bobblehead jeff

response to text messages from Sunday, November 16th

2008-11-20T11:04:00.000-05:00

alright, i know i promised these monday but they are questions about the most difficult question you can ask 'how can God allow suffering?' and even after thinking about my responses for a few days i think any answer this short is incomplete.

the questions came up during a message i gave last sunday at visio dei. you can download the podcast here. i got three text messages from the same person. in my response below, these texts are in italics.

“No matter how much silence you give to god, the one question he never answers is “why,” and that is the hardest question to not be answered.”

This is why Ecclesiastes is such a great book, because it doesn’t duck the toughest questions. One of the passages from next week’s message reads:
“When I gave my heart to know wisdom and to see the task which has been done on the earth and I saw every work of God, I concluded that man cannot discover the work which has been done under the sun. Even though man should seek laboriously, he will not discover, and though the wise man should say, ‘I know,’ he cannot discover. For I have taken all this to my heart and explain it that righteous men, wise men, and their deeds are in the hand of God.”
Ecclesiastes 8:16-9:1
This is his conclusion, we can’t know. And he’s not going to gloss over that, but he’s not going to let it stop him in his tracks either.

“How can anyone be thankful for that emptiness? It’s that feeling that makes me think God is a kid with an ant farm. I really don’t want to be an ant.”

I don’t think he’s advocating being thankful for the emptiness of not knowing why. I think he’s advocating being thankful for all the good things that you have in life, that according to him, are from God. I think part of the message of the book is not to let the things you’re uncertain of keep you from following the ones you are certain of. And I think the emptiness is there because of the reality of sin in our world and it the reason that all creation, including us, “groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” (Romans 8:22-23)

“I am not even sure he answered the question for jesus, and if he won’t answer for his own son… and that makes it hard not to hate god.”

Did He need to answer the question for Jesus? Didn’t Jesus already know why it was all happening? Wasn’t Jesus there when all the prophecies were spoken concerning the suffering He would endure for our sake? And Jesus certainly didn’t hate the Father for not answering, Jesus loved the Father because He trusted Him completely and submitted Himself to the Father completely and knew that God was up to good and not evil. Ultimately, I think that’s what this comes down to, trusting that God is smarter than we are and that God loves even when it doesn’t seem like it to us. I’m not saying that’s easy, and in midst of deep suffering this is an insensitive answer, but I think it’s the truth.

the smell of warmth and other random notes...

2008-10-23T13:54:00.000-05:00

love this time of year. love watching football, wearing a jacket, using blankets at night and it being too cold to get up in the morning. carved pumpkins the other day, that's pretty fun with a 2, 4 and 5 year old. drove through a bunch of dead leaves flying around on hillsborough street today. monday when I got to the building i turned the heat on for the first time this season and the building smelled like a giant, old space heater for a few hours. i love that smell.

also monday, i took matthew to pick up michael from school and we sat at krispy kreme for 45 minutes and watched the donuts on the conveyer belt. they were making the donut holes, so we watched them go through the whole process. this doesn't sound like fun until you do it with 4 and 5 year old boys. some of the donut holes get crushed in the conveyor belt and fall into the oblivion of the frosting vat. it's a rather darwinian process. the next day when i picked michael up from school, he spent 5 minutes, in the carpool lane, recounting the whole epic saga of the donut holes to the teacher who was helping him get in the car.

finally, i found this quote in a book this week. it was written by a harvard economist in the 1920's. it'll probably make the message sunday:

"There is no reason for believing that more leisure would ever increase the desire for goods. it is quite possible that the leisure would be spent in the cultivation of the arts and graces of life; in visiting museums, libraries and art galleries, or hikes, games, and inexpensive amusements... it would decrease the desire for material goods. if it should result in more gardening, more work around the home in making or repairing furniture, painting and repairing the house and other useful avocations, it would cut down the demand for the products of our wage paying industries."

translation: we don't dare give people free time to enjoy life or they might develop their brains and realize they don't need stuff to make them happy and the economy would go in the tank...

updated jonathan pics

2008-10-13T12:32:00.003-05:00

here are a few newer pics of jonathan...

a follow-up from yesterday

2008-10-13T12:21:00.000-05:00

we finished a series on our vision as a church yesterday by talking about the importance of spiritual authority in our lives. you can listen here. i talked about the source of our problem with authority, the reason it's good and necessary for our lives, and how God meant for it to work.

anyways, i made the case that we all have problems with authority and used the example of going to see the dead sea scrolls downtown last week. they have the fragments enclosed in humidity-controlled glass and they tell you not to touch them because there are alarms on the glass. this, of course, led to a low level tension the whole time i was looking at them because i really, really wanted to touch the glass and find out what would happen.

so today i go volunteer at my kids school. at lunch, the kindergartners and the 2nd graders eat together and it's as loud as you would imagine a room full of kindergartners and 2nd graders to be. so they installed a stoplight that stays green when the noise level is acceptable, turns yellow when it gets a little too loud, and turns red when the noise level is unacceptable. the assistant principle starts explaining how this works to the kids and i lean over to one of the other parents and say, 'this could backfire in a big way on her'. sure enough, the rest of the lunch period kids are staring at the stoplight, screaming to see if they can get the red light to come on. perfect... but just one day too late to make my sermon... rats.

on a side note, they just had fall break and one of these 5 year old's told me she went on a cruise to gibralter, italy, spain and morroco over break. how does a five year old remember gibralter? and is it right for me to be so jealous of a 5 year old? seriously, that's my life-long dream vacation and you're 5...

jonathan scot ramsey

2008-09-17T09:19:00.000-05:00

matthew was almost named jonathan, and 4 years later we still like the name, so we decided to name him after the collective jonathan's in our life... good name.

scot is my middle name. my parents have informed me that the one 't' is in deference to our scottish heritage. i don't have much evidence of this scottish heritage, but i like the idea of it. someday i will return to visit my people. a lot of scottish folks settled in western nc because it reminded them of the highlands of scotland. there's actually a town (a stretch to call it a town) named 'ramsey' out there. we visited once. no one was around.

i'm actually 50% croatian, so we considered my grandma's maiden name, kutuzovich, but jonathan kutuzovich ramsey doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

so here he is... with the rest of the clan (get it... scottish... clan?)...

he's here!

2008-09-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

about 12:30 this morning bobbi-jo was feeling contractions every 4 to 8 minutes so she drove herself to the hospital (i'm pretty sure this means i'm a lousy husband, but wanted to make sure it wasn't a false alarm before waking up jason and diana... that sounds like i'm blaming it on jason and diana, let's just call me a lousy husband) and they decided to get that baby out here.

so i headed over to the hospital, we waited a few hours for everyone to get ready, and at 5:59 this morning, they delivered the yet-to-be-named ramsey baby #4. he was 7 lbs 11 oz and 21 and a half inches long. good size for 37 and a half weeks.

i'll put some pics up later...

#4...

2008-03-05T09:24:00.001-05:00

will be making his or her appearance in the Ramsey household sometime in late september or early october this fall. Shannon wrote that if Favre retiring didn't get me to blog again, nothing would. and i thought i can't blog about brett favre but not about having another kid...

so, as if everyone doesn't already know this, we found out a few weeks ago that we are having another kid. a last kid. we debated having #4 and came up with some good reasons to have another go at it (we really like the first three, it'll be fun for abigail to have a baby around the house, many years from now it'll be fun to get together with this family, it increases the odds one will strike it rich and take care of us in our retirement, etc.), we couldn't think of a reason not to that didn't relate to money or our convenience. those didn't seem to outweigh the reasons to have a kid... until we found out we're having one. now i'm freaking out just a little about the money and convenience stuff. i'll be over it by fall...

and, as if everyone doesn't also know this, brett favre is retiring. thanks for your condolences. i was pretty sure he was coming back until that devastating loss to the giants. everything went their way this year, they played a horrible game and still only lost in overtime. the odds of that repeating itself next year seems slim, and even as a fan it's hard to get yourself excited about next season because of it. i get why he's walking away now...

favre said he's tired. tired up the public exposure. tired of studying each week to be ready for sunday. tired of feeling like he has to outdo his performance from the last week. i realized that i pretty much feel the same way about my job, so i'm announcing my retirement from visio dei and freeing up some room in the salary cap...

anyways, i'll miss watching him play. he was maddening at times, and i won't miss the bonehead interceptions that characterized the last few years, but he was really fun to watch, and easy to admire. this article, from a few days before his retirement announcement, does a good job of describing what i'll miss. he's a bit of an everyman, just seems like a normal guy that you'd love to hang out with. i feel a little bit like i felt the last time i broke up with a girl. you know it has to happen and it's for the best (in the long run), but you wonder when a relationship like it will come around again. in this case, i'm guessing there'll never be a player i enjoy watching and admire as much as favre.

unless michael's prediction comes true. last night i broke the news to the boys that favre decided he didn't want to play football anymore. michael said, 'maybe i should play football.' and then when i told him to tell jason who green bay's next quarterback was going to be, he said, 'i am'. nice. actually, the thing that upsets me the most about all this is that i bought the boys new favre jerseys at the end of last season, thinking they could where them for at least one more. i wonder if he'd give me a refund...

greetings!

2007-11-12T15:28:00.000-05:00

internet access has been hard to come by and expensive, so apologies for the 3 of you (ok, 2) who were hoping for updates from Israel. I tried really hard the first night here and then lost the whole thing and have been too pissed off at the internet to try again.

I have been taking good notes, so I'm going to post some of the highlights. Get ready... this is a good bit of stuff. Overall, incredible trip. We stop at at least 4 places a day and most of them have exceeded expectations.

I'll put some pictures on another post as soon as i get enough bars to upload...

Day 2 (Day 1 was the plane ride)
We went to the Valley of Elah, where David fought Goliath, as our second stop after leaving the airport. This is cool because I just preached it and spent a lot of time in it. Hard to believe it’s really the Valley of Elah because it’s not marked and now it’s a farmer’s field. That being said, you could easily imagine armies lining up on the mountains on either side of the valley, getting ready for battle. We picked up a few rocks and that was it. I could spend a day walking around this valley imagining what it was like and exploring.

Later that day we headed to Joppa, which is basically Tel Aviv. Hard to tell much about Joppa. There was a museum with some ruins but we didn’t go in it. It’s right on the Med. This is where Jonah caught the boat to escape God’s call to Ninevah (Jonah 1). It’s also where Peter got his vision with the sheets coming down and God telling him not to consider unclean what God has made clean (Acts 11). As an aside, I could live in Tel Aviv.

It is crazy to think that these locations are where these stories took place. The Valley of Elah. Really. It’s crazy to think that within the mile around where I slept last night Peter got this vision from God that opened up the gospel to the gentiles. It’s crazy to think that Jonah got on the boat right here. It’s hard to feel connected to these stories because our culture is so radically different and they are some pretty crazy stories. I don’t know if this makes the stories feel more true, which might be what I was expecting. It may make them a lot more possible, or likely, seeing where they actually were supposed to have taken place.

Day 4
We’ve been hanging around the Sea of Galilee and went to Capernaum, where much of Jesus ministry took place, today. In a word – sleepy. I guess it was small town then and there is surprisingly little going on now.

We ended up north in Caesarea Philippi. This was one of the stops I was most looking forward to and it was everything I expected. They have a plaque there talking about how they threw sacrifices into a crevice in the back of the cave. If they saw the blood running in the river, that signified to them that the sacrifice was rejected. It makes sense that these were understood as the gates of hell. It was definitely used to worship Pan in the day of Jesus but it doesn’t appear it was used to worship Augustus, Zeus and others. They were all worshipped there, though. The thought that this is where the church was born is incredible.

Day 5
One of our stops was Jericho. The excavation isn’t that exciting here given the significant things that happened here in the Bible, but there is a tower with some stairs that are apparently 10,000 years old. The stairs are the archeological evidence used to say Jericho is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. I climbed down them. I’m fairly certain this is not a regular occurrence. There were no signs explicitly forbidding climbing the steps, just a beaten up fence and a gate over the stairs that was movable. So I figured, ‘How often do you get to climb a set of 10,000 year old steps?’ The ‘Tourism Police’ started walking up the hill to where we were, but our group held them off. Only then did the thought occur to me that ‘spending time in a jail in the West Bank’ is close to last on my list of things I want to have to do in life.

FYI, the Dead Sea rocks… we stayed there for a night. You float. I mean you couldn't sink if you wanted to. And it's beautiful.

Day 6
Church of the Nativity
This is Nabil, our guide’s, home church (he’s a Palestinian Christian; great man; we’re getting an education). He’s worshipped there his whole life. I had low expectations and the outside of the church did nothing to raise them. It’s pretty bland and doesn’t look much different than it’s surroundings. Then we went into the Greek Orthodox section of the church. It’s hard to describe. Definitely old, but tacky too. There were some mosaics surviving from the 4th century under the floor, very cool. But the lamps they had hanging looked like they came from a yard sale and all the pictures are so old you couldn’t see them. Then we went downstairs into the cave where Jesus was (allegedly) born. They believe this because early Christians gathered at this spot to pray and an emperor was eventually so threatened by it that he built a temple to a pagan god over it. Then Constantine built a church over it.

