Christmas Karma

On Sunday afternoon I assumed that Karma would honor me for helping my father paint shelves as my fanatical Eagles fan brother opted to instead watch the early round of football games. The expected honor from Karma- a Cowboys victory over the Eagles.

A few hours later I received a text from my wife’s sister asking if I was in Hell because of watching the Cowboys embarrassment while next to my annoying Eagles’ fan brother.
To which I responded that I wasn’t in Hell, but actually in the Abilene police station.
She and her mother immediately assumed that I had been incarcerated because I had participated in a round of fisticuffs with the previously mentioned Eagle’s fan, which could have been a real possibility if I didn't have another reason to be at the jail.

As the story goes Karma didn’t hand me any post-Christmas presents, only two lumps of coal- another depressing December Dallas performance and a dent in the back of my truck from a driver who tried to park too close to my truck and then decided to drive off. Luckily a witness had a camera phone and the desire to call the cops, thus the trip to police station during the game. Unfortunately there is no law against the Cowboys collapsing in December.

The moral of the story: don’t do anything nice, ever.

FYI- I truly don't believe in Karma. I am more into Christianity than Buddhism.

The Denton Project

Check out this link about our church plant.

My Angel

"I've got an Angel,
she doesn't wear any wings...
She wears a heart that can melt my own.
She wears a smile that can make me want to sing.
She gives me presents with her presence alone.
She gives me everything I could wish for,
She gives me kisses on the lips just for coming home."

-Jack Johnson

Water-parenting

Chief, my 90lb lap dog, has hunger issues. I am not talking about he gets hungry and stands by the food bowl. When Chief gets hungry in the morning, he starts scratching on the bedroom door. Because of the few days when I forgot to block the door back in Florida, I had to spend a morning filling in the grooves from his nails on our wooden door.
Last weekend I decided that I had enough of the scratching/blocking the door routine and only one solution existed, waterboarding. I placed a half full (or half empty-for our pessimistic readers) cup of water on top of the slightly cracked opened door and waited to wake up in the morning to a slightly drenched beast. Instead, the cup sat on top of a door that didn’t get scratched. Somehow that dog knew the trap. Three days later the other non-scratching dog, Chloe, bumped the door, got a little shower and scared both of them.
Now all I do is put an empty cup over the door and the door doesn’t get scratched.

Two thoughts-
1- Chief is a smart dog. Since I originally wrote this I have had to make a revision, I thought he was smart until just the other day when he ate a bottle full of Chloe’s Prozac and made me sit in a lonely vet room hoping his hunger wouldn’t kill him while he got his stomach pumped. Luckily It didn’t.
2- I hope that type of discipline works with Avery. If Avery comes home late for curfew, and she gets welcomed by a cup of water placed on the door. That will teach her to come home on time, right?

Church Staff

I have come up with a new tactic for hiring staff for my church plant. If anyone will put my wife on a paid corporate board that pays over 100K per year, they can be either worship leader or children's minister. Thanks for the idea Gov. Blagojevich

RHCC

It has been great these last few months being at the Richland Hills Church of Christ before we head up to Denton and launch next fall. A few highlights so far:

-Last week the entire staff loaded up in a school bus and headed downtown to spend time with some disenfranchised people. Afterwards the staff went to get burgers, and someone honestly asked David Fraze if I was a homeless person that he brought to lunch.

-It had been quite a few months since I last preached before two weeks ago, and it's encouraging to preach for such a receptive group like RHCC. I am preaching again next Wednesday, if you are bored here is the link to their podcast.

-Getting to share my passion for church planting and kingdom work with a church that has a similar vision.

Judging

One would be short-sighted as well as unrealistic if they were to assume to never incorporate someone’s past in the way they view their present. It’s humanly impossible to forget someone’s past mistakes, but just remembering isn’t judging.
When we assume one’s final chapter has already been penned and we don’t leave open the possibility for change we judge. When we judge others we remove the potential for others to allow God to work in their life.

Blindside

During our Thanksgiving driving I listened to a great story of redemption, adoption and football, The Blind Side. Here is a great quote (as best I could remember) from the book and a clip of the story.

For most of Michael Oher’s life he wandered from home to home and school to school. A friend’s grandmother wanted her grandson to leave his troubled filled inner-city Memphis school and enroll at a Christian schools in Memphis. The grandson went to see this new Christian school with his 6’5” 340lb tag along, Big Mike. It didn’t take the coaches there long to be interested in Mike, or more specifically his girth. Within a year a family from his new school found out that Mike didn’t have a change of clothes and more importantly, a home. That was too much for this wealthy Christian school mom, who decided that he was going to move in with them and became apart of their well-to-do family.
A few months after getting Mike his first ever bed, she brought home a Northface backpack for Mike much to his dismay.
“I am not carrying that backpack.” Mike said.
“Why not?” she replied.
“That’s the backpack all those rich kids carry around.”
“Michael, you are a rich kid.”
That day Michael Oher started carrying the backpack the other rich kids carried.

In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will…in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. Ephesians 1

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