Wow.  Found this over at the Suceed Blog

What an incredibly well done short.  Bravo.

For the next few weeks I’ll be manning the helm of not only this blog, but two (count ‘em) blogs for our winter conference.  I won’t be the only contributor, but I will have a significant amount of input and veto power over everything that appears on them.

The first is a live blog of the conference.  In a way, our winter conference has already started, as students begin to dialogue online about what’s going on and how they can be impacted by God during their time at the Sheraton.  This blog will be the frequently-updated and often-referenced hub of online activity during the conference.  It’s already got two posts!

The second blog I’ll wager has never happened at any conference.  Here’s my one-paragraph vision for it.  I know from personal experience that each student at the conference will be trying to explain what is going on to others.  They will sit across the table from Aunt Gertrude and try to explain what Encounter is, and if they are anything like me, they can go to 11 straight conferences (complete with photos and letters about them) and still have family, friends and supporters who have no real idea about what goes on at this thing.

This parents blog will be a way for parents, ministry partners (our more-correct way of referring to financial and prayerful supporters), and other interested “outsiders” to get a taste of the conference that is contextualized for those not up on all the lingo.  It’ll showcase different aspects of the conference, have stories from the conference, and keep folks updated who want to know what’s going on like right now at the conference.

I’ll still be updating here, but be prepared for lots of links to there.

I followed a link today to www.IBelieve.com sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and was shocked to find this thinly guised signup for the BGEA and Christianity.com mailing lists:

It’s sad, Franklin Graham, that you would be a part of this.

The verse on the “declaration” is that our LIGHT would shine, not our WORDS.  Indignantly declaring that we are Christian (with strong undertones of how we feel that makes us better than the ones “afraid to take a stand.”) will in no way cause the watching world to “glorify (our) Father in heaven.”

Yeah, I’m a Christian.  No, I’m not going to prove it to you by signing up for your mailing list.  And it’s precisely that type of underhandedness that makes “letting my light shine” more difficult.

Proof that LB needed a hair cut and the result after mom started clipping.

This is the latest in a series.  To read the series from the beginning, click here.

Romans 1:18 in combo with Romans 3:23

I’ll give it to Christian radio.  They might have actually played these as the “verse of the day.”  But I’ve never head it.  The first one says that the wrath of God (not exactly a ratings-hog of a concept) is poured out against the unrighteous.  The second verse then clarifies (in the same book, a couple of chapters later) that all of us are unrighteous. (Even and especially religious folks, see Romans 2:17-29, especially verse 23)

Neither positive, upbeat, nor encouraging, as I read it.  God’s got a whooping stick with my name on it.  And yours.

But here’s where not taking the verses out of their context is helpful.  Romans is Paul’s most in-depth systematic treatment of the gospel.  He spends 11 chapters explaining it’s theology, and the remaining 5 explaining how that theology ought to change the way we live.  He nails all of us to the wall in the first three chapters, and then spends the remaining 8 of the first section showing us how Christ satisfies the law, and saves us, from the mass-murderer to the serial rapist to the smug, self-satisfied religious guy (who is worse than both, if you ask me).

Without the bad, discouraging, and condemning verses like Romans 1:18 and 3:23, the gospel makes no sense.  Rescuing someone from a building that isn’t burning down is foolish and annoying.  If you die during that rescue (as Christ did), it adds tragedy to foolishness.  But if a building is burning down, it’s the ultimate display of love to die in the act of saving someone.

These verses show us just how much our spiritual “building” is crumbling in burning embers around us.  And that’s encouraging, no matter how you phrase it.

I am absolutely loving the first of the two Keller books purchased recently.  I don’t know how any(genuinely seeking)one could read this book and remain ambivalent toward Christianity.

More to come on this thought once I finish the book.

On the bright side, I’ve found what I can do with that spare $50,000 I’m planning on coming into.  This car is amazing.  Feel free to turn off/down the sound, as I didn’t listen carefully enough to know if there were any adult words involved.

