Jumbo Shrimp in Houston, TX

My online buddy “Katdish” has graciously allowed me to post about my book, “The Jumbo Shrimp Gospel“, on her blog.  Katdish is involved in a new church plant in the Houston area.  She’s addicted to Twitter (seriously, she needs an intervention), and she’s a valued contributor to discussions on many blogs (one of which is this one).  She’s even posted a link for folks to buy the book, which is way too nice of her!  Thanks, Katdish.

You can read the post here.

What Happens in G-Vegas

Each Monday, I’m going to post a brief summary of what we’ve done the previous week in relation to expanding the kingdom of God in Greenville.  So here’s what happened the week of June 28…

1. Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and Billy Mays.  In one week?  Crazy.  Not that their passing has anything to do with what we’re doing, but it was just… crazy!  And Steve McNair on Saturday!
2. Started the online discussion to my book, “The Jumbo Shrimp Gospel.”  Have had some pretty good thoughts so far.  Looking forward to what develops.
3. Speaking of my book, I had a message on my phone from my pops saying that someone in his church wanted to order six copies–one for himself (he read my parents’ copy) and five more to give away.  To prisoners (he’s a prison guard).  How awesome is that?!?  I also had someone else from Texas want to order ten copies to give away, with the possibility that her church may do it as a small group study.
4. Speaking of someone else from Texas, she graciously allowed me to post on her blog about my book.  In fact, you had to scroll down from my blog entry linking to her blog.  So, if by some odd reason you didn’t read that first, or you’re blind, scroll back up and go check it out.
5. I’m starting to develop some cool connections through my job as a hospice chaplain, including the head of internal medicine at ECU (he’s my new kidney doctor… and apparently I’m a fascinating case study medically).
6. Everyone interested in our new church was out of town this week.  Kind of a bummer that we didn’t get to hang out, but the cool thing is that I’m not getting paid for it, so I’m totally not stressing about creative ways to milk money out of people (did I just say that?).  Hoping to jump-start that back up this week.
7. We went to see our buddy Jordan Clark at the Tipsy Teapot, a tea shop in downtown (they call it Uptown) Greenville.  A very cool place, and definitely a place where a simple church could sprout.
8. While at the Tipsy Teapot, I got to catch up with a buddy, Thomas Hamilton.  I was actually friends with his brother in college, and now Thomas is all grown up and married.  He was in professional ministry for awhile, but got pretty beat up.  He’s still super involved in kingdom work, and I found out he’s local to us.  We had a great conversation on church, church planting, and specifically simple churches.  His mental wheels are turning for sure.
9. Spent July 4 weekend with my wife’s family.  It was a fun time.  Best of all, I got to check out my father-in-law’s new outdoor shower.  Like the ones you see at beach houses.  He built one.  It’s totally cool.  The food, hanging out with family, and fireworks were too bad, either.
10. Since we spent the weekend at the in-laws, we went to the church Laura grew up in.  I’ll leave it at that.

This week, please pray for the following:

1. Tonight, we’ve got a couple coming over to hang out to talk simple church.  They just moved to Greenville from Chicago.  He’s on staff at a local Methodist church, and is really questioning how church is done in general.  They found us through my wife Laura’s blog (I think).  Should be a good time.  I’m starting to have a lot of these conversations with guys.  Not sure why they’re coming to me, other than “Wow, they had the guts to actually do what I want to do” or “This guy’s crazy.  I need a good laugh.”
2. We need to get our weekly gathering going again.  Summer is crazy…
3. Figuring out how to interact with more people, and scoping for potential places where simple churches can sprout.