Crash.

The Weekly Wrap.

2009-11-29T12:37:00.000-05:00

The past few days have been this really odd turning and twisting path of thoughts and emotions. I've simultaneously had some of the most fun times ever in Charlotte as well as some of the more lonely times as well. For starters I've worked a good amount this week and am even getting ready to head into work today at 1. It's a nice short shift today, as we're only open until 5 on the weekends so I'm looking forward to making plans for the rest of the evening as well. In case you're wondering, I think I'm going to do some laundry, play the guitar, and depending on the temperature outside go for a run. I'm pretty excited to get after these things and wish I didn't have to work so I could do them now. (Obviously I want to watch the Bengals beat the Browns as well, but I suppose I have to go get paid to pour coffee...)

Anyways, back to this week.

Sunday, a week ago, my friend Brandon came into town from VT and it's always good to hang with him. We often joke about being the same person, and in too many instances it's proven to be true. Well we went to the Bobcats game with a large group of my guy friends here in C-town and it was a blast. We saw Michael Jordan, UNC coach Roy Williams waved to us, and we goofed with Rufus the Bobcat...who wears wrap around shades. Rufus is awesome. Then Willie got us lost getting home, and I'm not sure I've laughed more in my life. Dinner afterwards, a great time. It was just fun to hang out with a bunch of guys, and have it have the feel of being back in Columbus.

Monday we were supposed to have club, but that didn't end up happening because there was a conflict with a home AK basketball game. In hindsight though it was amazing time with the few kids that were there for Jaclyn, Courtney, and myself. My time chilling with Madden was great. That kid is the man.

Tuesday I worked, but then later that night my buddy DC introduced me and some other friends to a great little indie coffee shop called Amalie's in NoDa. We had a blast.

Wednesday I worked, and was supposed to be the Caribou mascot but definitely pawned that off on someone else who ended up almost passing out because of how hot the suit was. Excellent choice by me, and hey don't get upset; the other guy actually wanted to do it! Wednesday night I had dinner with a great committee family and really enjoyed my time with them. Just another great blessing from our adults.

Thursday was interesting. Because of work I wasn't able to head home for this great eating holiday. I definitely missed my family, especially because of the makeup of family that was going to be together at our house for the first time on Thanksgiving. My brother and his family came over and I haven't seen them in almost a year now, since last Christmas Eve. It'll be exactly one year between us seeing each other unfortunately. I was incredibly blessed to have dinner with three families all together and have a great time in doing so. Of course it wasn't my mom or aunt's cooking, but it was still fantastic and a wonderful substitute for being home.

Friday was more work, and then really nothing but Friday was for whatever reason the most difficult of the days surrounding Thanksgiving. I got really homesick while at work thinking about all my friends who were hanging out together back in Ohio. Fortunately I was able to talk with some friends on the phone that night and they really encouraged me and reminded me that they even still love me.

Saturday I worked a little bit, then napped. Naps are wonderful, are they not? After the nap though, I headed up to Huntersville to hang out with Ashley and some of her friends and roommates. It was an incredible time because we all hung out playing games for about 9 hours straight. I had more fun than I've had in a long time just being with people. I met about 10 new friends and it was just so encouraging to be hanging out with a whole new crowd of people. I sincerely hope I get to hang out with all of them again soon.

So that's my week. Now you know. I liked this post because so often I feel like I have to come up with some profound revelation in my life about Christ or ministry to write an entry on here but that isn't true at all. Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and that you're getting your Christmas shopping done.

CRASH.

Thanks.

2009-11-26T13:29:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

I know I have a ton of things to be thankful for. Everyone always challenges people to stop on this day and weekend before all the craziness of Christmas begins to think about what and who they are thankful for. So I'm going to do that, and of course I'll challenge anyone who reads this to do the same...

Jesus Christ, my savior. The Cross.

My family - Mom, Dad, Jerod and fam, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces. Mammaw. My friends. Comets {ctid}. Golden Bears. Knights. Buckeyes. Young Life. Hofmann. Lake Champion. Committee. Charlotte. God's provision. God's love. God's mercy. God's grace. God's word. God's power. God's sovereignty. My faith. Material things. America. Those who have gone before me. Those who will come after me.

The more I write on here, the more I realize that I have to be thankful for and that I couldn't possibly list all of the things that exist.

Praise be to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen, and thanks.

This world is not our home?

2009-11-25T23:32:00.000-05:00

Every time that I fail to write in my blog for an extended period of time, I feel as though I should apologize. I just decided that I'm not going to do that anymore. Now that's we've gotten that out of the way...

It's really weird as I sit here contemplating what to write about my recent experiences here in Charlotte, there is a sense of this all being temporary. Granted there are still a couple boxes in my room that remain unpacked, and pictures still to be hung on the walls and whatnot. I don't think those are signs of me wanting this to be temporary but more a testament to my amazing ability to collect things that at one point I think I'll need and use a lot in the future but never end up doing anything with them. Regardless of those things though, there is this weird feeling in me though that perhaps because I'm still learning my way around, perhaps because everything has happened so fast, perhaps because there's eventual truth in it; but that eventually I am going to be leaving Charlotte. Now I feel like I must say this next statement with absolute clarity: I have no plans in my own head of leaving Charlotte. I love the city and what God has called me to do here.

I just thought I would throw that thought out there. What brings on such a feeling of "for now"? I wish I knew the answer, but I really have no experience delving into such an issue before now.

Other than that, Young Life at Ardrey Kell has been up and down but that's just from a numbers standpoint. I think my wonderful co-leader Jaclyn and I would agree that the building of relationships with kids and the deepening of those relationships is going great and that we look forward to and eagerly anticipate times when we can further our relationships with the high schoolers. A few guys in particular that if you read this you want to pray for that I'm really connecting with: Mike, Max, Luke, Madden, Myles. (Lots of M names...weird)

Overall though, God is good. Moving my whole life to Charlotte is the most difficult thing I have ever done but in such a good way. It is stretching my faith in Christ so much, and I am learning about His character and His love and His provision in crazy new ways. I love it so much, seriously. That doesn't take away from how difficult it is though.

I definitely feel like a missionary...

The Ordinary.

2009-11-07T13:58:00.000-05:00

I must again beg for apologies that it's been a few weeks since I've updated my blog. Things have been crazy down here, but overall been amazing. It has been funny though, I've actually sat down to start writing an entry or an email to close friends multiple times over the past three weeks but just never finished them because I just never felt like I had something to say. I have since been reminded though that we don't just have to share on God's faithfulness in the valleys or the mountaintop moments, but rather that His grace extends to us and if fully evident in the mundane and the routine.

So here goes, a bit of the ordinary...

Young Life at Ardrey Kell has been up and down over the past couple weeks but mainly up. God's continuing to do great things there and through our team. One huge praise is just how my co-leaders and I have really begun to be united. Love it. As far as the things of YL go, club has been going alright as kids have been up and down with their energy and involvement. One battle I go through with that, is that I don't think the kids know that they can trust us yet as leaders and so we are still earning the trust that A.) we won't put them in truly embarrassing situations and B.) we are just as willing to make ourselves fools for Christ. The kids don't truly know what club looks like down here and so that will be a continual process that is both fun and frustrating. Campaigners has been going decently, with a whole group of freshmen guys coming around, yet none of them are coming to Club. There is literally one senior girl who comes to both, and she's a pastor's kid; so you know haha. As far as deepening relationships with guys though, it continues to be both exciting and frustrating as most of this ministry ends up being. There are a couple junior and sophomore guys that I've really been connecting with and so I'm looking to just further those relationships and see what God can do there.

Work at Caribou has been absolutely mundane. It's the easiest job one could ever do. It allows me some pretty good flexibility with my schedule, but really it's just a job. Not one that I really enjoy, but I am thankful that I have it for sure.

It's been great to be a part of the intern group in the Carolinas Region, and get to hang out with Steve Gardner again. I've made some great friends already through and from the staff and I'm really looking forward to continuing to get to know them and work alongside of them, hopefully for a long time. It's really challenged me to be in a room of such sharp people and has pushed me to do what I do better and to look for ways to improve what I do; realizing though that ultimately it's God who makes it go or not and that it is His work that He merely allows us to be a part of. For that, I am thankful.

That's all for now...hopefully some more in the next couple days as I'm processing some thoughts I've been having.

Be strong and courageous.

2009-10-21T17:10:00.000-04:00

In following up with the last post from last week...I didn't pack my things up and move back to Ohio. I was in Ohio this past weekend, but I hadn't moved back. Just fyi. Ya know.

Last week at club, it was absolutely amazing. I was petrified for the first time in a long time to give a club talk. Alright that's a lie...I was petrified to give my last one at CCHS, but that's because I didn't want to cry during it. This was different though, because these kids don't know me, and for that matter because I've only been around a couple weeks they have no real reason to desire to hang out with me or even listen to me. The kids at CCHS know me and I know they care about me in return for my care for them. Usually I wouldn't let a new leader give a club talk for some time after they start leading at a school but in this situation I suppose it really isn't an option. In fact, for those keeping score at home and who will truly understand the gravity of this next statement: I'm giving 4 more talks, those being a Need, Sin, Cross, and Appropriations. Yikes. Better hope I earn the right to be heard before I tell kids they're going to hell because of their choice to sin and not follow Christ. Oh well. But back to my original statement, guys were flocking to me like they haven't before after a club talk. Conversations were had off of that. Phone numbers were exchanged, hang outs were planned, God was showing how if He wants something to happen it truly will happen. And when it does, y'all better look out. Loved it.

This past week...freaking horrible; in my opinion at least. Music didn't go well, no one wanted to sing, no one seemed to care about the games, and stuff with guys definitely did not go how I wanted it to especially given the extraordinary strides made after last week. I wanted to quit, I wanted to pull the plug on AKYL, I wanted to move back to Ohio. Basically I wanted to take the easy route, and no more was it tempting than after having an amazing weekend back in my home state, then a crappy club, and feeling absolutely inadequate as a leader.

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." ~ Romans 8:18

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: 'For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." ~ Romans 8:35-39

Take those verse in if you're reading this, and especially if you are being discouraged through things going on around you and the situation that you are in. "Be strong and courageous."

Looking back on this post, it isn't exactly what I had set out to write, but it certainly is what I need to continue to preach to myself and I know that whoever is reading this will take encouragement from such powerful verses.

"Be strong and very courageous."
CRASH.

That Borden kid was onto something...

2009-10-13T01:19:00.000-04:00

Read the story of William Borden. Then return to your regularly scheduled reading of CRASH.

Done? Good.

Let me tell you...in the middle of the game on Friday, I wanted to turn around, drive back to my house, pack all my things, and retreat back to Columbus, Ohio. Yup. I really wanted to pull the plug on the whole dang thing right then and there. Somewhere though, in the midst of my despair, I remembered this story. Obviously the song by Needtobreathe helped as well, like I already posted about, but the words written in the back of William Borden's bible rung in my ears.

No reserves. No retreat. No regret.

And they didn't just ring for Friday night, they stayed there Saturday, and Sunday, and thru today while I was putting the finishing touches on the club talk I was giving at the 3rd AK club of the year. 3 weeks ago I was fighting back tears at my last talk at Central Crossing, and now I was being thrown into the fire. It's what I asked for, isn't it? I mean I'm the guy who went to the AK football game less than 24 hours after I got into town with all my stuff.

So there really is no other option out there, other than to get rid of the reserves. Even Christ tells His disciples in Luke 9 when He sends them out that they need to take nothing with them. Good enough for me. After that, I already talked with so many people about the point of no return that I experienced in Columbus...my last club at CC. With a point of no return, obviously comes not being able to retreat. Any thoughts of that are foolish, and are weak attempts by the devil to distract me from my calling. Now I have to seize the attitude and spirit of being one who is already dead; dead to the world, dead to myself, dead to my desires, dead to my reputation, dead to sin. I am alive in Christ, I am made alive because of Him who died. There can be no room now for regret, because if I am going with God I am going with the ruler and creator of the entire universe. He's got my back, and therefore I can step out in faith time after time after time when it comes to sharing Him with kids at Ardrey Kell High School.

So in the immortal words of the Newsies...it's time to "open the gates, and seize the day!" (Man I love that song...and movie.)

Carpe diem.

CRASH.

The Outsiders.

2009-10-10T15:08:00.000-04:00

"Shortfalls and little sins

Close calls where no one wins

Stand tall but running thin

I'm wearing thin

Oh, why are we keeping score?

'Cause if you're not laughing

Who is laughing now?

I've been wondering if this starts sinking

Would we stand our ground?

After everything we've learned,

We've finally come to terms;

We are the outsiders.

I'm not leaving without a fight

I've got my holsters around my sides

Just cause I'm wrong that don't make you right,

It's not right.

Oh, what are we fighting for?

'Cause if you're not laughing

Who is laughing now?

I've been wondering if this starts sinking

Would we stand our ground?

After everything we've learned,

We've finally come to terms;

We are the outsiders."

When I got down here to Charlotte, I was very fortunate to be able to move into a house that for a while has been guys in their mid-20's, all Followers of Christ, and some associated with Young Life as current leaders or previous leaders while in college. It's interesting because it's kind of like the graduated, Charlottean (like that?) version of The Brickhouse at Ohio State where I lived for so many years. Anyways, it's been absolutely fantastic living with these four guys so far and I've really enjoyed getting to know all of them.

Shout out to Bill, Tanner, Matt, and Justin. You guys rock.

Well, soon after I got down here to Charlotte Tanner introduced me to this group called Needtobreathe. I had heard of them before, but I'm pretty sure I had never heard of any of their songs. One day while driving around and showing me cool places Tanner had them on in the car and I fell in love with their sound. Well what do you know, there was a concert coming up just a week away that wasn't sold out! It was at a small venue called The Visualite (don't ask, don't know), and there were a bunch of people in their (my new) group of friends that were going to dinner and then the concert. Well who am I to turn down a good time with a cool group of people? Especially when I need friends...

I get a ticket, head to dinner with everyone, and then go to what turns out to be one of the absolute best concerts of my entire life. This band really knows how to entertain, unabashedly love the Lord, and on top of that they are ridiculously talented musicians. Drums, lead guitar/banjo, bassist who everyone develops a man-crush on, keyboardist, and of course the lead vocalist who really has a great voice. Without going into a ton of detail (ask me and I'll tell you more) I was blown away by them, and had a great time with everyone that I went with. Fun fact: I was one of two guys amidst about 10 beautiful and amazing Jesus-loving Southern women. Boo yah.

