Everything That Hinders?

As I once again redefine my morning devotional time, I've settled into reading whole books at a time. Last week I knocked out several shorter epistles, and today I read through Hebrews. I really do encourage you to try reading an entire book at a time - sometimes we miss the big picture because we're only taking in a few verses at a time.

Today I just wanted to comment on one verse - Hebrews 12:1. It says: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."

I love this verse and the visual it creates. I've reflected on this before, how runners wear no more clothing than is necessary in order to run their very best. Swimmers take it a step further and shave all the hair off their bodies!

It's easy to look at this verse and understand the "sin that so easily entangles" part. Without question, sin trips us up and causes us to be slow in the race and unfruitful in our Christian lives. But there are two dangers listed here: the sin just mentioned, and other things that "hinder" us, but perhaps are not sinful in themselves.

In my own life I see lots of things that could probably be considered morally neutral but do not contribute to my running the race well.* On the contrary, they tend to hinder me - weights that simply slow me down or distract me from what I should otherwise be focused on.

* Some of those are randomly, aimlessly browsing the internet, playing video games by myself, and not having a plan on how to be productive with my "free" time. And I just realized my perfectionism is often a hindrance as well.

Without a doubt our world is overflowing with these: tv programs, video games and really all manner of gadgets and gizmos. But we add to them with procrastination and poor time management, saying yes to too many things, sleeping in or taking naps or adding fruitless hobbies to our lives.

I'm not saying having any of those things in your life is bad - just that they can easily become hindrances in running hard after Christ. Have you taken stock lately of your own life and what it's filled with? Are you not only seeking to rid yourself of the sin that so easily entangles, but are you also genuinely considering those more subtle time wasters that hinder your obedience to the Lord?

Bubble Knee

Later we're going to have a post commemorating our ten years of Mystery Dinner Theater and some of the unusual moments we've encountered along the way. Right now I want to start it off by sharing the most recent: apparently between constantly going to one knee and also having an unfortunate dive while playing racquetball, I've discovered a sudden build up of fluid on my left knee cap.

It's either a bursitis or a ruptured bursa sac. It hasn't really grown any bigger than when I first discovered it. It's not painful and is mostly just a strange, creepy thing. But how long should I wait before getting it checked out? Will the fluid go away on its own? Will icing really help? Hmmm...

Yeah, There's a Great Idea

What do you do when you're a fledgling blogger who struggles with too many topics and wavers between a flurry of posts and extended periods of inactivity? Why, you start more blogs, of course!

I'm going to attempt to reorganize my thoughts into a few different blogs and see if that doesn't help me be more consistent in my posts. I've had trouble at times with this particular blog because the topics that I want to address don't have much to do with each other.

Therefore, I'm starting a new blog on the Chiefs (Chief Impressions) as well as one on campus ministry (College Ministry OJT). I think we're also going to start one that is more themed around the activities of our family and try Karin out as a contributing author there.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to make it work so this site imports directly from those other sites. That means this one will look just as jumbled as it ever did, but anyone interested in just one of those topics can steer clear of all the other stuff they don't like!

Anyway, that's the plan, and is what I'm currently working on.

Week 4 Thoughts: Red Alert!

Several Chiefs defenders react to a horrible personal foul call against Jarrad Page

Ok, so going in all of us who were realistic knew there was little chance the Chiefs would win this one. Let's not forget that just two seasons ago the Giants won the Super Bowl with roughly the same team. No, the outcome was not in doubt, especially not after the Giants were given a gift on the game's opening play. The bigger problem that emerged yesterday is that after four preseason games and four regular season games, the Chiefs have absolutely no identity on offense. Since I've been openly critical of Jason Whitlock here, I will point out that he nailed it today in his column.

I did something new yesterday as I watched the game. I sat with a notebook and journaled every play, which was both effective and enlightening. Here are my thoughts on the game:

• Third Down Breakdown: Last week we were 0/11 on third down, which led me to want to dig deeper and see how many of those were third and long situations. Yesterday we faced the following distances on third down: 8, 5, 10, 10, 9, 8, 13, 18, 7, 12, 11, 7, Goal (from the 11), Goal (from the 2), 27. That means we faced a third and short ONE TIME! 14/15 third downs were long - most of them very long. If my math is correct, these numbers mean that on the series when we got to third down, our average gain between first and second down was -1 yard! You could do better by intentionally spiking the ball on first and second down!!
  
  For the game we were 2/15 on third down. The two we converted were on third and 8 (an 18 yard pass to Engram) and third and 7 (a 12 yard scramble by Cassel). Third down isn't really the problem - first and second down are. When your average third down play needs 11 yards, you're not going to be very successful.
  
  
• Second down break down: these were our yards to go on second down: 2, 5, 10, 10, 6, 8, 13, 14, 7, 12, 11, Goal (from 1), 7, 15, Goal (from 6), Goal (from 11), Goal (from 1), 8, 15. Our average distance to go on 2nd down was 8.5 yards!
  
  
• So what's happening on 1st down? Not much! Here are our first down gains for the game (R=run, P=pass): 2R, 8R, 5R, 0R, 0P, 4R, 16R!, 2R, 2R, -4P (sacked), 3R, 3R, 19R!, -2R, -2P, 7R, 1P (TD), 3P, -5R, 0P, 0P, 7R (QB scramble), -5R. So to summarize: of the 23 plays listed here (I didn't include the last play of the game) we chose to run (here I'm not counting the scramble) 15 times. We had two big gains (16 and 19), lost yardage three times, and gained less than four yards seven more times. Our average gain running on first down was 2.93 yards. Whew.
  
  But that's actually BETTER than what we did when we tried to throw on first down! Only three times did we even complete a pass on first down: -2 yards on a screen pass, a 1 yard TD to Sean Ryan and a 3 yard dump pass to LJ. That's 3 of our 8 first down passes. The other five were: incomplete deep to Bradley (who was open), -4 sack (empty backfield), incomplete to Pope from the 1, incomplete at LJ's feet from the 1 and Cassel scrambling for 7 yards. It's bad no matter how you summarize: Our first down completions averaged .67 yards (COVER YOUR EYES!) and if you factor in Cassel's scrambles and yards lost on sacks, our attempts at passing on first down netted us 5 yards (an average of .625 yards per play).
  
  
• As of now, I am anti-Matt Cassel. There's no other conclusion to make from the stats above. Someone will surely comment that he doesn't have time to throw. Sometimes that was true, but the thing that gets me is that he isn't even TRYING! I'm tired of looking at stats and adding up numbers or I would continue to build my case. But the guy just doesn't look down the field. It wasn't until the fourth quarter that he made a "long" pass completion (20 yards in the air) which turned into a 43 yard gain for TE Sean Ryan. How about that?! Our longest play of the season! When we actually T R I E D. Ug.
  
  What's even worse here is I don't think Todd Haley believes in Cassel either, because far too often he's calling run plays and screen passes and never tries to take the big shot down the field. The guy can't hit the deep ball and is too worried about his protection to look down field and try to complete a decent pass. It's just dump pass after dump pass. Last week he was 14/18 for 90 stinking yards. Until Matt Cassel does something to prove me wrong, I am officially in the "we wasted a lot of money signing this guy" camp.
  
  
• What was with the play calling? While we're at it, let's question what in the world Haley was doing calling the plays that he did. Starting out in the Wildcat was bizarre and ineffective. Going empty backfield meant the Giants could just pin their ears back and go after Cassel, which they did with ease. What I really don't understand is why we never let the run set up play action. LJ broke off some good gains in there. Why not follow one of those up with a play fake and try to go deep? The Giants said before the game that they still respected LJ (which could have been blowing smoke) but they definitely had to pay attention to him all day. But alas, I know why we didn't try to go deep: because Cassel can't do it. Fans who followed the Patriots last year have already pointed out that even with Randy Moss he couldn't hit the deep ball - why would it be any different now? I sure hope to be proven wrong, but I have a bad feeling about this.
  
  
• Other negatives: It looked like Ryan Succop had an outside chance of recovering the onside kick, but he went alligator arms and didn't sell out for the recovery. Bummer. Why go anti-pass all day and then refuse to run when you're close to the goal line? It would sure be nice to see Bowe and Wade hang on to the ball more often. (And for the record, those were still short gainers that they dropped.) What's with the announcers gushing over Matt Cassel? I'm tired of it. Even on his TD pass to Wade he actually overthrew Battle and got lucky Wade was there in the back of the end zone. Last one: even the refs hate us. Late in the game the Giants got a 15 yard facemask on an attempted sack of Cassel. Unfortunately the officials only gave us ten yards for it.
  

Enough doom and gloom, I guess... on to some positives:

• Carr is a player! As I went back through my notes, I was pleased to see how often I had written about Carr making a good defensive play. He and Flowers are very solid and give us something to be happy about.
  