You go down these steps and get on your knees and there’s this star with a hole in the middle that you touch and this is apparently where Jesus came into the world. I can be a world-class cynic but it was all I could do to hold myself together here. Maybe it was low expectations. Maybe it was the act of bowing low. Maybe it was the fact that the early Christians gathered here, which gave it more validity in my mind. But the thought that this spot that I may have just touched is the spot where Heaven landed on earth, where God became man, was insane and intense. I wish I’d had an hour or a day there but you have to keep moving.

Off to Israel

2007-11-07T13:37:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in the airport in Newark, waiting for our 10 1/2 hour flight to Tel Aviv to begin in a couple of hours! It's been a busy couple of weeks and it still doesn't feel like I'm about to go to Israel for 10 days.

Here's my agenda. I'll try to post some pics every other day or so.

Thursday, November 8 - Beth Shemesh, Valley of Elah, Joppa
Don't know much about Beth Shemesh. The Valley of Elah is where David defeated Goliath. Pretty excited about this one. It's where I told my kids I was going. Joppa is the port from which Jonah starts running from God.

Friday, November 9 - Caesarea by the Sea, Megiddo, Nazareth, Tiberias
I guess today we pass by the place where Elijah fought the prophets of Baal (one of the greatest stories in the Bible, i think - 1 Kings 18:1-40). I should know more about Megiddo, but I don't. Pretty excited about Nazareth.

Saturday, November 10 - Capernaum, Golan Heights, Mt Hermon, Caesarea Philippi, Mount of Beatitudes, Sea of Galilee
Should be a really exciting day seeing the region where much of Jesus' ministry took place. Can't wait to go to Caesarea Philippi where Jesus first talks to his disciples about the church - Matthew 16.

Sunday, November 11 - Beit Shean, Jericho, Qumran, Dead Sea
Beit Shean is where Saul and his sons were nailed to the city walls. Jericho is apparently the oldest known city in the world. Qumran is where they discovered the dead sea scrolls.

Monday, November 12 - Masada, Ein Gedi, Bethlehem
Ein Gedi is where David hid in the cave from Saul. Bethlehem should be amazing.

Tuesday, November 13 - Jerusalem - Wailing Wall, Temple Mount, Jewish Quarter
The Wailing Wall is the only thing remaining from the temple of Jesus' time and the holiest place in the world for the Israelites. I can't believe I'm going to be here!

Wednesday, November 14 - Jerusalem - Holocaust Museum, Israel Museum, Knesset, Ein Karem
I think the holocaust museum may be the most powerful thing we see on the trip. The Israel museum houses the dead sea scrolls. John the Baptist was born at Ein Karem.

Thursday, November 15 - Jerusalem - Mt of Olives, Garden of Gethsemene, Pools of Bethesda, Via Dolorosa, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Mt Zion, Upper Room
Wow! All the big sites in Jerusalem. The Garden, the Mt of Olives and the Via Dolorosa are going to be powerful. In fact, just typing this, it may be hitting me for the first time where I'm really going.

Friday, November 16 - Jerusalem - Gordon's Calvary, Garden Tomb
Not sure who Gordon is... Can't wait to see the Garden Tomb and learn more about it.

Saturday, November 17 - Home!
I think I get in around 8:45pm on Satuday. Anybody want to give me a ride home?

some great pictures of the kids

2007-11-05T11:46:00.000-05:00

a friend of ours, rebecca, is starting a business called Framelight Photography. she went with us to Pullen Park a few weekends ago to shoot some pics of the family. here are some of the best. really, really great pictures. God's given me a beautiful family and it was a fun afternoon just hanging out at the park. felt like we had our very own paparazzi...

these two are probably my favorites

i want to cuss... alot...

2007-10-31T21:14:00.000-05:00

I just haven't had time to blog lately, but this really made me mad. A church in Kansas believes God is mad at America for being tolerant of homosexuals and He's pouring out His wrath on us. They are choosing to express this belief by picketing at funerals of soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan holding signs that say stuff like 'God hates fags' and 'Thank God for dead soldiers'.

I can't believe it.

The bride and body of Christ... how can anyone read the Bible and think this is what Jesus meant? Is this what He meant when He said, 'Let your light shine before men so they may see your beautiful deeds and glorify your Father in heaven'?

First day of school

2007-09-07T13:10:00.000-05:00

Tuesday was Michael's first day of preschool. We're putting him in 2 days a week, mostly so he gets used the idea of school before he has to go every day next year. This isn't a huge deal to us but it is a huge deal to Matthew. Matthew's 15 months younger and these two play together constantly, so Matthew cries when Matthew goes to his class and then constantly asks about going to get Michael until it's actually time to get him. So now Matthew wants to go to school too. To which I respond, 'No, you don't. You'll have at least 17 years of school once this gets started. Enjoy playing while you can.'

That got me thinking two things. The first is this: 4 years of play, 17 years of school, and then you're ready for life. I've never had this thought before, but does it really take 17 years of formal education (13 without college) to get someone ready to be a productive member of our society? I mean, life is organized around school during those years. Being honest, I had good schooling, but that doesn't completely make sense to me.

And the second was to make me appreciate the 4-5 years we have with the kids before they start this process. Next year, when Michael goes to kindergarten, will be a big deal for me because once Michael goes to school full-time, I feel like we will lose a significant amount of the influence we have over him, and his teachers and peers will gain what we have lost. That scares me. And part of it is that a lot of times it's hard to appreciate the time we have with them now. Parenting three little kids often feels like an act of survival (some days ours... some days theirs) not an act of training and developing kids, and it's not always easy to step back and appreciate how short this time in our lives will be.

bummer

2007-09-05T13:55:00.000-05:00

now what are guys supposed to look at in the checkout lane?

one year ago today...

2007-09-05T10:09:00.000-05:00

... I was under the knife.

Hard to believe it's been a year and at the same time it feels like an eternity ago remembering how awful i felt for 3 weeks after the surgery. I feel really good now. Still get light-headed every once in a while, don't think I remember things as well (i might just be getting old), and can't seem to get my legs back when I run, but other than that I feel like i'm in great shape and i think the valve is working well. Some people just get bad valves and have to have them replaced in the first year, which would have been awful.

That was a crazy time. Jason and Diana had just moved into our house (which was a great help, and now we own a house together), we started the pre-launch for Visio Dei the week I had surgery (which is a real testament to the strength of the leadership God's given our community), and I was blown away by people's generosity in helping us over the next 3 months (i don't think bobbi-jo had to cook anything for 3 months - we still have some of those meals from 'dream dinners').

I'm not sure why I posted this. Not trying to be dramatic, but I guess it feels like my birthday in some way. Anyways, thanks God for keeping me here and healthy and thanks to everyone for their support.

Justice:Movement Beyond Emotion

2007-08-27T15:04:00.000-05:00

We started a new series yesterday that we're calling Justice:Movement Beyond Emotion. Over the past few years, we have been trying to 'show the face of God' to our community and world in a variety of ways. We've been involved with issues of child soldiering, human trafficking, AIDS, poverty, refugees, among others. These activities have 'felt good and right' for us to be involved in, but have led to some questions:

Can we really make a difference?
If not, then why do we keep talking about all this stuff?
How important is this to God, where does it say it in the Bible, and how important should it be to His church?

These are great questions and this series is our attempt to address them and create a deeper discussion that will (hopefully) give us some answers and direction. The podcast is here and if you regularly attend on Sundays, you should listen to this one. The rest of the series is in part based on it.

Some of the comments people made after the service were regarding experiences they had with situations of injustice. Some reflected on the Hebrew concept of justice and how charity and justice are viewed as the same thing. And one person questioned whether or not we have a Scriptural obligation to justice and/or charity outside the community of the church. All were great comments/questions and I put this post up because I'd love to discuss it further. Feel free to post anonymously as well.

some books i finished

2007-08-07T16:04:00.000-05:00

just finished this a few days ago. i don't say this often, but you have to read it. it's about a boy in sierra leone who loses his family in a civil war and manages to avoid being abducted into an army for a while, but eventually is a part of the government army for a few years before he goes to a rehabilitation camp for child soldiers. a crushing story that ends with a ray of hope. i have it if you want to borrow it. here's a great review of it by a friend that used to live in raleigh...

also finished philip yancey's 'what's so amazing about grace'. you need to read it, too.

my kids

2007-06-13T16:23:00.000-05:00

I forget where I read this, but someone described parenting as 'taking your heart out of your body and letting it walk around on two legs'. Or six, if you have three kids. Or four legs and a couple of knees if one of those three kids can't walk. Or four tires if none of them is walking and they are driving in a car.

Anyways... Bobbi-Jo is taking the kids up to her parents for a week and a half and then we are meeting them at the outer banks. Always makes me nervous. Jason asked if I was sad after they left. I was sad when I found out they would be gone for a week and half. I've decided to get over sad and embrace freedom from responsibility, but I'm still a little nervous.

On another note, I was recently praying with the boys and Michael asked me who God is and then where He is. How do you explain that stuff to a four year old? Maybe a future theologian.

for my dad...

2007-06-12T12:27:00.000-05:00

who wants to see what our house looks like before we change everything... here you go

Watch This

2007-06-05T06:07:00.000-05:00

This is the craziest nature video i've seen. It's like a gang fight between a herd of water buffalo, a pride of lions, and two crocodiles. it reminds me of the scene from Ron Burgundy where all the news teams fight.

Matthew

2007-06-03T21:08:00.000-05:00

matthew turned 3 last tuesday. i don't know why that feels older than michael being 4. i guess it's because he's the younger one. he's gonna be a fun guy when he grows up. wouldn't surprise me if he's the life of every party he goes to. real animated. we found out that he measures in the 79th percentile for height and 90th for weight. i hope he likes me when he's a teenager...

trying to kiss an alligator at the aquarium...

we took a train ride to burlington for my birthday...

his birthday party...

so long, 35

2007-05-22T08:44:00.000-05:00

well sunday was my birthday. turned 36. i don't think i feel like i'm 36 but who really knows. i guess i feel a young 36.

35 was crazy. found out i needed heart surgery. decided to start a church. had jason and diana move in with us. had heart surgery. started church. bought big house in bad neighborhood with jason and diana and moved into it. honestly hoping 36 is a little toned down.

my birthday was fun. my kids were really excited about my birthday and my wife bought me 3 birthday cakes.

speaking of our bad neighborhood, friday afternoon i come home and notice probably 15 cop cars about a block and a half from my house (on the corner of idlewild and jones). a guy next door tells me the cops have two guys holed up in their that they're trying to arrest. so we've got a standoff. doesn't last long and i don't hear any shots fired.

what i think is strange is that we saw nothing on the news about it. there was nothing on any local internet news sites about it. even when we asked the few police officers we know, no one said they knew anything about it. i can't find out what's going on when there are 15 cop cars a block from my house... this is raleigh.... our lead news stories are about cats stuck in trees and bad stuff that happens in fayetteville... we have to import a lot of our bad news.

next time it happens i'm calling the news myself and then maybe i'll be able to figure out what's going on.

2007-05-15T20:27:00.000-05:00

This article was pretty cool. I figured after ripping a front page article from a couple weeks ago I would say something about this one. Front page of Sunday's N&O about these three guys from the Summit Church in Durham who moved into the 'hood in Durham. Someone who goes to the Summit told me about them after we moved into our house. Apparently when they went away for Christmas or something people broke into their house, slept in their beds and put cigarettes out on their furniture. Just not an ounce of respect. Really nice article.

It rained a lot on Saturday and I took this picture of Abigail looking out the window. That's a pretty little girl...

and another pretty girl...

Break out the Brewers!

2007-05-10T09:24:00.000-05:00

Best record in baseball and (sadly... and hard to believe) the biggest division lead they've had in the history of the franchise. Now, granted they just finished a 10 game homestand against a St Louis team that was grieving a teammate, against Pittsburgh, and then against the worst team in baseball (the Nationals can't seem to escape the curse of Montreal), they still went 9-1. Good teams get it done against teams they are supposed to get it done against. Now we go on the road against the Mets and Phillies and I think we also play the Braves and the Dodgers in the next few weeks. I guess I'll enjoy this while I can...

National League Central
Team	W	L	Pct.	GB
Milwaukee	24	10	.706	-
Chi. Cubs	16	15	.516	6½
Houston	16	17	.485	7½
Pittsburgh	14	18	.438	9
St. Louis	14	18	.438	9
Cincinnati	14	20	.412	10

he's growing up

2007-05-08T09:48:00.000-05:00

so yesterday i pass by the playroom and see michael doing a puzzle and say, 'michael, who's the man?' i do this a bit and tell my boys that they're the man just to let them know i think they're great. so he says, 'you're the man, daddy' and i respond, 'no, you're the man, michael'. to which he says, 'daddy, why am i the man? is it because i winned? is it because i ran real fast, daddy?'

dangit... this kid is 4 and he's getting caught up in an acceptance by performance mentality already. this breaks my heart a little. i mentioned sunday that he already has this desire to win when we play games or do puzzles. part of me thinks this must be bad parenting on my part. part of me thinks i'm real screwed up and just passing it on to my son. and part of me thinks he's human and i should just expect this sooner than later. so i tried to explain to him that he's the man because i love him, and that will never change. so i asked him, 'why are you the man?' and he says 'because i love you daddy'.... arrrgh!

i'm finding it a challenge to describe God and my faith to my kid but this has been one of my best opportunities. his question reminds me of the psalms where david says, 'what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him?' and again where he says, 'you knitted me together in my mother's womb'. my guess is that he's asking a question that we are all asking at some level and one that he'll continue to ask for the rest of his life...

don't look now...