Well you might be wondering why I put the lyrics to "The Outsiders", which is the title track off their similarly named newest album at the beginning of the post. As you know, I'm leading Young Life at Ardrey Kell HS in southern Charlotte. It's a far cry from Central Crossing, mainly because I at CCHS I could walk around the grounds, the halls, any event at the school, and be known. It felt like I truly knew every kid in the school even though we all know that's near impossible. That was the feeling I would get. I knew I belonged there, I knew I was called there, I knew that I could be quite bold in ministry and getting to know new kids. Maybe more importantly, I knew I was "in" there.

Last night I went to AK's homecoming football game, where we defeated the Myers Park Mustangs where Justin Robillard and Steve Gardner both lead. Big stuff. Unless you count that MP has only won one game this year. Anyways...even though I've met a decent amount of kids through club the past two weeks and have met some parents as well, I walked around that game in a daze. I can't say I was overwhelmed, because high school kids that need Jesus are the same everywhere. No one can ever argue that with me. However, for the first time in a long time I felt like an "outsider". Not only did I feel like one, I am one. The more I started to think about that fact, the more I know it was good for me to move. Doesn't take away how difficult it was to leave my Comets {ctid}, but I know that I need to feel like this. As a follower of Christ, I am not someone who is "in" with the world or what they do. I am "in" with the God of the universe, but to this world I am definitely an outsider.

So I'm definitely laughing at the foolishness of the world, I know that even if things start sinking I'll still stand my ground. I will not leave AK without a fight, I didn't leave CC without a fight. A fight for the souls of high school kids. I might be wearing thin right now, but I'll stand tall and I'll stand in the gap for these kids. I've finally come to terms with being an Outsider; and I'm excited.

CRASH.

2009-09-30T18:44:00.000-04:00

Well here I am...almost a week into this new adventure in Charlotte, North Carolina. First off I want to say welcome to my new way of doing things in that you won't ever have to make a trip (it's like two clicks of the mouse but who's counting?) to my blog in order to feel connected and be able to read what's going on! From now on, my posts will be sent straight to your email if you like! Also, if there's anyone out there reading this that wants to be added to that list just let me know your email address and I'll add you lickety split!

Onto the more pressing matters...I realize that it's been seemingly forever since I last wrote a post. This is due to many factors, most all related to the craziness of packing my life and moving it to a place I've been once. This journey has already been quite eye-opening to my walk with Christ and yet I have absolutely loved it because it has drawn me so close to Him...closer than I ever have been. I'm so encouraged and excited to see what God does in me and through me during this whole process.

Right now I just want to leave a couple small points with y'all (I can say that now! I live in the south!) of things about this move. Don't worry though, I'll expand on them soon...

1.) Leaving the ministry at Central Crossing was the most difficult thing I've ever had to do in my entire life. When I think about my Comets, there's times when I doubt what I did in moving. Also though, I'm encouraged by the relationships that were built and knowing that it was never me or about me, and God will continue to work through the incredible team there.

2.) I love the weather down here, and Ohio weather sucks. That pretty much goes without saying.

3.) I have been placed at Ardrey Kell High School, which is a school of about 2,000 kids and with quite well off families. The school itself is only starting it's 4th year of existence but club work has been going on for about a year. I am quite encouraged in what is going on at this high school and can't wait to regale you with stories of the Lord's work there.

4.) The people down here are so far incredible. Everyone has been welcoming and friendly and I've enjoyed lots of hospitality. My roommates are great guys and I feel blessed to live where I do.

That's about all for now. I've got to get ready and head out to my first Campaigners down here!

If I have ever in my life felt like a Crash...it is these past few weeks. I love it, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Announcement!

2009-09-16T17:12:00.003-04:00

So I know that it's been quite some time since I last updated on here, and again I do apologize. There were things being sorted out in my life that I didn't want to broadcast just yet. Now I can do that though...

In just over a week I'm packing up my life in Ohio and moving down to Charlotte, North Carolina. I'm pretty excited for this development in my life, and yet obviously insanely nervous and scared about the whole thing. There are many details that are nailed down, and yet there are a ton that still have to be decided and figured out. I'm still working on where exactly I'll be living, but I have my work transfer for Caribou in the works, as well as where I'm leading narrowed down. Life is just crazy right now as I say goodbyes, but also am still fully involved in my life here in Columbus with leading at Central Crossing and whatnot.

I have so many things to talk about when it comes to this whole process, but I don't have the time right now. So for now, I will leave you with this, but with the promise of more either later tonight or sometime tomorrow.

What's my hobby?

2009-08-18T23:17:00.002-04:00

Apparently it's weddings. Some friends of mine were apparently talking about what they do as hobbies and such. Things on the side, ya know? Well somehow my name came up; as in: "Well you like to play intramural sports, Chad goes to weddings."

Well this past weekend that was fairly true, as Friday night I went camping for Kevin McIntyre's bachelor party. It was a great time filled with a lot of laughs.

Saturday then was the nuptials of Joe Arnold and Katie Hudson, and it was filled with just about everyone I knew it seemed like. This was definitely a fun wedding, and possibly one of the tops. The food was great, the hanging out was awesome, the dancing was good times. The afterparty at the Varsity Club was fantastic. (The best part of that may have been the friend who last night asked me if I was there when I was sitting two seats away from this person at the VC and we had lots of conversation...)

Sunday was a great day, filled with more times of greatness with people. Went to church and lunch with Kacie and I always love spending time with her. Then Brad and I hung out, definitely one of my best friends. After that I went straight to a team meeting that saw our team together for the first time all summer. We got some great plans in place for this coming fall semester that I am very very excited about. Campaigners then on Sunday evening was incredible; just with the kids that have been consistently coming and sharing and taking part, as well as the fun times just hanging out after and before. I love these kids and this high school.

Monday, it was my birthday. Eh. I'm 27 now. Eh. It's all about how old I feel in the heart, right? If that's the case, I'm still 22. Boo yah. Anyways, I got dinner with just about every person that I care deeply about that still lives in Columbus at Champp's. It really made me thankful for the blessings of friendship and fellowship that God has given me here in Columbus.

What are you thankful for today?

Throwback wrap-up...

2009-08-13T17:28:00.003-04:00

I must apologize, a couple weeks ago I left you all with a post that was excited about a glorious return to Lake Cumberland. Well it indeed was glorious, starting with a fantastic car ride of hilarity that itself began with Jacob chugging a beer when we picked the girls up and thinking that he could drink it while riding in the car. Hilarious. (for the record, he didn't drink in the car and I drove the whole way) Just know that the car trip was fun to say the least.

The rest of the weekend consisted of dance parties, Jenga, the lake, and some crazy things happening. The most ridiculous thing though is probably the simple fact that I very nearly capsized our pontoon boat with everyone on it about ten minutes into our time on the lake. Apparently we failed to realize that the left pontoon was sitting lower in the water than the right. One can logically assume that the only thing that would cause that would be some water in there. Now that we've established that, has anyone ever captained a pontoon boat out there? It's basically the easiest and most boring boat to drive that has ever been invented. It's really easy to steer and stop. Except for this one. This one decided to not stop like a normal pontoon boat, but rather one that decided to stop moving like a drunken cow. When I say that, I mean that all the water in the pontoon (or pontoons, who knows?) rushed to the front of the boat and caused the front foot and a half the whole thing to dip down violently under the water. The girls screamed and rushed to the back of the boat, Rob and Jacob did Lord knows what but I think they quickly looked to the skies to see if they could leap onto the back of a passing hawk. Justin and I calmly fixed the situation by speeding back up. Yup...speed is always the answer.

The rest of the weekend was much fun and hanging out. Many fun games were played, hilarious quotes were had, and I reminisced a pretty good amount about my times as a kid. The people that I was at the lake with are incredible people and I love them all very much. Great friends indeed. It felt right to be back on Lake Cumberland again, and probably gave me the appropriate mindset to start to evaluate moving options in my life.

With that being said, I'm beginning to get some proper perspective and takes on this past weekend as well. I know I said this a couple days ago, but quite soon expect at least a recap.

Road outside Columbus...

2009-08-11T22:57:00.002-04:00

Well, I have returned from my 4 1/2 day excursion to North Carolina (come on and raise up) and there are all sorts of things to be said. It was a great trip to be sure, and one that I won't soon forget. If you remember, it was a fact finding mission to the two cities of Charlotte and Raleigh in order to determine how viable moving to either place would be.

Going into the weekend, what I knew was that Young Life was great in either place and that the people in either city were incredible. What I didn't know was the spiritual climate of either place, as well as what exactly the city was like itself. Both things I was able to determine fairly well during my trip.

Now I must apologize initially, I don't have the time to fully breakdown the trip in this post. However that will come quite soon, I promise. Know though, that it was an amazing trip and that at the very least questions were answered and some decisions were potentially made. Sorry to leave you with a teaser, but that's how it's gonna be as I continue to pray and work through these decisions.

Side note: our softball team won tonight to move to 6-3 with a 5 game winning streak. There's one game left before the playoffs and we should be in right now, but I'm not 100% sure...

Side note: I hate the Geico caveman commercials. They started out great, but are really annoying now. The Gecko can stay though...

We will now break for a short intermission, the rest of your trip will commence shortly.

2009-08-09T00:00:00.003-04:00

So this is just a flurry of activity, is it not? Are you all able to keep up with all my posting? Seriously though, I can't believe I'm posting this much, but hey...I've got a lot to say right now and a lot I've been thinking about and I want to get it all down on paper.

Well, I guess it's not really paper. Whatever.

I gotta be honest, I just spent the last 15 minutes not writing in this entry but rather looking for some poignant lyrics from the Pat McGee Band to post on here. I guess I wanted to sound artsy and also relative, since I just saw him in concert tonight for free on the top of a small building in uptown Charlotte. It was pretty cool, especially since I've always wanted to see him in concert. This was super great though, because it was with great friends, it was free, and I was about 25 feet away from the stage. Cool beans.

So I'll keep this brief because I have to get to sleep so I can wake up early in order to drive to Raleigh. My time here in Charlotte has been incredible, granted most of the time has been spent in Uptown and Lake Norman, which if you've never been here are two really great areas. However, I have discovered that this is a really great place. A few months ago for whatever reason, I would've sworn up and down that I would never have moved here. Now, I can see it happening quite easily. As my friend Jordy says...the bug bit me.

I'm off to Raleigh tomorrow morning to get there in time for Church At The Triangle service at 1030. We shall see how God moves in Raleigh as well. I'm excited to see the Spruills, my boy Robby Callis, and hopefully Dave "The Silent Coyote" "Mother f*ck*ng" "It's his world, we're just living in it" Reed.

That would be nice. Yeah.

"Well I guess we'll just see what we'll see, won't we?"

2009-08-07T23:57:00.003-04:00

Ok, well I didn't exactly get more of a chance to digest things but a great friend of mine (who I know is one of the very few readers I have of this thing) has mentioned multiple times a very poignant suggestions that was also hinted at in Experiencing God.

He said that what if God's will for us is just to fall in love with Him and to experience Him however we can by committing ourselves fully to Him in everything we do. Then whatever we do will be to His glory because we are ultimately doing life for Him and not for ourselves. So therefore where we do life didn't really matter as long as we were everyday giving ourselves over to the Lord and striving to glorify Him in whatever we did.

An interesting thought isn't it? The other one that comes from Experiencing God in Chapter 3, is that all we need to do is to learn His voice well enough that we are content in living day to day following His lead. That we need to get to a point of dependency and living faith upon our Creator that we depend on Him moment to moment and don't have to ask the questions of "where do you want me for the next couple years", "what sort of things do you want me doing", "why don't you tell me where i'm going".

Both are quite interesting concepts and I like them. I don't know if I can live them and if I believe them though yet. At least not the first, and I probably feel more conflicted on the second than anything.

We shall see...

I'm thinking of staying an extra day in Charlotte to go to the free Pat McGee Band concert with all my friends down here, then heading to Raleigh on Sunday morning in time for church and then leaving for Columbus on Monday morning.

We shall see...

Take your shoes off...

2009-08-07T17:22:00.003-04:00

Here's just a quick update from my travels so far...

I left Columbus around noon-thirty yesterday and zipped on down to Charlotte. I mean really I drove, but it was absolutely one of the easiest drives of me life. A sign? Haha...not sure about that. However, it was great when I finally made it and the drive was just gorgeous.

When I did get it, Ashley and I went out to dinner at this great uptown place called Nix's. Incredible burgers, and a ton of them. Uptown is really cool place, filled with a bunch of great restaurants and bars, lots of great places to hang out, and was a really clean place as well. Quite unlike many downtowns in Ohio. After that we headed down to the National White Water Center, where we train Olympians to win boatloads of medals (get it?) where on Thursday nights they turn it into a place to be for anyone. There's live music, a restaurant, bar, families go, there's lots of dogs which is kinda weird...and all of this adds up to phenomenal people watching opportunities. Today Ashley had tennis practice at Hopewell HS and I decided to go with her. Despite my waking up early, getting ready, eating breakfast and having a cup of coffee...I apparently still did not wake up enough, to remember my shoes. I realized this when we were half way to the school, when I looked down and noticed my socks in front of me and no shoes to speak of. Weeellllllll...I decided to play without my shoes then. And let me tell you, I am good at tennis. Tennis All Star and MVP are actually on my resume; if you go back to the ages of 6-8 at Sycamore Creek Country Club. Whoops. It was great fun though and I didn't embarrass myself nearly as much as I expected. Yay for that! I did however begin to develop a bit of a blister on my right big toe.

Then we drove around and took a bit of a tour of sweet, gigantic homes that are on Lake Norman, went to the town of Davidson to see Ashley's YL office. Now I just got done watching some Fight Club and Scrubs, while Ashley did one of the things she does best: nap. Hah. We're trying to figure out what we do the rest of the night. What I do know is that we'll be making a second trip to the airport at some point. I'll let ya know how all that turns out...

In my preparations for this trip, my good friend Jordy Sparks warned me that the bug may bite while I was down here. Well as I drove into town and drove over Lake Norman, the bug began buzzing around my head. Coming into the weekend, Charlotte was usually the lowest city on the list. While it had a bevy of my great friends down here, including great brothers in Neil, Jack, and Jordy, and my sister in college Julia, and great friend in Jaclyn who always speaks truth to me, and one of the most incredible women I know in Ashley...I wanted to know about the city itself. So far it has yet to disappoint. I asked the Lord that coming out of the weekend that I would have clarification on things, and that perhaps one of the two places would be eliminated. So far it's definitely not Charlotte. Surprisingly, Orlando has started to fade significantly in my mind. Columbus has continued to fade. Blacksburg continues to recruit me.

I've been reading some really great things in Experiencing God that I would love to share, because it directly applies to what I'm going through right now. I need a bit more time to digest it though and sift through things that I'm reading. So you can read about that later tonight if you'd like.

