September 15 - 21

Monday - Hung out with family and played "Spoons" and "Phase 10". No power until 5:00 p.m. Went into Magnolia to eat and then went to the church for air conditioning and electricity.

Tuesday - Church office wasn't open, so I worked from home and hung out with the family again.

Wednesday - No church services

Sunday - Services were back on

September 8 - 14

Thursday - began to panick about Hurricane Ike. Drove in to MCA at lunch and took Holly's car to get gas because lines were already forming, stores running out of ice and water. Made hotel reservation in College Station for Friday night. Went home with the family and watched Hurricane coverage on the tube.

Friday - office closed to prepare for Ike. Spent the day with family watching hurricane coverage. Left about 8pm for College Station. Ate dinner, went to hotel and watched more coverage until 12:30am

Saturday - Holly and I both woke up about 6:30am (after a good sleep), looked outside (raining, wind blowing) and moved the boys from the hide-a-bed to our bed so we could watch more hurricane coverage. Started texting friends in Magnolia to see if they were okay. Neighbors sent us a pic of fallen tree in the front yard. Left at noon to go back home and survey the damage. No power, but we had water. Spent the night with windows open; very hot, dogs barking, frogs croaking and then a thunderstorm in the middle of the night. Not much sleep.

Sunday -had very brief services at the church with about 100 people in attendance (no power in the church). Spent the afternoon at home with the family and then drove to Brenham to eat dinner and find gas, ice and internet service (found 2 of 3 - no ice). Spent the night again with windows open, but it wasn't as hot and a cool front blew in during the night.

September 1 - 7

Monday - Labor Day, Holly picked up Austin from a Freshman sleepover, I took Tyler to meet friends and play, Holly took Austin to meet his ride to football practice, I picked up Tyler from friends, I picked up Austin from football practice. We never drove more than 10-15 away, but it seemed constant!

Tuesday - Worked on signs for FBC University (direction signs to show people where the classes are)

Wednesday - Breakfast with best buddy Dave at 7am, then with staff at 7:30. Staff meeting, lunch. It was the first night for our Men's Fraternity: Quest for Authentic Manhood. We only had 6 guys show up, but if they all stay the course, I really believe the material can affect real change.

Thursday -Worked on FBC University stuff most of the day. Holly and I left about 3:30pm for Austin's football game at Fort Bend Baptist Academy in Sugarland. They lost the game, but played well. We stopped and picked up Tyler from his football practice on our way home.

Friday - Worked all day and then went home and picked up Tyler and we went to the first varsity game at Magnolia West HS (started with just freshman 3 years ago and this was the first year that they have had a Varsity football team).

Saturday - I went to the first Coaches Outreach Bible study at 7:00 a.m. at the high school field house. The coaches were really excited after their first home game (which they won!), so it was a really good meeting. Rushed back home to be with Tyler while Holly took Austin to football practice. Tyler went with me to a funeral in Tomball and then we came straight back home so that we could meet Holly and Austin and head out to Montgomery for Tyler's football game. They won by 3 or 4 touchdowns.

After we got home I had to rush up to the church to rehearse with some of the worship team for a special song on Sunday morning. Didn't take long, so I got home with plenty of evening to spare.

Scott Wolfe came in from a wedding in Tyler at about 1:30am. I didn't really sleep until he was here.

Sunday -Incredibly long, but satisfying day at the church. Scott got up and went to church with me at 7am. We kicked off a new sermon series called "Heaven. You've Got Questions." with great music, a great spirit of worship and we baptized 17 students and children who were saved this summer through youth camp and VBS.

I had a lunch meeting with my Discipleship leaders and Scott gave them a word of encouragement about discipling. I decided to stay at the church because I had a worship team meeting at 4pm. Scott and I took a nap in my office.

Worship team meeting went off really well and I had great response from several of the team.

Then I started helping to make sure all the rooms were prepared for FBC University (Discipleship) courses that kicked off. We had 10 courses that our people could choose from:
DivorceCare, The Five Love Languages, The Truth Project, Crucial Conversations (having difficult conversations with family, friends, employees, employers), Family Issues: Anger, Conflict, Addiction, Deep Thoughts (deep topics of faith), Jesus on Money, Men's Fraternity: Winning at Work & Home, Sign Language for Worship and a Woman's Bible Study.

After an amazing day the family and I went out to eat at Wing Stop and then went home and crashed!

August 25-31

Monday -Don't remember what I did on my day off...

Tuesday -We didn't have the Coaches Outreach Bible Study because school started and they changed the school start time to 7:20am instead of 8:30. The coaches decided that they wanted to meet on Saturday mornings at 7am because they watch game film at 8am anyway. I went to the Diner anyway and had breakfast with the Men's prayer group that meets at the church at 6am.

