A Special Thank You

As most of you are aware, we recently celebrated Thanksgiving. This is the time of the year where we are legally obligated to be thankful (okay, that was a joke...sort of.) Anyway, I have a special thank you that I wanted to share with all of you.

There is a blog that I read (and you should too) called Pastoralized.com. It is a great blog that is written to help pastors become more organized and efficient. The other day I emailed the author, Eric McKiddie, to ask if he would look at my resume packet that I am submitting to churches. I am very excited to say that he emailed me back and agreed to take a look at my information.

So, in the spirit of the season, I would like to offer a sincere thank you to Pastor Eric for his willingness to help me out. I have contacted other pastors (ones that I know) for help and have not even received a reply. I think it is great that someone I don't know would be willing to offer his time to help me out.

Thank you, Pastor Eric. I really appreciate your assistance.

Running the Race

On Saturday, November 19, I ran in my second 5K and first cross country race. I won't lie: it was extremely brutal. It was very cold and the ground was frozen, but as it warmed up, it began to get quite muddy and a bit slick. I love to run, but I guess I wasn't quite as prepared as I should have been.

At the race was one of the families that I have had the privilege to get to know this year at my school. They are a wonderful family and I am truly blessed to have them in my life this year. The family is made up of some incredible runners. I like to talk trash with them, but even the little one is an incredible athlete.

They finished the race well ahead of me. Totally destroyed me. But here is the best part: As I was coming around the final corner, one of the boys was standing there waiting for me. As I got closer to the finish, the rest of the family was standing there, cheering for me and encouraging me to continue running.

Suddenly, I had a better understanding of Paul's message in Hebrews 12:1. We are to continue pursuing our Christian walk and love of Christ because there is a huge group of people who have gone before us, cheering us on.

Charles Spurgeon is cheering for me.
Peter is cheering for me.
Jim Elliott is cheering for me.
John Calvin is cheering for me.
Jesus Christ is cheering for me.

As one of the kids was yelling at me, "Keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing..."

Lord, Make Us Dangerous

I think that everyone loves a little bit of danger. That is why we watch exciting movies and cheer for the hero to rescue the girl, as long as he blows up half of the neighborhood along the way. We love danger...as long as it isn't real. We don't want danger in real life. Vanilla coffee, vanilla yogurt, vanilla life.

This is especially true in church. We talk a big game about wanting to change the world and see God do big things, but then the danger of the situation is discussed and that idea is immediately squelched. It is the reason why we can get more men to come out to play basketball on a Tuesday night, but we can only get 10 people to come out to help feed men at the Rescue Mission. The Rescue Mission is dangerous, so no thank you.

Here is a quote that I found on another blog. It is is from Jim Elliott, a missionary who knew danger. He knew it so well, it cost him his life.

We are so utterly ordinary, so commonplace, while we profess to know a Power the twentieth century does not reckon with. But we are "harmless," and therefore unharmed. We are spiritual pacifists, non-militants, conscientious objectors in this battle-to-the-death with principalities and powers in high places. Meekness must be had for contact with men, but brash, outspoken boldness is required to take part in the comradeship of the Cross. We are "sideliners" - coaching and criticizing the real wrestlers while content to sit by and leave the enemies of God unchallenged. The world cannot hate us, we are too much like its own. Oh, that god would make use dangerous.

(HT: Tim Challies)

Sermon - Knowing the Right Things about Jesus, Part 3

Here is the third and final part of my sermon from January 16, 2011.

Sermon - Knowing the Right Things about Jesus, Part 2

Here is the second part of my sermon from January 16, 2011.

I Love My Kindle Fire

As some of you may know, I received my Kindle Fire delivery yesterday. It is, quite possibly, the coolest thing I've ever seen (well, since my iPod Touch). The Kindle Fire is a 7 inch tablet computer that offers reading, video, and various apps, all of which can be downloaded from Amazon.com.

It is not my intention for this to sound like a review for the product, but I did want everyone to know how much I like this item. I am a huge reader and I enjoy learning new things. I love the ability to have multiple translations of the Scripture with me and I enjoy having the (few) commentaries in my library with me. The Kindle Fire lets me have my books with me just about all the time. Another great feature is the ability to read the blogs I enjoy and access the internet when I need to look stuff up.

I actually taught my lesson from John 6 last evening using the Kindle Fire. It was not quite as smooth as I would have liked, but I think with enough practice, I will get better at making the transitions. I am also going to see how PDFs look on the Kindle Fire and see about putting future sermon notes on it.

The only downside is that the screen is a bit difficult to read in the sunlight. I keep getting seeing my reflection and not the words. It's a small thing, but hopefully it won't be that big of a deal.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to exploring all of the ministry applications for the Kindle Fire.

Sermon - Knowing the Right Things about Jesus, Part 1

Here is the first part of a sermon that I preached at First Baptist Church Inwood on January 16, 2011. The text is from 1 John 1.