On Monday, as long as we find favor with the judge, three children will officially become Smiths. Over four years we have been on this journey, and there have been many significant moments in the midst of those four years as we have celebrated life and mourned death. We have expanded in some areas and retracted in others. We have simply become new, different, transformed people. We went from possibility to actuality.

In order to put in perspective what happens in four years here’s a short list:

I completed work on two Masters degrees.

We went from having four in elementary school to still having four in elementary school along with one in middle school and one in high school.

My 11 year old became a teenager, and my five year old became nine (lots of change there), and Kristi and I turned 40 (ouch).

My mother was diagnosed and the lost her battle with cancer, yet left us with a legacy of faith that will be impossible to forget.

Kristi’s grandfather lost his battle with age.

We went from adopting a boy and only a boy to a boy and two girls, from one to three.

We went from private Christian school to public school.

We went from three jobs to two, a working mom to a stay at home mom.

We went from four bedrooms to five, and from a minivan to a Suburban.

We went from none in diapers to one at night.

We went from times when the laundry hamper was empty to a perpetual laundry producing machine.

We went from having leftovers from dinner to barely having enough.

We went from three kids to six, two soccer teams to four, packing three lunches to six, from very little homework assistance to a lot, from kids who were at the top of the class to kids who are behind.

And I won’t even get into the change Kamri, Lucas, and Lilli have endured.

I stand in awe. How naive I was the morning I awoke to from a dream. All of this born out of the pursuit of a dream.

To God be the glory forever and ever, AMEN.

I once thought about being an architect. I love creating living spaces. I can still remember designing my first house in seventh grade shop class taught by an incredible teacher, Mr. Vincent. Since then I have had the privilege of designing and building all three of the houses in which Kristi and I have lived, but I never thought of doing something like this… It’s not just any box, but a box of glass that also happens to be a house. That’s right, a house. The story is that a family bought property on which there was a very old house in Lithuania, but the house was not considered large enough for the family. Traditional thinking would be to some how fabricate an addition to the house that imitated the original architecture.

The result; however, is anything but traditional. It is stunning! Instead the architect designs a glass enclosure of the house and makes some living space very public, like eating and kitchen and even hallways and entryways. Bedrooms, bathrooms, and other private living space is contained in the original house. I still wonder what they did with the original fireplace and chimney. It is still there but did they exhaust it through the roof and is it still useful? There is a lot about this structure that boldly allows the residents to live their lives in public, while making space for some mystery. For instance, I love the fact that the people at www.coolhunter.com don’t show us what the builders did inside to the traditional house.

Transition to traditional thinking about being the Church. While the Internet’s impact on our culture is relatively new and at the same time rapidly evolving I wonder how traditional ways of being the Church will need to change. Can the cultural norms for communication like email, texting, Facebook, and Twitter replace good old fashion face-to-face, or might it just need to encapsulate the personal? While some struggle to answer the Either-Or questions I think we need to start figuring out better ways to do Both-And. When it comes to being the Church what old structures do we need to keep within a modern architecture? How might we encapsulate traditions in a modern way that make our living out the Gospel of Jesus public and mysterious at the same time?

The following video and the story behind Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir has sparked a renewed sense that every ear will hear about Jesus in my lifetime. Now it begs the question, how will I participate and with whom might I partner to begin answering some of these questions?

• What opportunities await the Church in a world that continues to increase it’s knowledge ability exponentially with each generation?
• How might we be able to communicate the truth of who Jesus is and what He means to the world through the use of technology?
• How might the fellowship of believers change as intimacy and depth become more possible while remaining thousands of miles apart physically?
• How might we usher in the Next Age more rapidly if we put our minds to making disciples through the use of technology?

Many expressed an interest in being able to share the “Blessed Are the Peacemakers” sermon with someone. Since switching to the new video camera we are having to take more time converting video to an online format until we get a few more pieces of equipment to make it more seamless. So, after a lot of hard work by Jason Dickerson you can view it here.

I also wanted to point you to www.POTSC.com who are sharing some things they learned on “Fighting Well.” Having “good fights” enable us to make peace.

Lastly, I wanted to toot the horn of a great company. Ten yeas ago Kristi and I invested in a playground for our three children. We went on a 10 year Anniversary trip to Maine. We drove from Bar Harbor down to Portland on our return and we just happened to pass Cedar Works. They had some amazing playground sets and while they happened to be closed we walked around the grounds and looked in the windows and fell in love with them. Their customer service is top notch, and it was actually fun putting it together. What we didn’t expect is that the playground set was a huge bonus when it came time to sell that house and move to where we are now.

Fast forward 10 years and here we are a family of six. And three of those six LOVE to swing. Every time we pass a playground or a swing set we hear a chorus of “SWING! SWING! SWING!” from the back seats. We called the family who bought our last house to see if they would be interested in selling us the set. To our disappointment their kids still play on it every day and so it was a resounding, “No way! Are you kidding!” So, we priced other playground sets. There were cheaper sets, there were even cheaper cedar sets, but we knew if we wanted to get something that lasted we’d need to get a Cedar Works set. Thankfully the company has continued to grow, pays a living wage, and is involved in reforestation, and to top it all off now they have some more affordable playground sets! They also do some cool indoor stuff. So, by next weekend, I hope to be putting together our second Cedar Works playground set! If you are shopping for one I promise you won’t be disappointed with the product.

