Car

So I'm gonna keep my car and not get a new one. I will keep driving my 1999 4Runner, but I will make sure it's in good condition and I will get a new stereo put in so that I actually like my car. We own it outright and it's a Toyota so even though it has 112,000 miles it should be great. Then we will get Bea a nicer car in September when her lease runs out. We will never lease again. It was good for a season where we wanted a newer more reliable car, but couldn't afford the down payment. But now with no monthly on my car and some savings we can get Bea a new Nissan Pathfinder or Honda Pilot or something like that. We'll see.

I'm excited to look for a new stereo!!

Sabbath

We have been discussing sabbath in our VantagePoint3 group and my desire is to have my Friday mornings be a true point of sabbath for me. I have struggled with filling my Friday mornings with tasks like last-minute sermon prep, running errands, or watching tv. So today I was thinking of maybe going surfing alone during my sabbath or doing something else restful, but then I started thinking I needed to get my oil changed and get my car washed so I could sell it and my blushing bride asked me to go to the grocery store. Keeping a sabbath is a battle (and a fitting place for a war metaphor) that is tough to fight in our culture, but it's more than just culture, it's me. I like doing stuff. I need to stop for a bit.

P.S. I got 14 of 16 games right on the first day of the tourney.
P.P.S. It felt so good after telling my professor I was withdrawing from the Phd program. I'm so happy. I feel lighter. Maybe I should do a weigh-in.

I HAVE OFFICIALLY DECIDED

I am going to meet with the head of the PhD Program at Talbot today and officially drop out of the program. This is a big decision, but I believe it's the right one for multiple reasons.
1. I am feeling more and more called to being a pastor long-term and even being more of a preaching pastor and potentially leading a church or even planting a church someday.
2. After observing the professors, graduates of the program, and the current students I don't think that I want to be in the academic world full-time. I feel like I would love to be an adjunct youth ministry or other practical ministry professor and teach one class while still working full-time in the church.
3.I simply don't have time to put the proper amount of focus and energy into the program. With working at Calvary and overseeing all of Student Ministries and the Elevation service I feel pretty busy in the sense of study and work. Also, with my wonderful wife, almost four year old girl, and another daughter due in July, I don't want to be spending all my free time reading and writing papers. We put Grace down at 7:30 or 8:00pm and then I'm supposed to start doing homework after getting to work at 8am in the morning. It's just not going to happen.

So I know that I can always go back later in life if I want to. I'm only 32. I meet with my professor today at 3:00pm. I'm kind of dreading talking to him. I feel like we are breaking up or something.

All I feel is relief and happiness. Big sigh of stress leaving my body...aaahhhhhh...

Weigh-In Day

Alright, I'm down to 172.8 pounds.
That means I lost 3.6 pounds this week and I have lost 15.2 pounds overall.

Take that doubters!!

Weigh-In

So I weighed in at 175.8 last week.

This week I weighed in at 176.4.

So I actually gained 0.6 pounds which is completely aggravating since I have lived this crappy diet all week. The Pirate Dinner was a bit of a setback because I kinda gorged myself that day. So I gotta be more disciplined.

Ghandi

Amazing. Astonishing. Inspiring. I just finished watching the 1982 Best Picture winning film Ghandi with Best Actor winning Ben Kingsley in the title role.

He changed a nation and defeated the British Empire through peace. He would spin thread to make cloth, built his own home, and fasted to the point of starvation to make the world see. I loved when he said that something like "I have never advocated being passive. We will be very aggressive through non-violent non-cooperation."

I want to be aggressive in such a way that is radical, but isn't full of bitterness or anger or judgmentalism. I want to live simply and be true to what God has called me. Maybe it's time for a change in me, but I'm just not sure what exactly. Sometimes I want to change the world, but I don't even spend two hours a week hanging out with the homeless or something like that.

I have that feeling where you are frustratingly inspired. What do you do with that?

Understand

My pastor said on Sunday that the Greek word for "understand" means "to know experientially and intimately." Wow, that's really cool. He was preaching on John 3 and the whole story of Nicodemus and Jesus talking about being born again. I guess the word was in there somewhere, but that was the only thing I wrote down.

It made me think that to understand the Kingdom of God and to understand who Jesus really is takes knowing him experientially and knowing him intimately. To be intimate with Christ and to experience him is really what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus.

Then I was listening to this old CD of Shaine Claiborne speaking at Axis at Willow and I was blown away by this guy who just bailed on the USA and went to live in India with Mother Theresa and serving the poor. She told him to go home because there are plenty of marginalized people in America. So he did and he lived with people on the streets of Philadelphia and he still serves them there.

