My life as a palm...

... my palm pilot computer has been missing for 3 weeks! I found it today. Literally a miracle. I've looked through my backpack dozens of times looking for it, but today it was there! YES!!!

Tuition!!!!

For all of you who have been praying for Amy and I, we are thankful. Especially to share the following news with all of you. Amy has been granted in-state tuition. This means that her Russian class this semester just dropped from $11,000 to $4,000!!! Praise the Lord! No joking here, get up, do a little dance, shout for joy along with us. We have been waiting for this news since August!

We are relieved.

retropatellar pain syndrome

it's official, looks like this pain in the knee has a name, retropatellar pain syndrome. Might be easier to call it by it's common name, "runner's knee"

Basically what it means is a pain underneath my knee cap. Turns out running with a wife who's a runner isn't the best thing to jump into. I don't think that was exactly what has going on when I really injured my knee, but it was what we suspect weakened it.

Bummer, huh? So I'm supposed to do rehab exercises and take it easy. No running, no stair climber, no stairs (if possible).

So please pray for me. For no pain and fast healing.

Go Fish! Missions weekend in Owosso

Amy and I just finished an incredible weekend with Community EPC church in Owosso, MI. We had the opportunity to speak there three times, plus a question and answer period. I spoke on Friday night, Amy on Saturday and on Sunday we both got to share. We talked about missional living and service opportunities as a platform for sharing the gospel. On Sunday I spoke about how God has a specific plan for each of us and referenced Henry Blackaby's book "Experiencing God" as a great method for seeking God's will for each of us.

It was a great weekend with a group of people who truly understand fellowship.

We connected with so many great folk. We're excited to stay connected!

Corn Maze

Today Amy and I went with friends to a 'corn maze' Isn't this awesome? So it's a maze cut into a field of corn if you've never seen one before. You go there at like 7pm at night. So it's really dark and you use a flash night to navigate your way through. There were 6 check points to go through. And yes, you really can get lost.

So isn't it amazing?! It was really fun, I'm pretty tired, so this will be brief.

Please pray - tenuous relations between Russia and the US

So this is really just a link to a CNN article about the tension between the government's of the US and Russia.

Pat and Stanley

Have you ever met Pat and Stanley? They are these crazy cartoon characters that some French guy thought up. I laugh every time I watch one of his shorts... I have no idea if he gets paid for them, but you can watch them on Google Videos.

Being intentional about living healthy

I guess this is a nearly impossible goal in the United States. Amy and I are trying to be healthy. I've gained a bit over 10 lbs since the wedding. So today we're taking a stand...

I've got cottage cheese, applesauce, and string cheese for lunch today. I'm looking forward to something healthy. This past weekend up north, I really didn't eat well... literally 3 cokes a day, chips and dip, and amazing incredible food. My dad grilled Steaks on Saturday for dinner!

Food is delicious, but when you eat the good stuff too often and you don't exercise...

... yeah, exercising has been way too much on the down low lately. My knee has been hurting for over a week and the most I've done for exercise is walk for an hour. Ridiculous. Please pray that it gets better and that it's nothing real.

Fall Colors

Northern Michigan is probably most beautiful in the Fall. This Fall is no exception. God really got out his painting palette and did some incredible handiwork this season. It was the perfect weekend for Amy and I to go visit my parents. It also turns out that today is Amy and my 3 month anniversary. I know, I know, they must be newlyweds because they're still counting such silly dates. Well, we're excited and we celebrated with the colors and a small shopping extravaganza at the outlet mall in Birch Run... which really meant some brown shoes for Amy and a couple of pairs of work pants for me, but all the same it was really a great weekend. And sleeping for 22 hours doesn't hurt anything either!

Timing, Priorities, and messing up

Being a leader is really hard. Balancing multiple roles is really hard. And I’m not very good at failing. Let’s face it, I’m not even very good at trying at 100%. I’ve lived my life in a way that I’m always trying to give 110% - Amy is teaching me to give myself some slack when I’m not overachiever, awesome man – I know that I’m no super hero, but it’s never stopped me from trying before.

So I’m learning how to give myself grace, allow the lawn to grow longer (for 2 weeks I’ve not touched it), etc. I’m doing okay – but I just am feeling like something isn’t quite right… you know, it’s that Fall funk thing.

