Happy Belated Opening Day

Here are a few of the photos I took on opening day at Busch Stadium.

The beloved Clydesdales... and the shiny thing behind the two drivers... yes that thing resting in all its glory on top of all the beer: The World Series Trophy.

Traditional opening day scene. Cars bringing out the various Cardinal coaches and players.

Is there anything else I need to say about this picture?

Everybody lining up on the baselines... traditional opening day introductions.

The first pitch... Chris Carpenter to Jose Reyes. The rest of the night was pretty much downhill from there. But it was a great time. I got to go with my brother, my favorite person to watch a ballgame with. We were in the very top row in left field foul territory. This was my second opening day. I just love all the festivities and all the things that are going on downtown... hopefully I'll be able to get to a few more even though I'm moving.

Book Review: The Emerging Church

Here are some of the more interesting (to me, at least) ideas and excerpts from Dan Kimball’s book, The Emerging Church. Like other book reviews... I could have gone on forever, but I want to keep posts somewhat reasonable in length.

“Being sensitive to seekers is not a style of worship! It is loving lost people enough to try to relate to them on their level (whatever that is) so Jesus can save them. It begins with not expecting nonbelievers to act, think, or feel like believers until they are.” -Rick Warren

“Can the church escape the happy-song-silk-plant ghetto and minister to a cheese-intolerant, spiritually self-sufficient culture?” -Sally Morgenthaler

“Living in a world of terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and racial-ethnic religious hatred, they (postmoderns) feel that strong beliefs and values are dangerous. We would be wise to affirm their desire for peace. May we gently show them how Jesus takes this very course in the religious world of his day, and how the cross is a message to the world, saying, ‘It is better to suffer violence for your beliefs than to inflict violence. This is the way of God’s kingdom.’” -Brian McLaren

“People increasingly long for the mystical and the spiritual rather than the evidential and facts-based faith of the modern soil. The way people respond and think is more fluid than systematic, more global than local, more communal than individualistic.” -Dan Kimball

“Jesus and his teachings will not seem as strange or repellant to non-Christians as will the Christian subculture we have created. Emerging generations are actually very interested in Jesus, but many times Christians get in the way.” -Dan Kimball

“A disciple of Jesus is one who practices his presence and arranges his or her life in such a way as to live as Christ would live if he were them. A disciple is one of those who have trusted Jesus with their whole life, so far as they understand it. Because they have done so, they want to learn everything He has to teach them about life in the Kingdom of God now and forever, and they are constantly with Him to learn this. Disciples of Jesus are those learning to be like Him.” -Dallas Willard

“We should not teach that discipleship is simply a set of things to do. Otherwise discipleship becomes works-oriented… If we are striving to be disciples of Jesus, then we must be in relationship with him. Practicing his presence through prayer is vital as we ask for the Spirit’s help. We need to remember that the disciplines of an apprentice are only a means. The Holy Spirit is the one who changes, grows, and sanctifies us.” -Dan Kimball

“Expecting all Christians to have a certain type of quiet time can wreak havoc in a church… We sometimes assume that if others do not experience the same thing, something must be wrong with them… God wants your worship, according to the way He made you. That may differ somewhat from the worship of the person who brought you to Christ or the person who leads your Bible study or church.” -Gary Thomas

This Just In!

CHICAGO—Mark Prior, the right-handed pitcher who has spent the first few years of his career on the disabled list, is now considering accepting a recent two-year, $8 million offer from the DL that would keep him not playing through the 2008 season. "I couldn't even imagine the DL without Mark Prior—over the years, he has become the face, stiff right elbow, strained subscapularis muscle, and inflamed Achilles tendon of our organization," said Kirk Gibson, manager and longtime former member of the DL, which is currently rebuilding by claiming young arms such as Kerry Wood, Ben Sheets, and Mike Maroth. "We firmly believe that Mark's best injuries are still ahead of him." While Prior's agent says the pitcher is exploring his options, experts predict that it is "inevitable" that Prior will return to the DL and, with the loyalty he's shown in the past, likely finish his career there.

*This article was posted on my fantasy baseball message board.

New Talents

Here are a couple of pictures of some of Aaron's newly found talents and the sleeping position that Melissa found him in when she checked on him during his afternoon nap: He is finally crawling... and pulling himself up onto things. We hope to post some video of each in the next couple of weeks.

Book Review: Prayer

The book, Prayer, written by Richard Foster is one of the most profound and practical books that I’ve ever read on the subject of prayer. In each chapter, Foster writes about a different type of prayer (Examples: Prayer of Rest, Intercessory Prayer, Prayer of Tears, Healing Prayer… etc.) The following are my favorite excerpts from the book:

“We should all feel perfectly free to complain to God, or argue with God, or yell at God. God is perfectly capable of handling our anger and frustration and disappointment. C.S. Lewis counsels us to ‘lay before Him what IS in us, not what OUGHT to be in us.’”

Writing about the prayer of rest, Foster has this to say: “No teaching flowing out of the Sabbath principle is more important than the centrality of our resting in God. Instead of striving to make this or that happen, we learn trust in a heavenly Father who loves to give. This does not promote inactivity, but it does promote dependent activity. No longer do we take things into our own hands. Rather, we place all things into divine hands and then act out of inner promptings.”