I started my three new books with Roy Williams’ Hard Work, because (contrary to what the title might have me believe) I knew it would be the quickest read.  And nothing fuels reading like some good momentum.

Tim Crothers (Roy’s help writing the book) does an excellent job of hiding behind what sounds exactly like Roy Williams is speaking, and making it come off as both well written, and something Roy would say. I loved the behind-the-scenes look into coaching that it provided, and I think many people, especially vocational ministers, would profit from the lessons in how to effectively coach young people. If you are reading just for that, skip straight to the chapter called “philosophy.”

However, amidst the great retellings of some of the best moments of his coaching career runs a disturbing thread.  Here is a man literally on the top of his profession.  He’s among only 13 men to have ever won multiple national championships in men’s college basketball.  He has the highest winning percentage among active coaches.  At the time of the writing, he’s the current national champion. Yet it is clear that not even those pinnacles of achievement afford him any respite from the nagging pursuit of being the best.

As much as a fan as I am of UNC ball, it pains me that I get the sense Coach Williams is chasing wind.  (Ecclesiastes 2:11) What a shame to have worked so hard, done so well, and to have ended up with nothing of eternal significance.

Let me be clear, I am not saying that his pursuit of being the best is necessarily wrong  (I don’t know the man or his heart personally).  It is by no means wrong to pursue excellence.  But if that pursuit is done to validate me as a person, to make me “somebody,” I’ve missed it.  Only in Christ am I validated.  And only by my validation in Christ can I then rightly, actually, pursue excellence.

If a salesman has no assurance of where his next meal is coming from, it changes the motivation for selling. He’s selling that product to stay afloat!  If, on the other hand, he has a million dollars in the bank, he can sell for the love of the the product he is pushing. He’s been validated already.

My prayer is that Coach Williams (and I) would run to Christ, the only one who can validate us.  Christ is the one who has really done the “hard work.”

Then, run from there to Cameron Indoor Stadium and keep the streak alive against Dook.

What an encouraging video by Matt Chandler, pastor of the Village church in Texas.

Got three books in the mail today.  Two by Tim Keller, one by Roy Williams; because if your going to be religious about something, the Gospel and UNC Basketball are pretty good choices.

I’ve heard some people say that they are worried about their kids, when they are told about the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and Jesus, that they might learn two of the three are a lie and assume the third is also.

That’s pretty silly, unless during family devotions you are praying to the Easter Bunny. Kids can tell the difference between something you devote your life to and something you talk about once a year.

If they believe Jesus is on the same level of relevance in your life as Santa Claus, it’s because you’ve lived like it.

We’re probably not going to do Santa with our kids.

When I say that, immediately there are those who jump up to tell us how it’s just innocent fun to tell the stories of Santa.  (Funny how it’s not OK for me to tell others not to do Santa but it’s perfectly acceptable for others to tell me to do the opposite…)

They also often say something to the effect of “we were raised believing in Santa, and we turned out all right!”  And, to a great extent that may be true.  But George Burns smoked until he was 100 years old, and that doesn’t make smoking healthy.  I don’t make my parenting decisions (or really any other decisions) based solely on anecdotal evidence.

Here is the main reason we are leaning the way we are:

On a foundational level the story of Santa and the story of Jesus are exact opposites.  Santa gives based on how good you are.  Jesus gives based on how much you admit your inability to be good.  And that might be confusing to my child.

We ruin the concept of gifts by making them meritorious. I don’t give him gifts based on “you better not cry, you better not pout” because if I did I’d never give him anything.  Pouting is an every other breath activity at some points in his day.

The Bible is pretty clear about the naughty-nice list.  There’s only one name on the nice list, and it’s Jesus.

All of that to say we are not anti-Santa.  We’ve still got him up as a decoration.  We’ll tell our kids the story of Santa.  But we won’t tell it likes it’s true.  As should be apparent from my rant about the Halloween protesters, I am not about Christians making a stink about holidays that are often our only common ground with our non-believing neighbors.

Forgot to post this from the fishing trip the other day. Such an amazing sight.

The amazing sunset over Interstate 40.