Being a son, a husband, an employee, a supervisor, a missionary, a disciple, a friend, a mentor... it's all finally become more than I can do (well anyway). So I'm trying to figure out how to manage my time and be who I'm supposed to be.

Russian Conversations

Just a sample of what a Russian conversation right now is like between Amy and I.

A - Hello. How are you?

J - Hi, I’m fine. How are you?

A- Good, but a little tired. What are you doing?

J – I’m reading a book. Do you like to read?

A – Yes, I like to read magazines and the newspaper. I also run.

J – Who is that?

A – Over there? That’s my professor. Her name is Alina Alexandrovna Makin. She teaches Russian.

I’m SO very proud of her! With the complexities of Russian, this is a real feat of intellectual brain power, grammar, pronunciation, and quick thinking. She’s learning more than 100 words per week and

PS I’m nervous a bit for my friends in Russia. There’s a bit of an economic crisis happening in Tyumen. Please pray for them!

Chasing Chipmunks

No joke. That's what Amy and I got to do today. The evening started when we got home about 5:45pm. Amy walked in the door and said, "Holy Crap!" After the loudest shriek I've heard from Amy ever. (I should probably qualify that I've never heard Amy shriek before).

My heart was pounding and I was preparing myself to take out the robber who was in our house.

A chipmunk! He rushed across the floor. And for the next 2.5 hours I watched him skitter this way and that around the house. He's been inside for OVER A WEEK! We're not sure how he got in, but when we got home last night from being gone for the week in Atlanta and Indiana, we realized there were … mouse turds? Well, they were the largest mouse droppings I'd ever seen and really I thought they were little balled up bugs… was he trying to eat them?

Anyway, Amy was out with a friend walking and it really did take the team of two Brakes to rectify the situation. I opened the front door. Amy cornered Skippy with a broom. Then she spooked him, he came running at me and I used another broom to scare him at the opened door. And, voila! He ran outside on his own. Yes!

Amazing. and we danced in celebration.

Running 4 miles

Can you believe that I ran 4 miles! It was an amazing feat (or is that feet?). I was really hoping to make it to 6 miles, but that's a bit ridiculous, huh? The furthest I've run so far is 3.5 miles and I was hoping to jump that by 2.5 miles… anyway, I made it 4 miles at about 10 minutes per mile. It was really nice. I actually enjoyed most of it AND hit a rhythm for breathing. But my legs were numb and I was feeling a bit dizzy.

The Simple Way

Shane Claiborne | transcript |

Shane is a really interesting guy. He did some kind of internship or something with Mother Theresa, and basically just decided that it's really okay to live a life of poverty and to help people. He's founded a movement in Philadelphia called the Simple Way.

He only spoke for a short 30 minutes, Amy and I picked up his book, "Irresistible Revolution" to get a little more. I'd heard of him a couple of times already, my buddy who lives in Kyrgyzstan, Matt, also recommended the book.

Anyway - here are the two thoughts that I had written down from his talk.

"You should surround yourself with people who are like the person you would like to be."

"The church is like Noah's ark. It stinks sometimes. But if you get out, you're going to drown."

Catalyst - Three Signs of a Miserable Job

Patrick Lencioni - | transcript |

Patrick is a secular author and leadership consultant who came to speak at Catalyst. Gotta say that he was one of the highlights for me. He shared about his newest book, "The Three Signs of a Miserable Job." I'm planning to check into some of his other books as well.

Patrick has managed to capture some concepts that really should be common sense to us all, but unfortunately are not. The cool thing, is that he's written it down in such a way that it makes sense and has applicability.

The model consists of three sides to a triangle - anonymity, irrelevance, and immeasurement. We can't enjoy our work if we don't feel known, if we don’t know what difference or impact we make, and if we can't gauge our own success.

It's a few simple concepts, but I think it really makes sense for creating a better job work atmosphere

There is of course, no job that is ALL fun. We need to BE happy where we are. We need to invest in the people that we work with, and we are NEVER too busy to invest in the people we work with.

"Don't wait until you retire to recognize the impact you have in your work right now.