• It's a good thing we have Colquitt. He consistently boomed long, high punts all day, temporarily helping out the team. I wonder if he can throw deep...
  

And unfortunately, that's all the positives I have. I did enjoy taking detailed notes of the game and might turn that into a regular habit. Hopefully I'll continue to develop a better system that will allow me to dig deeper into the game. I let the defense off the hook yesterday, but I might try and break down some of that as well. I'm also interested in specific formations that we ran on offense and what the situations and successes were of those.

The surprisingly 4-0 Broncos held off the Cowboys yesterday, so I expect Dallas to come right out and punch the Chiefs in the mouth. My prediction: it still won't be pretty... 30-10? I want to see the Chiefs throw more on 1st down (but not from an empty backfield) and actually throw it down the field. I'd also like to see them develop some play action passes when the run works, not just (what looks to me like) calling it randomly.

Week 3 Thoughts: Red All Over

Due to being out of town last weekend, I didn't get to sit down and watch the Chiefs/Eagles game all at one time. I had to bite it off a piece at a time, which was about all one could handle in that game anyway.

I had originally hoped to go deeper on one key stat in the game: the Chiefs were 0/11 on 3rd down. The deeper was to see how often they were in third and long. I didn't have time to go back and count specifically, but I know it happened the majority of the time. So that tells me that what has been happening to the Chiefs on 3rd down is really the byproduct of what has not been happening on first and second down.

Another problem that's mounting is making more and more mistakes. Penalties hurt us big time last week, and as I've said before we're not talented enough at this point to overcome very many mistakes.

Today they play the Giants, another gift of their brutal opening schedule. Outside of the Chiefs' locker room I'm sure no one is giving them a chance to win. For the record, I am not. But last week's game proved what is beginning to become a regular problem for the Chiefs: dealing with that guy who throws the ball. We can't protect our quarterback and we can't get to theirs.

If the Chiefs are to have any hope of winning today, they have to do a few things. First off, they have to gain more than one or two yards on first down. Ideally it would be great to see them throwing more on first down rather than being so predictable with the run. I expect the Giants to do like the Eagles did and pack their defense close to the line of scrimmage. It sure would be nice to see us take some shots down the field early to exploit that. No, we don't have the greatest receiving weapons in the league, but can we at least try?

Second, our defense has got to create some turnovers and give the offense a short field to work with. Our return game is not good and our offense will very rarely be able to go 80 yards for a TD. Unfortunately we're not good at the thing that often leads to turnovers: putting pressure on the QB. Perhaps today will be the day that we get something figured out there. Playing at home may help a bit.

Third, we've got to continue to be strong against the run. This has been one bright spot so far this season and was something that really surprised me against the Raiders. We're doing a good job overall here but haven't been able to get off the field enough on 3rd down. While the QB pressure needs to increase, we can't afford to get soft against the run.

So in the end I guess I'm saying the same thing all over again: we've got to protect our QB and get to theirs. There's not a real convincing reason why that will happen today, so try and have some realistic expectations as you watch the game and don't let a frustrating loss ruin the rest of your day!

I wanted to get this out quick before the game today so I can come back with some postgame thoughts later this evening.

Conjugating 'Verbs: In God We Trust?

* Another disclaimer on this series of posts. Just like the Proverbs themselves, they won't be exhaustive statements about a particular topic. They're more like quick hitting devotional thoughts. You probably already knew that, but I feel better getting it off my chest. Sometimes it bothers me knowing there's a lot more that could've been said but wasn't.

I had a video conference this morning during my regularly scheduled time in the word, and so I'm a bit behind in that department today. I'll try and get caught up during my lunch break. You may be wondering why I'm not getting caught up now, and you may be on to something there... but anyway, I wanted to share another thought from Proverbs that hit me last Friday.

This is something that's been floating around in the back of my mind for a while, but finally came to the forefront last week. The Lord really smacked me between the eyes when I came across this verse:

Proverbs 18:11 says, "The wealth of the rich is their fortified city; they imagine it an unscalable wall." On the surface this may not sound incredibly profound or even all that applicable to most of us. I don't know many people who are rich, even if nearly all of us ARE rich when compared to the majority of the rest of the world. No, it's the idea that's behind this truth. The rich are trusting in their wealth, rather than in God. I think the majority of us wrestle with this from time to time, and some rarely ever truly trust in God at all.

What hit me this past week was what I was choosing to trust in. I know some trust in money or their wisdom or the power of democracy or having a great military. The list goes on and on. But what was hitting me was in the realm of ministry: it's very easy for me to trust in people, in the student leaders we have, in the structure we've put in place, in the systems and plans that we've laid in order to reach our goals.

I do believe we have great student leaders, and I do think much of the success of this ministry is in their hands. But it's all too easy for that feeling of contentment/security/trust to allow me to become complacent and comfortable. To unconsciously rely less on God than if times were tough and we were really struggling. One of the greatest challenges to the people of God throughout time has been prosperity, or even just the false feeling of it. (We can certainly overestimate how well we're doing and feel good about it, even when we really shouldn't.)

I've also been reading through Isaiah, and there I see a people that has prospered to the point that they no longer "need" God or rely on Him. I appreciate the wake up call from the Lord, that nothing I have planned or laid is really an unscalable wall. Whether you are in vocational ministry, have a leadership position in one, or are "simply" a follower of Christ, I want to encourage you to trust in Him and Him alone. It's far too easy to subtly slip into trusting in man, trusting in our own wisdom and strength, trusting in our own plans.

How do I know whether or not I'm really trusting in Him? A ten second evaluation of my prayer life is probably all that it really takes. Am I really crying out to Him to move? Am I interceding for the lost? For my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ? Am I burdened by the things that burden the heart of God?

Proverbs goes on to say in 21:31, "The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory rests in the Lord." Continue to do your best to prepare, to plan and to carry out the vision God has given you, but make sure you do it on your knees - constantly driven by the reality that Jesus meant it when He said, "Apart from me you can do nothing."

Week 2 Thoughts: Seeing Red

Matt Cassel fired up the crowd early with his enthusiasm after scrambling for a first down.

Well, the outcome was as I expected, but for all the wrong reasons. I figured we would struggle to run and the Raiders would tear us up with their three-headed running back monster. Last year McFadden, Bush and Fargas combined for 297 yards rushing and I figured we'd have a tough time stopping them today. Fargas didn't get any carries, and McFadden and Bush combined for just 70 yards in 21 carries. When you consider that JaMarcus Russell was a pitiful 7/24 for 109 yards, you'd think the Chiefs would come out on top. Unfortunately that was not the case, as we fell 13-10. Here's my take on the game:

• The Raiders aren't very smart. What was the deal coming out and throwing all over the place? I'm guessing they saw what the Ravens did to us last week and figured they could do more of the same. First of all, we didn't have Brandon Flowers last week - that makes a HUGE difference. Secondly, um, you're not the Ravens. You don't have a good quarterback and you don't have very good receivers. But more importantly, you don't even have an okay quarterback. Considering the Raiders ran all over us last year, I was really surprised they put the ball in Russell's hands so often early.
  
  
• JaMarcus Russell is bad. I'm so glad the Raiders drafted this guy first overall in 2007. That means they'll continue to play him, hoping he lives up to his "potential." That also means several more years that the Raiders will suffer for it. Yeah, throw it in my face that Russell beat the Chiefs today, but it's not because he's good. It had more to do with the two best players on their team (see next two items). As for Russell, he simply cannot throw accurately enough to be a good NFL quarterback. He definitely has the arm strength to go deep, and I would argue that his accuracy goes up the deeper he throws. But he consistently whiffed on short passes, and you simply can't miss those in the NFL.
  
  
• Shane Lechler is my least favorite Raider. First of all, I am not a fan of this guy because he'll consistently keep Dustin Colquitt out of the Pro Bowl. But even worse is the fact that he bombed ridiculously long, high punts all day. The main reason we lost this game is because we never got a short field to work with.
  
  
• Sebastian Janikowski is my second least favorite Raider. Yeah, he's automatic from around 50 yards and in, but his kickoffs drive me insane! It's probably for the best since we don't have a good kick returner anyway, but we hardly ever got a chance to return a kickoff. Nope, just start at the 20. Every. Single. Time. We don't have the firepower to go 80 yards very often, and the two kickers for the Raiders kept us from winning the game.
  
  
• Clock management killed us in the first half. This one is obvious and everyone will be talking about it, but we gave up three points at the end of the half because we wasted two time outs earlier in the game. One of those time outs was key, though, because it allowed us to convert on fourth and two. Failing to get the field goal at the end of the first half still could've been avoided if Cassel had thrown to the end zone instead of tossing it out in the flat. I think that's a pretty straightforward issue: don't throw short of the goal line if you've got no time outs and less than 20 seconds on the clock. Huge mistake.
  
