Archive for the ‘Bible’ Category

21 Random Thoughts

Posted: November 26, 2009 in basketball, Bible, change, Christ, Christians, church, emotion, friends, Jesus, Leadership, marriage, mentor, ministry, mistakes, money, politics, Prayer, social networking, songs
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1. I love the holidays! They remind me that tradition means something and that new traditions are essential for creating new memories.

2. Basketball provides lots of life lessons for me.

3. I may be addicted to social media. Determining boundaries has proven to be difficult.

4. Emotion can be your worst enemy or your best friend and sometimes it’s one disguised as the other.

5. Learning and Mentoring go hand in hand. Keeping what you learn to yourself is arrogant and self serving.

6. I haven’t written a song in 15+ years. Disappointing

7. “If you build it, they will come” is not a biblical concept, neither is “God helps those who help themselves”. Both are quotes, one from a movie the other from a founding father.

8.The Matrix was a revolutionary Movie… to bad the sequels were not. A lesson we could all learn from.

9. The experiences God used to change our lives will not be the same experiences He uses to change the lives of those around us. We are not called to recreate for others what God created for us.

10. My life is a musical.

11. Only God can change your life. No church, religion, government or person can change your existence, no matter what they promise. No they can’t.

12. I have many pet peeves… most of which are things I hate about myself.

13. Exaggeration is just a rationalization for lying.

14. I need Jesus as much as anyone.

15. To ignore any one part of the Gospel is to ignore the whole.

16. You cannot claim to follow Christ and reject His body. Quit pretending that you can. If you are not a part of a church body find one or finally admit you just hate the fact that Christ died for all the people you can’t stand.

17. When we are in the worst economic crises since the great depression, discourage your wife from wearing the dress made with real sterling silver.

18. When God invests in you, make sure you provide a good return on His investment.

19. I love my job but it can be very hard at times.

20. Love God more than you love your spouse, love your spouse more than you love your kids and love your kids more than you love anything left in life. Not the other way around.

21. Creativity is.

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Happy New Year!

Posted: January 1, 2009 in Bible, college, family, Goals, New Year, resolution
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2009 is all about discipline for me personally. I am not much on the traditional new year’s resolutions but I am big on setting goals. If you break a resolution you essentially let yourself (and those to whom you made your resolution) down. A goal however recognizes that its going to take some effort to achieve. I am a flawed man. The best I can do as an individual, a husband, a father and a minister is to set goals that will ultimately help me be the man God wants me to be.

Here are my goals for 2009

1. Spend more time with my Family and Friends.
This seems pretty generic but the truth is, I am a workaholic. It is not unusual for me to spend 60-70 hours per week working on worship services, rehearsals, learning music, editing video, creating graphics, designing sets, managing ministries and meeting with all of the people involved in the aforementioned list. One of my major personal goals is to cut back on the amount of hours I spend doing “church work” and increase the number of hours I spend with my family and friends. This one goal is going to require the most discipline.

2. Read through the Bible.
I haven’t read through the whole Bible in a while. I am actually participating in a daily reading that will take me through the entire Bible in one year and the New Testament twice. Another needed discipline.

3. Take a big risk.
I am not sure what this means right now but I have a few ideas. God is working on me in several areas that will require huge steps of faith. When I look back at 2008 I don’t see many places where I took any kind of risk. The hard part for me is that I am a risk taker. So much of my past has been about taking risks (it drives my boss and my wife crazy) and yet somewhere I stopped and began playing it safe. This year there will be some risks and they will be big.

4. Take two family vacations.
This is going to be the toughest. First of all, vacations cost money and not that we are poor but we don’t make the kind of money that will allow us to take a vacation for five very often. This will require financial discipline. Secondly, we are pushing it every year to get in one family vacation. In 2008 we didn’t even take one. This year I am committing to take two vacations. They may be to a hotel in OKC to visit the Zoo for three days but we will figure out a way to make it happen. See goal #1… needed discipline.

5. Complete Twelve Hours towards my degree.
I am still working towards that ever elusive college degree. I often joke that my goal is to graduate before my twelve year old son does. Little by little I am chipping away at my goal of graduating someday. This year I need twelve hours to feel good about my progress. You guessed it… discipline.

There they are. Now that it is out there, you are all invited to hold me accountable to these five goals. Of course there are other things I want to do this year but these are the priorities.

Have a great New Year!!