Books!

While on vacation, I read 3 books. The first two I will mention were good and one just decent, but the third book BLEW ME AWAY! First up (3rd place) was John Piper's The Supremacy of God in Preaching. GREAT concept, but some SUPER Right-winged and old ideas (ask and I'll explain). Second up (and in 2nd place) was Just Like Jesus by Max Lucado. I love Max's books and I have read a lot of them. This is one of my favorites because of the main focus. I wish he would've gone deeper with some of the stuff, but overall Good read.


Lastly and 1st place in my opinion: They Like Jesus But Not the Church by Dan Kimball. This book is the most centralized Emerging Church book I've read to date! Dan is honest, gentle and Biblical. This book is strongly recommended if you want to find the heart beat of the emerging generation AND the way to share Jesus with them. I am starting a college ministry this new school year and this book will be a HUGE asset to me as I go to God with this new endeavor!

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The Power of Vacation

I have gotten back from my week-long sabbath rest with my family. I feel energized, alive, hyper and PUMPED about ministry again. I was feeling lag and disappointed and yea even a bit overworked and bored with ministry before I left. I was feeling down and really heavy. However, now that I am back I am READY for the school year, I am PUMPED about some new things we're going to do and I am more in Love with Jesus than I ever have been!

NEVER underestimate the power of a vacation. God usually puts this vacation in my life and t usually always has the same result...RE_ENERGIZING! My family is awesome and we get together as a body of family yes, but even more significant as a body of believers! We are all in ministry and have a strong connection with God. So getting together is like having a small church! We do devos together every night of vacation and just enjoy one another's company. We pray together, laugh together and worship together..ALL WEEK LONG! I feel like this Red-Bull
guy right now!!

I feel that God has placed this system in our lives so that we can come bcak and be re-energized to do His good work! I sat down today with Marko (my intern) and we did some pretty awesome stuff..planning the school year out with the new stuff and the old stuff..God is going to move this school year, and now, re-energized I CANNOT WAIT!

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Another 5 lbs. Fool!

Hey to yall who care about my weight loss, I've now peaked my loss at 17 lbs total!! I started this process at 217 lbs and now I am at 200 lbs!! My goal is to go down 15 more pounds so I will weigh 185! The South Beach Diet is where it be at yo! Check my pic!

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Our Trip Thus Far!

The last couple days have been amazing! Two of our students who did not previously hold Christ as their Savior now do! God has been doing incredible things! Yesterday, we began our incredible journey of service by waking up early and traveling to the Summer Day Camp site on the inner-city's north side. Our students jumped right into action, teaching the little ones two memory verses: Romans 8:28 and Psalms 119:11.

Next, the teens taught the kids the first chapter of our week-long story Ringu. Just so you know, these kids are doing amazing with the little kids! Also, yesterday we saw the inner-city slums, which caused our teens to ponder.

Today was very similar and the kids are working really hard. Keep prayin' them up because God is doing amazing things and there just isn't room enough to say! TWO NEW CHRISTIANS!!

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In Pittsburgh...

Hello all! We have arrived safely in Pittsburgh and have already seen and done a ton! We went to a family BBQ for about 1.5 hours, where we were given FREE food, then we traveled to the "Strip District" (which is NOT as it sounds, it is simply one large strip mall (an outdoors mall of sorts). It was a little late and most of the stores were closed, so we headed to the city, saw some sites as we drove, then went passed my old High School and went to a local mall.

After we shopped 2 stores, I then took everyone on the Duquense Incline in which we were "toted" up a mountain in an old box car! We got to see the city begin to light up!

After all that excitement, we headed to my parent's house, got some r&r and then sent the girls over to Hilary's parents for the night. OFF TO BED!! More news to come (if I have internet access that is!)

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Shocking Blog reply

Today, I read a blog by Carlos Whittaker entitled: Kill it. The ideas behind it was GREAT, asking church workers and/or church members to decide if there was one thing they could kill in the church what would it be. Appallingly, Youth Ministry was one idea that came up...twice!

I was shocked and saddened by this. I wish I knew what the reasoning was...

What do you think?

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Work-Out update

I am now 205 lbs!!! I have so far lost approx. 11 lbs and I'm moving towards my goal of 185 lbs. I would be satisfied if I reached 190, but I want to be where I was my freshman year of college. I'm not sure how far Nate Lawson is along in the process, but I hope I'm beating him :)

Here are a couple before and after photos.

Before:





After:

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