~Following Him!!!~

Wow! I can’t believe that it has been almost a month since we moved down here to Cincy. We came down here to a house full of new friends ready to help us unpack. We quickly got everything unloaded from the truck and then was able to enjoy some delicious food made by a family at our new church. Even the next day we had another meal that a family from our church provided for us. It really helped us to feel very welcomed into our new community and home.

The week that we moved down here our new church was doing vacation Bible school. That gave us a great opportunity to meet some people at the church and to see people in action. It was neat to see people helping one another out and serving.

The church found me a great place to have for my office. I found a nice desk at Ikea as well. And despite the fact that we have gone there quite a bit since we moved down I insist that I am not addicted. However, I must admit that I was thrilled when I saw that there was an Ikea only 15 minutes from our new house.

Speaking of our new house, I am still in awe of how amazing it is that we have found such a great home in a very nice neighborhood. We are only 5 minutes from the church’s building and close to the kid’s schools. My daughter has a friend in her grade that also goes to our church only 2 doors down from us. My son has slowly began to make friends, which is a good thing because he really misses all of his buddies from our old neighborhood. It is nice to have a house where people can come visit and we can also have a group of about 20 parents come over. Our landlord is very nice as well.

I have already started making friends with some of the local youth pastors and they are a greta group of guys. They had organized the Unight Event before I came down, which was an amazing time for the teens to sing songs to God, listen to an amazing speaker named E.J. Swanson and then walk around Lakota East High School so that they could pray for their school and friends. How cool is that? I look forward to getting to know these guys better and seeing the amazing things that God can do.

We are also blessed to have an amazing group of elders at our church who are helping steer the ship while our church looks for a new senior pastor. Yes, you read that right. Our senior pastor resigned last week. I have been assured that my job is safe and that the elders believe that I am the man for the job. So during this time of transition the elders are going to be sharing the load and making sure that the church keeps moving forward. It is so peaceful to us knowing that God has entrusted this church with these five very competent men. The ship may be rocking in this storm, but knowing that Jesus is there in the boat is bringing us peace.

I am also in shock over how good the Michigan Wolverines did this past Saturday. They played a very good Western Michigan University football team and beat them soundly. I am looking forward to seeing what they can do when the Irish come to visit on Saturday. It is always a good rivalry game.

Last year, Michigan lost to all 3 of their biggest rivals for the first time ever and I don’t see that happening again this year. It was nice to see them win their opening game for the first time in 2 years and I hope that this year we can maybe also win our last game of the season for the first time in a long time. My prediction is that they will go 8-4 this season. GO BLUE!!!

I saw this commercial on TV the other day and it just makes me all the more impressed with Lance Armstrong. People who know me know that I love le Tour de France. It is the greatest test of human endurance and strength, and Lance Armstrong is one of the greatest athletes of all times. He has overcome tremendous odds and obstacles to be the best. He is an inspiration to many.

I am so glad that he is back racing in le Tour this year. I hope he wins his 8th.

Lance is da man! You can not keep a good man like him down.

HT to Andy.

If you haven’t seen the crash that Lance Armstrong was in at the Vuelta a Castilla y León, I have it here on my blog.

Yesterday, I got to go to CCHA playoff game between Michigan and Alaska, and couldn’t use them. So I found two teens from my church to go with me. (We couldn’t find a third to fill the fourth seat.)

It was a really great game in which the University of Michigan Wolverines dominated the Alaskan Nanooks despite all the Alaska, Northern Michigan and Notre Dame fans that were in attendance. You should have heard the roar when Alaska scored their one goal.

I think that college hockey is one of the best of college sport. There is such a cool atmosphere at the games. One of the things I love about college over pro sports is how everyone wears their teams colors and has such pride in their teams. It is so much better than pro sport fans. Michigan hockey fans have some of the best cheers, you can see them here and hear them at the Old Barn (Yost Ice Arena), which is considered one of the toughest places for visiting teams to play hockey and the best places to play hockey.

And for your viewing pleasure here is the Hockey Song.

I saw a recent article that listed the top ten schools and the SAT scores for their football team. Here is the list….

THE TOP 10
School, Average
Georgia Tech, 1028
Oregon State, 997
Michigan, 997
Virginia, 993
Purdue, 974
Indiana, 973
Hawaii, 968
California, 967
Colorado, 966
Iowa, 964

You will notice that the University of Michigan is tied for second on that list. What I also found interesting was the schools that finished in the bottom ten.

THE BOTTOM 10
School, Average
Oklahoma State, 878
Louisville, 878
Memphis, 890
Florida, 890
Texas Tech, 901
Arkansas, 910
Texas A&M, 911
Mississippi State, 911
Washington State, 916
Michigan State, 917

Yep, that is Michigan State leading the way into the bottom ten. I am kind of shocked to see Florida close to the very bottom. I always had thought that their athletes were much more academic than that.

