i cant order my steps on this one. i write in a journal and in a blog. i have cut back on my journaling and started using my laptop more for that and keeping a log and posting something from it here and there. i can't get comfortable with posting everything on a blog. i guess i am not as transparent as i thought i was...
anyway, my journaling overall has declined as i have settled in here in baltimore. i am learning that i have relied on my teaching and communication to others too much in my own spiritual journey. it's funny: i have always counseled against that. so, i am making more of an effort to learn and grow on my own (more concentrated i guess is the right term) without the crutch of public speaking. baltimore is teaching me a lot about myself, and i am enjoying most of it.
shauna's in her final stretch at uncc. there is a back story to her job ending there that, many years from now, we will look back and laugh about. until then, it is frustrating. she just has to put up with some crazy mess while that situation is ending. it all came up suddenly. w/o getting into to much, the whole thing just proves God's faithfulness with our journey. she will be here FOR GOOD this weekend. i can't wait to be married again. single life sucks (for me, that is...i know you single folks are cursing me right now and that is ok, i get legal afternoon delights again starting saturday...you cant hurt me...did that comment cross a line?).
so i cant figure out the balance between journaling and blogging. and i dont want to waste my time figuring it out, either. for many, ok, for most, this isnt a dilemma. i just want to blog the meaningful stuff and keep the journaling stuff that is private to myself. i guess i am doing that. you know what? i am learning that i tend to think one way, and when it is challenged i have to kind of regroup and talk myself out of frustration and arrogant apathy towards the change. my god, i am old in my head, arent i? not only that i got a haircut today and i look just like my father! no more pics on here until my hair grows back out to some minimal length where i can spike it or something...no more buzzcuts for me.
i took a nap today at 8pm. how dumb was that? now i cant sleep. and i end up rambling and writing worthless stuff in a blog.
ohwell.
take the risk,
n
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Famous Last Words...
yesterday i spent most of the day in a workshop with Tim Stevens at Granger Community Church. It was helpful, and was centered around his new book Pop Goes the Church. I got quite a bit out of it, but we were assigned to create a message series around the idea that Everyone Can Make a Difference (or something like that). We had five minutes to come up with the series idea and relate it to Pop Culture. Dan and I came up with a parenting concept that neither of us really liked. Here's the point: this morning at about 230 when I couldn't sleep (airline delays...long story), I got the lightbulb moment on how I would create this series. Here goes: a pastor friend of mine in orlando did a series at Status called Famous Last Words that was created around this idea. They took words of Jesus, Mother Teresa, Ghandi, and others and made the series around being a world difference maker like these people. SO my idea is to spring off of this but to make it more of a pop culture thing (like use Bono, Chris Martin, Angelina Jolie, Oprah, etc.) and tie them to ancient church figures that made a difference and married it to faith. The idea here would be to show different angles of world change/culture change would be cool...and bring ordinary people beside the idea of the Pop Culture celebrity (infuse some life stories)
As for titles i like the following:
Wannabes: How I wannabe versus how I really am
CopyCats: Great decisions that shape who we can be
Famous Last Words (to totally steal the idea now)
Everybody Wants to Change the World (take some Campolo ideas here)
Perspective )this idea takes the images from an investment firm i saw in london. for example, like this:
It is all in the perspective. One looks trashy to some and the other looks trendy to some. Here's the point I would try and make with the perspective parts on the story: Angelina Jolie changes lives in Africa by adopting babies (loose interpretation but you get my point) and Mary Churchgoer changes lives by feeding the needy in her community. It would be kind of a perspective swapping with the celebrity and finding the unknown celebrity changing the world right where we are at...
ok, the name sucks right now, but this idea is in development. i am open to suggestions.
later, take the risk,
nate
Friday, June 13, 2008
Risky Business (no, this is not about an 80's movie)
Risky Business (no, this is not about an 80’s movie)
Risk: exposure to the chance of injury or loss; a hazard or dangerous choice (so says dictionary.com).
