Archive for April, 2008

I had a bit of a rude awakening with my oldest daughter this weekend. She got extremely upset with her mother because she “stopped recording” one of her favorite shows on the DVR. The discussion escalated to the point she had to be punished over her attitude and loss of control. Admittedly, I am a bit of a reactionary parent, so my immediate response was to let her know how fortunate and privileged she was to even have a DVR while most of the kids of the world do not even own a TV and for sure do not have a TiVo device. I passionately described (which basically means I screamed it) how many kids in our own city don’t even have food to eat and how selfish it is to worry about the “stupid” DVR. I informed her that her mommy’s TV viewing would not be dictated by the 102 Hannah Montana recordings, the 97 H20 episodes, a PBS show about a cartoon dog named Ruff Ruffman, and the 64 other shows they record every minute of the day.

Can an adult watch normal TV in the house without it being interrupted by some kids show getting recording???

Thinking about this encounter later, I realized that my kids do not know anything other than the DVR culture in which we live. They know nothing of antennas that make the “whaa-whaa-whaa” noise as they circle trying to pick up a station. They know nothing of a pair of needle nose pliers serving as a remote control. They have no idea what it means to only pick up 2-3 channels. They know nothing of 13″ TVs and renting a VHS player for the weekend or the exciting game of Pong. Instead they are being raised in the HD satellite TV, 564 channels, cartoons 24-7, multiple remotes, DVR/TiVo, 65″ big screen, multiple video games, DVD/Blu-ray disc day and age. When I talk about how “rough” I had it as a child in the world of electronics, they can’t even identify with what I am talking about. And guess what? I had no clue what it meant when my parents talked about living without tv, electricity, and walking to school 9 miles uphill in both directions in the snow.

So what do we do? Well we can try and make them go back in time a couple of decades and experience life before the luxuries of DVR, or we can buy them every gadget known to humanity so they stay up to speed, or we maybe we can recognize the reality of the culture in which they are being raised – try and raise them in a way where they understand stewardship, generosity, and value – and help teach them what is truly important in life without allowing the pendulum to swing too far in either direction.

I want my kids to experience the convenience of DVR. But I don’t want them to grow up thinking conveniences are necessities. How do you strike a balance between these two worlds? I’m not sure. I know I fault one way or the other more often than I want. I know that I have only been a parent for 10 years and I am learning as I go. I know that I want my kids to grow up and love Jesus and love their parents and love each other and love the church and love living life. I know I want my kids to grow up and see beyond their own worlds. And I know that I want my 10-year-old daughter to be able to watch the latest Hannah Montana episode and yet realize the world does not revolve around Mylie Cyrus.

Parenting – could it be the best and yet most difficult experience of life? If not, it sure runs a close second.

After the weekend…

- You don’t realize how dependent you are on e-mail until your server is down for a few.

- Took my kids to the lamest school carnival in the history of school carnivals on Friday night.

- Kids got to go swimming after the carnival which is the only thing that salvaged the evening.

- Very glad all my kids love the water and can swim like fish.

- Had some hang time with the kids on Saturday. Baseball game with Zac. Went out to eat at Macaroni Grill and then went to ride go-karts. Fun evening.

- Watched my second horrible movie in a row. Movie 1 & Movie 2 … not worth the time. Big disappointment with both.

- We finished our Lifeboat series on Sunday. Definitely one of the best series we have ever done. The videos, messages, creative elements, etc. were some of our best. We will be packaging Lifeboat for those interested. We finished strong. The video was the best yet, the message connected to a lot of people, and several adults committed their life to Christ. Good day.

- Gotta love the Sunday afternoon nap!

- Teaching on one of my favorite biblical characters at Five20: Jacob.

- Looks like GP will be moving in July to a high school! Exciting days ahead.

- Being portable and changing locations brings new challenges.

- We have way too many questions on our askgp.com website for our next series. Should be fun deciding which ones to answer. It should be a very interesting series.

- Starting to warm up in the desert. 90s ahead.

- Hansbrough is staying at UNC for his senior year. Now if our “testing the waters” boys will just stay in college, we should be set for a legitimate run at the national championship.

- Do the Cowboys have to pick up every delinquent player in the NFL?

- Watching some NBA playoffs. There are some great series this year. Potential LA/Boston Finals again? Takes me back to when I first starting watching basketball – Bird, the Chief, McHale, DJ, Magic, Kareem, Cooper, Worthy, Scott, Rambus … great era of basketball.

That’s all folks.

I love having a son. My 6-year-old son Zachary is a trip.  He brings me laughter and frustration.  There are things about him that I love and things that drive me nuts at times.  He is passionate and determined (not always a good combination). He is a handsome little dude (notice I did not say cute) with a passion for life. Sometimes he is fearless and sometimes his fears make no sense to me as an adult.  I have to admit this trait in him drives me crazy at times.

