Are you kidding me…???

We’re only a couple of days away from our KC event, “The Story”, and I think I’m coming down with the flu. Aiden was throwing up last night, which doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that I’ll get through this without doing the same.

Still, I’m confident that this event is going to blow away anything we’ve ever done before. If I throw up on stage, that just makes it more exciting and jr. high friendly right?

My Wife’s housefire…

Here’s a quick story from a few days ago. My wife Jill was in the kitchen preparing dinner, and our 10 month old daughter Isabella was in there with her. Jill had pulled out a glass bowl with a lid and placed it on a stove burner until she was ready for it. She also put some eggs in a pot and turned the stove on to boil them. Finally she pulled some pork loins out of the fridge and placed them on top of the glass bowl. Bella was standing in front of the dishwasher across from the stove and Jill had turned around to the sink when suddenly there was a large “BOOM” in the kitchen.

I was in the living room and it sounded like a shotgun had been fired. I rushed into the kitchen and saw glass everywhere. Pieces of what used to be the glass bowl were all over the floor, the stove, the counters…they had even flown out of the kitchen and into the dining room. On the stove, Jill’s pork loins had burst into flames. I quickly helped Jill take care of the fire, and then stopped to take everything in.

Jill had accidentally turned the heat on to the burner under the glass bowl instead of the pot of eggs. With the lid on the bowl, the whole thing continued to heat up until it reached the point that it shattered into a million tiny pieces. When the bowl shattered, the loins fell on the hot stove and immediately caught fire. Glass was everywhere, and the smell from the fire was really strong. The absolutely amazing thing is that, with all the glass in the whole room, there was a perfect glass-less circle in the area where Bella and Jill had been standing. Glass pieces and tiny shards were everywhere else in a two room area, and several things were dinged and damaged by the glass…but Jill and Bella didn’t have a scratch on them, and they were standing 3 feet away!

It’s pretty cool to see the way that God protected my girls.

I lost 7 pounds!!!

Dude…I can’t believe it!!! I’ve lost seven pounds already! I had to re-weigh myself a few times to be sure that it was real. I started a local “biggest loser” contest on January 30th (the day after my awesome surprise b-day party that Jill set up for me. A killer feast with friends and family at the Terradyne country club. Pretty cool!) and I started the YS bigger loser contest last Tuesday. Since the 30th I’ve been watching my calories like a madman, and it looks like it’s starting to pay off. I know I’ve got to beef up the exercise now, but it’s still just so dang cool to have lost any amount of weight. Two days ago I was questioning whether it was really worth it or not to do all this…now I know it is!

Game on everybody!

888 Reading Challenge

My friend (and office manager) Jayme told Jill and me about a challenge she’s doing. You can read all about it here, but basically it’s the challenge to read 8 books in 8 different categories with a maximum of 8 overlaps (books that fit in two categories…right now I only have a couple of those) in 2008. So, if you take advantage of all 8 overlaps, then you’ll be trying to read 56 books in a year. For some of you, this is no big deal at all. For me, this is going to be a real challenge.

As you can see from the list below, I’ve still got some holes in my lists. If you have a good suggestion for a book in one or more of the categories please post it in a comment below and I’ll add it to the list if I like it.

My Categories:

Graphic Novels:
Alan Moore, “Watchmen”
Neal Gaiman, “Eternals”
Frank Miller, “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns”
Daniel H. Pink, “The Adventures of Johnny Bunko”

Ministry Books:
Donald Kraybill, “The Upside Down Kingdom”
Mike Erre, “The Jesus of Suburbia”
Christian Smith, “Soul Searching”
Dan Kimball, “They Like Jesus but Not the Church”
Craig Groeschel, “Confessions of a Pastor”
Donald Miler, “Blue Like Jazz”
Personal Growth Books:
Brennan Manning, “The Importance of Being Foolish”
John Elder Robison, “Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s”
Kenda Creasy Dean, “Practicing Passion”
Henry Cloud, “Integrity”
Eric Jensen, “Teaching with the Brain in Mind”
Emerson Eggerichs, “Love and Respect”

Business/Leadership Books:
Chip Heath and Dan Heath, “Made to Stick”
Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom, “Starfish and the Spider”
Seth Godin, “Purple Cow”
Seth Godin, “The Dip”
Jim Collins, “Good to Great”
Daniel H. Pink, “A Whole New Mind”

Recommendations:
Erik Lokkesmoe, “The Revolutionary Communicator”
Sara Gruen, “Water for elephants”
Anne Lamott, “Traveling mercies”
Paul Rusesabagina and Tom Zoellner, “An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography”
Dan Pink, “The Adventures of Johnny Bunko”
Neal Gaiman, “Neverwhere”
Donald Miller, “Blue Like Jazz”

Books made into Movies:
Jon Krakauer, “Into the Wild”
Richard Matheson, “I Am Legend”
Neal Gaiman, “Stardust”

Just for Fun:
Douglas Copeland, “Generation X”
Steve Martin, “Born Standing Up”
Stephen Colbert, “I am America (and so can you)”

Biographies/Memoirs:
Steve Martin, “Born Standing Up”
Greg Mortenson, “Three Cups of Tea”
Barack Obama, “The Audacity of Hope”
A.J. Jacobs, “The Year of living biblically”
Doris Kearns Goodwin, “Team of rivals: the political genius of Abe Lincoln”
Immaculee Ilibagiza, “Left to tell”
Jon Krakauer, “Into the Wild”
Paul Rusesabagina and Tom Zoellner, “An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography”

Ken gets published by YS!!

This is so cool… I know that several of you know my buddy Ken Rawson. He’s an incredibly gifted youth pastor and a great friend. He’s been doing middle school ministry with excellence for a long time now, and now he’s got something really cool out of it. He’s been published by Youth Specialties! His first two books should be out in May, and I understand that his wife Jen paved the way by getting a deal for her two books first. Pretty cool stuff!! Way to go Rawson fam!

All four books come out in May, and are available on the Youth Specialties website.

Here they are:

Listen to Leeland’s new album for FREE!

Check it out, this is the best news I’ve heard all day. Leeland’s sophomore release comes out at the end of February, and I’m giddy about it. These guys are amazing…some of the most meaningful lyrics I’ve heard since Rich Mullins.

You can listen to all of their new album by going to their website.

I was going to wait until I was ready to post a review, but I’m four songs in and I love it all so far. Plus I thought this blog could use a nice bit of levity for a moment.

ht to Tammie

The Presidential Race…

is getting pretty exciting. I didn’t think I would be into it at all, but now I’m finding myself surprisingly pleased with two candidates from two different parties. I really like what I’m hearing and seeing from both John McCain and Barack Obama.

Oh yeah, and I think I might be sick if I get one more forwarded email explaining why Obama is the anti-Christ or a muslim extremist. Coincidently, those emails are typically from the same people who thought that the DaVinci Code and Golden Compass were going to wipe Christianity off the map too. Good to know that when common sense and grace fail us, we always have bigotry and slander to fall back on.