Vacation

Suzy, Parker and I had a great vacation. Suzy's parents live in New Jersey, just outside of New York City, and we flew up there on a Wed. There is a lot of Asian food that Suzy misses, so the first thing we did after we got off the plane was go to this Korean community and eat some Korean food. We mostly just hung around Suzy's house that day, and saw some of her friends.
The next day, we went to New York and saw the Yankees play. That was awesome, because it was the 4th to last game ever at Yankee Stadium. We were in the same place where Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Babe Ruth, and Lou Gehrig had played. I don't like the Yankees, but it was cool to be there to see a game. They played the White Sox so I also got to see Ken Griffey Jr. play.
Early Friday morning Suzy and I left for Boston. I had never been up there, so we decided to take a little rode trip. Parker got to stay with the grandparents, and Suzy and I had a little getaway, so it was a win-win. We ate lunch at Cheers, and then did some of the tourist stuff. We ate with Suzy's cousin who goes to Boston College. Boston is now my 2nd favorite city of all time behind San Francisco.
Saturday we drove up to Maine. We stopped in New Hampshire for lunch in Portsmouth, which was a pretty cool little town. Maine was beautiful. We went and saw a lighthouse and hung out on the beach. I couldn't believe that they had surfers in Maine. The waves were about the size of waves in Texas, so nobody was riding them for very long, but there were a lot of them out there. I could have stayed there for a few days, I really loved it. We ate at this little seafood place that was recommended to us. Suzy had a 2.5 lb. lobster. It was humongous. And she ate it all. We stayed the night in New Hampshire and came back to Jersey that night.
The next day we spent the day in New York City. We went to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs. Then we went to the David Letterman show. It was pretty cool, but if you ever go, just be prepared to stand in line for 3 hours. I was so tired of lines by the time we actually got into the theater. But Dave made up for it, he was hilarious. Bill Clinton and Chris Rock were the guests. Chris Rock is super-funny. Bill was pretty interesting too, but I wished Chris was on more. Bill took up so much time that Dave didn't even do a Top 10 list.
Later that night we went to Little Italy and ate with a kid who was in a church I helped out at in Novato, CA. He goes to NYU now, and that was one of the best parts of my trip, hanging out with him. He caught me up on everything going on in his world and with his family. It was great seeing him.
We got back to Jersey late that night, and we had to leave the next morning to come back to Texas. I wish it could have lasted another few weeks (not so much staying with my in-laws, but staying up in New England). The leaves were starting to change colors, the weather was awesome, and there is so much that I've never seen up there. It was a great trip.

Here are some pictures:

Sunday Morning Impact

Yesterday morning was an above average Sunday Morning. We had very good attendance. Nathan led worship, and did a great job. Our game was fun. We had 2 kids from each grade and gender come up. I gave them each 20 lifesavers, and one of the kids had to lick the lifesaver and stick it to the other's face. It was a lot of fun. The 6th grade girls were the winners.
We finished our series on wisdom. I told some stories off of the Darwin Awards website, and showed how important it is to have wise friends who will keep you from doing foolish things. My small group had a great time, and we talked a lot about how important it is to have wise friends and watch out for the foolish ones. And we defined wisdom as somebody who knows the difference between right and wrong and chooses to do right. I think my 7th grade boys have a pretty good grasp of this, although they think being foolish is a lot more fun.

