The Joys of the [Post] Christmas Season :)

So, Kim and I needed to run by Wal-Mart last night and went to look at pots and pans at one point. While we were there, we saw this...(you may have to click on it to zoom and everything clearly.)

Ahhh, nothing better than buying a product that still has the tag with someone else's name on it haha. To be fair though, I don't blame "mom/Tammy" or "Stan, Hannah, and Lucas" for this one.

Scripture...As We Live It

Alan Knox, on his blog, "The Assembling of the Church," has a funny thing he does every so often called Scripture...As we live it. He takes a verse from the Bible and does a little editing in a humorous way. I thought his latest one was pretty funny, but unfortunately, I can't (or I guess I should say that I don't know how) to make words have the strike through feature which is kind of a primary part of these things. So, I'll just post the link and you can check out his site.

Click Here

Gaither Concert

We went to the Gaither Christmas concert Saturday night and it was pretty good. Aside from the lady in front of us spilling coke on Kim's feet, it all went well. The other groups were actually really good. But, the Vocal Band definitely takes the cake for awesomeness. And, of course, David Phelps was ridiculous..We got to meet him and get a pic, but there were so many people you couldn't really talk to him. All in all, it was an awesome night.

O Holy Night-Shane & Shane & Phil

I just posted this song by David Phelps a few days ago, but had to post this one too! This is Shane and Shane along with Phil Wickham. They are all awesome musicians and vocalists so this makes for a great song. Even though I'm a sucker for the traditional version of the song, I really like how they arranged this one. You have to get through a minute or so of them promoting their tour, but then the fun starts. Enjoy.

Christmas Pictures

Well, it's Christmas time once again! We decided to do our pictures the hard way again: with the 10 second timer. We normally get a decent picture the first time but want to see if we can do better. By about the 4th try, we realize that the pups just aren't going to look at the camera again. It's always fun though.

O Holy Night

It's unreal what this guy is capable of. We are heading to the Gaither Christmas concert in Huntington on December 17th. I'm pretty stinkin excited about it. Anyways, enjoy this video. The song starts at 1:25 if you just want to skip ahead. Definitely don't listen to the beginning and be like, "Oh, I've heard this before." No, you haven't. If you've never heard him sing this song, it will blow your mind!

Name

Kim just did this today and I thought it was pretty awesome! She's going to use it for the baby shower. I think maybe we'll put in on her dresser or something when that's all done.

Without You

I'll be showing this song to our youth tonight as we go through our study on Moses. We've been talking about how everything in Moses' life has led to his eventual purpose that God had planned. Then, we talked about how he was called to that purpose. Tonight, we're going to talk about the excuses that Moses had. Let me say that I use the word "excuses" lightly because I look at Moses and see the same reservations to follow God's instruction that I have in my own life. Moses was face to face with the Living God and still had every reason why he shouldn't do what God asked. He felt inadequate. He was probably scared.

What's amazing to me is that God is standing right there in front of him and he still has doubts, fears, and reservations. But, I think looking into it, it's partly because he doesn't want to let God down. He is clearly showing reverence and awe to God. He serves God and desires to please him, but doesn't feel that he's capable of the task God has given.

I like how this song says that we know we have a God who lives within us, yet we still want to hear from Him to know He's there. I think along with it's theme to seek God's presence in everything, it shows us just how dependent we truly are. Moses knew that God was there and exactly what He was capable of, but it's like he wanted to hear God affirm that he had no reason to doubt in the ways that he did.

I think often we try to let our excuses drive us away from what God desires us to do, but when we really know it's God's purpose for our lives, He intercedes and outweighs our excuses. Sometimes our desire to be in God's presence means stepping out into the unknown with Him. It might scare us a little and we might have reasons why we shouldn't, but when we step out with Him, we know that He's there because He carries us through.

Fall Picture Updates

Here is our scarecrow that I thought was pretty decent for our first try! It was fun putting it together although it probably took us longer to get the corn stalks tied to the hay than it did getting the scarecrow put together.

These are our pumpkins we carved. The bat cat is Kim's and the house in mine. Seriously, though, don't ever do a house. The next day, my house collapsed in on itself.

Kim made these cupcakes for the Thursday night that Racine does its trick or treating. They were pretty awesome!

Kim made these letters for Elise's room to go on the wall. I thought they were cool. We bought the wooden letters from Crafts 2000 then some scrapbook paper. She glued the paper then cut around the letters. Then, she put some border and extras on them. She's a creative ole Kimcat!

