a nerd's life.

crazy little thing [date night]

the application of this week's big idea (crazy love) is to go on a date night with our significant other's and ask a question in essentially a melding of these 3 bullets:

• perspective of the wife: "this is something that is important to me, that i want to be important to you" (fill in the blank)
• a question we might ask our wife on the date: "how can i best show love to you?"
• another question that may spur converation: "how can i best show L.O.V.E. to you?" (Listen and understand, Offer help, Very thoughtful gifts, Express appreciation)

anyway, our group agreed to take on the challenge and take our spouses out on a date over the next 2 weeks and offer the opportunity to our wives to share with us possibly 1 maybe 2 things we could improve upon when it comes to us loving them as Christ loved the church (Eph 5).

wish us guys luck, cause we can be a little slow at "getting" what is being said and i know i especially can be a little argumentative.  so especially pray for erin as she deals with my limited attention span and whitty sense of humor ;)

lego star wars: complete saga

about 9 months ago i purchased a nintendo ds for joey and myself (ok for me mostly).  recently we've been playing lego star wars: the complete saga and it's been awesome!  in fact just tonight we completed all the levels - although we have tons of stuff to unlock.  in fact we need to save up 800,000 lego pieces in order to purchase general grevious (i'm such a nerd - goes without saying). 

but here's the funny part: when joey plays without me, he keeps spending our lego pieces on other characters and then i try to explain to him that he shouldn't do that, because we have to save up sooo much dineros! 

so then he says, "ok, dad - i won't use any more monies (his word)".  well, sure enough i'll go to check our "balance" and he's spent more money - he just can't stay away from buying more stuff.  he's having a blast at our expense - but i love it!  you crack me up joey, i love being your dad!

Lots going on!

do you have a re-occuring dream?  i do.  my re-occuring dream is about tornadoes...which i think is due to my fascination with them.  i've never seen one in real life - which is probably why i still like them. 

anyway re-occuring dreams has nothing to do with what i'm blogging about, other than i wanted to use this picture to illustrate my whirlwind week.  here's what's happening in a nerd's life:

• over this weekend i stayed all night at my brother and sister-in-law's house - a farm house that they are renting that is over 100 years old and it didn't have any insulation....brrrrr...it was cold!  that was just a fun, amish like experience!
• then on sunday i got to see one of my nephews be baptized by his dad - just plain awesome - it all took place at a great church - eastview christian church in bloomington/normal, il.
• on sunday night, i got my butt kicked at ping pong by steve and tom who are in my small group - my teammate (the famous mike walters; who was just in a video testimony this past weekend with his wife) and i just couldn't beat them 2 out of 3.
• on monday morning i jumped on a plane to LA to rent a car and drive to long beach, ca.  this was a trip sponsored by wca (willowcreek association) for innovative group life churches (like us!) and it rocked!!  i got the chance to hang out with people from churches like mosaic, lifechurch, willow, northpoint, national community church, and on and on...40 of us total.  thanks wca and i look forward to more fun together.
• today i'm flying back (sitting here right now at LAX) to see my fam for the evening and few hours in the morning.
• tomorrow begins what will be a snowball of meetings about our (newthing's) leadership residency program - where we will have 4 interviews with phenomenal prospects in the next 2 weeks.  and this friday i'll be in a meeting working on the marketing strategy for communicating our (newthing's) new partership with wheaton college - which has deep implications for our residency program.

whew, i'm tired...but i am so blessed.  thank you God for using a nerd like me.

because of my brother

i am a Christ-follower.  he wasn't a Christ-follower until he started dating a girl in high who was - and she invited him to church.  after a few months he got baptized and then invited the rest of the fam - shortly after that i got baptized alongside my mom and sister (19 years ago!).

and tomorrow i'm going to Pontiac, IL to see my brother baptize one of his sons - my nephew Adam - praise God for soul legacies!  who knows where i would be without my brother's influence and now he's impacting his own son's life as well.  thank you Jesus for coming into my life and now my nephew's - congrats Adam!!  best decision you will ever make!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

i'm having a blast in my small group!  i don't know how else to say it - i just really think we have been enjoying our time together and tonight was one of those examples.  we have been using the big idea in our small group which means tonight we are in the series crazy little thing called love and we talked about crazy cycle.  the cycle we discussed comes from ephesians 5:33 where it teaches us about men's need for respect from their spouse and women's need for love from their spouse.

anyway, awesome and fun(ny) discussion - but we decided as a group to take on the "what's next?" challenge - doing 3 acts of kindness for our spouses without expecting anything in return.  so i need some ideas, what should i do to show my wife love over the next 7 days?

oprah, our friendship has taken 2 steps back

so i got to see oprah's latest creation, "oprah's big give", and i have to say it's a little silly.  she has taken the act of generosity and made it into a tv show.  its as if she had been watching all the reality tv that's out there and said to herself one day, "self, what if i took my billions of dollars and started a reality show that really made a difference." 

i got news for you oprah, we don't watch reality tv cause we want to see it make a difference - it's entertainment!  besides people being generous loses it edge when it's made into a competition and then "rated" by judges...judges that are looking for "tears, emotion and response" from those who recieve the "big give".

not to mention the show lacks creativity.  i mean she has the typical celebrity judges plus on english dude - haven't we seen that one before!  plus the strange way they sit before the judges as a group, all clapping for one another and then blamo, your enevelope is empty - you didn't make people cry, so you gotta go home!!

but i'm not the only one with a critical eye for oprah's new show - read about it here.

semi-fro

will ferrell's latest movie, semi-pro, was mostly entertaining, but really only when the camera was on him - otherwise i was little bored.  there was one scene where will ferrell's character, jackie moon, needed to increase the game's attendance to 2000 people - so he decided to wrestle a bear at half-time in order to draw people to the stadium.  spamonie!!

ok, i give in - i'm movin' to the beach!

my friend perry and i have to part ways on this discussion.  we usually agree on so many issues, but when it comes to this winter's weather, i have to say, "STOP IT ALREADY!!!"  here's what stinks about this winter:

• snow - does the expression "too much of a good thing" ring a bell!
• influenza - sheesh!  how many people are sick right now - i know my fam of 5 has it!
• reality tv - that's all there is cuz writers strike is still taking a toll on viewers like me!
• temperature - snow is cool, but my face has almost fallen off 6 times!
• parenting - my kids have seen more tv in the past 3 months than the amount of time they have been alive!
• church - is it just me, or has all the blizzards happened on sunday and on my small group night?!
• salt - our minivan had a tiny rust spot on the front right fender - it has tripled in size!

so what is your beef with this winter?  or are you taking perry's side and saying, "bring it on!"  i think that's how my kids would respond - they seemed to love it!

 

faux hawk to no hawk

i've gotten many, many, many comments about something since this past weekend and now throughout this entire week that i'm not sure demands so much attention.  you see, i've gotten kind of bored with the faux hawk and have decided to let my hair grow out.  and since i'm in the infamous in-between-stage, i don't really have style to my hair.  and so everyone is asking, "what's wrong with your hair?  are you stylying it differently?  run out of product?  where's the faux hawk??"

so anyway, in case you're wondering, here's what all the talk's about; aren't i handsome devil??

 

nick plassman text me and...

asked if i'd seen dferg's post on an interview he did with pastors.com.  usually my response would be "yep, i check dave's blog regularly."  but because i've been sick, i got a little behind.  anyway, nick asked because dave was interviewed on one of our favorite topics: apprenticeship.

check out the article here!