Not cute: Rant of the day. It's not cute to wear your pajama pants out in public. It's ugly. It means you just woke up and you're too lazy to put on clothes. Just say no to pajam pants.

Lighter note: On a less ranting note.

Asteroid: Another news report came out about an asteroid that might be striking earth. This 22 million ton asteroid was first thought to be potentially striking earth in the year 2029, turns out we're safe with that one. But unfortunately it's also going to come close in 2036. Mayhem insues.

But to tell you the truth I'm not sure what we're all worried about. Afterall who hasn't seen the movie. I was just watching it the other night. It's really simple really. What we do is get an oil rigging crew from somewhere on an oil rig in the ocean somewhere. See they'll be really good at digging holes because they do it for a living. And everyone knows that putting holes in asteroids is the first step in eliminating them!

Then we just have to teach them to go into space, they'll drill a hole into the asteroid and then will blow up a nuclear bomb deep inside the asteriod. Problem solved. It will be helpful to have several main characters on this mission. We'll need a strong leader type guy, sort of like Bruce Willis. We'll also need a hotshot young kid that knows it all, Ben Affleck is a go guy for this role. It adds drama if the hotshot kid is in love with the leader guy's daughter. Then we need some comic relief from someone like Owen Wilson and viola' problem solved. I'm not sure what we're all so worried about.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,313561,00.html

Happiness is:
Nathan stealing all the baby Jesus' from the Nativities in our house. He's got a little baby Jesus collection going...somewhere.
Nathan's rendition of Jingle Bells.
Listening to Third Day's Christmas album
Making up alternate lyrics to secular Christmas songs
People in your church emailing you and saying. I'd like to volunteer for ______________, when can I start?


Legos: This Christmas my messages will be focusing on the incarnation- God become man. How orginal? I know but really its such an amazing act of God I can't wait to bring a message on it.

Running: Today I ran a 5k- for my American friends that's 3.1 miles. I finished in 28.43. I thought I was going to die at points but I ran the whole thing and I finished strong. I can't wait to do it again and start shaving my time, eventually down to the low 20's.

From the mouths of pastors
Got this email from a friend of mine:

i spoke at a community YMCA Thanksgiving praise breakfast this moring at 8 am. two things i learned

1. Decline offers to preach at 8 am in the future... this became apparent when i walked into the room everyone focused on my hair standing 10 ft tall
2. dont set up the pulpit next to the only pentacostals in the place.

Reading Material: Coming out of Food Lion this morning to feed my new pear addiction (see below) I was approached by a older woman. At first my thought was that I was about to be told about the good news of Jesus Christ. It would be about the 53rd time I've prayed to receive Christ but hey it gives the one brave enough to share Jesus with me the confidence to do it again. It's a little disappointing for them when they ask me to come to church with them and I tell them I can't because I have to deliver the message at my church. But that's what I thought I was getting into this morning.

As she walked up to me she was holding two paper magazines (is that redundant?). I caught the name of one just as she started to hand them to me and say "I just want to give these to you". I realized they were Jehovah's witness propaganda and so I was face with a split second decision. Do I- tell her I'm a pastor and have her leave me alone? A thought came to me and I took the magazines, thank her for them and she was on her way. My strategy. I can always throw them away. Maybe they were her last magazines?

What do you think?



Pears: So I definately have a new addiciton in the way of apples and pears. It was bananas for a long while but now it's pears. I'm a pear advocate...try one today!

Rally: Rally the troops and fire up your grandma's computer. We're in the top 50. That means we have till the 14th of December to see how high we can get our question. Currently we are 36th. I have hopes, I have dreams, we can do it.

So vote!

Sorrow: When I'm not voting for my question at the Mars Hill vote-a-thon I've been getting lots done lately. One of my renewed passions is preparing my messages for Sunday. As a compliment ot my messages in 1 Corinthians I'm reading 2 Corinthians for my personal growth. I continued to be blown away by the words of Paul.