  
• Let's go easy on Brandon Flowers. Yes, he missed the pick six. Yes, we really could've used those points. But the guy is a second year player and was in his first game of the season. I think he's an outstanding cornerback and he and Brandon Carr are two guys that Herm did great in drafting. (Incidentally, they also play the same position Herm played. Coincidence? Hmmm.) It's too tempting to not pull out the cliche: "That's why he plays defense, not offense." He still had a great game but will likely be thinking about that one for a while to come.
  
  
• Throw it down field! I know Matt Cassel isn't the best at throwing the deep ball, but come on! At some point you've got to take some shots! He missed the one that was beautifully intercepted, but came back and hit Bowe with a 29 yard strike near the end of the fourth quarter. When you're trying to go 80 yards at a time, you've got to pick up some chunks of yardage somewhere.
  
  
• Was that us running the ball? We had 173 yards rushing, which is a huge improvement from last week's embarrassing 29 yards. Larry Johnson looked really good and may have a much better year than I expected. Dantrell Savage also had some great plays as a change-of-pace back. Those guys playing well will go a long way in helping Cassel succeed.
  
  
• Bobby Wade: the good and the bad. So he made some great catches, dropped some passes and fumbled a punt return (which we recovered). He finished with 6 catches for 72 yards and was Cassel's favorite target. I'm not sure if Bowe was just getting owned by Asomugha, but Cassel rarely even bothered to look in his direction. I do think it's telling that one week after twice coming up just short for a first down, Mark Bradley didn't even step on the field today. Very funny, since I saw a fantasy site earlier this week that said he should get plenty of looks this week with Bowe having a tough matchup. Oops.
  
  
• Todd Haley will do whatever it takes. I really like Haley and his no nonsense style. I was a fan of Herm, but I see now that his style wasn't going to get this team going. I'm surprised that Derrick Johnson is still not starting, but I think Haley knows what he's doing. He's certainly setting a culture of "play-my-way-or-else" and it seems the players are responding. Hopefully that turns into some wins soon... It was nice to see him go for it on some key fourth downs.
  
  
• Too bad we couldn't get the stop we needed. I really didn't think the Raiders would drive down for the winning TD. I still think we got seriously hosed on the late hit against Russell on that final drive. The guy fell down but hadn't been touched! He can get up and keep running! And he's a 260 pound quarterback! One of our guys jumping on top of him should not have been a penalty and definitely hurt us at the end. Penalties definitely hurt us this week. Like I said after the last game, we're just not good enough to make mistakes and win. (Cassel was also picked twice, which didn't help either.)
  

I still enjoyed the game and am glad I can walk away watching the Raiders come from behind and not have it ruin the rest of my Sunday. I'm sure Karin is happy about that too =) I imagine many Chiefs fans are pretty ticked off right now and are definitely Seeing Red. There may not be any moral victories - certainly not when you allow a game-winning drive - but at least our defense looked a lot better than they did a week before.

I know Haley and company want to win, but I'm very much viewing this as a building season and am more concerned that we improve week-to-week. But this was our best chance for a win, and we might not see one for a while... I'll be on the road next weekend, so I'll set the DVR and hope to have an exciting win to sit down and watch! Either way, I'll be back for more.

Conjugating 'Verbs: Speak the Truth

* This might turn out to be a regular series on my blog. I picked the name mainly just because it sounds cool, not because it ties directly into conjugation. The 'Verbs refers to the book of Proverbs in the Bible, which I return to often and love to meditate and reflect on. One definition of conjugation - in various disciplines - means to join together. I can easily justify that definition by the fact that these entries will join the Proverbs together with real life applications.

As one who regularly gets to speak and preach to others, I constantly face the temptation to worry about what others think and how well I do in presenting the information. This may have been further heightened by the fact that I'm beginning to try and develop speaking/preaching abilities in some of the guys at BSU. In doing that, I've been working through a list of questions to use when evaluating someone as they deliver a message. While I think that's important and will continue to work on developing both my and their skills in presenting a message, thinking too much about the delivery was once again leading me to forget what is most important for us in this arena.

While I've begun to read through Isaiah in the mornings, I'm continuing my habit of one chapter of Proverbs a day. This morning the Lord spoke very specifically to me about this issue. It's interesting how I got there, though, because I started out in chapter 20 - since today is September 20. Somehow when I turned the page to go from verse 3 to 4, I actually turned two pages and continued right along in Proverbs 23:4, so I didn't even notice. It wasn't until I was recapping the encounter with Karin that I realized I was in the wrong chapter. But it was where God wanted me to be.

Proverbs 23:15-16 says, "My son, if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad; my inmost being will rejoice when your lips speak what is right."

That verse just hit me right between the eyes. Simply put, the most important thing for those speaking/preaching is whether or not they clearly proclaimed the word of God. That's what I'm focusing on this morning as I am about to head out the door and preach at First Baptist in Maryville. That's what I want to continue to focus on as I preach at the BSU and what I want to instill in the guys as they have opportunities to preach as well.

I still think it's important to do your best, to not present in such a way that you're actually a distraction to what God is trying to say. But hopefully I will be able to remember what's really important: that God's word is proclaimed and that He can speak through it regardless of how great of a presenter one is. I hope those of you that have the opportunity to teach God's word to others will remember that as well.

Clear the Road!

As of yesterday, I've begun giving driving lessons to an international student that has almost zero experience. I've also agreed to help an American student log some time behind the wheel. He already has a good handle on how to drive and just needs some practice. Both students have their permits.

I myself went through driver's ed in high school and never went the "informal" training route. My dad taught both of my older brothers to drive, I guess they made him not want to go through that again =) I do have some information I've found online that's given me a general idea of how to proceed, but I wanted to see if anyone out there had any suggestions, comments, advice or warnings? Anybody taken this journey or been down this road before? (Both puns intended.)

Week 1 Thoughts: Red Herring

* Before I get going, I just want to say that I really really enjoy having DVR. I didn't start watching the Chiefs game until 1:45 or 2:00, and yet I finished just a little after 3pm. There were several sweet plays that weren't shown a second time, so it was a wonderful bonus to go back and watch them as many times as I wanted. DVR FTW!

Saying I am going to try and blog more is probably pointless, as I've said it before and it didn't necessarily work out that way... but a guy can hope. One of those will be sharing my brilliant, insightful, thought-provoking opinions about my favorite football team. I picked the title Red Herring this week because I think a few key plays distracted us from what was really going on. Here are random thoughts:

• We sure missed Brandon Flowers. Wow, who knew the Ravens would come out all pass-happy like they did? Not the Chiefs. Mike Vrabel admitted, "I would say we had planned for a running game." The person most affected in this aerial assault was Maurice Leggett. It seemed like the Ravens either A) didn't want to throw Brandon Carr's way or B) Didn't need to even THINK about it. Flowers may not have made enough of a difference, as Todd Heap was also torching our linebackers, but he sure would've helped. I like Leggett as a third corner, and in his defense at least he improved as the game went on. But boy was he giving their receivers a big cushion.
  
  
• Our 3rd down defense was rough. Wow. I don't know much about the Ravens, but I think the commentators talked about them having a very good o-line. I hope so, because our pass rush was non-existent. Even when we blitzed we had a hard time getting through.
  
  
• He's not as irrelevant as some thought. Ryan Succop is gaining fans by the boatload. His 53 yard FG was fantastic and might have gone in from 60. But even better than that in my book was his kickoffs. One of them landed nine yards deep in the end zone! Yay for not dropping the kickoff just inside the ten!
  
  
• Special teams were half special. The coverage units were great, the return units were awful. Leggett muffed a punt and the kick returners didn't look much better. I sure do miss the Dante Hall days.
  
  
• Great job limiting mistakes. We had very few penalties (just 3 for 15 yards) and no turnovers. That's how you stay in the game when playing on the road against a team like the Ravens. We have to do this week in and week out, we're not talented enough on offense to overcome very many mistakes.
  
  
• Mark Bradley needs to move the chains! On third down, he twice ran a route across the middle, made the catch, and ended up about a foot short of the first down. Why do players do this? I realize I don't have any experience as a receiver, but it just seems like a simple thing to fix. I hope he gets it right next week. In his favor, his 50 yard reception was pretty impressive, since he was getting completely mugged by the d-back but didn't get the call.
  
  
• Sigh. Our o-line just isn't very good. I know the Ravens have a great defense, but I'm afraid things aren't going to get much better. It will probably just be a tough season with the line, at least on the right side. 29 yards rushing for the game is abysmal, Ray Rice nearly had that much in one play. In a related note, I also think it's going to be another tough year for Larry Johnson.
  