For example, Zac will ride any roller coaster that height requirements will allow. He is relatively tall so he gets on most adult rides. He gets nervous but he usually overcomes his fear and has a blast.  Last night we took our kids to ride go-carts. Zac was hilarious. He drove by himself one of the smaller carts for the first time in his life. He had never driven a cart. He was fearless. He was cutting people off.  He lapped his more cautious sister twice – bumping into her once and getting a warning from the attendant.  He maintained this look of determination as he drove aggressively and fearlessly.  When he rode with me on the adult carts later, he kept screaming “go faster daddy. You’ve got to push the pedal harder!” To which I screamed back, “I’m pushing it as hard as I can – stop screaming!”   He was fearless.

At the same time, Zac spends a lot of his time around a mommy and 2 sisters – even our dog is a female.  For that reason, we have to work extra hard to get him involved in more “boy” activities.  He is playing his first year of coach-pitched baseball.  He is the youngest player on the team and admittedly one of our weaker players, which is understandable due to his age.  Yet one of the things that irks me is his fear of the baseball.  Now he did get hit in the head with the ball a few weeks ago which added to his concern but it drives me insane when he shies away from the ball.  For some reason, he has a fear of the ball. I don’t get it.  Roller coasters – fearless.  Baseballs – fearful.

I think the easiest explanation of Zac’s fear of the baseball is his experience. Twice now in his short baseball “career” he has been hit directly in the head with the ball. This has led him to be afraid of the ball.  He has been hurt by it and it makes him afraid.  He has yet to be thrown from a roller coaster – his fear has been superseded by the thrill of the ride.

Sometimes life experiences make us afraid. We get burned in a relationship and we are fearful of a new one. We take a risk and it fails and we are gun shy about new risks.  We allow ourselves to be vulnerable and it comes back to bite us and it makes us more afraid to open up again.  Life hits us in the head with the ball and it causes us to live or act in fear.

I never want fear to hinder me from taking life steps. I don’t want past life experiences to stand as an obstacle for what I am supposed to do and where I am supposed to go.  I don’t want getting hit in the head to keep me from playing short stop. I want to use fear as a motivator and not allow it to be a deterrent.  Life is too short to sit in the dugout afraid of the ball. Get in the game. Sometimes you are going to take one to the head. But don’t let fear keep you down. Get up – it’s time to play ball.

Lost was back with vengeance last night. Great episode. The dark cloud returns (apparently summoned by Ben somehow). Headed to Jacob’s house.  Conspiracies run rampant. Got to be the best show on television.

Our server went down over the weekend and screwed up all of our e-mail and even my blog, so I have not been posting this week. Sorry. I will try and make up for it soon. Hopefully we are now on the mend.

Starla and I have always been Survivor fans. We started watching it the first season and have watched every season since. Yes sometimes it gets predictable. Sometimes it is cheesy. Sometimes you get frustrated with the show and want to give it up. But we have hung in there mainly because of moments like last night – a classic moment in Survivor history (not quite up there with Fairplay’s move).

This season they tried something new: Fans vs Favorites … some of the shows favorite contestants vs some of the shows biggest fans. It has made for an interesting twist. One of the all-time favorite contestants is Ozzy. The dude is impressive in the way he survives. He is always near the top in every challenge, works hard around camp, is liked by most of the contestants, makes friends easily, and even climbs trees like he is a monkey. Once again, he has dominated this season and having obtained the individual immunity idol (you would have to watch the show to get that element), he seemed to be a shoe-in for the final four. He had a solid alliance and seemed to be destined for a legitimate shot at 1 million.

Only problem? He was too much of a threat and the other contestants realized it and capitalized on their opportunity. Last night, Ozzy was voted off Survivor while holding on to an immunity idol that would have spared him. He was blindsided and sat there confident but betrayed. He did not make the right move at the right time and it cost him the game.

I think sometimes we sit on life opportunities that cost us severely. We feel confident when we should be scared out of our minds and taking steps to protect ourselves. Or we have opportunities right in front of us and fail to act on them at the right time. Life will betray you if you are not on guard. Just when you begin to feel confident – WHAM – blindsided…often times by those who are supposed to have your back.

So what do I do? How do I live life without getting blindsided or missing God-given opportunities? I think you have to live life with a certain perspective – not an “everyone is out to get me” attitude but an awareness that you cannot coast through life without living with conscious awareness. The Bible instructs us to live life with awareness, to be on guard, to be alert. The Scriptures employ several terms that imply we are to live life in a way that we do not get blindsided. Being alert also involves looking for those God-given moments where we are to act and not just sit on our immunity idol.

Life is sometimes mere survival. Following Christ is a daily, moment-by-moment, conscious following that demands awareness and intentionality. You can’t get too comfortable or you might lose your opportunity to “stay in the game.”

