Summer Has Hit! & Christian Response to Culture

I am thankful I get to do what I get to do. These past two weeks have been pretty fast and furious. On Father's Day afternoon, after church and lunch, I headed towards Chicago to speak at our World Changers project up there for the week. It was a great week of ministry. The crews that came did all kinds of work in the Chicago suburbs. I enjoyed speaking and getting to know so many. God moved in a pretty big way and there were 7 salvations of those in the area. God is that good. You can see some of the week's highlights here if you are interested.

I headed home on Saturday and enjoyed some time with Sondra before she headed out on Monday to go be with her mom in Tulsa. Sondra's mom had back surgery almost 4 weeks ago and she seems to be doing fair, but not great. We are hoping for her to have another MRI to see what is causing the most recent pain.

I am enjoying having Morgan home and Jordan is with us this summer. He is a recent Union grad and doing an internship here in Nashville with Sam's and needed some housing so we are glad to have him around. I am enjoying getting some runs, rides and swims in even while traveling a bunch. I am looking forward to being home this next week even though I am missing Sondra who will be out with her mom until July 6. Once the second week of July hits, I will be burning up the pavement.

On another note - with recent rulings from the Supreme Court regarding Prop 8 and DOMA, I ran across an article that articulates my feelings about our "engaging culture, rather than railing against culture" mush better than I could have said it. If you are interested, I would encourage you to read it here. My co-worker, Ed Stetzer says it well.

Personally I am disappointed, but not surprised with the ruling. And, in many ways I am grateful. I am grateful for a loving, grace-filled God who hates all sin, including mine, and offers hope, peace, redemption and grace. We have a great story to tell. Let's focus on telling His story. He is that good!

America - Celebrating Flag Day

I have long been a fan of the late Johnny Cash. In celebrating Flag Day today in the United States, I am reminded of this song Johnny did years ago.

Whole Lotta Stuff Going On!

So why does someone with so much going on not stop and blog about it? Laziness and excuses come to mind.

Since I last informed you of the Turner happenings -

• Morgan graduated from Union University w/ honors. She gets her looks and personality from me but thankfully her brains from Sondra.Wilson, her beau, graduated as well and I think we may see alot of him this summer. That's not a bad thing (for the most part). ;-)
• We moved Morgan home and moved one of her classmates in for a couple of months for an internship here in Nashville. The housing that had been arranged fell through and we have a spare room. Jordan is fun to have around and doesn't eat much.
• I have made a few trips but can't remember where I went so I guess it has been too much lag time since.
• Work is busy! World Changer and P2 Missions projects are up and running after 2 weeks of training. It was my first go around with the training part of getting summer staff ready. It is a very involved and focus process. It was great to spend time with almost 80 summer staffers. I learned much and hope I passed on some information and wisdom as well.
• I also hosted about 12 youth ministers for three days here at LifeWay. We call it Student BETA and help youth ministers think through ministry and try to be a resource for them in their mission of making disciples through their local church. It is a great time and fairly tiring but I love spending time with these men and women.

The next few weeks will be very busy with work. I will be speaking all next week in Chicago and then have quite a few trips planned for the next 6 weeks with World Changers. It will be fun.

Sondra's mom had surgery on her back and seems to be recuperating very well. Sondra will head to either Tulsa or Bolivar to spend some time with her in the next few days. We are thankful for successful surgery and are praying for healing and a fix to the terrible leg pain she had been experiencing. We are grateful to Bronwyn and Phil and their kids for the way that they have been caring for her.