  
• The offense managed to make some adjustments. The first half was terrible for the offense, not getting their first first down until late in the first half. I'm not sure what changes were made exactly, but Haley was able to get Brodie Croyle going a little bit and put some points on the board. The offense even had an 80 yard TD drive in the second half. Good work, even if it wasn't enough in the end. On a QB-related note, I think the Chiefs would love to trade Tyler Thigpen.
  
  
• The bottom line: I think a few key plays (blocked punt for TD, INT + long return by Derrick Johnson) are the red herring. Without those plays the Chiefs absolutely get crushed in this one. Sure it was tied 24-24 late in the game, but that was really a fluke. If they played this one 4 more times, I expect the Ravens would win each of those in a blowout. Our offense isn't very good, which is going to consistently leave our defense on the field far too long. Time of possession was 2:1 in favor of Baltimore, which is nuts. The defense didn't help themselves by giving up third down conversions, but they're going to be facing this same challenge all year. It could be another long season, but at least they played with fire and intensity and were fun to watch. I'll definitely tune in again next week.
  
  

Don't Forget

Last spring (2008) we did some major home remodeling, which included an overhaul of the kitchen and bathroom as well as ripping out the giant picture window in our living room and replacing it with an entertainment center. After the entertainment center was finished, it sat empty for quite a while as I tried to decide what I wanted in the shelves. I recently got it all finished and wanted to share, especially about one shelf in particular.

On the bottom left we have our Wii and PS2. Above that is a meager Chiefs shelf, and up from there is my tribute to Attacktix. The top left is just a collection of hats of my various sports teams. On the bottom right side we've got our DVR system and DVD/VCR. Above that is a pretty sweet Royals shelf, with the required (for me, anyway) Star Wars shelf on the top right.



The shelf that has the place of honor, center top, is the best shelf of all. The idea for this hit me quite a while back while in a Bible study at church. We were talking about how quickly we forget what God has done in our lives and how important it is for us to put up reminders to help prevent that from happening.

In Joshua 4, God commands the Israelites to set up 12 stones as a reminder of what He has done. He specifically mentions their children, that they'll see the stones and ask, "What do these stones mean?" This shelf serves both of those purposes: that we might not forget what God has done and that other folks might ask why in the world I have a bag of wheat on the shelf!



Everything on the shelf has some significance (except the clock, I suppose, that's mainly just there to tell time...), but I decided to just share three of them here - marked A, B and C in the image.

A) This is a piece of drywall from our ceiling that collapsed. That story is worthy of a blog post all by itself, and hopefully I'll have one soon. I'll simply say here that God's hand was evident as He protected all of us during the crazy ceiling-falling-fiasco.

B) This is the infamous bag of wheat. The story here involves Karin's health. Honestly, I'm a little embarrassed by this one, but what can you do... Anyway, for a long time (since we've been married, really) Karin has had various stomach problems. Doctors had tried to isolate different things, but it never seemed like we figured out what the real problem was. Well, last fall (yes, over ten years into our marriage) I began to pray and ask God what the deal was with Karin's health. Within three days it became completely clear to me that she had Celiac's Disease, which is a gluten allergy. Since she's cut gluten out of her diet she's had zero problems. Praise God!!!

C) This is a t-shirt from Mission Arlington. I have already chronicled how we ended up going there for spring break this past March, but it's always good to go back and read it again!

There are many other items on the shelf and I'm confident many more will be joining them. It really only takes one bad day for me to get in a funk and forget all the great things God has done in my life, revealing His love, power and wisdom. Having these items front and center helps me to regain perspective and reflect on some of the things He's done in the life of our family. You may not have a shelf set aside in your home, but I hope you have some way to remember what God has done and glorify Him as you share the story with others!

Futbol Players

* Apparently I have a blog. Probably shouldn't go a month without updating it.

This school year has turned out to be an interesting list of firsts for us. First time we've had a kid in middle school and the first time our youngest has been in kindergarten. That also means it's the first time since we've had kids that they've all been in school for the full day. (This is leading to some wonderful ministry possibilities for us!) Well, another first came this morning: all three of the kids were playing soccer. Allison had her very first game and, while a little reluctant at first, she really got into it and had a great time. Meghan is the oldest on her team (and scored their only goal) while Caleb is the youngest on his (which he loves, his attitude is "Bring it on!")

Anyway, here's a shot of the three of them in their uniforms:

Family Fun

This past weekend was a lot of fun for our family. On Friday we got around to building a fire pit in our backyard and celebrated by roasting marshmallows. (As I type this, Karin and the kids are on their way to WalMart to pick up stuff for S'mores this afternoon.) On Saturday we got to celebrate the wedding of a former BSU student and then caught a Royals game - the kids' first!

It was a blast touring the renovated stadium with them. We got to check out all the "kid attractions" and maybe next time around we'll spend some money over there. Since that evening was "Christmas in July" (complete with powder blue Royals stockings as a giveaway) we got to pick up our freebies and also snap a shot with a melting snowman. We enjoyed the well known fountains (which obviously I'd never seen that close up before) and had a fantastic experience with customer service.

When I picked up our tickets, we were unable to get five seats together. I was pretty frustrated, but settled for a set of three and two. The cashier told me we could talk to guest services and see if there was anything that they could do. Upon walking into our section, the usher checked our tickets and immediately offered to do whatever he could. Less than ten minutes later he gave us a free seat upgrade, where all five of us were able to sit together in the shade! And if all of that wasn't enough, we witnessed a Billy Butler home run, Luke Hochevar notching 13 strikeouts, and the Royals pulling out a rare 6-3 win. I couldn't have asked for a better day!

Here are some pics of us at the backyard fire pit and the Royals game:

More on Winning and Losing

Competitiveness and competition will probably always be a part of my life in some fashion, so I'm very thankful for the insights I recently received and shared in regards to this topic. Since then I've had a few more thoughts I want to throw out there.

It has occurred to me that I could guarantee I would never lose another competition in my life. While I'm not a particularly good basketball player (haha, what an understatement) there's one way I could be certain to win every time: I'll only play against people ages ten and under. (Imagine how many blocked shots I could have!) This may sound like a silly idea, but I think it has some pretty sound implications:

• Winning against weak competition is not satisfying.
  It's just a fact. I've been on both sides of this one, where a softball game is completely one-sided and is more like practice for the dominant team. Sure it's nice to win, but it comes with the asterisk that the team you just pounded wasn't very good. Keep that in mind.
  
  
• Beating the Best is Better.
  It's obvious, then, that winning against equal or superior talent is much more satisfying, since you actually have to earn it. But there's a trade-off there: as the value of winning increases, so do the chances of losing. Some choose to avoid that chance and simply accept winning against inferior opponents. Be sure to properly evaluate which side you're choosing.
  
  
• You May Be a Big Fish in a Little Pond.
  Someone will rise to the top and dominate whatever local competition they may find. The only problem is that the competition doesn't end there. You probably don't have to travel very far before you find others that are at your level or higher. Only a handful of people (those making millions of dollars) ever actually reach the peak of their game. In other words, don't forget that you'd probably lose somewhere else.
  
  
• What Happens When You Do Reach the Top?
  A few have made it to the peak of that mountain. Countless others envy them and their achievements, wishing to be equated with greatness and all the spoils that come along with it. But in the end, does it satisfy? Is it really all it's cracked up to be? A while back I came across an interview Tom Brady did with 60 minutes that was very interesting. I was originally just going to link that interview, but found a compilation put together that tied in some other relevant elements quite well.

Hopefully thoughts like these will continue to help me keep winning and losing in its proper perspective and not allow either one to distract me from what matters most.

The Art of Losing Well

* This post is not about the Royals in any way, shape or form. But it is something that they excel at.

I have met people in my life that handled losing well, but I don't think I've ever met anyone that enjoyed it. And if they did, I'm sure they weren't all that interested in winning in the first place. Winning matters most when competition is involved, and you don't have to go very far to find that somewhere in life. The unfortunate side effect of competition is that little phenomenon called losing. Even at age 33 I find it difficult to deal with and my kids find it almost impossible.

Recently a friend at church, Mike, gave me some advice in dealing with losing. A lot of times I find myself getting very frustrated, although I do a pretty good job of keeping it inside. (Maybe Karin would say differently, I'll have to ask...) But keeping it inside isn't really the best way to deal with it, it just keeps you from socially embarrassing situations - and for that reason alone I still recommend giving it a try! But whether its explosions and resulting rage or managing to keep it bottled up, these are just the symptoms of the problem. Getting to the root means learning to look at losing differently.* So here are the two tips I was recently given that have helped me out tremendously. I'm doing my best to try and instill them in my kids as well.

* I do think another major problem with winning and losing is that our identity is usually tied to our performance and to acceptance by others. I could go into another long post on this subject as well, but as a Christian it's imperative that we find our worth in Christ alone.