2 Corinthians 7 starting at verse 8. My paraphrase.

At first I regretted that I heard my letter caused you sorrow but now I'm happy. You were made sorry and your sorrow led to repentance. Godly sorry brings repentance but worldly sorry brings death. This godly sorry has produced in you; earnestness, eagerness to clear yourselves, indignation, alarm, longing, concern and readiness to see justice done.

Could have been me: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/31/water.murder.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

See this could have been me the other day.

Challenge: We are a powerful lot it seems. We've gotten the question to number 45 and gotten a few comments as well. All in good fun but if you read the last comment it seems we've been challenged to a cage match and since I know some of the people that have been voting I'd say that's a poor decision on their part.

But dog on it it's the little things in life that make me laugh and this is one of them.

Voting?: Are you voting? Are you getting your friends to vote? Perhaps top 9 is a little ambitious but we can at least shoot for honorable mention. How bout top 50? Vote!

Verse: God has been working in my heart lately about the foolishness of the gospel as said in 1 Corinthians. So often in telling others about Christ and in my messages I'm tempted to show people the road, tell them the way there, let them know the perks and encourage them to start the journey. Basically when I tell people about Christ I tell them about how it's worth it, it might not be easy but it's worth it. I still see value in that but I want to be careful to not water down the gopsel in the process.

I was cut to the heart this morning with this verse:

2 Corinthians 2:15-16 For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?

Who wants to be the smell of death?

Ok friends I've got a quest for us all. Mark Driscoll is the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle not to be confused with Mars Hill that Rob Bell is the pastor of. Mark is a pretty controversial figure and he says stuff that gets him in trouble- so he's challenging bloggers and others to recommend questions and the top nine questions will get answered in a sermon and also published in a book.

so I have an idea and I should preface this with the fact that I don't know much about him but what I know seems raw and hard to swallow but I like him. In Mark's book Radical Reformission he says that one of his qualifications of attending a church in his life what 1. the pastor had to preach the bible verse by verse and 2. the pastor had to be able to kill someone with his bare hands.
I thought I'd ask Mark if he could indeed live up to his qualifications.

My Question

So vote- together we can get it in the top 9! You can vote 10 times a day. Ps. you only have until November 1 so vote now and vote often!

Vacation Pictures:

Vacation: I'm going away for the week to spend some time on family vacation so you won't be hearing from me for at least a week.

Deadly Viper Character Assassins: Do yourself a favor and get over to www.deadlyviper.org and buy you and 4 of your buddies a copy of this book. It's simple and straight forward. But it seems like the simple things in life can be the most ground breaking and monumental. Mike Foster (xxxchurch.com) and Jud Wilhite (pastor and author of Stripped) did a great job laying out the things that are lurking and waiting to destroy your character.

Buy it, discuss it, embrace pursuing integrity and character.

Phase Two: June-September- Phase two for weight loss went a little something like this. I decided I wanted to up my exercise. I started doing split body weight lifting and my focus was lifting as much weight as possible as many times as possible. Sound simple enough doesn't it. Yeah it was. My workout went a little something like this.
Monday: chest and biceps
Tuesday: shoudlers
Wednesday: back and triceps
Thursday: legs

One main thing I had to do was I had to start eating more food. I also started using the Elliptical for some faster paced workout but wasn't quite ready for running yet. I was worried about needless wear on my knees.

Diet: During phase two and now into phase three I consume between 1700-2100 calories a day. Most days I keep it on the low side with an average of about 1900 calories a day.

Phase Three really the only thing that has changed is my exercise, mainly my cardio. I'm now in training for a 5k and my time goal is less than 30 minutes. Training, of course, requires running. I've been running 3 days a week for 2 weeks now and have lost 7 lbs.

I think thats the key to my continued weight loss. I keep changing up my exercise, I'm not afraid to take a few days off when I need them but I always keep my food intake steady. Good clean foods and within my calorie range.