Monday, October 29, 2007

Zacchaeus

Wow, last week was hectic. As a result I did not have a lot of time to prepare for the Wednesday night youth meeting. I have been reading through Luke and was up to chapter 19 which begins with the story of Zacchaeus. This story is taught so much in childrens' classes, and songs, and books that I figured most of the youth had heard of it. I thought maybe there would be some sort of nostalgic attraction that would interest them.

I think I was wrong about that. However, God is so vast. In the couple of hours I had to study for the lesson I learned a lot about this passage that I was unaware of. Even while I was teaching and afterwards God was showing me things. It was cool.

One thing that we know but really tends not to sink in, I think, is the joy and sacrifice with which Zacchaeus responded to Christ. Zacchaeus found acceptance and forgiveness in Christ and immediately and cheerfully decided to give away half of what he had to the poor. What a service, what a sacrifice!

Contrast this with our responses today. Many Christians see going to church on Sunday morning as a sacrifice (and in fact this becomes the biggest sacrifice they make in response to God). Don't get me wrong, worship does involve giving ourselves to God and the Bible recognizes praise as a sacrifice. But, rather than come gladly to worship and enjoy being with other believers and recharge our spirits, we come as if it is some huge, difficult thing that God should give us lots of brownie points for. What should be a highlight of our week is a chore and when its over we feel we have done our duty and the rest of our time and money belong to us.

Is it any wonder that Zacchaeus had so much joy and Christians today often do not?

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Go Speed Racer...

Isn't it funny how people rush to get from one red light to another?

I'm sure there are a lot of analogies we could make between this phenomenon and the Christian life, but at the moment I don't have time so I'll let you do that on your own. Feel free to put your ideas in the comments section and we can have a nice little discussion.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Stuff I realized a long time ago...

In a galaxy far, far away... or not.

-I realized that chocolate is really, really good.
-My favorite kind of food to eat right after a multi-day backpacking trip is pizza.
-Baking bread is a wonderful smell.
-As a whole Americans own way too much clothing; but tend not to wear enough of it at one time.
-Jesus is everything.
-I don't really like being too hot, but I'd rather be too hot than too cold.
-Grammar is a pain in the neck.
-Its usually easier to know what the right thing to do is, than to actually do it.
-My wife is the best.
-Nature looks all clean and serene, but its really dirty and full of conflict. Although, its still a nice place to visit.
-Whatever size battery I need in a given instance will be the size that we have none of in our battery drawer.
-Country music isn't.
-I had an extremely happy childhood. (Thanks Mom and Dad and K.)
-As badly as I want to give my kids a happy childhood, its more important that I work harder to train them to grow up godly rather than happy. Hopefully the Lord will grant both.

That's enough for now, Maybe I'll have more of this another day.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Recent realizations

You know, the word 'blog' sounds like something Charlie Brown's teacher would say.

It seems that 96.9 per cent of all the youth pastors in the United States and Canad have blogs. Some of them have information that is highly useful to other youth ministers and volunteer youth workers. Some of them have content that would interest a wide variety of folks. Ironically, it seems that few of them say things that teenagers would really be interested in reading.

Speaking of onomatopoeia, "blog" and "blogging" also sound like something bad that happens in the bathroom after you've eaten chicken salad that was just a couple days too old.

Wow, my office is a mess.

I promised random thoughts. I never said they would be interesting, or good, or even nice.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

To Do Lists

Do you use "to do lists"? I went to a conference this summer and one of the speakers was talking about the nuts & bolts of carrying out an education ministry. Several times he said to use to do lists. He talked about how well they worked for him and how everybody should use them. Apparently he is not a procrastinator.

I've tried to do lists. I've got a to do list on my desk. Well, actually it is about three lists. Each started about a week apart and none of them completed. The first one is about four weeks old. I've got a to do list on my refrigerator. It has about 20 items on it. About one third or so of them are marked off. I put that list there approximately three years ago.

To do lists do not work for procrastinators.

And now, my personell commitee wants my to do list for the next year. They are calling it a list of "professional objectives." Sure, I've got time to spend making a list of stuff that is going to be obsolete in a couple months. That will be productive for everyone...not.

You know, I'd like to finish this post but I've got four phone calls to return, a curriculum to research, a Bible study to work on, check the weather report, make some reservations, an e-mail to send...

Y'all can start a pool on if I'll ever get it all done or not ;-)

Monday, October 15, 2007

Philosophy and Four Year Olds

So JT, my four year old, decided he is an agnostic. Of course, he did not put it in those terms. However, I picked him up from preschool Friday and somehow in the course of our conversation that afternoon he said, "I don't really know if I believe in God."

As you might expect, this is a really heartbreaking statement for parents who do believe in God and have staked their lives on the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So right away I get epistemological on the poor kid. "You know JT, Daddy would not lie to you and Daddy is telling you that God is real."

"You wouldn't lie to me?"