First off is to recognize what is and what is not within your control. I don't know that this really registered for me, but far too often I get upset about things that I have no impact on whatsoever. One of my hobbies is a collectible miniatures game that involves rolling dice. While you can do a few things to improve your chances of getting a good roll, it's entirely possible to roll an epic fail. It definitely can be frustrating, but what can you do? If you knew it was outside of your control before you rolled the dice, you'd know there was a distinct possibility things wouldn't go your way.

This is also true in team sports. If someone drops a fly ball or the shortstop boots a grounder, there's nothing you could have done about it. It may be natural to get upset (since your chances of winning are tied to their performance) but it's really pointless. And while the anger is welling up inside, it naturally translates into negativity towards that person. Chances are high that it will only go downhill from there, especially if you open your mouth.

This certainly runs counter to Ephesians 4:29 which says, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." Recognizing that I have no control over their performance will help me to focus on what I can control: my attitude and my speech. Now I'm in a position to encourage them, which is far more important in the long run than winning or losing anyway.

This leads right into the second point, which is that winning comes through something else I can control: dedication and hard work. The scene is all too familiar: one player hits a high, routine fly ball to the outfield and the defender settles under the ball to chants of "Miss it! Miss it!" The way to win isn't to hope your opponent fails or messes up, although winning often happens that way. (I've certainly played games where I said, "They didn't win that game, we lost it.") But the best course of action for us to pursue in competition is to try and improve our own game rather than hope our opponent doesn't bring their best.

I see this all the time with the kids, where they're actively rooting against each other. After lunch today there was an incredibly exciting game of wii bowling where two of the kids were tied with 82 pins in the seventh frame. In the eighth, they both got spares. Then in the ninth they both got strikes! It was a blast to watch as they matched each other throw for throw, the excitement in the room growing with each round.

In the tenth frame the first player bowled a strike, followed by netting seven pins with the two extra throws. The pressure was really on player two, who wasn't able to match the strike and ended up losing 157-177. At first all was good, as we simply basked in the fun of an exciting game. But it wasn't long before sore losing took hold and complaining ensued, especially against the performance of the winner. I imagine it will be a difficult road to get them to embrace these two principles (after all, here I am struggling with it as an adult), but I'm going to keep impressing it upon them and trying to demonstrate it in my own life as well.

On the side, a third competitive tip I've picked up is from another friend, Jake. We've played racquetball together a few times and it's always intense. After one particularly challenging match he let me in on a little secret: he never says anything during a game, good or bad. This eliminates both grumbling and bragging, including comments that weren't meant as such but might come off that way. I sometimes forget this principle but need to work on it as well.

So there you go. For those of you that will find yourself participating in competition sometime soon, I hope these tips might help you out. And for any parents out there, maybe they could help your kids as well.

The Best Part of Summer

(Once I saw Marsha with the glove on her head, I knew I had to include this picture.)

If you know me at all you know I love to play softball. And hopefully you also know that I love college students. So what could be better than putting those two together? Getting halfway through the summer means that very thing will be getting started next week! While I do enjoy the game itself, the best part is seeing how it develops community and brings people closer together, ultimately serving to grow us up in Jesus.

For those who aren't on the team, we'd love for you to come cheer us on! All games will be at Donaldson Park on the Northwest field. Here is the schedule, although I'm sure we'll hit a rain out or two along the way:

Tue 7/14 - 6:00 vs Pirates & Wenches
Thu 7/16 - 8:00 vs Laura Street Baptist Church
Tue 7/21 - 8:00 vs The Sandlot
Thu 7/23 - 7:00 vs Hometown Auto Doctor
Tue 7/28 - 6:00 vs Walmart Dominators
Thu 7/30 - 8:00 vs Pirates & Wenches
Tue 8/4 - 6:00 vs Laura Street Baptist Church
Thu 8/6 - 7:00 vs The Sandlot
Tue 8/11 - 6:00 vs Hometown Auto Doctor
Thu 8/13 - 7:00 vs Walmart Dominators
Tue 8/18 - 7:00 vs Pirates & Wenches
Thu 8/20 - 6:00 vs Laura Street Baptist Church

Finding a Spark

Like nearly every other person out there, I've often had the desire to "get in shape." While we all generally understand what that means, there are a few different aspects to it. There's losing weight, building muscle and developing cardiovascular endurance. While I'd like to see all of those happen, I'm currently working on the first: losing weight.

Before I go any further, let me make a disclaimer. I find it very annoying when someone responds with, "You don't need to lose weight!" I appreciate the intentions when we say that to someone, but unless you suspect them of anorexia you should let them be the judge of that. I am quite confident that I'm not at my ideal weight, and I know that the challenge will only get harder the older I get.

As I write this, I've been actively pursuing this for almost exactly one month. In that time I've lost 10 or 11 pounds and have about that much left to go. I simply wanted to share a few of the things I've found to be helpful along the way.

First off, I got serious about utilizing Spark People. It's an online community of over five million people striving for a healthier lifestyle. There are tons of resources on there and many different ways to find help and support. For me the most useful tool has been the nutrition tracker. All I have to do is keep track of how much I eat and enter it into the website. It keeps track of how many calories I've had, including breaking it down into fat, carbs and protein. And since I told it how much I weighed when I started and what my target weight/date were, it tells me the calorie range I need to stay within.

In order to best measure the food I've eaten we picked up a digital scale. I got this one at Amazon.com for $25 (and another shout out to Amazon Prime for free shipping). It's very simple and since you can zero out the scale at any time, you can easily keep track of each thing you add to your plate.

Another thing that's been instrumental is drinking more water. Spark People (along with many many others) suggests drinking at least eight cups a day. A while ago we picked up this Brita water filter which does a fantastic job in making Maryville water drinkable. I also have a large drinking "jug" that is marked off to let you know how much water you've had.

Another useful development has been the increase in fruits and vegetables as part of our diet. It's certainly frustrating that this leads to an increased grocery bill, but the health benefits are worth it. And having our finances in order simply means we'll have to make a cut somewhere else.

It's been very gratifying to see results as I follow a tried-and-true method of weight loss: making wise choices daily and seeing the cumulative effects. I enjoy the fact that it doesn't require absolutely cutting certain things out of your diet, but rather endorses moderation. It's like having a calorie paycheck and a calorie budget. You know you have this much to spend each day, and if you make a large purchase in one area you're going to have to cut back somewhere else.

Now that I'm getting this area under control, I'm soon going to add in some work to strengthen my lower back (a constant source of frustration) and work to develop more softball related areas.

For anyone out there in a similar pursuit I want to encourage you not to give up. I weigh in every day, and some days the number on the scale goes up instead of down. However, the method is proven and if you just stick with it the results will come!

Happy Birthday, America!

I built this two story playhouse a few years ago and it originally was painted camouflage, but recently Meghan suggested we paint it red white and blue. After playing around with a few different designs this is what we all decided on. It would have been finished on the 4th of July but I couldn't find any cardboard big enough to make my star stencil.

As an aside, one thing that I've been learning recently is in the area of being a better dad. The Lord has made it clear to me that as I'm doing my every day normal activities I can simply invite the kids to join me in what I'm working on. Here they helped with painting and last week they helped me finish hang drywall on the living room ceiling.

So often I'm in such a hurry to get things done that I'd rather shoo them off so I can finish the project instead of seeing it as an opportunity to spend time with them. I know it's not rocket science, I'm just a slow learner sometimes =) To any other parents with young kids out there, I encourage you to find ways to include them in your every day life too.

Review: Free Prize Inside

Here's my relationship with books: I like them, I collect them, and once in a while I actually get around to reading them. At one point I had hoped to read a book a week this summer, with the included expectation that I would write a review here on the blog. I might have picked the wrong book to get started, because it's one that's challenging me to find a lot of application.

Right off the bat I want to acknowledge that a book like this may be a bit controversial in a ministry setting. Some folks aren't fond of taking a popular business book or concept and trying to apply it to the church or some other ministry. While I agree that the church is not a business, I think it would be foolish to ignore wisdom or ideas that could help us serve the Lord more effectively. While I do believe the Bible is the infallible authoritative word of God, I don't think it's the only place we can find useful knowledge. With that said, here are a few thoughts I have regarding this book and its author.

I got to hear Seth Godin speak in person at Catalyst last fall and was very impressed. He's not the most striking or dynamic speaker, but he understands that. So instead of his face on the video screen, he had the best powerpoint presentation I've ever seen. I don't know how many slides he had, but it definitely numbered in the hundreds. They were all (as far as I can remember) images, and if there was any text it would be a single word. The images were gripping, interesting and illustrative. In this particular book he includes some advice for making quality powerpoint presentations on pages 102 to 107 that would probably be worth the price of the book for a lot of people.

