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These things are connected: A conference, a magazine, a flight, and dogsitting.

This Fall I attended (actually served at) a brand new conference/event called STORY. I volunteered for 2 reasons: 1.) Then digital (now real life) friend of mine named Ben Arment was the founder and architect of the event. 2.) There is something about the word ‘story’, and the concept of stories that stirs something deep within my soul. I knew I needed to be at this event.

At the conference everyone received a bag with all kinds of promo, conference info, and a free issue of a magazine called Collide. This particular issue of collide had the word ‘STORY’ written on the front in a very cool font (liken it to dangling a shiny object in front of me). I liked it, but apparently not enough to read it.

I’m typing this blog on a plane via the WordPress app on my iPhone (I love technology). Up until now, my iPhone and all of its marevelous apps has merely served as means of providing a soundtrack (John Mayer, Switchfoot, Johsua Radin). This is primarily because I have been reading the afformentioned magazine. Turns out this issue contained all sorts of articles that captured my attention, and directly addressed a topic that I’ve found myself engrossed in lately: The idea of leveraging our lives to tell a story, and our participation in a Grand Story.

I think that it is no coincidence that I have chosen to read this 6 month old magazine while on a plane travelling to Florida where I’m spending the next 7 days primarily alone, at my friends house in Bradenton caring for his dogs while he is out of town. I have a full plate of work planned for these 7 days, but I’ve made the commitment to myself, to others, and to God that a primary purpose of this trip will be focused dreaming, thinking, and listening.

I’m listening to, observing, and participating in The Story. I’m confident the next 7 days will be providential for my life, ministry, and future.

I’m bad at resolutions. Hopefully I’m better at goals. This past Sunday we had our first full group Student Ministry gathering with our student community at Journey Church. I knew that I wanted to share something that would inspire our students to begin this new year with a new perspective on what it takes to be in an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.

The main point of my talk was that I did not want our students to rely on myself, our church, and other adult leaders in their life as dispensers of spiritual knowledge. Instead I challenged them to allow our moments together to inspire them to seek God at a new level on their own. From their I shared these points ideas centered around the idea of setting some personal spiritual growth goals for the new year:

1. You have to know where you’re going before you can get there (write it down).
2. Your direction determines your destination (your actions determine where you actually go).
3. Share with someone. Accountability is key.

I then had each student write down some goals. Some actions steps to go with those goals. Then they shared some or all of them with the group. It was awesome!! I loved hearing what the students felt like they needed to do in order to take the next step in their personal relationship with God.

Being faithful to my own principle #3 above, here are my goals:

1. Read the whole Bible (this is partly a personal desire, and partly necessary requirement for a pastoral process I am going through.)
2. Study the Redemptive Story of God at a deeper level (this is a concept that I have been engrossed by lately…)
3. Further develop and understand my personal theology. Some people use their theology as a weapon… I’m not interested in that. I do however feel like it is important to know what you believe, and why you believe so. I think this is an ever evolving process.
4. Intentionally develop and disciple another Christ follower. Every believer should have someone in their life that they are loving on, and journeying with. It’s a calling on each of our lives.

Those are my goals for 2009. They scare me. They excite me. How about yours?

I have a confession. To anyone who knows me this should not be a secret: I really (really really really) like sports. I like to watch them. I love to play them. I get wrapped up talking about them. My dream job would be that of a sports talk radio show host.

Here’s the thing though. I don’t just like one sport. I become engrossed by just about ANY sport. Seriously. Off the top of my head, if given the opportunity I would watch these sports on live or on TV: baseball, basketball, football, futbol, hockey, boxing, mma, nascar, golf, tennis, and horse racing.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not ashamed of any of this. People have passions. One of mine is sports, and I’m totally okay with that! The only problem I have is when I catch myself watching some sporting event on TV, and I come to the realization that I’m wasting a large amount of time watching a game that I have no rooting interest in. So…

I think I have a solution. Maybe solution is the wrong word. Maybe more like a commitment. Of all of the major sports I listed above, the one I care least about is NBA basketball. I don’t have a team that I deeply care about  (I root for the Cavs because they are close, and I’m fascinated by Lebron). So with that in mind, I have made the following decision. I’m not going to watch NBA basketball games this year. The season starts tomorrow. I won’t be watching. I’ll catch the highlights on SportsCenter, but I won’t invest large amounts of time watching games I don’t really care about.

What will I do with my extra time? I dunno. Hopefully something productive. I’m not going to say: “Everytime I could be watching the NBA, I’ll read the Bible”. Sure, that’s a great goal, but probably not something I’ll be able to accomplish. My only goal is to not watch the NBA, and to do my best to use that time productively. Talk to my wife. Read a book. Write a blog. Clean the house. Anything but the NBA. Until the playoffs… I’ll have to watch Kobe vs. Lebron in the Finals!