This picture is still a little unfinished. Originally, we were going to leave it like this. I like the lights the way they are, however, ideally we wanted them on the top story roof too. But, my fear of heights prevented me from doing so. Then, we found a handy gadget at Lowe's that lets you put the hangers and lights up with a long pole. So, I'm going to try doing that. I still have to get on the top of the porch roof which is terrible considering I'm a wimp when it comes to heights, but I think I can do it!

Here is my Rudolph I put together last night. I saw these things at the mall recently (obviously, much more well built) and wanted to try my hand at it. The worst part is not having a lathe or drill press, but I worked with what I had. I had to go primitive on tapering the legs..I used a hatchet! I know, call me stupid, but it worked for something like this. My only big oops with it, that in the future I'll remember, is the angle of the legs. I made them come out far too wide. Other than that, I thought the overall result was decent.

Helping Families

This was a great story out of World Vision's magazine (I've only posted part of it here, but you'll get the general idea). It's awesome to see how God uses what people give. It's also so humbling to see things like this when we have so much. It definitely causes me to reflect and thank God for all that He has given my family.

The One You Need

I've recently started listening to Shane and Shane and I am impressed. They are awesome. I love this new song they've come out with especially in the context of looking at having a daughter soon!

The Jesus Inquest

Book Review

Title: The Jesus Inquest

Author: Charles Foster

Pages: 370

So, I'm pretty embarrassed to say how long I've had this book. I signed up on a website called BookSneeze.com where you can get a book for free as long as you post a review of it. My first one was The Jesus Inquest and I've had this thing forever. I would read a little at a time and it would get pushed away for a while. Then, read. Then, pushed away. But, I'm glad to say it's finally done. Here is the review I posted on Amazon:

This book definitely covered a lot of bases. It gives the view from two sides (X and Y), one for and one against the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I definitely love that it not only gives the opposing arguments, but does so with credibility to the other side. I thought Foster did an excellent job of allowing credibility to both sides and leaving the decision of whether or not to believe in the resurrection up to the faith and discretion of each reader. On top of that, it is completely full of information regarding the resurrection. If you have seen a theory for or against it, it's probably in this book. Foster did an excellent job with research.

As far as keeping my attention...I had a love/hate relationship with this book. There were times where I couldn't put it down. The topic would be relevant and the writing right down my alley. Then, I would get to certain sections and be ready to collapse from boredom. And, if you stroll through life with an "average Joe" vocabulary like myself, you'll find yourself in the dictionary pretty often with this one. But, overall, I thought it was a great book. I got it through the BookSneeze.com program.

Let me also add the disclaimer about my first paragraph...I think it's obvious that I don't believe someone comes to faith in Christ through an everyday book. My point in saying that about faith and discretion was to emphasize the author's non-bias approach to the arguments.

Now that I'm done with the review, I'll leave you all with this gem from the book that I thought was a well thought out, yet simple argument. In this point, the opponent (X), is arguing the fact that people dying for a cause (the resurrection of Christ) doesn't add any evidence towards it. He then says,

"many of the early Christians, including those who were supposed eyewitnesses of the death and resurrection of Jesus, were martyred...people are prepared to die for all sorts of beliefs. We do not take the death of a suicide bomber in Iraq as proof of the validity of the reactionary Islam that has made him immolate himself."

To that, (Y) makes his rebuttal that you can't compare eyewitnesses to those who aren't eyewitness--

...There is no parallel with the suicide bombers. They are in no position to know whether or not the cause for which they die is true. They simply believe it passionately and pathologically. To die for what you believe to be true is one thing; to die for what you know to be untrue is quite another. These early martyrs, remember, were the witnesses of what they were preaching. If the tomb was not really empty, they knew. If the resurrection appearances did not occur, they knew. If the resurrection appearances "occurred" only in a subjective sense, inside the heads and psyches of the individuals, they knew. If Christianity was bogus or evidently shaky, they knew.

Should Be a Girl! An Energetic One!

You might ask, "Should be a girl? What does that mean?"

Well, let me explain. We were scheduled a little too early for the ultrasound and the tech said that she thinks it's a girl, but can't be entirely sure. So far, that's the best we have until next month. But, it sounds promising to be a girl, which we're excited about!

