Blogelemy

Join me in reading the entire Bible this Summer! (beginning June 1)

Last summer I was challenged to do something that impacted me greatly.  Last summer, I read through the entire Bible in chronological order.  It was an amazing experience and one that I would like to repeat this summer.  It definitely takes discipline and sacrifice but it is worth it!  I found that it caused me to crave God's Word.  So, I'm wondering if you would be interested in joining me this summer?! From June 1st to August 31st, will you join me in reading the most important book?

One of the easiest ways to do this with the technology that is at our disposal is through YouVersion.com 

Reading plan instructions:

1. Go to YouVersion.com
2. Click on “explore reading plans” (or click the banner above)
3. Scroll down to Chronological and hit the link under it “start this plan”
4. If you don’t have a YouVersion account click the “sign up now” on the right side of the page or if you do have an account sign in.
5. After creating a username and password, check your email for the confirmation email.  Once signed in to YouVersion.
6. On the top click on “reading plans”
7. The chronological plan should pop up.  Under it click plan overview.
8. Scroll down to “your start date, your end date” and click edit dates.
9. Make your start date June 1, 2011 and your end date August 31, 2011 and then hit save.
10. Now your plan is all set up!  Go back to the top and click view today’s reading to see what the reading is for each day.
11. Join the YouVersion group at: http://youversion.com/groups/gracechurchep
12. Find me and become my friend on YouVersion my username is: Jacinto22

Trust me when I tell you that you can do this and it will make a huge impact on your life.  The Bible isn't an old book, "it is living and active. Sharper than any double‑edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." - Hebrews 4:12

So, are you in?!  If so, leave a comment...

Pass this idea around and let's see how many people we can get to join us.

Update on June 1st at 5:48 p.m.: Download Bible Reading Plan in order to put the reading plan into your calendar.

I can't stop watching this video!

I can't stop watching this video.  I'm so proud of my son!  

Something I'm looking forward to: Shootlove.com

 

I have a list of a few things I'm striving to get better at.  On my list is being able to make the perfect omelet and being able to take amazing photographs.  I would say that I am closer on the first of these than the second.  I recently ran across (thanks to Carlos Whitaker) a website startup that hopes to pool photographers of a variety of skill levels in order to "help photographers shoot better".  As I understand shootlove.com they are striving to help people via education, inspiration, conversation and finally publication (they are creating their own monthly publication with pictures from the people who are a part of the shootlove community).  All of which is set to launch in beta in January of 2011. 

Currently they are looking for 100 people to subscribe and help get this thing off the ground.  It's only $10 for the first 6 months for those lucky enough to be in the first 100 (it will be $25 for those  who subscribe later).  It seemed worth it to me!  Honestly, I'm pretty geeked out for this and think that it could greatly improve my knowledge and skill set when it comes to taking excellent pictures.  At this point, I can only get better!

My personal best of 2010 list.

I have been taking notes on my phone for this post for the past few weeks.  Since 2010 is drawing to a close, I thought that it would be good to reflect on the best parts of the past year.  I'm sure that there are things that I am leaving out but here's what comes to mind first.

Media

Best Movie Watched: Inception - Great story and mind-blowing cinematography.

Album most listened to: Tonight by Toby Mac (I listen to this album every morning as I take my kids to school).  We made sure to tell Toby Mac that we listen to him every day when we met him last month.  I'm hoping he will crank out more records so that I stay sane.

Favorite Book read: The Bible.  This past summer, with God's help, I read through the entire Bible chronologically in 90 days.  This was an amazing experience and one that I recommend for everyone.  This exercise gave me a refreshing view of how all 66 books of Scripture communicate his love for us at the same time it opened my eyes to the things that I don't know about His Word.

Home

Most surprising DIY project tackled: Replacing our Water Heater.  I even received the following accolade for this accomplishment.

New adventure with our kids:  Starting Tae Kwon Do

Travel

Best Family Trip: Spending time in San Diego, California with my parents.

Favorite trip in 2010:  This is by far the easiest to answer.  My wife and I were able to join about a dozen graduating seniors to the Holy Land this past summer.  It was a life-changing experience and I am grateful for the opportunity to go and to share that experience with my wife. 

