Today was an amazing day at Westbrook. We held our first Leadership Community of 2009. This day is a day of vision, leadership development and ministry training. Special thanks goes out to the Westbrook staff for preparing so well. To Ken from our local Starbucks and Thom from Sensaphonics for being our special guests. For Mary Wolf-Fischer in leading this charge and to all our our amazing, gifted and faithful Westbrook servants and leaders. If you missed this day, you missed a huge blessing. be sure to catch our next one in August.

Let me just throw out one more pic and one more thought from our Multi-Cultural week at CCU.  Amado, Rob and I taught three or four classes on Wednesday and then I was privelegedto preach for the student led  Family service that evening.  Thursday morning Amado then preached for chapel.  All in all it was a great week, and we were so honored to be able to share our deep seeded passion for Multi-Cultural church planting and Multi-Cultural ministry.  Jesus called his people to be ONE…  red, yellow, black, white and brown.  We are all precious in His sight.  I think this is the future of the church.  What do you think?

Amado and I are blessed to be able to spend the week at Cincinnati Christian University to share in their annual Multi-Cultural week.   We are only on day two but thus far it has been amazing.  I was able to preach for chapel today, share in an open forum luncheon and speak for a preaching class.  Tonight we enjoyed some famous Montgomery Inn ribs.  Really the best part about today was that we were able to bring our student Velocity band down with us to lead in chapel.  They did a fantastic job.  For being such young people they are such wonderful servant leaders. Thankfully thay made it back to Chicago safely.  Please pray for our Gente Unida band who will be driving in tomorrow PM and leading chapel with Pastor Amado on Thursday.  We are doing our best to encourage Multi-culturalism in the local church.  This is so cool!

A few days ago, February 12, 2009 marked the 200^th anniversary of the birth of our 16^th President, Abraham Lincoln. I believe that God truly blessed our country with the leadership and wisdom of this courageous man. He was a man who truly knew the power of reconciliation. He guided our country through the Civil War and a brought it to the point where national reconciliation could begin to take place. Sadly, his assassination by John Wilkes Booth robbed the United States of his leadership.

Just a few weeks before his murder, he stood in front of the Capitol in Washington for his second inauguration. He sensed that the North was on its way to victory; he was also keenly aware that many in the Union wanted to punish the confederacy for their stances and actions. But even though his side was about to overcome, he took this opportunity to yet again bring people together. Speaking to the two sides, Lincoln said: “Both read the same bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any man should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged, The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes.”

I then love his closing words that invited our nation to become more merciful than vengeful. Lincoln said: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nations wounds, to care for him who shall have borne that battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

So not everyone agrees with you! So what! Are you a person of peace and reconciliation even to those who are different from you?