The secret to better relationships. NOT

Can this relationship work? The sermon series started yesterday. Here's the link to the first sermon in the series.

Here are some thoughts from yesterday.

(1) Happy Chinese New Year. Happy Valentine's Day. Happy last few days before Lent starts. How to tie all three themes together!? Morning started off good when my Valentine's/CNY card to Jake was a big hit. I got one with a dragon on the cover!
(2) Having the choir rehearse in the auditorium is NOT going well for me. I'm stressed for the other choir members when people show up late for rehearsal. At least when they rehearsed in another room, I was not aware of what was happening. This is probably an administrative problem that I should let others worry about, but I'm a fixer. :(. The positive from yesterday along these lines is that I was glad Pamela came and sang with the choir.
(3) Really great to see so many people come out for worship in the morning. I was worried we were in for a big holiday weekend! We were, but lots of people didn't flee the city too.
(4) Speaking of that - I'm not real sure what is going on in the evening worship, but we've almost doubled in size the last two weeks. We haven't done anything differently. Same song. Same dance. Just exploding with new people. Our big problem now is that we are literally running out of places to put people.
(5) Den did a great job last night leading worship and stretching himself by stepping into more of a leadership role with the music. I'm proud of him. I was also really glad that Siri joining in and helped lead singing last night.
(6) I said a few pretty pointed and radical things yesterday that I really believe are true...
- "Love one another is a command, not a suggestion. That means we ought to do it whether it "works" or not."
- As long as we rely on "feelings" to stay in love we are doomed.
- (and here's the big one) I don't think God always FEELS lovingly towards us. God always ACTS lovingly, but I don't think He always feels it. (See the sermon for explanation.) I think Jesus is calling us to do the same thing toward one another. Even when you don't feel it, act it. (John 13:34)

Have a great week! I'm going to try to blog once or twice this week before Sunday. We'll see how it goes. There is a lot on my mind.

Oh and by the way - I hate things titled "the secret of...." :) It's just refashioned Gnosticism pretending to be wisdom.