The most amazing thing was seeing her..even through the ultrasound. The last time we saw her, she was just a tiny peanut with a heartbeat. Now she's formed so much. Yesterday, when we first saw her, she kept bouncing up and down. I asked what was going on and Kim said that the baby would do it when she was breathing in. The tech said that wasn't the case though, but that the baby was just moving around. As we kept going she moved and flipped every which way.

Baby

This picture is a bit late as far as updating the blog, but here it is! We're on the verge of being parents. It's pretty crazy to think about considering how often I don't feel like I'm that grown up. But, we feel as prepared as we can be. Obviously, we'll figure out just how much we don't know once we have the baby, but we're still crazy excited! We should find out soon whether it's a boy or girl. Can't wait!

Picture Updates

It's been a while since the last update, so I thought I would add a few pictures to show what's been going on around here.

Today is one of the first decently cold days we've had so far. The pups love having their fire to keep them warm!

Kim always decorates a wreath each holiday and I thought she did a pretty awesome job on this one for fall!

I built this for the children's church game room. Just cut some holes in the ply wood, built a frame, then put burlap under each hole. Makes a nice little bean bag toss game.

This is the work bench/cabinet I built for the garage. I put wheels on the bottom and made it level with the other work bench. Kim's grandpa let me use his router for cutting the cabinet doors and they turned out pretty good.

This is my last project. I have a music stand for when I play guitar for our youth, but it has a huge railing on it. My notebook has a one button feature for opening the 3-rings and I couldn't open it with one hand because the rail was so big on the other stand. So, I built this with a smaller rail and now when I'm needing to open my notebook with my guitar on me and holding my pic, I can open it with one hand.

Myrtle Beach

We recently took a trip to Myrtle Beach and it was pretty awesome. Besides just being able to get away for a few days, it was a nice area. The pups were able to come too because we had a house that allowed pets. Kevin and Alicia even brought their two pups, Reese and Hershey. The dogs rode really well too. It took us about 10 hours to get there and they did fine. We also ate at Rioz while we were there. It deserves a blog post of it's own. If you haven't been there, get yourself to one! Anyways, here are some pics of everyone.

The Pups enjoying a walk on the beach
Caleb
Kim and I on the beach
MawMaw and PawPaw, as the pups call them, on the SkyWheel
Kevin, Alicia, and Landen on the SkyWheel
Kimmie with the pups
Me, Kim, and Landen sporting our tans at The Black Pearl's Mini Golf

Trip to Alpine Bible Camp

We recently took a trip to Alpine Bible Camp with our Jr. High group and we had an awesome time! Here are some pics

4th of July!

We had our 4th of July parade on Monday and the First Baptist Church float won first place! Here are a few pics of the building process..

Columbus Zoo

We were able to take a trip to the Columbus Zoo the other weekend. Here's us and some of the animals.


This guy was just chillin and finally turned his face toward us for a pic

This dude was stinkin huge

After we finished the Star Spangled Banner, we noticed how huge the eagle's nest was...it was awesome

We saw the black bear first and he was a chunk. But, the brown bear was enormous.

Only By the Blood

I ran across this song recently looking for new choir stuff. I have this CD and have always loved the song, but haven't listened to it in a while so it was nice to hear it again.

Lady GaGa

I was reading a blog from Jonathan McKee earlier and his latest post is definitely worth checking out. Personally, I think this guy has a gift for predicting who will be the next big figure to influence our youth. He has had his eye on Lady Gaga for a while and sounds like he has it right. Here are a few snippets from this last blog:

"Many of our Christian kids are confused. One moment they see her stripping down to a g-string and dancing seductively in her music videos, and the next minute, she's thanking God and raising money for homeless, or more recently, the people of Japan."

"But when it comes to 'do-gooders,' it's Gaga who tops the list in many young people's minds. DoSomething.org, a charity organization for teens and social change, took a poll of the top celebs who used their celebrity powers for the most good. They named Gaga the #1 key influencer, beating out Taylor Swift, Ellen, Justin Bieber... even Oprah."

"Two month ago I taught a workshop where I spent some time talking to young leaders about today's youth culture. In my presentation I talked a little about Gaga and what she was teaching young people, specifically the sexualization of our young girls. Afterward my workshop, a student leader, 17-years-old, came up to me and said, 'Gaga's not bad you know. She actually prays and helps homeless people.'

Well there we have it.

This was a kid that was one of the spiritual leaders of her group.