2007-05-01T11:44:00.000-05:00

but something's brewing in Milwaukee... end of April, 7 games above .500, 3 1/2 game lead in the central... 2nd best record in baseball...

i was 11 in 1982 when the brewers went to the world series... could this be the year we've been waiting 25 years for...

National League Central
Team	W	L	Pct.	GB
Milwaukee	16	9	.640	-
Pittsburgh	12	12	.500	3½
Cincinnati	12	13	.480	4
Chi. Cubs	10	14	.417	5½
Houston	10	14	.417	5½
St. Louis	10	14	.417	5½

kind of ticked...

2007-04-30T13:34:00.000-05:00

i don't know at who (or whom... maybe)

yesterday on the front page of our local newspaper was this big story about a new church being planted in a recently developed part of the town. Had a bit about the pastor coming to Raleigh and his schooling and how Billy Graham's daughter is going there and they're meeting in a movie theatre, etc. I'm all for this church. We're in the same boat. I pray they do really well and reach a lot of people...

this weekend was our 'human trafficking awareness weekend'. we had a benefit show downtown on friday, slept on the capital lawn saturday, and had someone who has given her life to this cause speak on sunday morning. on monday morning, this article on human trafficking appeared in our newspaper, and if you look really carefully there's this line about our weekend: "This past weekend, a Raleigh church encouraged people to sleep on the state Capitol lawn to draw attention to the issue."

please don't misinterpret this... this isn't about me wanting to get press or being jealous that another church plant got a front page story. i'm pretty sure that story's not going to help them accomplish their mission and i would have been happy to remain anonymous in an article about our weekend.

this about me being concerned with what is getting communicated to our culture about the church. the big sunday article communicated that there's a new church starting and talked about how that church is maintaining and growing it's own existence. what could have been communicated in a story about our weekend is that the church is concerned about someone's existence other than their own, and by extension it could have communicated God's heart for the poor, oppressed and marginalized people of our world. i would rather that be the message that is communicated to our culture about the church.

like i said, there's no one to really be ticked at... i just wish things were different and people understood God's heart for our world...

a little heads up

2007-03-27T12:14:00.000-05:00

one of the funniest episodes of the office, 'diversity training', is being repeated this thursday night... don't miss it!

and my kid had an epic dream the other night. he dreamed he got swallowed by a whale and his brother matthew squeezed the whale really hard so the whale spit michael out. but then the whale swallowed matthew so michael had to squeeze the whale really hard so it would spit matthew out.

he also told a girl he met on a walk the other day that matthew was his 'very best friend in the whole world'...

oh, and 'blades of glory' comes out friday. low expectations but have to see it.

Yes, I was surfing the internet today...

2007-02-05T15:43:00.000-05:00

Here's what I found...

From profootballtalk.com:

Despite the league's position that group viewings of the Super Bowl at locations other than bars must be limited to one screen with a maximum size of 55 inches, one church is daring the NFL to stop them.

Second Baptist Church in Indianapolis will ignore the league's commandment, and will show the game via a rear-projection device.

"The NFL implied that it has a problem with the venue and medium that local churches conduct ministry," said the Rev. David Greene. "We want to save souls by any means necessary. Football, traditional service, street ministry -- it doesn't matter."

Greene also explained the situation in a letter to his congregation. "I believe that God's people have to take a stand," Greene said. "If the church continues to compromise with the world, it will soon have no influence on the world that God has instructed us to reach in His Great Commission as directed in St. Matthew 29:18-20."

The NFL has defended its position because "it's the law." >>

If anyone understands the church's rationale on this, let me know what it is. I'm with the NFL on this one. Their product, they can decide how it's distributed. I can see breaking the law when if I felt it asks me to do something God doesn't want me to, but cannot for the life of me get what this guy is saying. This is why a good part of our culture thinks the church is full of idiots...

And for State fans, this compilation of dunks from saturdays game.

so here's the deal...

2007-01-23T11:13:00.000-05:00

about 6 months ago, the gore's moved into our house. i thought this was a little weird, but the idea was to help them save a few bucks to get a house downtown and leave them flexible so they could move as soon as they found a place. also i thought it wouldn't hurt to have some extra hands around the house after my surgery. but i told jason this wasn't quite conventional and if, after a month, any of us didn't think it was working out, no hard feelings, no questions asked, they'd move out. well, our house didn't feel as small as i thought it would with 7 people living in it and it's been a lot of fun for us and our kids. and there's something about living your closest relationships out in front of others that provides an unusual but healthy type of accountability. so the thought of them moving out was a bit of a bummer.

so this fall sometime, my wife and i stopped by this big house on edenton st because jeff nielsen was working there and we wanted to see how things were going in advance of his surgery. i remember thinking the house was beautiful and big enough for two families, but under contract. bummer. well, in december the contract fell through and i went and looked at it again and we all started seriously talking about buying a house together... crazy.

this is one of the more challenging decisions i've made in my life. it started out as a nice house that was a good financial opportunity and a chance to live with our friends. but it's on the edge of the really nice and the not really nice parts of downtown raleigh (translated: about a half block down you can get any drug you want any time of day). and to keep a long story from getting too much longer, it came down to a combination of a desire to be downtown where we've planted this church, a desire to live our lives a little differently by living with friends, a desire to be closer to people that have needs much greater than ours in hopes that we'll have opportunity/desire to do more about those needs, and the fact that this seems to be an extremely rare opportunity. a friend of ours is selling the house and doing some things that allow to us sell our current house empty while living downtown and the gore's are willing to live in the hurricane that is our family and we can get downtown while the getting's still good. so here we go...

and as kind of a postlude (right word?), we listed our current house on craigslist on friday, had a showing on saturday, and signed a contract to sell it on sunday. 2 days. really. from what i hear, that doesn't happen...

so in the past 9 months, we've had a baby, had open heart surgery, planted a church, and bought a house in a not-so-great part of downtown with another couple... hahahahahaha

a few pics of our new house...

2007-01-22T13:09:00.000-05:00

...story to follow...

main floor living room & entryway

upstairs bathroom

our bedroom (bobbi-jo has always wanted a purple bedroom)

upstairs family room

downstairs family room

downstairs

dining room

main floor fireplace

kitchen

stairs

kitchen

A few random things...

2007-01-15T09:47:00.000-05:00

Saturday night I'm eating dinner with Michael and Matthew and Jason sits down at the table and asks Michael, 'Who's your best friend, Michael?' I don't know why he asked and I wasn't sure that Michael gets the concept of a 'best friend' and I was hoping he would say Matthew (I try to convince them they're best friends in hopes that they won't fight as much... and because I really hope they become best friends). In any case, he said, 'My daddy.' Wow...

Saw a trailer for a movie on human trafficking/sex trade coming out April 13th. Go watch the trailer at www.tradethemovie.com. Only big name in it is Kevin Kline but it's great that it's going to get attention. The plot is about a Romanian girl who gets offered a job and ends up getting kidnapped and brought to (i think) America. Exactly the situation described by Kimberly Smith, the woman coming to speak at Visio Dei this spring. And it will be released just before she comes to visit. We met last night and we're working on a benefit concert and a sleep-out on the capital lawn. Could be a powerful weekend...

In other movie news, Will Ferrell and Jon Heder are coming out with a movie about male figure skaters on March 30th. You can see that trailer here. Looks really stupid. I'll probably see it at noon on March 30th if anyone wants to go...

A few thoughts on Ford...

2007-01-02T13:46:00.000-05:00

I watched a bit of the services for President Ford on Saturday night. Bummed I missed them today. The 21 gun salute on Saturday night got me choked up. It's been interesting learning a bit about him. I was born in '71. One of my first memories is being in a voting booth with my mom in '76 as she voted for Ford (strange which memories get filtered out and which remain). Other than that, I didn't know much about the guy other than he took over for Nixon and lost to Carter.

I knew he played football in college (he once said that even in the white house he bypassed the front page of the newspaper for the sports page), but I didn't know he won two national championships and turned down an offer to play for the Green Bay Packers (in hindsight, a good decision). Didn't know his highest political aspirations were to be the Speaker of the House, but I have a lot of respect for that. Didn't know he only got into the vice-presidency because of a scandal involving Spiro Agnew. I always figured he was just Nixon's VP and thought that made the pardon pretty shady. The fact that he wasn't elected with Nixon makes the pardon a gutsier move and everyone says he probably lost the next election because of it. There is an article in Time that talks about his faith and the role it played in his decision to pardon Nixon. Here is an excerpt:

Ford told the nation he was pardoning Nixon in a statement that invoked God's name six times. "The Constitution is the supreme law of our land and it governs our actions as citizens," he said. "Only the laws of God, who governs our consciences, are superior to it." He invited the congregation to think of the Nixon family: "Theirs is an American tragedy," he said. "It could go on and on and on, or someone must write 'The End' to it... Only I can do that. And if I can, I must."

The article talks in general about the depth and development of his faith and how he refused to use the label 'born again Christian' to his benefit in the 1976 election even though he considered himself a born-again Christian and Carter used the term a lot. It definitely would have gotten him votes but he didn't think it was the right thing to do. I have a tremendous amount of respect for that. I would strongly encourage you to read the article if you have a few minutes. It's only two pages long.

In any case, it seems a great man has left. I thought a couple things as I watched Saturday night. I thought the contrast between his demise and that of Saddam Hussein was very poignant. And I thought we should take the time to honor everyone's life the way we honor this president's. It would take a whole lot of time, I suppose, but something seems right about the reflection, the commentary, the deliberate nature of the events surrounding his funeral. It seems right that we should honor a life departed like this, and it makes me wish that I did a better job of honoring lives present.

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-24T23:30:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago we were thinking about not having a Christmas Eve service at night because it didn't seem like we'd have many people there. Glad we changed our minds. Real simple, but a great service, I think. This sounds strange, because I spoke, but the service really got to me. I felt real grateful that Jesus was born and I get to know Him.

Not that this is about me, but this has been a great Christmas season for me. Sometimes I just get tired of Christmas because it's so commercial. Maybe it's because this has been such a crazy year, maybe it's because my kids are at a real fun Christmas age, or maybe I'm excited to be alive post-OHS, but this season and tonight's service would definitely be my most memorable Christmas in a long time. We had some friends over after the service for dinner and I didn't want people to leave (not saying I normally do want people to leave, but you know what I mean). Just great to hang out with friends.

Our neighborhood did the luminary thing too. I don't know why we do this. When I was a kid we did it and I figured it was so Santa Claus could find my house. Whatever the case, it looked awesome. I drove around for about 15 minutes late tonight just looking at them. They look even better when you turn your lights out. Everything's so peaceful.

Well, Merry Christmas... here's hoping you have the peace of Christ in your heart and in your life tonight. Thanks for being a part of our lives.

Ongoing Buster saga..

2006-12-19T18:22:00.000-05:00

This just won't go away. Tonight at dinner Mac starts barking outside, so Michael says, "She misses her Buster" and then proceeds to ask me again where Buster went. So this time I say he went to dog heaven. He stares at me, not having the first idea what I mean by 'heaven' and just before I'm about to add, 'where all good dogs go', I realize I'm talking to my son about heaven for the first time and I'm about to make a deep theological statement that I don't want to make.

Quickly deducing that my son probably is too young to comprehend to the redeeming work of Christ on the cross or the hope of new life offered through the empty tomb, and that I don't think that relates to Buster anyways, I said, "Buster got sick." To which he responded, "When he gets un-sick can he come back."

Beautiful.

matthew

2006-12-18T09:50:00.000-05:00

this is an old picture of our 2 and a half year old middle kid, matthew. pretty goofy kid. matthew typically gets up between 6:30 and 7:30 and walks into our room, whining that he wants some milk. so today, at 7:15, he throws our door open and announces he wants some milk. i tell my wife i'll get it cuz i'm going to get up and go running anyways and matthew comes over to my side of the bed, i help him into the bed and he lays down exactly where i lay down. so i look at him and say "what am i supposed to do?", meaning, 'where am i supposed to lay down since you're in my spot.' and he responds, "you're supposed to go get me some milk." it was probably funnier if you were there, but it was pretty funny... trust me.

I'm real jealous...

2006-12-15T13:37:00.000-05:00

So I'm looking at the website from my newspaper back home, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal, and there's a thing about how they got to see the northern lights last night because of some crazy solar storm. That would be sweet!
Here are the pics.

This could give me nightmares...

2006-12-15T12:23:00.000-05:00

Caught this throught Relevant's site. It's the original Ronald McDonald commercial. 1 minute long. Watch it and wonder how McDonald's even survived this kind of marketing ineptitude.

10 years of Hope

2006-12-12T09:44:00.000-05:00

Bobbi-Jo and I attended our last staff Christmas party with Hope Community Church last night. Lots of fun. Because this summer/fall has been such a whirlwind, and because we're not going to really to be gone, I've hardly had time to think about leaving Hope, but I did yesterday afternoon.

