It's a Girl!

We had our ultra-sound on Monday, and it's a girl. Here's a really cool picture of our baby.

Movies 2007

Here’s a list of the most memorable films I saw in 2007. Not all of these films were released in 2007, but I just happen to have seen them sometime during the past year. These aren’t necessarily all of the “best” movies I saw last year, just the ones that had the biggest impact on me.

1. Once – This is a low-budget Irish musical with a very simple story. When I say “musical” don’t think “Guys and Dolls.” It’s about a folk singer and a girl he meets and they sing songs together. The actors actually wrote and performed all of the songs; it’s actually the most realistic musical I’ve ever seen. Let me just say that this movie is great! It’s beautiful, simple, and very moving.

2. God Grew Tired of Us – See previous post

3. The Pursuit of Happyness – I’m sure most of you have heard about this one. I thought it was a great movie about suffering, purgation, and the love of a father.

4. Amazing Grace – This probably wouldn’t be on my “best” movie list, but I have to give it props for being a “Christian” film that was really well done. I think if Christian film studios made more films like this one, they would have a lot bigger impact in the end. (I’m not sure that Amazing Grace was produced by a “Christian” studio, but I know it was promoted by a number of Christian organizations).

Our Big News

Well, the big story of our New Year is that Jill is pregnant again. We’ve known for just over three months but wanted to wait to break the news until Jill was into her second trimester. We’re pretty excited but still somewhat hesitant to get too excited because of the miscarriage Jill had last winter. Anyway, the New Year is picking up where last year left off, with big changes for us. A new state, a new church, new jobs, and now a new member of the family. We’re excited, nervous, and praying a lot these days.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Jill and I are preparing to head home to Ohio on Christmas Eve for my family’s Christmas celebration. It’ll be good to get away for a few days and relax.

I had a funny experience today regarding Christmas that I thought I’d share with you. Do you ever feel the pressure to keep Christmas sacred? You know keep the “Christ” in “Christmas” and all of that. As a pastor, I’m certainly trying to do my best to celebrate Advent and prepare my heart for the coming of our Lord on Christmas. In that spirit Jill and I asked for a Nativity Scene this Christmas to refocus our otherwise pagan Christmas décor, and Jill’s parents got us one. It’s one of those Willow Tree ones. We really like it.

Anyway, I thought we were doing the “Christian” thing until I walked by it and saw that we set it up in-between two giant snowmen. You remember the story: the shepherds, the wise-men, the two enormous snowmen that Joseph built while waiting for Mary to deliver…I guess we just can’t win.

Hope ya’ll have a very merry Christmas!

Celebrities to the Rescue

Oh my gosh, I just watched the first two minutes of the most ridiculous television event ever. It was the “Celebrity Skifest” on CBS. Apparently this event was designed to raise awareness and money to help save the world’s water. That’s right, a bunch of celebrities skiing to save the world’s water. Does this make any sense to anyone else?

What was even more absurd than the event itself was its introduction. It featured a number of B-list actors and a skier who made brief statements about the importance and necessity of “saving the water.” Apparently global warming is causing the world’s water supply to dry up. Doogi Houser opened the segment by talking about the dangers of greenhouse gasses and the potential of our planet running out of water (without really connecting these two thoughts in any logical way). Then the guy who helped create Seinfeld said, “We need to make sure we all have good water…full of oxygen.” Next was some lady who asked, “If we don’t protect our water, how will the fish continue to swim and spawn?” Another said, “Water is our most precious resource, it’s so much more precious than gasoline." Finally, the skier said, “The world’s water supply is in danger…So, what can I do? I can ski.” Praise the Lord for that brave skier, I was really starting to get worried!

How are we supposed to take any of this seriously? I actually thought I was watching some absurd SNL skit, but these celebs were as serious as a heart-attack. They truly believe that global warming is going to wipeout the world’s water supply, and even more crazy than that, they actually seem to think their ridiculous ski event is going to make a difference. What’s next, a celebrity billiards tournament to help prevent the earth from losing its supply of dirt? Because without dirt, we’ll have no place to plant crops…I think it’s a pretty serious potential problem, and I’m sure we can figure out some way to tie into the whole global warming issue.

A Meditation on Meditation

Sorry for not posting in a while. I’ve just been really busy at the church, trying to get a bunch of stuff done before Christmas, and my blog has been low on my priority list. When I do get the chance to blog, it seems that I’ve only been posting on movies. It’s probably because I spend most of my time consumed with the work and issues of the church that movies become my one escape and therefore an easy thing to write about.

