neat song

This song will help get you in the Christmas mood. Click here.

Couple thoughts about Christmas

I'm feeling a bit scroogey and grinchey this week. Not exactly sure why. I'm definitely not bummed about the birth of Jesus. I'm very thankful and joyous about that. Perhaps I'm kind of dejected about what the celebration of that birth has turned into. I'm also a little stressed about how much need there is in our little corner of the world. So many people need help with bills and medical care and food and gifts for their kids. That in itself is overwhelming to me, but it is magnified by the fact that so many of them are not getting much help, if any.

I know many of you have helped someone. Maybe you gave to your church or the Salvation Army or some other ministry or an individual family that you know. Its great if you have helped someone. Whether you have or have not reached out with an act of benevolence this holiday season please consider helping someone else this week, before Christmas gets away again. There is still so much need out there.

Especially, if you are rich please consider helping someone (else) this year. If you are not sure if you are rich, click here to find out.

Also, to help focus a little on the wonder of Christmas, read this short piece over at EO. I think you'll like it.

Merry Christmas!

Pink Ladies

So, the grand-mas steal the children's Christmas show? Well, they didn't steal it, but they definitely added to the fun. I know they can't wait to see themselves ;-)

Seriously, ladies, y'all are terrific. It was really good of you to do that for the kids.

cool object lesson

We've been studying Judges on Wednesday nights in our youth meeting. The Israelites were really on a slippery slope or downward spiral. One act of disobedience would lead to another and so on and so on until they were really out of fellowship with God. This always resulted in dire consequences for them.

So I was trying to think of a good object lesson but couldn't come up with anything. I got on the discussion forum at Pastor2youth.com and someone gave me a great idea. He had seen it in a sermon illustration. It was really cool. Here's the video.

It not only illustrates the idea of one sin leading to another, but also the idea that our sin affects people around us.

The person that told me about it said he saw it with about 100 mouse traps. This is only 48. 100 would definitely be cool!

Jonathan plays flag football

Gotta love the way he protects the goal line.

I think he just got so tired of trying to grab those little flags that he just decided to get in front of the guy before the guy got to the end zone. It worked too. Cute kid.

A little Friday apologetics

Chocolate exists.
Therefore there must be a God and he is clearly a benevolent God to make a luxury as wonderful as chocolate for us to enjoy.

Chocolate is soooo good. There's just no way it could be a happy accident of evolution!

aaaaaaaa!

Remember the movie, "It's a mad mad mad mad world"? Well, it is.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=1181170

A night out

Dear Midway, Congratulations on spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a nice new stadium. And on the very clever idea of making general admission seating and then selling more tickets than there are seats. I guess you can use the extra money to get all your campuses on the accelerated reader program. You could even advertise it as such. "Come stand for 2 1/2 hours so our new schools can have AR." I think people here care enough about reading to do it.

While it may have been a little misguided, I have to admit that the new stadium is very spiffy. And even though the game was boring it was a pleasant evening. I enjoyed parking half way to Lorena and then hiking to the field in order to stand the whole time. It actually was not hard to see around the extra wide gentlemen standing in front of me except that they wouldn't be still. Lean left, lean right, lean left, lean right. I'm a little sea sick now.

Thank God for the good ol' BMBC yutes. They stopped by periodically and kept me entertained. Way to go y'all!

Summer time

We had a good trip to Houston last weekend. We visited my folks and sister to celebrate Independence Day and Jonathan's birthday. It was a good time. Thankfully, for a change, everyone stayed healthy.

On the drive back, I had one of those strange, sudden revelations. I realized that the older I get the less I need mountain fixes. Really not sure why that is. I suppose it has something to do with my decreased cold tolerance and increasing laziness. Still, I never dreamed my affection for mountains would diminish. Maybe if I just spent a week in NM or CO it would come back?

The week before the holiday weekend was our Vacation Bible School and it too was a lot of fun. One night we studied Titus 2:11-14. It reads, "11For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. 12It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good."

Wow, what a great passage! I'm not sure why I never really noticed it before, but I sure like it. Don't you? What do you suppose Paul is talking about when he speaks of saying "No" to ungodliness? I'd be curious how many different ideas are out there.

Speaking of ungodliness... Here's is a very timely and important article from Sue Bohlin at Probe Ministries. I highly recommend it. Read the whole thing because she makes a plethora of points.