“Over the centuries an unfortunate and, in my opinion, completely unnecessary division has arisen among Christians. On the one side are those who stress liturgy and sacrament and written prayer. On the other side are those who stress intimacy and informality and spontaneous prayer. And each group looks at the other in pious condescension. We need not be forced to choose one over another. Both are inspired by the same Spirit. We can be lifted into high, holy reverence by the richness and depth of a well-crafted liturgy. We can also be drawn into breath-taking wonder through the warmth and intimacy of spontaneous worship.”

Foster writes about meditative prayer here: “Suppose we want to meditate on Jesus’ staggering statement ‘my peace I give to you.’ Our task is not so much to study the passage as to be initiated into the reality of which the passage speaks. The heart, the mind, and the spirit are awakened to his inflowing peace. Rather than dissecting peace, we are entering into it. We are enveloped, absorbed, gathered into his peace.”

“Petitionary Prayer remains primary throughout our lives because we are forever dependent upon God. Petition, then, is not a lower form of prayer. It is our staple diet. In a childlike expression of faith we bring our daily needs and desires to our heavenly Father.”

“Intercessory Prayer is a way of loving others.”

On Healing Prayer: “God cares as much about the body as he does the soul, as much about the emotions as he does the spirit. The redemption that is in Jesus is TOTAL, involving every aspect of the person – body, soul, will, mind, emotions, spirit.”

If you are interested in learning more about prayer… I highly recommend this book. It’s honest, thought provoking and practical!

What Big Sisters do to Baby Brothers

We worked really hard this weekend to get our house ready to go on the market. It will officially be listed today!! I am going away for most of this week to check out some things at our new place and also to just keep the kids from messing up our house. We would love to get some bids on our house while I'm gone and it would be awesome if I came back to it already SOLD!! Please pray for us that this happens very quickly.

Anyways, I'm rushing around this morning trying to pack and do a last cleaning of the house. The kids were playing nicely in the living room and then I see that Emily has trapped Aaron between the toy box and closet. She does this to Sherlock all the time and unfortunatley, Aaron has taken over Sherlock's position in several ways. Aaron wasn't crying, yet, so I let her keep him like this for a little while. (She had given him some toys to play with while he was back there.) Well, I just thought it was cute and wanted to share the pics with everyone. The things little brothers have to endure...I am sure there will be much more to come!!

Easter!

"The rule has been disproved
The stone it has been moved
The grave is now a groove
All debts are removed." -U2

HE IS RISEN!

Big News For Our Family!!!

It's pretty much public now... with the exception of various pockets of people here at St. Peters Wesleyan. I've already sent an email out to various people but I know that some people check my blog and I don't have their email address... so I thought I'd make it public in this forum too. The rest of this post will be snippets from an email update I sent out last week:

Dear Friends and Family:

There has been some really significant developments within the life of my family that I wanted to let everybody “in” on.

Since last summer, I have been feeling like God was getting close to leading me into a Lead/Solo pastor position. Due to circumstances in my current church, that ‘leading’ became a reality much sooner than I was expecting. (Very long story.) In November, I heard about a church in my home district (Illinois) that was looking for a pastor. After much consideration and discussion with Melissa and our parents, I decided to send my resume to the District Superintendent of Illinois, Dr. Ray Barnwell. After speaking with me and checking my references, he sent my resume on to Wheaton Wesleyan Church… located in the Chicago-land area.

I met with the Wheaton Wesleyan search committee a couple of times. Each time I met with them, I became more and more interested in the position. At one point, I was called up to ‘unofficially’ candidate for the search committee members. I preached at Broadview Wesleyan (my father in law is the pastor there)… while the search committee attended to evaluate and observe. After that weekend, the search committee met and unanimously recommended that the church’s Board of Administration to candidate me. The LBA met on a Tuesday night, unanimously voted to officially candidate me for the following Sunday.

On March 17/18, my family went up to candidate. It went better than I could have ever asked for. The congregation was excited… Melissa and I were excited… and more than anything… we really felt God’s leading and anointing through the entire process. One week later, the congregation met to vote on the decision to extend a pastoral call to me. It was an overwhelmingly positive vote: 72 Yes, 1 No. We were stunned and amazed and excited. We accepted the position immediately.

We will be moving from St. Peters, Missouri to Wheaton, Illinois in late May/early June. I’m not sure how I could get more excited about this opportunity. For instance: I will be moving back into my home district… both of our Fathers are pastors on this district. I already know many of the pastors on the district and I don’t think I could have gone to any other district and had a better support system. Judging from my conversations with the District Superintendent, I feel like we will get along really well as he seems excited to take me under his wing… and I am excited to learn. We will be living in the parsonage to start… and this will allow Melissa to stay at home with Aaron without needing to work at all. (If she works, it will be completely optional… unlike this year where she has been forced to run a daycare in our home to make ends meet.) We already have some solid relationships built within the Wheaton church… two families actually attended our wedding. I will have the opportunity to go back to school and finish up a master’s degree at some point in the future. Emily starts kindergarten next year and her elementary school property literally touches the church property. It’s within walking distance! The Wheaton church facility is awesome and it’s a church that has seen past success… and from every indication I get… it’s a church that is hungry to make a difference in their community and God’s kingdom.

I certainly know that not everything will be perfect… but God is faithful and I will be clinging to Him and relying on Him to grant me with the things I need. Please keep my family in your prayers over the next several months as we try to sell our house here, move to Wheaton, and get settled into a new location and a new role in ministry.