Random Tangent

For the first time in a while, we have a major thunderstorm. Short lived, but it was still great. Hillary and I really love lightning. Just another reminder of how small we are. Pretty cool.

can you guess who this quote comes from?

“When we believe in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and believe in ourselves, that’s when our faith comes alive. When we believe we have what it takes, we focus on our possibilities” (emphasis added).

Michael Horton from Christless Christianity...

If we are merely wayward, we only need direction; merely sick, we need medicine; merely weak, we need strength. Radical grace, on the other hand, answers to radical sinfulness – not simply to moral mistakes, lack of zeal, or spiritual lethargy, but to the condition that the Bible defines as nothing less than condemned, “children of wrath,” “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2.1, 3).

I have been challenged lately by one of my theologically "less conservative" friends. Friend, if you watch this video and still disagree with me, then we will call it quits on this. But, hear this: I told you so. :)

from Reggie McNeal's Missional Rennaissance. Well worth the read.

I grew up in the church-centric world. The result was that I viewed the kingdom through church eyes. The kingdom was primarily something that was going to be ushered in someday. “Thy kingdom come” was a prayer for the return of Jesus, who would finally set up a world where church people would feel at home. The closest thing to kingdom activity was when churches cooperated to do more church stuff – citywide revivals and joint worship services and such.

Sound familiar?

Just to let you know that I am just about done with The Fellowship of the Ring. I know you were all wondering about that. Well, now you can sleep again.

Next stop, The Two Towers. How delightfully dorky.

So YearTeam is over. What a year! The retreat went well and, to be honest, I am amazed at how far both Hillary and I have come this year (and Nathan, too, for that matter).

YearTeam is designed to be an equipping and empowering year as you discover your identity in Christ. It did just that for us. And in many ways we both feel that has helped us discern where we are headed. We felt affirmed that full-time ministry is the path to which God is calling us. That part is done. Now, how do we get to seminary? Anyone with $1 million laying around?

At any rate, thanks for prayers for this year. We felt them and we are grateful. Bless you guys.

The YearTeam retreat is this weekend. This is the wrap-up event for the year. It’s been a great time of getting to know who I am in light of who God is. Also a good focused time of discernment for Hillary and me. Please pray for a relaxing weekend. We have a lot of time for silence and solitude. Pretty much all of Saturday.

God is good.

It's my 24th birthday!!! One more year and my auto. insurance is affordable!! :)

So I have changed some of the margins on the blog, a little more eye-friendly. I still need to fix some of the post margins and comment margins, but I am on my way.

Who the heck invented all this crap? That's what I want to know.

To add to my geekness, I have been doing a lot of reading and studying up on html codes. As you can tell, the blog looks different. There are still plenty of things I want to change/fix/do with it, but this is a pretty good start, if I do say so myself.

Let me know if you have any suggestions. I love input.

Great night of partying. We invited all of our neighbors, people who we hardly knew, over for burgers and lots of other food. All together, about 30-ish people came over.

It was so great to get to know people that we had, if I’m honest, overlooked in our busyness and day-to-days. A good reminder that Jesus had this very thing in mind…it’s all about relationship.

I think we earned a good deal of trust from people that we would not normally associate with. Hopefully, we will find favor in continuing relationships with them. And who knows, some of them may encounter the Lord for the first time, or at least in a way that they have not before.

What a great night!

It’s been, as you can probably guess by now, pretty sweet reading some of my old favorites. What is it about these books that grab my attention and get me so fired up?

I think it’s the adventure of it all. I love adventures. So, I have been challenged lately to actually have some of my own instead of living others’. Any suggestions?

The Hobbit is officially done. As I opened the cover to The Fellowship of the Ring, I was reminded of how long and more detailed it was. The margins are even bigger. This will be a good one, but I totally underestimated the time it is going to take. Still not regretting it, but sheesh, that Tolkien knows how to write.

So, out with Bilbo and in with Frodo. Man, this was such a great decision!

I am also reading the Heidelberg Catechism. Very cool, it answers a lot of fundamental questions that are so valuable to articulate. If you can't put words to the very bedrock beliefs of your faith, then what good is it?

Particulary, this has major implications for how you witness to people. At any rate, many of the questions remind me of things that I may have altogether forgotten and it [the Catechism] serves as a great devotional. By the way, I am totally copy-cat-ing my boss, Steve Wood, but I just couldn't hold out any longer. Very good stuff.

The Hobbit is officially underway. Bilbo has left the Shire. Totally confident in this decision to re-read it all. Feelin' good. Feelin' good.

Every now and again he surfaces...begging to be released. He reminds me of my desire to play video games, to watch epic sagas (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Narnia) and to then go to websites and talk about me watching epic sagas, and to argue about epic sagas with other geeks who watch epic sagas. It's all complicated, but suffice it to say that I can't deny it any longer.

That's right, I am re-reading The Lord of the Rings. Walking into our library at the house, it saddened me to find that those beloved three books (four if you count The Hobbit, which, yes, I will be reading as well) have collected far too much dust. It's time to re-live my own life through Bilbo and Frodo. It's time to take out my pipe and walk around the house like Gandalf. It's time to start analyzing my own life, realizing that "it would just be so much easier if I were an elf." You are welcome to join me. Geeks need community, too. Just know that if you aren't participating and you want to track me down, I will be in Middle Earth, fighting for the free world, "Sting" in hand, wearing my Citadel ring around my neck like it's the ring of power. Game on.

Been listening to this CD. Just thought I would recommend it to you. Yes, I am talking to you. All 2 of you who read this blog.

Check out Jason Mraz' website here. It's well worth a look.

Don't get me wrong. I like the sport itself. It's just the players are just such wimps. And this referee drives the point home.