"No."

"Well, I just don't know if I believe in God."

Later Kris came in and I shared JT's new views with her. She immediately goes teleological on him. "JT, who do you think created the mountains?"

"God."

"So you believe in God?"

"Well, I just don't know if I believe in God."

Who knows what the kid really believes. As Kris says it is not beyond him to say he does not believe just to get a reaction out of us. One thing is for sure though, philosophy does not work too well with four year olds. Honestly, I'm not sure it's ever worked with anyone.

But if you are a Christian with any spare time please pray for JT to have faith in Jesus and his parents to have patience.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Bed time stories and politicians

Today we learned that Chicken Little, er, uh, Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to educate the world about global warming. This is so sad.

I am all for taking reasonable care to minimize our carbon dioxide emissions and conserve fossil fuels. However, to proclaim that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions are unequivocally the cause of global climactic change is incredibly irresponsible. If someone with Mr. Gore's influence and resources really wanted to do something good for the environment and the people that live in it he could take on an undisputed and present problem like worldwide water quality.

Good grief, we are a gullible species. We fell for a lie in the Garden of Eden and just keep falling.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Word Play

The other day I mentioned that Win Corduan had an entertaining blog. In the interest of fairness let me clarify that a bit. He is not only entertaining, but also extremely informative and thought provoking. His blog is top notch edutainment.

There's another word blend I really like. When you can set up an activity at church or camp or school or whatever with the right mix of people and equipment so that children or teenagers can entertain themselves for a while without constantly asking, "What do we do now?" or "Help me ..." or "What are we supposed to do?" and so forth, then you have autotainment. I love autotainment and my wife can vouch for me that I was using that word before it appeared in an episode of Veggie Tales.

BTW, it was 63 degrees farenheit here this morning. I did not even have to turn on the AC for my morning commute. Yes!

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

something strange

Something strange happened this morning. But first, the past four days were really busy. We took the boys to see Nana and celebrate some birthdays in Mexia. Left at the end of the 3rd quarter of the Texas vs. OU game to rush back so the boys could go to another birthday party and I could take one of the teens to the Baylor game. What a sad football day Saturday was!

Sunday was full with services, taking the boys to the Heart of Texas Fair, evening youth meeting, and then back to the fair to man the Brazos Meadows booth. Yesterday was a busy workday and LifeChange group last night.

So back to the strange occurrence. I walked out this morning and it was overcast, there were leaves and acorns falling from trees, and-here's the weird part-the breeze was out of the NORTH! Yes, finally a cool front, validation of Fall, my favorite time of year.

There have been signs that it was coming. The days have gotten shorter, the acorns and pecans have been falling, I saw a monarch floating through the other day, football season started, archery deer season started... but that first little northern front sure helps the reality of fall to sink in. Plus, it sure helps the temperatures.

I am thankful that we actually had a rather mild summer, but September and the first week of October were quite hot. Is that because of global warming? I don't think so but I'll also have to save that for another post. Meanwhile, I am really thankful for this little change in the weather and for fall in general.

Here are some things that I am thankful for that I associate with fall and for whatever reason really seem to bless me this time of year: The angle of the sun; cooler weather; going to football games; dove season; deer season; camping; migrating butterflies, raptors, ducks, and geese; watching football on TV; John Denver music; pecans; turning leaves; cooler weather; the smell of things like pecan pies, pumpkin bread, and banana bread in the oven; listening to football on the radio. And, o ya, did I mention cooler weather?

What are you thankful for today? Tell Jesus about it!

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

To blog or not to blog...

... that is the question? Okay, so it worked better for Shakespeare. But seriously folks ;-) everybody's doing it. Al Gore invents the internet and a few years later everybody with a computer has a forum to say whatever they want. So as long as everybody else is doing it, I have observed a few things about blogging that intrigue me.

First, blog is a misnomer. Very few people are using the web to actually log their activities. Although, Win Corduan is an entertaining exception. Most folks are using the blog forum as a cyber opinion page; sort of a web op/ed. I think we should call it a WOD. Then everyone can shoot their wod.

Secondly, traditional communication assumes a message (usually a worthwhile message), someone to send the message and someone to receive the message. Then there is some interplay to see if the message actually came across the way it was intended. This is often not the case with blogs. Seriously, how many of the blogs out here really have a worthwhile message (admittedly not this one)? Then you've got a sender who frequently does not really know if there are any receivers or if the receivers actually get the message correctly. In fact, I kind of think that there are more people blogging than there are people to read the blogs. So, is any communication actually taking place?

Third, maybe its not about communication. Maybe blogging is about our social nature. Maybe it is about our need to connect with other people. We send our blogs out into the vastness of cyber space hoping to connect with someone else and thereby enhance our humanity. Naaaaaah!

Blogging is obviously for introverts like me. This is our chance to say something without having to actually deal with another person. Everyone else can use their cell phones, but that's another topic...