Prayer for the day…

“O God, because without You we are not able to please You,

mercifully grant that Your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule my heart;

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,

One God, now and forever.

- Amen”

From The Divine Hours

 

An 8-year old’s letter to a friend…

My 8-year-old son wrote this letter to a friend of his from school.  We’ll be moving soon and he probably won’t see this friend again, so I thought this letter was so sweet.

Dear Zachary,

My mom recorded some Bakugan episdes.  One of them were Drago’s on fire.  Zachary, I want to ask you if your mom would be fine if you or me call each other.  I sure liked having you as my friend.

Your friend,

Brendan

I’m really proud that he recognized the value of a good friendship.  How often do we forget how important good friends are and how rare is it when we tell them we enjoy our friendship?  Who would be blessed if you sent them a note like this?  Got them in mind?  Then go, right now, and write the letter.  You’ll both be glad you did.

 

A prayer for our Church…

I posted this a year or two ago and ran across it tonight.  It was such a powerful prayer for me, I thought I’d dig it out and post it again.  

This is from John Piper’s book, “Taste and See” and is called “A Prayer for Our Church”. I’d love to hear your thoughts…

A Prayer for our Church

Oh, Lord, by the truth of Your Word, and the power of your Spirit and the ministry of your body, build men and women at (name of your church here)…

Who don’t love the world more than God,

who don’t care if they make much money,

who don’t care if they own a house,

who don’t care if they have a new car or two cars,

who don’t need recent styles, 

who don’t care if they get famous,

who don’t miss steak or fancy fare,

who don’t expect that life should be comfortable and easy,

who don’t feed their minds on TV each night, 

who don’t measure truth with their finger in the wind,

who don’t get paralyzed by others’ disapproval,

who don’t return evil for evil,

who don’t hold grudges,

who don’t gossip,

who don’t twist the truth,

who don’t brag or boast,

who don’t whine or use body language to get pity,

who don’t criticize more than praise,

who don’t hang out in cliques,

who don’t eat too much or exercise too little;

BUT

who are ablaze for God,

who are utterly God-besotted,

who are filled with the Holy Spirit,

who strive to know the height and depth of Christ’s love,

who are crucified to the world and dad to sin,

who are purified by the Word and addicted to righteousness,

who are mighty in memorizing and using the Scriptures,

who keep the Lord’s Day holy and refreshing,

who are broken by the consciousness of sin,

who are thrilled by the wonder of free grace,

who are stunned into humble silence by the riches of God’s glory,

who are persevering constantly in prayer,

who are ruthless in self-denial,

who are fearless in public witness to Christ’s lordship,

who are able to unmask error and blow away doctrinal haze,

who are tough in standing for the truth,

who are tender in touching hurting people,

who are passionate about reaching the peoples who have no church,

who are pro-life for the sake of babies and moms and dads and the glory of God,

who are keepers of all their promises, including marriage vows,

who are content with what they have and trusting the promises of God,

who are patient and kind and meek when life is hard.

 

I want to be taken seriously…

I’m in my 30′s.  I want to be taken seriously.  I want to have an impact.  So, I’ve thought long and hard about what it takes to be taken seriously.  Here were some ideas I had…

• Get an education.  Check. I have a BA and am about to have my Master’s degree this summer and will finish a second Master’s next summer.  No one thinks that’s cool anymore, so that won’t get me taken seriously.
• Read a ton of books.  Check.  I read like it’s going out of style.  That MIGHT get me taken seriously.
• Get an amazing car.  I love my 2003 Altima, but to really be taken seriously, I need a serious car.  40k worth would be the best.  Busted… I don’t have that kind of money.
• Hair plugs.  I mean, who wouldn’t want that if they were losing “a little bit off the top.”  Again, busted… too expensive.
• Write a world-changing book.  Now that would be awesome!  But I can’t even keep up with all the books I want to get read, much less write one at this stage in my life.

So, I needed a surefire method.  Something that would get me taken seriously.  Something prestigious.  Something uh MAZE ing!!  And we all know what that is…

Yes, that’s right folks…

Yes, you know it.

It’s…   it’s…

a mustache!!

Yes, I know this may be the scariest thing you’ve ever seen.

No, it’s not permanent.

I walked out of the bathroom and when my wife saw me she threw up in the back of her mouth.  Just a little bit.  She quickly let me know that if I ever wanted to participate in marital activities again it would be shaved off.

I gotta go shave right now.

What do you think?

 

Random Thoughts…

I’ve been in sunny Chicagoland for a week now.  Sitting at Panera Bread this morning reflecting and getting my mind going (that mocha latte helps!).  A few things on my mind this morning:

• I miss my family like CRAZY!  A week away from the fam is tough.  We have so much fun just hanging out together so it’s hard when they aren’t here.  BUT- I’m headed back to Texas in the morn!
• We have a couple of leads on our house (nibbles)- would you pray with us that it sells very soon?
• This weekend was an awesome weekend at The Orchard!  The energy was great (especially at the Saturday night service!).  It’s been great to meet new people and begin engaging a bit.  Some big things in store here and I’m really blessed to be a part!
• Saw Paul Blart: Mall Cop with Ben & Anna Hammond last night night.  First comment:  Ben & Anna lead our student ministry at The Orchard and are just great to hang out with.  They shared Twizzlers with me  Second, I liked the movie!
• Read today that Obama uses a Mac!
• Listened to some stuff by Andy Stanley last night on systems.  I love systems and he is just amazing when it comes to thinking about systems.  I’m glad I got to meet him this last year!
• Got to sit in on a meeting about some super secret wicked awesome things coming up this fall.  More on that later.  I’m so blessed at the opportunities to meet new people and share ideas that God is allowing me to have right now!