For anyone in the realm of business, especially in a non-leadership position, I think this would be a very useful resource. The second section of the book is all about championing an idea and getting those above you to buy into it. Well, I don't personally have to deal with that, since I have a great deal of freedom in my job to try all sorts of new things. The third (and final) section goes into great detail about finding the edges you can exploit to make your product remarkable. Again, I had a bit of a tough time finding a lot of application here, although it probably best serves as a long series of examples to help you better assess your own situation.

But I'm probably getting ahead of myself here. What is the main point of the book? Quite simply it is to make your product remarkable. By remarkable he means that which causes people to make a remark, something that people will talk about. His idea is that you do that by having a free prize inside, an unexpected extra, just like you used to find in cereal boxes as a kid. (Do they still do those today? We just buy cheap bagged cereal...) And when they get that free prize, they'll tell others.

I've seen this in action and know that it's true. Nowhere was this more evident than in our Dollar Dinner ministry last year. Getting a cheap meal isn't a new idea, and there are several churches/ministries in town where you can do that. But what started drawing in larger-than-normal crowds was the free prize: excellent homemade food. I found that we didn't have to advertise the event at all, because the food itself was the advertisement. It went above and beyond their expectations, which led them to tell their friends and bring them along. A second, lesser free prize was the amount of food that was provided (variety, not necessarily quantity), also much more than you'd think to get for a dollar.

The idea of practicing excellence in our ministries shouldn't be a new or difficult concept. The Bible says as much in Colossians 3:23, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men." The Lord is certainly worthy of the very best that we can give (and much more!) A similar statement would be that "if something is worth doing, it's worth doing right." Ministry is certainly worth doing! But some times we're so busy doing a bunch of things okay that we're not doing any of them with excellence. For some, it might be best to cut out what's just getting by and focus on hitting a home run with a smaller number of things.

While that's the primary thing I got out of this book, there were a few other ideas that got my attention. Here's one: "We buy what we want, not what we need." I think that statement has some pretty radical implications for ministry. How do we best meet people's wants in order that we can ministry to their (in our eyes) more important needs? And how do we do that without compromising what really matters? To not simply become a fun club for people to be a part of? I think it's a tough balance to strike, but one that we must seriously consider since all that ministries do is based on volunteer attendance and involvement.

Another big idea for me was this simple statement: "Fix what's broken." Sometimes the best way we can make something excellent (and therefore remarkable) is to simply remove the barriers that block its way. After all, we seem much more likely to remember that one thing that went wrong than the ten that went right. Maybe it's parking or a bad flow of people traffic. It could be as simple as the buzz in your sound system. It shouldn't be too hard to find out what needs fixing, just ask around or have a non-regular come and watch with a fresh set of eyes.

The last thing that I'm still working on is the idea that people have been trained their whole lives to do what they're told. He makes the statement that, "the easiest way to avoid pain is to follow someone else's lead." As a minister I want to empower others to make decisions, embrace their ideas and take chances. This isn't natural for very many of us, so I need to figure out how to help students do this more and more. Any advice or thoughts on that?

So all in all I found the book to be very interesting and somewhat helpful and challenging. For those in the business sector I think it would be a great read. For those of you in ministry, I tried my best to pick out the best parts so you could just read this blog post instead =)

Discipleship Essentials

Next year we're strongly considering using the book Discipleship Essentials by Greg Ogden as our small group discipleship material. In order to test it out, I'm going through it this summer at a quicker pace with one of our student leaders. Tonight is technically our second session, although the first may not have really counted since we did it via Facebook while I was in Turkey.

The second session is on being a disciple, and it's a very good one. Two separate passages of scripture are examined, using an inductive method of asking good questions and requiring the learner to think. The "right" answers are never given, so there's no chance for peeking or cheating - real thought and prayer must be applied.

It's always good to be reminded that to follow Jesus is to "deny [your]self and take up [your] cross daily, and follow." If anyone is looking for some good discipleship material, this is definitely worth checking out. Thanks to Jason Allen and Brian Lautenschlager for pointing me in its direction.

Bible in 90 Days

A while back I began doing my daily Bible reading on Biblegateway.com. Just before leaving for Turkey, I saw that they were going to be starting a 90 day reading plan on June 1. If today's reading is indicative of the whole plan, it looks to be about 16 chapters a day.

I generally don't like to read the Bible in giant chunks like this, mostly because I like to take a small section and dive in as deep as I can. But this is a nice change of pace, and will likely help me remember a lot of stuff that I've forgotten or have neglected in the past.

If anyone wants to join me or just wants to learn more, you can do so here.

Creative Anti-Smoking Campaign

When I went to Turkey back in January, I was surprised to see some of the cigarettes for sale in the Ankara airport. Specifically, I didn't expect to see over half of the carton's packaging to display the words "SMOKING KILLS." Not being a fan of smoking, I was happy to see this truth displayed a little bit larger than the American Surgeon General's warning we have.

Well, this time around I found a whole new set of statements on the cartons, going into greater detail than simply saying, "Smoking Kills." Here are some samples for you to enjoy.

Quick Shots

Here are a few photos Andrew has taken, presented without commentary:

Culture of Chai

I never got around to posting a lot of thoughts about my first trip to Turkey, here's one of them:

Of course there were many cultural differences to be found, but I've been thinking a lot lately about chai. In some parts of the world chai is a milk/tea/spice drink, but in Turkish it is simply the word for tea. After every meal they sit and have hot chai. I was only there in the winter, so I don't know if that's just a cold weather thing or an all the time thing. I suspect it's the latter.*

* It is, in fact, the latter. I was very happy to find this time around that chai has nothing to do with the weather at all. It's just as popular in May as it was back in January.

What strikes me about being a chai culture is what it represents. Why would anyone sit around after a meal (and we're talking all three meals of the day here) just to have tea? To sit and visit, of course! Relationships are highly valued there, so sitting and talking is a great way to spend more of your time.

It's not that relationships aren't important in America, but we seem to have something we value even more: efficiency. Most of us don't sit around and visit after a meal because we don't have time for it. There are just too many other important things to do with the time. At my house the process of eating dinner together might not take more than ten or fifteen minutes. I know others are so busy that they often don't have time to sit and eat at all - it might simply be grabbing something from a drive through and eating in the car on the way to somewhere else.

In trying to invest in international students at Northwest, I've found that the most important issue is simply spending time together. Sure it's great to help meet a need like providing furniture or a ride to WalMart. But then what? Is that the end, or is it a means to something more?

Maybe this is so intuitive to others that it's laughable to even post this. But while we're so busy trying to squeeze the most out of our time, we too have this same cry for relationships. It's almost as if we have competing desires, between being productive and connecting with people. Unfortunately our schedules are packed with important commitments which usually mean we have to sacrifice the relationships first.

I'm realizing more and more that I need to trim some responsibilities from my plate so I have more time with people. And even when I am around people, I need to make a greater effort to actually connect with them, and not simply be "around" people.

A second trip to Turkey has simply reinforced this truth.

Seriously?

By now I'm sure most people know that Manny Ramirez tested positive for a banned substance and will be serving a 50 game suspension from baseball. I realize I only have a few selected clips from the paper, but I want to throw this one out there:

In a statement, Manny said, "Recently I saw a physician for a personal health issue... He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was okay to give me. Unfortunately, the medication was banned under our drug policy. Under the policy that mistake is now my responsibility. I have been advised not to say anything more for now. I do want to say one other thing; I've taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons."

What's the deal here? Are we really supposed to believe Manny had no idea what was going on? Apparently the substance is "a female fertility drug that can also be used as a antidote to diminished testosterone levels at the end of a cycle of steroid treatments."

It's quite possible that everything he's saying in there is true. He had a "personal health issue." The doctor gave him "medication, not a steroid" that the doctor though "was okay to give." Those could all be true statements, and yet still be a complete cover to hide what was really going on.

And the way he says "that mistake is now my responsibility" makes him sound like a victim. Yet he's not going to appeal the results or the punishment dealt out by MLB. It's hard to believe an innocent ballplayer would sit back and take something like this quietly, which further leads me to believe it's true. Especially one who has "taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons."

It's amazing how easy it is to own up to something without really owning up to anything at all.*

* Yes, I realize this comes off a bit self-righteous, and who knows what I would do if I were a professional ballplayer. And yes, I do have plenty of struggles of my own, so it would be perfectly legit to say something about planks or stones. I was just struck by this statement this morning and wanted to throw some thoughts out there.

New Family Fun

We picked up a new game the other day that has turned out to be a lot of fun. It's called Slamwich and here are the rules. It's one of those types of games that requires pattern recognition and quick hands and lots of slapping the table!

Productive Day

At 8am this morning, Zach and I began moving furniture around and proceeded to tear up our old carpet and pad. Then we spent an hour or so pulling staples out of the floor along with random nails and things. When that was finally out of the way, our local flooring expert Kevin came over and helped us install laminate flooring! We wrapped up our day right at 6pm, knocking out the living room and dining room. Tomorrow we're going to try and finish the kids' rooms.

