wife finds a treasure and he receives favor from the Lord.


I am that man.  Feeling truly bless tonight.  Can't wait to spend a week in Vegas with her celebrating.

It's Been A While

Hello Blog.  I had almost forgotten that you existed until someone recently told me that you were still around.  For some reason almost 5 years ago I started this blog as a way of expressing everything that I was feeling as a person and a church planter.  This was going to be the place that I would share with the world everything that God was teaching me as a person and as a leader, I was pumped.  But then writing everyday became difficult and then writing 5 days per week became difficult, then I said I will just do three days per week and finally I just quit.  In fact when I looked at the last time that I posted anything on this blog I realized that if I would have just waited another month it would have been 4 years since I wrote anything at all on here.  It is not as if I have been abducted by aliens for the past 4 years or something.  It is just that Life and ministry has just gotten busy and I have gotten lazy.

This got me thinking that maybe my laziness in my blogging is no different that many peoples spiritual journey.  We all start out saying I am all in for Jesus and we sign up and show up for everything.  Then we begin to sign up far more than we show up for stuff and finally church becomes something that we used to do but now it has been 4 years since we have gone and we are not sure why.  We liked going and we even liked the people but somehow life just got too busy and one week turned to one month and that turned to one year and so on.

So this post is one of questions more than answers for both my blog and our spiritual lives?

1. What are things that make a blog worth doing and a blog worth reading?


2. What do you do when you feel like you want to quit writing?

Now to the spiritual questions:

1. What are things that make following Jesus and being part of a spiritual community worth it?


2. What do you do when you feel like quitting spiritually?