Holly and the boys started school and had a GREAT first day. According to Holly "very peaceful and organized." Both of the boys had football practice in the evening. Holly was in Conroe with Austin and I was in Magnolia with Tyler. This is our life for a few months anyway.

Wednesday - Very unusual day: It started with breakfast at the Diner with the staff at 7:30am (some of them anyway). We then proceeded to our staff meeting at 8:30 including discussion of 3 chapters in the Hybel's book "Courageous Leadership". We finished up about 12:30 or 1pm and headed off to eat lunch together.

I was supposed to meet with a fairly new member who is starting a "Ranchers Class" that we hope grows into a Cowboy Church, so he just came to lunch with us. He and I continued our meeting back at the church looking at different rooms that he can meet in beginning September 7th. We finished our meeting about 3pm and then our Worship Ministry Associate (Choir Director) came in for an impromptu meeting. I had another meeting with two church members at 4pm to talk about Sunday School space issues. And then I went to hear one of our high school girls "audition" to sing special music one Sunday.

Then I just worked on some pressing matters while the boys were in their youth meeting. I scheduled another impromptu meeting with our technology guy at 8pm and that meeting went until about 9pm. Whew!

Thursday - After such a long day on Wednesday, I took a leisurely morning and did some work from home (also tried to catch up on all my 30 Day Spiritual Journey readings!). I rushed off at 11am to meet a church member/potential worship team member for lunch and had a great time.

Spent the afternoon working on Sunday services and a few other things, then Tyler and I headed off to football practice. Our friend Leigh (whose son is also playing football with Austin) took the boys to the Conroe practice and I met them in Magnolia afterwards to pick up Austin, then rushed back to pick up Tyler after his practice.

Friday -Had a full day just doing my duties for either Worship ministry or Adult Discipleship. Went home at 3pm to pick up Austin so he could go to the girl's volleyball games at the high school. He has 3 friends playing volleyball and he spent from about 4:30 to 8:30 watching games. He is truly into the whole youth group social thing. I went to make hospital visits after dropping him off and then did some work at the office until he was through "socializing."

Saturday -Because it was Labor Day weekend there were no football games or practice. Yee-haw! Around 3:30pm I took Austin and another friend to the movie theater to meet some of their freshman classmates. I went to a "Ropin' event" and videotaped the guy who is starting the Ranchers Class. We're going to use the footage to create a promo video for the class. Went back and picked up Austin and his buddy at the theater and then we went to the church for about 30 min. to do a couple things and then headed home.

I worked on a different promo video for the Ranchers class (without the ropin' footage) and finally finished it about 12:30am. It was pretty funny. I used the whole "You might be a redneck..." theme with statements like "If someone asks for your I.D. and you show them your belt buckle...you might want to the go to the Ranchers Class." (video below)

Sunday - Bro. Ed took a vacation day so our Exec. Pastor Milt Eichler preached the sermon. We always seem to have issues when Ed is gone and this was no exception. We had sound system issues right before the service, but got most of them ironed out. Then when we tried to show the Ranchers Class video, it locked up our computer. We finally got it to work, but not until the last service!

August 18-24

Monday - Another day of "staycation". I woke up early and was going through all my "readings" for the 30-Day Spiritual Journey. The reading in the Richard Foster Book "Seeking the Kingdom" was on the "Discipline of Silence." He explains it as allowing the Lord to "fill you in the silence". It has become a much needed discipline in my time with the Lord.

Later we hung around the house, went to Tyler's football practice and then the Ray boys all went to a movie.

Tuesday - Holly had a meeting at the school and after it was over the boys and I picked her up and we went down to the Galleria area to pick up tickets for "Men at the Cross." We thought about going to the mall, but decided to head back home.

Wednesday - The last day of my "staycation" - didn't do much all day. Went to eat dinner with a couple in our church and played "Phase 10". The boys went to church, but left early so they could come play "Phase 10" with us.

Thursday - I hit the ground running at the office. There was a lot to do to get ready for the "Men at the Cross" event in Houston as well as prepare for our Sunday services. Also had a lot of detail stuff to get ready for our FBC University (Adult Discipleship) which begins September 7th.

Holly was told about a home school football team in Conroe that Austin could play on and they were desperate for more players. So she and Austin and another boy from MCA went to their first practice in Conroe. All of his equipment was provided by the team except cleats and we had to buy a size FOURTEEN cleat for this child!

Friday - Finalized details for the "Men at the Cross" event in Houston. We had about 40 men planning to go, 18 of those in the bus and staying overnight at a church in Houston. Made hospital visits after lunch and bought snacks for late night after the event.

