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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