Also, there's two wicked stoned people on Cash Cab right now and they are just crazy looking. Why don't things like that ever happen to me? Not the stoning, the Cash Cab-ing.

Roots.

2009-07-31T10:01:00.003-04:00

Right now I'm packing my bags and car for a trip down to Lake Cumberland for the weekend with some friends. For me, this represents a return to childhood innocence hopefully. For those of you who don't know, I spent my summers growing up zipping around on my wave runner here at the Houseboating Capitol of the World. It's a spectacularly beautiful place as you can see above. Really that picture doesn't do the place justice either, so hopefully I'll take a good amount of pictures for sharing.

I'm really excited about this trip though, just to get away from Columbus, which will be my second trip away in the last three weeks. There's even a trip in the works next weekend too, which I'll talk about after I get back from this one. Hopefully on this trip though, I'll start to get some clarity on my future and my life. God has slowly been bringing things into focus for me I believe, and while I don't exactly want to put what that is up on here just yet, know that this process is still on-going.

In getting back to childhood roots I'm hoping to find a parallel simplicity of mind and thinking as I pursue God's will and plan for my life. Christ himself speaks on having the faith of a child, and that unless we become like them we will never enter the kingdom of Heaven. So let's hope that my return to a sacred childhood place and time will bring the faith of a child and the adventurous and undaunted spirit of a child back into me. I'm feeling too old at times and I don't like it, so this should be a good time.

Unless I get bit by a water moccasin, cause that would really suck.

Chiggity Check It Out...

2009-07-28T14:22:00.002-04:00

If you've got a few minutes you really need to check out the sermon this past weekend from Heritage Christian Church in Westerville. It's by Andy Sieberhagen, the missions pastor at the church, and he's from South Africa, which alone should compel you to listen to it! His accent is incredible!

Anyways, a little preface is that during the month of July they did a mini-series on Unlikely Heroes in the faith. It was a great idea, but unfortunately not the best carried out that the church has ever done. Except for the last one, this past Sunday.

I highly encourage everyone to either download the sermon from itunes or go to the church's website www.heritagecc.org and go to the podcast page, where it'll be towards the top.

So yeah, go listen to it. It's worth at least a hundred angel-bucks.

My life be like...

2009-07-20T18:57:00.002-04:00

This weekend was a freaking blast. Let me just let you in on a little secret...the Turner family is awesome. I love them. Kitty and Howie might be the most awesome friend's parents I know. This camping trip was probably made all the more spectacular though because of the incredible delay that happened from my first invite until the actual coming to fruition of sitting around my first campfire with them. See, I had been invited for the previous five years but something always came up at the last minute...from bachelor parties, to family weddings, to family crises...something always prevented my attending. Perhaps it was because God knew I just wasn't ready yet, perhaps it was because He knew they weren't ready yet. Whatever the reason, it is what it is, for now I have been and have come back alive to tell of it.

We arrived late on Wednesday night, and when I say late I mean around midnight-thirty. Howie and Kitty stayed up for our arrival, but soon after that Howie and the Swartzels crashed while Kitty, Ashley, and myself stayed up for another hour and a half or so enjoying an adult beverage and catching up on life. The next day was filled with an insane amount of food (as was the whole trip really) and spending the day lounging at the beach of Kneff Lake. Great times...floating to the other side on our Cadillacs, beating old men in Washers, throwing small children onto and off of a large inflatable raft, log rolling, and hearing funny stories about Ashley from both Howie and Kitty. Great times. The next day we prepared for and took the epic canoe trip, from which many stories came out of in the past. The big story this year, was perhaps my relegating of Ashley to the front of the canoe and putting her in her place when it came to all of that jazz. Apparently Miss Ashley is not used to not steering and having control of the canoe. Suffice to say, that yours truly did so well that she barely needed to paddle. Count one for the good guys. Saturday consisted of playing lots of games while the foolish ones of the group played something called "golf". Silly rabbits, tricks are for kids.

Overall it was a great weekend, and I count many new friends amongst these people. I would feel comfortable going back and being with them next year, even if Ashley wasn't able to attend. I'm sure the Swartzels will be back as well.

Speaking of Andrew Swartzel...he and I decided something crazy while on the way back from this epic trip. While we were up in town, we saw signs and such for this canoe marathon that people just somehow knew what it was and so there wasn't a whole lot of explanation. Well we investigated it, and found it to be the longest canoe marathon in North America this coming weekend: 120 miles! Talk about epic! Well we started discussing the viability of us attempting the intense physical feat that goes anywhere from 14 to 19 straight hours of paddling. Through a river, dams, ponds, eddys, over a little land, through the night, bugs, wind, rain, whatever Mother Nature would throw at us...we would continue to paddle until it was finished. Now I know what you're thinking: you can't just sign on and do that in one week! You're right, we can't. However a year from now? Yes please.

So that's my weekend and life update-ish. There still is a lot of things that I haven't decided yet when it comes to the next stage of my life and what I am going to be doing next. As of now it's still:

Columbus: work for Max & Erma's as a manager, lead, coach

Raleigh: find a job, help with Church of the Triangle, lead

Blacksburg/Virginia: find a job, lead, unpaid intern training for YL

Orlando: find a job, lead, raise up committee, revitalize First Year Fellowship/New Leader Training and therein the whole leadership/city from a YL perspective

So yeah. I suppose you could throw in there: curveball from God - who knows?

Welp, that's all for now. Wish I had a cool sign off saying, but I don't so I may start trying on various ones.

Word to your mother.

Knowing.

2009-07-11T11:30:00.001-04:00

Here's a question to ponder when you get a chance...

How do you know when God is calling you to something? How do you know what God is saying to you?

No idea if I'll have any sort of follow up to this post. Just wanted to throw it out there and see if anyone had any thoughts on it...

So please comment with your thoughts.

The balance?

2009-06-30T14:28:00.002-04:00

Hey guys, while I thought I would be posting more than I currently am with having internet 24/7...at least this is more frequently than this spring. Here's a bit of an update before I go into some thoughts on what is going through my head lately...

1.) I don't think I'm going to be getting the UA Track head coaching position. They have an in-district teacher that they are currently interviewing and thinking through, and have stated that they will go with if he seems on the level. Oh well, not a big deal. On the other track front, I haven't heard from my head coach at CCHS lately about the Darby situation so I'm guessing that's a dead deal as well. Perhaps though if the levy passes in August or November for SWCS he'll hang the reins over to me concerning the Comets.

2.) Our kids had an incredible time at Young Life up at Lake Champion, and I can't wait to see how the rest of the summer goes. They definitely came back as changed kids; eager to learn about God, and devote themselves to Him after realizing how broken of lives they live and how broken down the world around them is. Yay for Jesus doin' work.

3.) Don't speed. It sucks.

Alright, so there's the interesting updates on my life. Now to the thoughts/musings/wonderings part of the post...

Lately I have just not been making nearly enough money at either of my jobs. Both are good jobs, with good people, but I don't get nearly enough hours at either one of them to save anything after making all my ends meet. It's really unfortunate on one hand. On the other hand, it's really forcing me to re-evaluate where my life is going and what I'm doing. I have always told myself since fall quarter of my freshman year of college that I wouldn't make any decision in life based on money and the ability to earn money. However, as I watch my friends around me save money, start looking into buying houses, buy new cars, buy things that they both need and want it starts to eat at me that I am unable to do anything that I truly want to do. Money is always a deterrent with me anymore. The crazy thing that I alluded to in another post is that as I get older the lie of needing to be viewed as successful in the eyes of the world becomes so much more attractive than it ever has been.

The thing is, I still seek desperately to lead high schools to the foot of the cross and I feel called to continue to do that. We all know I love track as well, and so I would love to continue coaching and having an impact on youth not just on my team, but others as well. Total side bar, but I was fortunate this year to be able to form relationships with athletes on other teams as well. No super intense conversations, but lots of bridge building and it was absolutely incredible. So back to loving track...real jobs don't always allow for you to get off of work at 3 everyday to go hang out with high schoolers (and win championships haha).

So I find myself in this place of balancing needing to make money and yet figuring out how to fulfill God's call in my life. I continue to want to do to vocational ministry but with the current economic situation there is more or less a hiring freeze within Young Life, and I'm sure other ministries are operating under much the same financial duress.

Lately I've been debating getting a much better paying job, which I actually indicated to my boss at Max & Erma's that I was interested in. So I may end up training to be an Assistant Manager sometime soon, which financially would help relieve many burdens. Other than that, I am still praying through 3 potential moves...

1.) Anywhere in Virginia, but specifically Blacksburg. I could potentially be a unpaid YL intern there as well as just get a change of scenery from a lot of perspectives, which I still feel I may need...

2.) Orlando, FL - my friends Robbie, Jim, and Fred from summer staff all want me to move down there to help them establish YL from a college volunteer leader perspective. UCF is one of the 5 largest universities and there are many suburbs around Orlando however there are very few leaders that come from there. The setup could become quite similar to Ohio State and Columbus...

3.) Raleigh - my great friend Kevin wants me to move there and help out with the youth in his church, and really it's beautiful down there, and another change of scenery would be great...

So there ya go. We'll see what happens. I'm not having a ton of luck with finding a house that works for all the guys that want to live together so maybe that's some sort of sign? Who knows...I just pray for God's sovereignty in my life and that I am able to glorify Him over anything else in my life...

Any thoughts or impressions are more than welcome...

Guess who's back...

2009-06-17T20:21:00.002-04:00

Well hey there everybody! Although I gotta be honest, I'm not sure if there's much of an everybody or really even an anybody since it's been so long since I had any sort of significant post on these internets. For this I apologize, however since it's my blog I don't apologize too much. If you read this, chances are you already know how crazy my life was this spring with track, work, Young Life, moving, and all sorts of other fun things. It really was a fun spring. Unfortunately the busyness and bustling of it all (I'm not sure but you may only be legally allowed to use "bustling" around Christmas time...) left me in a very depleted spiritual state of life. I allowed myself to get quite complacent and didn't have any sort of pride in or fight for my walk and relationship with Christ. For those of you keeping score at home, this is a big one in the 'L' column. So recently I decided to really shed any and all excuses and make it a top priority to be spending all sorts of time with the Lord again on a daily basis. Now it hasn't been perfect, but it's a fun work in progress.

In other news, as I alluded to in a previous post (whenever the crap that was...) I moved back into the Brickhouse about a month ago. For those unfamiliar, this is where I spent the better part of my college career, even easily making myself the longest tenured member of this prestigious group of upstanding and legendary men. Not that that is really important at all. It's simultaneously been good and bad to be back there and on campus. On the plus part, my social life of hanging out with people has definitely increased in depth and width. We all know that I love hanging out with people and having great fellowship. On the flip side, I'm living in a messy undergrad house again, with the wonderful and every present possibility of crime lurking every night. While my social-ness has increased, it also is difficult because the guys in the house and I weren't roommates for the whole year and therefore are having to really work at having a real connection again. So like I said...thumbs up and thumbs down.

Right now the first ever camp trip from Central Crossing is taking place! With 8 freshmen guys and 1 sophomore girl, God is doing big things this week to be sure. In fact, as I write this they are probably eating appetizers and taking fun pictures outside of the dining hall before heading in for their formal end of the week dinner. I cannot wait to hear story upon story after they get back tomorrow night from my co-leader as well as all the kids. The Lord be praised!

In old news, I still have no idea what I'm doing with my life. I work at Max & Erma's and at Caribou. I'm still single. I don't know where I'm even living in the fall. However, I am currently in the middle of applying/interviewing for the vacant head track coach position at UAHS. We shall see if I am able to get that incredibly awesome post. I'd be the youngest head coach in the OCC for sure for track, and would amazingly be holding one of potentially the most coveted positions in central Ohio. This is an incredibly humbling thought even, and I can't imagine what cool stuff God could do through an opportunity like this. Hey, I'd even get to lead with Pat Pat and Red again. Hahaha...

Well that's about all I have for right now. I'll leave you with one really fun and funny thought though until next time...

Yesterday I was having dinner with Mike Davanzo at the amazing establishment of Skyline. You know you love it. Anyways, he observed that every employee at every Skyline he's ever been in is best friends with every other employee. No one is ever unhappy, no one is ever angry. It's like when you go there you're actually going to YL camp and they are a summer staff that is all best friends. I challenge you to go check it out...

just whelmed.

2009-05-18T21:35:00.002-04:00

I can't believe I've been so negligent, and yet I can. I knew this was going to happen once track season started in earnest, as well as club got rolling, and I started a second job. The lose of free internet at home kinda helped the cause too...but I can't really complain about that one much.

I have so many thoughts right now that I want to pour out onto here. Too many things have happened since I last really updated on too many different fronts in my life. I really don't even know where to start with all this...so in response I'm basically paralyzed about what to write as I sit here staring at the screen on my computer.

We'll go with this...news.

1.) My roommate Kevin Johnson is getting married on May 30 and I'm in the process of moving out of his wonderful house in Hilliard. Where am I moving to for the summer you ask? The Brickhouse. That's right...another victory lap. Yikes.

2.) I'm still completely undecided on what I am going to do next in my life. Help?

3.) There's tons of weddings happening...I'm still single. Not minding it one bit.

4.) Sports are exciting. Go Reds. Go Bengals. Go Bucks. Go Comets.

That's all I got for now. I'm still overwhelmed with needing to write everything down so for now I'm just gonna call it quits.

Mucho amor.

I disappeared.

2009-05-05T14:09:00.001-04:00

Sorry all...it's been a crazy busy time lately and I just haven't found the time to let you all in on my life. Apologies all over the place. I promise the posts will pick up sometime soon...just not sure when.

Go Comets.

Staring into the uncertain...

2009-04-20T19:51:00.003-04:00

Location: Caribou in Grandview, on the patio

Listening to: Kenny Chesney

Consuming: Green Tea...go Japan

So I'm sitting here on this wonderful patio, on this day that turned out to be absolutely gorgeous. I'm staring across Grandview Avenue at one of the most vibrant rainbows I've ever seen, and I can see it completed at either end, which is pretty darn sweet. Unfortunately the temperature is starting to dip down and so my flip-flopped feet are getting a little chilled, but that's alright; the rainbow wasn't just one, but rather another fainter and thicker one right in front of it. The old two-fer. Bam. Gotta love it.

Well I'm doing much better with the Lord than I was when last I checked in. However, I'm still running around like a chicken with my head cut off. In fact, Monday evenings seem like the only relaxed and chill time that I have anymore. I suppose though I wouldn't trade my hectic schedule for a light and really open one, but sometimes it starts to wear on you. Oh well, it's times like these that I am more disciplined and focused in all areas of my life, which obviously is a pretty good thing.

