Next post... living simply

The call to "Live Simply" is one of the distinctive beliefs of our church and our denomination. It's been a topic of discussion in our family recently. I'll talk more about this in my next post.

Past and Present at The Meeting House

This is the series we just finished up. 5 weeks of talking about sex from a Biblical perspective. VERY honest, open, and to the point. Did people ever love it! The branding was alot of fun too. A 16 ft piece across the stage with the word "sex" - that'll get your attention when you walk in. Doing my own remix of Salt-n-Peppa's "Let's Talk about Sex", then mixing in a little Barry White... that was cool. The podcast has gone THROUGH THE ROOF in popularity - #1 in Religion & Spirituality in all North America. So much that it completely crashed our host server. We've had to move it to accomodate the demand.



Starting this Sunday, a new series called "From Synagogue to Sanctuary". This is the third bit in a group of series about the first couple hundred years of Christianity. This one looks at how we got from Judaism (Jesus being a Rabbi) to a completely unJewish (and in many cases, anti-Jewish) movement. The branding for this one has been alot of fun, too.

An attempt at a come-back

Righto - so I keep promising that I'll make a comeback to my blog... and then I don't do it. It seems like it's been so long (wait... it HAS been so long) that I don't know where to start again.

I wanted to daily keep at this, then for some stupid reason I couldn't log on for weeks. Now that I can, where to start?

Okay - let's start with what's on my mind... discipline. Why am I so undisciplined? Like in every area of my life? (Here I go being honest... sigh.)

There's lots of things I *want* to do. I *want* to work out at the gym. I *want* to eat healthier. I *want* to get up early every morning and have some time to just sit, think, read my bible, drink some coffee, give myself a chance to be awake and alert when my girls get up. I *want* to spend time regularly praying with and for my wife. I *want* to be wiser with my money. Okay - that's a good laundry list of wants. Not such a good list of accomplishments.

I keep coming back to it regularly... I need to be accountable. There's this great little catch-phrase in the Christian subculture, that every man needs a "Paul, a Silas, and a Timothy"...

Paul - someone older and wiser in the faith - to build into me.
Silas - a comrade. Someone at about the same place in the journey.
Timothy - a younger brother in faith - someone to pour into.

Yeah... I'm 0 for 3 on this one right now.

So I'm really beating myself up for a comeback, eh? Funny thing - I'm not feeling particularly down. Just being honest. I think about this stuff regularly.

If I had that Paul and that Silas to walk with me, I'd have someone to stay accountible to. Someone to ask me how I'm doing - that knows my struggles. I've tried to find that person. I actually think I know who that "Paul" should be. We started, but really had a tough time making our schedules jive. I guess it's time to call him again and start over. Okay - someone out there in the blog world - keep me accountible on that one. You can be anonymous. Just ask me in a week if I've called my "Paul".

I think that would help me get started on (no wait - the problem isn't starting - it's sticking with) working at those personal disciplines.

Wow - nice comeback, eh?

Hmmm - maybe it's time to stop this post and do a couple others about things that are actually going on.

I'm back!

OK - for the millions of people who have been daily checking my blog, looking for the latest scoop on our lives... I've been unable to log into my blog for nearly a month. But now I can! So stay tuned for more exciting adventures! :)

And already I've failed

So my plan was to blog every day or two, and I started out strong. But then... sigh... I quickly faded off.

Okay, so I do have an excuse. Everyone in the family has been sick. Not just a little annoying type of cold, but the kind of cold you get once every 5 years that just knocks the life outta ya.

I was at work on Tuesday this week. Yup - that's it. Tuesday. Been home since... mainly in bed. So at least I have that excuse. And I haven't been reading in that time. Heck - I haven't been THINKING during that time. I just kinda turned the brain off and wallowed in sickness.

Now Taly and Arja have it. Kanah was over it early this week.

I'm feeling like I may be on the upswing. So hopefully I'll get back into the swing on this blog thing. Until then, I just had to go on record excusing myself for the past week of inactivity.

More soon... I hope. And hopefully it will be about stuff that actually matters.

Grace Interrupting Karma

Bono, on the song "Grace", final song on "All That You Can't Leave Behind"...

"The universe operates by Karma, we all know that. For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. There is some atonement built in: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Then enters Grace and turns that upside down. I love it. I'm not talking about people being graceful in their actions but just covering over the cracks. Christ's ministry really was a lot to do with pointing out how everybody is a screw-up in some shape or form, there's no way around it. But then He was to say, 'Well, I am going to deal with those things for you. I will take on Myself all the consequences of sin." Even if you're not religious I think you'd accept that there are consequences to all the mistakes we make. And so Grace enters the picture to say, 'I'll take the blame, I'll carry your cross.' It is a powerful idea. Grace interrupting Karma."

Thanks Bono. I'm not so sure about the idea of "Christ pointing out how everybody is a screw-up in some shape or form". I think that is a bit of a stretch. Sure, he did that often when confronting the "religious right" of the day, but I wouldn't suggest that was a main thrust of his purpose.

I've never thought of putting the two concepts of Grace vs. Karma together like that. An interesting angle to discuss with a Buddhist. (Since I have so many of those conversations!) I did once know a girl who labelled herself a "Buddhist Christian"... not sure what that meant.

Comments wanted

Hey folks,

This may be my place to hash out my thoughts... my online journal. But it's certainly supposed to be interactive. So please feel encouraged to comment, debate, etc. It's all good. (And if I don't like what you say, I can always delete your comment! LOL!)