Tuesday, October 28, 2008

am i a disciple

I've been reading The Divine Conspiracy for my church planting class this month. This book has been messing me up in a good way. It's not that it's too difficult to understand or that it's all these new ideas. It's the way it presents the Kingdom of God... simple, liveable, and inward-transformation oriented. It's eyeopening to living within the context of the Kingdom of God.

Willard dives deep into the Sermon on the Mount and dissects it down to the core. This discourse is all about Kingdom living and disciple becoming. [excuse my phrasing]

As I've been reading through the Sermon the Mount with the book, I've been asking myself, "Am I a disciple?," "What does a disciple of Christ really look like?," and "How do you make disciples?." They are challenging questions that go right to the core of who I am.

But my prayer today is, "God, you have all of me. I want you to teach me and change me until I become who you want me to become. Don't just change my actions, but change my motives and my heart. I want to become a fully committed disciple of you."

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Thursday, October 23, 2008

backstage elevation

Almost two weeks ago, the guys on our staff visited Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC. You can read recaps here and here.

Two big things I took away from the recon trip:
  1. You can only answer the questions that you are asking. If you never ask the right questions, you may never get the right answers.
  2. To begin asking different questions, you have to get out of the frame of mind that stagnates your critical thinking. If your perspective never changes, your questions never truly change.
Thanks Larry for investing in us, spending time with us, and pushing us to ask the right questions.

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Thursday, October 09, 2008

for young men only

The best-selling ONLY series returns with a one-of-a-kind guide for teen guys on how to figure out girls

Drawing on a fresh national survey of 600 teen girls, as well as hundreds of personal interviews, For Young Men Only reveals the real truth about what teenage girls think, what they want, and how average teen guys can build healthy friendships with high quality girls. Full of surprising revelations and practical advice, For Young Men Only delivers help straight from the girls themselves in a fun, easy-to-read, easy-to-talk about format.

Warm, witty, and honest, authors Jeff Feldhahn and Eric Rice tell plenty of personal stories and draw on solid biblical principles to guide young guys through the often daunting world of the opposite sex. Their goal is to help teen guys build self-confidence and understanding, and show them how to pursue a relationship with a girl while giving her the respect and protection she deserves.

Pick up a copy of the book here at Amazon.

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Friday, October 03, 2008

fantasy team

My fantasy team sucks this year. Bottom line.

I am 1-3 and really pretty lucky to have won at all.

I need a quality receiver because Braylon Edwards and Torry Holt and others have way underperformed. Geez.

A win this week would be nice, but I'm not banking on it. You guessed it; I'm picked to get beat again this week.

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Thursday, October 02, 2008

cowboys golf club

My blogging time has been greatly limited by the busyness of what is going on right now.

Monday, though, was a pretty exciting day for me as I played in my first golf tournament at the Cowboys Golf Club in Grapevine, TX. It is the premier resort-style, daily-fee golf course in Texas and is the world's first NFL themed golf course.

The tournament was with African Tabernacle Evangelism. This organization works to build and raise support for starting and assisting African churches. It was my first introduction to the organization, but it seems like they have a big vision for Africa.

Zach and I played terrible at the tournament. Lucky for us, no one had to see it as we were playing by ourselves. That always helps with a few extra attempts. :-) I honestly think I lost a ball on every single hole, so it was pretty ridiculous to say the least.

I did receive a couple prizes though that I was excited about.
A Callaway FT-5 driver for my team play (No, we didn't cheat; pretty much everyone got a really nice prize) and a Ping golf towel for sinking the longest putt on one of the holes (which was legit I might add).

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