I'll try to get back to some thoughts about kid's sports soon.

Some Memorial Day free time

Ahhhh. Finally a chance to relax a little and write something. First, thank you! Thank you to all who have served in our armed forces, and their families, who must also make sacrifices so we can live in a free society. Thanks especially to those whose loved ones paid the ultimate price. Thank you and God bless you.

Krista took Kris out for a birthday outing. Jeremiah is at a friend's house. Jonathan is at a friend's house. I have some precious peace and quiet. Well, except for the sounds of me coughing up my lungs. Still, its good to get a little break. Happy Memorial Day Weekend everyone!

Now, back to what I started several weeks ago. I was talking about how sports have really become an idol in American culture, for sure here in the south. My thesis stems from that. It is that we have really created a monster out of children's sports. We have made sports for kids so ridiculously serious that it is not good for the kids or the parents or the coaches. It has become a place in our society where our depravity frequently gets the best of us.

I gave a couple of examples in the previous post and I feel they are very typical of where we are in America with kid's sports. There is a lot more to say about the issue. However, before delving into more of it, lest you think I'm anti-sports, I want to offer a little personal testimony.

I really like sports. I would say that I "love" sports, but that is part of the problem. I have great parents and they gave me a wonderful childhood. My father really likes sports too. He was an all around athlete in high school. In fact, I'd venture to say he is still one of the best 84 year old golfers around. Because of his interest in sports they were always on in our house on weekends (remember this was back when there were just three channels and sports only aired on Saturdays and Sundays). Actually, one of my fondest childhood memories is that of lying in the living room beside Dad on Saturday nights while he tuned his old transistor radio between college football games. We lived in Oklahoma, but with careful tuning he could listen to several Southwest Conference games in an evening. It was fun!

Couple that with the fact that the kids in my neighborhood were always playing football or basketball or baseball or kickball and the result is that my first grade teacher said I knew more about sports than any little kids she had known. I don't say that to brag but to make the point that I am a sports fan. I am not against sports. They can/should be fun. They can/should be healthy.

However, there can be a dark side to sports as well. By the time I was in junior high football was my idol. I can remember if the Cowboys lost a big game I would become incredibly upset; even to the point of crawling under my bean bag chair and crying. Crying over a game is ridiculous. Thankfully, though, God convinced me of my sin. Between eighth and ninth grades the Holy Spirit really got my attention and showed me that the position of sports in my life (specifically football) rightfully belonged to God. With His help I repented and actually quit football.

Now, I cannot honestly say that I never again gave sports an improper place in my life. However, that was the first big step in getting my priorities straight. The more I have matured intellectually and spiritually the better I have become at keeping sports in their proper perspective.

So, please don't think that I dislike sports or that I look down on those who idolize them. Been there done that. I'm not making these posts to condemn anyone. Hopefully, God can use the ideas here to help put sports in perspective for someone else who needs it. In turn, hopefully, that will allow some children to play sports for the right reasons and in the right atmosphere without overzealous parents and coaches making it a miserable experience rather than a fun one.

Kids and sports

I live in the Bible belt; in fact, pretty much the buckle of the Bible belt. There are a whole lot of born again Christians in Texas. However, we are not a majority by any stretch of the imagination. In the culture at large God is still popular, but it is more akin to the way Santa Clause is popular than to a true widespread recognition of the God of the Bible. Anyone who lives here can tell you that the true objects of worship in this neck of the woods are beer and sports.

Making idols of beer and sports is bad enough, but down here we've developed an especially sad version of sports worship. We have combined the need that many parents have to vicariously live the life of a sports hero through their children with the notion that sports are worthy of worship. This has created a monster of sorts that I have long found to be disturbing. I have wanted to write about this monster often but never seem to get around to it. The other day, however, I heard a story that is very typical of the monster about which I speak. It hit so close to home that I got pretty riled up about it and decided to finally write, or begin writing, some of my thoughts on this monster.

A friend has a child involved in a local Little League baseball program. The child's coach is a man who previously coached one of my kids. I felt at that time that this man took kids' sports way too seriously. Well, the coach said something to the child that bordered on a threat. When the parent confronted the coach he denied it saying that the child had simply misunderstood. A few days later one of the parents witnessed the coach treating several of his players in a way that bordered on physical abuse. Let me take a moment to note that this parent is not an over-reacting whimp like some of you are thinking right now. This man was a soldier and is a sports fan himself. He was not over-reacting.

