gone to school

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adam's dorm roomso we dropped adam off at northland college today which was kind of bitter-sweet. really more sweet than bitter. this is what we have been raising him for … for him to go out into the world and with the help of GOD, family, and friends really become the wonderful man that his mother and i see in him already. he is going to do great, learn a ton, challenge many assumptions (both his own and those of others), and continue to become an amazing person.

so here it what i hope college does for him.

  • helps him to grow as a man of GOD. as adam recently taught me this involves two things: 1) being a man, and 2) being of GOD. adam is going to face more challenges than he ever has before. people, places, events, difficulties, etc. he is going to be doing more on his own than he has ever had to do. welcome to the world of being an adult. i have no doubt he’ll make it. these challenges will include his faith too. there will be people around to help him (it isn’t like we are disowning him) but the majority of it will be on his shoulders. that’s how growth happens in all areas of life, from academics to faith. should be fun to watch him respond (even though i will be restraining myself from jumping in for him).
  • helps him to learn what his passion is and enables him to go after it. i don’t care what he gets his degree in as long as it points him towards something he loves and enables him to do it more effectively. while i would like his degree to be “marketable” i am more concerned about him getting his degree in a manner that doesn’t keep him from being able to follow his passion. right now adam is majoring in outdoor education a degree that i know of several uses for. if that ends up being his passion that is great but it will be difficult following that passion if he racks up $50,000 in debt achieving his degree. instead of following his passion he will have to get a higher paying job to pay off the debt he acquired getting his degree. pam and i are doing everything we can to make sure that doesn’t happen but adam has to do his part too. pam and i have acquired 5 degrees between us thus far, with a 6th one coming soon. we have done this without an ounce of debt because of scholarships, help from parents in our bachelor’s degrees, working jobs while in school, and creative timing. i want adam to learn amazing things and do it in such a way that he doesn’t have debt that keeps him from exploring those things further.
  • we saw the hodaghelps him to fail in manageable ways and succeed far beyond what he thinks he can do. i know he is going to try new things and sometimes fail. those success and failures are a part of life. what i hope is that when he fails his failure is not so great that he isn’t able to get back up and try again. i hope his failures help him to achieve more than he has ever thought possible.
  • allows him to learn and experience so much more than i will ever know and have a most excellent time doing it. this means developing lifelong friends, practices, habits, hobbies, and more.

adam, i am continually proud of you. you are one amazing guy.

run, bike unite 2012

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busy day so i can’t post much. just want to say how proud i am of pam and the boys. the whole terrell family did the 2012 united way run, bike, unite duathlon. adam and i did the whole thing and pam and noah where a relay team with pam running and noah biking. it was a blast. pam and i then rushed to get something to eat and clean up for brad and katie’s wedding. my wife looks wonderful covered in sweat and grim and cleaned up.

i’ve posted this in the break between the wedding and the reception. it is now time for the reception so i’ll now be leaving with my cute wife and going to attempt to dance. i say attempt because i am not very good at it.

loving the lifehacker

i read lifehacker daily and i love it. it is amazing the things that i learn from the myriad of tips they put out. a read a few days ago they posted concerning an “auto journal.” i go through phases of journaling. in fact, i’m in one right now. i write down thoughts, what i have been reading, and things that i am being challenged by.

one thing that i have not done in the passed with journaling is keep a basic list of things i have done during the day. i’ve read a few diaries in the past that had such simple details as “i traveled to such and such today,” “bought this at this price,” and “ate this today.” these details are incredibly simple and yet i find them wonderful. so i have started adding those details to my journaling experience.

lifehacker’s post pointed out a way to do an auto journal of my basic online daily activity. using if this then that to save small details of my online activity to a journal file on evernote. obviously this is not the same as my written journal and will by no means replace it but i think it will be fun to try the auto journal. right now i have setup “recipes” for it to copy my foursquare checkins, facebook statuses, tweets, google calendar appointment, blog posts, and amazon purchases into an auto journal file. i think it might be fun to look back years from now and see this stuff.

another lifehacker project that i am considering is doing something with the raspberry pi computer. these little $25 & $35 computers look very interesting. lifehacker described making a media center computer out of one. they described making a media center computer for less than $500. i am kind of thinking of less than $60.

SIDE NOTE – i spoke with alan lusk today. he is an old friend and former co-worker. i am excited to hear that he and his family will be planting a church in prairieville, louisiana. since i’ve done ministry along side alan before i know a decent amount concerning how he ministers. he’ll do a great job and i therefore imagine that the church he plants will be pretty dang cool. there are a couple of churches in the baton rouge area that i think the world of. obviously, i kind of like parkview since it was my home for 7 years and i love the ring and its leadership because i believe they do an amazing job of following CHRIST. it is nice to know that there will be another one soon. GOD has allowed me to work with some really cool people and it is so much fun hearing what HE continues to do through them.

