Thanksgiving Service

Today was a special service at our church. Special in the sense that our church realizes the realities of travel and holidays so all we did today was one church service. Normally it's two but today it was one and there was no Sunday School for anybody. Before Roger preached he asked if anyone wanted to share with the church what they were thankful for this year. Like you would around the dinner table with your family. Why? We are a family. It was great to hear the stories of people who were loved by the church in various ways over this past year. One person even said they were thankful that I was there.

But before he said that, I had already been crying. As I thought over this past year and where we were a year ago and where we are today, I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by God's faithfulness to bring us here. And as I merely thought about being thankful for being at my church I began to cry.

I remember hearing Mike Yaconelli talk about as you get older you discover you cry over simple stuff like thinking about God's love. I use to make fun of that idea and laughed. Now I think I'm becoming that guy who cries over simple stuff at random times. I've cried more this past year than perhaps any 5 yr period in my life

I realized too while sitting there today how much I've missed the students and my church family over this past two weeks. The Atlanta convention was from the 14-19th, went into the office on the 20th and then holidays were Wed and Thur with Fri being the normal day off. So I've been out of the loop and it was a great re-entry for me into work life and church life to be at church this morning and reflect on what I was thankful for.

Links to Hit

Don't Chase Someone Else's Definition of Success by Bill Allison

Hit the link and listen to the MP3.

More movies about Jesus based on any source *except* the best one by Jeffrey Overstreet


Of course, if Hollywood decided to make a $20m action film about “the lost years” of Mohammed, I suspect there would be bombings and slayings somewhere in the world as a result. At the same time, the American media would be noisy with declarations that such a project was a show of “intolerance” and disrespect to Muslims. But this is Christianity, so… hey, let’s celebrate yet another fiction that’s bound to offend the believers!

advice to a college kid, and you by McNair C. Wilson

I will give this sort of advice to my daughters and I would have the discussion of the value of this with my students and their parents but in many churches if you dared suggest anything but college as the next step for high school students you’d be in trouble. Just because you’d be in trouble doesn’t mean you’re wrong, it just means you don’t understand the rules of where you are playing.

Your dose of Christian History – Happy(?) Advent

Jesus Junk Nomination

Last year’s consensus winner of the Jesus Junk of the National Youth Worker Convention was The Left Behind Video Game. Who can forget that classic mix of Christian fiction and early 90’s video game?

I hereby nominate the 2007 Winner of the Jesus Junk of the National Youth Worker Convention to be The Gospel Shoe. That’s right, now you can wear your crocs and have the wordless book always available around your ankles. I love the wordless book and I am almost always wearing crocs but I don't think they go well together. If you like them together, buy them for your entire youth group now and watch revival fall!

Celebrity Sighting

While walking through the Dallas airport this morning I had a celebrity sighting.

Celebrity in the WWE world anyways. I haven’t watched wrestling in about 3-4 years but some students in CT loved it and I’d go to their house and watch pay per view events, plus once his dad couldn’t go once, so I took him to Madison Square Garden see the spectacle. I couldn’t help but notice a monster of a man walking towards me but when I saw the face and the soul patch I knew it was Batista.

If only I had been wearing a Christian t-shirt, I could have witnessed to him. Frankly, that’s the only way I would have, he looked intense just walking towards his flight. Perpetual roid rage?