pat loughery

Long time no blog. Rough week this past week, as we found out that our current worship leaders will be stepping down soon. They had hoped to be able to sell their home and move into our valley, but that’s not going to happen right now. And the hour long drive is wearisome.

So we’re in flux as a church. We’re praying that God brings us worship leaders. We’re praying that God shows us His direction for us. I’m praying that the Lord will keep me encouraged, keep me hopeful, and keep me sane.

Through it all, we continue to look for divine appointments – moments when something that God has arranged intersects with our day in a way that’s obviously Him.

For example, this just happened. I haven’t donated blood since last September, and the local blood bank has called a couple of times in the last month to ask me to come in. It’s kind of a hassle, I have to drive half an hour to get there, I can’ t really donate in the mornings when I’m watching my daughter as she’s pretty active and inquisitive.

So anyway today for wahtever reason I just felt like going. You know, put off sermon prep for a couple more hours. And that was cool, because the guy who did my intake questioning with me lives out here in North Bend, maybe a mile from my house. He plays a little guitar, has a couple of kids older than ours. We had a nice conversation, even though I could have sworn when he saw that my reading material was Missional Church he blanched and turned away.

As I was pumping out my life fluids, he gave me his phone number and said let’s get together to play guitar and let the girls play with each other.

I think that’s a divine appointment. Even though I didn’t have a word of knowledge about his aunt Edna’s brain hemhorrage or whatever, I think it’s a God-orchestrated moment. Should be fun to hang out and play guitar and let the kids play.