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SIDE SIDE NOTE – the story of the senior adult who decided to “restore” one of the frescos in her church, the church of santuario de misericordia in borja, spain, is pretty funny. she was just trying to help. the whole situation reminds me from the scene from bean when he messes up and “corrects” whistler’s mother.

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tonight at church

the above photo shows what i saw tonight while preaching tonight at tapestry every time i looked over at the area where noah and his friend were sitting. earlier this week they bought a few fake mustaches and decided they would each wear their last ones for church this sunday. it was pretty funny. some might find it distracting but i disagree. i just thought it was funny.

SIDE NOTE – some of his humor today led to pam punching him. during the message, which was on JESUS clearing the temple (mark 1:15-19), i asked why the “women’s court” was named the “women’s court” (obviously it was because it was where the women could go). noah’s response? he said, “because that was where the kitchen was.” pam made sure to remind him that he had not given the correct answer.

the other robert terrells

apparently there is a robert terrell in england who works in some type of retail store and there is a robert terrell in new york who is some how involved in hip hop music. the reason i know this is because they also apparently both have email addresses that are close to mine. i keep getting email messages that are meant for them. yesterday i received a request to change shifts with someone in england and a different request from a radio dj for 20 cds of my music. the good news is that the dj promised me that he would get my music a significant amount of air play. i’m pretty excited about my future success in hip hop. you all know how gangsta i am. even better news is that while i wait for my hip hop career to take off i will also have a steady job in england taking people’s shifts when they need a break.

community bible experience

this summer tapestry did one community bible experience (cbe). cbe is a thing started by biblica when they had the great idea of encouraging people to read big, read in context, and read together. so they came up with a new testament that has no chapter or verse numbers and rearranged the books of the bible in such a way that they are easier to read in context (i.e. the gospel of john is read right before reading the epistles of and revelation to john). you read about 10 pages a day, five days a week, and in eight weeks you have read the entire new testament. each week we would get together as a group and just talk about what hit us. i have read the new testament more times than i can remember and i was amazed at what i picked up in the straight read through and i was incredibly thankful for what i learned from hearing and discussing with everyone else in the group each week.

so we are going to do it again in the fall. my goal is to start 2 to 3 groups this time. interested? no someone who might be interested? it really is an incredibly experience.

its not hot now

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i meant to post the above photo about a month ago but i kind of forgot. it is from the last time that tapestry provided the weekly meal for place of peace. we provide a meal and more importantly eat with everyone that comes for the thursday night meal once every three months. the shirt above is the result of being in the kitchen on july 5th. it was miserably hot. pam said that i should take a photo because this is probably the most she has ever seen me sweat in my life when i wasn’t doing something physical. i don’t usually sweat a great deal. actually i sweat a little but it is almost all on my eyebrow. its weird but how it works. anyhow, i have been sweating a good bit this summer.

wisconsin summers are not supposed to be like this. it is one of the things that we love about being in the mid west. i’m not sure what happened this summer.

SIDE NOTE – the goatee was pretty long on this day. i like it.

fun day

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a few notes on my day:

  • while running today a small stick went all the way through the sole of my running shoe and into my foot. this was a half mile a way from my house and i couldn’t get the stick out of my shoe so i ended up walking back home with one shoe off. i know the photo above is blurry but you should still be able to see the stick. i initially thought it was a nail or something sharp but nope it was just a rather dull stick. i must have hit it at the absolute perfect angle for it to go through the sole instead of just breaking.
  • the beauty of my kids is that they were super excited about some fellow pastors coming over to the house today to pray because of a funny line they thought of for the occasion. SPAM, stevens point area ministers, gets together to pray once a month and this month was supposed to be at the terrell house. the boys were excited because they want me to paraphrase a naco libre line. they were going to come upstairs for a second in hopes that i would say “boys leave us so my brothers and i can talk of holy things.” this didn’t happen because we ended up meeting elsewhere. the boys were sad.
  • today i got to talk about jürgen moltmann on two separate occasions. that always makes for a good day.

wedding advice

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DSCN0311the second of five thread weddings took place this past weekend. jesse & amanda were married this past saturday. it was a great time. they had obviously put a great deal of work into the day and i personally thought it showed. of course, it was also pam and my wedding anniversary so i am a little partial to the day. we have been married 22 years. pam and i have now been officially married half our lives. it has worked out pretty well for me and i think it will work out great for jesse & amanda too.

DSCN0305pam and i made a weekend of it and ate at a couple of wonderful local restaurants (the mona lisa restaurant & the nucleus cafe). both had excellent food (though the service at the mona lisa lacked a little). the photo to the right is of pam’s nutella crepe at the nucleus. mhmmm. part of the fun of the weekend was that we had gorgeous weather and thus we were able to ride our bikes around.

it was a wonderful weekend. the photo at the top of this post is from the “advice string” that jesse & amanda had setup. my dad gave me one bit of advice before i married pamela. he told me that we should never wallpaper a room together. either i should do it by myself, she should do it by herself, or we should hire someone. it seems to have worked for us so i thought i would pass along the same advice to jesse & amanda. let’s pray they listen. 🙂