Today was a great day. I had some insightful conversation with my good friend, Jason Jackson, student minister at Believer's Church. Also got to watch SIGNS (again) with the ministry team I work with. What a cool movie!

After a visit to the doctor this week, my wife says that the new baby could be here any day. We have a C-section scheduled for Feb. 14th, but we are currently in some kind of holding pattern waiting for the package to be delivered at any moment. If anybody wants to make a wager on time of arrival, I am more than willing to give you good odds. I think the current over/under or rather before/after is noon on Feb. 6. Hopefully, I will figure out how to post pictures here on this blog by the time the little one lands.

Well, it finally happened. After three years without, our church has hired a new preaching minister. This has been a wonderful and at the same time maddening process. The outcome is (in my opinion) very satisfying. Not only did we learn more than we expected about faith in God, we ultimately received an amazing gift in Wade and Heather Hodges. I look forward to Wade joining our team and many years of wonderful, and at the same time maddening ministry together. For a look at Wade's thoughts on all this, check out his blog at WadeHodge.com.

I just starting reading Leanard Sweet's book, Soul Salsa. Just in the introduction I'm already hooked. Leanard says something like "being a friend of Jesus is not what He asked for. Jesus has enough friends, enough believers, followers. What He needs is more disciples, more people willing to pattern their lives after His." Wow. Thank you sir, may have another. I hope I am showing my students that Jesus is more than just a great friend. But honestly sometimes, that's the very thing I hear myself saying and presenting. Lord, please help me to see your son for who he truly IS!

Doug Pagitt is offereing an intersting look into a conversation of sorts at the Emergent Theological dialog with Stanley Hauerwass in Chapel Hill North Carolina. Doug is there this week and is using his blog as a place to take (unedited) notes from the event. Some deep, thought-provoking stuff- not for the sleepy. I really enjoy reading Stanley's stuff on ethics and am very interested in his views on church and culture. Whether you like the content or not, it's still a very creative way to use a blog.

For all of you Survivor "buffs" (pun definately intended), the new Amazon Survivor is just around the corner. Why not take a minute and pick your favorite castaway to win the million? This season's contest will again pit two tribes against each other, but this time it's the boys vs. the girls. This kinda reminds me of 6th grade Bible Bowl. Unfortunately for me, in Bible Bowl, the girls always came out on top.

Haven't written anything in a few days, so here's a few thoughts.

I am continually amazed at how little most of the students in my youth group know about the Bible. I thought my biblical knowledge as an adolescent was pretty weak, but it seems that my students are even more lacking. I wonder if I am contributing to this problem? I don't really stress Sunday morning Bible class that much, but hey they just don't have much of an attention span at 9am on Sunday morning. I mean this has got to be the absolute worst time to try to get stuff into the brain. And most of the events and activities we plan are more centered around relationship building and fellowship. Rarely do I put any pressure on my students to actually read the Bible. No wonder they disconnect and go to dream world during any sermon; it's a foreign book to them, it's a foreign language. I will try to do better.

Isn't interesting that an NFL team would go to the Super Bowl the year after their coach moves to another team. Isn't more interesting when that some coach takes his new team to the Super Bowl. Isn't it most interesting of all that his new team now in the Super Bowl is the Tampa Bay Bucs. Go figure!?!

I saw an amazing movie last Sat. night. My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Outstanding! It tuly deserves all the great press it has gotten this year. I'm just glad I finally got to see it. I'd have to say my favorite thing about the movie was how sorry I felt for the new husband's parents. Their lack of "dysfunctional-loud-crazy-can-you-believe-these-people" family experience was truly tragic. Aren't families great? The crazy ones are the best!

I just bought a new guitar tonight. I am feeling very excited about this. It is a Taylor 310. It's used and I got it on ebay. [Thank you Lord for bringing ebay into my life.] I hope you can enjoy this wonderful experience with me. Thanks Mandi for helping me go with the Taylor.

And, oh yea, did I mention that I waited four and a half hours for dinner at a restaurant on Sat. night. Well, we actually got our name on the list, went to a movie (see above), drove around a while, came back, waited another 45 min. for a table. But, yea, a total of about four and a half hours. Can you believe that? Why in the world would anyone wait that long to eat out? Because it was P. F. Changs, and it was gooooood.

