It’s that time of year again where non-sports fans, or mild sports fans, take a shot at looking like sports geniuses. If you want to join up in the my 3rd Annual Tournament Pick em, click here. [It’s not like I can say this belongs to the church!]
Is there a prize? Well, there is pride. Group ID #: 3914 Password: romeo
The old saying is that March comes in like a Lion and leaves like a Lamb. If that is so, I have a couple of things I’d like to do in March. We’ll see how it goes.
2. Put away the snow stuff I want to put all that crap away, get the lawn mower prepped, and start thinking about landscaping.
3. Open the windows to let in fresh air It’s not that our house isn’t clean, it’s that at this point the air is feeling winterish.
Let’s see how many of these goals get accomplished. We aren’t off to a good start with freezing rain today. But next week is looking like we may see some 40s.
Kristen and I aren’t really following any one television program, in fact we haven’t followed much for a long time. But we do follow The Amazing Race. We were very happy to catch the first episode of the new season last night. My early money is on the hippy guy couple.
As I get ready to pony up a few dollars for my annual golf membership at Romeo Golf Club, I’ve really had to evaluate what I get out of it. For those who don’t know, during the golf season (April-October) I get up at the crack of dawn and play 9 holes of golf before work. On my days off I tend to stretch that to 18 holes, but for the most part I play 9 holes and still make it home in time for breakfast before work.
Sure, I get excersize out of the deal. Sure, I feel better having played 9 holes than I do not playing 9 holes before my day at the office. Sure, I could get better excersize or raise my heart beat a little more. Sure, I could find a cheaper thing to do with my mornings. Sure, I could find something that wasn’t so controversial to do.
But I like it. It’s more than just golf you know. It’s the time to myself. When you play the same course over and over again you find that you don’t really think about the course too much. I know the holes, I know the terrain, I know the breaks, I know the heighth of trees and the type of shot I have to hit. So it becomes a bit of a self-reflective time. There is something very powerful and spiritual to my time alone on the links. I know that each time I play I will score within a certain range and I will face certain problem areas. But I often get so caught up with my golf in the shear magnitude of the life-illustration. Golf looks simple, but it isn’t. We try to do things the easiest and best way, but we often mess up. We know that discipline will get us better results, but we fail to do what it takes. We know that life isn’t about having the best equipment. It never ends.
Along those same lines, I ran into this post about walking on Marko’s blog.
This morning at my zero hour Bible Study we were looking at Ephesians 4:1-16. There are two things that jump off the page at me in relationship to life as a believer.
1. Paul calls us to live a life worthy of chains. Say what? Paul was probably rarely in trouble before he came to Christ. But after his encounter with Jesus on his way to Damascus, his life was a wreck. But it all comes down to this. When you are chained up for what you do (look at v. 11-13 to know what to do) than you know that we are all equal in position in Christ’s church. If Paul, one of the greatest Christians in history, was chained to a wall… we are all the same.
2. Growing up comes through knowing who you are and service. Louie Giglio paraphrases Jesus by saying our goal in serving Jesus is to make ourselves look smaller so Christ’s name will be greater. The smaller we make ourselves, the greater we will serve.
Paul says that when we do this, we won’t be infants in Christ. What do infants do? Infants are more worried about "big me" than they are about "making Jesus’ name greater." Infants are easily tricked by people who talk fast and present crafty messages. I used the example of the prosperity gospel teachers. Just because they have a nice smile and look like nice people doesn’t mean that what they say is true. In fact, the entire prosperity gospel idea that "Prosperity is my birthright as a child of the King of kings" is antithetical to the entire new testement narrative. Did Jesus or any of his disciples die rich? Perhaps this was because they didn’t have enough faith, right?
But when you are an infant in your faith and walk with the Lord these things seem like a good idea. You have a hard time looking past what you want to see what you will gain. Paul didn’t write, "To get rich is gain, to die is passing on wealth" did he? Quite the opposite.
My friend Derek has posted a great wrap-up on the Turino Winter Olympics. As he points out, this was a tough games to get drawn into… but there were some great moments. There were heros and zeros.
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Athletes crash and fall. Some spectacularly, some on the verge of glory, some because of the elements. Like the old ABC montage said, the agony of defeat is part of the competition. In a strange and perverse way, this is why they are there. They are there to pick themselves up, and in the tradition of athletes before them and as will be followed by those who come after them, they pick themselves up and FINISH. [Read the rest]
After last weeks running around (I haven’t had a meal home in a week) I will be home or nearly home for the next month. Lord willing, our next significant trip is our vacation at the end of March to Florida. It feels good to know that.
For anyone in and around youth ministry very long, you know it has it’s cycles. There are cycles when everything is great and there are times when everything is bad. There are times of YES and their are times of NO. There are times of excitement and their are times of blah.
So where am I now?
What is cool to me right now is the amount of new faces we’re seeing. I am not arrogant enough to think it has anything to do with me, but there are some people inviting new students… just as there are regular students who are fading out. So, it’s just interesting how it works as time ticks along.
In the morning we’re going to be driving deeply into God’s Word as we study together Romans 6. Looking forward to this.
This weekend is our "Leadership Summit" for the church. This is a great time to get away with both current and emerging leaders at Romeo and focus on our relationships with one another as well as working through some group and work goals. So, we’re off to Birch Run and will be back Saturday night.