As I sit here, I continually wonder about my future and what God has planned for my life, especially in the immediate timeframe on the next couple months and years. The thing about all of this is though, I know that I need to continually let it go and just be quiet and still before my Lord and my God in order to hear what He has for me. By the way, the rainbow has disappeared, but has instead been replaced by a beautiful sunset and incredible reflections of the sun on the clouds.

The thing about about it all is that I don't need to know. I'm on a need to know basis as a follower of Christ, and I never need to know; at least until right before something happens. So I could sit here and list off some pretty sweet situations that have started to present themselves to me, but I don't think I will. At least not yet until they are a little more plausible to happening. Both would keep me in Columbus a while longer, perhaps even for the long term. So who knows. If you want to know what they are just ask me, but I think I'll hold off on posting them, especially since one of them includes some potentially time sensitive information that I don't want just being spread over everywhere.

(Ok, now the beautiful part of the sunset is gone, and the temperature is falling faster than Chad Ocho Cinco's career. I may have to take refuge inside from this increasing north and wicked cold wind...) (On the plus side my co-leader Vivake just got to Caribou, so boo yah)

Basically, under my blog title I have "Staring into the sweet uncertain..." and this entry title doesn't include the sweet part, however, I think it still is sweet. Isn't it great when you can work through something after having a certain stance when you first start out? Like when I began this entry I was on my more negative side of thinking on this whole future thing. (I tend to go back and forth like a bit of a roller coaster, if you will...) However now that I am finishing this lovely entry, I feel like the uncertain is again sweet and great because it is completely in the Lord and His will for my life.

Boo yah.

I yawn too much to work at a coffee shop...

2009-04-14T11:58:00.002-04:00

As most of you all know, for the longest time I worked at a wonderful food establishment called Zuppa UA. It was this great Italian restaurant with tasty sandwiches, great salads, mostly good soups, and filling pastas. It was a favorite of many, especially within the Upper Arlington community. Twas a sad day when it closed its doors for the last time, especially with all that I put into the place and the community over the previous four years.

Well anyways, when all this went down I had to start searching for a job back in October. It took me over a month and many applications to find one, and this was even before the economy really really sucked! So I finally found two within two days; one at Macy's for the holidays, and one at Max & Erma's for real. Well the Macy's job was horrible, but I'm still serving at Max & Erma's. It really is a pretty decent job, but only being able to work the lunch hours because of my schedule hurts my earning power. So I was forced to find a second job again just recently.

Two weeks ago I started working at my favorite coffee establishment, Caribou. Jyes, for all those times I spent money there, now they are giving it all back to me. Hah. So far it's wicked easy and is a pretty good job. The only drawback is that when I go in, I have to be there at 530 in the morning...ouch. The weirdest part about it though, is that later that day, by the time I eat lunch even, work will seem so long ago that it feels like it happened yesterday. In fact, that's what has happened yet again today...

I'm sitting here at a different Caribou with Pierce and work feels so long ago already. So that's a weird phenomenon. Just thought you all would like to know that.

RE

2009-04-13T19:25:00.003-04:00

I'm writing this entry with a big of hesitance. I really would like to blog about what's going on in my life right now, but yet I also don't. I'm trying to figure out what God wants for my life in the next stage of it, but I gotta be honest...my relationship with Christ has been crap lately.

Pure crap.

When I say that, I mean that I just haven't put in the necessary time to continue to deepen my time with Him. In fact, it's not even that I'm not deepening my relationship but rather that I'm not even doing up-keep. How can I possibly discern what Christ wants me to do if I don't hang out with Him and continue to get to know Him and grow accustomed to His voice?

I can't.

So despite all these fun things that He is doing at Central Crossing through Young Life and others at the school, it kills me knowing that greater things could be happening if I were doing better with Him.

A perfect song came on Pandora as I sat down at Caribou tonight to read and blog: Jeremy Camp's "Revive Me".

Revive me, according to your loving kindness

Revive me, that I may seek You

Revive me, according to your loving kindness

Revive me, oh Lord.

Revive me, refresh me, reinstate me, receive me, oh Lord...that is my prayer.

Semi-apologies that this isn't a great and fun post, but I felt it necessary to continue to be transparent in my seeking of the Lord and in living my life as a testimony for the great things the Lord has done

Empty = Full?

2009-04-12T18:11:00.003-04:00

So I had this sort of epiphany while I was in church this morning. Of course today is the day that we celebrate that which makes our religion and God different from any other one out there. Today is the day that Christ rose from the grave to demonstrate his power over death and to free us from death. Easter Sunday...the day our God was resurrected not just in spirit, and he wasn't just almost dead, or dead for a couple minutes and they used the paddles (clear!) on him...no, he was dead and buried and entombed for three days and only then did He rise.

Well getting back to the epiphany that I had this morning...I was sitting in church, listening to a song that was sort of worship for all and sort of just a performance for reflection. (it should also be noted that I initially typed "reflextion" for reflection...) I was staring up at the cross that was hanging above the stage and then looking back at the crosses that are normally hanging on the walls on either side of the stage. It struck me that in my mind I normally picture the cross with Jesus on it; that the only times I ever picture the cross in my head it has Christ crucified. I have pictured myself weeping at the foot of the cross, seeing Christ's blood on my hands, and yet hearing His words of love that I am His and that my sins are forgiven.

In all reality though, only on Good Friday should I picture the cross with Christ on it. After that the cross is empty, and for part of Good Friday, all of Saturday, and some of Easter Sunday the tomb is full of the body of Christ. However, by the time most all of us head to Easter service on Sunday morning in fact, the tomb is now empty. In Matthew it doesn't say what time of the day, in Mark is says just after sunrise, in Luke it says very early in the day, and John says that while it was still dark, the women went to the tomb and saw that it was empty.

Now in light of this fact, we also look in general at how counter-cultural the life of a true follower of Christ should look to that of those around him. Forgive our enemies? Turn the other cheek? Don't worry about tomorrow? All things that the world tells us is foolishness. However this is not the case. Going further, look at how counter-cultural this picture of both the cross and the tomb is this weekend especially. A gigantic difference in our religion verses that of any other world one is that our God is living and active. He has demonstrated even power over death. Other religions don't claim living deities.

So check out again the picture of the empty cross and the empty tomb. Of course the empty cross signifies that "It is finished." and that the penalty for our sins was paid. How great this is when standing alone! Our God doesn't stop there though, He continues to demonstrate His power and love, when the tomb is proven empty of his body but full of his grave clothes. Just in the way that 2 Corinthians 5:17 says it so eloquently: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the one has gone, the new has come!" This is the picture of Christ as he leaves the empty tomb, leaving behind the old grave clothes of death, and bursting forth into glorious day.

The power is not in the traditional worldly view of full is better, or there is power in fullness of something. No...power comes from the empty. The empty cross. The empty tomb.

So yes, empty does equal full.

Happy Easter.

He is risen.

2009-04-12T00:59:00.000-04:00

He is risen indeed.

Amen.

Sunday Bloody Sunday...

2009-04-07T19:55:00.004-04:00

Location: My room

Eating/Drinking: Nothing, stuffed on BW3's

Listening to: Whatever rap our neighbor is blasting next door. And yes, we both live in houses with space in between them...

Well well well, I must say I've found myself in a bit of a rut right now when it comes to this blogging thing. I always seem to sub-divide things into a couple little articles within the bigger picture and while it's effective I'm not sure I like that sort of shotgun news approach. Anyone have any ideas?

To start with, I think I might just try keeping it to one subject and not deviating from that no matter what throughout the whole entry. That might lead to more entries to read for the two people out there who might read this hoping to discover the secret location of the Sakada family fortune. You'll never find it Pierce!

In attempting this feat though, we'll just start with Sunday; yup just the day of Sunday. It started out innocent enough, going to church at Heritage like normal, sitting with all my younger friends like normal, stealing donuts and muffins and juice from the college devotional time like normal (it's funny because I'm finally not in college anymore...get it?), came home and ate some cereal like normal. This however, my finely feathered friends, is where things stop being normal at all. Next, team Central Crossing (aka Team Awesome) (aka LeeRoy Jenkins) got all fresh and crisp and traveled together (sans #7, he was off becoming #1) to the 2009 Columbus Young Life Leader Draft. After doing a lot of scouting throughout the year and putting together a pretty solid plan of attack we felt great going into the day. Things ended up falling our way and we got two of the best prospects money can buy. Alright, well really we didn't pay them anything, and technically no leader gets paid...but who's counting?

So back to the real stuff...Lindsey Ossim and Eric Terranova. That's right...our new leaders are awesome. Or Ossim. And Terranova. And awesome. Although I didn't know who Lindsey was, I knew she was going to be awesome. I knew Eric the whole year and loved him...in fact we hung out all day today and spent some time with some guys, but that's a different entry. ;-) Anyways, I couldn't be more pleased with who they are and how they will fit in on this team.

Well after the whole excitement of the actual placement, we all met back up as a new team together at the traditional restaurant of Damon's. Pretty darn good California Chicken Sandwich I had on Sunday. Yummy. Well we had a great time, got to know them a little bit, and am looking forward to continuing to hear their stories. Then we all headed to Campaigners, and weren't really sure what to expect. Last week we had one guy show up and it wasn't even the guy who's house we were having it. Well this week we show up and there ended up being 25 kids when it was all said and done. That's right...25. God works in mysterious ways right? Our kids are on spring break...that's double the most we've ever had... Wow. Let me tell you, I've never before stood to teach a Campaigners the whole time, much less basically have to be yelling-ish to command attention the whole time like I did this past week. It was quite an experience and before we started I was a little overwhelmed to tell the truth. Humbling, to be overwhelmed as the (quite) senior leader on the team and (easily) the oldest person in the room.

Check this out though...after placement I had a thought in my head that I didn't want to go with what I originally planned to lead, which was talking to them about how to become best friends with Christ. I had decided that I wanted to lead a small group study on Psalm 1. Well I get home from placements and sit down before dinner to review and re-plan. God just said no.

No teaching on Psalm 1 this week.

Teach on what you already planned.

But I don't want to.

Think I care what YOU want?

Yes?

Think that's really what these kids need to hear? Or are you just wanting to teach on something you know really well and would just be easy for you so you look good in front of your new leaders?

Yes? And...yes. (sigh)

Talk to them about getting to know Me. They don't.

You sure?

Am I God?

Yup. Good call.

I thought so. :-)

That's pretty much what the conversation looked like. Pretty sure God even put that little smiley face on there to let me know He loves me still. So I taught on how much God loves them, and how He desires to be our best friend. It was good. Thanks God.

Well after that craziness, more craziness ensued and we all headed outside to play Hide and Seek in the rain. Wow...that was actually pretty fun! I hadn't done that in forever, and I'm still pretty darn good at it! (boo yah...fist pump) The night lasted for a while, and the new leaders did a fantastic job hanging out with and getting to know some kids. I was quite impressed.

So that was Sunday. Not anywhere near being a Lazy Sunday. But it was definitely crazy delicious...

It's always something...

2009-04-05T00:07:00.000-04:00

Location: My room
Eating/Drinking: Nothing. Air?
Listening to: the sound of a blog entry being composed in my head

I thought I would just squeeze off an entry before I hit the sack tonight. It's certainly been an interesting last couple of days. Of course it seems like it always is. As with almost all my posts, I have a couple small thoughts to deposit...

1.) The YL Leader Draft is tomorrow afternoon, and we are getting a new guy and a new girl. (I sure hope there aren't any First Years who read this right now...) This is always a really exciting time, and I know that the tension of excitement is just about to burst within the rest of leadership. As with a couple years though, this year is going to be a bit bittersweet, as it always could be. The other years are the ones where one year my team didn't change and that was exciting, but Kevin McIntyre stopped leading and I cried that my best friend was no longer going to be at my side in the battle. The other year was when I changed from Upper Arlington to Central Crossing, leaving behind a drastically changing team as Bryan and Kacie both stopped leading. This year, I am excited for new blood on our team, especially from a guy perspective, but that means that we are losing someone (most likely) that I have grown to love. David Nicholas Vuckovich. When we first started leading together I never thought that we would be great friends. It was never a thought that crossed my mind, and in fact I didn't think that he was going to last past the middle of my first year at CCHS. Happily, I was mistaken. Over the past three years he has grown to become one of my best friends, and a man I know I can trust by my side in the battle and in the foxhole next to me. His unique personality and style will be sorely missed on our team and by me; and the words that I can type on here will never express the gratitude and love that I have for my brother. CCHS is changed because of the way that he loved kids without exception.

2.) Tonight was hilarious and awesome. Six dudes, lots of pizza, great Skyline dip, chips, the Final Four, and Rock Band. Doesn't get better. I love being a guy.

3.) I started a new job this morning at Caribou in UA, and right from the get-go I was reminded of some of the culture that I hate in that city. We had two catering orders for the men's and women's lacrosse teams and the mother that picked up the men's coffee was so many sides of potentially frustrating. I am however excited for this job, and yet dreading the hours. I must learn to discipline myself again on Monday and Wednesday nights to get to bed at a quite decent hour to make the opening shift.

4.) For those of you out there who follow Buckeye basketball and remember the glorious year of 2006, when the Bucks made it to the championship game, only to have their 3 point shots fail to splash any sort of net, I propose a scenario. I was you to close your eyes and imagine a Buckeye team with Greg Oden, Mike Conley, Daequan Cook, Kosta Koufus, and Evan Turner as the starting five. In a quite liberal and fun substitution rotation you would have Williams Buford, BJ Mullens, Jon Diebler, Dallas Lauderdale, Walter Offutt, and Mark "The Shark" Titus coming off the bench. Talk about a Big 10(11). Now watch them romping through everything they faced, with little regard to human life or even the will to live much less play basketball. This team would be the eventual National Champion. Now open your eyes...did you watch the late game tonight? The team I just told you to envision played basketball tonight in Ford Field. They played in the Final Four and will be playing on monday evening for all the marbles and One Shining Moment. They are the team that people speculated before the season if they could potentially go undefeated this year despite all the evidence of ever growing parity. They...are the North Carolina Tar Heels. If they can make it happen in Chapel Hill, why can't we in Columbus? Soon my friends, it will be our turn to dance...and Thad will make sure they never take their eyes off us again. (much less allow a skinny little beanpole like that kid from Siena to get 8 million offensive rebounds!)

No progress yet in any sort of future decision for me, just lots of prayer sent up, and preparing my soul, heart, mind, and body to be still and listen and KNOW that God is God. So thank you for all your continued prayers concerning that.

