the disciples circle

So in my reading of Acts 1 & 2, i've decided that i could easily have been one of Jesus disciples.

Situation 1

Acts 1:5 "...and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive."  

really guys?  you couldn't accept the fact that Jesus was beat beyond recognition and that some of  you watched the breath leave his lungs, and now he is chillin with you?  You need him to "prove" that he was actually alive?  you couldn't take the proof of Thomas putting his finger into his side?  

then it hit me... how many times to i need Jesus to prove to me that he's still alive?  

Situation 2

Acts 1:24 - "...O Lord, you know every heart.  Show us which of these men you have chosen."  (to replace Judas)

Acts 1:26 - "then they cast lots."  

so they prayed for a couple days about a very important decision and then basically flipped a coin to see who God chose.  I have so done that!!  i am horrible when it comes to waiting for God to "show me."  So i'll leave it to petty things to show me "God's direction."  

the worst part is this happened in between a 10 day window of when Jesus told them that they will receive the Holy Spirit and have power to be his witness to when Jesus sent the Holy Spirit on the day of pentecost.  

how long are we willing to wait?  can we wait 10 days?  what if God wants us to wait longer?  am i willing to wait?  

thanks God for busting my chops.  

God's word...Still busting my chops

So i was reading Acts 1 & 2 tonight and came across some things that gave me hope and also busted my chops.  i thought i would share them with the world since my wife was just giving me flack for not updating my blog...

Acts 2:6 "When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running." 

     (referring to the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended into the upper room).

after i read this, i thought..."wow, is God's presence in my life causing curiosity in the lives of those around me?"  

right now, i think i'm safe to say that it's not.  I've been in a dry place for the past several months (many of you already knew that) and i'm just now starting to grow a pair and take care of business on my end.  I'm in the process of trying to re-focus and get off my pitty potty.   

God, may your presence be so obvious in my life it would cause curiosity in those around me, and give me the wisdom to answer the questions and the humility to point them to you.

A-rod

i was watching sportscenter this morning and if you follow sports at all, you've probably heard about Alex Rodriguez and all the stories that surround him and steriod usage.

well, this morning one of their arguments of his usage is the idea that he put on 20-25 pound between his sophomore and junior year of High school. i felt bad for the guy because of this allegation. His growth could have been from his body finally taking to lifting weights or just developing.

i remember the Christmas of my sophomore year i freaked out because i jumped from around 160 to around 180lbs in a 6 month window. the only reason i remember is because i had a talk with my mom and she assured me that it was okay and that the weight gain was because i started lifting weights and it was probably mostly muscle. And i can honestly say that i've never taken anything (i know that statement falls null and void when it relates to HGH).

does that mean that A-rod has never taken anything? no, he probably has. But i just felt bad for the guy when they think he took it during high school and so early in his career. '

thats all. GO CUBS!!!

The bride

I went to a friends wedding this weekend and she was a very beautiful bride on the big day.  everything seemed to flow smoothly and as she described/desired it...simple but still very classy.

As i was sitting in the back row the thought came over me about the church and how we are Christ's bride and he is the bride groom anxiously waiting for His beautiful bride and for God to tell Him to go get us.  

but then the question that popped into my head is "how beautiful is his bride?"  sometimes i feel like his bride forgot what she looks like and she thinks she's Cinderella, when in actuality, we are probably more like the evil step sisters.  Abusive, back stabbing, lazy, agenda driven brats!

We want to argue over the little things (pearl necklaces, sashes, earrings, etc) instead of focusing on the ball and making sure we are ready for our prince charming.

so the question that is now through my head as i type... "would the glass shoe fit on my/our foot?"  Christ is looking for a beautiful bride that slipped out mid-dance and is searching high and low for her.  

Are we what He is looking for?