What would your kids say about Gaga? Does helping Japan trump promiscuity and irresponsibility? Maybe it's a conversation worth having."

So, I totally posted like half of his post on here, but there's more good stuff so go check it out. I won't blog an opinion section for this. I think the post speaks for itself.

Fence

We finally got a fence up for the pups. We were originally wanting to go with the underground fence, but the shock collars could only go down to dogs 5lbs and up. Sammie just happens to be 4lbs so we couldn't do that. But, since we've had the fence, we've already had a couple of bigger dogs come up to the fence while they were out. So, now we're glad we put this fence up so they don't get swallowed whole. They've been loving it although haven't been able to get out a lot lately because of the weather. I can't wait for it to warm up a bit.

Cliche

I've been seeing this theme on a few different blogs within the past few months. Basically, so many people are criticizing Christian music on the whole saying that it's the same kind of stuff being said over and over, it's unoriginal, or even the people singing have never really faced what they're singing about. For instance, some sing about praising God while in the midst of the storm, yet have truly never faced a real storm. Now, let me say first that while I don't agree with some, I do agree with some. I think there are many who just write songs about glorifying God to sell when their lives don't reflect it in any way. I think that some write about peace in the midst of the storm, when in reality, they blame God for their storms. But, I do think that the positives in Christian music outweigh the negatives.

If we were to look about 20-30 years ago, when it came to more "contemporary" Christian music, I would have given this complaint more thought. There just wasn't a wide variety of it out there. But, today, if you don't like a certain type/style of Christian music because it's too cliche, listen to a more original artist...Yes, some might be cliche, but certainly not all of it. If the bandwagon likes the cliche, let them. The SAME exact thing goes on in pop music as well as rap as well as country. It's irritating when we'll ascribe all of the originality in the world to Lady GaGa for wearing a meat suit on stage and writing music about how gay people are born the way they are, but smash Christian music when it glorifies God because "it's already been said." Well, if you think that trying to get attention by outlandish actions is originality then good for you, but we've seen it before in different venues by different people with different ridiculous acts. Although I mentioned a specific name, I'm not attacking a specific artist. That's just one example of how we seem to attribute attention and awe to those who act differently. We see it when gangsters rap about how they're the hottest on the block and they'll cap anyone who gets in their way. And, many times it's the beat that will attract a person to listen to it, not the original words or belief in the words. I mean, how many suburban teen boys listening to this are really going to go shoot someone with their AK-47 that they don't have?

My argument is that even cliche can still be edifying and glorifying to God even though we might think it's unoriginal. I understand that so many words are used liberally and I don't deny that many of our Christian artists do get on a bandwagon of how to sing and what to sing about. But, in their defense, and writing stuff occasionally myself, why not write about the same things? Why not talk about praising God all the time? Sure, there are times where praising God is difficult, but we write about that too. Normally, those songs will not get the popularity that a praise song will because, let's face it, who wants to sing about the mully-grubs on Sunday morning when you're coming to get strengthened? So, the radio might be jam-packed with songs that, in a round-about way, say the same things, but I would say, in context, that it's a good thing.

To sum it all up, I have to hit this last issue. I kind of touched on it in the first paragraph. I've heard snippets of (and even at times in my younger days listened to) some of the trash that some young people listen to today. I'm not talking about what you might call decent (in the moral sense) secular music like Justin Beiber or Jonas Brothers. I'm talking about the stuff that's completely littered with violence, sex, drugs, and language. It's the type of music with subjects that I wouldn't want my kids listening to one day. And, while I'm not the type to say that music can turn kids into walking barbarians who kill for fun, I do think that it can have a negative influence. It can have kids thinking certain topics are cool and gives them an outlet to bring it up or live it out. When someone idolizes Katy Perry and she sings about kissing a girl and liking it, that adds fuel to the fire. When artists sing about being pimps and never holding down a relationship with one woman because that's for chumps, it adds fuel to the fire for young guys sleeping around. There are clearly deeper issues within these realms, where once again, music isn't the cause, but it's an enabler. For a person trying to live a healthy Christian life, although some music might be cliche, the benefits can outweigh that. I've had MANY times in my life where I was down about something and a song has lifted my up. Not to the point of getting me all better, but helping my walk. Sure, a secular song may not have put me through the roof with my anger or self-pity, but the Christian music certainly helped. This CAN help our youth. If not for anything else, to give them an alternative to some of the trash out there.