{"id":1253,"date":"2009-01-13T23:11:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-14T04:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/?p=1253"},"modified":"2009-01-13T23:11:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-14T04:11:00","slug":"think-before-you-speak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/?p=1253","title":{"rendered":"think before you speak"},"content":{"rendered":"

Had a great lunch with Mark today. I really enjoy his company. Mark is the pastor of Rosemont Baptist Church<\/a>, the first church we visited when we decided to move on from Calvary. We found Rosemont doing a search for Reformed<\/a> churches in the area, at which point we were still somewhat conflicted about leaving Calvary, so we e-mailed him for advice. He sent back a prompt, thoughtful treatise detailing his take on the subject, and that solidified our good first impressions. Wanting to learn more about Rosemont I contacted him a few months ago and we had lunch together, and have just struck up a friendship since. He tells me how his oldest son is doing in college and he younger son playing basketball at a local high school, and I ramble on about the travails of young family life. We talk about theology and books and all manner of things. It’s a great time.<\/p>\n

Diane and I still haven’t found a church, and my friendship with Mark makes it a little difficult, seeing as how we have<\/i> visited his church a few times, and might not end up committing to it, which would have the potential to make our get-togethers a little awkward. He’s well aware of our struggles in finding a church home, and I addressed the potential awkwardness today, telling him I appreciated him taking the initiative to want to have lunch again even though he knows we might not commit to his church, and admitting that it might be an “elephant in the room” during subsequent meet-ups. He replied immediately, “That’s not true,” and went on to explain that he and his wife just want us to be where God wants us to be, whether that’s Rosemont or not. It’s a very gracious attitude and one that’s indicative of a high degree of confidence in the Lord to grow his church, if it’s even His intention to grow it at all (sometimes it’s not–and church growth isn’t nearly as related to a church’s health as some assert). Needless to say, I really appreciate his friendship, encouragement and insight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Had a great lunch with Mark today. I really enjoy his company. Mark is the pastor of Rosemont Baptist Church, the first church we visited when we decided to move on from Calvary. We found Rosemont doing a search for Reformed churches in the area, at which point we were still somewhat conflicted about leaving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}