Here's our wonderful old carpet on its last day:


Here's a shot of the amazing tile that was hiding under the carpet in the dining room:


And here's a glimpse at the finished product:

Ah the Memories

So here we are getting the kids ready on Wednesday morning. One of the kids makes a comment about peaches, which naturally leads Karin to sing a song. I had to load up the video on YouTube so they could enjoy the song in all its glory. The ninjas at the end are classic!

Quick Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• Go Royals! - when I signed up for DVR last spring, I only did it because the Royals had a new deal with Fox Sports KC that would put almost all of their games on TV. Last year was fine, but this year it's really turning out to be a great decision. I don't know what's going on with the team, but it's a lot of fun! They're winning games they never would've won in the past, including last night's slugfest against Chicago. I was really tired and went to bed at the end of the 10th, but I'll catch the 11th on DVR here real soon. Great job out of the pen last night by Jamey Wright!


• Greinke Fun Facts - If you read my blog, you know by now that I'm a big fan of Joe Posnanski. Much of what he writes is must-read in my book, but you've got to check out these stats on Greinke so far. I especially like 5, 6 and 8.


• Worth Repeating - I hope to see a few more of these this season, but the other night Billy Butler had an outstanding game: a single, a double and two home runs. Once again, Joe Poz comes through in splendid fashion, giving me a genuine laugh-out-loud moment, terming such an accomplishment as a "Billy Cycle." To quote Joe, "Billy is a terrific young hitter but, to be brutally frank, that triple probably isn’t happening." I'll take a Billy Cycle any day!


• Cool Hand Luke? - Like many others, I'm wondering what in the world Sydney Ponson is doing as a continuing member of the Royals rotation. Interesting stat today: Royals without Ponson = 16-6. Meanwhile, Luke is tearing it up in AAA with a 5-0 record and a 1.13 ERA. What I really don't get is this quote from Trey: "I’m thrilled for Luke. I hope at some point we do get to see him, but I don’t want it to be because somebody is not performing or because we have an injury." Uhhh, is there a third option? Death? Abduction by aliens?


• Idol Rocks - Last night was Rock Night on American Idol, and it was AWESOME! I definitely enjoyed it more than any other Idol so far, I think it was enough to completely wash the taste of Country Night out of my mouth. I agree with Randy that Kris and Danny sounded AMAZING together in their duet, even if they didn't do so well individually. Hard to guess who goes home tonight. Danny's never been in the bottom three and is probably safe. Adam was in his element last night and is probably safe. At this point I actually like Kris more than Allison, although that's like saying you like peanut butter cookies more than chocolate chip. They're both really, really good!


• New Project Today - We spent a sizable amount of money yesterday on laminate flooring, and today the project begins! We ended up getting a great deal, so we decided to go ahead and do the kids' rooms as well. We've heard of many, many people that have done this themselves, hopefully it goes as easily as we are expecting it to. It will be nice to have some guys helping out, too, especially Kevin who has a background in flooring.


• Spoils of War - I got my new set of Wow Minis, and I'm really excited about these figures. Even better was the fact that I got several loot cards I could sell on ebay. One went for over $100! I don't know why someone would pay that much for a Foam Sword Rack, but it's a great trade for me!!

Adventures In St Joe

Quite awhile ago we got connected with Dave Ramsey's financial advice and have been big fans ever since. In that time I've also seen Dave speak in person twice at the Catalyst Conference and thoroughly enjoyed him both times. In fact, the first year I went he was the best speaker there.

Dave has some very simple steps to get people headed toward financial freedom, and it's something I wish we would've learned before we got married. First off is to set up a $1,000 emergency fund. The reason for that is that if you decide to immediately try to get out of debt, what do you do when an emergency comes up? You likely get into more debt. So you do whatever necessary to get your $1,000 emergency fun in place as quickly as possible.

After that you start working on paying off your debt. Dave suggests the "debt snowball" method, which is a very good idea. Basically you pay the minimum on all your debts except for the smallest one. On the smallest one, you pay as much as you possibly can each month. Once that one's paid off, you take the amount you were paying on the smallest and apply it to the new smallest. As you pay off debts, the amount you're paying toward each one snowballs until you've got them all paid off. Sweet!

After you're debt free (except for a mortgage, that comes later), you start working on an extended emergency fund. The amount depends, but it should cover four to six months of living expenses. We've had this done for several months and have been dragging our feet in moving on to step four: investing for retirement.

The main thing about investing is that I don't know anything about it. It seems like you could go in a thousand different directions, which left us paralyzed. Where do you start? A few weeks ago a Dave-approved financial adviser was at our church to talk about investments and we set up an appointment with him for yesterday.

Things didn't start out so well. Our appointment was at 9am in St Joe, so we took Allison to school and then hit the road. The office is in downtown St Joe, which is an area we're unfamiliar with. That being the case, we arrived early since we were able to find the place with no problems. He wasn't in the office yet, but the secretary assured us he would be there at 9am. No problem, we'll just wait for ten minutes.

9:00 comes and no adviser. 9:05 rolls around and the secretary starts to act surprised, so she tries tracking him down on his cell phone. No luck. 9:10, she tries him at home. No answer. 9:15, I decide to start reading some of these Forbes magazines laying in front of me. I now understand what's wrong with Nascar's financial set up! Finally, at 9:30, we decide to leave. This is very disappointing, as we've set up somewhere for Allison to go after school just to make this trip, and now we'll have to do it all over again.

So we take off, and after we're about five minutes down the road, I get a call on my cell phone. Somehow he thought the meeting was at 10 and promised he would be at the office soon. We turned around and got there at about 9:45.

As we pulled back in to the building, we parked at the same two hour parking we'd been at before. The exact same spot. I wondered aloud if that was a good idea, but was already a little bit annoyed at having left and returned, so I was just eager to get inside.

Once we finally connected at 10am, things went quite well. I'm now the proud owner of a Roth IRA with a pretty diversified portfolio. It's not worth much, but it feels good to finally be started. He did a very good job answering our questions and I think he gave us some great advice.

Our initial plan was to hit Home Depot and Target while we were in St Joe, but we were now out of time and would simply have to head back to Maryville. As we're walking back to the van, what's that on the windshield? It can't be! Yes, it is. A $7 parking ticket. Apparently leaving for ten minutes in the middle of your 3 hour stint doesn't keep you from getting a ticket.

No, $7 isn't a big deal, it's more of the principle of the thing. We were never there for more than two hours and shouldn't have a ticket at all. Of course we'd have to go back to St Joe to protest the ticket, and it's cheaper to pay $7 than the gas (and time) we'd lose otherwise.

It's funny how annoying something like that can be. A simple mix up of our meeting time kept us from getting to Home Depot (to buy some laminate flooring) and also got us this irritating ticket. But what happened today? Since we missed Home Depot, we decided to try our local Sutherlands out. Not only did we get a better deal (who knew?) but the stuff we bought ended up being on sale as well! That right there saved us another $100.

So now I'm glad we got detained in St Joe yesterday, but I still wish it hadn't cost me $7 :P

Wednesday Bullets

Some random thoughts on this overcast Wednesday:

• A Good Morning - It's really been quite an interesting day. At the start I was very discouraged and frustrated, which tends to happen this time of year. As the school year ends, my schedule undergoes shock as I try to figure out what to do with myself without the structure that I've had for the past nine months. I've been feeling that for a few days, wondering what I should be doing, feeling quite useless and unmotivated to do much of anything.
  
  This morning I had a good heart-to-heart with the Lord, and as He always does He Himself encouraged me before dropping someone in my path who did a great job with more of the same. It sure is great to know the Lord.


• Whitlock Suggests Adding Barry Bonds - As I've said before, I know his primary job is to stir the pot. In my last commentary on a Whitlock article I pointed out that very little journalism seemed to be happening. Well, in his most recent work, he actually appears to have talked to a lot of Royals players. Good job! It was very interesting to read different players' takes on Barry Bonds and the possibility of him joining the team. While I may have missed on my Tony G prediction, I feel quite confident in this one: Barry Bonds will never play for the Royals. There's simply nowhere for him to play, as he'd be a major liability in the outfield and the Royals are already stuck with two DH's that barely play passable 1B defense (Mike Jacobs and Billy Butler).


• Zackkkkk Greinkkkkke! - Man, this guy is really becoming a national story. He's going to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated (which hasn't happened to a KC Royal since David Cone in 1993!) and there probably aren't any good adjectives to describe his season thus far. If it weren't for an unearned run, the best word would likely be "perfect."
  