Greta and I in Capernaum

Web

Most interesting people I follow on twitter: @louiegiglio @pastormark @jeremycowart

People who I wished tweeted more often: @markwarder @leithanderson, @jedculbertson

Favorite thing posted on my facebook wall: Emily Stetzel's comment on Saturday, December 18th - "I had the strangest dream last night that you vomited in my hair. I'm not sure how to transition from that, but I hope you and your wonderful family are doing well! Merry Christmas :-)"

Reason for 6 month break from writing posts on this blog:  I don't have a reason

Most visited websites:  Espn.com, Facebook.com or Yahoo! Fantasy Sports

Other:

Favorite purchase last year:  After much research and saving, Greta and I purchased a new dSLR.  I really look forward to learning how to use it to take great pictures!

Greatest accomplishment: reading through the Bible in 90 days

Favorite ministry moment: baptizing students in the Jordan River.  I can't find words to express what that was like in the midst of an amazing experience of just being there!

Baptizing Jackson Dobies in the Jordan River.  Wow what a privilege!

Conviction via Twitter about our love for Cell Phones

Like my recent post on profiling facebook friends, I have a pretty eclectic group of people who I follow on Twitter.  About 3 months ago I downloaded Sara Groves latest album "Fireflies and Songs" and instantly enjoyed it.  I really liked doing work at my desk with it in the background.  As a result, I started to follow Sara Groves on Twitter.  Throughout the day I read through my twitter feed on my Palm Pre and its amazing how entertaining and informative this is.  There are numerous times when I find out breaking national or personal news from the people I follow on Twitter.

This statement that I read on my phone last week while at home with the kids playing around me really hit me:

Sara Groves was quoting the author and speaker Don Miller. I imagine that she was at an event where he was speaking.  Regardless, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  I couldn't help but realize how tied I am to my phone even when I don't need to be.  I am saddened by my own behavior of modeling to my children that Dad's smartphone is REALLY important.  This made me think back to a series I taught on a few weeks ago to the High School students I minister to about idols.  I defined idols as those things that take the place of first in our lives.  The things that we are constantly thinking about, constantly doing, the thing that we think about when we go to bed and the thing we think about when we wake up. We are created and wired to worship.  If we don't put God in the rightful place of priority in our lives, we will put something in His place.

I am trying to wean myself off the habit of constantly being on my phone which at times means leaving it in the car, another room or off.  This is pretty hard to do.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not going cold turkey.  I don't think I could do that until they create a cell phone patch that I could apply.  This exercise is heightening my awareness that I am not alone.  The next time you are at the mall or a restaurant notice how many people are on their cell phone. 

Facebook blast from the past

Allow me to state the obvious, Facebook is quite the current culture phenomenon!

Recently, I have found a number of friends from my days back in elementary school.  I attended a Private Schoolfrom Kindergarten through the 8th grade.  So I have recently reconnected with some friends who I haven't talked to in over 20 years.  Wow, I'm old.  I'm grateful for social networks because I think that without them I might not have ever talked to these friends again.  Recently, I went through my facebook friends and profiled the different categories of friends that I have.  Here you go (in no particular order):

• Former ministry students (Camp Shamineau, Wooddale Church, Prairie Lakes Church, Grace Church)
• Former leaders (Camp Shamineau, Wooddale Church, Prairie Lakes Church, Grace Church)
• Current students (and their siblings)
• Future students (students in middle school who are on their way)
• Parents of former and current students
• current friends (and their spouses)
• current and former co-youthworkers (and their spouses)
• Former co-workers (and their spouses)
• current co-workers (and their spouses)
• former co-workers that I never worked with (people who used to be where I currently work - strange I know)
• High school acquaintances and friends (and their parents)
• College Friends (and their spouses)
• Seminary Friends (and their spouses)
• Family members (including my grandma)
• Former elementary/middle school friends (includes my fifth grade teacher)
• Former and current mentors
• People I admire but hardly know (there are 3 of these)
• Wife's friends (and their spouses)
• People I've met on mission trips - it's amazing how well you get to know someone on a mission trip - seriously!
• Friends of my parents
• speakers/musicians I've booked for retreats/events

I'm sure I missed a category or two.  Thanks Facebook for keeping us connected!

Ask me anything via formspring...

I'm trying something out. I have seen a few students use formspring and I am seeing if it is something I want to keep up on. 

