troy austian | blog

Pastor Rob, John Madden, Great Soup, Ugly Mug

Pastor Rob and I met over lunch today at the Ugly Mug (Farmington, MN).  This place has a comfortable feel and good food with a full range of coffee drinks (cappuccinos, lattes, and such).  We had what is honestly one of my favorite meals to get in this area, a grilled "John Madden" sandwich with Chicken Tortellini Alfredo soup.  It's really good stuff! ...and, yes, the boss approved!

It's also not every place that you can get a strawberry Crush to drink with your meal.  The Ugly Mug has nice selection of sandwiches, soups, salads, desserts, and beverages.  The soup and 1/2 sandwich lunch special is very reasonable, and the "John Madden" sandwich is huge, so half of it plus the soup makes a nice meal.  There are a number of hot and cold sandwiches, but the "John Madden" just rocks -- it normally comes cold, but it has three kinds of cheese on it that, in my opinion, beg to be melted! ...so I highly recommend getting it grilled.

Fellowship One

RVC goes live tomorrow on a new church management software (CMS) solution called Fellowship One.  It's a web-based solution by Texas-based Fellowship Technologies.  They were birthed out of Fellowship Church and have since spun off as an independent company which now has an increasingly impressive customer base that includes some of the largest churches in the country.  Their approach is to provide a robust, enterprise-level solution to help churches minimize administration and maximize ministry.  A lot has gone into this and we're looking forward to reaping the benefits.  I'll share more in the days ahead.

Maggiano's Little Italy

I had dinner last night at Maggiano's at Southdale Mall (Edina, MN) with a family in our church.  I've eaten there a few times before, but this was their first time, and we'd been meaning to go there for a while.  I love introducing friends to good food places! ...and Maggiano's is a good food place.

It's Italian food, of course, and you can order individual items off the menu OR you can eat family style...which I think is the way to go.  I say this because I'm a "variety is the spice of life" kind of guy, and I think it's more fun when everyone's sharing the same dishes and can therefore discuss the food a bit.  Plus, family style at Maggiano's is all you can eat!

It's a rare thing to find really good food that you can get in both variety and quantity for a decent price, but they do a nice job of this, and you even get to take home the leftovers. The best deal is to go on a weekday between 3:00 and 5:30 p.m. for their Minneapolis Supper Club when they offer a special price ($10.95) on a smaller variety family style meal.

I do recommend Maggiano's Little Italy.  Just don't blame me if you leave absolutely stuffed!

All 7 RVC Pastors Are Bloggers!

One of the things I did in the last week of 2005 was set up a new blog site for Pastor Rob, after which I did the same for all of the other RVC pastors.  As each of us has gotten oriented and started our lives as bloggers, I've linked our blog sites to the pastoral staff page of our church web site.  I'm very pleased to announce that as of yesterday, the final member of our pastoral staff posted his first blog! ...and so, all of the pastors at RVC are now bloggers!

Pastor Rob led the way, beginning his blog in February 2005, and now the rest of us will weigh in, hopefully offering you an even larger and more diverse look into RVC and the lives of the guys fortunate enough to be your pastors!

Small Groups Fair

This weekend was our Small Groups Fair at church to launch our winter/spring session.  Thanks to the great team who worked hard to make it a success, and to all the small group leaders who are making a difference by serving.  You guys rock!

Pastor Rob did a great job preaching on how RVC must grow smaller as it grows larger, and that small groups are how we do this.  Being connected at RVC means being in a small group, so if you haven't done it yet, it's time!  Join a small group, and then move along the path to small group leadership, because we need more small groups so that more and more people can get connected...so that we can continue to grow smaller as we grow larger.

Special Days and Special People

I had hoped to visit my family in Oklahoma the week after Christmas, but it didn't work out.  I've lived away from most of my family for most of my life, and I miss them a lot.  However, I'm very fortunate to have a great church family and some great friends.

Over the holiday season I was able to get together and spend time with the other RVC pastors, with the entire church staff, with my best friend and his family, with other friends, with several families in our church, and with some of my neighbors.  It's certainly true...blessed is he who has friends!  (Mixing in a little snow skiing doesn't hurt either!)

Happy New Year!

I'm very excited going into 2006 and have many things to look forward to.  Although I've been a techie most of my life, and techies were blogging well before it became popular on such a wide scale, I've never blogged... until now.

So, for whoever might be interested, I'll begin sharing some of the stuff I'm looking forward to as I encounter it... stuff of my life, of church ministry, of technology, of good food, and whatever else seems noteworthy along the way.  And I hope this will be a great way to be better connected with people I care about and with friends I have yet to know.

So here's to blogging in the new year!