When I moved down here I was looking for a big church. When I couldn't find one, I found this little 'startup church' called Hope Community Church that was affiliated with my church in Ohio. I really didn't want to be a part of a 'startup church', but as I started attending there, even though I was the only single twenty-something in the 150 or so people that were attending at the time, I found family. I found a really warm group of people that were seeking after the Lord and loved me. And I got a job, a wife, a whole new group of friends, another job, and a crazy journey out of the whole thing. And, in large part because of Mike's heart, I have a radically different understanding of God's love for the world and how He wants to use the church to speak into our culture.

It's pretty impossible to think about what my life would be like if I hadn't gotten a random phone call 10 years ago from a secretary at my church in Ohio letting me know about Hope. It's impossible to describe how fulfilling it's been over the past 10 years to see and be a part of this church growing and affecting so many people's lives. It's impossible to describe how much the people there mean to me.

Last night was not really a goodbye, but it did provide some form of closure... like 'we're going now and things aren't going to be the same and that's alright'... more than alright, what God has done here deserves to be celebrated. And to be honest, I'm too excited about what God is doing at Visio Dei to be the least bit sad or nostalgic. Sunday was amazing. I don't know what happened there, but it was amazing and it would again be impossible to describe how excited I am to see what God is going to do in and through this group of people.

Thanks so much for being a part of my journey and letting me be a part of yours. Life's pretty great...

BTW - spent the morning at the Royal Bean on Hillsborough... Amanda fixed me a cup of the Kenyan Peaberry in a french press and I had a fresh cranberry scone... highly recommend this place, stop by sometime.

Random stuff...

2006-12-08T16:07:00.000-05:00

So we're driving to our home group last night and Michael says something from the back seat of our minivan. Here's how the conversation continues:

Bobbi-Jo: "What'd you say, Michael?"

Michael: "Where's Mackenzie's friend?" [Mackenzie is our dog]

Bobbi-Jo: "Mackenzie's friend?"

Michael: "Mackenzie's friend Buster. Where's Mackenzie's Buster, mommy?" [Buster is our other dog that died last December]

Bobbi-Jo and Jeff: Complete silence

Michael: "Where did Buster go, Daddy? Where is he?"

How does my kid, out of the blue, ask where the dog is that died a year ago? And what am I supposed to tell him? Crazy.

In other news, found out I have to pay $800 to get my car, which I don't particularly like, fixed. Not much I can think of that I would less enjoy spending money on than my 11 year old car.

I love cold weather. Wish it would stay just like this for 2 months... with some snow.

Now that I think about it...

2006-12-07T09:27:00.000-05:00

If you haven't read the post below, read it and then come back to this post.

The woman I heard speak yesterday is named Kimberly Smith. She started this organization. She told us yesterday that she believes change will happen as we (the folks that were there listening to her) go and tell everyone we know about what's going on. That's kind of what I'm doing.

Why don't you drop her an email letting her know you heard and you're thankful for her and you're praying for her. And you could also include the fact that your heard it from me and that you'd love to have her come speak at Visio Dei. I'm sure it would be encouraging to her to know the word is spreading and would be a pretty obvious way of letting her know we'd love to hear more.

kimberly@makewaypartners.org

Some things stop you in your tracks

2006-12-06T21:00:00.000-05:00

I went to a lunch today hosted by a local businessman to hear a woman from this organization talk about human trafficking and sex slavery. I don't pray for the Lord's return often, if at all. Today I did. I begged the Lord to come back this afternoon. She talked about some horrific things that thousands and thousands of children and young women have to experience every day.

She does a lot of work in Sudan and Romania to prevent children from entering sex slavery, but some of the most shocking stuff was about the US. She said Atlanta is known as one of the best cities in the world for businessmen to fly in, get any type of sex they want, and be home for dinner. She talked about an investigation that found just one of the sex trafficking rings had 1,000 sex slaves locked in basements of different houses all around Atlanta. Atlanta! That was just one ring. They were set to bust up the whole ring but it leaked somehow and only 20 kids were rescued. They found information that detailed how much different services cost. I have to write this because she said it and you should know that this is real... and you don't want to read it... but she said they saw that for several thousand dollars, someone could pay to rape a child to death. That some of the kids are just used up and they're considered expendable. This is in Atlanta.

This article from the NY Times verifies some of the information about Atlanta:
http://www.makewaypartners.org/SexTradeChillsAtlantaStreets.htm

I found this story linked on her website about a brothel in Raleigh they busted up earlier this year. I copied an excerpt from the article because I found it amazing we don't have a state law that deals with this yet.

http://www.newsobserver.com/266/story/434136.html

"Taber worked with a girl not yet a teenager who was brought to Chatham from Florida by her father, or at least a man who claimed to be her father.

He set her up in business.

"She was so traumatized, she won't speak of what happened to her," Taber said. "When she was brought in, her system was full of vet medications; that's how she was being treated for worms."

Yet in that case, there have been no trafficking charges filed. In part that is because there is not a state law that speaks to the issue of sex trafficking."

Here is the website of the organization: www.makewaypartners.org. Here is the page with links to articles: http://www.makewaypartners.org/education_articles.html.

I've asked her to come speak some Sunday at Visio Dei and she sounded like she would like to make that happen.

I don't know what to say.

Pray.

Three months ago today...

2006-12-05T22:26:00.000-05:00

Seems like it was a year ago, to be honest, but three months ago today was my surgery. Crazy! Really hard to believe.

I feel great. An occasional pain in my shoulder or chest but that's it, and the only medication I take is baby aspirin as an anti-coagulant. Thanks to all of you who helped out after the surgery. It was overwhelming to receive that much help, and we needed all of it. What a year to look back on. Had a third kid, had a little heart surgery, and got to plant a church. God has richly blessed us.

China, Inc

2006-11-14T13:04:00.000-05:00

Just finishing up this book. Real interesting. The gist of it revolves around two things. One is that they have so many poor people that are willing to work for next to nothing that they can make anything they decide to make for much less than anyone in the world can. The other is that they represent such a huge market for other countries products (they have 1.5 billion people) that no country can afford to tick them off and countries make crazy concessions to them (like giving them patent rights to products that the companies are producing in China) to get access to this market. It's pretty fascinating for a communist country. They basically have a very entrepreunerial market economy that developed in spite of all the communist government influence. Part of the reason their economy is so vibrant is that entrepreneurs learned to be creative as they skirted all the government rules against capitalism to turn it into a market economy. Then the government woke up and saw it was a great thing for their country and embraced it. It doesn't seem there is a lot of state run industry left, it's mostly privately owned and operated.

A couple other random insights:

Their economy grows at a rate of 7-9% per year. It's a great year when ours grows at 4%.

If their standard of living doubled (which would still leave it lower than Botswana's standard of living) the size of their economy would equal that of the United States.

Stuff that was marked 'Made in China' used to be all crap. Not so anymore. Most of it is apparently high quality stuff and China is the reason we can by DVD players for $30 and we can buy quality electronics at Wal-Mart cheaper than anywhere else. Wal-Mart does lots of business in China.

They have basically no pollution regulations and their killing their environment.

They have one labor union, it's state run, and it doesn't seem like it does anything because the farmers are literally dirt poor and all migrating to the cities so they can be just a little less poor working in a factory for next to nothing.

Because the farmers are moving to the city, and the ones who are left don't have the knowledge/technology that we do, and because they are developing a lot of their farmland into industrial centers, and because they have 1.5 billion people who need to eat... they're always going to need to get food from elsewhere, and that is mainly us.

Their middle class is 100 million people. It didn't say what the lower class was but I would assume the upper class is much, much smaller than the middle class, leaving about 1.4 billion people in the lower class. Seems like that would be a problem to me.

They have a $500 billion reserve of US dollars to spend on whatever companies, oil supplies, real estate, etc. that they decide they want.

Their military is not very advanced, but that will probably change, in part because of that $500 billion reserve. The author did not forsee some big showdown between the US and China though, because our economies are increasingly interdependent.

They graduate 235,000 new engineers every year. We graduate 45,000. We're 5x smaller as a country, so that's an equal proportion, but still a concerning thought.

Curious, is anybody worried about their job going to China?

So we started this church yesterday...

2006-10-30T06:45:00.000-05:00

not exactly. to be honest, i'm pretty sure we started a church about 3 years ago and yesterday we officially moved out of mom and dad's house... but what a crazy moving day.

there have been several times, as we've talked about starting this church over the past 6-12 months, that i've thought, 'somebody doesn't want us to do this, and i'm thinking it's either God or the devil.' finding out i needed heart surgery was one of those times. struggling to find a date to 'move out' of Hope and get started, and then finding out that date (Oct 22) was the week we'd already booked a trip to Miami was one of those times. being in the hospital (again) the friday night before our commissioning service a few weeks ago was one of those times. and getting a call at 8am yesterday morning to hear the the guy didn't show up to open the theatre we're supposed to meet in was one of those times.

so instead of meeting in a theatre, we had our first 'official' gathering in the parking lot. what a crazy morning... but a morning that really fit our story, our journey, and our community... what a perfect morning. thanks to whoever brought a generator. thanks to everyone that brought lawn chairs and blankets and your couch cushions and i think i saw a futon cushion out there too. thanks to children's workers and parents for adapting to our kids being on rubber mats in a parking lot for sunday school. thanks to a community of people who really thought it was awesome to be in a parking lot. thanks to all the people across the country who have been praying for us so diligently. and thanks to God who I think has some pretty crazy and unbelievable stuff in store for us. i'm real excited to see what God's going to do (to us) next... like where we're going to meet next sunday morning.

PS
take this with a grain of salt, but i'm pretty sure if it was God who didn't want us to start the church, He'd have killed me by now. i mean, He had a good shot to do it 8 weeks ago and passed it up. that leaves the devil, and i don't pretend to understand what the Bible says about spiritual warfare or how it works, but i think there's something to it and actually find all this craziness strangely encouraging.

life outside the office

2006-10-20T10:04:00.000-05:00

so we're planting this church, which is a whole other series of blog posts conspicuously absent from my blog, and for now that means we are homeless. Hope booted me out of my office, which was a little sentimental for me since I've worked there 8 years, but I feel like I've been set free. I realized my desk was a repository for junk I couldn't decide what to do with and I'm hoping to not find space for one in our new building. I feel like a desk just beckons me, saying, "You must spend time with me" and I feel like it's a horribly unproductive environment for me when I'm trying to get a message ready. I do miss my bookshelves. I think the only thing I'll really miss about my office is that my kids knew where I was so they would come into our office suite and run down the hallway screaming, "Daddy, daddy!". I wonder what they're going to do the first time they run down the hallway screaming "daddy" only to find Joe in my office...

For the past few weeks I've been wandering from coffee shop to coffee shop in search of free wifi and a place to call 'office' for a few hours. Here are some observations:

- You can get free wifi almost anywhere in Raleigh and almost nowhere in Cary. One manager flat out told me it's because they figure people in Cary have enough money that they won't think about paying for it. The only place in Cary I've found free wifi is Caribou, and they just started offering it a few weeks ago.

- Cafe Cyclo was my favorite place until it closed a week ago. Great atmosphere, divided their spaces well so you didn't think you were right next to anybody. Too bad for me that it closed, but we bought a bunch of their furniture for the new building where our church will meet, so good for us. And Marissa Byelick made the best hazelnut lattes around.

- Whenever I'm at Helios I feel like everyone's listening to my conversation. Great location, not so great atmosphere.

- There's a new starbucks right by my house. I've been there a few times. Good coffee, no free wifi. I was listening to (eavesdropping, really) a manager evaluate one of his employees the other day. Good manager, but starbucks wants it's employees to eat, drink and breath starbucks 24/7. working for that place must really make you feel like you're working for the man.

- Tried out the Royal Bean on hillsborough yesterday. I'll be back. Free wifi, cool atmosphere, lots of space, and the folks behind the counter were awesome.

Any other suggestions?

My Blog-iversary

2006-10-19T20:18:00.000-05:00

Year 1 of my blog is in the books. I made it, just barely... i did miss two whole months in there, june and september. i decided this would be a good time to change the look of things. Probably change the name in the next week. and i looked back at some posts and came up with my 5 favorites from this last year:

A Farewell to Buster (still gets me a little choked up)
My Trip to the Dentist (because the conversation was so fun)
He is Risen (Easter was unbelievable for me this year)
My Birthday (best birthday i've ever had)
Conoco-Phillips Posts $5.19B Profit (30 comments with some hostility... Yes!)

Thanks for stopping by.

I really want a twinkie...

2006-10-17T15:46:00.000-05:00

Seriously. Haven't had a twinkie in a long, long time but decided this afternoon that's gonna change.

I was even late picking my kids up from a friend's house (Bobbi-Jo's at work) because I stopped by Kroger to get some. They were out. On top of that, I asked a guy who worked there where I could find the twinkies and he said, 'What?', revealing that he had never before experienced this delicacy. Amazing. I'm all for immigration. We're all from somewhere else and that's what makes America great. But there ought to be a rule that you have to eat a twinkie on your way into the country.

So I have to wait a few more hours until my wife gets home unless someone is so inclined to bring me over some twinkies...

Oh, and the surgery went great...

So I have a cardiologist now...

