I thought you might appreciate this. Is it real? Not sure, but looks impressive. 

Grace

"This is the God of the gospel of grace. A God, who out of love for us, sent the only Son He ever had wrapped in our skin. He learned how to walk, stumbled and fell, cried for His milk, sweated blood in the night, was lashed with a whip and showered with spit, was fixed to a cross and died whispering forgiveness on us all."
-Brennan Manning, "The Ragamuffin Gospel" pg. 40

Disciples

Why do we want to make disciples? Is it simple obediance to Christ's commands motivated out of love for God and men? Of course not. We are frail and human, broken by bad experiences and missed opportunities, driven by the selfishness resident within. So many times disciples are made to impress others or to excersize control. Why do we make disciples? Is it for you or I? Am I trying to satisfy some lurking hunger for control? Making a difference isn't as neat as we might have imagined. It involves loving people where they are and trying in some measure to let Christ live through us. Discipleship means dirty hands and tears. Jesus took upon himself the sins of the world as he sacrificed his life for our lives. Sacrifice means love. This is grace. This is discipleship.

Children

"Children are our model because they have no claim on heaven. If they are close to God, it is because they are incompetent, not because they are innocent. If they receive anything, it can only be as a gift."
-Brennan Manning, "The Ragamuffin Gospel" p.28

Beggars

"The Good News of the gospel of grace cries out: we are all, equally, privileged but unentitled beggars at the door of God's mercy."
-Brennen Manning, "The Ragamuffin Gospel"

A Small Circle of Friends

I think that all of us are looking for the kind of friendship that allows you to be yourself without reservation while at the same time being challenged in a safe environment. This is the high ideal of God's family. I thank God for people like the McCullough family with whom we can be completely at home. These kind of friendships are the Jesus-John-Peter-James kind of relationships. There aren't many of you, but you belong to one another. It isn't an "exclusive club" but a natural bond that comes with a relaxed friendship. Think about the people that you can be transparent, open and honest. Maybe God wants to reproduce that in your life if you haven't had it in a while.

Men and Women Different

Breaking news! Someone has discovered men and women are different. I knew that, I did. See My Way News for details.

Personal Technology -- Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal.

Nice. 

People

People are the only thing that will go on after this world is gone. When our material posessions are gone and our physical body wears out we will still exist in eternity. That is why serving God unselfishly here makes a difference. All these things I think are important now matter because they relate to life on earth but they don't rate very high when I think about living with God in eternity.

Maybe some of these things do matter in relation to how we respond to them. Character over stuff.

Fall is Here

Old Farmers Almanac

Witness

I'm not sure where you might be coming from regarding "witnessing." I believe that we need to be transparent about life with people. We should always present a true picture of ourselves to the people we meet. I don't think we should ever have the idea that someone is a "project for Jesus" or somehow try to hide our character flaws from folks. People are much too valuable for that. They can see right through our hypocrisy. We should befriend them and urge them with our life and our words to know Christ. I think all any Christian is endeavoring to do is live for the happiness of God in a messed up world and a messed up body. He's looking for us to have freedom to live a meaningful life that will allow us and others to live on into eternity.

Visitor Alert

Just said goodbye to another friend of mine. Jeremy (from Anchorage) drove down and spent the evening with us talking about life and what really matters. It wasn't all heavy... we had a blast laughing about a lot of things. It is so cool when God brings someone into your life to confirm what he is teaching you and to show you that you're not completely crazy.

The Fellas

I just found this picture again and had to brag just a little. Barry McGuire is to my right (author of 60's anthem "Eve of Destruction") and Bob Bennet is to my left (the guy who inspired my to play guitar because he is an acoustic genius) at a concert they did in Alaska last spring. 

High School Retreat

We spent Friday night and Saturday morning just north of Porter, Washington way out in the sticks. It made me feel like I was in Alaska again. Anyway, the retreat was great. It was good to hear from the students and share a crazy rainy weekend with them.

