There are sure to be many new experiences coming our way as we get closer to leaving Orlando and heading to Charlotte to plant Hope Church. The one I'm in the middle of right now is the fundraising process. I am beginning the process of raising our entire 1st year's salary. Never done that before.If I think about it in the natural (wife, three kids, health insurance, purchase of a new home, sale of our current home in Orlando, etc) it can be pretty overwhelming. However, every time I pray about it, I feel "peace that passes all understanding". I remember that Philippians talks about this...

Charlie Dawes came in today at Master's and taught on servant leadership. Great teaching. Great teacher. Great time. He said something about striving for position that got me thinking...I remember when I was younger I used to dream of one day being a pastor and having my own office with a nameplate on my door that said "PASTOR DAVID DOCUSEN". The assumption is that this is the mark of making it.Fast forward several years and I have an amazing office with a really cool nameplate. I am now leaving my office and my nameplate and moving to Charlotte. No office. No nameplate. Just the dream of...

Lots of people skip school in high school. Even more people skip school in college. Elementary school? Not so much. Some of my best memories as a kid were on Opening Day for the Detroit Tigers. My dad used to let me skip class to watch the first game of the season. No wonder my primary colors are a struggle for me :-)It's amazing to see the connection between childhood memories and sports teams. My whole family grew up rooting for the Tigers. I feel like it's my turn now to pass that on to my kids and have family memories that really stand out. It doesn't hurt that the Tigers have the best...

What a cool experience to bring two MC programs together to hang out and have a chapel service together. The team from Fort Myers MC joined us on Friday morning for our Encounter service (COMC chapel). I spoke on a thought that has been rolling through my head this past week...Instead of praying for God to deliver us from the hard times, pray that he gives you the strength to stand.There are so many times that I have prayed for a season to pass because of the level of difficulty or strain. However, hindsight has shown that those were the very times that I grew the most, character was defined...

We have spent the last two days in Master's Commission talking about our future story and setting life goals. What a great experience to sit and dream with a group of college age thinkers. Our conversation was helped along by some great material from Sam Farina and a teaching via video podcast from Mark Batterson. I love the fact that technology allows us to have great teachers in our classroom at COMC on demand.Fort Myers MC is coming into town tomorrow night and we are combining for a chapel service on Friday morning. What a great week in Master's!

We took Max, Mary and Jack to go to Calvary's Easter Eggstravaganza yesterday. Thousands of eggs. Hundreds of little kids. Mass chaos. Loads of fun. Our kids were on a sugar rush until 11pm last night.We woke up this morning and got ready for church (they looked adorable). Before we left, Dara and I read the Easter story to them. It is so cool to pass on the staples of our faith to our babies. Max is really starting to pay attention and process things. Our prayer all the time is that our kids accept Christ at a young age and never know a day outside of his love. I think today was another...

We took Max and Mary to go see the Tigers/Braves game at Disney's Wide World of Sports complex (the Atlanta Braves' training facility). So much fun! It was hilarious to see Max and Mary all excited to see Micky Mouse at the baseball game :-)I will always remember this day as Max's first live sporting event that he was really "into". The game was sold out, so we had to buy standing room only tickets...which basically meant that we could go wherever we wanted and stand and watch the game. We went all over the stadium and watched from every angle...so much fun! Max was so engaged in the game!...

It has been so nice to just unplug the last two days and recharge. I think it is so important to take time away after seasons of intensive ministry. Two weeks on the road with MC is fun, challenging, memorable, inspiring, effective and VERY tiring!!!Dara and I have so enjoyed hanging around the house with the kids and just being mom and dad. We are taking Max and Mary to the Detroit Tigers/Atlanta Braves spring training game tomorrow night...GO TIGERS!

If you are interested in keeping up with what is going on in the Docusen world, you can now subscribe to receive e-mail updates on this blog. Very simple...just enter your e-mail address in the box on the right and the new blogs will be delivered straight to your e-mail.Technology. What a great, great thing.

I was typing away on my phone this morning and Mary was doing the whole "Dad...Dad...Daddy...DADDY!!!!" thing and I was totally oblivious (one track mind). Max (4 years old) looks at Mary and says matter-of-factly, "Mary...Daddy is texting". I think he's spending too much time around college age students in Masters 🙂