The latest film that I would recommend is entitled “Into Great Silence.” It’s a documentary filmed at The Grande Chartreuse Monastery which is somewhere in Europe (I think France). It is a foreign film, but you will hardly know it when you watch it since there are all of about 10 words spoken in this two hour long film. Yeah, it’s over two hours long with hardly any action or dialogue, and I found myself being pretty bored at times. But, I think that was one of the points the film was trying to make: that the lives of these godly men are so quiet, simple, and beautiful that it is even hard for a modern viewer to watch them for two hours, let alone imagine entering into that kind of life with them! Day in and day out these monks silently pray and experience the depths of God’s presence. The film forces the viewer to be still and to think about life in a monastery. I couldn’t help but think that these silent and holy men know much more about God than I may ever know in this lifetime. It made me want to meet them and learn from them, but at the same time I thought, “I could never live like that; I’d go crazy.” God may not have called me to the vocation of meditation, but I am glad that there some holy people out there like these monks who are silently praying for us and living in such purity that I know that God hears their prayers.

God Grew Tired of Cheesy Films….

….so He inspired some folks to produce one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen. So, stop whatever you are doing right now, and go rent “God Grew Tired of Us.” It is the inspirational story of a bunch of Sudanese boys who escaped the Islamic genocide of Christians in southern Sudan. They made a grueling journey across the desert when they were young boys and spent the rest of their childhood in refugee camps. None of the boys have seen their families since they were little, and many of their families have been brutally murdered during the ongoing Muslim jihad. Now that the boys are grown, the world is trying to figure out to do with them because they cannot safely return to their homeland, and life in the refugee camps offers no future for them. A number of the boys have been chosen to come live in the U.S. to work and to finish their education, and “God Grew Tired of Us” follows several of them during their first few years in America.
This film aroused so many emotions in me when I watched it. It made me angry that the world has stood by and done nothing as the Muslim jihad continues. It mad me cry that these young men are faced with the reality that their families and homeland have been decimated and are forced to live as strangers in a very strange land. It made me feel a deep joy as I watched them adapt to American culture with innocent and open hearts. The first time they all try to go up an escalator in the airport is hysterical. Anyway, all I can really say is GO WATCH THIS FILM!
(There is a similar documentary to this one called “The Lost Boys of the Sudan,” but “God Grew Tired of Us” is considerably better)

A Tough Loss

Well, all my fellow Buckeyes are in mourning tonight after a disappointing loss to Illinois in The Shoe. I keep telling myself that sports would get boring if all my teams won every week. Oh well, there’s always next year.

On a more cheery note, I heard a quote tonight that I thought was great. We were watching the movie Almost Famous and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character says, “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.” How true that is….

Ministry Update

I don’t want to get into too many details about life and ministry in Eagle, but I did want to give y’all a general overview on how things have been going in my first six or seven weeks here. So, here are a few updates and thoughts:
1. I’m feeling more and more confident that God has called us to serve here. Ministry certainly has its challenges, and I’ve been busier this past month than at any other point in my life. But, the business has been good. I’m working hard, but I’ve really enjoyed the work. I take this to be a sign that I’m pretty well suited/gifted for this ministry. I still have many times when I feel like the challenges are pretty big and I’m not sure what I should do next, but I’m actually enjoying the challenges and feel inspired to attempt to overcome them.
2. I’ve been spending a lot of time just building relationships. I’ve realized that in ministry I must overcome my fear of taking the initiative to call people, visit them, and begin to build relationships with them. When I served in MN, I know that I became too standoffish. I’ve been trying to call and visit a lot of people here, and the more I do it, the more I see how essential this aspect of my ministry is. In fact, it can seem so important that I can easily understand how some ministers end up neglecting their families, prayer lives, preparation time, and study time in order to spend all of their time “out there” trying to participate in Christ’s incarnational ministry among people. I know that I must continue to take the initiative to call, visit, and connect with people, but I also must guard against neglecting other essential aspects of life and ministry.
3. God has been giving us hope. Everything is not perfect, but I really believe that God is working and leading us. He is helping me to see things not as they currently are, but as he desires them to be. I am seeing that people and church structures are flawed, but he is reminding me that his Spirit is at work building and expanding his kingdom through Christ’s transformational grace. Everyday I am reminded of his grace. His grace is giving me great hope.