Welp, I gotta get to bed. It's calling my name much louder than it has in quite some time.

A funny thing happened on the way to Virginia...

2009-04-02T12:00:00.002-04:00

Well here we go my friends... I officially am not going to be moving to the Commonwealth Region to be a part of the Young Life Intern program this next fall. I spoke with Scott "Hambone" Hamilton last week and he informed me of such, emphasizing the same refrain that I've heard from many staffers, that the weakened state of the economy has put such a freeze on hirings that there are few to no spots anywhere that are opening up. Obviously this comes as a disappointment to me, because I figured "why not me?" in my prayers and in my thoughts. My checkered past may not leave me as exactly the most desirable person for the job, however I wouldn't be the leader or more importantly follower of Christ that I am without those long trials and tribulations.

I do know however that my heart is still with Young Life, and is still definitely in leading kids and pouring into leaders. It makes my life somewhat easier in some respects because I know what my calling is and has been, very clearly. I hope that it remains that clear for the rest of my life.

This brings me to an interesting point though, as I can basically choose a couple options. The first decision hinges on whether or not I think I need to move or stay here in Columbus for the next year. If I moved, it would probably be to Virginia, although I have some friends in Orlando that are lobbying hard for me to come down there to help build the ministry. Of course there are a couple people lobbying me hard to move to Virginia as well...so we'll see how that goes.

The second fork we come to, is whether or not I should remain as a volunteer leader wherever I end up, or do intern training how they apparently did it "back in the day" (according to Scotty too Hotty Hamilton) of working Mon-Thurs getting full time or almost full time hours, then having Fridays off for intern training with the rest of the region and for fundraising and doing other YL related activities. I would be eligible for YL benefits and would in some ways be treated like a full-time intern. This would be both desirable for me, and yet containing incredible opportunities for frustrations for a year of life. The demands of my schedule would likely leave me with only a handful of hours of sleep a night, and I would be running from thing to thing. However, most of you know that I love being that busy and that I operate at a much higher rate of efficiency with everything I do when life is like that. The other option within this, would be again the just volunteer leading wherever I am, but hopefully I would be in a position to basically be a volunteer staff person. Unfortunately with the way things are here in Columbus I don't think I would be able to do that part of the equation. It would be incredibly difficult to leave my guys and kids at Central Crossing though with the way things are going in this school.

So as you can see...I've got a few things ahead of me to pray about. Of course all this talk could to void if John Wagner's Divisional office passes my name along to a different regional director and that guy wants me. So we shall see...

Listening to: whatever is playing in Caribou, Diane talking on the phone

Eating/Drinking: chocolate chip cookies from subway, that same green tea

Location: Still in Caribou in Grandview

the beginning (hopefully) of the postings...

2009-03-26T10:51:00.003-04:00

Oh man...the last week was wicked crazy for me. While most people were off sunning themselves and chasing alligators, or maybe some of you were sunning yourselves after passing out from too many adult beverages, or maybe you were seeing two dead people. Regardless, the one thing that sucks about graduating from college surprisingly isn't the lack of free Papa John's pizza in my life anymore, no it's the lack of real breaks like you've gotten used to. Thanksgiving, Christmas/winter, spring, summer...you don't realize how truly depressing it is the first year out when you realize that you don't really get a break like that anymore.

However, not all is lost my friends. Despite having a busier week than any one else did since I had actual work and other responsibilities, it was a really phenomenal time. We had our second club this past Wednesday and with it came interesting challenges for me, as for the first time I got a picture of what it would be like to very nearly run club on my own. Now this isn't to say that my other two awesome co-leaders that were in town didn't do anything, it just felt like I didn't have a free minute between our first club and this week because I just felt pulled to watch over everything. Not sure why, although I know that in the past I have had trouble feeling like I needed to know/control everything. Clearly I really have to get past that; it's not me in control anyways even when I think it is...it's all God. Regardless of this stressed feeling, club went fantastic for a second week in a row. We had a some kids who came the first week not come the second because they didn't want to have to eat foot sandwiches like the first week, but they'll be back. The great thing was that there were a ton of new kids this week, and most of them had a great time! Nathan did an awesome job on his first club talk ever, music went really well, the game went over great, and energy was incredibly high. Our first two clubs really could be categorized under "controlled chaos" and "out of control party". Let's see how it goes this week...

Also, like I said I started coaching the high jump in addition to my regular responsibilities to the sprint team. All week I had all sorts of kids coming over, and it felt like everyday I was teaching a new kid how to high jump and starting from the basics with someone. However, we had our first meet of the season this past Saturday at Watkins Memorial, which always brings interesting challenges for our staff of fighting through early season injuries and the inevitable ineligibility bug that bites the sprint corps every year. My high jumpers performed quite admirably and were all fairly pleased with their results, yet also disappointed. It's in this balance however that you find yourself being pushed from within to get better and I think that's what excited me the most about all of them. Not only did the high jump track-aletes perform well, but the rest of the sprint corps was impressive for this time of the year and in comparison to how we performed in past years at this meet. Obviously the distance kids started to again lay down the law as a group of runners not to be messed with. Tremayne is such a great coach and a great person...I have routinely told people that if he knew Jesus (and he might, just may not think along an evangelical way) we wouldn't need a Young Life team within the entire high school. So pray for Mark Tremayne please...he's the man.

I'm gonna stop this entry right here, because it has been sitting open and being planned for around four days now and there's new things to report...so read on please...

Listening to: who knows when I started this entry...

Eating/drinking: foot long sub from Subway/green tea from Caribou

Location: Caribou in Grandview (again)

Cornucopia of Chad

2009-03-22T13:06:00.002-04:00

I wanna try some new stuff. I used to have a LiveJournal back in the day, and it had this little feature that let people know what I was listening to at the time of the post and all these other little things. So here we go...

Listening to: Virginia Coalition - the whole album of "OK to GO"

Drinking/eating: French Press coffee

Location: Caribou in Grandview

Well like I said in my last post, life has been pretty crazy lately but it's been a really great crazy and one that I wouldn't trade for any other existence. Mainly it's because it's revolved around high school kids, whether that has been actual Young Life events like our first club, or track practice, hanging out and planning club with kids, or just hanging out with kids. It's been really fun to watch my team come alive and start to really get after it and take their own ownership of club. Obviously the ultimate goal is for the kids to basically run club, but I almost feel like we're getting there quicker than I ever would have dreamed.

Sidenote: I am sitting outside and I just saw a grizzled old man riding what could only be described as a mo-ped, behind a much younger man riding what wasn't quite a motorcycle. The old guy though was all white/gray hair, wore aviators, a USA flag helmet but one of those almost pith type ones, and an old school New York Giants jacket. The kicker: he was smoking what was the remains of a small cigar, like down to the stub where you can't really hold it anymore. Kudos to you old guy.

Back to club, my team did a phenomenal job this past week for our first club that culminated with a great first club talk from Vivake. Our first club was quite possibly one of the messiest that I have ever been a part of; starting with the shooting q-tips at each other out of straws, then having Light 'n Fluffy done by the hilarious Vuck and Aldea (messy = whip cream and confetti), then having girls make PB&J sandwiches with their feet and then feeding them to guys who refused to eat them with their feet. Our "tough" football guys proved pretty sissy. Oh well it was hilarious. Big shout-out to my boy Brandon Neike who did a great job playing guitar for us and helping me with the technical difficulties that stressed the crap out of me before club started. This next week promises to be quite an interesting experience as both Vuck and Vivake won't be there but I'm sure we'll be able to pull it off...only with God though. All glory should be given to him for the awesomeness that was this past Wednesday.

Heading over to the oval... Just this past Tuesday I was named the high jump coach for the Comets. Yikes. God save the kids, seriously. I'm pretty darn excited for it though, now that I've gotten into it. Fortunately my great friend Eric Lee was a standout high jumper in high school and recently took over coaching that and hurdles for the Golden Bears of UA. So we have this great partnership this past week of getting together and spending half of the time with me coaching him on coaching hurdles, and then the other half on him coaching me to coach high jump. It's pretty funny and yet pretty awesome. I've always loved talking track with Eric and he loves talking track with me so it all works out well. The first two days of actually doing things with the HJ'ers (I really need to come up with a cool, galvanizing name for them all, and maybe some cool cheer or handshake...any suggestions?) went really well. We'll see how it goes going forward. Most all of my guys have definite promise in the event, and I have a couple girls who could go places as well.

I'm still awaiting word from the Commonwealth Region on whether or not they want me. I sure hope they do, because I sure want them. On the flip, if I have another year in Columbus I surely won't complain (too much) as there are definitely some great friendships that I wouldn't want to abandon, as well as the obvious devotion and humongous heart I have for the Comets of Central Crossing. We have been incredibly blessed by the family of one of our freshman guys where we have Campaigners and now Club. They are just so devoted to the ministry as a couple, mainly the wife, and have given not only to the area with funds, but with much prayer, opened their house, given money to our team, fed kids before club/campaigners, and generally are more than I could ever ask for in terms of any sort of support in this ministry. God bless the Boos' and their whole family.

Friday night I got the opportunity to go to my first NCAA tournament game. Fortunately the first game was entertaining and fun because it was Louisville vs Morehead State. The second game however, was the Buckeyes vs the Siena Saints. Who are the Saints you ask? A team from I'm still not sure where that was dwarfed by OSU, played possibly worse than OSU in many aspects, and still managed to beat the Bucks because OSU has no heart outside of Evan Turner. Even heart needs to be coached how to do things sometimes though...so there's a big part of this loss I blame squarely on our coaching staff. We can't break a half-court trap? Basic basketball. We get out-rebounded 51-33, including 21-6 on the offensive boards? Even more basic than the half-court break. Ever heard of a box-out? In the immortal words of Andrew Pierce: "Hey BJ Mullens, there's high schoolers with more talent than #22 Rossiter. Good luck in the NBA." For real though BJ, unless you can learn how to be 7 feet tall by the time the next season rolls around and dominate guys that are half a foot shorter than you (for the love, their 5' 11" guard out-rebounded you BJ) then please just leave our team and go be a window washer or something. But I regress, we win as a team and we lose as a team. Or something.

Not gonna lie, there was something else that I wanted to write about but am completely blanking right now. Interesting.

This weekend was great for me; I had the whole weekend off because I had originally planned on road-tripping down to Blacksburg to visit some friends but then decided against it. So consequently I had Thursday thru today off of work and it really was glorious. I had been working like crazy, which really is more of a mental grind because serving is easy but knowing that everyday you have to get ready and go into work just wears on you like crazy.

Alright well I think that's about all I have for you guys right now. Pray for club this next week for Central Crossing...it's gonna be crazy again!

In like a lamb...

2009-03-18T00:15:00.002-04:00

I must apologize to many loyal legions of millions of fans out there that read this humble blog...I have been somewhat absent. Things have gotten kind of crazy in the world of the ninja and I really just haven't had time to post anything lately. I know I had something up a week ago, and I think a week before that one...so that would bring this to a grand total of 3 blogs to start out the month of March. In like a lamb indeed.

While I can't promise that March will go out like a lion in the blogging world for me, everything else has been a lion. We start club tomorrow for the first time and needless to say I have been quite busy with all of that. Also, just praying through and trying to figure out my future...good thing God's got that one under control as well.

I will say that there should be more time for blogging once I get settled into the new routine of club planning, while still hanging out with kids, working, futuring, praying, and coaching. So again I must apologize for my absence, but know that this is still near and dear to my heart, and so are all of you.

Mucho amor.

What the hook gon'be?!

2009-03-09T21:21:00.002-04:00

I must apologize...there are all sorts of updates that you all are probably demanding. I expect any moment to see a mob coming down the peaceful street of Smokehill, complete with torches and pitchforks ready to burn me at the stake for my egregious crimes against humanity in not updating my blog.

Ok so that might not really be what's happening, but then what is that faint orange glow in the distance?

Right...

Well, this past week at Central Crossing we had our first activity that was on our own since our Christmas party. Like I said, instead of visiting another club we decided upon Bigger and Better to play with our kids. This turned out to be pretty successful, even if like most other things it ended up being a crap-ton of dudes and very little female representation. We ended up having right around 20 kids there, which is just phenomenal because there were also a bunch that we knew couldn't attend this past Wednesday. The really amazing thing about it was the ownership that the kids started to take, even of such a silly activity like this. In multiple cars we had one or two kids really take the lead of the car and be motivated to win. They thought outside the box, and while at least my car didn't go to any random houses, we got other kids involved that got the briefest taste of craziness because we stopped by their house for something they didn't need. Hopefully those brief tastes for those kids will fester in them and draw them to come to club eventually. Gotta love those seed planting opportunities.

Another thing to love, was one stop I stayed standing by my car while the four football players I had with me ran up to the door and were laughing and having a genuinely great time. Bam...this thought hit my mind: I hope that they truly remember the amazing time they are having tonight playing this silly game that college kids wouldn't ever play in our free time even; and moreover, I hope they remember this stupid game the next time they're thinking about who's party they are gonna head to and whether or not they want to drink that night. Vivake gave a brief "club" talk (if you can call it that) after the activity, that touched on life to the full. I really think that these kids experienced a brief slice of that on Wednesday night and I hope that it left them wanting more...

------------------------

My wonderful friend Jaclyn alluded in a previous post while she was in Florida about a study that she was doing that asked her to think on a time in life that we felt we got the short end of the stick. In considering that in my own life, I tried thinking long and hard about my past and times that I had felt entitled and yet shafted. Really though all I had to do was reflect on what was happening in my life currently... With track, I believe I had said in a previous entry that I had been given charge over the hurdles this year, and while I had never coached them in my previous four years I was excited to learn them and teach them to my kids in the hopes that we would grow together towards conference and post-season titles. Well that dream was shaken a couple weeks ago when a random guy called up my head coach Mark and wanted to volunteer to help out with hurdles. I know right? Well Mark can't turn down a potential opportunity to help out his team, especially when this opportunity ran hurdles for THE Ohio State University. Mark though, did explain to this guy that he had a young and energetic guy who had been with him for a couple years that was taking over hurdles and was learning them and also was great with the kids, to which new guy responds that he doesn't want to take anyone's spot. Anyways, through a long series of interesting circumstances and interactions over the past two weeks involving conditioning and now the first day of official practice today, this guy is the hurdle coach and I'm relegated to assistant sprint coach again that doesn't do anything with hurdles.