I do see a valuable ministry use for those times when you ask students to submit questions they might have for a given topic (i.e. love, sex, dating).  This would provide an excellent electronic way for this to take place.

For now ask me a question, and I just might answer you:

What in the World Happened? How I ended up losing my appendix.

I assume that most of the people who read my blog know already through twitter or other means that late on Tuesday night I had an appendectomy.  I thought I would return to writing on my blog after a month and a half by sharing the story of how I ended up on the operating room table.   

On Monday afternoon, I was taking a student out to lunch at Five Guys.  The student needed a ride so I was going to his home to pick him up.  For some strange reason, I got lost trying to find his house.  This was strange because I had been to his home at least two times beforehand.  While I was trying to find his home, I started to feel really sick to my stomach almost to the point where I second-guessed our decision to eat greasy cheeseburgers and shoestring fries.  I finally found his home and decided that it would be worth it to eat at Five Guys even though my chances of getting sick were high.  After we ate, I drove him home and my stomach continued to feel awful.  I asked him something I've never asked anyone.  I asked if he could check to see if he had any Tums to relieve some of the pain I was feeling.  He laughed at me and I told him that I was serious.  He got some and I thought that I was on the road to recovery.

I returned to the office and continued to feel sick to my stomach.  I felt so sick that I went home a little early and had very little to eat for the rest of the day.  I figured that whatever was inside of me would work its way out in its own creative awful way.  That night I felt really weak and I really wasn't able to do much.  I couldn't offer my regular evening wrestling match with my kids and I ended up going to bed early with this consistent ache in my lower abdomen. 

The next morning (Tuesday) I woke up with the same pain in my stomach.  It felt like it was on both the left and right side of me so I wondered if there was something wrong with my bladder or kidneys but I went to work regardless because I had a bunch of things on the calendar that couldn't wait.  I went home again feeling the same abdominal pain that I had the afternoon before.  I had a normal appetite with normal B.M.'s so I started to think that this had something different from a stomach virus.  I decided that it might be a good idea to go to the Urgent Clinic to get an antibiotic for the bladder or kidney infection that I had.  I wanted to get back on my feet as quickly as possible so that I can be back to myself both at home and at work.  At the Urgent Clinic they took blood and urine tests and also an X-ray.  With these tests they were able to rule out that it was not a bladder infection or something with my kidneys.  My white blood cell count was pretty high which gave the doctor an indicator that my body is fighting something and she said it looked like it might be my appendix.  I was shocked that it could be my appendix in that I felt like the pain was on both sides of my body and I didn't feel like the pain was as severe as what I thought appendicitis would be. 

I drove to the hospital and drank a nasty drink so that they could do a CT scan and see if it was in fact appendicitis.  After a couple of hours, the doctor confirmed that it was acute appendicitis.  I thought that since it wasn't extreme that I would be getting an antibiotic and going back home.  She quickly explained to me that with any type of appendicitis they remove the appendix.  I called my wife Greta to let her know what was happening and I barely was able to tell her the news before they were rushing me to surgery.

The surgery was laproscopic, which means it was minimally invasive.  Three small incisions instead of one long "zipper".  I am extremely grateful for that.  It was successful and the surgeon told me that if I would've waited longer there was no doubt that the appendix would've ruptured and the pain would've been far worst.  He also shared that I will be back to my normal self in a week or so.

I am laying in bed now grateful for many things.  I am grateful for God's sovereignty.  He is in control of everything.  While this was a surprise for me, it didn't surprise Him.  I am grateful that my body is healthy and able to heal from this surgery.  I am grateful that the surgery wasn't as invasive as it used to be.  I am grateful for the friends that have helped Greta and I during this unplanned procedure.  I'm grateful that I didn't try to tough it out and wait for this pain to go away on its own.  I'm grateful for the family and friends who have prayed for me during this time.

One person's junk... (3 Stories)

This blog post is at least a month old.  The idea of it has been rattling around in my head for that long and I finally decided to sit down and let it spill out.   One weekend in late April early May, I was working in my yard trying to rid it of all the infestation of dandelion's.  I was using a new tool that I purchased at Home Depot called the Weed Hound.