The purpose of the article was to show how athlete’s SAT scores are considerably lower than non-athlete’s scores, but some universities and fans should be proud to see their schools on the top of the list. And the one’s that are doing poorly should not be happy. The purpose in these athlete’s going to school is to get an education first and to win games second. Sadly, not enough people care about that and just want to see wins, and the schools respond in kind which is even sadder.

That is my debate today, which one do I watch. Usually on New Year’s Day my TV is locked on college bowl games, but this year for pretty much the first time in my lifetime (in 1974 they did not play in a bowl game and I was born in 1973) the Michigan Wolverines will not be playing in a bowl game.

And this year’s NHL Winter Classic is being played in Wrigley Field (my favorite baseball stadium) and it is being played between the Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Blackhawks, who are two of the Original Six teams. On at the same time is the Konica Minolta Gator Bowl being played between Nebraska vs. Clemson and the Capital One Bowl being played between Georgia vs. Michigan State.

When I first heard them announce the NHL Winter Classic game I thought that they were stupid to schedule it at a time when a lot of people in Michigan would be watching a bowl game instead. However, this year Michigan did not make it to a bowl game at all (as I said earlier) so I think that this game will be more heavily watched. I hate to break it to Spartan fans, but Michigan State football is just not that popular in the state as Detroit Red Wings hockey is. I predict that the viewing numbers in the state of Michigan will be higher for the Wings game than they will be for the Spartans bowl game. I know in my house my TV will be tuned into the NHL Winter Classic as the Detroit Red Wings beat the Chicago Blackhawks.

I saw this video on a friend’s blog and I had to post it here. This is so great and I am getting excited to see Lance Armstrong back in the saddle at le Tour de France. You can follow his training updates and just see what he is up to via his tweets.

For Christmas my son got me the book Lance Armstrong: Images of a Champion. I tonly covers up through his first 5 Tour wins, but it is still really cool to see the pictures. I have a dream of one day being able to go to France and witness a Tour in person. One of these days….

Someone posted this recently on a forum that I frequent and I wanted to put it here as well. The story is titled There are some games where cheering for the other side feels better than winning. Here is a portion of it, but I encourage you to read all of it.

This all started when Faith’s head coach, Kris Hogan, wanted to do something kind for the Gainesville team. Faith had never played Gainesville, but he already knew the score. After all, Faith was 7-2 going into the game, Gainesville 0-8 with 2 TDs all year. Faith has 70 kids, 11 coaches, the latest equipment and involved parents. Gainesville has a lot of kids with convictions for drugs, assault and robbery—many of whose families had disowned them—wearing seven-year-old shoulder pads and ancient helmets.

So Hogan had this idea. What if half of our fans—for one night only—cheered for the other team? He sent out an email asking the Faithful to do just that. “Here’s the message I want you to send:” Hogan wrote. “You are just as valuable as any other person on planet Earth.”

Some people were naturally confused. One Faith player walked into Hogan’s office and asked, “Coach, why are we doing this?”

And Hogan said, “Imagine if you didn’t have a home life. Imagine if everybody had pretty much given up on you. Now imagine what it would mean for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you.”

Next thing you know, the Gainesville Tornadoes were turning around on their bench to see something they never had before. Hundreds of fans. And actual cheerleaders!

I love reading stories like this, because it is a sign to me that there are Christ-followers out there that are doing some of those simple things that spread the love of Christ. It is also a great story to read on the eve of the day when we celebrate the great sacrifice that Jesus made by coming to earth to take on human form. It was the choice that not only changed the course of history but also permanently altered Christ’s life.

To me the act that Jesus did, that is celebrated on Christmas Day, is greater than what we celebrate on Easter Day. Don’t get me wrong, Christ’s death, burial and resurrection was an amazing act. However, I see his act of taking on human form to identify with us in the most personal of ways was the beginning of it all and that is why I think it is much greater. Jesus chose not just to die for us but to identify with us for all eternity. Philippians 2:5-7

In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

This group of football players in the story did exactly that. I hope that this story encourages you this Christmas season to be Christ to those you encounter.

As a Lions fan I am asking you to stop telling the team that “We’re not going 0-16″. The reason why I am asking you to stop doing this is because I wouldn’t mind seeing the Lions go 0-16 this year and become the laughing stock of the NFL, as if they already weren’t.

We Lions fans have not had much to look forward to since William Clay Ford, Sr. bought the team 45 years ago. The man has led the team with incompetence and given us only 13 winning seasons during that stretch and one playoff win. I want to see Ford publicly embarrassed with the notoriety of having the worst team and franchise in the history of the NFL and then hopefully he will sell the team, so we can have a new owner who wants to see a winning product on the field.

Besides all that Coach Rod the reality that you will be around next year as head coach of the Lions is not likely at all, so why not go out with a bang and lose them all. It is already an embarrassment to be a Lions fan, so why not at least let us glory in the pathetic-ness of our team and go 0-16? So please, for all the Lions fans out there, let the team lose the rest of the games. Especially today’s game which is pretty much the only game you might have a chance of winning.