verve and verse

a long story to get to the title…

when Ronni and I were engaged a baker's dozen years ago, we started attending our first small group. it met in the living room of my parents' house, and quickly became a place filled with friendships and worship. two of our longest lasting "couple" friendships have their origins in that small group, in fact. we met Don Bromley there for the first time; he eventually married Julie, and they have been awesome friends for years (Don is the associate pastor at the Ann Arbor Vineyard Church). Doug Geverdt led the worship on his acoustic guitar (perhaps the best small group worship leader, ever, bar none, in the history of small group worship – nothing flashy, everything glorious), and his wife Gretchen (maybe one of the most encouraging people one could ever meet – it's a close race between her and my uncle Kit and Amy Lozen) became fast friends of ours as well. which was really cool to have friends that weren't just my friends, or just Ronni's friends, but our friends.

eventually D. and G. moved to the DC area when D got a job at the census bureau. when we first visited them in Annapolis (which we try to do every couple of years, at least), they introduced us to some new friends of theirs, Steve and Chaundra. John Lennon wrote "instant karma", right? this was like instant friendship. anyway, our paths have crossed on several occasions since, and it's been sweet to see what Jesus has been doing in their lives. we even got to hang out with them and eat some strange and delicious Indian food with S and C in Anaheim at the Vineyard Leaders' Conference a couple of weeks ago.

all that to say, I just found out Steve has a blog. verve and verse it's called. a mixture of poetry and lively blogging. we all need more poetry, or at least I do. so check it out, if you have the hankering. and if you don't, go find some hankering. we all need more hankering, too.