I love to write. I really do. With that said, I don’t have an explanation for why I go through seasons where I don’t blog. I think it’s because I often begin to blog for the wrong reasons. I blog so others will read. Or more specifically so others will comment, and say something like: “Oooh, good post. I really enjoyed reading that”.

Confession: I crave the affirmation of others. It’s a weakness of my flesh. Sorry.

Back to my original thought. I like to write. Really… I do! I love to find new creative outlets. Recently I began writing a weekly recap column for the Fantasy Football League that I’ve been in for 4 years. It’s fun, I get to pretend like I’m an expert, and analyze meaningless fantasy football stats. I even give away weekly awards. It’s sort of an homage to Peter King’s weekly Monday Morning Quarterback article on www.si.com

Recently I’ve been feeling an urge to blog again. Not sure why. I think I just need an outlet. I’ve been reading more lately than I have in several years. I want to share some of the things I’m learning, processing, and struggling with.

I’m embarrassed by my lack of consistency in blogging. Every time I end an e-mail with my signature, I see my blog address, and hope that the person on the other end won’t visit the blog. I hope they’ll see my Twitter URL and check that out instead. I’m a good Twitterer!

All of that to say. I’m blogging again. Not for you. But for me. Hope that’s okay.

The Bible tells us to love our neighbor.

This story begs the question: Do you even know your neighbor?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,511929,00.html

You know a story rattled me if it woke me out of a five month blogging slumber.

Well, today is a very special day for our country… for our world even. Special because today we will swear in for the first time a President that is not a caucasian male… yes. Special because there are over 2 million people gathered in D.C. to witness this history… yes. Special for many reasons.

In my opinion though, today is special because it’s just like all of the other inauguration days in our country’s history. What a wonderful country we live in that we have such peaceful and graceful transitions of leadership. For at least this one day, many many people put aside their political stance and celebrate how wonderful and enduring our country is.

I’d like to take a moment to say hello to one man, and goodbye to another.

Hello President Obama. I don’t know much about you yet. I know that you are a very gifted speaker, and you appear to have a stoic presence in front of the camera. I know you are very appealing to my generation, and that you have created an intense interest in American politics for many who were disinterested before. I look forward to getting to know you. I will be praying for you and the tough decisions you will need to make. I hope in four or eight years we have great things to say and write about you. I hope the Change you have advertised will be a beautiful thing that will further embed our nation with the values, morals, and upstanding character that has made it such a great nation all along.

Goodbye President Bush. Eight years ago I was 16 years old and was not too concerned about the political process. Nine months into your presidency, everything about my world, our world, our country changed. From this day forward when I think back on your Presidency, I will forever remember the image of you standing on the rubble of the World Trade Center… I will remember you throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium…. I will remember you standing tall and making tough decisions that you knew would not be popular with many people. I applaud your determination to lead for eight difficult years. You had the weight of the world on your shoulders, and although you were not always graceful in speech (sorry, had to), you were always graceful in character and stature. I wish you well as you leave The White House. I am happy for you that your time in office is over… you deserve retirement… you deserve to relax on your ranch in Crawford… you deserve to sit back and watch someone else take the heat for once. Thank you for your service. Enjoy the grandkids.

I saw this idea somewhere, but I can’t remember where. So while not giving credit, I’m actually not taking any either.

I’ll be honest. I have a hard time with New Year Resolutions. In terms of my personality, I’m a starter. I like to create things, start new things, and dream about things that don’t yet exist. So naturally I have a hard time following through with things. The more complicated things are, the less likely I am to follow through with them. I get bored, and move on to create something new. I think that’s why I have such a hard time with resolutions.

So when I read about one word resolutions, I knew that it was something I’d be likely to follow through with.

With that said, here are my three one word resolutions. I’d love to hear yours. Please share in the comments section.

Learn
Healthy
Give

I’m writing this on my iPhone as I lie (lay?) in bed after a wonderful Christmas day.

The day started with my wonderful wife waking me up in eagerness to give me the gift she bought for me. She was so excited because on the past she has failed to surprise me, either due to lack of a lying gift, or poor gift hiding skills. Nonetheless, this year I was clueless, and after opening I was wonderfully delighted. She got me a remote control… A Logitech Harmony 550 Advanced Remote Control. To some yes, just a remote control. To me though, it’s so much more. It’s my entire theatre system controlled with one slick device. It’s my other 4 remotes tucked away in a drawer forever. It’s a pure awesome man toy, and I love it! Oh yea, and Sadie (dog toys) and Jen (book, shoes) opened their presents to, but mine was so much cooler.