So now I need to examine myself and my approach for being there. I know my reason: to love kids on the track team for Christ and to show them His love by my actions. That doesn't change, never will. However, I must swallow my ego and pride and figure out a way to not want to punch the guy every time I see him; which for those smart people in the audience, is everyday for the next three months. However, someone pointed out to me that perhaps this new guy needs to be there for his own good, because I told this friend about how new guy hasn't really even tried to be a part of the coaching staff at all. He certainly doesn't like to talk to me, and comes across like he thinks I know nothing about track at all. Anyways, perhaps he is supposed to be here because he needs a group of friends or God wants to draw him close through me. Yikes, that's a scary proposition. Pray for me...

---------------------

This coming Wednesday we are doing a scavenger hunt with our kids. It should be a pretty great time, and hopefully will give kids another opportunity to take ownership of Young Life at their school. Please continue to pray for momentum for us, as we are now under 10 days until we start club. Had a team meeting last night and my team came away looking a bit overwhelmed at all the things I threw at them in terms of responsibilities. It can definitely be a daunting task, but more importantly it can by life changing. Pray that my team stays close to Christ and that they love kids more than they are able in the coming days. Also please pray for their grades as they head into finals while trying to balance planning club for the first time in their leading careers. God is good and God is bigger than all that craziness...and for that we give thanks.

Growing Anticipation...

2009-03-02T23:39:00.003-05:00

Tonight was the official start of something very exciting...no my friends, I did not have a date. However, we had a team meeting and that team meeting consisted of discussing plans for starting club of our own at Central Crossing High School, home of the Comets. Whoooo! We laid out plans for the next two and a half weeks basically, ranging from Campaigner lessons and who was speaking, to the large group games that we are going to play that will temporarily break us away from visiting other clubs. We decided to do things this way because we haven't had an opportunity other than the Christmas party to do something that is more of an outreach event on a larger level by ourselves. This whole year we've been visiting other clubs from around Columbus, including: Worthington Kilbourne, Dublin Coffman, Grove City, Westland, Hilliard Darby, and my former home Upper Arlington. Our kids have had great times visiting most of these clubs and attendance has continued in a generally upward trend, especially among the guys. New kids seems to come every week, and there is definitely an excitement in the air about camp.

The coolest thing for me though, has been the growth of Campaigners on Sunday nights. We are blessed that it hasn't just been a horizontal growth, as in only the amount of kids coming, but more importantly a vertical growth as well, as the kids continue to open themselves up and be vulnerable and ask all sorts of questions in front of each other.

Back to the whole club thing though... It was incredibly exciting for me to discuss this all with the team, and then when it came down to figuring out who was going to be speaking on the various nights and talking about some specifics for our two weeks of games as well as Campaigners, to watch them get excited and their eyes start to light up. I can't even imagine what they are thinking and feeling right now. Although I must retract that previous statement somewhat; I'm excited out of my mind to be starting up our own club at CCHS in a way that will hopefully be lasting with a great foundation upon Christ and nothing else.

So if you all could be praying for the ministry at CCHS, as well as our team (Nathan, Vivake, David, Trisha, and myself), and the kids there as we endeavor to prayerfully start our own club that would be amazing. As this excitement keeps building I'm sure I'll have many much more entries about all this and the work that God is doing. All glory to God, Amen.

Also, if anyone who reads this could pray for the soul and life of one Cameron Stewart, that would be great. He needs saving in too many ways to count; namely his fashion sense, his way with women, his overgrown nasal hair, his toe fungus, his smelling like cabbage, and his liking of the Milwaukee Brewers.

Me a writer?

2009-02-27T14:29:00.002-05:00

Last night I had small group that I lead with the wonderful Chris Ramsey, and we've been going through 2 Corinthians chapter by chapter. It's really been a pretty cool thing, and very challenging for both Chris and myself, as well as obviously and hopefully the younger leaders who are a part of it. This week I was supposed to be leading on the 8th chapter, and after looking it over for a while and reading and re-reading it many times I just didn't feel inspired to try and teach on it at all. It's even just challenging to me in preparing to lead this group because I want to make sure what I present is something that will really challenge these guys to think and pray outside their normal realm of thinking and considering Christ in their lives and the lives of others. With that being said, I just didn't think that chapter 8 was going to do that through me this week.

Instead I gave somewhat of a sermon, or at least it felt that way when I finished. Kinda felt like I should make an altar call and see if my guys wanted to accept Christ, although if any of them came forward that would be a little disconcerting to say the least. But let's get back on topic ourselves here, shall we? Usually when I lead I'll have a series of significant questions and analogies that help whoever my audience is understand the concepts better and relate it easier to their lives. Last night though, I just spoke; lost my train of thought a couple times, but God shifted me right back on course and it was great. I spoke about how well we know God, as that was the first question that Scott Hamilton posed to us over this past weekend. That night he then wrapped up by asking us what we thought God was trying to tell us in our own lives. If you don't know Him, then you're not going to be able to discern what He is trying to tell you or how He is trying to guide you.

It just so happened that during our Lenten study with Heritage, it also revolved around knowing God and the study asked us about how well we knew one of our best friends or our spouse if married, which clearly I am not. However in describing three of my closest friends, Andrew Pierce, Kevin McIntyre, and John Slemmer, I realized that in comparison my relationship with Christ wasn't nearly as deep as those, but that I had known Christ almost as long as McIntyre, and longer than Pierce or Slemmer. Convicting stuff I tell ya. Think about it in your own life...

After touching on that I moved into talking about when Elijah was waiting on the Lord and how the Lord didn't come in the mighty wind, the earthquake, or the fire but rather in the whisper. That's when the Lord comes and yet, for Elijah to know that he would have to know Him by spending enough time with Him to recognize His voice well. That's how we all need to be.

When I finished all of this, Ramsey asked me if I had taken the time to write any of what I just said down. To be honest, I really hadn't because it was just a bunch of notes scrapped together and pieced together from all over the place; some of which I've already blogged about, but really that just makes it more all over the place. However it made me pause, and consider how much I've actually enjoyed writing over the years. I have always loved writing and I was always decently successful at it, however I never considered it for a serious career or that I would do anything with it. This was different though, and while I'm not entirely sure how or why, I'm definitely going to look into it. I would love any thoughts that anyone out there has...thanks party people.

NaTuRaL DiSaStErS? No. WhIsPeRs? YeS.

2009-02-25T23:05:00.006-05:00

I really hate when people write letters like I did in the title...for instance there's a person I know who does it non-stop with their facebook status and it drives me insane. What's the appeal? No one can read it. Just thought I would try it out though...takes awhile to really write anything like that too. Just silly.

Well again I was at Rockbridge this past weekend with the wonderful Commonwealth Region, and it really was a fantastic time. One of the things that I started to realize after I got back from summer staff at Lake Champion, then forgot during the fall, then have started to realize again...is the powerful God that we serve. On multiple occasions in talking with friends and teammates and even leading Campaigners I have gotten feisty for Jesus and really spoken passionately and from the heart, an ever growing heart of gratitude for the Lord and what He has done. And when I mean passionately, I mean like this guy; because that's MY King too.

On Friday night Scott Hamilton opened up with challenging us all with the question of: How well do you know Him? He then asked us during the meat of the talk what it would take for us to carve out the time necessary to get to know Him. To be honest, looking back at my notes, I feel like the talk was disjointed but I know 100% that it wasn't at all and that I really just didn't do my usual thorough job of taking copious and all-encompassing notes. The one thing I want to focus on though, was then the opening question paired with the closing question: What's He telling me to do, what's He asking of me?

In order to know what Christ is telling me and what He's asking of me, I have to know Him. If we are His sheep we know His voice and listen to it. The way we do that is by spending time with Him for sure; reading His Word, praying, worshiping, serving others. Those are all ridiculous important and crucial in order to get to know God and what He wants in and for our lives. However, we must also LISTEN to what He is saying to us. This scripture has continually been brought up by the Holy Spirit in my pursuit of God's will for my life...

The Lord said (to Elijah), "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by." Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and he went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here Elijah?"

So the thing about all that, is that I have been consistently trying to keep myself close enough and then quiet enough to the Lord in order to be able to hear the whisper of how and where He is moving. Sure there will inevitably be a couple wind, earthquake, and fire moments in my life and yours as well of following Christ...but I guarantee that if we don't all learn to listen and lean in to the whisper, we will miss His leadings. I don't want to miss that, so I better learn to shut the crap up and not become enamored with the flashy, the eye-catching, the trendy, or the popular; but rather become enamored with making myself humble like Christ.

And sorry I didn't work in my answer posed to my earlier question, but since it's basically the same day that I'm posting I count that as a mulligan, and also since this blog belongs to me I get to mulligan all I want. Hah.

Chew on these links...

2009-02-25T15:55:00.002-05:00

Wow. Just wow.

Alright we all know that I love me some Caribou time whenever I can get it. There are many reasons: free internet, the smell of coffee, drinking coffee, people watching, the rustic interior design, randomly running into friends, and the chance to relax. You would be astute to observe that nothing on that list is something that should cause stress or frustration. Today, that was not the case...

I headed over to my favorite one, in Grandview, after I got off work today with the intentions of writing another post (which I'm doing, although not nearly in the form that I envisioned) and reading for my Lent study through Heritage. However we have found ourselves in the unfortunate position of this weird post out of pure frustration. Now should I be frustrated? No way! It's Lent, we have club tonight, it's nearly 60 degrees out in February in Columbus, spring training games start today, and well Go Bucks. The thing is, that whole free internet was about as cool as a cucumber today while at Caribou. It failed at the one in Grandview, so I headed over to one of the Upper Arlington locations, where it proceeded to not work again. So I find myself still there but on some other network that I was able to pick up.

Alright so I know it's not really that big of a deal but I really thought I should share this with everyone. Thought you would want to know this little piece of my life. I'll be back later with a little more thoughtful postings, but for now I will leave you with this wonderful question posed by my great friend Chris Light:

Which is a better movie one-two punch: Happy Gilmore/Billy Madison, or Tommy Boy/Black Sheep? Go ahead and discuss amongst yourselves, leave your comments, and generally waste too much time thinking about this. I'll give my answer the next time I post and I'll have another question to pose to the group...

Take heart...

2009-02-24T00:32:00.002-05:00

Alright well I didn't really feel like waiting to post again, perhaps as feeling like I needed to make my friend Pierce's accomplishment of two posts in two days less significant than it actually is, or perhaps because I truly want to share some more wonderfulness from this past weekend.

Regardless of my reasoning, I'm gonna share one of those nuggets right now...

Yesterday was Monday, and for those of you who aren't brain-dead probably are saying: Chad, that's not the weekend. You people would be of course correct. Well I was on my way in to work at Max & Erma's and I realized I just did not feel like working yesterday at all. I wanted to "ease" back into the flow of things after being away for such a great and fun weekend, and really it was just me being selfish and lazy. I think we all tend to get like that from time to time. So it wasn't a truly weird or alien feeling, and there was the other part of me that was annoyed that I was having this thought. This almost lead to a fight between halves since they were both annoyed the other one was there. Crazy I tell you.

Well I'm walking in to work, putting my apron on, and generally thinking about how I would like the day to go: busy so time passes quickly, or slow so I can go home and probably do nothing or maybe write a post. So as I'm about to walk out onto the floor and check my section, God just speaks to me and quotes himself from Jeremiah 29:11-13...

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart."

Man, I cannot explain the flood of just relief and love that came over me from that. It completely changed my day and my outlook on things. I really felt like God was speaking to me, "Don't worry Chad, don't be anxious. Like Jeremiah I know the plans I have for you, and they aren't to be working here or some other run of the mill job for the rest of your life. Take heart." Needless to say, that's a pretty powerful feeling when something like that occurs. Both of my shifts yesterday went well, and joy really became evident in me and manifested itself in my outlook and attitude all day yesterday. It has even permeated my day today already, which I need to really get going on. However, is there any coincidence that this verse was the verse of the day on Bible Gateway?

Virginia is for lovers...

2009-02-23T14:58:00.002-05:00

...and count me in love. Yup...although this isn't exactly new information for most of you guys out there that read my musings. However this weekend not only fortified my love of the state of Virginia, it expanded it greatly.

For those who didn't know, I spent the weekend at Rockbridge hanging out with the Commonwealth Region for their Committee/Leader weekend. It was a really great time, and of course great fun to see a whole bunch of friends and spend time talking about life, Christ, and laughing. It was also amazing to meet a whole slew of new people, many of them from Virginia Tech, and to hear their stories and get to know them. I know the next time I head to Blacksburg it will almost feel like a homecoming or a second home at this point just because of the wonderful people that are down there. It wasn't just the people that made it a great weekend, but the God that we serve and who loves us. He revealed Himself to me in a bunch of great ways, and reminded me of His power, love, and Word.

Now usually when someone goes on a leader weekend, especially at a YL camp, they come back and the common sentiment is: "That was the best weekend of my life!" This used to be the case pretty much every time I went on one of those, however for the past couple ones I haven't said that. That doesn't mean that they weren't amazing times, but rather I think it means one of two things. Hopefully the more positive one...

1.) My heart has somehow become calloused to the Lord's moving in my life, as well as my attitude towards people has soured and I don't enjoy hanging out with either God or people as much as I used to. (this is 99.9% not what's going on...)

2.) I have fortunately matured enough in my relationship with Christ that it is not dependent upon mountain top moments to get me through. Fortunately I don't think that I anymore have to ensure that they are big enough to get me to the next one. It makes my walk with Christ more constant and consistent, and hopefully gets me to a deeper level with Jesus.

So in analyzing things I'm gonna go with the second option. Mainly because I feel quite close to Christ today and still, and it's not because of some afterglow of too much worship music. Christ is alive and real to me, moreso than before but not in a cheesy and artificial way that will fade.

This is the first of a couple posts I'll have on this past weekend, and I'll make sure to let each of them sink in before putting up the next...thanks all.

That's amore...

2009-02-17T14:03:00.003-05:00

To be honest, I've been watching my Blogger Dashboard fill everyday with updates from all these other blogs of friends that I'm following and it really makes me want to write something. However, there hasn't been a ton of crazy revelation-like stuff that I want to post lately happening in my life. Don't get me wrong, I freaking love life right now; between leading, coaching, hanging with friends, God, and other random things it's a good life I live. God has blessed me immensely and for that I am insanely grateful.

So in lieu of this blessed life I live, I'll just give you a couple anecdotes from it lately...