Golf

I hit the course yesterday afternoon again and had my best ever outing. I have been starting fairly strong when I'm fresh and have a confident attitude. I was able to bail myself out of a few tough spots and play with confidence. My swing is starting to take shape and find some consistencey. Patience, confidence and an unhurried approach go along way with me. Its great to see the score come down. I think I'm addicted to that crazy game.

Visitors

Janet and Christy (Alaska friends) came to our place this Monday night. We went to dinner at a great little Mexican restaurant on Marvin road. Very authentic meal. It was good to catch up with them and see how God is working in a new way in their lives.

We are enjoying the ability to host people from time to time. Its easy because we have so much space in our current house.

Madeline's Ketchikan trip. An afternoon with the Pickrell's and a Poet. This was about a month ago. 

Jeff's birthday celbration. Madie munching away. 

Friend update

Yes, we do have friends. Gordy and Brett Gray (from Ketchikan) came through for a visit yesterday. They took us to lunch at the Tea Leaf 2 which has become one of our favorite places to eat. We had a great time with them although I think Gordy and I bored everyone with our golf speak. Sorry Beth... sorry Brett.

Congrats Kim and Mark

My sister is getting married to a fabulous guy. They met in Portland, OR and I couldn't be happier for them. You know, letting your sister go to some guy is a big deal but I trust Mark. It is going to be awesome having him in the family.

CCM

My last post got me thinking. Uh oh. What is the deal with the pathetic state that "Contemporary Christian Music" has fallen to? There has been a dramatic loss of creativity and originality. We can only conclude that the head of every "Christian" record label is asleep at the wheel. The blind are leading the blind.

There was a day that you could trust that a lot of Christian lyrics would be simple, strait foreword, and fresh reflecting the simple, loving faith of believers. The one thing that characterizes Christian lyrics today is "cliche" and not just that but "bad cliche." Why don't we let lyricists out of the pre-packaged box to write something meaningful and intellectually stimulating? Yeah, I'm over-generalizing, but not much. I can't handle ten seconds listening to CCM stations without saying "enough!"

The musical ingenuity of CCM has fallen into the same sad state as the lack of lyrical originality. It all sounds the same. It is very hard to tell the difference between groups. It is a rare moment to hear something truly catchy. The CCM crowd have patented what they feel is a "one size fits all" approach to finding the right songs. The only problem is it is the musical equivalent of a light blue polyester leisure suit and a ruffled shirt. Let somebody record an album without over compressing and over producing it. Get out of your rut. I just don't listen to it anymore because it isn't fresh, relevant, gritty, challenging or strait foreword. Maybe we should ask Larry Norman, the grandfather of Christian rock what he thinks about the state of CCM. We should let people express their humanity in their music. Maybe we should take a lesson from Bob Dylan who can't really sing. Everyone knows he isn't as vocally accomplished as Sandy Patti but who would you rather listen to? His voice has grit... I want to listen to him because he is a musical and lyrical genius.

It is very difficult for people who believe that Christians have something fresh to offer the world to see where we are at.

I should at this point say "Thank you" to all those musicians who are attempting to be creative, fresh and relevant even though their producers try to press them into the mold. Keep going... lets see a musical revelution. Perhaps now is the time to see this happen. Indie musicians have access to affordable home recording equipment. We should be putting our God-given talent to work whether or not we get heard by the "world." We don't need acceptance, we need to be a voice in the wilderness... obedient to the inner-voice of creativity that reflects the creative nature of the God we serve.

OK, rant over.

Alison Krauss

I'm not sure who you are listening to but I am enjoying a couple of artists these days you might want to check out. Alison Krauss and Union Station is a great folksy/country group. Alison's voice is pure silk.

Another artist that I discovered a while ago and finally bought his music is Peter Mayer. He is a very talented guitar player and vocalist. His voice reminds me a bit of Barry Bynum. His album "Stirrin' Up the Water" is so fresh and would be a welcome break from the cookie cutter oh so boring and utterly predictable approach that CCM has adopted.

