This Sunday we tackled the issues of partnership – not membership – but partnership. Semantics, you say? Nooooooo.

• Membership implies that I have rights.
• I can be member of the gym and when the treadmill stops working, I have a right to tell the gym to fix it.
• Partnership implies ownership and responsibility.
• As an owner, when my house has something mess up I have a responsibility to fix it.
• The Church doesn’t need more members. It needs partners.
• Up until this point in the life of our church, we haven’t formalized any commitment to the local church.
• But now we are “Growing Up” and it is necessary!
• So toward the end of August we will be hosting several gatherings where OneLife Partnerships will be defined even more and formalized.
• If you would like to be one of our first ever partners and missed out on the service yesterday, check out www.onelifeknox.com/partner and email pastor@onelifeknox.com for more info.
• We had a few of our college students back this week. There should be more next Sunday and then all of them the next Sunday. That’s exciting!
• Speaking of college students, we announce our efforts to reach out to the UT campus in the coming year. One tangible project that is just around the corner is dorm move-in day this Saturday. We’ve been assigned to Reese Hall and will be helping freshmen guys move in.
• Want more info on helping us Saturday afternoon? Email volunteer@onelifeknox.com.
• Next week is part two of “Growing Up” where we’ll be talking about OneLife Communities that fire up in September.
• It’s going to be  a HUGE fall for us! Don’t miss it.

Wow. Time flies.

No, this hasn’t been a sanctimonious “techno-fast” that I advertise to the world (thus defeating the purpose of a fast). I haven’t failed morally and therefor ceased to exist in the blogosphere. And I didn’t forget my password or lose my laptop, though that is the most likely of these to happen!

Life just happened. All around me. Really quickly.

I’m admittedly not the most disciplined person in the world. I have to work really hard at being disciplined. I guess you could say I have to discipline myself to be disciplined. And one thing I’ve learned is that the best way to do this is to simplify.

So over the past few weeks as vacation, unexpected funerals, weddings, sermon prep, baby doctor appointments, baby showers, and 5:00 p.m. have happened, down went the laptop lid and thus no blogging. I had to simplify so discipline in the areas that matter most could stand firm. But life seems to be returning to normal, whatever-the-heck that is these days. And I look forward to sharing a lot of what the past few weeks have taught me and a lot of what I believe God is about to do at OneLife and in Knoxville.

And if for some reason this blog goes back into silence, chances are I lost my laptop this time.