The Radical Question

The Radical Question: What Is Jesus Worth to You? by David Platt


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Dr. David Platt, senior pastor of the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama writes this short and powerful book as a wake up call...a reminder to so many of us Americans, that our call to Christ was not a call to the American Dream that we are often found pursuing...but a call to pursue Christ, which looks much different and will call us to make radically different choices than those that do follow the American Dream.

The question that Platt poses is this, "What is Jesus worth to you?". Jesus called us to love God and to love others as He loved us. Are we following that simple commandment? Does it show in our actions, our decisions? If we REALLY loved others...if we REALLY wanted to care for the poor, the lost, the people that Jesus seemed to attract and to go out of his way to spend time with...how different would our lives look?

"We take the Jesus of the Bible and begin twisting him into a version of Jesus that we are more comfortable with." Do you know do this? How often do you fit Him into your schedule, or fit Him into your plans rather than throwing yourself before Him and doing what He asks?

When Jesus called His disciples and then told them what they would face it wasn't a pretty picture by the world's standard. They would be beaten, chased, hated and killed. And while we see this in other areas of the world, Americans are blessed with little of this persecution due to our freedom of religion, have we lost the value associated with our faith because we currently don't have to struggle to have that freedom? The cost of non-discipleship is much higher than the cost of being a disciple, but it is not recognizable from a worldly point of view.

So, read this short book. Ask the difficult questions and find out how true your faith is...try to answer the question, "What is Jesus worth to you?".


What is Christ worth to you? Can you give up ambition, family, home, comforts, dreams to follow Christ’s call. Read "The Radical Question" and ask yourself if you are doing what God has called you to do.

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Fathers Day

Wanted to share about Father's Day and post my cards, which were awesome.  I can't let the post go by without mentioning that Kristen decided to buy a new gas grill as my Father's Day gift.  She has certainly been missing the ease with which you can cook up burgers and brats since our last grill died...and I think this was an easy pick for her this year :) and it even came a little early since she needed my help in getting it out of the van. 

As for actual day, I woke up to a balloon, some other small gifts and a plethora of cards to read.  Kristen always does a great job of getting all the boys involved and this year was no different.

Here are the cards:

I also want to put down here how grateful I am to be a Dad and to have the wonderful family that I have.  God has blessed me tremendously and I am glad to have this holiday as a reminder of that.

Jacob's last day of Pre-School

Had to post on this as Jacob "graduated" today.  It is an exciting day, though he, as well as many of his classmates, had a very hard time saying goodbye to their teacher.
Congratulations Jacob!

The Reveal Study

Reveal: Where Are You? by Greg L. Hawkins


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I read this book because our church has not only adopted some of the suggestions in this book, but we have participated in the surveys as they have expanded participation over time. As I am looking to help the ministries of our church, I felt it would be worthwhile to read this and understand the material.
Willow Creek, in trying to understand better what was happening with their members, started leveraging marketplace survey methodologies to determine what was working for their congregation and what wasn't in terms of enabling spiritual growth. Were they being as successful as they thought they were?
The answer was no, and the book takes you through their findings and the correlations they found to survey answers and people's perceived spiritual growth.
To the extent that this book helps pastors, congregations, elders and those interested in their own spiritual growth ask more questions about their intent, success, etc...and to actually inspect what they are doing rather than just assuming it is working because people show up, it is a very good thing.
On the other hand, I think many people want to assume that because this team discovered correlations in the survey data that there is "a definitive way to do church" and maybe too many churches will try to do the same thing.  If that is the case, then it will not be good for actual growth for many churches and for God's kingdom.
I don't suggest that there is no place for the methodologies or for formulas but we need to strive to keep in mind that similarly to all the marriage books and self help manuals, there are practices that can generally help relationships, but ultimately, you have to put the work into a relationship to see it blossom.
That is true of our relationship with God as well as with the church body and our own spiritual growth.  The reveal study does speak to this as well and we need to help people to do the work and invest in their relationship with God to see it mature.

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Jaden is 8 today

With that in mind, I thought I would post 8 great things about Jaden as we get to celebrate his birthday.

1.  Jaden loves God.  We can see it in the way he reads the Bible on his own, the way that he prays and in his passions.  

2.  Jaden has an incredible heart.  He has a tenderness, compassion and kindness that people are drawn to.

3.  Jaden is my son...and by that I mean - he gets some of his traits and tendencies directly from me.  I can see myself in him and that is both a challenge and a true blessing to me and something I love about him dearly.  So, even though he is sullen sometimes and he has the same quick temper with his brother that I did with mine...I have to smile.  

4.  Jaden is an amazing reader.  He just consumes books so quickly.  It is neat to see how much he enjoys getting himself comfortable in his mom's papasan chair and getting lost in his book for hours.

5.  Jaden is willing to try new things.  Whether it is food or whatever, I really appreciate that he is open to trying things at least once.  It is a big contrast to his brothers who tend to shake their head no and not try anything.