Pickles and Ready whip

sounds kinky right?  or maybe a craving for a pregnant person?  (amber is not pregnant either).  

no this is the flyer that my cousins kid received as an invitation to a church in the area .  Now mind you this church is a 30 minute bus ride from where my cousin lives.  i'm sorry, but this is just wrong in several ways.  

First, location.  if someone is offering a pickle and whip cream to a kid and they are located well outside of the area, my radar is activated. 

second, perversion.  with some of the people out there today, my cousin had a right to be concerned.  

third, belittling the pickle and ready whip.  they are awesome items on their own, but in no way should they be degraded to a bribe!! (spranger's take their pickles very serious!  they are at every family gathering and during the summer they are amazing snacks.)

okay, so that last reason was joking, but ya know, as a person that works in the church and i try hard to create a safe environment and try to avoid any situations like this and it bothers me when churches use stupid ploys to lure people in.  think through your flyers please.

Lady Chargers

My first experience as a head basketball coach has come to a close for this season. Overall i had a BLAST!!! The girls were an amazing group of young ladies that just flat out "got after it." they played hard and attempted to do what we asked. Did we have our mental lapses? yep...its jr. high students, did you expect something different?

overall our season finished around .500 (12-11 i think) and we achieved 2 out of our 3 goals.

1. we beat Rockridge (16-12 was the final score). it was a very physical game and the girls stepped up to the challenge and matched push for push. At a couple points i was nervous someone was going to get hurt.

2. We played for the championship in our conference tourney. We had to play Sherrard and they were a better team. i still believe that if we play them on a good day when at least 1/2 of our shots are falling, we can beat them. But this game was not that day. We lost (26-9 or something like that).

our 3rd goal was to beat Sherrard. We didn't achieve this goal but hopefully the girls discovered that they can at least play with them. I know in our first match up, we were defeated before we even stepped on the court. the second meeting, we lost because of a mental lapse of about 3 minutes and they took advantage. The 3rd meeting, we had them within our grasps at home, but hit our mental block and when they went up by 4 with 2-3 minutes left, we gave up.

all in all, i loved every minute of our season. Now that its over i miss it greatly. i miss seeing the girls every day and teaching them. i miss our inside jokes and games. I miss being able to encourage them on a regular basis.

my dream has been to coach some day and teach this game that i love and i'm grateful for the opportunity and look forward to doing it again.

if you have time, one of the grandparents put together a dvd of our season and pictures of the girls. His granddaughter plays on the 7th grade team and picked out the music. its 11 minutes long but if you want to peek at it, you can see why i enjoyed my season.

What a great group of girls.

testing a new program that updates various apps at once

a video for youth ministry

i subscribe to the youth pastor from Saddlebacks website and he had this video on his page.  it is very funny if you have ever spent any time working in youth ministry.

hope you enjoy as much as i do.

relationships

I had the opportunity to share at the Riverdale High School FCA today. the teacher informed me that the students wanted to know how to walk the walk.

As i thought about it, the thought that kept coming back to me was relationships.

I tried to compare our spiritual Journey to a road trip and weight lifting.

Think about it, a road trip is only as fun as the people you take it with. if i drive through the most beautiful scenery in the world, it’s more enjoyable with someone than by yourself. If you get stuck in a construction zone, its a little easier to crawl down the interstate if you have a good conversation going on. And lastly, your travel buddies can ease some of the burden by driving part of the way when you get tired.

then with the weight lifting... in order to get stronger you have to increase your weight, but in order to do the lift the first couple of times you need a spotter to help you get past that point where you just can’t push anymore. they help keep you moving forward, they cheer you on. Again, its more fun to lift with someone than by yourself.

So all of this to say, i am so thankful for all the people that have come into my life on this journey. I am truly blessed to have you all in my life and you have all impacted my life more than you or i will ever realize. you’ve pushed me to think outside myself, you’ve taught me, encouraged me and journeyed with me.