In addition to this tool, we for the first time, hired a company to come and spray our lawn so that it might be healthier.  One afternoon while I was outside weed hounding, my daughter came outside and wanted to ride her bike, she needed me to walk alongside her for when she gets stuck and needs an extra push.  So, I put the "weed hound" down and walked with her.  She rode to the neighbor's house got off her bike and walked to their yard and started to collect as many "pretty yellow flowers" that her little hands could hold.  She brought her treasure inside so that they could be placed in a vase.  Here the thing that I had spent lots of time and money to remove from my yard was the very thing that brought my daughter joy.

A few days after the story mentioned above, my wife joined in the neighborhood garage sale to sell most of our boy clothes that we had kept over the years.  When our son was born he was the only grandson on both sides of our family and the result was he had warehouses full of clothes and toys.  My wife and mother spent several hours going through these items to prepare them for this sale.  Beyond the baby clothes, we are stumped by how we continually collect so much stuff!  This is our third garage sale in three years.  You would think that we would run out.  My wife was aggressive in advertising on Craigs List what was available for the sale.  As the sale was about to begin, there were several cars waiting for us to open our garage and haul our junk out for them to rifle through.  I gratefully had kid duty for the sale.  This means that I need to keep the kids occupied inside of our house, while mom sells our stuff in the garage.  I was amazed at the steady flow of people coming to purchase the stuff that we could do without.

And finally, our student ministries team a few weeks ago tackled the daunting task of thoroughly cleaning out our storage area.  We did the take everything out and put it all back in.  It took us the better part of two days and almost half a dumpster to contain all of the items that we threw away.  As I was going through this stuff and throwing most of it away, I couldn't help but think of all of the student ministry pastors who preceded me at Grace Church.  The stuff that I saw as trash or worthless at one time was an item that leader thought: "Hey, we might want to keep that we might use it again"  And one day someone will be tossing all of the stuff that I am holding onto.

The moral of the three stories is painfully obvious. 

What I Twitter About...

I used a couple of sites to come up with the above image describing what I Twitter about the most.

Interesting.

Meeting one of my heroes: Tony Dungy

This past Wednesday morning, I got to attend the Minnesota Prayer Breakfast at the Hilton in Minneapolis with some of the Pastors from Grace Church.  The prayer breakfast brings hundreds of people together for a gathering to pray for our state.  There were a lot of heavy hitters at this breakfast.  Football players, coaches, Governor Pawlenty and a number of other State Leaders were present at this event.  As you can see from the picture above and below our table for the breakfast was incredibly close to the podium.  In fact, there wasn't anyone closer to the front than us.  Travis, the junior high pastor, and I kept feeling like we were in seats we had no business being in.  We were sure that we were supposed to be in another room with a video feed of the event.  Nonetheless we felt blessed to be able to attend.

Table 39 - Can you get any closer to the front?!

The thing that I will remember the most from this event was the opportunity to meet one of my heroes, Tony Dungy.  Tony was the keynote speaker and spoke for about 15 minutes on his new venture from being a prolific NFL coach to building into the lives of young men who don't have fathers and are on a life trajectory towards pain to themselves and others.  Tony has always been someone I've respected as I and many others have watched him take his national platform as a NFL (Superbowl winning) coach as a way to influence others with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  This is evident in how he carries himself and how he communicates where he get's his strength and wisdom.  He definitely strikes me as a man of character who lives his faith out loud.  As a Tampa Bay Buccaneer fan, I see a lot of the turnaround from the Buc's of old to the Buc's of today came from Tony's leadership in the organization.  I am grateful for the privilege to be able to meet Tony and will always be a fan of what he is doing to further the Kingdom.

Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga for the Wii

I am taking a week of vacation this week to spend some quality time with my family.  Our kids are on spring break so we are all literally spending the entire week together.  We have a bunch of fun outings planned all at a low price thanks to my thrifty wife.  Anyways, one of the things that I am looking forward to is breaking out a Wii game that my son is going to go crazy over.  If you've ever had any sort of conversation with our son, you would know quickly that he REALLY enjoys Lego's, Star Wars and playing the Wii.  So later this week, this will be played:

This game is the ultimate trifecta of our son's favorite things! To my knowledge he doesn't even know this game exists.  If you hear a loud random scream of joy sometime on Wednesday or Thursday, you'll know that we broke this game out.

As his father I will do my best to find the energy to play with this game with him.  I know its hard for you to not feel sorry for me.  Don't worry I'll be fine.