Wed Night Impact

It's been a while since I've kept up with my blog because of vacation and a few other things. I'm going to try to catch up on a bunch of it this afternoon. So, going back to last Wed, we are continuing our series on the Fruit of the Spirit b talking about patience, kindness and goodness.
Patience is something that I struggle with. I use to think I had a lot of patience, but that was before I was married and had a 2 year old. I was also living in a place that didn't have much traffic. When I moved into a place with a ton of traffic, and got married and had a son who cries a lot, then I started to get a more realistic idea of the fact that I have very little patience. Unfortunately, the Bible says the way you get patience is by trials. The more you go through, the more that patience grows in you. I was actually tested (at least I feel like it was a test) when I was on the airplane coming back from Newark. I had a 2 yr. old next to me, and one behind me. Parker did pretty good. He got a little grumpy towards the end of the trip, but for the most part did a great job. But the 2 yr. old behind me decided he was going to see how long and how high and how loud he could scream, and did it for most of the 3 hour ride. Fortunately, I had enough self-control that I didn't cram an apple down his throat and see how far off the wing I could bounce him. I just turned my iPod up. But, I think it's little things like that where God builds patience. I know people who don't pray for patience because they don't want to go through the process. I know people who pray for patience, Right NOW! It seems like God likes the process more than the end result, and wants to use things to build you. He could wave some sort of magic wand and give you a lot of patience, but I think He enjoys the process of building us.
Kindness: I just talked about how we are to show kindness, even to the people we don't choose to be kind too. We can be kind to total strangers when we choose to be. But we can feel validated of not showing kindness to the guy who cuts in line at a movie, or a guy who cuts us off on the road. It seems to me that kindness is something that is to flow out of us.
Goodness means consistently choosing to do good. We are going to obey God and do what He wants. We are going to try to do good for others and have other's well-being in mind too.
I think it was a good week overall.

David Letterman

Suzy, Parker and I are going on vacation tomorrow. We're going up to New Jersey to visit her parents, but while we are there we're going to get to do some other cool stuff. Thursday night we're going to see the Yankees play. It's cool because it's the 4th to the last game ever played at Yankee stadium. Their building a new stadium for next year.

On Friday, we're going up to Boston to hang out. Saturday, we're going up to New Hampshire and Maine. Suzy really wants a fresh lobster. I want to go to Maine. I've never really been to New England. I've been into Connecticut and New York and New Jersey, but nothing else.

But, the best comes on Monday night. We got tickets to David Letterman. So make sure you look for us on Monday night. When I set up the DVR for it, the info said that the scheduled guest is Chris Rock. That should be pretty cool. Friday, Robin Williams is going to be there, so that would have been cool if he was there on Monday instead. Then Monday night we're going to eat with one of my old youth who goes to NYU. I think this guy is awesome, and I haven't seen him since my wedding, so it'll be cool to hang out with him for a little while and catch up.

Then we come back on Tuesday. It's going to be good getting out of Texas for a little bit and getting some rest. See you next week.

Sunday Morning Impact

This past Sunday was a pretty good Sunday. We're continuing our series on wisdom. Gideon led worship and did a great job. Our game was an oldie but goodie. Six kids came up and they had a bunch of "Smartees" on a plate. They had a straw and had to suck the candy on the straw and place them in a cup. The first one to finish would be the winner. The 6th grade boys won.
We talked about why we should have wisdom. The main reason is to keep us from doing stupid stuff. My small group talked a lot about consequences of stupidity, and how wisdom can keep you from making those choices. God has our best interest in mind. He loves us and doesn't want us to get hurt. He doesn't make laws so we can't have fun, but to let us have life to the fullest. If we follow his ways, and search for wisdom, we won't have to suffer the consequences of living foolishly (like a broken leg after jumping off the roof of your house).

The Shack

I just finished this book. It only took me a couple of days to read it. It's the story about a man who has an encounter with God. It was a really amazing story. It helped me think about what it means to be in relationship with God. I say I have one, but when I think about it...it's broken at best. There were a couple of things that I am concerned about. The author speaks as God, and says things as though God is saying them about himself. None of it was unbiblical, however, I could sense a lot of Western, post-modern philosophy in God's words. I don't want to take anything away from the book, I think it was great, but we can't put our philosophies and cultures onto God because God is above that. But in any circumstance, whether it's a book, or a movie, or a sermon, or a conversation, we need to be careful to back truth we speak up with Scripture.
So, as far as this book, "The Shack," goes, I can only say 2 more words about it: READ IT!