I’m looking forward to the next mile because of you...Thank you.

basketball team

alright, update time.

tonight we played our 7th game of the season and we are on a 3 game winning streak (i think).  

we played Galva tonight who are a very well coached team with some very good players.  I was excited and nervous because this game was gonna be a challenge for our "post" players (people that play in the free throw lane).  

the game started off close.  we jumped out to a small lead and held on until halftime.  at the start of the 3rd quarter, we turned up the pressure a little and the girls stayed aggressive.  we ended up winning the game by 13-15 points (i don't know the final score off the top of my head and forgot the score book at school).  

I was very proud of how hard the girls played tonight.  they played amazing defense, shot the ball well, and you should have seen some of the passes they made....AWESOME!!!  

i think the girls are starting to hit their stride.  hopefully its not to early, but either way, tonight was a good game to watch because they played hard all the way through.  

i was especially proud of the girls that only got in for a minute or 2.  they stepped in and we didn't loose a beat.  out here they encourage that all the girls play and so we threw 3 girls in at the end when Galva was pressing and fouling.   they kept their cool and didn't turn the ball over.  hopefully they didn't see that final minute as garbage, because in all honesty, i didn't feel the game was over until the last 10 seconds.  

anyway, i'm loving coaching, and the girls are amazing.  

thoughts from the super bowl

just some random thoughts...

- good game.  It is what a super bowl should come down to...last minute plays by people that get paid millions to do it

- commercials were alright...which just so happened to be my favorite one ("i'm alright")

- can't believe people were paying 3 million for a 30 second commercial spot with all of this talk of a recession.  

-  I could have cared less who won the game (Go BEARS!!), but i do think the Cardinals got homered on a several calls towards the end.  and its not like they were little ones either (i think most were 15 yarders or automatic first downs).

- great opportunity to hang out with friends and family.  Thanks NFL for lifting the ban on church parties.

goals

so i'm trying to read more and i'm hoping to get through at least 2 books / month.  we'll...i'm 0 for 1 on months achieved.  

In January, i did get one book read, but that was it.  it was an alright book "kiss" by Ted Deckker.  

anyway, if anyone has some advice on how to retain what i'm reading i'm open to suggestions.  that is one of the discouraging things i'm facing right now.  i am not retaining anything that i read and so i try to find something else to do other than read.    

8th grade lady chargers

 

Thank you God for allowing me this opportunity.  Coaching has been something that i've wanted to do for a while now, and He has given me a great group of girls and parents, to break into coaching with.  

so far the girls have been great and so have their parents.  they have been patient with me as i try to adjust to the system AND to being the head coach.  

it was fun this week because we got to play dodgeball for a warm up and my wife and caleb got into the action.  Caleb loves hanging out with the team and the girls have been great with them.  

i'm very proud to be their coach.  

a sign of the apocalypse

holy crap....

just read the headlines and the "new kids on the block" are coming to our area in April.  

you can pay anywhere from $30-$65 to see a bunch of MEN singing Hangin Tough.  

i'm sorry, but they have got to give it up!  They are no longer New and they are no longer Kids.  

oh yeah, i forgot...to avoid the conversations they are calling themselves NKOTB.

my bad.

its a sign of the Apocalypse.

God and our home

So yeah, here's the time line...

July - go play in a softball game with our new church.  Amber meets a woman from the church who is renting a farm house in Osco 1.5 miles away from the church and is moving in August.  

August 23 - We move into our new farm house (even though the rent is higher than we really wanted, or feel its worth).  But it is a house that God has provided and we are truly appreciative of the blessing.  

October - I go to a students volleyball game where a grandparent of a a student comes up and asked if i was looking for a different place to live?  He then gave me a name and number of someone in Andover who has a house for rent.  We call him, look at the house and find out that he is going to drop his desired rent to $550 because i'm a minister.  We agree to move in to the house in November.

