SUNDAY SERVICES:

What can we do in 100 days?
If we ask Satan he'll remind us that it's doable to slaughter, kill, murder 10,000 men, women, and children every day for 100 days. Just look at Rwanda's spring of '94. Let's not ask or look.

What can you and I do for the Lord in 100 days?

What does He have in mind?

How vast is your imagination?

If the devil can unleash that much of hell in that time, how much of the kingdom of heaven might we unleash?

Even if we fall flat and it's a flop, Winston Churchill said, "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."

Tomorrow, Saturday, is 100 plus 1, (that's the more or less of the 100 days), and Barbara and I will travel to Melbourne to say so long to Karisse Schilling. Karisse was 37 years old and a Flagler classmate friend of our son, AJ, who entered eternal life in '04. She died of the same disease, and on the same day, her mother had died 13 years ago. Her father, Wally, is a priest and long time friend. It will be good and also painful to see him again.

It's not my intent to be morose or morbid in sharing this, but to remind us that life is a short, precious, and fragile gift and it's sometimes good to look at it in smaller chunks. Annie Dillard said, "the way we live our lives is the way we live our days." And 100 days is a good size chunk.

How will you spend your 100 days?

Paul Kalanithi, the author of the best selling book, When Breath Becomes Air, a brilliant neurosurgeon and gifted writer, whose pen spins only gold according to one critic, was interviewed on a program called One To One, sometime shortly before he died of cancer in March of '15, at the same age as Karisse, 37, and he was asked something like, "When you were diagnosed with cancer, didn't that give you an impetus to live each day more fully?" He paused for a
moment, then thoughtfully added, "I know what you are saying, but for me, not really. As far back as I can recall I have always treasured each day as an opportunity to make an offering." (More Of His Journey). Would that we all have that consciousness!

How will Barbara and I spend our 100 days?

Thanks for asking. Here are some of our hopes and plans. We do plan to do the daily read through Luke in 100 days, and I am excited to preach on Luke for 3 weeks in a row with this in mind. In addition to the monthly dinner groups and the book club with Matt Forsythe, Barbara and I plan to host a small group to look at worship through the lens of You Are What You Love, by James K.A. Smith.

Speaking of worship, I have attached a 58 second video of +Massimango leading worship at last year's Apollo2 in Rwanda. Bishop William tells me he is the shoe in for the next Archbishop of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I will be traveling to the Congo for that event, which is yet to be scheduled, and to Uganda at the end of June and beginning of July for this year's Apollo 2 conference during these 100 days.

Ivan Sikha will be joining me in Uganda and then I will be joining him in India in September, for the second Mission India conference. He has a 30 hour train scheduled for us which he says is nothing since those who traveled to us from
where we are going spent 3 to 4 days on trains getting there last year! We must be on the express.

This is the heart of my ministry as a bishop and I want to thank you all for your prayers and support. It is such a joy to be able to be with these people whose lives are so radically different from ours and whose faith is so strong. What a
blessing! Thank you!

That's enough about us. What are you all doing for the 100 days? Which reminds me of the old line, "That's enough about me, let's hear about you. What do you think of my new book?" Does it matter if we do anything at all? Will it make a
difference?

Come Sunday and hear, not just from me but a couple of others about the power that is unleashed from our Lord when his people come together and form his body - and bottom line, isn't that what these days are about? I know it's hyperbole, but it's still worth a foray -- if the devil can wreak such havoc from hell in 100 days, imagine what our Lord has in mind for loosing heaven on earth!

Blessings Galore,

+Carl