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Simon Says > Jesus Says I saw this video from Francis Chan about making disciples and it really hits home when he compares how most of us have all played "Simon Says" as a kid, but yet we think that when Jesus says all we need...

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Heart Check For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God, and others...

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Keep Me Humble I occasionally publish notes on my YouVersion profile, but for some reason they don't always show up, so I will also post them here. After reading Luke 8:9-14 I decided to write a letter to God and...

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Merry Christmas 2010 This year seems to have flown by! I am not happy to see it end, but I am thrilled for 2011 to start. This past year I found myself in several interesting places ministry-wise. Many of you know that...

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My Light Will Shine This year I am taking the page from a friend of mine, Adam McLane, and I will not only be passing out candy for Halloween but I will also have some coffee and hot chocolate for the parents that are walking...

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Someone Pinch Me

Category : Church, Faith, Family, Life, Sports, Student Ministry

pinchmeWow! 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!!!

Football or Hockey

Category : Sports

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.

Rants and Raves v. 1.0

Category : Random

I have been thinking about a few things lately and decided to start a new thing on my blog called “Rants and Raves”. I don’t want to just rant but I also want to talk about some good things as well. And I will do my best to always make sure they are equal or err on the “rave” side.

Rant #1 - I am done with politics this year and I am walking away from commenting about them here anymore. Not only has this political season dragged on WAY too long, but I am so sick of the way people have been acting. I have recently declared myself more on the moderate side of things, because I believe that there are issues on both sides that I agree with. But I am sick of having people literally calling my faith into question because I would even consider voting for a particular candidate. It is really getting irritating and so not only will i not be talking about it here, but I doubt I will be saying much to anyone. I am going to continue researching the candidates that I am interested in and check them against my list.

1) will do what they can to help end global poverty.
2) will do what they can to help bring clean water and basic sanitation needs to the world.
3) will help change the hearts of the American people to believe that abortion is a wrong option.
4) believes in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
5) help bring an end to the conflict in Iraq.
6) will look for a way to end conflicts that hopefully will not have to result in troops being sent in.
7) will go in with the mindset that “love wins”.
8 ) will not choose to legislate morality, but instead try to teach it and hopefully change the hearts of the people in our country.
9) will turn to the Church and ask her to finally do what they are supposed to have already been doing in regards to helping the oppressed.
10) will protect our Constitutional rights at all costs.
11) will protect our environment.

Rant #2 - My son plays flag football with the Upward organization and he plays with a kid whose dad is a pastor in our area. He has yet to come to one of his son’s practices or games. His wife told me today that she doubts he will be able to make any of his games, because he is “busy” on Saturdays. Seriously? You are too busy EVERY Saturday to come to your son’s football game. Haven’t pastor’s ever learned that you put down in your calendar your kids events, so you can tell other people that you are “busy”? When I heard this it took everything in me to not say something. That disgusts me. I thought the Church was supposed to be all about family values and that is how we are supposed to vote? Maybe we pastors need to practice more of what we preach and “put shoe leather to those prayers”.

Okay, I am done with my rants.

Rave #1 - I ran in my second ever 5K today. I am performing a wedding ceremony in a couple of months for someone who used to be in my old youth group and her husband is a runner, so he asked me if I wanted to run in the Witch’s Hat 5K that is a fundraiser for his old high school’s cross country team. So I joined him. I ran it again in 25 minutes. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stay around to see what place I ended up in my age group because I had to run to my son’s flag football game. However, I felt great running another 5K and look forward to running many more.

Rave #2 - My two favorite football teams played today and I was able to see both games. My most favorite team is my son’s flag football team and they tied their first game. He played good and got a couple of flags, made an interception, broke up another pass, and made a touchdown saving “tackle”. My second favorite football team is the Michigan Wolverines and they won today. I think they looked much better than they did last week and I look forward to seeing them improve week to week.

Rave #3 - I finally installed my flagpole that my parent’s bought for us about 5 or so years ago. It looks really nice flying Old Glory and the Maize & Blue. I installed it over Labor Day weekend and even put a flower bed in around it. I had to dig a 2 foot deep hole that was about 2 feet wide to properly make sure the base would be cemented into the ground. It was actually really easy to install and it is so nice to look out my window and see the flags flying. Now I need to get an additional light to properly light the U.S. Flag at nighttime, but for now the one I have is working. It does make a nice addition to our yard.

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