We are wired to be connected to others. The story of creation in Genesis is a story of a God who is connected with people and people who are supposed to be connected with one another. Sin breaks connection. Our response to sin, whether it be what we have done or what others have done to us or to others, can either be to embrace and accept it and admit it hurts or we can try to ignore, grow callous toward, hide from and attempt to separate it from us. Just as Adam and Eve did we hide, use blame, and we tell lies. We may even go to war in order to not accept our own fallibleness as Cain did against Abel thinking that killing those that know our imperfection might mysteriously remove it from reality. In an effort to be perceived as whole, complete, and strong we utilize force, either physical or psychological as in making rules, to protect our image. This sad thing is that the image we protect is, in fact, a false image.

God, on the other hand, is vulnerable. The fact that he places the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden in the first place is evidence of God’s willingness to be vulnerable. God loves Adam and Eve and then gives them the opportunity to reject, rebel, and injure Him. This vulnerability extends to Jesus and the Cross and beyond in the invitation He gives us to believe.

God’s example of vulnerability is extremely vital for us because the lie we tend to live is that we need to protect ourselves from allowing the truth about who we really are to be exposed. To allow others to see us as the abuser, the abused, the fornicator, the addict, the murderer, the adulterer, the gossip…the broken is seen by the vast majority of people as weakness. Yet if God is God, and He is the epitomy of strength, then being vulnerable and actually inviting the experience of pain and loss should be seen as experiences that lead to strength.

Just think of things that make you feel vulnerable. For me, asking anything of anyone makes me feel vulnerable. As a kid inviting someone to come over used to cripple me with anxiety and when rejection came I would dive deeply into a sea of self pity. I hate it yet I know from God’s example in the Bible that I must be vulnerable. The Church, then in my opinion, should be a gathering of people that doesn’t just allow vulnerability, but demands it. It requires it’s people to invite others to be connected to them and to be confident in the fact that Christ is enough.

In this 20 minute talk, while she doesn’t mention God or the Church, Brene Brown does reveal some biblical truths about what it means to be healthy people. I strongly encourage you to take the time to watch it. Her conclusion falls a little short in my mind as it should be “Jesus is enough,” but everything leading up to her conclusion is an accurate portrayal of our plight as people. For those who have taken the Redemption class her words should ring true. For those who haven’t – this is the kind of stuff we will explore.

One of the most appealing thoughts in Eastern Religion that is often lost on the Western Christian is the connection we have with all of reality. With our personal relationship with God that involves us owning our own Bible and having personal quiet times, prayer times, and study times and with the variety and convenience of churches we can go where we want when we want to worship how we want and so much of this religion that we practice is about us, individually. In an effort to fight against the heretical idea of pantheism we allow monotheism to become defined in our own lives as “God is disconnected and so are we.”

We very seldom think in terms like, “I must read scripture and contemplate its meaning so that my wife might have a good day, or so that my co-workers might be able to do their job better, or so the person I smile at as they wait for their bus might think that someone cares.”

One of the reasons I love the movie Crash is that it reveals the reality that we do nothing in isolation, but everything we think and do has consequences for someone else. In this short talk we discover the connection between plastic and the poor. How should these facts impact you as you make your next consumption choice?

After watching AND LISTENING to this wonderful talk I would love to hear what you think.

Or just click on the link here.

What do we do in the Church that is really born out of the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment and not the scriptures?

The crux of what Sir Ken Robinson is saying should make us think differently about missions, ministry, and even worship.

“17 At the time for the banquet he sent his slave to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, because everything is now ready.’ 18 But one after another they all began to make excuses.” Luke 14 NET

I have the tendency to make excuses.

The interesting thing about excuses is that while we use them in order to manipulate the perception others have, or even we have of reality so that we might magically make our errors and deficiencies disappear while instead we expose them and reveal our brokenness.

Excuses hold us in bondage in order to keep us from becoming something brand new. They help us tell a story that is not true about ourselves. While some use excuses as to why they can’t play basketball as well as Michael Jordan did the rest of us use them in order to derail working out our salvation in order to become perfect, holy, and living sacrifices.

What excuses are you making?

I don’t know if the point of this mashup is that Lebron is making excuses, or that Cleveland is making excuses, but it applies to both.

Thanks Bobbitt!

Gungor is new to the music scene and recently released a video on YouTube portraying images related to their song “God is not a white man.” I love the song, and the video is lots of fun too. It’s kind of funny that in my head I always think of God as an old, white man.

When I went to YouTube to see the comments I was immediately struck by a comment left by neoctopusos.

“what a stupid video; totally irrealistic. If God loves terrorists, i wonder whether god loves also the terrorists victims.”

This is the great thing about our God. That He loves us in spite of us. In reality, we were or are all terrorists against God. God passionately pursues His lost kids regardless of who they are, or what they have done. God’s pursuit is not based upon our value or worth. We call this Grace. Instead it is the very fact that we are pursued by God that makes us valuable and worthy. God knows that when He catches us He will change us, but unless we are caught we are destined to be His enemy.

The song is about the character of God, and not the wickedness of mankind. Therefore, we should not confuse God’s passionate pursuit of us, compelled by His love for us, with a tolerance of our wickedness. One of the outcomes of being captured by God and through the concentration of our affections toward Him is that we are made new. Therefore, how we might have identified ourselves today is destined to change tomorrow until time is undone.

But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, since we have been reconciled, will we be saved by his life? Romans 5:10

So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away – look, what is new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17

Chocolate Chip Cookies, Sex and Beer are three things that, until recently, I would have said “I love!” But a recent post by my friend and professor Dr. David Timms has challenged me with a quote from In Hope, “When we say “I love chocolate cake!” we deceive ourselves. We don’t love it. We want to eat it! If we loved it, we’d care for it.”

Thanks to David Timms for sparking this post.