One for the Ladies

A very attractive lady goes up to a bar in a quiet rural pub. She gestures alluringly to the bartender who comes over immediately. When he arrives, she seductively signals that he should bring his face closer to hers. When he does, she begins to gently caress his full beard.

"Are you the manager?" she asks, softly stroking his face with both hands. "Actually, no," the man replies.

"Can you get him for me? I need to speak to him," she says, running her hands beyond his beard and into his hair.

"Can't," breathes the bartender. "He's not here. Is there anything I can do?"

"Yes, there is. I need you to give him a message," she continues, running her forefinger across the bartender's lips and slyly popping a couple of her fingers into his mouth and allowing him to suck them gently.

"What should I tell him?" the bartender manages to say.

"Tell him," she whispers, "there is no toilet paper, hand soap, or paper towels in the ladies room."

Gross, I know.... I just thought this would be a good way to give a big Thank You to the people who work behind the scenes to make our Freedom Life facilities such a rocking place to experience God.

• Wayne & Candace Coates
• John Klick
• Jay Kriner
• John Limmer

These guys rock. Next time you see them give them a big hug and let them know you appreciate their servant hearts. (And the fact that there are paper products in the bathrooms!)

First Post Excitement

People always say that the first part of anything is the hardest.

Think back to the last time we saw a baby try to walk, or the skinned knees the first time we went solo on our bikes.

I'm finding that the blogging process (blog = Web+Log) is not much different. Getting started has been harder than I thought it would be. I want to able to talk about things that matter, and maybe bring a little clarity to my own thinking along the way.

To that end, I guess I'll explain the title "After The Jump". After the jump is a holdover from newspaper lingo. The 'jump' in a newspaper article is the point where the article is interrupted on one page and continued at that point on another page, with a notation of where to go to continue the article. They serve the same purpose: to conserve "front page" space (or inside page space, though that's less common) for as much of as many articles as possible.

I always liked the term, because it made me think of the series of events that followed an act of obedience, or "Jumping" into God's plan for my life. Recently it seems like I've jumped into something that is tremendously significant. The pastoral apprenticeship at Freedom Life Church is something that I'll be writing more about in coming posts, but suffice it to say that it has been a turning point in my life.

I hope you'll stick around for the bumps, bruises, and skinned knees. I'll post at least twice a week. I hope you will come back to hear how things are progressing.

Dale