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…Pedro.

Ha. You didn’t really think I was going to tell you who I voted for did you? I can see positives with either candidate winning the election: If McCain wins then we’ll hopefully get 4 years of Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin impressions; and if Obama wins, then you know theres gonna be a biopic starring Will Smith get green-lit immediately (come on, look at those ears, you know you’ve thought the same thing). 

Honestly, I think my vote is pretty irrelevant. Sure its important that we go out and vote our opinion, but do you really think that the authority of our country is left up to a public vote? Whether blue or red wins, its not your vote or mine that matters… its Gods. And his alone. 

Its funny to me that Christians are praying that “their” candidate will win.  Whats that all about. Do you really think that Gods gonna change his mind and say, “you know what, that one guy in Peoria has a great point, maybe I need to rethink this.” We should be praying that Gods will be done. Its that simple. 

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
./Romans 13.1

The only way that our country will get back on its feet is not through a Democratic Savior or a Republican Savior who is going to bring “change,” its through our Savior who will do what he so desires no matter who we think is the better candidate and no matter who we pray is the next President. God is bigger than our next President. Period. 

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t vote, absolutely you should vote, its the American thing to do. Let your voice be heard… its democracy at work (plus after you vote you can go by Starbucks and get a free cup o’ joe). But at the end of the day today, just remember that its not your will that any of us want for America… its Gods. So lets pray that way today, that God would continue to do what God has always done: establish the authority of our world. I think we’ll all be better off for it.

Here we are a month later, after my unofficial blog fast, and obviously I’m feeling a little over-dramatic. This little hiatus started because of a really busy week in which I didn’t miss blogging at all (because of all the busyness that is). The next week I missed it, but again the busyness just got the best of me. Then I realized that if I’m so busy I can’t blog, I can’t even read blogs, then I’m just too busy. 

Clutter. Noise. Chaos. 

Describe it however you want, but my life was just too crazy. I felt paper-thin. Does that make sense? I was spread so thin, that there was little to no concentrated substance in any one part of my life. Everyday was playing catch up.

So I had to make some changes. Regroup. Reprioritize what I’m all about.

So will this site change much? Maybe not… but I’ve changed, so I’d say chances are real good it will.

See ya soon.

I’m back at work today, not really sure how I feel about that yet, but I just got a little excited because I got Rob Bell’s new book “Jesus Wants to Save Christians” in the mail. I can’t wait to read it, as a matter of fact it may skip line a little to get to the top of my book list (its a long list). I have a feeling this book is gonna mess me up, and I’m looking forward to it. Here is a little from the back cover:

“There is a church in our area that recently added an addition to their building which cost more than &20 million. Our local newspaper ran a front-page story not too long ago revealing that one in five people in our city lives in poverty. 

This is a book about those two numbers.”

Wow. This is gonna hurt. I cant wait.

I’ve been reading Pop Goes the Church for about the last month (I’m a slow reader), and let me just start by saying this is a great book. Tim Stevens has put into words what I’ve been feeling about the church for a long time. You should definitely read it, its awesome in pure form baby.

Something jumped off the page that I’ve got to share and ironically it doesn’t have much to do with Pop Culture and the Church. Tim uses an example of how truth can be found anywhere if we are looking for it, and in this case he found truth in a TV show called ‘Shark.’ ‘Shark‘ is about a big time attorney named Sebastian Stark who always wins in the courtroom, but rarely wins at home with his teenage daughter. He’s too busy and he constantly misses opportunities with her. Tim realizes that with 2 teenage daughters of his own he sees this show in a whole new light, through a lens that not everyone sees through. ‘Shark‘ speaks volumes into his life about the importance of his relationship with his daughters during these formative years of their lives. This is what he says,

“Sebastian is a hero at his office - but misses so many opportunities that only come through quantity* time with his daughter.”

I know, I know, the first time you read it you think, “What! thats not right, it’s supposed to be quality time not quantity time.”

Well, notice the little *asterisk*, he put that in there, so I look to the bottom of the page and this is what he says,

“*This isn’t a typo. You may think quality time is more important than quantity time. But you never know when those few minutes of quality time are going to happen. The only way to ensure that you will have good quality time with your kids is by spending large amounts of quantity time with them.”

How true is that? How long have we been living the lie that its all about a few minutes of “quality” time over serious amounts of time. We’ve got it all backwards, especially a lot of us in ministry. How many families are victims to “the ministry.” Kids growing up blaming God because they took a backseat to “the ministry.”

I’ve heard pastors say, “when you’re in ministry, and your busy taking care of God’s people, God will take care of your kids (since you’re never there).”

Dude, if I felt comfortable cussing on my blog, that right there would deserve a ton of colorful wordage. That is the most ridiculous pile of crap I’ve ever heard.

If you can’t or don’t take care of your family, then why would God trust you with his. As a Pastor, my first priority in this world is my wife and kids. PERIOD. End of story. And not in a few minutes a day of “quality” time, but in quantity… as in everyday, face-to-face time.

My promise to my baby girl and my wifey is that no matter what, I will be there with them. It’s that simple.

Your thoughts?

In August every year (well the last 2 years), just after school starts back we have a big weekend we call FamilyLife Weekend. Basically, the idea is to give our families a chance to worship together. So all of our kids services shut down for the weekend, except the wee little guys, and everyone enjoys (key word) church together - as a family. 

It was a blended experience, appealing to both kids and parents, with elements like fun songs with hand motions, a full body puppet running around on stage at times, a big huge crazy game that adults got to participate in and all kinds of other wackyness. We started it off with a simple video setting up the experience by letting all the old “fogeys” know what to expect:

After the kids portion of service the worship band did a short set consisting of ‘Happy Day‘ which turned out great in that environment. Pastor did an illustrated message called ‘Which Seat Are You In’ involving some of our kiddos dressed as adults which was fun. To perfectly end the day the band rocked Lincoln Brewsters ‘Today is the Day‘ and it was amazing. 

This service is an awesome way to bring families together and show them its possible for families to worship together, walk out their faith together and for kids to get to see how their parents react to worship and the word (whether good or bad). Hopefully causing moms and dads to buck up, get real, and assume the positions God has called them to in their homes.

Here is the cue sheet from the weekend if case your interested. 

This is my Creative Chaos.

I’ve been hearing bits and pieces about the Blue Like Jazz movie for awhile now, and it makes me very excited for 2 reasons. 1, I loved the book, probably one of my favorite books of all time. Don Miller is a genius, and he put into words a lot of what I’d been feeling most of my life. 2, because I hate “Christian” movies. Thats right, you read it right, hate. They just suck. And I’m hoping that if anybody can change that, its Don Miller.

I’ve wondered how they would adapt a book of essay’s into a 3-act story, and today I came across the answer and I wanted to share it with you guys. If you loved Blue Like Jazz, you need to read this Q & A about the movie. Miller said,

It’s a movie about coming out of the closet regarding who you are as a person. The character happens to be a Christian and is very ashamed of that, but he’s able to come out of the closet by the end of it. It’s really a film more about a human being than it is about Christianity. Christianity is really just the thing that this human being is dealing with. 

He also says that he’s fallen in love with screenwriting, and he plans to do a lot more, which really excites me. He’s exactly what Hollywood needs. The biggest drawback to the movie that I can see right now is that Steve Taylor will be directing. I’m not so sure about that, but I’m hoping that even with him at the helm, this is gonna be a great movie.

According to this article it looks like we can expect to see it hit theaters sometime during the first half of 2009.

h/t: Wingo