Hey All!

Just a little note to say hey from the road! I'm in Cedar Falls, IA for the weekend (at Heartland Vineyard), leading worship and teaching at a worship retreat they hosted for other churches in the area. It was a great way for folks to connect relationally and just take some time to worship, hear some teaching, get some ministry, and glean from some practical workshops.

Tonight I was also privileged to lead worship for their Saturday night service, and tomorrow will be leading worship for the two morning services as well. Then I'll be in the air flying home while you're all watching the Super Bowl. Eat some pizza or chips and salsa for me. ;o)

After living in Georgia for a while now, I take for granted our mild winters. The weather was actually warmer here in Iowa than I expected, though still cold enough that there are piles and piles of snow along the roadways and in lawns. Some of you may not know I grew up in the Midwest - Michigan and Indiana mostly - and so for most of my life, piles of snow all winter were the norm. Now it almost seems like a novelty. I found myself wanting to take pictures of the piles of snow. Funny how quickly we acclimate to our surroundings.

Acclimating can be good I suppose...but for some reason at the moment, it brings to mind this verse from Romans 12 that I shared today in part of my teaching at the retreat, and I think it's such a great verse to re-visit time and again - where it talks about NOT becoming so well-adjusted to the world around us that we miss what God's doing:

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."

Lord, help us all in the daily grind where things can become so "ordinary" to see the extraordinary ways you are at work - both in us, and all around us. Fix our eyes on you, and help us to respond to you by living lives of worship, embracing all you have for us.

Have a great Sunday everyone! I'll catch you again in Atlanta! :)

Sheri