Well as they say at the end of Looney Tunes, that’s all, folks! (you youngun’s are trying to figure out if Looney Tunes has something to do with iTunes

 

Anne Jackson is giving away $6100!

Anne Jackson is giving away $6100 worth of bible software.  This is a GREAT deal!  To enter, go to this link and post a comment on her post with your favorite bible passage.  Winner will be chosen randomly.  This is a great opportunity, so hop on it!

Would this be called gambling?  :)

 

Want the “best job in the world?”

Position: Island caretaker

Duties: Lazing around Australia’s Great Barrier Reef for six months

Salary: $105,000

Yes, this is for real!  The Australian Tourism Department is offering this job posting.  I read about it this morning.  If you’re looking for something interesting to do making a decent chunk of change, this may be it!  Here are some of the rough parts of the job:

• Must talk to media from time to time about what they are doing
• Must blog regularly about their experiences as well as photo diaries
• will be expected to “stroll the white sands, soak up the sun, snorkel the reef, maybe clean the pool.”  ROUGH!
• stay rent-free in a multimillion-dollar three-bedroom beach home complete with pool and golf cart
• Must be able to read and write in English

Yes, I know it sounds dreadful!  You can read all about this here.  Let me know if you do and you need a buddy to come visit you on the island!!

 

Confession…

I have a confession to make…

the responsibility of being a parent scares the HECK out of me!

You all know the Proverb that says “train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old and he will not depart from it…”   Have you ever had the thought… “what if I train them in the WRONG things????”

I’m nearly 8 years into this thing called parenting (I know that’s not that much but it’s a lot for me) and I realize every day that I know jack squat.  I’ve read parenting books, attended a parenting class, etc.  I feel like I’m at square one.

Here’s the good news:  last year my son made a commitment to become a follower of Jesus.  At that point I became simply his guardian and guide.  The truth is, he has the Holy Spirit living inside him, guiding him.  Does that mean he’ll always make the right decisions?  No, do you and I?  But it means God is looking out for him, and I count it pure joy to be Brendan and Brayden’s daddy.  Best blessing of my life.

It’s scary.  It’s nervewracking.  I want them to grow up with the right values, to love others and God above themselves.  To love serving others more than getting cool gifts at Christmas.  To love their wives as Christ loved the Church.  Huge responsibility, being their dad… scary!  I don’t want to realize 10 years from now I made some serious mistakes… a scary scary journey…

But, the greatest journey in the world!

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

 

Online communication vs. face-to-face

I nearly went to grad school for Communication stuff.  I had it all planned out until God intervened and changed my plans  I had an idea of the research project I wanted to do for my Master’s… essentially it would have studied how online communication has affected the way we communicate in person.  I definitely think it has and still would love some solid research on this.  I think it makes us 

• expect answers quicker
• want information NOW
• use different language than we did several years ago
• get deep faster in person because often we have gone deeper in our online communication so we can dive right in when we are communicating in person

Now, I’m not advocating that we begin saying things like LOL and ROFLOL and BRB and etc in actual conversation.  I’m just curious for your thoughts- how has online communication affected 1. the way you communicate with people in person and 2. your relationships with people you communicate both online and in person with? 

Tell your friends and link to this post, I’d love to hear your response!

 

What is a hymn?

I know there is the age-old controversy in some churches between “hymns” and “choruses”.  I’m working at sbux this morning and my friend Michael walked in and we began chatting about this.  He asked the question: “Aren’t some of worship leader x’s songs hymns?”  We began discussing the definition of a hymn.  Here’s what we think most people mean by the word “hymn” in the context of this argument:

Hymn: (average person definition) A churchy song written by a person at least 150 years ago that says some things about God, His people, etc, and sounds religious.  Often sounds King James-ish and uses words that no one is really sure of the definition of.

Chorus: (average person definition) A modern song by rebellious punks who only care about being rock stars.  Often have only 7 words that they repeat 11 times (i.e., 7/11 music)  No theological substance.  Michael says he’s heard some people call them “7/11 diddy’s” (not to be confused with a song by P-Diddy you  might heart at a 7/11).

SO- naturally, being the geek that I am, I went to the online dictionary to look up the definition of a hymn, and here’s what it says:

“A song or ode in praise or honor of God, a deity, or a nation.”

So think of all the contemporary worship leaders out there- Crowder, Hall, Tomlin, Fee, etc.  Look at the lyrics of the songs they are writing/singing.  Do they look like they fit the bill of “a song or ode in praise or honor of God, a deity, or a nation.”?  I’d say more than likely, yes.

Debate solved.