NCC’s annual leadership retreat is this weekend, and the theme for the year is Greater Things. It’s all about the greater things that God will do in, through and for us and the greater things that He will receive from us as a result of what he has done.

I’m super-pumped for the weekend. To all of those who are joining us, so glad you’re coming. To those who aren’t, come lead a small group or ministry at NCC in the coming year, and you can come in 2010!

You can follow the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #Greater09.

So, I’m really behind on updates about our trip. We’ve got our annual leadership retreat this weekend at NCC, so I’m pretty busy for the next few days, but I’ll try to get some updates posted when we get back.

It has been officially decided, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are the Greatest Candy and the OFFICIAL Candy of the 2009 National Community Church Leadership Retreat.

(See here if you have no idea what I’m talking about.)

I hate paperwork… and taxes, not so much the paying of taxes (although I’m no big fan of that) but the paperwork they require.

I do my own taxes. I might be willing to pay someone to do them or even pay more taxes if it meant less paperwork, but having someone do my taxes doesn’t really help. I’ve still got to get together all of the paperwork. All they do is the math. I can do the math. That’s no a big deal. It’s the paperwork that I hate.

I used to sit in Denny’s and talk all night long. Now midnight is about the latest I hang out with friends. Guess I’m all grown up, not sure I like it as much.

On my way to work yesterday I saw a blind girl who was having trouble figuring out which way to cross the street. After asking her where she needed to go, I pointed her in the right direction. At first I had that moment of self-congratulation. You know the one: you feel really good for helping someone out. And why shouldn’t I feel good? I spent somewhere between ten and thirty seconds helping another person.

But then tears began to well up in my eyes as I thought about what it would be like to be blind, to see nothing but blackness all of the time, to need help just to cross the street, and I felt far from self-congratulatory.

I’ll be honest; it made me question God. It raised doubts in my mind, and I still don’t have it all figured out.

God says in the book of Job, “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!” And later, “Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?“

I throw myself on God’s grace and mercy because sometimes I do question Him. Sometimes I don’t understand, and I struggle and doubt His goodness.

Do I still believe in God? Yes. Do I still believe that He is good and loving? Yes. Are those things hard to believe sometimes? Yes.

The theme of NCC‘s 2009 Leadership Retreat is Greater Things, and we want to give people the greatest candy. So we’re taking a poll to find out which of these candies is the greatest, but this isn’t just any poll. We’re having a Team D (NCC Discipleship Team) showdown. John “Skittles” Hasler, Heather “Snickers” Zempel, and I each picked one candy for the poll, and whichever candy gets the most votes will be given to all of the attendees at the retreat.

In other words, PLEASE vote Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups!

Here are some of my thoughts:

What are yours?

Rachel and I went out to see Barack Obama’s Inauguration today. We were far enough back that we couldn’t actually see what was going on at the Capitol, but here are some shots of what we did see, both in our trek to and from the National Mall and our experience there.

Regardless of your political persuasion, there is no doubt that the inauguration of America’s first African-American President is an historic moment, and it was very cool to be there for it.

How did you experience the Presidential Inauguration?

I took this shot on the way home from the inauguration. It was inspired by a similar (although much better) one from David Russell. There are some things that are too easily forgotten.

This is Bernard (or so we’ve named him), the St. Bernard that lives across the street from us. He’s quite cute.

The Kingdom of God has bathrooms!

You may have heard that there’s this little thing called the Presidential Inauguration in Washington DC tomorrow. It’s going to be cold, and even with the 5000+ portapotties that have been set up, I’m guessing that bathroom facilities will be an issue.

In response, Capitol Hill Presbyterian, a church just two blocks from the Capitol, has decided to open its fellowship hall (for warmth) and bathroom facilities to all comers.

This takes some effort on their part. It’s going to be messy. The bathrooms will probably need a lot of cleaning afterwards. Volunteers or staff will have to be around monitoring things all day long. It’s possible that stuff will get broken or stolen.

But you know what, those bathrooms don’t belong to Capitol Hill Presbyterian. They belong to God. Those are God’s bathrooms, and my guess is that the good folks there would agree. Maybe they’ve never thought of it that way before, but I would bet they’d agree. They’re being the lamp on a lampstand that Jesus talked about. Huge props to them. So again I say…

The Kingdom of God has bathrooms!