Then I'm watching TV tonight while Bea was typing a final for her students and I start to watch "Ghandi" with Ben Kingsley. I didn't really connect all that stuff, but it's so cool how he serves his people. I'm only an hour into it, but I'm loving the radical message of peace, nonviolence, and firm conviction.

I started to write the whole, "It's kind of sad that other people do this and evangelicals don't line" but that's crap. There are lots of people that do this stuff - evangelicals, Catholics, mainliners, emergents, hindus, muslims, mormons, atheists. Religious groupings aren't the issue. I'm the issue. I'm not doing this stuff. I wanted to hang out with homeless people in Hart Park and work at Juvenile Hall, but both didn't really work out. The juvenile hall thing had reasons, but the Hart Park thing was fear. It freaked me out going down there. I didn't know how to act. I need to do something, but I don't know what. I'm going to Kenya this summer for two weeks to work with people with AIDS, but that's not what I mean. I mean something more regular. It's so freaking hard because I have a pregnant wife and a three year old daughter. They have to be my priority, but I have to do something. Man, this stuff is messier than it seems.

But living that kind of life seems to be what it means to "understand" Jesus. To know Him intimately and experientially.

Things I'm Thinking About...

- Who will my church pick for a consultant?
- Am I really supposed to accept my sin and that will help?
- How many people in Los Angeles will die from the nuclear bomb that exploded on 24 and will Jack Bauer and the rest of CTU get radiation diseases?
- What will I post about on Sanctity of Life Day this Sunday?
- When am I going to get time to prepare my teaching for Elevation on Jan. 28?
- Why did the Chargers lose and why did they do so many stupid things in that game?
- Will my parents be able to watch Grace when we go to Hawaii because I already paid for the tickets and hotel?
- How many kids are going to turn in applications for Africa because 36 have taken applications and I'm worried we will have too many?
- A big decision I have to make at church that everyone has an opinion about how it should be handled.
- Do I have issues with submission and authority?
- Will the baby be a boy or a girl?
- Will we get our money back for the adoption?
- Why is living simply so hard?
- Lots of other church issues I can't write in a public blog.
- Is Barack Obama the Anti-Christ?
- Why did Erin want me to say that her family is the best family ever?
- Why do I keep forgetting to ask her about her marathon?
- Is March 3rd (the day we leave for Maui) ever going to be here?
- Will I ever speak at a camp again?
- Am I going to drop my PhD program?
- Will Peyton Manning be able to finally beat the Patriots?
- When will the next U2 album come out?
- Where do babies come from?

Would You Let Your Kid Play With This??

I can't stand these Bratz dolls. It's wrong on so many levels.
1. Spiritual level - It promotes young girls dressing sexually - really young - and promotes bad attitudes toward parents.
2. Values level - It promotes consumerism and valuing all the wrong things.
3. Strong feminine roles level - it makes women be all about sex and their bodies and their looks at the age of 7. That's just sad. At least Barbie had career based outfits and even promoted motherhood.
4. The makes me feel icky level.

This is one of those things that I would boycott if I was a boycotter (which I'm not) and I sort of want to cover them up at the toy store so my kid and other kids won't see. It's seriously just sad that little girls are being influenced by this stuff. I thought they were a joke or a satire when I first saw them, but no, they are real.

Cleaning Garages Sucks

That's what I did this morning. There is room to park one car now. That's good. But cleaning garages is a horrible task. I don't recommend it.

Weight Watchers Update

So I started about 10 days ago on my new diet.
My start weight was 188 pounds (but I weighed myself in the middle of the afternoon with pants and a t-shirt on)
My weigh-in day is Monday and so this past Monday I weighed myself at what will be my normal time of day, right when I wake up, and I was buck naked.
So, my weight as of 1/8/07 - 179 pounds.
The discipline is continuing.

Discipline in eating is a huge part of living simply. You can't just gorge yourself every time you eat and expect to have a disciplined life or a simple life. The simple life requires discipline. This is really hard for me because I LOVE LOVE LOVE food. I still will enjoy an awesome meal with big portions once a week or so, but just not every day or even every meal.

Live Simply

I'm feeling bad about my covetous post about the iPhone because I wrote on a rock that is a witness against me about trying to live simply this year. It was during an Elevation service where we were making commitments to God and the rock would help us remember like with Joshua and the Israelites at the very end of the book of Joshua.

Now, I'm not sure if this means I will never get an iPhone, but it does mean that I need to stop being so swayed by every gadget and gizmo that I think is cool because there is a part of me that thinks I actually "need" those things.