6.  I am amazed at how talented Jaden is.  And I really want to help him explore and grow in these areas.  For instance, Jaden has an incredible ear for music.  He loves the piano and has started to teach himself how to play various pieces.  He may not be the prodigy that you see on YouTube, but I am blown away at the progress he has made on his own.

7.  I love that though Jaden is growing up, he is still ok with hanging with his parents, that he comes to us with problems and actually listens.  I know that he will continue to grow up and will grow more independent...but I love that it hasn't happened yet.  And I really think he will be a boy that is always respectful of us, so while I am not wanting the time to rush by, I am not overly worried about it either :)

8.  Jaden is a leader.  And I love that it is associated with good things.  He cares about fairness and sets a good example.  Jaden did something this year in school that I don't know that I ever would have done in school.  He got up in front of his whole class + others to let them know that the way things were was not ok and not fair to others with the way the soccer games were being played.  Despite maybe getting ridiculed, or people not thinking it was cool for him to call people out, he wanted everyone to know that things should be fair and that he would stand up for it.  That is my boy, and he is amazing.

Love you Jaden and happy birthday!

Simple Church by Rainer & Geiger

Simple Church: Returning to God's Process for Making Disciples by Thom S. Rainer


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
If you are reading or looking to read this book, you are either part of a church leadership team, part of a congregation where some of the strategies posited by the authors are being implemented or you are in seminary. I know that is somewhat narrow and not entirely accurate, but the focus of this book leads to those types of audiences being interested in the material.
The authors have done statistical work to back up their position that a "simple church" is more likely to be a growing church. They have constructed a 4 part plan that helps churches become simple (Clarity, Movement, Alignment, Focus) and give great examples as to why this approach seems to resonate with people and help many churches with attracting and making disciples.
So, while I enjoyed the book and think that this team has some interesting data and points, I do struggle with this mantra that suggests that if all churches were like this they would be more likely to grow. (I know that they are only showing a statistical relationship and they even address this specifically in the FAQ section in the back....BUT, that is where the book leads us.)
There are many ways to "do church" and some that haven't even been thought of yet. While this is great information and probably will help many congregations that have had issues with having too many programs and resources spread too thin, I hope that it will not limit or stifle creativity or cause people to stifle the Holy Spirit leading them in a direction that they may think conflicts with the "simple" approach.
May each and every person who does read this book help the church become what God intended it to be and may each of them help bring more people to know God's love for us.

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Lost

Kristen got interested in watching Lost as our pastor started talking about it a little more often as it neared its series finale.  While it is outside of Kristen's normal type of show, she wanted to start and she got season 1 from our library.  I have to admit that I was happy to watch it as it is much more up my normal genre of things I like to watch :)  Since getting it from the library, it is pretty much the only show we are watching right now.  Any time we have to sit down together to watch an episode, we do.  It is great that we are watching it commercial free as it only takes us 40 minutes for each episode.  Despite this focus and the relative short time needed for each episode, it still took us around two months to get the first season done and now we are working on season 2.  Based upon the fact that Lost went through 10 seasons, it is going to take a long time for us to get through it.

So, just in case any of you have been watching it, please no spoilers :)

Mount Monadnock

According to Wikipedia:

"Mount Monadnock, or Grand Monadnock, is the most prominent New England mountain peak south of theWhite Mountains and east of the Massachusetts Berkshires, and is the highest point in Cheshire County, New Hampshire. It has long been known as one of the most frequently climbed mountains in the world.

At 3,165 feet (965 m), Mount Monadnock is nearly 1,000 feet (300 m) higher than any mountain peak within 30 miles (48 km) and rises 2,000 feet (600 m) above the surrounding landscape."

Now, coming from Colorado, this really doesn't seem impressive, or daunting, or even worth the effort:), however, some friends were going up and this seemed like a great opportunity to spend some time with Jaden...so, he and I decided to go up.  

Saturday morning we were up early and ready to go.  We started on the road trip by 8:15, and started the climb by 10:15.

We probably would have gone slightly faster up, but we lost one of the people in our group and he needed to turn back before we were even 30 minutes into the hike.

Now, I will say that with me being as out of shape as I am, the mountain still wasn't challenging, but it was a good and enjoyable hike.  I still felt it in the legs a little the next day and I think Jaden did an incredible job.  He had plenty of energy and was always at the front of the pack needing to be reigned in to stay with the group.

This picture is about 2/3rds of the way up after one of several "false summits".  The views were great and we had fantastic weather for the whole day...not too hot, with a breeze, slightly overcast and no rain until about 5 minutes away from the car!

This is Jaden at the summit.  We ate lunch took some pictures and then headed back.  Going up ended up taking just around 2 hours.  After taking a different and longer path down, we were back at the car and on our way home.  The drive was close to 2 hours, and yet we were home before 5pm and still had time to attend a birthday party.  That is a good day :)






Thanks to my son who made the trip with me and who made me proud with his great climbing!  Love you Jaden!