This past Saturday was Singles Awareness Day, for those of you who were unawares, and me and the guys decided to have some dude time. If you know me, you know I cherish guy fellowship, and this is no slam on the ladies out there...but when it comes down to it you just aren't as cool as guys. So we went to Canes, had heart attacks, then headed down to the Big Bang piano bar again for some crowd watching and great music. We tried getting the one guy to dance with some random girls again, but he was having none of it tonight. So we settled into singing along loudly with the music, and doing the typical crowd watching and commentary-ing. Well one of our friends, Mr. John Slemmer (UAHS class of '03 Most Underrated Hot Guy) was just jiving along to the music when he was approached by two women. You must understand, these women were quite inebriated and took quite a liking to young Mr. Slemmer. The first question that they asked was: "Oh my gosh are you Ashton Kutcher?!?" And to their credit there was absolutely no slurring...but dang they were drunk. Then they inquired of John's age, and apparently there's a huge difference between 24 and 25; them hoping that he was 25 when they were probably mid 30's. This made him more "cute" apparently than "hot", but did nothing to stop their incredible amount of groping of my friend. Of course though, the other guys and I did nothing to stop this encounter and proceeded just to laugh our heads off while it was happening, while quietly hoping the ladies would not repeat their...investigation of the rest of us. So if you see John, go ahead and ask him if he's Ashton Kutcher...then feel free to grab his butt.

Switching gears completely, we had CCHS campaigners on Sunday night...for which I was able to prepare about a solid 20 minutes for after discovering that we had completely forgotten to assign someone to this week. So I showed up with some scribbled notes about the topic of God's love and true love and really had no idea where things were going to go. Most of the kids coming to Campaigners regularly are freshmen who don't know Christ personally and so you never quite know what answer you're going to get. However, it turned into one of those amazing moments where God just says "I got you" and then He really comes through. The conversation was organic and just flowed, with most all of the kids there contributing out of the astonishing 14 that came! Last week we had 12 and were just praising Christ for that, but this week we increase with new kids and now my mind is just blown away. Please be praying that this continues, as these kids are genuinely seeking answers to life's questions and aren't afraid to ask or try things out. Most all are excited about camp and the price doesn't seem to daunt any of them, but pray that money isn't an issue with these kids either at any point.

Last week I had to do a sprint workout with my kids and I hurt like hell. Judge me, but know that I haven't done a sprint workout in at least 6 years and now I only go for 1-2 mile runs and don't care about speed.

Also I had a chance to go to the USA/Mexico game on Wednesday at Crew Stadium amidst the hurricane. It. was. awesome.

That's all I probably got for today...hopefully some more tomorrow.

Bam...roasted.

2009-02-12T22:54:00.002-05:00

I gotta call a spade a spade...one of my esteemed colleagues in this blogging world has offered up a cheap ruse in order to get people to roll-over like trained dogs to get a story out of her. Now I must admit, she is a fantastic story-teller; one much better than yours truly. However, I call you out now Mambo for your underhanded attempt at getting comments!

(although I must say, it's kinda worked...hmph) (and no I don't want to hear the story)

This upcoming weekend is of course Valentine's and so I feel compelled to write something about all that jazz. I could go with the traditional single guy angle of pink hearts and overpriced dates being for sissies. Or we could go with the almost equally as overplayed over-theological thoughts on the whole thing. Really though, I have no idea where this post is gonna go...so let's go!

I once again don't have a date for Valentine's Day, and I'm not sure if one is supposed to endeavor to have one, or if that is viewed as incredible cheesy and cliche. Either way, it's just a weird place to be in at 26 and single and graduated from college, but not really that that is anything terribly out of the ordinary but being in Christian community makes it difficult. So many of my contemporaries are seriously dating, engaged, or now married. The great thing about my position is that I can hopefully break some of the perceptions about Christians getting married too young and too quickly. I know that many of my relatives feel that way and that many people in the world feel that way.

The exciting thing about the singleness is that there is really almost more opportunity to follow God's will! I know that at this point in my life I wouldn't mind a girl, but also I don't mind not having one. Life would be great, life would also be more complicated. So with all that being said, who really cares about Valentine's except for sissies and Hallmark?

Well I apologize, but this post really didn't have a whole lot of anything to it. However, it's better than a teaser that really isn't a teaser and is really just a cheap trick to get people to comment. Mambo...

Follow me?

2009-02-11T23:58:00.003-05:00

I recently decided to start reading in my time with the Lord at the beginning of John. To be honest, for most of December and January I wasn't doing so hot with God, and my life showed it accordingly. However, one of my great friends Brandon pointed out that even though we may know it and acknowledge our struggles to God in a feeble attempt to straighten things out, there is truly power and help and grace in confession. So I confessed to Brandon that I wasn't consistently getting in God's word and wasn't wholeheartedly spending any real time with Him. Brandon was a great brother and received it with grace and handed back grace to me, along with gentle guidance and the words I needed to hear in love. So a public thank you goes out to my boy holdin' it down at VT.

Anyways, a thought I had while reading the first chapter of John for what seems like the umpteenth (somehow that's a real word to my Mac...it didn't red underline it like it did with "holdin'") (weird) time, it stuck out to me that somehow most of the disciples that began to follow Christ knew who he was and very confidently proclaimed it. They were excited for the Messiah who was to come and lead their people. Now either the God revealed the mystery to them in an unrecorded way, or they jumped up and followed just about any guy who came along claiming that he fulfilled an ounce of messianic prophecy. I'd really like to think the latter didn't happen but who knows? Well the thing about this that I thought was interesting was how readily they were able to identify their Messiah.

I had a thought about this whole interesting set of exchanges a while back and asked Erik Hofmann about whether I would be able to just ask a kid to follow me to camp that I didn't know and have it work like it did for Jesus. Obviously I'm not God in the flesh, but he mentioned that he thought it wasn't exactly a cold thing...Jesus had established himself at the very least as an upstanding, trustworthy, and model citizen that people probably liked being around. Well that might be true...but debating history isn't what I've come here for. In now tying things all together, I want to be so sure of who and where Jesus is that it looks like how the disciples did when they started following Him.

"Chad, follow me." ~ Jesus

Think about it...how well do you know Jesus? Would you drop everything to follow Him if He called you?

Take it to the people...

2009-02-09T14:55:00.003-05:00

Hey friends...well here's the thing about this blogging jazz. I really dislike just posting what's been going on in my day or whatever I did recently. Unless that's OSU sports, it just doesn't appeal to me. Here's the thing, there are friends of mine that do that and they are wonderful and much more gifted than I at storytelling, and so what they write is cool. My life recaps I feel aren't. So as much as I hate just writing for anyone's approval we all write for that on some level. It's just a matter of how much it controls our writings.

So I shall choose the lesser of two evils and tell you about my life lately. I've been pretty busy with all sorts of things that have kept me running around and simultaneously loving life. Track has started up and of course I love it. Concerning Young Life we have Campaigners going and started club back up (not our own but going to other schools). OSU sports is way fun, we win lots of stuff.

- Track. I love track. We've been over this, but now that it's started and I'm actually coaching kids and getting to see them a lot it's just way over the top incredible. Especially since I don't have to worry about classes and studying anymore in my life...that applies to making everything more awesome but especially track. My relationships with the kids are incredible right now, and new kids are just joining in with the old in having a good time and working hard and forming good relationships with me. I love being more confident after this coaching clinic as well with what I am teaching the kids. It's brought a whole new level of respect from them and confidence for themselves as well. I continue to pray that God will move in some pretty mighty ways within this group this year. A goal of mine is to be able to openly pray with kids before races or meets this year. If whoever is reading this could add that to your prayer list, that would be amazing.

- God is not just moving in great ways in my track ministry, but with other guys as well. I am blessed to lead with studs like Vivake, Vuck, and Nathan. Trisha and the former Laura weren't too shabby either. However, last night blew me away. We had 12 kids there in total, 3 of the guys were new and 1 girl was new. Most everyone seemed to be learning from what Nathan was throwing down, which could've even been over their heads but they all seemed to be tracking with it. A lot of different kids contributed answers and spoke up to read the scripture passages. It was just great as always, to be able to just join in what God is doing in a place. All of them seemed pretty excited about Campaigner Weekend as well as camp, so please keep Central Crossing Young Life in your prayers as well. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts and updates on this all the time. It's just an exciting time for us as a team.

- This week was just a week of sports for me. Not only did track start up on Tuesday, but I also went to the OSU/Purdue game that night with my dad which we won 80-72 in overtime. Purdue has never won a game against us at the Schott and it's great to keep that up...suckers. Then Thursday I got to see my Comets wrestle and kick the snot out of New Albany and Dublin Scioto...my boys are good. Friday night brought a very satisfying win over Kilbourne and their uppity, too vocal parents...in fact all three teams beat Kilbourne: Freshmen, JV, and Varsity. Boo yah. Saturday brought another OSU basketball game, this time against the Fighting Tubby Smiths of Minnesota in a revenge game for us which was horribly officiated and yet we still won. Awesome...2/2 in knocking off ranked teams for the Bucks this week. Speaking of knocking off ranked teams, then we went to the OSU hockey game on Sunday (for free with .25 hotdogs) against the #2 Fighting Irish and we kicked the crap out of them 4-1. Got free fries for that, as well as the Purdue game. Went straight from the OSU cagers to the OSU grapplers against Purdue again and we solidly defeated them. Man I love the Buckeyes. I love sports too.

Mark Titus did his handshake thing again after the Minnesota game and it was great. I'm not overly sure how to end this post now though. Just thought you all should know what's been happening in my life. I reached into my pocket for some small change, and you just read my 2 cents.

Mark Titus wants YOU!

2009-02-04T10:02:00.003-05:00

To join the Trillion Man March. Keep up the good work Mark.

Last night, the Buckeyes of The Ohio State University took down red hot Purdue in OT 80-72, to send the Boilermakers to 0-lifetime at the Schott. Love it. Even more so because there were a handful of quite annoying Purdue fans sitting behind my dad and I. (Love my Dad by the way, he's an old alum that cheers and actually cares about the outcomes of games.) The game was ok, but not great from a crowd involvement perspective, as it took them playing Hell Bells aka the Bell of Death, to get people even thinking about getting loud. Heck, I'm pretty sure that people just were cheering to the song and not because the team needed them. Hopefully though this $5 ticket thing will help as it will get more people (theoretically) into the games that care about them (like students). Of course those people will be up in the upper level and not near the court where they can truly make an impact. I could go on and on for days on this but I won't.

Great win last night. Go Bucks. National Letter of Intent Day is here for football...let's see what happens...

James Laurinaitis likes piano. (And Brian Hartline still sucks.)

2009-02-02T01:27:00.003-05:00

Hey hey hey, couple minor things to cover in this installment of my thoughts and ramblings...

1.) I freaking hate the Steelers. There's no if's and's or but's about it, they are pure evil. Hines Ward is the biggest piece of walking feces I have ever seen. James Harrison is just another thug from Kent. Santonio Holmes is hereby stripped of his citizenship in Buckeye Nation for his egregious crimes against the state. And if you haven't seen this already then check it out and you'll know I need not say anymore.

2.) Buckeye basketball, while not close to the level of Buckeye football, is pretty darn great. Heck, we even usually provide the ulcer-like endings that the football junkies are used to. Evan Turner is amazing, William Buford (not quite the same Brandon, but close...) than watching us sweep the regular season series with our two rivals in basketball in back to back games does a pretty good job of bringing a smile to one's face.

3.) Bailey is the worst dog ever. Period. End of story.

4.) My buddy Pierce updated his blog finally with a second entry, and I would like to commend him for it. Way to go dude. It was funny and insightful. Please sir, can I have some more?

5.) The other night some of the guys and Allyse, went out for Berlepsch's birthday celebration. He wanted to go to the new dueling piano bar that opened up a week and a half ago down in the arena district. It's a place called "The Big Bang", and all the workers wear shirts bearing the slogan: "Bang This." Interesting. However the place is amazing, funny because the interior design is almost exactly the same as the one I went to in Nashville in September. It really was a fantastic time, and if you're of age I highly suggest you make a trip down there sometime. If you want to avoid the yuppie fratties and their according harems though, go around 10 in the evening which is right when I think the show starts up. The set up is two baby grand pianos sitting facing each other, with a drumset back and in between the two pianos. There isn't always someone on the kit, and actually it's much better when there isn't, but there's always two amazing players tickling the ivories to any of your favorite tunes over the years. They take requests, know just about every song possible, and if they don't know it then they can learn it. Of course your requests are much more likely to get played and played sooner if you deposit some money with the request and if the amount of that money is much higher. For instance, the dude who slapped down a cool C-note for the quite talented and quite attractive female pianist to play some Janis Joplin. Just one song, that's all he payed for with his $100 but dang it was good. Thanks rich yuppie.

We did see James Laurinaitis there, and he seemed to be having a good time. Also with him was another OSU linebacking legend, Bobby Carpenter, who loved every song a whooollllleee bunch. Then we also noticed Brian Hartline. Sure glad that guy's leaving the team. My luck though, the Bengals will pick him up. Ugh.

Anyways...it was a pretty fun night, with lots of laughs. The group of guys that went (along with Allyse) is one that I always have a great time with no matter what. Well one of the guys we prodded into trying to meet and dance with some of the attractive females that were present there. This was hilarious. You could tell that he had never done something like this before in his life and was just trying to roll with the punches and see what happened. I'll save the suspense, he struck out. Better luck next time buddy.

While this was occurring though, it got me thinking and observing bar culture and everything and everyone around me. The ones that really got me thinking were this handful of older guys who definitely stuck out in such a younger crowd. I would estimate that they were in their late 30's, and they dressed like it, acted like it, and oozed it. It being a substitute for the word "creepy". They were all trying to dance near packs of younger girls, and really not saying anything to them or trying to do anything. Also, dancing would be a loose description for what these middle aged white guys were doing. So yeah. Sadly enough, if you look at how they were acting, given their surroundings and whatnot, it's pretty easy to surmise that they weren't looking for a relationship with any of these girls, and most of the girls around them were far out of their league. I began to wonder if these guys just tried to pray on the drunkest girl who was desperate in order for them to have a good time, but that the way things were looking these guys were going to go home empty once again. It's a really depressing life that people get sucked in to, and is so prevalent. It only served to heighten my urgency with the sharing of the Gospel with not only friends, but family members, as well as the high schoolers of Central Crossing. People are pouring their lives out into nothingness and death while we have everlasting life welling up in us like a spring! What are we waiting for? We must act boldly, we must act passionately, and we must do anything we can share the Gospel with people we know and people we don't know.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." ~ Hebrews 12:1-3

It's a track thing, you wouldn't understand...

2009-02-01T10:32:00.003-05:00

This past weekend was the clinic put on by the Ohio Association of Track & Cross Country Coaches and let me tell you, it was incredible. I actually feel like I know something about track! Ok well I did know things about track before but now it's actually knowing why we do certain things certain ways and whatnot. They talked about all sorts of biomechanics of sprint and running technique, block work, hurdles for both guys and girls and both distances, conditioning, strength training...and those were just the seminars that I attended! There was a whole plethora of other seminars on distance running, all the throws, all the jumps, and some random ones as well.