This is funny

Here

Arrrrrrr! Avast, ye filthy lubbers, avast!!!

Don't forget International Talk Like a Pirate day coming up on September 19th. Visit the TLAP web site for futher information.

Attention Worship Leaders

One of the key issues in leading worship in any group is putting it in a key that is comfortable for the congregation. See this brief article for some discussion.

SP2

I should let you know that the Microsoft Service Pack 2 is working on the computer now. I closed all programs including the virus scan and didn't touch the computer while it was updating and it worked. I'm not totally bitter at Microsoft now :-)

Shhhhh....

Jesus' quietness of heart is appealing to me. He never seemed to be in a hurry to get anywhere. He had time for people with needs. He had determination and purpose in all that he did. He had the blessing of the Father so that he wasn't trying to "measure up" to the expectations of others.

Psalm 23:2-3 says, "He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul." I believe it is possible in our fractured and fallen lives to have the quietness of heart that Christ had. The Bible says that his peace is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit living within us.

I want to invite you to quiet your heart right now and say something like, "Hi Lord, I'm here. Speak to me in this quiet moment." And you can know he's there. His peace is available to you no matter what you're walking through right now.

Cell Training

I got to lead worship at our cell training night and felt that it went well. It was good to cut loose with a few songs that I identify with. It was a meaningful time for me and hopefully others too.

Golf

I should note that we had a sweet weekend. We drove up to Sedro Wooley and spent some time with Don, Arlene and Heidi Poet. I golfed 9 holes at Sauk Mountain in Sedro, grabbed some lunch, and golfed 18 holes at Overlook in Big Lake (south of Poets). It was super fun. We drove back home Saturday morning and I golfed another 9 with Ryan Pitroff (friend from church). I think that I could easily golf for a living if they paid a guy with a 28 handicap to hack his way around a course. I can see some improvement in my swing and the scores are coming down. I'm going to spend some more time on my short game though (chipping from 100 yards and less).

The cool thing about Saturday was that Ryan showed me a course in Yelm that you pay $5 for 9 holes and $10 for 18 holes after 2 in the afternoon. Sweet! That is what I needed to find. I can't afford these super snobby courses that think the average guy can pay between $40 and $80 a week. Not me.

Yes

Oh God and Father, I repent of my sinful preoccupation with visible things. The world has been too much with me. you have been here and I didn't even realize it. I have been blind to your presence. Open my eye's that I may see you in and around me. For Christ sake, Amen.

Some things to get you thinking

Every student dot com.

Poet

We're heading up to Sedro Wooley tonight to see the Poet family. We are looking foreword to celebrating Dad's birthday (Saturday) and just being with some great people for a couple of days. I should also admit that I'm going to live at the golf course on Friday. Ten bucks for as many holes as you can play... or as soon as I run out of golf balls, whichever comes first. Let's see, that's a tough one.

What a Quote

Victor Ashley, a new friend of mine, said last night "You don't act like a Christian, you show that you are a Christian." Wow! That just blew me away. I totally agree. So many of us are trying to "put on" Christian attitudes when we should be letting Christ's attitudes flow from our devotion to Christ and the Christ life welling up from within us. Thanks for challenging us Victor.

Beware SP2

Windows users beware. I began loading the new Service Pack from Windows today and had a major meltdown. I was off the computer for about 2 hours waiting for the twitch to end. Finally got up and running with a system restore but I don't have faith in the update anymore... not that I did in the first place but out of necessity we update our computers right? I'll wait until I've done a file backup to try that again.

Netflix

So we're giving netflix a whirl. For those who haven't heard of it, the service sends your choice of movies through the mail with no late fees and as many as 3 movies checked out at a time. You return them in a pre-paid envelope when you are done and they send out the next on your list when they recieve a viewed movie. I pretty much decided I was done with Blockbuster when they charged us another late fee for not returning a movie by noon. Yeah, it was my fault but it won't happen again. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully it will save us some coin.