November - due to the fact that i felt guilty for moving again in 3 months, i didn't recruit a whole lot of help moving this time.  our parents came out along with  some friends from Osco.  Amber and I moved a lot of the little stuff throughout the week and were putting it away as we went, so when the big day came, we had mostly large items left and were able to get settled in pretty quickly. 

NEW HOUSE  - our new landlords have been  a true blessing to us.  They didn't require a security deposit, they let us live there for the last 2 weeks of November for free, and after 2 weeks, they decided to drop our rent another $25 if we can get the rent to them by the 10th of each month!!  So now our home is 150 less/month, we have internet and cable for half the price of our satellite service at our old place.  And most importantly...this place feels like home.  

Now for the reason for the post besides relaying really late information.   I went in to the office yesterday and had a member of the church tell me that it was a good thing i got out of Osco  when i did.  When i asked why she informed me that the furnace at our old home, caught on fire.  She said that it was mostly smoke and that one of our old landlords kids found it when they went to check on the house during that really cold spell at the beginning of the year. 

all that to say that, God is still taking care of our family and i thank him for the many other blessings he has given us.  

sorry, short story made long.

coaching debut

so today was our first game/tournament.  we played 3 games in 6 hours and we came out 1-2 (1 win, 2 losses).  I'm proud of how the girls played.  we played 3 teams that travel and play on a regular basis.  my girls have had roughly 7 practices and don't play traveling ball.  So they held their own and i firmly believe that we will be sherrard when that time comes.  

we have a lot of things we need to work on, but it is all things that CAN be worked on.  so we are alright.  

then after the tourney, we met up with our friends and had a good time as always.  The boys got to play with Emery, our friends 2 year old, and had a blast.  We always do. 

so all in all, it was a good day.

what does God want?

Hosea 6:6

God's desire for Israel and Judah

 

I want you to show love,^*

not offer sacrifices.

I want you to know me^*

more than I want burnt offerings.

volunteer appreciation news

so i just found out today that the irs has a rule in effect that will not allow organizations to show there appreciation for volunteers by giving of gifts.  so from now on, all you will get from me is a big fat hug, pat on the back and thank you.

way to ruin appreciation IRS... you suck.

My temperature

reading an article today on developing a personal growth plan (good time to do this right?) and came across something that i've known for a while but it still sucked to hear...

"if you want to measure the spiritual temperature of the ministry in which you are involved, put a thermometer in your own mouth."  

it just stung.  but i guess i'm glad they didn't suggest taking your temp the other way right?  

here's to climbing out of that valley.  maybe i'll post my personal growth plan on here with my SMART goals as an act of accountability.

new addition to the collection

Over the past couple of years i’ve collected various Yoda figures. It started in college when i came across a catalog of cardboard cut outs and in my search for an ewok, i came across yoda and bought it. Since then, different people have added to my collection and i’ve found different figures with each trip to toys-r-us with the boys.

tonight we had another trip to the toy store and as we were checking out i looked over in the christmas clearance isle and found this little gem sitting there. Initially it was $20 and i wasn’t gonna spend that much money, so i had the lady price check it and found that it was marked all the way down to $5. check him out...

can you believe that he was still sitting there for $5? luckily i have the coolest (and hottest) wife and she humors me and let me get it.

ps- my collection is maybe 8 figures, so i’m not a crazy cat lady yet. just having fun.

new years party

Amber's sister and her family came into town (from Boston area) and i finally got to meet my niece Karis.  I was super excited to see them and meet her.  And since they were only in for a brief time, i tried to make sure that Amber could spend as much time as she could with them.  So for new years, my mother in law had a slumber party and we all spent the night playing the Wii and a new card game that was pretty fun.  below are some high lights from the night and meeting Karis.

Cousins

My niece.  I'm super excited to be an uncle.  

Its not a new years party until someone ends up in their underwear

party hard, crash harder.  The party was still going on around him

here are some videos of the evening.

 

this is my brother in law playing a training game for 

wii boxing

They get there rhythm from Amber.