Got home from work today and discovered that Josiah tried to bake a CD. Lora noticed a funny smell eminating from the oven when she turned it on for dinner. How can you get upset at something so funny! Hmmm, hmmm good.

This morning had to be one of the craziest Sundays in my nine years of pastoring. I knew the snow, all three inches of it, would seriously affect the psychology of people coming to church. It definitely threw a wrench in things. I felt like one of the three little pigs walking to church. The wind was huffing and puffing and trying to blow me down! I was like "slow-motion man" walking into the wind. What a Sunday to launch a new service @ Union.

To add to the chaos, Pastor Joel, our Point Pastor @ Ballston was stuck in Boston because of a canceled flight. Pastor Josh was leading our missions team in California that is helping Pathway Church get off the ground. So Pastor Dave had to play point @ Ballston. He was sick as a dog! He threw up three times last night. Needless to say, our team was hurtin for certain!

To top things off, Union Station was evacuated about ten minutes into my message in the 9:30 service! When it snows it blizzards! There was a little bit of panic and it was absolutely freezing outside. The evacuation meant we didn't have a tape to send to Ballston! I finally got a hold of Pastor of Dave and they had one old tape there--a message from October 31. How ironic. I talked about "planning for the future" and Ballston was living in the past :) But what can you do! The best laid plans of mice and men fell apart.

We ended up canceling the rest of our 9:30 and switched the order of service in the 10:30 so I could preach live in both the 10:30 and 11:00. It was sort of weird, the 11:00 was expecting a video so I apologized for being live! We made it through the 10:30, but the 11:00 was crazy! We actually had to get security to have a person removed from the service! They wouldn't stop talking and we have a rule of thumb--if someone is compromising everyone else's experience then they need to be removed. Turns out he was drunk. I hope he comes back when he's sober!

I can't remember a Sunday morning that had more crazy things happen! The combination of weather conditions, evacuation, missing staff, and disruption made for quite a day! Not much can surprise you after all of that. We're usually prepared for one or two unexpected contingencies, but not three or four! Praise God that everything worked out ok! The services were great despite everything that happened.

One of my favorite mental pictures in Scripture is Genesis 1:2. The earth was formless and void and the Spirit was hovering over the chaos. The Holy Spirit loves hovering over chaos. He was definitely hovering over NCC today!

I just read an interesting interview with Deepak Chopra in Time magazine. He said that his purpose in writing is to "bridge the scientific insights of today with the spiritual yearning that we all have." I find that fascinating. I feel like one of my strengths is cross-polinization. I'm not the smartest guy on the block, but I am interested in everything. I love theology, but I love other ologies as well. I think every spiritual truth has a physical parallel. It's almost as if the physical and spiritual are parallel universes. I love reading about the latest discoveries and how they amplify the truth of Scripture. For what it's worth, one of my all-time favorite Einstein quotes is, "Never lose a holy curiosity." In our March series, The Physics of Faith, will be a fun cross-polinization series that will hopefully help people get a handle on faith.

Chopra said one other thing that I thought was cool. He said he writes for intrinsic purposes. "I'm just singing in the Bathroom, and if anyone wants to listen, they're welcome." If you do things for extrinsic purposes--a reward that comes from it--rather than intrinsic purposes--for the love of doing it--you'll eventually short-circuit. I preach and write because I have to not because I have to. One have to is "I'm on the schedule" or "it's my job." The other have to is "I"m called and compelled." When you find intrinsic joy in what you do then all the extrinsic rewards are gravy!

I went the last devotional in the Attorney General's office yesterday. It was a little meloncholy. I've been going to his devotionals for eight years, but his public service is almost up. We walked into his office and everything was gone. His shelves and cabinets were empty.

He walked in and the first thing he said was, "All the trinkets and trophies are gone and everything of value is here." He was, of course, referring to the relationships of the people around the circle.

It was a profound moment for me. We like to accumulate things to go on our shelves and resumes. But, at the of the day, we'll have to clear out our desks and shelves. Nothing material will be left. All that's left is the relationships we've forged--the people who we've touched and the people who have touched us. I felt like it was one of those "moments" when you see the truth of what is important and what isn't.

I'm going back to basics, but the simplest things are often the most profound. Observation: I've found that when I spend time in prayer in the morning and bathe my day in prayer, then the everything I do is infused with God's presence and it becomes an act of worship.

My preaching becomes more than preaching--my messages become an act of worship. My writing becomes more than writing--my books become an act of worship. My meetings become from than meetings--my meetings become an act of worship. I don't want to preach and write and have meetings. I want to have acts of worship!

If I don't bathe things in prayer they ring hollow. They don't carry the same weight. There is no density to them because there is no sense of destiny that went into them.

Our lives ought to be an act of worship accordings to Romans 12. But it all comes back to prayer. Prayer is the way we turn anything and everything into an act of worship!

Parker had his first basketball game today. We've been practicing for two months now. The kids have shown remarkable improvement, but when we walked into the gym I knew we were in trouble!

At the end of the first quarter, our team was behind 20-0! Our kids looked like deer caught in the headlights! They didn't know what hit them.

I had lots of thoughts and feelings :) Here are a few of them.

It was so hard for me to sit in the stands! I wanted help, but I felt helpless. I could have singlehandedly beaten the other team 1-on-5. But I couldn't. I can only imagine the way God feels when he could help us, but we don't ask Him to. How frustrating must that be! God must think, "I can handle all your problems. Why are you trying to solve them yourselves!"

