"I prefer my videos without chocolate..."

On Sunday, I preached in all 4 services at New Covenant. To open my message, I shared a story about my son, S, and how his distaste of chocolate made him dislike his hero, LarryBoy, who had to fight the temptation of chocolate in the video "LarryBoy and the Bad Apple."

Well, when I got home from preaching the morning services, I sat down for lunch with my family. LeAnn turns to our 4-year-old and says, "hey, tell Daddy what video you got to watch in your class."

"LarryBoy!" (They watched one of the cartoon videos called "The Good, The Bad, and the Eggly")

"And did you like the LarryBoy video?" LeAnn asked.

"Yes, because it didn't have any chocolate in it!"

If I was a Senator...

Today marks the 6 year anniversary of my official start as the young adult pastor with New Covenant. I'm glad the "government" of our church isn't set up like the Senate where I would have to go through an election process to get to serve another 6 years! It has been such a joy to be at New Covenant, to co-labor with the awesome staff I work with (and play with!), to worship with the amazing people that make up this church family, and to know, love, serve, counsel, lead, and minister alongside the young adults that God has called to be part of our church family.

In 6 years, we've seen a LOT of changes. On the home front, LeAnn and I have added two more kids to our Birdnest, have seen a lot of turnover in our neighborhood which has led to wonderful relationships with new neighbors, are the parents of a soon-to-be middle schooler, and have added a little weight (well, at least I have - everyone said it would happen once I was in my 30s - they were right!). Our marriage is as good as ever, and we continue to see God work through us in the lives of others (including our kids).

Within the New Covenant family, the young adult population has gone from roughly 70 to 400+. We've gone from 1 ABF to 4. We've seen more young adults than ever go through membership, join or create small groups, jump into leadership positions, and bolster the ministries that exist. We've seen more weddings than ever, and a wonderful rush of new babies. And most importantly, we've seen some young adults place their faith in Christ and had their lives radically changed from the inside.

I keep personally receiving praise from people for all the changes happening within New Covenant concerning the young adults, but the praise really belongs to our elders who obeyed God's call to hire new staff, the existing staff that welcomed us "newbies" and supported us before we even had the keys to our new offices, the church family that had room in their hearts for 20 and 30 somethings, and people like the Berry's, Luebe's, and Purdy's that have hearts for ministering to this generation. But most of all, the praise truly belong to God, who has clearly been doing the work. I see my weaknesses everyday, and it is beyond obvious that the blessings we have in the young adult realm have truly been from our generous God and not me.

My dreams for the next "6-year-term" include seeing the college ministry finally be what I dream it to be, more young adults than ever going on missions trips, more young adults in leadership positions, existing leaders continuing to lead with excellence, young adults engaged in basic spiritual disciplines, young adults naturally sharing their faith, young adults making a difference in the community and their spheres of influence, and God changing more young adult lives with the incredible good news of Christ's death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sin.

As I sit here in a food court in a mall in Minneapolis (I'm here to support a friend), reflecting on all that has taken place, tears of thankfulness are threatening to flood my eyes. Hopefully those at the tables around me continue to ignore my presence. :o) I am so humbled that God would call me to this amazing place called New Covenant Bible Church and allow me to be here for such a time as this. And while I know it won't last forever, I am completely up for another 6 year term (or longer!).

Ok, so apparently some HAVE seen so much wisdom and creativity in one place...

Have you ever seen so much wisdom and creativity in one place?

G.K. Chesterton Quotes

For my monthly spiritual retreat last Friday, I decided to take along G.K. Chesterton's book Orthodoxy. I had received it in a one of the Relevant Network kits several months ago (perhaps even a couple of years ago), and decided to make it my companion for the day, along with my Bible and another book written by a friend from my church.

After enjoying several chapters in the book of John, I read more of my friend's book than I intended, so I did not get through Orthodoxy as I had planned. Orthodoxy is a small book, so I thought I could get through it in one day. But then I realized Chesterton wrote this book in 1908, so the language might force me to read slower and more carefully in comprehending Chesterton's points. While that assessment has been correct, I've been amazed at how much I've not only understood, but remembered afterwards. I've found myself laughing at Chesterton's wit, and amazed at his nimble mind. (His body was not as nimble as a 300-400 pound man!)

I've thought several times as I've read "I need to share that!" so here is a collection of some quotes from Orthodoxy:

Concerning the writing of his "philosophy"...
"I will not call it my philosophy; for I did not make it. God and humanity made it; and it made me."

On trying to be original in his own philosophy and theology...
"I did, like all other solemn little boys, try to be in advance of the age. Like them I tried to be some ten minutes in advance of the truth. And I found that I was eighteen hundred years behind it."

"I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."

Concerning beauty and appreciation...
"Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde."

Out of a strain of thought on pessimism and optimism...
"About the same time, I read a solemn flippancy by some free thinker [atheist]: he said that a suicide was only the same as a martyr. The open fallacy of this helped to clear the question. Obviously a suicide is the opposite of a martyr. A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside him, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who cares so little for anything outside him, that he wants to see the last of everything. One wants something to begin: the other wants everything to end."

On why Christianity is better suited to aid the world's ills than science or Socialism...
"Christianity, even when watered down, is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags."

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Perhaps I'll have more Chesterton quotes to share before I finish the book (and I probably missed several other really good ones - which is why I should probably learn to underline and highlight books...), but I wanted to at least share these before I forgot.