The Week That Was: This was certainly not a normal week by any stretch of the means. Monday-Wednesday, I was in at pastoral leadership training along with our pastoral staff down in Rehoboth Beach. I have to admit, my expecations were pretty low for the training. Thankfully, the training was excellent. While I have heard most of what was taught, it was a really good refresher, and really good to process it with some of our staff. We have more to process, but it could lead to some interesting discussions. As soon as I left training, I headed up to Philly for school. I spent a lot of time in the library, which was good. I only have two weeks of class left. It so hard to believe because I have a lot of work to get down yet.

Church Review: Church went pretty well today. I did not preach, so played a little different role as just the worship leader. Pastor Phyllis gave a good message and the gathering structure was good. I wish our 11:07 gathering had a little more consistency. We’ll finally do some marketing about the gathering when our community mailings go out in December.

Where I Am At the Moment: It’s actually Sunday afternoon as I write this. I just finished my theology paper and watching the Eagles try and blow a game to the Bungals.

On My To-Do List This Week: On Monday, I have to pick my mom up from the airport as our daycare is closed and she is watching Abbie for the week. I have to pick out music for the community thanksgiving service next Sunday. The rest of the week will be devoted to school work. I have two 10-15 page papers due, plus I have to build a small website on an aspect of Methodist History.

What Abbie is Up To This Week: Abbie finished up one round of teething about two weeks ago, and I think that she has another round coming up. Some of her “I” teeth are ready to come in. Abbie is beginning to enunciate more and more words.

Book I am in the Midst Of: I am mostly reading seminary stuff. Not much else.

Music That Caught My Attention This Week: I purchased two CD’s this week. The first was a Vineyard Worship CD called Sweetly Broken. The title track is by Jeremy Riddle and is powerful. I don’t know that I could pull that song off, but it speaks to me every time. Otherwise, I didn’t immediately hear anything that stood out. I also picked up Charlie Hall’s new CD called Bright Sadness. It was pretty good.

How I Feel About this week: I can almost begin to smell the turkey and pumpkin pie!