2006-08-11T09:38:00.000-05:00

4, actually. Another sign that you're getting old, you have a cardiologist (to go along with caring about your grass growing, driving a minivan, and having a luggage carrier on top of said minivan).

May was a weird month. Most days I felt really lightheaded and out of it, to the point that I wondered if I should be driving and some days if I would be able to keep doing what I do for living (study, teach, hang out with people, try to figure out how to structure a community that will bring people closer to God... that's pretty much what I do for living... go ahead and be jealous). Anyways, I finally went to the doctor after waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep because I was short of breath.

One MD, two cardiologists, and two cardiac surgeons later, I figured out I have a bicuspid aortic valve that is leaking severely and needs to be replaced... soon... and I have to choose between the Ross Procedure, where they replace your aortic valve with your pulmonary valve and replace your pulmonary valve with a 'pig' valve (like I won't hear about that for the rest of my life), and simply replacing my aortic valve with a mechanical valve.

The upside of the Ross is that you don't need to take medication on an ongoing basis after surgery. The downside is that it's full blown open heart surgery and takes longer to recover from, and there's a chance you have to get the pig valve re-operated on because they tend to calcify or develop scar tissue.

The upside of the mechanical valve is they can do minimally invasive surgery which is easier to recover from and you'll very likely never need surgery again. The downside is you have to take coumadin, a blood thinner, for the rest of your life. I haven't heard lots of good things about coumadin. At best you have to take it every day, get your blood tested once a month, deal with bruising and cuts that take long times to heal, and stay pretty consistent in your diet. At worst, people report developing anxiety and depression, getting cold very easily, having trouble sleeping at night, and having your blood tested weekly to maintain the right levels.

The guy I saw yesterday pretty much said there's not a big upside to waiting for this surgery and I should get it done in the next few months, and he discouraged me from the Ross Procedure, which I had pretty well decided I wanted, because he's sent too many people back to the operating room after they've had a Ross. Not necessarily scared about anything but the part where they stop your heart and then figure they can start it back up anytime they want to. Kind of freaks me out but I guess they do it all the time.

Sothat's what's going on. Thanks for your prayers. I hope to make a decision in the next week and get something scheduled. If you know anyone on coumadin, let me know. I'd really like to talk to some people who have to deal with it.

Another train ride...

2006-08-04T22:40:00.000-05:00

My dad came into town for a few days, so I took Michael on another train ride with my dad and Matthew. If you recall, he loved the last ride but didn't want to go back because it was too scary. So he freaked out a little bit when we got there, but calmed down before we even got on the train, had a great time, and as he was going to bed told me that the train wasn't scary anymore and that after he went night night we were going to ride the train again. Success!

In other news, he's informed us that Jesus doesn't like spankings... and he told me to lay down the other day so he could operate on me and then proceeded to get his chainsaw and tried to cut my arm off, all the while telling me, "Be quiet, daddy. It doesn't hurt, daddy." I felt like I was the victim in a horror movie.

And my daughter's really cute

where is God when life happens?

2006-08-02T10:29:00.000-05:00

so we've spent the past five weeks at hungry in this series we called 'where is God when life happens?' and it's basically been extended interviews of some folks from our community with me giving a 5-10 minute wrap-up at the end. we did this for a few reasons. we wanted to build another bridge from the stage to the crowd and we wanted to cultivate an atmosphere where it's ok to admit you don't have it all together and you struggle with stuff.

wow, what a couple of weeks. first we had a young woman talk about her parents' nasty divorce and how she's struggled to deal with it, really admitting that she hasn't done a great job of letting people in. then we said goodbye to a couple who are leaving their dream jobs and the comfort that comes with them to move to LA and go to film school. three weeks ago Jessie talked about what it's like to live with muscular dystrophy. then a young woman shared the struggle she went through with her eating disorder, what it took for her to finally admit she needed serious help, and how it changed her faith so she understood that God really does love her unconditionally. and this past week a guy shared how a perfect storm of generalized anxiety disorder, a couple of really legalistic churches, and a personality geared towards some fringe aspects of our culture (goth, anime stuff) really sent his life into a tailspin. and then he shared how He found God's grace in all of it and has turned it into a beautiful ministry to folks who share his interests. wow! we could do this series forever.

thanks to everyone who's been a part of the series. I truly appreciate your willingness to open up in front of a bunch of people like that and let your pursuit of God be the message for all of us. i can't wait to do this again.

in other news... 2 days to ricky bobby... i'm much more excited about this movie than i should be

Conocophillips Posts $5.19B Profit

2006-07-26T10:01:00.000-05:00

Can someone please lower my heart rate by explaining how this doesn't mean we are absolutely getting robbed by these oil companies? I mean, really, $5.19 billion profit in a quarter?!? $5,190,000,000! I'm all for capitalism, but let's regulate this because it seems like it's out of control. They had record 3rd quarter profits last year and blamed the high prices on a tragedy that killed hundreds people.

Conocophillips Posts $5.19B Profit

NEW YORK (Reuters) - ConocoPhillips (COP) , the No. 3 U.S. oil company,Wednesday reported a 65 percent surge in quarterly profit, boosted by sharply higher crude oil prices and the recent acquisition of Burlington Resources.

But the company warned production in the third quarter would be hurt by seasonal maintenance scheduled in Alaska, the United Kingdom and Venezuela and take a $400 million charge over higher U.K. tax rates.

Net income in the second quarter rose to $5.19 billion, or $3.09 a share, from $3.14 billion, or $2.21 a share, in the year-earlier quarter.

Analysts on average expected the company to report a profit of $2.79 a share, according to Reuters Estimates.

Revenue jumped to $47.1 billion, up from $41.8 billion in the year earlier quarter.

Oil and gas companies are enjoying another blockbuster quarter as crude oil prices stay at stubbornly high levels, driven by anxiety over violence spreading in the Middle East.

The company produced 2.54 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in the quarter, including an estimated 400,000 barrels per day from its stake in Russian oil giant LUKOIL.

ConocoPhillips' stake in LUKOIL stood at 18 percent at the end of the second quarter.

The higher crude oil prices and inclusion of Burlington into its results helped push earnings at its exploration and production to $3.3 billion in the quarter from $1.92 billion a year earlier.

Refining and marketing operations earnings rose to $1.71 billion, up from $1.11 billion a year earlier, as higher domestic refining margins helped offset lower worldwide marketing margins.

wow...

2006-07-25T12:57:00.000-05:00

nothing like the International Christian Retail Show to indulge my cynicism of all things labelled 'Christian'. i've been listening to Relevant magazine's podcast (recommend it) and they recently went to this Christian retail show and this site has pictures of all the junk they found there. it's pretty incredible that people manufacture some of this stuff, especially Praise Dance Revolution (the 'Christian' alternative to DDR) and the 'My Loving Jesus' doll (i'm pretty convinced the 2nd commandment is in the bible to prevent stuff like this from happening). i tried to include some pics here but my computer is refusing to cooperate (either that or someone clogged up the internet tubes again).

seriously... i don't get this stuff

i don't know how often they change the site but scroll down and you'll see the pics

call it summer vacation...

2006-07-21T14:53:00.000-05:00

so here's what's been going on since my last long ago blog post...

found this thing on my front door step. really. my kids stepped over it to get into the house before anyone saw it. 2 ft long copperhead. one more of these and it's time to move...

got a walkman that i can watch tv on from my parents as a birthday present. sweet. been listening to the world soccer daily podcast and have decided i'm going to choose a Premiere League team and follow english football this season.

found out i was born with a bicuspid aortic valve that is now experiencing severe aortic regurgitation and will have to be replaced soon. wow.

decided it was time to plant a church. this is gonna be a lot of fun.

got one of these for the top of my car. dang i'm old.

the bonus was we used it to spend a week in this house at the outer banks with my in-laws. pretty great vacation. several times i found myself thinking, 'i have absolutely nothing to do'. that's a good vacation for me.

and we went to a durham bulls game this week. those are some cute kids.

are you rich?

2006-05-31T13:32:00.000-05:00

I oversee the international missions stuff here at our church and have had the chance to get out a few places in the world. One of the lasting effects on me is how much I/we have in comparison to folks around the world (and oftentimes how much happier they seem to be without all this stuff). It's one of the many reasons I think everybody should get out and see what God is doing around the world. It gives us better perspective on our situation.

This site tells you where you rank in terms of how much money you make compared to others around the world. It's so easy for us to want what our neighbors have and lose sight of how much we've been blessed with just by being in this country.

http://www.globalrichlist.com/

Try This...

2006-05-26T10:52:00.000-05:00

So, there's this site where you can upload a photo of yourself and it does some facial recognition thing and tells you what celebrity you look like. Pretty funny... http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/face_recognition.php

First I put in one of the pictures with my fumanchu thing and it told me I looked like Peter Sellers and then Candice Bergen (?).

Then I put in a normal photo and it told me I looked like Tony Danza and JFK Jr (I get that all the time).

Then I put in that first picture of Michael from the post about the train ride, and the first name that came up for him was Saddam Hussein. Hilarious.

Da Vinci blah, blah, blah

2006-05-21T09:30:00.000-05:00

Saw the movie the other night and thought I'd weigh in on this whole thing.

I read the book about a year ago and thought it was a great book. Guy had me hooked in from the second page and I read it in a couple of days over vacation. Really enjoyable. The historical stuff was plausible and challenging and that bothered me because I don't think it's true and just serves to confuse people, but as entertainment, it was great. I thought the movie was just as entertaining. Followed a difficult story line well. Had some good, funny one-liners as well as some tense moments that had people jumping out of their seats.

I'm not sure the makers had an agenda past making lots of money but by the end of the movie, Tom Hanks, who all during the movie is kind of rebuffing implications that Biblical picture of Jesus could be wrong, is speaking very matter-of-factly about how we have everything wrong and Jesus did have a kid and the church has lied for 2000 years. That really bothered me. It didn't make me angry. I didn't want to jump up and shout, 'blasphemy!', but it hurt my soul. I was talking to Jason Saturday and he put it perfectly. He hadn't seen it but said it sounded like someone was saying stuff that wasn't true about a friend and you feel like there's nothing you can do. That's perfect. It did feel like someone was saying all this untrue stuff about a great friend, and there isn't much I can do to stop it.

I've kind of been in that 'It's just a story' camp, but I'm not so sure anymore. I guess I don't want people to see it, especially people who don't know Jesus, because I don't want them to get the wrong impression of Him.

I think the church overall has done OK with this. I don't think we've totally bashed Dan Brown or Ron Howard or Tom Hanks. It seems like we've just tried to get our side of the story out there and used it as an opportunity to engage a conversation. But there's something irritating about how every single church is doing something on the Da Vinci Code. I was talking to a friend the other day about this and I think what's annoying is that this type of thing is what the church is known for in our culture. We're known for what we react against. Makes me wish we were known for our compassion, for justice, for our acts of mercy. This whole Da Vinci response would be set in a better context if we were.

My Birthday

2006-05-21T08:55:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was my birthday (I'm 27 now) and for a month I had been telling Michael that for my birthday he was going to ride a big train with me. Now Michael's loves him some trains, but not trains that you can actually ride on. This may have something to do with the time I took him to the Amtrak station in Raleigh and we stood about 10 feet from the engine when it blew the horn. That even scared the crap out of me, I imagine it was pretty traumatic for him. But I thought it would be fun to ride on an Amtrak with him and I figured he would be really scared when we got on but then really enjoy the ride, so I bought tickets that took us to Burlington and back, about 2 hours of train time and an hour and a half just hanging around Burlington.

I was right. We got on the train and he was screaming, 'Daddy, I don't want to ride the train!' over and over. I got looks of 'Why'd that kid have to wake me up?', 'Oh god, not one of those kids. I wonder if he'll scream the whole trip.', and 'What kind of dad does this to their kid?'. The ticket guy came around and he helped calm Michael down by giving him his 'ticket' and within 5 minutes he was enjoying the ride. We walked between cars to get up to the lounge car, called mom, watched all the trucks, houses, animals, trees, cars and such that passed outside the train. Michael asked the ticket guy for a 'ticket' to give to Matthew when we got home. Burlington was great. Their train station has a display of what the railyard looked like 100 years ago and stuff like that. Michael was pumped to get back on the train when we went home. He even named the train 'Henry' and said we had to bring Matthew, Mommy and Abigail with next time.

Riding on the way back with my son on my lap, I was overwhelmed with a 'this is what life is all about' feeling. It's one of those moments in life that makes you appreciate everything you have and that you pray to God that you never forget. Something about spending time alone with my son, the romance of a train (strange, yes, but there is something historic and romantic about trains), the simplicity of his excitement about the ride, and a feeling of accomplishment as a father. I got my son to trust me, to overcome a fear, and to realize that the ride was worth a little discomfort at the beginning.

So all afternoon Michael's talking about the ride and telling people how much fun it was and talking about taking another ride, but he also would mention that 'henry' is loud and Daddy had to cover his ears. And then when I said goodnight to him, he says, 'Daddy I don't want to ride Henry anymore, it's too loud' and for some reason the air came out of my balloon. Now I'll get him on that train again, but I thought to myself, 'This is probably how God feels about us.' He prods us to points of taking a risk, getting out of our 'comfort zone', following Him someplace we're not too sure of. And the ride is always worth the risk. But somehow it seems like we always forget the thrill of the journey and we get comfortable and think 'Those noises were too loud. I don't want to go through that again.'