My name is Brad.
I like Fantasy Football.
This season is over, and ....
I am sad.
But.....
I won.
So, I am happy.

My friends Jon Paul Findley and Chris Seidman are a part of a new ministry to Gen X and Gen Y that meets in an old theater in Carrollton, TX. It's called I55 and it's pretty cool. It's kinda similar to what Loui Giglio is doing in Atlanta with 7:22. These guys are very talented and passionate about Christ. I know God will use them to help many folks in this emerging generation to connect to the Creator and the Saviour. Way to go, guys!

What a great weekend. Got to visit with a great guy that may end up on our church staff. For the last three years our staff has worked well as a team, but without a preaching minister. I am excited as I think of God adding this person to our team. God has taught us all a lot about faith in Him, rather than in a man over the last three years. Now I'm looking forward to learning even more as God speaks through His man.

I have recenly begun a few interesting conversations with some students. Most center around "having it all figured out" vs. "accepting some mystery as a part of faith." These should definately be fun and real honest. One of the greatest things I love about working with students is that they can cut through the crap pretty quickly and be very honest. With their permission, I will try to include some of these conversations on my blog for others to chew on.

A cool quote a came across recently:
"Doubt is but another element of faith."- Augustine.

Is it possible that God allows for doubt because he knows that it leads me to more faith. It seems to me that without some amount of doubt I really have no need for faith. I mean, if faith is supposed to be tied into being sure of what I cannot see, then total irrifutable proof might actually lead me away from, rather than towards a deeper faith. However, if I continue to follow this line, I'm going to have to rethink my thoughts on apologetics as it relates to evangelism. As usual, I don't have this figured out, and...well...that may just be a very good thing.

I'm not sure if it's me, AOL or my Mac- but when I blog at home, it just doesn't seem to work right. If it's me, that's not bad, I can eventually figure out how to use blogger. If it's AOL, good. That will give me an excuse to convince my wife that we need to get a new internet provider. But, if it's the Mac. No, no, please don't let it be the Mac. I love her. I don't know why. I just do. Maybe because she was my first. Maybe because I got so excited the first day my dad brought home the new "home computer", a brand new pre-release Macintosh (with the designer's signatures on the inside.) [Dod, don't you wish you still had that "old" thing?] Maybe, it's just my inability to deal with change and get past a personal opinion. Whoa, is this the way certain folks in my church feel about moving towards a more progressive song selection in worship service? Now, I feel your pain- kinda.

Check out the new links I recently posted.

OK, so I haven't posted anything in a long time. That is true. The last few weeks, I thought I was posting stuff. I wrote it out and clicked on the post button, but nothing ever appeared on the site. This week I found out that I'm an idiot and I'm supposed to be clicking on the post & publish button. Go figure.
Currently, I'm working to get things up and going again after a great holiday. It is honestly kinda tough coming back to work. Although I truly love my job.
I finished reading Brian McClaren's book, More Ready Than You Realize (subtitled Evangelism as Dance in the Postmodern Matrix.) This was great and will probably be a must read for any of my students that are going to YouthWAVE. If you don't know what YouthWAVE is, please check out www.youthwave.org It is one of the best tools I have ever come across for equipping high school students to share their faith with their friends.
I'm about half way through a book called Traveling Mercies, by Ann Lamott, an incredibly gifted writer. I'll try to write some reviews of books I read as I finish them, but no promises. I've set a goal of trying to read 50 books this year, which for me will be a good challenge.

I am primarily spending my time these days- waiting. Waiting for the next program at church to get started, waiting for our church to hire a preacher, waiting for God to help me make sense of all the crazy things I've been reading and thinking about in the last few months, waiting for the students in my youth group to finally... get it, and waiting for our new baby to arrive. The later event should take place on February 14th, 2003. Valentine's day, which I think is pretty cool. Right now I'm trying to decide if I want to find out if it's a boy or girl. There are definately advantages either way. I think I'm going to wait and let it be a surprise,. .. .or maybe not. Let me know what you think. To be continued . . .