It was so tough seeing my son get a lesson in "harsh reality." There was no way to really soften the blow. They were just alot better than we are! There was a loss of innocence! But, like everything else, it's how you deal with it. The kids hung in there! They kept their hearts in it and held their heads up!

After the game, one of the parents said, "That was fun." I thought that was an interesting definition of fun--getting crushed by your opponent! I wondered what their idea of unfun was!

We ended up losing 24-2, but with the celebration over that one basket you would have thought we won the game!

Here's the funny game. We discovered afterwards that the team that beat us was just "filling in." The team we were actually scheduled to play didn't show up so we're 1-0. Gotta love that!

So much of success in any endeavor is based on instincts that can't be taught. They can only be learned by being in situations over and over again and learning from them.

I'm seeing it in our third grade basketball team. Only a few kids have basketball instincts--where to position themselves for rebounds, how to aggresively go after loose balls, how to get open to get a shot. You can't teach that. It can only be learned by doing. Eventually it becomes instinctual.

We're designing our Annual Report right now and I've developed "an eye" for what works and what doesn't in terms of marketing and design. It's a sixth sense. I can't draw a stick figure, but I have instincts when it comes to packaging because we've designed so many graphics for series and mailers and brochures and reports. It's a marketing instinct.

I think it's true of leadership. I've officially begun my tenth trip around the block. It's hard to believe! I tell church planters all the time that it took five years for me to even know which way was up. I had zero experience so I had zero instinct. But over time you see the same situations and opportunities and problems. You develop a leadership instinct.

I think instinct is the intangible part of memory. You can't always put it into words, but you learn to "go with your gut."

Mark 1:35 has always been one of my favorite verses. It gives us a glimpse into a "normal day" in Jesus' life. "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed."

I've been thinking about experimenting with routines and disciplines this year. I want to "mix it up" and try some different ways to keep momentum and rhythm.

One of my experiments this month is to get up a little earlier. I'm setting my alarm for 5:30 AM most mornings so I can spend uninterrupted time with God.

I am very aware of the danger of spirituals goals like this. They can lead towards pride--I'm doing something you aren't. And they can lead toward legalism--if I miss a morning I'm a complete failure. I'm going to try to avoid those extremes. But I feel like I want to spend a little extra time with God in the AM. I want to give God a little extra time and a little extra room to work in my life. I'm just trying to follow Jesus' example.

I think Mark 1:35 was normality, not abnormality, for Jesus. It was his routine.

I remember being inspired by D.L. Moody years ago. R.A. Torrey said that one reason God used Moody was his study habits. Torrey said of Moody, "Every day of his life I have reason for believing he arose very early in the morning to study the Word of God way down to the close of his life. Mr. Moody used to rise about 4:00 in the morning. He would say to me, 'If I am going to get in any study, I have got to get up before the other folks get up.' And he woudl shut himself up in a remote room in his house alone with his God and his Bible."

This may be a figment of my imagination, but I also remember reading that he felt a twinge of guilt if he heard the blacksmith up hammered before he was up praying!

My father-in-law used to get up at ridiculous hours to pray. At one point, he got up at 3:30 AM. But I'm convinced that is why God used him the way He did!

So it's 5:30 AM this month. I just want to give God a little more time and a little more room to work in my life!

I was reading Finding Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and he offers a great perspective on parenting.

He says, "Parenting is supposed to be one of the most rewarding experiences in life; but it isn't, unless one approaches it with the same attention as one would a sport or an artistic performance."

I'd never thought about parenting as a sport, but I like it. And I think you realize that like athletics it is hard--it takes lots of effort and energy--but the payoff is worth it.

Mihaly says, "To experience such simple pleasures of parenting, one has to pay attention, to know what the child is 'proud of,' what she is 'into'; then one has to devote more attention to share those activities with her."

I sat down with Parker yesterday and he taught me how to draw comics. It's not really "my thing." But I knew it was "his thing" so I invested the time and attention. Here is a simple rule of thumb: if it's important to my kid's it's important.

One of my motivations for writing has always been to share my faith in a non-threatening way. When I share my faith verbally some people are on edge or defensive. But a book does what the internet does--it creates neutral territory. People who might never come to church will click on the church website or crack a book. Writing allows me to share my faith in an asyncronous and unintimidating way.

Last week I had a conversation with someone I've known for years, but never really had the opporutnity to share my faith with. He told me he's reading my book. We had a ten or fifteen minute conversation about some of the things I wrote--things that probably wouldn't come up in a normal conversation. It was so cool to see that dream become reality. I felt like all the time and energy invested in writing was worth it.

This week I gave the book to our UPS guy and a coffeeshop manager--two people I'd probably never have the opportunity to verbally share my faith with. But the book is my trojan horse. It gets me behind the defenses that most people have.

I'm really praying that God uses it as a spark to ignite conversations about Christ.

Out with the old and in with the new. I'm not making any resolutions this year, but I am setting a few goal.

Writing Goals

Seems crazy, considering it took me ten years to write me first book, but my goal is to write five books in 2005. I think I've accumulated so many ideas and evotionals and messages over the years that I sort of feel like I'm playing catch up.

Reading Goals

Right now I'm reading through the New Testament in The Message. I love reading different translations. Scripture is so kaleidscopic and different translations often help me see things from different angles.

I'm also beginning this year with a week of prayer and fasting. I think it's a great way to make my heart is in the right place at the beginning of the year.

After my prayer time this morning someone sent me an "email prophecy." Not sure how else to say it. It was an unbelievable confirmation of what I had been praying. God's timing is impeccable.

I'm excited about what God is going to do in 2005.