At this point the parents had knowledge of two extreme incidents in a week's time, their child was rapidly becoming disenchanted with the coach and the sport itself, they wanted to make sure that things did not get any worse. Therefore, they decided they ought to take matters to the league officials. They phoned the league president. The man admited that they had received other complaints about this particular coach. However, he said that he also had parents request this coach for their children because this coach gets results. Furthermore, he stated that his own son was on the coach's select team and he would not offer any type of reprimand. He also refused to transfer the player to another team.

There ya go. There's a perfect example of what has gone wrong with sports. We have adopted the attitude that in the sports world, even the sports world of nine year olds, that the ends justifies the means. The coach, by virtue of the good ol' boy club (which is also prevalent in Texas), gets to use unethical methods because he wins. The boys learn that its okay to break the rules as long as your team wins.

Think this is an isolated incident? Think about the NCAA basketball tournament that we watched all during March. What happens at the end of a game when one team has a slight lead and the other team needs the ball back? The losing team fouls.

"So what?" you say. "That's just strategy."

Ya, the strategy is that you break the rules if it gives your team a shot at winning. That's what we're teaching our children. Then we are surprised when we hear about individuals at all levels of the private and public sectors who willingly engage in unethical or illegal behavior if it helps them "win" at making money or getting elected or getting a job or whatever.

I'm sleepy. More on this subject soon.

The lost art of teaching

First, a life update. Granny died on Monday. We had the service on Wednesday. Been a tough year. Been a tough week. Lots of good people from BMBC and Meadowbrook and other relatives and friends have really stepped up ministered to us with calls and visits and food and so forth. Thank God for his people.


Now, have you noticed that its no longer politically correct to teach? Apparently its not couth anymore to have a class where one person teaches and a few others learn. One can be a facilitator, or one can invite others to "join the conversation", or one can make suggestions, or blah, blah, blah. Drives me crazy.

We have become so arrogant as a culture that we can't stand the idea that someone else might be able to teach us something. Therefore, we have had to find another way to describe this communicative process where someone transmits knowledge and wisdom to others. The problem is that none of these politically correct descriptions are honest. The truth is that it is, in fact, possible for one person to teach another something.

Furthermore, the implications of the notion that we are above another teaching us something are rather daff. If one says that he cannot be taught then the options that follow are pretty illogical. If one cannot be taught the first possibility is that one already knows everything there is to know. Obviously, that is not logical. The second possibility is that one already knows everything the "teacher" knows and therefore, the teacher cannot impart learning to him. Very arrogant, hard to measure; yet totally unlikely. The third possibility is that one is not capable of learning. That would be pretty sad but cannot be true since one learned enough to make the claim. Not logical either.

I say, then, that we just quit all this politically correct crap and admit it when we have a class or seminar or conference or whatever. Call them what they are. They are not merely conversations or dialogues or thought sharing communities or whatever other touchy, feely, stupid names one wants to give them. The first step to solving a problem is admitting one has a problem. So, admit that you are capable of learning and that someone else is capable of teaching you. You might just enjoy this freedom of being intellectually honest instead of being trendy.

Hello again

Hello Blog. I've missed you. On Facebook I have to be careful not to offend people. But here, since nobody will be reading it, I don't have to worry about offending anyone. I can say whatever I want.

Why write if nobody is reading? It will provide something to job my memory about life a few months from now.

The holiday season was pretty nice until right after Christmas. Granny got sick and hospitalized. Mark died on New Years Day or the day after. Granny got sick again and was hospitalized two more times and is now in a nursing home. So the last six weeks have been extremely difficult. But God has seen us through.

You know, I am so sick of people spending boat loads of money on "rescuing" animals. I'm not anti-animal and I don't want animals to suffer. But good grief, with all the people that are suffering let's not waste money rehabilitating wild animals who only live a few years anyway. And let's sure not waste money on dogs and cats. Its not like we're facing a shortage of them.

There's a commercial out these days that shows some pitiful dogs and cats and puts human emotions to them. And lots of people out there are gullible enough to fall for it and spend thousands of dollars on shelters and "rescues" and stuff like that. Its ridiculous and I'm tired of it.