Here and Now

Double Tuesday But Brief: Buy This Book I think it's amazing - 30 stories that are 30 of the best sermons I've ever heard...erm, read. But these are not your parents' sermons...trust me... Seriously, I got it at Ollies for like 4 bucks... Story by Steven James

I did a quick search for a story that I thought about using for staff devotions today and I came across this blog post from a think tank, I think . Of course, using an image from despair.com puts you pretty high on my list to begin with - and then she's talking about "we've always done it that way" (which was not going to be the focus of what I wanted to say, anyway...but there's some good stuff on this post anyway). But I love her closing statement Make two columns and keep track of your patterns over the next week. Label one side ‘innovative’ and one side ’stupid’ and see if you can break some unproductive, recurring, unoriginal habits. I’m going to give it a go. Yeah, I'm going to give it a go, too...hmmm, I might even keep track of 'em here... Yeah, maybe not - I can't for the life of me figure out tables...argh...

Living in a new house has brought its share of pleasant surprises. One (admittedly very minor) one for us has been having a garbage disposal in the sink. For a while we had been calling it the "sink monster" but the girls decided that the sink monster needed a name - so, our disposal is named Frank (sorry if you're reading this and your name is Frank - if it's any consolation, they named Lori's car "shiny lunch"...) Naming the disposal has made for some interesting conversations at our house: "Do you want the rest of this corn?" "Nah. Frank it." "Hey, I'm going to Frank this banana, it's pretty brown..." And so on. Yep, Frank is a verb in our house now. Got something unidentifiable in the back of the 'fridge? Frank it. A scoop of mashed potatoes left from dinner. Frank it. And we have other "code" words at home, too. If you know us well, you know about roses...and there are other words and phrases that

Last week I needed to replace an outlet in Rachel's room so I went down to the electric panel to shut off the power to her room...and the breakers weren't labeled... So I spent part of the afternoon with every light in the house turned on, computers and TV off, switching off a breaker, running through the house to see what lights went off, running back to the breaker box. Repeat. And repeat...and repeat... So, I never did figure out which breaker the computers were on. I thought I checked the light on the printer (which I left plugged in and turned on) every time...but I missed it on one of the runs... And tonight I was trying to rescue a harddrive (a story for another time) while the girls were watching a movie and Lori wanted to vacuum the dining room... That's when I found out "the hard way" which breaker the computers are on... Not the way you want to find out... But, all was not lost. The computers are as fine as they were before they lost power suddenly, the

This week is about Transformation. Once in a while, when we wax nostalgic, it's easy to just gloss over the bad stuff. And sometimes, when we're in a bad place, we dwell on the bad stuff in our lives. God is all about transformation. There are things in my life that I would have done differently if I could - "if I knew then what I know now" - embarassing things that, frankly, I hope no one ever finds out about. And we all have those moments, I think. But those moments are part of what makes me, me. I may be a little more compassionate because of something painful in my past, a little more forgiving because of someone who has forgiven me, maybe a little more patient because I've tried the patience of others. I may be able to understand what you are going through because I've been through it myself. Yeah, I've been embarassed, frustrated, hurt - and I've embarassed, frustrated and hurt others, too... And God doesn't make all that go away. Yes, I'

Elie and I were driving home from church tonight and she was playing a Ninetendo DS game called Cooking Mama. She "made" me a pizza on the way home and then she announced: "I'm making you coffee, Daddy." "Okay, I don't put any cream or sugar in mine." "Well, I'm going to put a little something in it, but you won't really taste it." "Um...okay." "Just...it will make it taste like hot chocolate, Daddy. I'll just put a little shrimp in it, and it'll taste like hot chocolate." "Okaaaaay..." Boy am I glad she wasn't really making me coffee - can you imagine it? Coffee with a little shrimp...bleah... Worship can be like coffee with shrimp in it sometimes. Here's what I mean. Everything is flowing, everything is going just right...and then, bam, something happens. Maybe it's a technical thing...a mic isn't on or something...maybe I say or do something that distracts from worship

I was looking at my car (Honda Pilot) as I walked out of the church tonight and I should have taken a picture (heck if I know how to get a picture off my cell phone anyway...). You see, the back end of the Pilot is sitting really low - the front end is popped up - because I put about 10 or so boxes full of books in the back of it on Thursday and I've been riding around with them since. These are books that will fill the shelves (woo-hoo to the Jim and Larry and the Tuesday Morning Guys for getting my office together and getting extra shelves put up!!) in my office - and I INTENDED to take them in on Thursday...and on Friday...and today... But you know how it is - life gets busy, stuff comes up, and the books stay in the car. Just like my spiritual life sometimes - I can carry around these burdens that weigh me down but I'm just too busy to do anything about it. Life is busy (I love those "life comes at you fast" commercials...'cause it's true, and, um, they

This Sunday we'll be talking about connectedness. Scott Phillips is a great singer/songwriter - and I highly recommend his newest album (I believe I've said that before here...lemme check...yep...) so go to iTunes and get Next Stop Willoughby or check out http://www.scottphillips.com/ . One of my favorite songs on the album is called "It All Comes Down" and it's about connectedness - or the lack thereof: It All Comes Down Well I’m up and I’m down and I’m all around But I’m okay if you ask me ‘Cause we don’t really have the time to care like we could I could trip, I could fall, you won’t know at all ‘Cause your busyness is blinding And we don’t really take the time to love like we should Chorus:And it always comes back down To the way that we love And it always comes back down To the way that we love I’m in a hurry to grow, to grow up so fast Just to miss my youth and to chase my past If I keep looking forward to the day that my ship comes inI ’m gonna work

Yesterday my in-laws stopped by to celebrate Elie's birthday. We did a little running around, but ended up at Half Price Books. Now, I've said before, I'm cheap. So cheap books are a great thing in my eyes... I scored Only You Can Save Mankind (the first of the Johnny Maxwell trilogy by one of my favorite - oh, sorry, he's British - favourite authors, Terry Pratchett) for like 3 bucks and The Seuss, the Whole Seuss, and Nothing But the Seuss - a biography of, yeah, Dr. Seuss - for about 10 bucks. Love cheap books.

Well, my stuff has been in Bethel Park for one week - so, even though we went back to Warren last weekend, we've kinda been officially here a week... Highlights... Um, Home Depot is getting to know me by wierd request, if not by name... Best Buy got a big chunk of our "stimulus" check...HDMI is still a bit of a mystery to me... The internet here at home is flaky (or my computer is flaky - it's Vista, so...) We have a boat load of boxes in our house...and about 1/3rd are unpacked. The bedrooms are up, the kitchen, the living room (sort of). We can do laundry, but we can't get in our back door (!!) The church has been wonderfully welcoming. The morning we arrived to watch the movers carry in our stuff we were welcomed with a big basket of great stuff - breakfast foods, bread, peanut butter, a dozen roses, stuff for the girls to play with - and a list compiled by the staff of places to eat, get our hair cut, doctors, dentists, etc. It was really great. We have