Category: personal

i installed the cat5 cable necessary for us to hook our xbox up to the internet and thereby have xbox live. if any of you have xbox live send me your username and i’ll list you as a “friend.” then we can shoot each other to our hearts’ delight.

i installed the cat5 cable necessary for us to hook our xbox up to the internet and thereby have xbox live. if any of you have xbox live send me your username and i’ll list you as a “friend.” then we can shoot each other to our hearts’ delight.

according to my mother i haven’t been blogging enough. i learned along time ago that it is not a good idea to upset my mother (she looks all nice and calm on the outside but when she blows up it’s a raging inferno of calmness). so in an attempt to keep my mom in her normal calm attitude i decided to post. unfortunately i don’t really have anything to post about.

i could post about the fact that i wish i drove a tractor and had the right to run over people who would rather talk to their passengers or on their cell phone rather than drive – i hate when they continue talking and just assume that you are honking at someone else – surely they couldn’t be the idiot that you are honking and waving angrily at.

i guess i could also post about my turning into the saint patrick’s day police this week. about half the people i ran into during the week where wearing kelly green merely days before saint patrick’s day. i can’t say why but this bothered me. i found myself telling people that they had messed up by wearing kelly green on the wrong day. i never care what other people wear. it just doesn’t matter to me. yet, for some reason st. patrick’s day has developed an unknown meaning to me and therefore must be celebrated an appropriate manner.

i could also post about the fact that for the first time in years i am not in a march madness pool. i couldn’t find one to join this year and i didn’t start one on my own. it’s sad. i don’t feel as connected to the ncaa basketball tournament now. i’ve watched a little bit of the tourni but i haven’t been rabid about it and i know it’s the result of not being in a bracket competition. i did watch the iowa/northwestern state game today and shouted out loud when northwestern sunk the three pointer that won it.

i could also post about the fact that we will go to fort worth, texas april 13-17 to work with the beautiful feet ministries. i love going there.

still i think i’ll just post that i just finished clipping montana’s nails and boy was it exciting.

friday was adam’s birthday and all he wanted to do was have a few friends over to our local park for some air soft wars. so we let him invite a small group of friends and set everything up for these guys and one girl to shoot each other till the cows came home. unfortunately, one of adam’s friends didn’t show up and this left uneven teams. that was fine for the time that the kids were just running around shouting each other. but when i introduced them to the idea of capture the flag with the air soft guns there suddenly became a need for an additional player. not to worry because i love capture the flag and putting the ability to shoot people with plastic pellets into the mix just makes it that much more fun. so i joined the game.

i figured i would show this young whipper snappers how a real man plays caputre the flag. i started off fast and quickly found the other teams flag. shouting to my team to cover me i started to run back to our side of the field with the flag in hand. it was a great moment. the fans were cheering, my openents were standing in awe, and my children where beaming with pride that i was their dad. at least that’s the way i saw it until i went to jump over the creek (our center line) and win the game. my foot caught a root and instead of jumping to victory i did a header into the mud surrounding the creek. this is what i looked like after the face first dive into the mud.

it’s sad that i’m 38 years old and still a klutz.

noah was sick yesterday. not the bad kind of sick where you feel completely miserable all the time and just want to die so it will all be over. rather he threw up a small amount a few times and had a stomach that would hurt every now and then but was able to lounge around the rest of the time and feel decent.

i used to love sick days as a kid.

okay here’s the file to download for tomorrow’s service. DON”T LISTEN TO IT UNTIL CHURCH TOMORROW. just put it on your mp3 player and we’ll all start it at the same time tomorrow at the view (@ 6:15 p.m.).

just wanted to tell everyone happy mardi gras. i hope you’ve all had a wonderful day.

if you are interested in learning a little of the history of mardi gras you can look here.

good news! according to ups’ website the d50 has been found and is “out for delivery” (this also means that the ups delivery person is also okay – which is almost as good of news as the d50 being found). of course, what will really happen is that ups will try to deliver the camera to the church after the church has actually closed for the day. barring another wreck or nikon d50 camera-napping i should have my camera monday. oh happy day.

the fun thing that has happened today is that the walters brought their two dogs (a beagle and a miniature dachshund) over to stay at our house for a week. the walters are going up to indiana to she sharon’s mom. they needed someone to watch their dogs and i just so happen to be a dog person and pam just so happens to be a nice person (but not a dog person unfortunately). this means we now have three dogs in the house running after each other. montana, the greatest basset hound in the world, usually feels like she desires all of your attention when she is awake (about 50% of the time). now she could cares less if i am around – she has other dogs to play with. it’s fun to watch.

some days just make me feel really good about being involved within ministry. yesterday was such a day. here the stuff that happened during the day:

• early morning (roughly 8 to 9 a.m.) – study the old testament concept of “herem” and how it relates to our lives.
• morning (roughly 9 to 10 a.m.) – discussion with a student for a paper on paul tillich – how does a struggle with “being” and “nothingness” relate to every day life? how do you disagree with someone and yet still recognize the truth that is found within what they are saying?
• late morning (roughly 11-12 a.m.) – discussion with an adult volunteer concerning GOD’s sovereignty and the current very painful situation that she is going through.
• ealry afternoon (roughly 1 to 2 p.m.) – one of my former youth comes over for a visit after getting back from his army tour of duty in iraq. we debrief for awhile and i am humbled as he talks about his difficulties being in church now after a year of being told to never make himself vulnerable by placing himself in a situation that involves a mass of people who he doesn’t know (he had to get up and leave his first sunday in church with his girlfriend in another city because he kept having the idea of being an easy target flash through his head).
• afternoon – finished my preparation for our wednesday worship. because of the nature of “herem” i get to smash things with a mallet and this requires preparation.
• evening – youth worship with me smashing a cantaloupe with a huge mallet during the service. it was a blast.
• evening (after the service) – spend time talking with a teen who is going through some faith struggles right now. i spent most of my time listening to him as he talked through his struggles and tried to find answers.
• late evening (roughly 8 to 10 p.m.) – i sat in a discussion group that one of the adult volunteers who works within the youth ministry has started. it was the first time that i had been his student. it was a cool experience.

it was a good day.

of course, there are other days when the closest thing to significance i did was put together some graphic slides of quotes to show during our announcement slide loop (i.e. the images attached to this post).

as many of you know my family and i went up to little rock, arkansas to preach at grace church. apparently the rumors have it that i went up there “in view of a call” (southern baptist lingo for “i’m getting my butt out of here”). i say “apparently” because i have already been asked twice since coming to the church office if this morning if i am leaving the church to go to little rock. if you were hoping that this is true then i have sad news for you – i’m not!

i went up to little rock to spend a little time with a friend, grant, and get to speak to a group of people who will think i’m an expert (rather than the moron that you know me to be). grant is doing me a favor by coming down and speaking at our discipleNOW (march 17-19) and thus i was going to do him a favor and fill in on one of his sundays for him. turns out that i didn’t even get to preach because little rock was engulfed by a huge ice storm and tons of church services were cancelled.

sorry folks but you’re stuck with me for a good while longer.