I have been thinking a lot about what is going on in the church. Church is important to me. It is where I go to hear the comforting words of God forgiving me for my sins. It is where I go to be strengthened in my faith that ebbs and flows every day. I need to know that I am forgiven of the things I purposely chose not to do as well as the things I did do that ended up hurting my neighbor and thus also hurting God.

But church is not all about me. As a matter of fact it is about others and God and Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit. The church has been sent by Jesus Christ to go into all the world and baptize people in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And to teach them to obey the commandments that Jesus taught to his Apostles. If I read this correctly then I have to see it as me taking what I have learned outside the church to the people who don't hear these words. Will everybody listen to these words with interest? No! We already know they won't. But does that mean we stop there? No! We may not be able to tell the person who rejects the Gospel of Jesus but we keep going because it is not about us.

Now here is something that I think I and other adults are failing to do. We are not telling the children of our churches and especially the 16 - 22 year olds the importance of the mission of the church. We need to let them know why we come to church. We need them to know that it's about the Gospel, not the individual. And the strange thing (contrary to us adults belief) is they want to know "why do we go." Why is this important? And if we can teach them what we know they are more likely to come and help in the church. They will be more likely to stay or even come back. They will see the importance of church in their lives. When we adults care about them they will see church as important in their lives.

But there is one more thing we need to do as a church. We need to show that our church time is valuable by giving of our time to do they mission work of the church. This is not about money it is about serving the community. It's about serving others. I have some things in mind for our church. I would like us to get involved in some kind mission work in the near future. Let's talk about it.

I know it has been a quite awhile since I have written a blog. My excuse this week is that I have made this week an "appointment a day" week. And I have quite a bit of things to do. Some of which I have to stop putting off. The appointments: yesterday was text study, today was a Revitalization meeting, tomorrow is a meeting with Father Vamos in Crown Point. And tonight is Midweek Lenten Service. I will be up at Saint Peter in Portage. There really hasn't been much time to do some other things that I should do.

I will try to do some things tonight after I get back from Saint Peter. And then next week my son is on Spring Break. There is a lot of things to do and a 24 hour day is just not long enough to get them done in. Although I am convinced if the day was 48 hours long I would still find time to put things off. Anyway I hope to get a few things down over the next few days so that I can shorten my list of things that must get done.

Well I am still getting tired. Of course last night didn't help when it seemed like I was tired but couldn't fall asleep. So I finally got up at midnight and turned on the NHL station (215) on DirecTV and watched it for about a half an hour and finally fell asleep, then I woke up and went to bed about 1:00a.

Anyway I am still coughing at the most inopportune times. It is usually when I am talking to somebody and the tickle gets stronger and then the cough just comes. I hate this cough and this illness. I can't control it it has a mind of its own. I do have these cough drops that also numb the tongue and throat. They work for awhile. I will use them at tonight's service. My mom had something similar to this and her cough lasted six weeks. If I am going through the same thing that means I still have three weeks left of this, Ugh!