  Anyway, if you don't know anything about Greinke then you need to do some reading. Great story. But today I simply wanted to share a quote from him that I found both refreshing and extremely encouraging:
  

  “We’re not even a month in, not even a month. Everyone has hot streaks. (Mike) Aviles was the best player for a week a couple times last year. (Brian) Bannister was the best player for a month a while back. The good players do it all year long, and then all year long the next year, and the next year after that. The key isn’t one week or one month. You have to do it longer.”

  
  Here's hoping he can do it for a lot longer. Both he and Royals fans deserve it!


• Deep Thoughts - I have way too many half-written blog posts sitting here, waiting to be finished. I will try and get those done before I leave the country on May 17!

That Figures...

"I have no idea what will happen, but I expect Tony to stay and retire as a Chief. Just wanted to get that out there in case he's part of a blockbuster trade tomorrow and I'm way off." - Me, February 24, 2009.

Well, the trade didn't happen the next day, and it didn't turn out to be a blockbuster either. A second round pick in next year's draft is a little frustrating in exchange for Tony G. I like the idea of getting a second round pick, we clearly are a team in building mode. It's just too bad that pick won't come until 2010.

I can't say I'm all that on board with this trade. Tony still has a few quality seasons in the tank and would be a great target for new QB Matt Cassel. The fact that we didn't acquire any picks in this year's draft* means we don't even get anything in return this year. That's a gaping void to fill, and taking Michael Crabtree means you don't address your offensive line or your defense.

* Of course Pioli seems to be a major wheeler/dealer, so it's quite possible the Chiefs will still move around in the draft this weekend and pick up some additional picks. And maybe they'll even move that pick they just got from Atlanta. I hope so.

I understand that Tony is disgruntled and wants to play for a winner. It's arguable how many wins he'd add to the team right now given the state of last year's defense, but he was an absolute blast to watch play. I understand that if he had retired here you would've gotten nothing in return for him, and maybe he wanted out so badly that he left the team with no other choice. Either way it's no fun for the fans. Maybe I'm just more attached to Gonzo than I was to Jared Allen, because that trade really didn't bother me too much. But then again, guaranteed first ballot Hall of Famers are rare for any team, especially the Chiefs.

Great pick up for Atlanta, I'm sure it will be a big boost to their offense and fantasy football players better target Matt Ryan early. The only thing I know for sure is that I'll miss Tony and hope to pick up my first ever Atlanta Falcons jersey before the season starts!

Get Smart

Joe Posnanski writes all kinds of great stuff, but I found this to be particularly interesting. If you're a baseball fan, you'll want to read this article. It details different pitch counts and what is likely to happen in each situation. Very educational!

• The Count of Counting Counts

Sweet Mexicutioner

While the weather in April is a constant source of frustration for me, there is one thing that's always a certainty: the return of baseball. I'll admit that while I've always maintained allegiance to the Royals, it's been pretty tough to be excited about the team in the past. Since Dayton Moore came on board things have been getting better, and there are legitimate reasons to be excited about the team and the direction it is heading.

As you probably know, the Royals were postponed on Opening Day due to bad weather in Chicago. So Tuesday was their first game, and I managed to watch the first 7 1/2 innings. Meche was great, and the offense showed some signs against Buehrle, even though they were unable to capitalize with runners in scoring position.

The Royals held a 2-1 lead going into the eighth inning, and as all current fans know, Jim Thome hit a three run bomb off of Kyle Farnsworth to ruin the game for us all. Yes, it nullified Meche's great performance. Yes, it displayed some questionable decision making by manager Trey Hillman. But the worst thing of all: it kept us from watching Joakim Soria.

So last night, while unable to watch the game live, I did get to watch Soria pitch thanks to DVR. I've never enjoyed watching a pitcher as much as I like to watch this guy. He's absolutely unshakable and relentlessly attacks hitters. The other Royals pitchers will almost guarantee that every first pitch of Soria will be a strike. I expect the ones that aren't are on purpose too, just to throw off the hitters!

There were a few Soria stat gems last night from Ryan Lefebvre that have to be passed along:

1. Soria had more saves last year than hits given up. That's crazy! He notched 42 saves while only giving up 39 hits. So he was more likely to save the game than even give up a hit. Not a run, a hit. Outstanding!


2. This is even crazier, and is tied to the first. Last year's saves leader (which was an MLB record) was Francisco Rodriguez, with 62. In those 62 saves, he had a 1-2-3 inning 21 times. That's 34% The NL leader, Brad Lidge, accomplished that feat 25 times in 41 saves (61%). Not bad! So how about Soria? Oh, just a meager 36/42. That just blew me away. 86% of the time he just mowed them down, 1-2-3. No walks, no hits, just pitching dominance.
   

Naturally he locked down his first 1-2-3 save of the '09 season last night. But even that's not the best part of watching Soria. No, the best part is when he gets two strikes on a hitter. The first two guys he faced last night, Carlos Quentin and Jim Thome, popped out before getting to two strikes. That's probably a wise thing to do, because getting that second strike typically spells disaster for a hitter.

But Jermaine Dye was not so lucky. I love what Rany wrote about last night's encounter between Dye and Soria: "When Soria worked the count to 2-2 on Dye, it was clear that the Mexicutioner was about to unleash the Guillotine, as I call his vicious (and delicious) slow curveball that he dispatches his victims with. I knew it was coming, you knew it, I imagine Dye knew it, and we all knew that there was nothing Dye could do about it anyway." Yes, I knew it, and I couldn't wait to see it. It was a thing of beauty.

As I said earlier, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the Royals this year. Meche is very good and Grienke could be amazing. The lineup has considerably more pop this year and the team has a newly renovated stadium to play in. But the best thing will still be hoping for a close game in the ninth and seeing the Mexicutioner dispatch his victims with ease.

Spring Break Recap

Here's a reprint of an article I wrote for the MBC:



Including myself, 28 of us spent our spring break at Mission Arlington in Arlington, TX. How we ended up spending our spring break there is another story - an interesting sequence of events orchestrated by the Lord.

The slogan of the ministry is "Taking church to the people" and we got to see it first hand. They have over 280 different Sunday morning outreaches, some rather small while others number over 70. As far as I know these all take place in various apartment complexes throughout the city. Some of the workers live in the apartments and work very hard to connect with the residents and share Christ with them.

The ministry also does a lot to meet the practical needs of the people. There was a constant rush of activity, as people swarmed the medical and dental clinics, furniture came in and out, and the food and clothing areas buzzed. Most of the workers are there from 7am to 7pm, continually giving to those in need. That in itself was a great example and challenge to us as a group.

We spent our week helping in each of these areas as needed, while a lot of the time ended up being spent at some of the apartment complexes where Bible studies are being planted and relationships are being established. We got to clean apartments (including one that had just flooded that day with sewage!), help with minor repairs, deliver food and furniture to people in need, deliver fliers and invite people to Bible studies or other events, and also help with after school programs with kids.

Many of the kids we worked with had very troubled home lives and were just longing to be loved. Several in our group had a difficult time parting with them.

One of the more powerful experiences for the group was connecting with one of the local workers. He is a former youth pastor in Johnson County who left behind his five bedroom home there to move into the apartment that, as he said, "Used to be where people did drugs or had sex." He had an overwhelming heart to give to the people and do whatever was necessary to share Christ with them. Working with him was a blessing and by itself would have made the entire trip worth it.

So far I've only heard back from a few students as to what they took away from the trip, but here are a few quotes:

"The trip helped show me that there are a lot of people out there searching for something more. Before, I had the mentality that people would just brush me off if I tried to talk to them, but in reality, most people do want to hear about it."

"I feel that it kind of reaffirmed my passion for children. It also reminded me that mission work or something similar may still be a possibility for my life."

"Well, I just got reminded of how powerful the spirit is. How when i'm walking in the spirit, sin has no reign on me. I found that getting away from TV, computer, internet, etc, I was set free from most of my struggles. So, for me, now i'm just trying to remember what I put into my body, and keep out what isn't good."

For me personally it was a week of consistently relying on God to come through and provide answers to a wide variety of questions and challenges that faced me. He was faithful to work things out in every single circumstance (including driving home through the remnants of a blizzard), even though I would prefer to simply avoid trials altogether :) And of course seeing a ministry that goes to the people rather than trying to get them to come to us, and then figuring out how we can better incorporate that into the BSU.

I would gladly return to work with that ministry again and give them a whole-hearted recommendation for any other group.

Late to the Party

I'm sure I've never been mistaken for a trend setter, so I guess I tend to be a little late when it comes to what's current or cool. I know many others have already heard and appreciated Lecrae, but I just got my first taste of his music over spring break. It's too bad too, because I just missed him in concert a few weeks ago here in Maryville. (I had a prior engagement at the time, although I would've worked around it had I known better.)

There were a handful of his songs that became unofficial theme songs for the week of spring break, here's one of them:




Here are links to a few others:

Fanatic
Represent
Praying For You
Take Me As I Am