America's Favorite City

Travel and Leisure Magazine is having a contest to see which city is America's favorite city. They've divided the cities into brackets, and people get to vote for which city they like better. Right now San Antonio is going up against Seattle. San Antonio is going to need some help to beat them, and if they do beat Seattle, it has to go up against San Francisco. I think it's kinda fun, and if you'd like to vote for your favorite cities go here.

America's Favorite Cities 2008

Slam

"Slam" is a book by Nick Hornby, who also wrote one of my favorite movies (High Fidelity). It's about a 15 yr. old boy who idolizes Tony Hawk and all he wants to do in his life is skate. He does the typical teenage things with the typical teenage friends. He's got his skater friends, and he's got his girlfriend, who he feels he couldn't live without, even for a few hours. Until a couple of weeks later, when he grows tired of her always being around. Then several weeks later, she informs him that she is pregnant and he is the father.
The rest of the book is the thoughts and actions of a kid who is trying to come to grips with the end of his childhood and, in essence, his dreams to become a father. I think it dealt with the emotions of a boy in that situation as good as it could have been done. I didn't always like what the boy did, but I understood where he was coming from.
I think this was a fun story with some great, real-life experiences. And Tony Hawk actually has a big role in this book...in a way. But I'll let you read the book to figure out what that means.

Wed. Night Impact

Last night I continued speaking on the Fruits of the Spirit. I've broken it down into three sections, so I'm going to cover 3 of the fruits in each of the talks. So, last night I spoke about love, joy, and peace.
Living a life of love. Love should flow out of us onto others. That sounds nice and makes people happy. But is that really possible. What about when somebody hurts you? What about when somebody hurts your family? In October of 2006, a man went in to an Amish school, tied up the kids, and then murdered five of them, before committing suicide. The Amish community was devastated. But here's how they reacted. First, they went to the killer's family and forgave them. They comforted the family for THEIR loss. One of the Amish fathers hugged the killer's crying father for an hour. They also set up a Charitable fund for the killer's family. Yes, they were sad, but they had so much compassion and love...and they extended it out even to the family of the man who hurt them and their community so much. THAT IS LOVE. That's crazy love. But, I admire that and hope that one day I can be there. It's easy for me to love people as long as they behave and don't hurt me or my family. Honestly, right now, I can't imagine forgiving a person who could hurt and kill my son. Really, I don't even want to think about it. But I feel that this is a love that we are to strive for, a love that goes beyond ourselves.
Living a life of Joy. I Thessalonians 5:16 says "Be joyful always." How is that possible when your life begins to turn into a country song. Your dog ran away, your friends betray you, you lose your job. Joy DOES NOT equal happiness. Joy is a lifestyle. Christian joy doesn't mean that you have to go around whistling Zip-a-dee-do-da out your rear end (taken from Christmas Vacation). Christian joy is the result of the triumph of faith over the hard circumstances in our life. It comes from trust that God is going to take care of us and that He loves us. It comes from the hope that he is going to fulfill all of His promises to us. So, even though we are going through a hard time, we will still have a joyful heart.
Living a life of peace. This "peace" means a calmness with God. It comes from our faith in Jesus, and because of that faith, God doesn't have to hold any sin against us. We have peace with him. And out of that peace with God, we should pass it on to others. So, what if somebody just keeps coming up to you and keeps giving you a hard time, treating you worse than a rat. Where it would be easier to get into a fight than to continue to take abuse. We are to live peaceful.
Now, these are fruit that should be evident in Believers. They're not easy. They're way easier to read about or sing about than to live out. But God is going to give us the strength for it. God is going to take care of us. So, when we come to a trying circumstance, and we're tempted to act out of our emotion or flesh, we have to choose to live by the Spirit.
I added a lot of funny stories to make it a little lighter. I talked about people in my life who I see walk by the Spirit, so that the kids know that it is possible to live out the fruits of the Spirit even when it seems impossible. I think it was a good Wed. night.

Child Turns Mom in for Driving Drunk

This is a very sad video about kids having to turn their parents in for driving drunk. It makes me sad that some kids have to be responsible for their parents' actions. I put this video up because I think it is interesting, and I pray that something happens that will help their parents see that they need to take care of their children.