Here's to following God to the scary places, to remembering the thrill of the journey, and to letting Him 'cover our ears' during those first few tenuous steps.

I think they like her...

2006-05-04T19:00:00.000-05:00

Been a fun week adjusting to having Abigail here. The day she got home, Michael asked if she could go bye-bye, but then a few days later he asked if we could have another Abigail. She slept almost 6 hours last night, but all of a sudden they can't make it through the night. Michael woke up at 4 and wanted his covers back on, Matthew crawled into bed with us at 5 and fell back asleep, and Abigail woke up at 6. Diana suggested it's like having human snooze buttons, which would be great if the whole deal started at 6 and didn't end then.

Crash

2006-05-03T09:43:00.000-05:00

Finally watched crash last night. What a movie! It reminded me of a movie that came out about 15 years ago called Grand Canyon, which I actually liked a little bit better. Someone told me I would feel bad about being a white male after watching crash but I thought it's point was that everyone is a racist.

I'm doing this message on Cornelius this weekend and Peter coming to the realization that God likes everyone, not just the Jews, so I've been thinking a bit about racism and bias. At the risk of opening a huge can of worms and revealing my tremendous ignorance and insensitivity with regards to this subject, here's what I think: We all want to feel superior to somebody else. It makes us feel good in the absence of a right relationship with God. That goes back to Satan rebelling against God, he wanted to be exalted the way God was. Racism is a vehicle for us to feel superior to another person, but it allows us categorize people and do it in groups. Sandra Bullock's rant in the movie about being angry all the time might be the best reflection of this. She couldn't figure out why she was angry, but it made her feel better to feel superior to all the people she vented on, which manifested itself in racism. I don't know, maybe all this is just a side-effect of a deeper cause.

Feel free to unload on me...

Why does this bother me so much?

2006-05-01T13:36:00.000-05:00

So this Left Behind series came out a few years ago as a realistic deptiction of how the dispensational view of the end times might play out. I started reading it and it was a compelling story and interesting take on what might happen. Then the books started slowing down to where each book seemed to cover a period of days instead of months or years, so I stopped reading and part of me wondered if the books weren't slowing down so there could be more them so they could sell better. Then I noticed there was a kids version, which furthered those suspicions. I was on the web site today and apparently there was a calendar and greeting cards, and there is now a prequel to the series and books that talk about what else was happening while the other stories in the books were going on. Lord forgive me if I'm 100% wrong, but this sure seems like a way of making money in God's name.

Then I saw that they're making a video game for kids out of the whole thing and my stomach turns every time I think about it, but I'm not exactly sure why. Here are some of the quotes about the game:

'the angelic Tribulation Forces and the demonic Global Community Peacekeepers, led by the Antichrist, battle it out to convert secular, neutral units to their respective sides'
(I think the term conversion has enough patronistic, 'we're right and God loves us more than everyone else' baggage that we don't need to add to it)

'Players participate in "battles raging in the streets of New York"... using the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world'
(Not saying Jesus is opposed to military action, but 'modern military weaponry'? What happened to 'our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness...')

I guess I don't see anything positive coming out of this for the cause of the kingdom.

Here's the link to the article if you're interested:
http://www.christianpost.com/article/technology/723/section/left.behind.battles.rage.on/1.htm

More Abigail Pics

2006-04-23T11:53:00.000-05:00

She's Here!!

2006-04-21T15:48:00.000-05:00

At 1:27 this afternoon, Abigail Rose Ramsey entered the world at 7 lbs 5 oz and 19 inches. Mom and baby are doing great (great might be an overstatement for mom, just had surgery, things are a little rough). Abigail's lungs are working just fine. She cried after they took her out until they gave her to me to hold... then she stopped....I think she likes me.

Jack Bauer to the big screen?

2006-04-17T12:08:00.000-05:00

See the link. This would be pretty sweet.

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1528309/story.jhtml

In the article it says Kiefer Sutherland is only 39. I thought he was a bit older than that. Dude is only 5 years older than me and has stopped multiple terrorist attacks that threatened the fabric of our culture. What am I doing with my life? This could throw me into a pre-mature mid-life crisis.

He Is Risen!

2006-04-16T07:59:00.000-05:00

We had a sunrise service this morning which was wonderful. Jason and I were expecting about 7 people and instead about 70 showed up. Thanks to all who could make it, I pray it was as much of a blessing for you as it was for me.

My time preparing this week surprised me. I've said in messages before that we are a church addicted to it's cross, but I hadn't spent so much time thinking about the tomb as I did this week. Think about it... our churches all have crosses on/in them, we have crosses in our signs and our logos, and we wear them on our clothes and around our necks to remind us of what was done on the cross. All of these are great reminders of what was done on the cross for us, but has anyone ever seen a representation of the tomb to remind us of what was done there? I mean, the early church didn't choose to meet on Friday when He died, they chose to meet on Sunday when He rose from the dead.

And I think we fixate on the cross because it's a lot easier to comprehend than the tomb. We physically experience our sin, and our need for forgiveness resulting from that sin, every day. It's real to us. But the tomb represents the unreal. It tells us that everything we experience here on earth falls short of what's real. It promises a reality beyond what we can sense here. I think it's so hard to grasp the tomb because we see the natural cycle of life and death all the time. We expect death. We're used to it. But if death is so natural, such a normal part of things, then why is death so tragic? Why does death leave the holes in us that it leaves? Maybe it's because death's not natural at all. Maybe it's because death wasn't part of the original plan... only life was.

I would love to have been at the foot of that cross, watching my Saviour die in my place. But I would love even more to sit in that tomb, contemplating the fact that 'God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.' I wish I could have been there when the earthquake shook the ground, the angel rolled away the stone, and Jesus appeared 'like lightning' with 'his clothing as white as snow.' And I wish I was there when the angel said, 'He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said...'

Here's hoping all of us can live lives worthy of an empty tomb. Lives that represent all that God says is possible and all that will one day be. That instead of wallowing in our sin, we can trust in His promise to make us new, and believe that it's possible because that tomb is EMPTY!

Dinner

2006-04-13T13:13:00.000-05:00

I had chili for dinner last night.

A question for the fellas...

2006-04-05T20:43:00.000-05:00

So i walk into a public restroom the other day that has 6 urinals. There are two guys already in there, occupying the 2 slot and the 5 slot (they've obviously already broken proper urinal etiquette). What do you do in that situation?

Fun With Facial Hair (or... A Farewell to My Beard)

2006-04-02T21:04:00.000-05:00

Half the fun of growing a beard is shaving it off, so I thought I would shave out some big chops and keep the fu-man-chu (?) thing and look tough. Never done that before. Turns out I don't look tough, I look like an idiot with no chin. Wore it to hungry tonight like that and was told "oh, wow...", "that's sleazy", "you're so dirty", "you look like Earl from that new tv show", "you look like a used car salesman", and "you look like a pirate". I think there were a few more that I happily forgot. Then I got home and decided to try a handlebar mustache.

A Little Note of Clarification

2006-03-28T15:58:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me after hungry sunday night if I was a communist... so I thought I better clarify something I said.

This was in the context of talking about cultural barriers to true community and describing our world as a broken world, with the manifestation of that brokenness coming in the form of selfishness. I said that our economic and political systems in America depend on people being broken. Capitalism depends on people being selfish and most concerned about their own interests. Properly regulated, the system tends to bring out the best of people's work ethic and creativity because they are given the opportunity to satisfy their needs and desires. Nothing wrong with the system, it's a really smart idea and the guys that founded our country took God at His Word when He said we are inherently broken and selfish. They set up a system that plays to it and keeps it in check at the same time.

I believe communism fails because, in my limited understanding of it, it depends on people being good. It depends on individual sacrifice in favor of the community. It depends on consolidated power not being abused. And we as a people aren't good, we're broken.

In the context of the message, capitalism doesn't do much to foster community, however. In fact, it probably feeds our selfishness and inhibits us from experiencing real community. We're trained to focus on our own needs/desires. We're bombarded with messages that distort the meaning of the word 'need'. There a disincentive to materially help the people around us because it takes away from our own accumulation of stuff. The American Dream is to have more and better than the generation before. It's our birthright as Americans.

But it doesn't say anything about sacrificing stuff we 'desire' so that our neighbor can have stuff they need, and that's part of community. And it contributes to the epidemics of busyness, superficiality (is that a word?), individuality, and the desire for instant gratification that effect us all more than we probably realize. I believe this gives the church the chance to be truly counter-culture if we could live out the form of community that God designed us for.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

2006-03-25T13:03:00.000-05:00

Ok, if you know me, you know how much I love my boys and I love the fact that when Bobbi-Jo works I get to stay home with them, but they're driving me up one wall and down the other today. Since they got up they've either been whining, fighting, or doing something I've asked them not to do (except that Michael actually pooped on the poddy... but even then he clogged it up). It's been a pretty frustrating day.

I have a tendency to over-spiritualize stuff on my blog, but I really do wonder if God gets as frustrated with me as I do with my kids. I have trouble resolving God's wrath in Scripture. It seems like He loses it sometimes and I don't envision God like that. Maybe I have trouble understanding His anger because I have trouble expressing my own. Who knows.

On a brighter side, I have a really sweet beard (my family hasn't seen my beard yet). And I had a kickin' omellete for lunch. Chopped up and sauteed some beer-boiled bratwurst from last night along with some onions (until they were carmelized), and threw that in an omellete with some shredded cheddar/monterey jack. Dang! For someone from Wisconsin it doesn't get better than beer, bratwurst and cheese.

My dream home...

2006-03-13T15:08:00.000-05:00

Hot and cold running beer...

OSLO (Reuters) - A woman thought she was in heaven when beer instead of water flowed from the taps in her apartment in west Norway.

"I turned on the tap to clean some knives and forks and beer came out," Haldis Gundersen told Reuters from her home in Kristiansund, west Norway. "We thought we were in heaven."

Beer in Norway is among the most expensive in the world with a 0.4 liter (0.7 pint) costing about 50 crowns ($7.48) in a bar.

Gundersen said she tried the beer but that it tasted a bit odd and was not fizzy.

It turned out that a worker in a bar two floors below had mixed up the pipes on Saturday evening, wrongly connecting a new barrel to a water pipe leading to Gundersen's flat. The bar got water in its beer taps.

"If it happens again I'm going to order Baileys (coffee liqueur)," she said.

My Trip to the Dentist

2006-03-01T22:00:00.000-05:00

Why do I feel guilty every time I go to the dentist? My mouth is full of fillings I got when I was a teenager and I still feel like it somehow marks me as a bad person, like I didn't brush my teeth enough. My mom didn't even let us eat sugar cereals growing up. Jason's wife said she went to the dentist today too and got her second cavity ever, and she felt like there was something wrong with her.

I probably had a reason to feel guilty today... I haven't been to a dentist in 3 years. But that's because the last time I went the lady told me I needed 4 crowns that would cost about $3200 and I had no idea how much my insurance would cover but I knew I didn't have what I needed to pay the rest and I would get a second opinion on anything before spending that much money on it anyway. It just took me 3 years to find another dentist and get a second opinion. Turns out I was right. This guy today told me my back fillings would probably hold out for years before I needed crowns.

It probably comes down to flossing. We feel guilty because there are like 8 people in the world who actually floss all the time. I don't floss because it doesn't seem like the problem is where the floss goes. I mean, my fillings are on the top of my teeth, not where I floss. So what's the big deal about flossing? I have a theory that the people who actually floss are the same people that are really good at praying (confession: I'm not good at praying, either). I think that because it takes faith to do either because it doesn't feel like either is doing much good at the time you're doing them. If you read this, I'd like to know if you actually floss... and what your prayer life is like. My own little research study.

I read once that dentists have one of the highest suicide rates of any occupation. That makes sense. If somehow just going to the dentist can induce all these incoherent and irrational thoughts in me, it must screw up someone even more to be on the receiving end of them every day.

More Jack Bauer

2006-02-16T10:50:00.000-05:00

You can never get too much Jack Bauer...

Jack Bauer once won a game of Connect 4 in 3 moves

Jack Bauer fell asleep during Mission Impossible. For Jack Bauer, no mission is impossible.

Jack Bauer highlights in black.

If everyone on "24" listened to Jack Bauer, it would be called "12".

(Thanks Josh)

The Sex Talk

2006-02-12T21:00:00.000-05:00

What an awful phrase... and it's what communication about sex is limited to in our families and in our churches, a very occasional... very uncomfortable... talk. How about starting a sex conversation? Admitting the power of this topic and it's influence in our lives and continually lifting up God's view of sex, His dream in creating it, and our challenges in finding His will? I would encourage all of us to re-hash Sunday night in our community groups and conversations this week and in the coming weeks. Thanks for participating last night. Your comments (and the willingness and enthusiasm with which you offered them) were wonderful and made for a much more effective atmosphere in which to communicate God's Words.

I offer an apology for going long last night (didn't have a watch/cell phone so I have no idea how long it was), especially to those downstairs watching the kids. I figured two things: 1) Didn't really have to worry about people's attention spans because people listen when you talk about sex, and 2) I really wanted to get all the stuff I said in because I am concerned that people understand this in a complete way.