I think I really learned what the word “risk” meant when I was home for the summer during my freshman year at college. Allow me to explain: my “guy” friends (we all know what that statement means, right?) and I went swimming every Sunday night. We called it “SNS” (Sunday night swim). This festive event began around 9:00 p.m., and it happened every Sunday night throughout the summer. We would begin in our church parking lot (where the most deviant plans are surely hatched), and “borrowed” a church van for our adventure (we had to have it, because we all had to ride together...you understand how to justify to get what you want, right?). The adventure led us to Lake Norman (outside of Charlotte, NC...by the way, close to where “home” is for me). Now, one wouldn’t see much danger and risk to swimming at night in a lake (except my mom), but you don’t know the full context of this risk. Not only was it night, and not only did we “borrow” a church van (don’t ask more details, please), but we went swimming at an abandoned dock at an abandoned house with no lighting.
As young college gentlemen will do, we developed a habit of “crashing” this abandoned dock and making it our own, complete with a gas grill. We didn’t realize the risk until we noticed, one blissful, warm summer night, the flashing blue lights by our van. So what did we do? Did we count our losses and pack up to apologize for trespassing? No way. We swam out into the lake further so we couldn’t be seen (college boys lack the mental capacity to think with brilliance at times). We didn’t stop to think that the church van actually had the name and address of the church on it, and that there was a call being made to the church.
I won’t go into the whole story, but I will say we were not arrested (which could have easily happened due to the following charges: grand theft auto, trespassing, littering, disorderly conduct, and being idiots swimming at an abandoned dock at night, just to name a few). The cops laughed at us and a smooth talking member of our group helped us justify the church van situation. In our case, the risk was definitely not worth the reward.
I wonder sometimes how God looks at his decisions. I understand that he is infallible and omni-everything, but I wonder if he looks at the risk of his love versus the decisions we (humanity) make. The life of Christ exists so my life can be worth living; so that I can have a future. How many days go by that I make decisions that jeopardize this promise? How often do I, like a genius young independent college freshman, pay more attention to my immediate satisfaction over the eternal reality? We are all, at times, like those boys at the abandoned dock, swimming further away.
“Create in me a clean heart, Oh God; and renew a right spirit within me.”
-David (the poet king)
on a more personal and solemn note, the below video is, in my opinion, the new risky business video that should replace the 80's original
ok, take the risk,
n
Risk: exposure to the chance of injury or loss; a hazard or dangerous choice (so says dictionary.com).
I think I really learned what the word “risk” meant when I was home for the summer during my freshman year at college. Allow me to explain: my “guy” friends (we all know what that statement means, right?) and I went swimming every Sunday night. We called it “SNS” (Sunday night swim). This festive event began around 9:00 p.m., and it happened every Sunday night throughout the summer. We would begin in our church parking lot (where the most deviant plans are surely hatched), and “borrowed” a church van for our adventure (we had to have it, because we all had to ride together...you understand how to justify to get what you want, right?). The adventure led us to Lake Norman (outside of Charlotte, NC...by the way, close to where “home” is for me). Now, one wouldn’t see much danger and risk to swimming at night in a lake (except my mom), but you don’t know the full context of this risk. Not only was it night, and not only did we “borrow” a church van (don’t ask more details, please), but we went swimming at an abandoned dock at an abandoned house with no lighting.
As young college gentlemen will do, we developed a habit of “crashing” this abandoned dock and making it our own, complete with a gas grill. We didn’t realize the risk until we noticed, one blissful, warm summer night, the flashing blue lights by our van. So what did we do? Did we count our losses and pack up to apologize for trespassing? No way. We swam out into the lake further so we couldn’t be seen (college boys lack the mental capacity to think with brilliance at times). We didn’t stop to think that the church van actually had the name and address of the church on it, and that there was a call being made to the church.
I won’t go into the whole story, but I will say we were not arrested (which could have easily happened due to the following charges: grand theft auto, trespassing, littering, disorderly conduct, and being idiots swimming at an abandoned dock at night, just to name a few). The cops laughed at us and a smooth talking member of our group helped us justify the church van situation. In our case, the risk was definitely not worth the reward.
I wonder sometimes how God looks at his decisions. I understand that he is infallible and omni-everything, but I wonder if he looks at the risk of his love versus the decisions we (humanity) make. The life of Christ exists so my life can be worth living; so that I can have a future. How many days go by that I make decisions that jeopardize this promise? How often do I, like a genius young independent college freshman, pay more attention to my immediate satisfaction over the eternal reality? We are all, at times, like those boys at the abandoned dock, swimming further away.
“Create in me a clean heart, Oh God; and renew a right spirit within me.”
-David (the poet king)
on a more personal and solemn note, the below video is, in my opinion, the new risky business video that should replace the 80's original
ok, take the risk,
n
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