We are doing a series in May called Q & A and we are letting our people help decide what questions we will be answering through the month.  We have developed a website called askGP.com where people can post questions.  This is a fun experiment and our people are responding with some interesting questions.  I have discovered a couple of things quickly: 1) there are a lot of different questions out there on a lot of different subjects & 2) there is no way we can answer every question in a four week series.  I have tried to post every question regardless of its direction or content (obviously I am not posting anything crude).  I have even allowed a few that question “how we do church”.  I am going to have fun answering a lot of these questions.  Should be a fun series.

Traveling wears me out. I did enjoy being a part of the Younger Generation Leadership Network meeting in Dallas. I was able to hang out with some great young pastors and hear from some awesome mentors. It was a productive time of round table discussions – which seem to help me much more than the average conference now. Here are some highlights from the rest of the weekend…

- Played golf twice this weekend. TPC Canyons (a PGA course) and Badlands (target golf at its finest) were the victims of my golf outings. With my family out of town, I am glad I got to play.

- Went to a creative brainstorm meeting for Five20 on Saturday night. Very productive meeting. We are planning to launch Five20 like a new church plant in the Fall. It is a great venue and I am ready to see it explode.

- We had a great service on Sunday. We continued our Lifeboat series and I taught on the woman caught in adultery in John 8. I wrote a dramatic monologue and one of our favorite dancers Danielle danced to the monologue. She portrayed the woman caught in adultery. It was very powerful.

- Our Lifeboat videos are off the hook. Way to go team.

- Church Production Magazine was at our services on Sunday. They plan to run a feature article on Grace Point in their July edition. This is a great opportunity for us. I am encouraged they are going to focus on a portable church for a change. Most often their magazine focuses on mega-churches.

- Being portable stinks at times. We are getting booted out of some of our rooms because the district passes down policies and have no idea who and how it affects other people.

- Five20 was great on Sunday night. It is turning into one of my favorite venues.

- Tiger finished second. I know that burns him up.

- I am no Tiger Woods.

- The family returns this week (on Tuesday). I am not a good bachelor.

I better go get the house clean….

I am in Dallas, Texas getting to spend some great time with some great young leaders and some awesome mentors. My brain is tired trying to process all the stuff we are discussing. It is always encouraging to talk to other young leaders of larger churches who are struggling with many of the same things. Larry Osborne of North Coast Church once again stretches me. I love the way he thinks.

They are even “politely” asking us to shut off our cell phones during all of our sessions and not to go out to answer calls or to text. Tough assignment for guys like me. Most of the young leaders are A-levels who are driven. I think the most challenging part of the day for all of us is 1) sitting still for long periods of time, 2) not being able to make calls or texts, and 3) not dominating every conversation.

Tiring but fun. More later.

I woke up last night to some serious thunder and lightning in Dallas, Texas.  I grew up in areas of the country where thunderstorms were common but since moving to Vegas I can only remember one thunderstorm of which I have been a part in over three years. It was a little weird for me.  I wasn’t necessarily frightened but they did keep me awake for a while.

Sometimes we get comfortable in life and coast along with no real storms.  And then when the storms hit, it freaks us out a little.  We are looking at doing a series at Grace Point in the near future on storms – what to do to prepare for them, what to do when you are in them, and what to do after the storm.  I am not sure you can be completely prepared for life’s storms but you can live life in a way where you are not caught off guard when the storm comes.  You can live life in a way where your faith is not shattered when the storm comes.

Storms create different levels of damage. Some of them merely get your driveway wet. Some of them destroy homes and buildings and schools. Some of them take lives.  Storms come at different levels and obviously the size of the storm will often determine the magnitude of how it affects your life.  Getting your driveway wet pales in comparison to having your roof blown off your house.  The heavier the storm the more potential for damage.

Are we building a faith that will survive the most severe storms of life? Not just the shower that waters your lawn but the tornado style storms that generate havoc in our lives.

Jesus calmed the storm on one occasion in the NT.  At other times, he calmed the disciples.  Either way, he never left them alone through the storms.  I am not sure they could always sense his presence but he was always there.  During storms, it may appear God has abandoned you or is not present but don’t lose heart – He is there.  At times He will calm the storm. Other times, He will calm you.  Either way, the storms of life should refine us and make us more God-dependent than ever.

Storms are not fun. They are frightening. They are dangerous. They can cause severe damage. But in the end, storms should not dictate the authenticity of our faith. They should stretch our faith, refine our faith, challenge our faith, and in the end increase our faith.

Thank God we do not live all of life in the storm. Storms are only for a season. Sometimes the seasons are long and difficult but in the end, the sun will reappear. There is hope.  So during the storms of life, look to the cross. It is the cross that makes sense out of life’s storms.