I re-iterate my offer about talking to us if you want to talk. The Catholic/Episcopal folks do something right with formal confession (from what I understand about pennance/absolution/all those hail mary's, I hate it... it totally ruins the point of the cross that He did something for us we could never do for ourselves). There is something powerful about confessing your sins one to another, verbalizing them, owning them. Here's our contact info if you want to talk about anything: Jeffr@gethope.net, Jasong@gethope.net, bjgramsey@nc.rr.com (my wife), dianagore@nc.rr.com (jason's wife). We'd love to talk.

I'd love any feedback you have about tonight, positive and especially negative. One-way communication is deficient. Someone said I gave a good 'speech' tonight, and although there was room for input, they're right, in essence it was a speech. I wish it were more of a conversation and hopefully we'll figure out a way to move in that direction. For now, we have this blog. Feel free to post anonymously.

Thanks for being a part of our community

Jack Bauer is my hero

2006-01-28T08:10:00.000-05:00

Subject: Jack Bauer Facts

You can lead a horse to water. Jack Bauer can make him drink.

Every time you think about sex Jack Bauer kills a terrorist. Not because you thought about sex, but because that is how often he kills terrorists.

Jack Bauer saved Private Ryan.

If Jack Bauer was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Nina Meyers, and he had a gun with 2 bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.

If you wake up in the morning, it's because Jack Bauer spared your life.

Osama bin Laden's recent proposal for truce is a direct result of him finding out that Jack Bauer is, in fact, still alive.

Upon hearing that he was played by Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Bauer killed Sutherland. No man plays Jack Bauer.

People with amnesia still remember Jack Bauer.

Jack Bauer killed 93 people in just 4 days time. Wait, that is a real fact.

Jack Bauer was never addicted to heroin. Heroin was addicted to Jack Bauer.

Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his keys. He then spent the next half-hour torturing his self until he gave up the location of the keys.

Jack Bauer once told God he needed access, the event has since been referred to as "The Big Bang."

1.6 billion Chinese are angry with Jack Bauer. Sounds like a fair fight.

If Jack and MacGyver were locked in a room together, Jack would make a bomb out of MacGyver and get out.

Jack Bauer's favorite color is severe terror alert red. His second favorite color is violet, but just because it sounds like violent.

Jack Bauer got Helen Keller to talk.

Jack Bauer doesn't miss. If he didn't hit you it's because he was shooting at another terrorist twelve miles away.

The quickest way to a man's heart is through Jack Bauer's gun.

Superman wears Jack Bauer pajamas.

Jack Bauer's death was not staged. Jack came back to life after Satan was too scared to let him into Hell.

When Google can't find something, it asks Jack Bauer for help.

Only Jack Bauer can prevent forest fires. The thing is, he doesn't bother.

Lets get one thing straight, the only reason you are conscious right now is because Jack Bauer does not feel like carrying you.

Killing Jack Bauer doesn't make him dead. It just makes him angry.

When you open a can of whoop-ass, Jack Bauer jumps out.

Jack Bauer came up with the idea to can and sell his own urine, that product is known as Red Bull.

When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack
Bauer hates lemonade.

Jack Bauer played Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun and won.

When the boogieman goes to sleep, he checks his closet for Jack Bauer.

Some leftovers from Christmas

2006-01-09T16:10:00.000-05:00

Sorry for leaving Buster up there so long. People have advised me it's pretty depressing to come back and see him each time. I think we're through the mourning period, so it's ok to move on.

I think we all have this lingering sense of how great Christmas was when we were kids. You lose it through high school and college and your twenties, and it's a little depressing. Now that I have two little kids, I'm staring to understand why it was so great, and I'm confident it had nothing to do with Jesus. Michael is at an age where everything is simple and fascinating. It's therapeutic to spend so much time with someone like that. There's something simple and pure about Christmas that appeals to children... presents, Christmas lights, a train around the Christmas tree. A few very simple observations from our holidays:

Michael's pretty sure everything on the earth belongs to him. Both my boys got big huge tonka trucks at my in-laws house. The next morning Michael woke up and was playing with Matthew's truck, so we told him he needed to give it to Matthew. He responded by saying, 'It's my Matthew's truck.' Pretty impressive, not yet three... already re-defining the rules of grammar. Maybe you'd call it a 'double possessive.'

We're driving home from my parents in Wisconsin, and we're in Charleston, WV driving over a bridge. It's like 11:30 at night, so he should be asleep, but he's wide awake, and he says, 'Mommy, we're going over a bridge!' He was pretty excited about the tunnels in WV as well. I wish I could get that excited about going over a bridge or through a tunnel.

Whenever we opened presents, Matthew would open one and be content playing with the paper for the rest of the day. Not so much with Michael. My brother-in-law's family has this tradition of playing bingo Christmas day. Everybody brings a bunch of extra presents that you lay out on a table and when you win a round of bingo you grab a present. Then we open them all at the end. I cleaned up this year. Michael helped me open my presents because he seemingly can't open enough presents, even though he gets that they're daddy's presents and nothing he can really play with. I was amazed and slightly frustrated at how quickly he could tear through a present and then, without even looking at it, ask for the next one so he could open it. Maybe that's why Eve took the bite out of the apple, because no matter how well things are going in our lives, there's something in us that always thinks what's under the paper will make our lives better than they are now. Or maybe something's in us that thinks what's under the paper will make our lives better because Eve took that bite out of the apple. Whatever the case it made me think part of that simplicity factor has already disappeared in Michael.

A Farewell To Buster

2005-12-14T13:16:00.000-05:00

This is going to be a little melodramatic, but you'll have to forgive me, my dog died yesterday...

For my 30th birthday a few years ago my wife said we could get a second dog. After many trips to the SPCA and the Wake Cty Animal Shelter, we found a shy, gentle puppy with enourmous feet. They said he was 3 or 4 months old, was a blue tick hound, and would grow to be 80 pounds. Turns out he was some type of Great Dane mix and grew to be 125 pounds. But he had the perfect personality, kind of dopey, great with our kids, never once heard him growl.

We don't know what happened. He seemed fine yesterday morning. He was actually hopping the fence I had set up in my yard to keep him on one side. Then in the afternoon he didn't want to come inside and Bobbi-Jo checked on him a couple hours later and found him in the doghouse not moving. His stomach was a bit distended, and I think he got 'bloat'. It's a condition Danes get where their bowels get twisted and if you don't get them to a vet within 30 minutes, they'll die. (To be honest, we were trying to find a good home for Buster. We had run out of space and needed the room he stayed in downstairs for a play room. My wife had actually been praying that we would be able to find a place for him by Christmas. That tells me two things: 1-I'm not so sure God didn't kill my dog and 2-Don't get on my wife's bad side.)

I read recently that Americans spend 4 billion dollars on either dog food or total pet supplies. It was written in the context of 'how can we care so much for these animals and ignore all the needy people in the world'. I can't disagree... at all. But at the same time, reflecting on Buster's death, I wonder if our care for animals isn't the mis-directed image of God in us. God is a lover and a giver. I think we got our dogs because we wanted something to love, and dogs might be the easiest creatures in the world to love because they're so clueles.... forgiving. They say people who live alone are healthier when if they have a pet. Maybe it just points to that something in us that knows it's right to love and to give. Of all the dogs my family's had in my life, this one was my favorite. I'll miss him.

Well, Buster, here's hoping all dogs really do go to heaven and we'll see you again. Rest in peace, you were a wonderful dog.

Jesus is for losers

2005-12-13T14:31:00.000-05:00

We talked at hungry the other night about the blind beggar in John 9 that Christ healed. The point was that this beggar was a loser in his culture's system and that the winner's in their system (the pharisees) were threatened by Christ because He said abundant life is found outside the system they had set up and thrived in. And in the end this beggar chose to leave the system (they kicked him out of the synagogue) and follow Christ. Christ always hung out with the losers and they were the ones who were attracted to Him, maybe because the system didn't offer them much chance of winning.

It really got me thinking about what I think abundant life is and where I think it's going to come from. Yesterday it made me think about this passage from James:

"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does."

I feel like that double-minded man, blown by the wind. I think part of me wishes for more things of the world... a bigger house, a nicer car, more security... and believes that is the abundant life. But the rest of me knows I checked out of that system because I realized it wasn't the abundant life, that I have the opportunity to be a blessing to others as a part of the 'occupation' I've been called to and there is nothing more abundant than that.

The other night I looked at my son as I put him to bed and thought, probably for the first time, "He was created for God's glory." I was challenged as to what I really believed his abundant life was. Do I believe it's the stuff and opportunities that we can provide for him to get ahead in this world? Or is it to cultivate in him a desire for the things of God?

I think God is telling me to make up my mind. I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on the other night.

Lost and Found

2005-12-08T09:10:00.000-05:00

We started a new series at hungry last sunday night on the statements where Jesus says, "I have come to..." Last week was the story of Zaccheus where Jesus says, "The Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost." The part of it that stuck with me (which is wierd to say since I did all the talking but typically I move on pretty quickly to the next week so not tons of stuff sticks with me) was about how you can be going someplace and get lost, and then find someone to follow to your destination, but still not really know where you are and still feel pretty lost. And when we begin to follow Jesus, we don't need to act like we've got it all together, we've just admitted that we're lost and we need someone to follow who knows where we're supposed to be going and how to get there.

Paul is the example that we hold up all the time of what a Christian should look like, but in Romans 7 Paul wrestles deeply with his sin and in his question "who will set me free from the body of this death?" admits that after following Christ his struggle with sin got worst, not better. I feel like American evangelical church culture teaches and encourages people that following Christ is a linear journey away from your sin. But maybe when we start following Christ, He leads us to a deeper knowledge of our sin. Maybe we see the tip of the iceberg in terms of our sin on the day we start following Christ, and He needs us to see how big the rest of it is. And maybe He wants us to see our sin so clearly so that the good news of His dying on the cross and rising from the dead will mean more to us. Maybe that's why He said, "He who is forgiven much, loves much." Maybe the path to transformation and truly loving God isn't away from sin, but towards it. Meister Eckhart (I don't know much about this guy, but cool name) wrote, "Love even your sins, for they will make you love God more." And Paul said, "Where sin increases, grace goes crazy" (my paraphrase).

Obviously I'm not suggesting we wallow in our sins and embrace them, but let's not pretend they're not there. The more lost you know you are, the more closely you'll stay to the One you are following. And I think then we'll truly be depending on Him to transform us instead of us trying to transform ourselves. Ask God to show you a sin you didn't even know you struggled with today, and then thank Him for loving you in spite of it.

Cool Article

2005-12-02T12:53:00.000-05:00

I read a lot and don't post much of what I read, but this was a really cool (and long) article on some folks who are taking the kingdom to some overlooked people in the inner city... it will make you long for something more...

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/009/16.38.html

Pavlov's Dogs and My Bible

2005-11-30T16:19:00.000-05:00

I have a confession to make.

I guess if you grew up with the American public education system, somewhere along the way you learned about Pavlov's dogs and conditioned response, how they eventually heard the bell and started salivating even when there was no food.

That's a little bit how I feel about my Bible, especially in the morning. I grew up spiritually in an environment where I was encouraged to have a 'quiet time' (sounds like a Christian version of 'time out') each morning. This 'quiet time' became my spiritual barometer. If I was having regular 'quiet times', I was doing good spiritually, regardless of what happened when I was quiet or whatever else was in my heart and my life. Some 'quiet times' I felt God's presence. Many times I read 5 chapters only to not have any idea what those 5 chapters contained 5 minutes after I read them. Many times it was so 'quiet' I fell asleep.

I've never been really good at it. I'm not terribly disciplined. Therefore, the 'quiet time' became my enemy, my constant reminder that I'm not good at being spiritual, that I am a hypocrite because I act good but don't have a 'quiet time', so I'm not really good. It came to be a bad experience even when it was good because I was never consistent enough.

The Bible has been more alive for me the past few years than ever. But the other morning, I woke up (without my kids waking up at the same time... rare) and started towards my Bible... and I got this churning in my stomach telling me 'You're not a good Christian because you don't do this often enough'. Hence the comparison to Pavlov's dogs. I realize it's not my spiritual barometer anymore, but I still am conditioned to feel like it is. Something of a breakthrough for me because realizing it helps me get past it, but still kind of saddening nonetheless, and my guess is that I'm not alone in feeling like this.

Wrapping up our Genesis series...

2005-11-20T22:06:00.000-05:00

Thanks for all who were there tonight... I wish we had kept going there at the end for a while longer.

For those who couldn't be there, we wrapped up the Genesis:Go series with by weaving together the previous messages into a bigger story and then talking about how Jesus resolves much of the story. A few thoughts on that:
The violation that Adam and Eve committed was one of trust, and the thing that Jesus asks us for is our faith, our trust in Him.
The penalty for their (and our) violation was death, and after thousands of years of God demonstrating substitutionary atonement through the OT Law, Jesus died in our place on a cross.
The problem with Adam and Eve was the type of people they had become as a result of the fall, alienated from God, and Jesus didn't just die for us, He conquered death, rose from the grave, and offers new life through Him.
And then He demonstrates this new life for us and asks us to trust and follow...