Austin had his first football scrimmage (after only one practice!) way down in south Houston. Holly kept texting me to tell me how he was doing. Austin is on a junior varsity team and they were playing a VARSITY team. Austin played on defense and was going up against a kid who was about 300 lbs. and 6 foot plus. He said he would just bounce off of the guy when he would hit him. But the guy was nice and would help Austin up off the field!

Men started showing up at the church about 5pm and we were able to leave the church at 5:40. We arrived at the Toyota Center just a little before 7pm and got to our seats just as the opening speaker and conference organizer Joe White began his talk. He walked into the arena carrying a 12 foot "beam" on his shoulder and doing a "monologue" of the man who made the cross that Jesus died on. He huffed and puffed with that thing on his shoulder all the way to the stage, laid it down and began cutting into it with an axe to make a place for the cross member. It was a pretty dramatic monologue and one I've heard him do at least once at Promise Keepers. He extended an invitation and the floor filled up with men either making a first-time commitment or re-committing themselves to the Lord.

Max Lucado spoke in the next session and had an amazing message about David and how he succeeded in so many things, but really failed in the area of his family. He ended his life basically alone with at least one of his sons trying to kill him. We left the arena and drove over to Sharpstown Baptist Church where we unloaded and found places to put our air mattresses and bedrolls. It was a little rough sleeping, but I managed to get probably 4 hours of sleep before waking up.

Saturday - Saturday morning was filled a couple more speakers and an appeal for the men to commit to discipling a "Timothy" for six months until he's ready to disciple another "Timothy" and so on. It was a powerful ending to the event. We ate lunch on our way home and I tried to make it for the tail end of Tyler's football game, but they had just finished when I got there. They won their first game!

I went home and took a nap and then I had to go to the church at about 5pm to run sound for our Spanish Language church which was holding a revival. I finally left the church about 10pm.

Sunday -I'm always a little more nervous than usual when coming back to lead worship after having been gone the previous Sunday. But everything went well. There was a Parent's meeting for the youth, so we ate lunch there and then I just stayed at the church to prepare for Worship Team auditions that we were holding from 3:00 until almost 6:00. Made for a really long day, but it always feels good to know that I have Monday to recover from those days.

August 11-17

Monday - Today was Day 1 of a 30-Day Spiritual Journey that our staff is taking together. 5 Psalms and 1 Proverb a day, plus 1 chapter from Richard Foster's "Seeking the Kingdom" (short devotionals from some of his previous books like "Celebration of Discipline" and "Simplicity"), plus 3 chapters a week from Bill Hybel's "Courageous Leadership". Plus journaling in the midst of all that. Whew!

Kid's Choir Camp began at 8am and Austin was there to be a "helper". They chose a musical called "Rock Solid" which had an outdoor, summer camp/mountain climbing theme and they included a "stomp" element (beating on odd items like trash can lids, utensils, etc.) and Austin and his friend Noah were responsible for the "stomp brigade." I usually have a role in Kids Choir Camp (technical - sound/lights, etc.), but this year I was planning on taking vacation in the middle of the week, so I bowed out.

Tuesday - Today was Tyler's 12th birthday, but we had already celebrated on Sunday, so not much happened except his friend's the Cantus came over and then he later went over to their house and spent the night.

I had lunch with our "Lifeway" rep and that's always fun, because he pays for lunch and he shows me all the new Lifeway Discipleship resources.

Wednesday - Staff meeting - discussion of first three chapters of "Courageous Leadership" by Bill Hybels. Great book, great discussion, great staff!

Thursday - This was supposed to be my first day of vacation, but I just didn't have everything finished that needed to be finished, so I ended up working all day. Tyler had his first football scrimmage and made a few tackles!

Friday - First day of vacation, which was really a "staycation" because the boys had too much going on for us to leave town. Even though I was "off" I went up to the church three times (once to pick up Austin from Choir Camp, once to pick up my paycheck and later to attend the Kid's Choir performance). Didn't "disconnect" very well. The in-laws came while we were at the choir performance and made dinner for us!

Saturday - We were supposed to have football pictures for Tyler at noon, but it got rained out. So, we took the in-laws to one of our favorite hole-in-the-wall places to eat: Royer's Round Top Cafe (picture at top - in Round Top - 50 min away). It's an old cafe on the town square and they have great food and even better pies! We rushed out of there to get back home for football scrimmages and the opening ceremonies for the season at 5pm, but they also got rained out. Turned out to be a very leisurely Saturday.

Sunday - At home while FBCM went on without me. It was a weird feeling, but much needed. Went to College Station with the fam and ate lunch at On the Border, hung out at Barnes & Noble and Best Buy and then went back home to chill some more.