Month: August 2018

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Potluck Tomorrow

I assume that everyone who reads my blog posts knows that I am a Baptist minister (pastor of a small and wonderful church and chaplain through a great company). As a Baptist minister I am fairly sure that my spiritual love language is the language of potluck. I really do love them.

Not so much because of the food, though I do love that also, but more because I believe there is something God honoring and wonderful about them. At a potluck everyone brings something that they like, like to make, or like to serve. Some people spend hours on it, while others spend minutes. Some people make something, while others buy something. There isn’t really any rhyme or reason, no really plan or agenda, people just bring what they want to bring and something wonderful comes out of it.

For example, I am an OK cook but Pam is the one who really shines at cooking in our home. She is amazingly creative and very skilled. She wasn’t when we first were married (we used to thing that hamburger helper was fine dining) and she didn’t really have any family experience with creative homemade meals. She developed it on her own and has gotten better with the years. Anyhow, she’s the real cook, but there are a few things that I make better than her.

Two of things I make better than her are salsa and chili dogs. So that is what I am bringing tomorrow for Tapestry’s potluck – Chips & Salsa and Chili dogs. Not a normal combination, but when you add it with all the other things that everyone else will bring it will lead to a wonderful meal. We feed each other with our small gifts and great, God honoring things happens.

I’m sure there is analogy in there somewhere but I need to stir my hot dog chili.

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Merriam-Webster on the Word “Asshat”

I have posted before on the humor I find in the word “asshat” and how Pam and I use the word “butt fedora” for the same purpose because neither one of us are big fans of cursing or vulgarities. To Pam sent me this interesting article from the Merriam-Webster “Words at Play” section concerning the history of the word “asshat” and the reason for their inclusion of it in their dictionary.

To quote Merriam-Webster concerning the growth of the use of the word:

It’s traveled pretty far into the language in just a short amount of time.

May you have a “butt fedora” free day.

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A New Motor for Buddy the Mustang in the back of Fred the Minivan

A year ago today Conor H and I finished replacing the automatic transmission in Buddy the Mustang with a manual transmission. Today we bought the main ingredient (I bought it, Conor inspected it) for the next transformation of my 1989 convertible Mustang. We will be replacing her 2.3l 90 horsepower engine with the 2.3l turbo 190 horsepower engine out of a 1987 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe. Buddy is about to change from “all show, and no go” a vehicle that has show and go.

I posted the above photos primarily because I wanted to write about my love for my minivan. Every Monday evening I shoot bows with an amazing group of guys. As great as these guys are they raze one of our number because he shows up each week either in a minivan or a Prius (I on the other hand usually show up in Buddy). The jokes basically are about these vehicles emasculating him. It is all just ribbing and happens mainly because they guy driving the minivan/Prius combination is the first one start the jokes about himself. Personally, I am a huge van of minivan because of events like today. Conor and I drove comfortable over to Eau Claire, picked up Noah, bought the engine, and then comfortably (other than a fear of bumble bees because we found a nest of bumble bees in the transmission bell-housing before putting the engine and transmission in the back of the van) went to eat at Taco Januita’s (if you haven’t been here and you are ever in Eau Claire you should go). I did all this while getting good gas mileage. I love my minivan!

“Yeah I’m sorry I can’t hear your funny jokes about how unmanly my 300,000 mile minivan is, I’m too busy hauling the engine out of a Thunderbird Turbo Coupe. What’s in the back of your fancy truck?”

SIDE NOTE – If anyone has an engine lift and/or an engine stand that I could borrow for awhile I would appreciate it. These are the type of things that I can’t do this project without but will probably never use again.

SIDE SIDE NOTE – If you are going to buy an engine from someone my experience is that it is best to buy an engine from a guy who owns his own personal Bobcat. Getting the engine in the back of Fred the minivan was easy. I have no idea how we are going to get it out. 🙂 Anyone want to buy a Bobcat and let me use it?

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Goats Rampage

There is a company that rents out goats (WeRentGoats) to control weeds and such on private property whose “employees” went on a rampage, left their job site, and began eating a local neighborhood. I wish I had a random hundred goats come through our neighborhood. That would be a ton of fun … until you had to clean up after them.

Here’s the Washington Post story on the incident.

 

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If You Are A Financial Planner You Should Know This

Today I talked with an individual who was selling himself as a personal financial planner and as a part of his spiel he regularly referenced the national debt and what it would probably mean for future tax rates. Unfortunately, everytime he referenced the national debt he actually said national deficit. Maybe I’m expecting too much but I feel like you should know the difference between the debt and deficit and use the terms correctly if you are a financial planner and encouraging people to make certain investments based on the future tax rates possiblle due to our increasing debt.

National Deficit – how much we spend each year as a nation over our income (taxes, tariffs, etc). The opposite is a surplus, where we have more income than we spend.

National Debt – the total we have borrowed over all the year’s deficits (less the year’s with surpluses).

Projected 2018 National Deficit – Around 800 billion

Current National Debt – Around 21 trillion.

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Evangelism = An Enjoyable Conversation

I know I write and talk about this every so often (for example here) but I seriously think that evangelism should be an enjoyable conversation about the One Who is most important to us. We have conversations about other things all the time and find it enjoyable. There is a whole category of people who do this for a living, they are called “influencers“. I’m not trying to encourage anyone to treat sharing what Jesus has done in your life as a marketing campaign, it just seems that conversations that would be normal with any other topic (because we generally like to share with those around us the things that really work in our lives) tend to get scary for some when the subject is faith.

So I want to encourage us all to think about it differently. You aren’t “sharing your faith” or practicing “evangelism”. You are having an enjoyable conversation about the One Who gives you meaning, purpose, and rescue. You are merely talking about the One Who is most important to you. You are having an enjoyable conversation. “Hey, can I tell you something that has really helped me?” That is an enjoyable conversation.

I bring this up today because once again I have bought The Main Grain out of their Firecracker Rolls. Why? Well because I am convince that these rolls are yet more proof that God loves us and therefore I want to share them with everyone. I’ve already passed out several to people I know and I don’t know at Emy J’s. There hasn’t been any fear or anxiety associated with these conversations, because all I am doing is having an enjoyable conversation concerning something I enjoy.

So go have an enjoyable conversation and if you are in my small group there is a small chance that a few firecrackers will be left for tonight. 🙂