Then we gave people a chance to respond and share what God had spoken to them during the series. Those responses are below (sorry for any misspellings). The coolest thing about typing them in was your fingerprints, a visible reminder that everyone is unique and that we are all in a different place in our journey with God. Thanks so much for sharing your hearts.

I saw the relevance of God's Word. Human nature hasn't changed a bit - this makes the Gospel as important now as ever.

A better understanding of God's gravity.

The love I see in others is a reflection of God's love.

I need to accept the comfort Christ lives. His plan is perfect and my plans are not according to His will. I want to find peace in Him. I want the full joy He gives. I need to stop fighting Him. Let go... Let God.

To be a better person.

God is calling me to rely upon Him in all things and more importantly, to recognize Him as the one, true, authentic source of self-esteem.

God shows passion and love for His people through sending His Son. Without passion and love for one another and without listening to God, we cannot share Christ's love.
Adam and Eve brought free will and evil into the world. God uses free will to allow people to be more devoted followers. Christ saved us from evil.

God did chase me down to know about Him - just like my circular thumbprint. I was running around and He did not let me go. He was always there. Thanks for preaching.

I've been searching for security in everything that fails. I now realize my insecurities are not mine but Satan's. Christ loved me so much and I am accepted.

God is showing me everyday that my identity is found in Him. That He has given me the heart and mind of Christ. Also that everything I do should be in loving response to the work of Christ in me. Praise God!

Can't do it on my own - Thank you God for fellowship.

Do I love my neighbor? Do I truly care for my neighbor?

Satan whispers to me that I am doomed because of my constant sin. God's written word tells me to trust Him and Him alone. I AM SAVED!

HE is everywhere. I know that through everything it will always be okay for He is closer than I ever imagined.

God has shown me grace in a very real way and allowed me to look outside myself and do away with my pride.

This is my 1st time here... got a big 'sign' wake-up call, whatever. God has shown Himself in my life in many little ways I've ignored... this week my roommate tried to commit suicide and I found him. God wanted me there and that happened for a reason and has made me want to draw Him close again and have Him in my life.

God has shown me how He can bring me full circle and use my mistakes and goofs to make our communion stronger.

Just as we choose Christ daily - we also choose to stay on our journey's in our marriage daily. With God's help we will celebrate 28 years soon!

Trust God in all areas of my life.

I am spiritually lazy. I need to listen to what God is telling me and DO it!

Compelled to serve and love in a whole new way... God's love for me and the grace I experience through Him motivates my actions.

My life isn't mine and it's for Your glory to spread Your word.

I think it is a miracle we can sing.

I want faith like Abraham. I have been working on giving up control and trusting God that He will fill my life with blessings in a way I could never fathom.

God is teaching me to accept all situations. Especially difficult ones as He has put them in my life for a reason - sometimes only He knows why.

God has been teaching me to receive so others may know the joy of giving - It is hard to do!

This helped me realize just how God has a plan for me and my life.

We cannot put our expectations in anyone else except God. No one else is ever going to fill and meet that void in our heart.

God is teaching me to trust Him completely. There are things in life I don't fully understand, but God has good plans for my life.

I am thankful that I have found hungry. I has been a true blessing. I am new here but have been praying for something like this to come into my life.

I am her to worship and follow God and to more than anything realize that my life was empty when I didn't ask God to be a part.

I sacrifice nothing for a God who gave everything. I don't want any kids to see God through my marriage.

After the message of Noah's Ark, I began to seek out more moments of discomfort because it is here when I learn to truly follow/depend/trust God.

God has brought me to a point in my life where I see a need for Him in my life - I feel loved, beautiful, and valuable!

God has reminded me over and over again during this series that it was Him that created me to be exactly who I am and that I should embrace that. By doing so, I'm released from the pain in my own life and am better equipped to show others than Christ can do the same for them.

Without God's gravity in my life, I would live in chaos...

A friend for ever.

God is teaching me that a relationship doesn't have to be perfect all the time and to just love Him through my times of wavering faith - it's ok to question faith.

As a biology major, it has been encouraging to hear this series because the more I learn about the science of life, the more I have to believe that only God could create it, unlike what all my professors expect me to believe.

I've learned how easily I look to the right and left looking/comparing myself to others to find my worth, when all God wants me to do is look up and let Him tell me my worth.

God is teaching me to feel helpless so that I rely on Him and His grace instead of always trying to do things on my own. I need to stop relying on my own strength.

My story is what God has given me and if I continue to follow and trust Him I will forever be rewarded. Thank You Father!

There was one more written in French, but I couldn't quite make out the handwriting...

Coach Class Blues

2005-11-19T08:21:00.000-05:00

I was on an airplane the other day and saw something that communicated a message I couldn't put in words.

I've only flown first class one time. My wife and I were going to Vegas for our anniversary and a friend at the airline upgraded our tickets. I didn't think it would be that much better than coach, but first class rocks! I get why people want to sit up there. What I don't get is the little curtain between first class and coach. It serves no purpose except for us commoners to not be able to see the party that's going on up there. It doesn't block out any sound and it doesn't block any light.

Then the other day I'm on an airplane and realize that the curtain on this particular plane was mesh... you could see right through it. I might start carrying my digital camera with me because I needed a shot of that (I found the above image on the internet). Am I missing it, or is the message simply, "There's a difference between you and me, and we're much more important?"

gravity

2005-11-16T20:56:00.000-05:00

be interested to hear anybody's thoughts on sunday night. as i thought more about it, it made me think of a theological conversation about God's transcendence and God's immanence. it's been a long time since i've taken a theology course, but the concept of God's transcendence would suggest that God is way up there and we are way down here and we don't have tons of contact with Him. the concept of immanence suggests that God is present and makes Himself known among us. the stuff i went through the other night - about the things God uses to draw people to Himself - makes me think He can be both at the same time. setting up our conscience and creation and beauty and sacrifice as things that draw us to Himself kind of makes it both. it seems transcendent because He set these things up and they are routine, consistent, and dependable, but they play to His immanence because they draw us into His desire a daily relationship with Him.

a friend also made an observation the other day that i had never thought of. he was talking about fertile soil for the gospel and how Christ approached people with the gospel. it fits in this discussion because the other night i talked about the pharisees having created this intricate set of rules they could follow and Jesus blowing up their little system and presenting a concept of the law that blew away their system and was impossible for a human being to accomplish. well, my friend said that if you analyze Jesus' interactions with people, when He came upon 'hard soil', a person whose soul was proud, He always gave those people the law, because they still needed it to lead them to Christ. He did it with the pharisees and He did it with the rich young ruler. He told them to try harder until they realized their sin and their need for Christ. when He came upon fertile soil, those who had been humbled, He gave them grace. best example would probably be the woman caught in adultery. she knew she was a sinner, she didn't need someone to point out her need, she needed a solution, and He gave her grace. that could transform how i think about talking to people about the gospel.

my kids

2005-11-09T21:04:00.000-05:00

I was fixing the dresser in my son Michael's room the other day and I had out the tool box that has all the random screws you save thinking someday you'll need them (everyone has one of these). So I'm digging through it looking for the right screws and I've got all my screwdriver attachments out too and my boys, a 2 and a half year old and a 1 and a quarter year old, are digging through all of it. And I keep telling them to stop and they're not getting that message, especially the younger one. So as I'm getting more frustrated my older one turns to me and says, "Daddy, you have to share with Matthew. Daddy has to share his toys with Matthew." Smart aleck little kids...

a few thoughts on last night...

2005-11-07T13:29:00.000-05:00

Here's hoping someone is out there...

Most times I speak I end up thinking about things I didn't say or things that could have been misinterpreted, so let me start by clearing up a thing or two. When I said religion is a dry list of things to believe and rules to follow, I certainly didn't mean that being a Christian doesn't involve a list of things to believe. I have a list of things I believe to be true. I think, however, that too often in my life my relationship with Christ has devolved into dry religion because it's easier for me to check stuff off my list that to really engage God.

The other thing I wondered about was the whole, "Then Abraham believed...". I wonder if this was the moment that he "became a Christian", or was it when he began to follow God a few chapters earlier. I like the idea that we know when we decided to follow Christ, I just don't think it's that clean and simple for a lot of people. I think a lot of people follow God for a while before they know if they believe or not. I think this is part of the message of the parable of the sower when Christ says the seed started to sprout a plant, that looks like a follower of Christ, but the plant gets snuffed out. Not a very simple thing to understand or label.

Here's what I wish would change about me because of last night. I think that the degree to which I relate to God through my list is the degree to which I make others relate to me through a list. I wish I understood how much my personal relationships are dependent upon me receiving the grace of God daily. And I wish this would help me desire my time with God more instead of feeling guilty because I haven't done enough for Him to warrant Him wanting to spend time with me.

One last thought... the essence of Abraham's relationship with God, and ours, is trust. It's the basis for everything. And it's the same thing that was compromised in chapter 3 at the fall. They didn't trust God, and that's what God requires in order for that relationship to be restored. I was thinking the a lot the other day about the fall... about how the penalty for eating from the tree was death, so Christ's death was required as payment.... about how the violation was of trust, and trust is required to restore the relationship... and about how Adam and Eve and you and I are fundamentally flawed after that decision because knowledge changes everything and about how we really need to become new people and that's what the New Testament promises, that we would be new creations in Him... and how chapter 3 makes the rest of the story make more sense.

Sorry this is so long... I'll shut up now.

nothing really

2005-10-19T15:02:00.000-05:00

that was my first blog ever... and i really feel like i'm talking to myself in front of a bunch of people...don't like that

i think this template looks cool, but does anyone know what the 565 is for and how i can change it

offerings...

2005-10-19T14:54:00.000-05:00

Talked about the idea of offerings at hungry Sunday night, how fractured relationships require some form of sacrifice, whether it be an apology or a gift or a service, to make things right.

The question I asked people to respond to was this:

“Can you remember a time when you hurt somebody or they hurt you so badly that it required either an apology or a gift of some sort to make things right?”

What was the offense?

I hit a girl in the head with a croquet mallot on accident

What was needed to make things right?

I apologized and visited her in the hospital

What was the offense?

Was caught by two of the girls I was dating with another girl at the skate rink

What was needed to make things right?

Got kicked by 2 of the girls with skates and ask for forgiveness from the third

What was the offense?

I shot my roomate with a BB gun. It was an accident.

What was needed to make things right?

I bought him dinner.

All very nice…

Well, if you were there, you heard me try to translate this to Cain and Abel trying to make things right with God by bringing an offering…blah,blah,blah (if you weren’t there, this won’t make much sense)… but I don’t think I adequately described the end of the matter, and the more I think about it, the more it changes me.

I think Abel really got it. Abel really lowered himself before God in an admission that he owed God everything. I think Cain was bringing this offering not in an attempt to lower himself, but to raise himself up in his own eyes, in God’s eyes, and in the eyes of others. I do that all the time. I use my spiritual life to prop myself up, to make me and God and everybody else think I’m ok and I’m acceptable. It’s probably not all that often that I come to God like Abel did and any type of offering or worship that raises me instead of lowering me probably just takes me further from God instead of restoring me to Him.

(This last paragraph doesn't look different on purpose, I just don't know what I'm doing)
And I think Abel did it because he understood that the wages of sin is death. That when God said, “Eat from this tree and you’ll die”, He wasn’t kidding, and He wasn’t punishing out of anger, that’s just the way it had to be, for reasons we can glimpse but only God can understand. And until we come to grips with that, these first 4 chapters, the rest of it won’t make sense.

bobblehead jeff

response to text messages from Sunday, November 16th

the smell of warmth and other random notes...

updated jonathan pics

a follow-up from yesterday

jonathan scot ramsey

he's here!

#4...

greetings!

Off to Israel

some great pictures of the kids

i want to cuss... alot...

First day of school

bummer

one year ago today...

Justice:Movement Beyond Emotion

some books i finished

my kids

for my dad...

Watch This

Matthew

so long, 35

Break out the Brewers!

he's growing up

more postsecret stuff

don't look now...

kind of ticked...

a little heads up

Yes, I was surfing the internet today...

so here's the deal...

a few pics of our new house...

A few random things...

A few thoughts on Ford...

Merry Christmas!

Ongoing Buster saga..

matthew

I'm real jealous...

This could give me nightmares...

10 years of Hope

Random stuff...

Now that I think about it...

Some things stop you in your tracks

Three months ago today...

China, Inc

So we started this church yesterday...

life outside the office

My Blog-iversary

I really want a twinkie...

So I have a cardiologist now...

Another train ride...

where is God when life happens?

Conocophillips Posts $5.19B Profit

wow...

call it summer vacation...

are you rich?

Try This...

Da Vinci blah, blah, blah

My Birthday

I think they like her...

Crash

Why does this bother me so much?

More Abigail Pics

She's Here!!

Jack Bauer to the big screen?

He Is Risen!

Dinner

A question for the fellas...

Fun With Facial Hair (or... A Farewell to My Beard)

A Little Note of Clarification

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

My dream home...

My Trip to the Dentist

More Jack Bauer

The Sex Talk

Jack Bauer is my hero

Some leftovers from Christmas

A Farewell To Buster

Jesus is for losers

Lost and Found

Cool Article