Christmas

Today is Christmas Eve. It's been a great Christmas season so far. It's the only year I can remember teaching a series leading into Christmas, and because of that I've been thinking about Christmas a lot this year. One thing that has struck me the most in the Christmas story is the way in which it all happened. Let me explain.You know how every mom loves to talk about how beautiful the package, the wrapping paper, or the bag is that holds the present? They are so careful when they open the package so as to not disturb the beautiful paper. I always wonder about that. I mean, sure it looks nice, but are you really going to reuse it or something? After all, it's not the paper that has value - it's the present inside. But I've been thinking about this concept in terms of the Christmas story. I...

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Labor?

Twice now in the last week or so we've had labor scares. About a week ago after our refresher course on having a baby, the nurse suggested that Kimi get checked out because of her frequent braxton-hicks contractions. She was definitely having some contractions so they gave her a pill and that stopped things. Today Kimi called in tears saying her stomach was hurting, so I raced home and sat with her as we timed things and called the doctor's office. After a bit they stopped, so that's good. However, it really looks like this baby is wanting to come out. We really want her to wait until at least the 1st of January, because that's about the 37 week mark - which they say is ok. So two more weeks - that's all I ask!It makes me realize that despite the nine months of waiting for this baby (add to...

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Parade

Today was a nice relaxing day. We slept in this morning until 9 which was amazing, because Hannah hasn't done that in a long time. She sleeps longer when she comes in our bed, which is what happened last night. She tends to hog the bed, but seeing as how I got to sleep in, I didn't mind. After spending a couple hours around the house not doing much of anything, we remembered that the Yucaipa Christmas parade was today. Hannah has been looking forward to this for a while. Last year mommy went shopping and Hannah and I walked over to the church and watched the parade. They throw candy - which is what she really remembered and looked forward to. So even though mommy was driving, Hannah remembered that we walked last year, and wanted to walk again. She's a lot like me I guess - traditions are...

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Peace on Earth

I had a conversation this week with some friends about the gospel. We were talking about politics, about the church, and ultimately about the role of the Christian in the world. One of the questions we were discussing was in raising children - how much do you expose a child to in order to help them learn to live as a Christian in the world. My friend talked about how growing up in a Christian school didn't really prepare him for the reality of the world. I fully understand wanting to protect our children, particularly in the most formative times of their life. I protect Hannah from things like TV - I don't want her to see certain things. I don't want her to watch commercials even if I can help it, because I realize that the ads are attempting to feed her a lie about what satisfies in life....

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Turkey Day

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, which is really a great day. To be honest, I mostly look forward to Thanksgiving because of the food. I'm sure that's true for lots of people. This week I've been thinking though about gratitude. Tonight we will be having church with our high school students and I plan on simply having a time of thankfulness. Before I do that, I thought I better write about some of my own thoughts. It's quite interesting to me that Thanksgiving day has become less and less significant in American culture. Most of the stores simply go from candy everywhere and Halloween costumes and decorations, to Christmas. Many stores have both of those going at the same time. Thanksgiving is less marketable I guess. It's about being thankful for what we have, for family, for freedoms, etc. There's...

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The Gods Aren't Angry

I went last night to see Rob Bell at the Wiltern in Los Angeles on his "The gods Aren't Angry" tour. First of all, it was my first time to the Wiltern and it's a pretty amazing venue. I sat in the balcony on a rather uncomfortable seat, but I had a good view of the stage and a Coke in my hands, so it wasn't all bad.On the stage was a stone structure, which we later learned was an altar. Other than that, nothing on the stage at all. The lights dimmed and an opera starting playing rather loudly until finally Rob Bell came out onto the stage. "Sooooo...... there's a cave-woman...." Anyway, he talked about how people early on in the history of man started to notice a correlation between the sun and the moon and food and weather, and everything else. They began to see that all of it was connected....

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Old

Today is the day. My 30th birthday. Wow. I can no longer be in my twenties. The kids in my youth group have been harassing me for a month now about this day. They have all declared that I am officially old now. I guess someone in their twenties is still just in the age bracket above them, so it isn't so bad. But thirties? Apparently that's ancient.I went to bed feeling achy, woke up a little sore, went to the gym, and now I feel totally weak. It can't be because I turned 30 can it? At any rate 30 is a good number. It definitely feels a bit different than most birthdays. I've always been a goal-setter. Big achievements, accomplishments, etc. give me cause for reflection. I don't know that you would call turning 30 an accomplishment, but it's definitely a milestone. I am definitely feeling a...

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Recovering

So this week has been kind of crazy. Every October 31 is our church's "Harvest Festival". This year's event had more than 3,500 people attend which is I think our biggest attendance ever. Last year we had 2,400 so that's a pretty huge difference. Anyway, the student ministries department is responsible for planning, coordinating, and eventually pulling off everything it takes to make this event happen. It's a long day to say the least. This year was 8am to 11pm non-stop on my feet setting up the event. I'm thankful for all the people that came out to help us this year - we had more help this year than any year I can remember. All of our game booths were set up by lunch time, which allowed me to feel a little less stressed about the rest of the day. Clean up afterwards went just as smoothly...

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The YS Conference

This last weekend was the annual Youth Specialties C0nference, this year in San Diego. I've been going to the conference ever since I started youth ministry, so I guess this year's conference was the 8th one for me. Overall it's a great conference. I enjoy the general sessions (most of the time) and the seminars are good. The best part to me is simply being away with some of our volunteers and being able to just talk together, hang out, and deepen those relationships. The conference tends to repeat itself over the years. I found that the seminars this year weren't all that great for me. I was disappointed with the ones that I went to with a couple of exceptions. But the general sessions this year were great. Maybe the best ones we've had in years. I just found the worship times to be great,...

