Snakes are Scary: Aspiring Artists Advice

For all aspiring artists, a tip:

To link to the original Snakes are Scary post that explains the Friday insanity, please click this link.

Reader!

I have at least one reader in the family...

Thoughts on a Preaching Calendar for 2013

Last week, I completed my (very flexible) preaching calendar for 2013.  With much prayer, I try to lay out where I think we will head as a church family over the next year.  For all ministry types who might read this and have some questions, let me answer the best I can...

Why?
Some have asked why and a few have even talked about how unspiritual it seems to plan the preaching.    I've never understood the objection, but let me say that I have prayed this through and it's very open to change at any moment.  The reason I try to make the plans is so that I have a balance between OT and NT and so that I can let our staff know when they will be preaching.

What?
What's on the calendar are the week by week breakdown of the texts I'll be studying and preaching, including the weeks of my vacation, etc.  Some I have broken down to the actual verses themselves.  Some are broader descriptions (like a 4-week series from the Psalms).

How?
I pray.  I look over notes of past years.  I ask a few key people where we might need instruction or exhortation.  I pray.  I jot and write and scratch out and erase and pray.

And I make sure to say to myself and to my Lord that He can do what He wants to do any given week because if I'm His spokesman (in some sense), then He's the originator of the message for the people who have gathered.  He's the Chief Shepherd.

A post for Tuesday

Occasionally there comes a cloud dark enough that your eyes really have to adjust to the world around you.  It's not the sun has gone away.  Otherwise you couldn't see at all.  But the cloud hangs so largely and with such thickness that its shadow causes pupils to dilate, squinting to identify, and a wondering of what kind of world we really live in that it could get that dark in the middle of the day.

The sun isn't gone.

It's just obscured.  And to such a degree that darkness rather than light is the topic you talk about.

But the sun isn't gone.

It's a heavy kind of darkness.

But the sun isn't gone.

Just a reminder that life is short...

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving.  Ours was certainly eventful.  I'll spare the details, but this is a reminder that life is short.

It's a vapor.

It's a mist.

It's a fog on a sunny morning.

So hug who needs to be hugged.  Share what needs to be shared.  Give what needs to be given.  Listen to what needs to be heard.

Martin Luther said that there were two days on his calendar:  this day and THAT day.  Live the former in light of the latter.

Amen.

Snakes are Scary: I LOL'd multiple times

This video is just funny.  And the husband has been sleeping on the couch ever since...

It's Thanksgiving!

It's Thanksgiving.  Go eat turkey and watch football.  Don't be on the internet looking at blogs.  And whatever you do, do NOT watch the following video.

I tried to warn you.  Now it's going to be stuck in your head all day...

Thankful (3 of 3)

Our church is awesome.

That's because God is awesome.

And our church likes walking with that awesome God (cue Rich Mullins here).  Just this week, our crew jumped headfirst into a ministry project of generosity, blessing children who are classified as homeless by the local school district with Christmas gifts.  We had 64 kids on our Giving Tree in the auditorium.  They were all gone after a single day.  All of them.

I think about how our church has supported, loved, cajoled, poked fun at, encouraged, blessed, laughed at, laughed with, and walked with one of our staff members who had some health challenges this past year.  This past Sunday was the first Sunday this staff member was back with the congregation.  I said something from the stage and the church stood in an ovation, some of the folks even whipped hankies around like a bunch of non-Baptists.

I think about the consistent, faithful people who give of life and energy to serve in ways that no one really notices, with the smile of God as their only reward.

I think about one of our guys who had prayed for a lost coworker for months.  We'll baptize the coworker in a couple of weeks.

All of these are testimonies to what God is doing through this church.  And I'm grateful to be a part of it.

Thankful (2 of 3)

I'm so grateful for my kids.

They really are heirlooms from God, arrows to be sent out (Ps. 127).

They drive me nuts sometimes.  But in some ways that makes me more grateful, because I know God is using it to help make me more like Jesus.  Also, I am more grateful for my own parents who put up with all my ballyhooing, shenanigans, and stupid immaturity wrapped in a self-determinative, independent shell.

The Bear is a caring little guy, can be very thoughtful, and has a tremendous drive to serve.

The Ninja is tender, but a warrior, and can find the joy of life in the smallest thing.

The Peanut is aware, perceptive, and has the spirit of a survivor.

All of them have infectious laughs that I get to hear often.  They all enjoy being around me for some reason.  And I'm a blessed dad.

Thankful (1 of 3)

This week, I wanted to take three days to express my gratitude to God for some blessings in my life.

I'll start this off with my #1 blessing:  my wife.

Proverbs says that he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains a blessing from the Lord.  The Queen is the clearest earthly sign of God's favor on my life.

Her life, more than anyone else, challenges me to become the man God desires me to be.  What's more, I want to be a better man because of her.  It's a strange magnetism, but I'm drawn closer to God and closer to Ideal because I married her.

She also finds time to keep our family running, bring God's healing to people through her excellence in physical therapy, and bless families through her photography busi-ministry-ness.

She's a caring friend and a strong companion.  She has a divine sense of right and wrong, justice and inequity.  And I've said this for years, but I know no other person who is so committed to doing the right thing (even if it takes a little while to discern what it is or bring her emotions around to it).

It's not that we don't have our spats, disagreements, tiffs, struggles, miscues, parental overloads, schedule conflicts, or at times out-and-out fights.  But at no point in my married life have I ever wanted to be fussing or reconciling with anyone else.

I am blessed.

Me, the Queen, and her dad at our engagement party (1997)