Stuff in My Head
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Discovery By Doing
A couple days ago Mark Batterson, pastor at National Community Church, wrote a post on his blog about a church’s core values. He shares the core values of his church and writes about “discovery by doing.” This idea of “discovery by doing” is so often overlooked in the world of church leadership. People in so Continue reading
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The God of October 17, 1998
Today is a very special day for me. It was exactly nine years ago today that God got a hold of me. Until that time I had a bad drinking problem, was severely depressed, had no hope, and everything was falling apart. It was pretty miserable! I was living in Berlin (Maryland–not Germany), and delivering Continue reading
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Getting Ahead in Preaching
As much as I feel in my groove when I’m preaching, I’ve discovered a serious difficulty that comes with preaching every week: I always feel like I’m preaching a first draft! A sermon is something that really has to be developed, to be worked over, and it’s hard to do week after week. When I Continue reading
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The Lie of the Winnable War
Recently I was looking around in iTunes and rediscovered an old song by Sting that was one of my favorites in elementary school. It’s a good Cold War song called “Russians.” One particular line in this song from 20 years ago really jumped out at me: “There’s no such thing as a winnable war/ It’s Continue reading
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New Schedule
Moving from one church to another has affected my weekly schedule in a bigger way than I’d expected. At SonRise, my typical work week went from Sunday through Thursday. And since my most productive time was spent in my study at home, I tried to put in mornings there whenever possible. But I’ve found that Continue reading
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Lockers of the Greats
Figured it was time to share some more pics from our trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, a few weeks ago. So here are the lockers of some of the greatest players ever. In fact, if you added Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, and Ty Cobb, you’d have a list of Continue reading
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Happy Birthday Carolyn!
Today is Carolyn’s 26th birthday! Unfortunately, she’s kind of bummed out because she also starts her night class for her Masters tonight, so we won’t have much chance to celebrate it. But at least she’s off on Friday, so we’re spending the day together to celebrate. Happy birthday, Carolyn!!! Continue reading
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Another Split Doubleheader
Our church softball team won our second game tonight! We played the Ocean City Worship Center. We won the first game (our second win of the season) and they won the second one. It was fun, of course, but I was very, very frustrated with myself because I didn’t do well at all. It’s so Continue reading
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Bobby Doerr’s Tract
A couple days ago I pulled out my old baseball autograph collection from when I was a kid. There were several that I’d forgotten about. One thing I found that was really cool was something that Bobby Doerr, Hall of Famer and former second baseman for the Boston Red Sox, sent me. Bobby Doerr (right) Continue reading
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A Hall of Fame Weekend
About three weeks ago my dad and brothers and I made a trip to Cooperstown, New York, to see Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr. inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Okay, so I should have written about this before, but hey–vacation is a busy time! There’s so much to tell about that amazing Continue reading
Surfing the Inner N8 