From there we headed to my mom & dad’s house for the giant extended family Christmas luncheon. At 2:00 there were 35 people in the house. It was crazy… and awesome! I love my family, even the crazy ones. It’s great to see everyone in the same house enjoying a great meal, and wonderful memories. It’s a crazy couple of hours that I look forward to each year. I especially enjoyed the part where I forced several family members to watch a slideshow of photos on dad’s HDTV from our Journey to Guatemala this summer. I love retelling those stories and spreading the message of compassion! I also noticed that little cousins are growing like weeds, and turning into “cool” teenagers with cell phones & iPods… I wonder if they still think I’m cool?

Eventually the house cleared out, and there were only a couple of us left. Dad and I wanted a “snack”, so mom reheated the Christmas Eve breakfast, made fresh biscuits & cinnamon rolls, all in about 10 minutes… at 7:00 at night. My mom is pretty much amazing!!

After eating & cleaning up, Jen & I headed home. We stopped at Wal-Greens to grab something, and saw quite an eclectic group of people. Interesting folks shopping at Wal-Greens at 8 pm on Christmas Day!

That brought me home where I used my new remote to turn on the: TV, Cable, & Receiver (all with one button!!), in order to watch Lebron & the Cavs squeak out a win against the Wizards.

Now I lie (or lay?… I really have no idea) in bed feeling thankful, lucky, and wishing I could do it all again!

What did your Christmas look like? (Also, is it lie or lay?)

I’ve read a couple of blog posts in the past few minutes that have really struck a chord with me. I encourage you to go to the following two links and check out the posts. Don’t stop there though, go through the comments and hear what others are doing in similar situations. Post 1 from Ragamuffin Soul. and Post 2 from Joshua Griffin. Check them out!

The reality is, we live in a fascinating time. We have dozens of affordable luxuries at our fingertips daily. The question for us should not be: “Can I afford that”, but “Do I need that”. What do we really need? what could we do without? 

I’m wondering what some of you have to say about this. I’m wondering if you’ve ever gone without a modern luxury, so that you can tackle debt, be obedient to God, sponsor a Compassion child, to “Go Green”, or anything else along those lines. 

In the spirit of full disclosure, I feel the need to say that I don’t do without any of these things. I’m not seeking to convict, just to spark conversation! Jenessa and I have digital cable with DVR. We have RoadRunner cable internet. We both have cell phones. We do NOT have a home phone, but only because we honestly have ZERO need for one. We drive two cars, but have no car payment… when we purchased a new car after totaling our old car, we stayed within the boundaries of the insurance check to replace that car.

 I actually went through a period about  a year ago where I contemplated killing the cable at our house. After thinking about it, and figuring out the money I would be saving, I determined that it wouldn’t be “worth it”. Turns out that I’m on some freaky cheap package with Time Warner Cable. I get Digital Cable + DVR + Roadrunner Internet for $85.00 per month. If I cancelled the cable, my RoadRunner internet would go up to $45 per month by itself. The nature of my work situation at Journey Church does not allow me to go without the internet at my house, so we determined that $40 a month was worth the Cable & DVR.

For the record, I could totally go without cable. There are resources & tools out there that would enable me to enjoy all of the same programming I do now, without the cost. My ideal setup would be: Apple TV + BoxeeTV + Hulu + Netflix. Now I just need someone to step up and buy me that Apple TV for Pastor Appreciation Month!  (I never thought that I’d link to CBN on this blog!)

(First off, Sorry for the blogging break. The past couple of weeks have been spent traveling, and jumping back into the full swing of the Fall ministry season at Journey Church.)

I’ve made some recent book & music purchases that have me excited about what I will learn & experience over the next few months. Check out the recent additions to my library and let me know what you think in the comments!

Music: (Loving some of these new tunes)

• OK Now – Jon McLaughlin – Just purchased Jon’s new album this morning. Can’t wait to give it a few full listens and hear what he’s created in the time since his outstanding first release, Indiana.
• The Glass Passenger – Jack’s Mannequin – In college, “Something Corporate” was one of my favorite bands. Now Andrew (lead singer) has been off on his own for a while. I love what I’ve heard so far from this 2nd album! 
• Under Summer Sun – Matt Wertz – Matt’s music was meant to be listened to in the summertime. Unfortunately, the album didn’t come out until late summer… still a great listen though!
• The Bright Sadness – Charlie Hall – Hands down the best album currently out in the “worship” genre. Charlie delivers in a big way both musically and lyrically with this gem!
• Hello Love – Chris Tomlin – Tomlin is God’s cheerleader. This album is a collection of anthems that churches all over the world will be singing in a few months. Great stuff.