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The ALCS

Most people that know me understand that I'm a huge baseball fan. Of course, my Angels got swept right out of the playoffs, so naturally I'm rooting for Cleveland to take it to the Red Sox. Part of my daily ritual in the morning is to check out mlb.com as well as ESPN's baseball site to see scores, articles, etc. I was just doing that today and one caught my eye. It is about Paul Byrd, the former Angel, and now current pitcher with the Cleveland Indians who is starting tonight against the Red Sox. The article is entitled "Paul Byrd's struggle to walk with God." I linked it so that you can go there and read it if you want. I was just really blown away by the way this guy lives out his faith in the world of professional baseball. He's not a flashy guy, he readily admits that he doesn't have...

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Jim and Casper

I recently finished the book "Jim and Casper Go To Church" and wanted to blog a bit about my thoughts. The book is co-written by these two guys, Jim and Casper. Jim is a former pastor who has written books and curriculum on evangelism. Casper is a proclaimed atheist. The book is the summation of the two of them traveling around the country going to different churches and conversing about the things that they see and experience. Jim's premise is that for most of us who have been in the church for a while, we need a fresh set of eyes to look at things and to be brutally honest about the things that they see. The point being that an outsider's perspective (the very person we ought to be trying to reach) is often very different than those of us on the inside. To be honest, I hate that language...

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Formulaic Faith

This summer I read Donald Miller's book Searching for God Knows What. It's really an amazing book. It's been one of those books that has stayed with me for quite a while since I've read it, partly because of my own thoughts, but also partly because some of the high school students in our group have been reading it and talking about it with me. As I read it, I began thinking about doing a teaching series on some of the ideas that Miller addresses. So anyway, this week I started that series.We talked this week about the problem of understanding faith as some kind of formula or recipe, where when we do this, God does that. I went on a Christian book web site this week and typed into the search engine the words "How to". The results were crazy! There were hundreds of books that had these words...

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It's a girl!!

We just got back from the doctor where we finally had our ultrasound, and once again it's a girl! It was so cool to be able to watch her move around. At one point she was sucking on her thumb and it was so stinking cute. Hannah got to be there with us and see her sister for the first time. She thought it was pretty neat, especially when the baby tried to suck on her toes. She asked me again when the baby was coming out - I think she thought it was time. But she's excited. We called the grandmas and some other people and let Hannah tell everyone that she was having a sister. She keeps telling people that her name will be "Hello Kitty Thumbelina"....

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Good one God

I've been reading the Thomas a Kempis classic The Imitation of Christ. I think God must laugh sometimes at how clever he is. He will often put things in my path to read, to watch, to hear that speak directly into a situation that I am currently dealing with. Chapter XVI of this book is entitled "Dealing with the Faults of Others." I have been recently involved in a conflict between two parties, where one of those parties seems to be unwilling to seek reconciliation. They simply want to attack and destroy. And I'll be honest, that makes me want to say "screw it" and to just respond in like kind. At any rate, I read this chapter this morning: "Until God ordains otherwise, a man ought to bear patiently whatever he cannot correct in himself and in others. Consider it better thus - perhaps to try...

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Senior Supper

So last night was our first Senior Supper of the new school year. It's a time for us to hang out with our seniors and talk to them about leadership and to help create a vision for our group that they can have some ownership over. It was a good time. It's exciting for me that we have so many committed seniors this year. Their love for God is amazing, even challenging for me. They are hungry for knowledge. We sat around afterwards and talked about prayer, how we hear God's voice, why we pray in groups sometimes, and stuff like that. It was just a great time. This Wednesday we will be talking about that whole concept - hearing God's voice. The experience I had where my 3 year old daughter asked me why she never hears God's voice will be a great starting point for that conversation. My friend...

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Sunday

Yesterday was a busy day. We had a fairly normal morning, but I was doing a ministry spotlight of the high school group. I told the church about last week's car wash for Pastor Idelfonso (San Felipe), and about how we were able to raise $2000 for a car for he and his family. We also showed a video from our trip to South Africa. It's always fun to be able to show off our ministry to the church. I am thankful that our church allows us to do the things we do. I went to lunch with the usual gang of high school guys - they keep me laughing all the time.I spent a couple of hours during the afternoon preparing for Sunday night's service - where we got...

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A Dream

My dreams are usually nonsense. They have little to do with reality. At the time they seem rational, but when I wake up and think about them I often laugh at how silly they really are. There are some dreams that feel like dreams, and some dreams that feel very real. On some occasions I have woken up from dreams and had to think about whether or not what just happened was real or not. I had one of those dreams this week. It was a terrible dream.There wasn't much to the dream, no real plot or story that happened. In real time, I suppose the events that happened in my dream would have all happened in about 30 seconds. But I was riding my bike up a trail with someone else (who I can't remember), and my daughter was riding behind me. I remember thinking I needed to stay between her and the edge...

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Prayer

My 3 year old daughter and I are home alone for the weekend - mom went away with the ladies of the family to the Women of Faith conference. So we were driving to pick up dinner (I said mom was away right?) and out of the blue she asks me "Dad, how come when I pray I don't hear God's voice?" Are you kidding me? This girl is 3 years old! It's funny how God places these moments in my life. I'm currently reading Kyle Lake's [re]Understanding Prayer. All summer long I've been learning and thinking about prayer. We've started a new prayer gathering that meets weekly. I'm in the middle of a teaching series on prayer based on James 5:16. I've been answering a lot of questions about prayer, and yet none as tough as the one that came from the mouth of a 3 year old.Yet isn't that a question we all ask...

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