BIRTHDAY REFLECTIONS

Yesterday was my birthday - 47. I had a great day. Here's what a guy like me does on his birthday.

I began the day with a good friend of mine, Terry Mann (pastor of Fountain Park Church) doing what we do every other Monday morning - drinking large amounts of coffee, kicking around life and ministry, and encouraging one other to be all that God intends us to be. One of yesterday's highlights was the finalization of our travel plans for a trip together to LA in May to attend ORIGINS. I participated last year and I am looking forward to sharing the experience with Terry, as he is one of the biggest dreamers I know.

During the mid-day I gathered with about a dozen other missional leaders at the home of Scott Sunquist (professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary) for the second missional pastor’s cohort. This is a brand new group that I am involved with and we are committed to traveling together on the path of solid biblical and theological reflection on the practice of leadership in the local church. Yesterday our topic of conversation was Missional Hermeneutics and we discussed some ideas found in Lesslie Newbiggin's, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. It was good to wrap my mind and heart around some of these ideas.

Taking full advantage of a 75 degree afternoon, I hit the road for a 45 minute run. Over the past three months I have made a commitment to getting the body back in shape and apart from nagging back pain, things are going pretty well. I have been leveraging the time to take in some podcasts and yesterday I listened to a dynamic talk from Mark Batterson, speaking about the God story behind the opening of their coffee shop in Washington, DC. Talk about a venti dream – wow!

Birthday dinners are big in our household and we typically hang out at Outback. Yesterday was no different. The Outback special and lots of brown bread make us very happy. I was even treated to an Aussie version of Happy Birthday.

After dinner, our Ministry Coordination Group gathered for our monthly meeting in the atrium of the Galleria. One of our leaders baked a cake for me (white cake – yes!) and I was truly blessed as team members took time around the table to pray for me. Thanks to Marlaena for carving out the meeting time and space to celebrate with me.

I made it home by about 8:30 PM which left enough just time to open a few presents and share in the traditional poppy seed cake (my favorite passed along by my Grandmother Timm now lovingly baked by my wide Patty). I received some special birthday cards including three handcrafted cards, one designed by my daughter Hannah (an art student at Mercyhurst College), a “Bono wishes you a Happy Birthday” card from my son, Sam (including a classic image of Bono from the early ‘80’s) and a family portrait from Abby. My two sons had a secret mission after dinner and they returned with a special gift, an autographed copy of Mike Greenberg’s book, Why My Wife Thinks I am an Idiot. I am a big Mike and Mike fan (much bigger Greenberg than Golic) and my son Nathan discovered that Mike happened to be signing books last night at the local Barnes and Nobles. That was pretty cool!

And what better way to top off a birthday than with a compelling episode of 24. Yeah, Logan cried (but so did Jack) – best hour on TV.

As my younger brother Rob said to me earlier in the day, we getting older, but better (well at least he said that about himself). Amen to that.

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