Catalyst - unChristian

Catalyst Session 4
unchristian | transcript |

this is the title of a new book that just came out. It's based on three years of research based on surveys and interviews of 16-29 year old Americans. "What do you think of Christianity?"

It's not really such a good impression that we're making. I haven't read the book, but I did get a copy of it. Seems like Christianity really has an image problem, deeper than an image problem. The basic gist is this: Christians are judgmental, hypocritical, sheltered, too political, and proselytizers.

I guess I'll write more about this when I've read the book. It'll be interesting, stay tuned.

Catalyst - Session 3

Session 3
Matt Chandler
Family Traits

The church is doing to much and isn't building it's muscles where it needs to. It's like the muscle man who is pumping iron and building his upper body, but doesn't pay attention to his legs. You gotta do some squats sometimes, otherwise the heavy upper body will just topple. Looks great on the outside, but the inside is lacking. Matthew 5:13

Matt Chandler is the head pastor of a church that has grown from 160-some people to something like 5,000 in just a few years. The numbers are great, but that can't be what we're satisfied with. In fact, numbers growth like that can really be a detriment - especially that fast.

Our culture is preoccupied with information. Too much information leads us only to mechanical growth. Sometimes no growth at all. Such a simple statement, yet it really struck a chord with me… maybe because it's my current profession? His point is that we spend so much time acquiring information, but that we don't really do much with it. How do we put it into application. Nor do we process it enough. The point of information is transformation.

"We don't need a new revelation, we need to understand what's already been revealed."

He also pointed out the obvious, but it's good to hear again, that every Christian stumbles and falls. And when we fall, there is grace from God. "He doesn't love the future us, he loves us right now!" It's really good news.

Another issue we got as Americans is that we live in a culture based on speed. But spiritual growth and transformation is not fast, it's a CRAWL. Matt likened spiritual growth to a traffic jam. It is so slow that you can't feel it, but you can measure it over time. The same thing with spiritual growth. Most of the time you can't feel it

Catalyst - Session 2

Session 2

Nancy Ortberg
Authentic Influence

How do catalytic leaders think differently? This was the topic of Nancy Ortberg's talk today. I was first really excited, because She's the wife of John Ortberg, who's written some amazing books. My notes seem to include 5 points from her talk, I'd like to share them with you now.

One. The most difficult person to lead is yourself

Two. Vision is nurtured in 2 primary ways: by the stories we tell and by the heroes we create.

Three. Defining moments are only as significant as the lifestyles they create.

Four. Teamwork is a strategy not a slogan.

Five. Stop being surprised that leadership is hard.

Probably one of the most interesting things that Nancy shared was that she doesn't really journal frequently. Most folks in Christian circles talk about a "quiet time" being comprised of reading Bible, journaling, praying, maybe listening to music or items like this. Nancy doesn't really journal. It's not her 'thing'. It works for some. Maybe it doesn't work for you.

Sometimes I journal, sometimes not. Amy journals every day, prodigiously. She's really good at it and it works for her. I was so excited, because I felt as though I had permission to do something different. So I'm trying to journal a bit more often, but instead of just writing, I'm mind mapping.

It was very interesting listening to her talk and share about how seeing Les Miz was for her a religious experience. It really was so freeing to hear her share her perspective.

Catalyst - Session 1

Session 1

Reggie McNeal
Missional Leadership

Reggie shared about several realignments that need to happen within the church today. To start with, there's an image problem. There are basically three views of the church: 1) a place where things happen, 2) a religious vendor, or 3) a group of people on a mission with God. Of course, we'd hope to be type three.

There's way too many bad opinions out there about who and what Christians are. How do we reestablish the truth of who we really are? Reggie suggests 3 shifts.

1) a shift from an internal focus to an external focus

As a culture, Americans (maybe all people) love to live in silos. It's easier when we separate aspects of our lives into domains where they live: sports, business, education, church, etc. The problem is that spirituality doesn't live in just one aspect of our lives, it spreads across all aspects of who we are.

2) a shift from service driven church to spirit driven. Or a move from program driven church to people development. We don't need to create better church, we need to have better people development.

3) a shift from church based leadership to A.D. 30 leadership. It's not about what position you hold. WE need to build on the strengths and abilities we have and not worry about positions. Job descriptions aren't always helpful, sometimes they just force us to live inside the box of the position.