Of Concrete and Church Conferences....

In the history of weird topics, this has to be right up there. I am, due to my infrequent blogging, going to attempt to combine my recent trip to San Diego for a church conference with an update on the status of our house addition. So here goes nothin.
August 12th through 14th saw me in San Diego for the Total Church Conference. This conference was created to talk about the "Gospel Centered Church" which is a concept popularized, and really created, by Steve Timmis and Tim Chester. These two blokes are from the UK and run a church planting network called "The Crowded House". In essence they believe that the most effective apologetic for the gospel is the Christian community. Living out everyday life with gospel intentionality in a community of Believers. This really just means that we should be involving unbelievers in our lives... it means being consistent, and living like a Christian whether we're around unbelievers or believers. I got to see this practiced, lived out, in San Diego and it's AWESOME. It's just a very comfortable, natural way to live the gospel in front of unbelievers. I think I'd sum it up with these principles:

1) Live everyday life with gospel intentionality - This just means that no matter what you're doing, whether working, playing, eating or watching TV you should be doing it with the gospel in mind. (Think Deut. 6 here) This means constantly being around other people (believers and unbelievers) and speaking truth when you're around them. This leads us to the next principle....
2) Live consistently, not compartmentalized - This means that you shouldn't be one person around believers and a different person around unbelievers. I know this isn't a new concept, but I also know it's easier said than done. The key to this one is that it's also easier done in community. It's easier to be consistent when you have the support of other believers. Which, again, leads to the next principle....
3) Live in community - This means that we should constantly be hanging out with other believers... but not just hanging out. Really it means hanging out with, you guessed it, gospel intentionality. So, you go to public places with Christians so that unbelievers see you interract and they see your love for one another. You have BBQ parties with Christians and you invite unbelievers. This kind of community is the only way for the "one anothers" you see in the New Testament (love one another, bear one anothers burdens, etc) to happen.

So, that's the basics... there's much more, but that's the Josh Report version. I'll add more as it comes to me.... If you want to know more I'd suggest either A) Email me. B) Read "The Gospel Centered Church" or "Total Church" both written by the aforementioned blokes.

As for our addition, well, we poured the foundation. And here's the pics to prove it. This first one is a pic of where our new bedroom, bath and closet will be. You can also see in the foreground where our nasty old porch used to be... that will be concrete very soon too.... The second pic is of the garage. Don't worry, it'll have a concrete floor... the dirt is temporary.

Gas lines and holes in the ground...

So we decided to go ahead and start our addition. We got a loan. We got our permits. Next on the schedule was to start excavating. So then, this is a picture of a patched gas line. Why, you might ask, is it patched? Well, that would be due to the fact that as I was digging to expose the gas line so that our excavator could start digging I got a little too aggressive with the dig-bar. Next thing I know I've got natural gas shooting into the air and I'm sprinting inside yelling "Call the gas company!" to Corey.
The gas company came out pretty quickly and fixed my stupidity, or at least the product of my stupidity, and the guy that fixed it was so cool that he didn't even charge me! (a rarity from what I hear) So, once that was squared away, our excavator started work and put a nice large hole in the ground. This was, hopefully, not anindicator of things to come because in the span of 1 day he managed to hit our phone line (several times), the power to our well pump and our main water line from the well. Don't get me wrong though, this was in NO WAY his fault. These things aren't marked by the dig line folks and so you have no way of knowing where they are until you tear them out of the ground in nice 'S' shaped wads. (You can actually see the mangled remains of our water lines laying on the ground near the middle of the picture)
So, we quickly patched the wiring, repaired the water lines and we're back in business. I'll be using my Saturday to fix the phone line.
Overall it really is exciting and a nice change from sitting at my desk all day. I'll try to keep the page updated with some pics....