(Right about now I'm gonna go get a bowl of cereal, just so you know. Smart Start, thanks to JJ Einsfeld.)

(K, I'm back now. Wanted to share that with you all.)

Like I alluded to in previous posts I just ate up everything this weekend and was probably the coach out of the hundreds who was most excited to be there. I took all sorts of notes, and the whole time was thinking of all my kids and how I really hope that I can help them improve in their track proficiency. Of course though, the hope in that will be to really strengthen the relationships therein and build toward being able to verbally share Christ with them either through Young Life or just an amazing opportunity that God alone would present me with. Unfortunately in my eyes, the fruit that I would have envisioned from kids on the track team hasn't materialized for the two years I've been coaching at CCHS, but with the way that things have been happening this year I'm very hopeful that things will start to blow up. The first step is to remember names of kids I haven't seen since last track season ended...which I know may sound bad from a YL leader's perspective, but seriously I can't see every kid every day although I certainly wish I could. It breaks your heart, but that's the way that it's supposed to be. We just have to trust in God enough and have faith that He is moving and things will move according to His plan. Along those lines, something that I always tell my team that is sometimes hard for me to follow on my own is: God is infinitely more interested in what He is doing in you, than through you.

So the question then becomes, what is God doing in me through this whole process? What is He doing in my currently, and what does He want to show me? What should I learn, what should I correct, what should I let go of? God is actively pursuing me, and He is actively pursuing you, so what are we going to do...keep running or turn and spend our lives in the presence of the Living God?

Blind luck gets scissor kicked in the back of the head.

2009-01-29T16:48:00.005-05:00

I must confess, I have been remiss in writing about one of my absolute favorite topics in the history of everything: The Ohio State University Buckeyes. The Scarlet and Gray. The Champions of the Big Ten. The Place Where Legends Are Made.

Last night we played our enemies from the North again in basketball. We had previously beat the snot out of them at their place, despite the fact that they somehow knocked off both Duke and UCLA earlier this season. I mean there's the whole "even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes", but really given the state of the Wolverine athletic department lately, the more apt description would be: "Even a blind squirrel that's missing 1 1/2 ears, both front teeth, it's back left leg and front right leg, most of its hair, and has a birth defect for a tail finds a nut sometimes that is made out of pure gold. This nut is also the size of a H3 and accordingly is worth more than most third world countries. The defective squirrel somehow then develops a brain large enough to process the fact that it could make a ton of money on this nut, then takes the nut to market where he not only manages to defend it against many clever thieves of Matt Damon's character in Ocean's Eleven's caliber, he makes enough money to never have to work again. Then this squirrel takes the money and buys the Cleveland Browns (or Cincinnati Bengals, calm down brownies), the Kansas City Royals, the Columbus Blue Jackets, and the Memphis Grizzlies and then all of them win their championships in the same year. Then I run this squirrel over on my way to the Ohio State game vs. M*ch*g*n last night."

Ok, so that may have been long and too drawn out, but I never spare any expense when it comes to illustrating a point. So that's how they somehow beat those teams. However last night, we kicked them in the teeth and said, screw your blind squirrel I think he's dumb. The winter storm crap that has held Columbus hostage allowed for a bunch of students to go to the game for free however, and this made the crowd about as hostile as it will ever get in our crappy NBA/NHL arena. While it wasn't exactly loud, because we expect to beat those arrogant jerks from up north in everything we do now (which may or may not make us now the arrogant jerks), it certainly was fun to watch scUM struggle immensely in the first half. Let's just review it like this: 0-11 from outside the arc, 0-for the field until 10 minutes had passed in the game with them scoring off of a goaltending call and 2 made free throws, and more turnovers than can be counted. At the half we lead 36-18 and never looked back, with the winning margin being the same. Oh yeah, and one of their players got thrown out for elbowing PJ Hill in the face late in the game, making M*ch*g*n that much more hatable! They really are scUM...

Also, since we scored over 70 points for the game they gave out coupons for free fries from McDonald's. Bonus! So technically we got paid to go to the game, since we all got in for free. I ended up with 4 coupons and another win of scUM. A night that couldn't get better.

It's 5:28 and M*ch*g*n still sucks! Pwned. Hah.

Tonight, and for the next two days I'm going to be at a track coaching clinic with college coaches from all over the US here in Columbus. I'm giddy. Seriously. I'm such a track junkie at this point that it isn't even funny. I'm sure I'll have some interesting things to write about, so stay tuned for some stories.

Spreading the love.

2009-01-27T17:20:00.000-05:00

So along with much of the rest of the nation after his ESPNU appearance, I have discovered the wonderfulness of the thoughts of Mark Titus. You may ask why this is relevant...well I love the Ohio State Buckeyes, right? We all know this. Well Mark is a walk-on on our beloved Buckeye basketball team, coached by the incredible Thad Matta.

And actually the statement starting this entry is incorrect, I knew about this before the ESPNU appearance...

Anyways, Mark has a blog that has started to gain an incredible amount of followers amongst the internet community, because his point of view and style of writing is unique and interesting. He talks about pranks pulled on teammates, random thoughts that occur during the course of a game while he is sitting at the end of the bench. He's pretty darn funny, and probably a more entertaining read than anything you'll ever find on my blog. My friend Jaclyn already wants to marry this guy, and may need to have a restraining order against her because within one day of me telling her about his blog she read ALL OF IT! It took her like four hours. Seriously.

The guy's good though, at blogging. In Pierce's words: winner winner chicken dinner.

www.clubtrillion.blogspot.com

Wisdom of G.

2009-01-27T10:10:00.000-05:00

Another thought from the weekend that has been oh so prevalent in my mind lately, is this one from the incredible Steve Gardner. On a side note, the introduction of Steve by Rick Scherr was one for the ages and one of the caliber that anyone and everyone would dream of. It was potentially though one of the most impossible to follow up as a speaker ever. Rick said that Steve had become known as the voice of truth within the mission of Young Life. Wow, I mean I believe it from knowing Steve for the last 8 years, but seriously? Across the mission? That's nuts.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming...

The thought that Steve brought to our attention was from the very beginning of the weekend and from the very beginning of his first talk. In fact, there's a a good chance that it wasn't even one that was very important to his talk and I know it definitely was not a main point that he built the talk around. However, it stuck out to me personally for reasons that I'm still wading through. Anyways, that thought was...

"Contrary to the world's view of maturity, becoming mature in Christ is not a process of becoming more independent but rather a process of becoming more dependent upon Christ."

How crazy is that and how contrary to the world is that? The truth there will blow your mind, and the accompanying thoughts will probably make your nose start bleeding. Think about it this way: when you talk to someone who is much older than yourself in Christ, that has been following Christ and seeking God's will for their life for a long time, this telling maturity factor really is quite evident, much more so than you would think. They depend upon God for everything: life, breath, money, food, love, grace guidance, everything. It's incredible and beautiful. This is where true freedom comes in, the freedom in Christ that we love to talk about and yet so often fail to grasp. Freedom doesn't come from being independent and making our own choices to follow our earthly desires, it comes from becoming completely and utterly dependent upon the Lord and following His desires for our life, the life that is actually His.

In the morning...

2009-01-25T22:22:00.000-05:00

Amazing weekend. Incredible. Wonderful. Christ.

This will be the first of many thoughts on this weekend as I continue to digest everything that I took notes on, experienced, talked about, and reveled in from Deer Creek @ Great Wolf. I want to start with a song first, that if you have ever listened to it know it's power. If you haven't, I suggest that you download it immediately...

"Give Me Jesus" ~ Jeremy Camp

In the morning, when I rise

Give me Jesus.

Give me Jesus,

Give me Jesus.

You can have all this world,

Just give me Jesus.

When I am alone,

Give me Jesus.

Give me Jesus,

Give me Jesus.

You can have all this world,

Just give me Jesus.

When I come to die,

Give me Jesus.

Give me Jesus,

Give me Jesus.

You can have all this world,

Just give me Jesus.

Give me Jesus,

Give me Jesus.

You can have all this world,

Just give me Jesus.

What a beautiful, wonderful song. A song of praise to the holy God who created us, loves us, sacrificed His son for us, and will be with us 'til the end.

The thought that has captivated my mind all of today and most of yesterday, was one made by Rick Scherr, area director of Northern Kentucky. In his seminar on lordship, he spoke about knowing the gospel story and how truly important that is. We must know and it intimately familiar with all of it, not just the 'nice' parts of it. However, taking it a step further, he talked about a concept that he refers to as: "last thought, first thought". What he means by this, is that you should make sure that the last thought that you think before falling asleep at night is focused on the gospel story. Then, when you wake up in the morning, not only do you make sure that you are thinking about the gospel story, but you read and re-familiarize yourself with the gospel story again to start your day.

Already this has significantly increased Christ's lordship in my life. I highly suggest giving it a try.

That's wassup.

2009-01-22T19:06:00.000-05:00

Alright party people, we've got a plethora of things to go over in this wonderful post. I'm almost as excited to write it as I am for you to read it! Hope you're ready...

1.) So I'm sitting at my favorite Caribou, here in wonderful and cozy Grandview with two of my very good friends Tiara and Dusty. Some of you may know these kind souls. Well currently Dusty is attempting to teach Tiara how to play Chess. A fascinating game of strategy and seemingly unpredictable outcomes but almost always resulting in a loss for me when I am playing. However when the pre-lim lesson seemed over, I asked Dusty as to whether or not Tiara was ready. She laughed; he responded with one of the greatest lines ever: "It doesn't matter if it's Albert Einstein teaching, if he's teaching Helen Keller. That's wassup."

Fact.

2.) This weekend we have Deer Creek at Great Wolf Lodge Weekend. With our new elongated title I feel like we should be sponsored by some company. Like my favorite bowl game of the year, the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl. Deer-Creek-at-Great-Wolf-Lodge-Young-Life-Buckeye-Region-Leader-Weekend-Sponsored-by-Temperpedic-Matresses-and-PokerAllStars.net. Yeah, that sounds good.

Either way, it's always a fantastic weekend of worship, amazing teaching (by none other than world the world famous Steve Gardner, who I'm pretty sure I'm gonna see on the next "G" commercial, whatever the crap that is, although can we also talk about how amazing of a marketing campaign it is? I can't wait to see what they are talking about!) and there is also of course the incredible fellowship and catching up with friends from other places. (including a significant amount of time to be spent with Mambo #5...) If you can't tell, I'm super duper excited for this time of usual expected growth. I'm sure I'll have all sorts of thoughts to throw your way when it's all said and done.

3.) God wants us to depend on him. For everything. For life, for breath, for sustenance, for everything. This is really freaking ridiculously hard, if you haven't noticed yet. For many months money has been a struggle for me, and continues to be. Now I'm finally working a bunch and making good money, but still feel the pressure that I'm not working enough, that I don't have enough money, and that I am constantly going to be behind the 8-ball when it comes to finances. However, I must take comfort and solace in Matthew 6, that I am much more valuable than the birds of the air and they don't reap or sow.

So there you go for a whole collection of ridiculously random thoughts. Take them in, chew them up, digest them, poop them out. Let me know what you think.

Ooo...Joanie loves Chachi!

2009-01-19T22:41:00.000-05:00

This weekend was pretty crazy; and I must apologize that I don't really have anything truly profound lately.

However, I did pwn on some middle school kids in dodgeball. That's right, it was straight Billy Madison style. A bunch of leaders chaperoned a middle school lock-in at the church that many leaders in Columbus attend, Heritage Christian Church in Westerville. There were about 260 or so of the little buggers running around like crazy and it truly was crazy and chaos and really just us walking around with our heads on a swivel so that we didn't get run over.

But the highlight of the night for me really was when the volunteers played the two teams who made the championship, and it was crazy. Tons of people on the court, tons of dodgeballs flying through the air, tons of kids going down on the other end of zinging throws. Somehow I ended up being the last man standing, not only on my own team of volunteers but also overall. Granted it was dominating middle school kids, but let's be serious, the volunteers had no choice BUT to win. And why shouldn't one of the oldest be the one to carry the flag?

Saturday was a great day because it saw Chris Welter get married. It was a great ceremony, a wicked fun reception filled with great dancing and amazing food, and just an overall incredible time with friends. It was truly great to see how happy Chris was on this day. I wish everyone could know Welter at all, because he truly is alive and the aroma of Christ is think around him. He somehow remembers all sorts of things about you and what's going on in your life, and really makes you feel valued, never missing an opportunity to do so. I had the opportunity to have some great conversations with old friends and really catch up with some folks as to what God has been doing in their lives.

So this is a bit late of a recap from this weekend, and I have more to write concerning things that have happened since then; but I shall save that for later tomorrow.

Frozen.

2009-01-16T09:31:00.000-05:00

It's cold here in Columbus. Really effing cold. Coldest I think I've ever experienced. Coldest I never want to experience again. Anyways, since most of you who are reading this are experiencing the same frigidness or perhaps worse, there's not a whole lot more I can say or want to say about this. Is it spring yet?

Moving on...this past weekend a great friend was in town, Robbie Meleney. He and I met and became close over our summer staff assignment at LC while both staying in Cabin Cuatro. Well we just had a great time hanging out with a bunch of my friends for dinner, 24, Mac's, breakfast, lunch, getting into the Horseshoe, and just talking about all sorts of things together. We had a great conversation at one point while driving around to one of these destinations about Jim Rayburn, as Robbie has been reading "Dance, Children, Dance". The one thing that we talked a pretty decent amount about was how much time Rayburn spent in prayer during his life. Towards the end we concluded that he spent between 3-4 hours on average of prayer a day. Now our figure could be grossly inflated as to fit in with the legend of Rayburn in minds like ours, but also the big thing is that whereas we spend time driving around in our own cars and have all sorts of radio, cd, ipod options; Rayburn traveled a lot by train and had nearly none of those options for his listening pleasure.

Thank God that he didn't. His intense time in prayer must be viewed as a direct reason for God's incredible blessing and watching over of Young Life. What would happen if any other believers prayed like this? Whether or not we are YL leaders, it doesn't matter for spending time interceding for people with the Father. If we pray like Jim Rayburn, if we pray like Martin Luther, if we pray like Billy Graham, what would happen to the world we live in? I know that I have challenged myself all this week to keep the radio off and the prayer on. It's been difficult for sure, but it's also been fun and I've prayed more this week than I have in a given week in a very long time. I would challenge you all to do the same. Let's not just talk about the power of prayer anymore as believers and followers of Christ, let's actually live the power of prayer. I know that I'm very excited to see where God takes me through this and what He will do through this.

Just call me "Jazz". It's pretty much my name...yeah.

2009-01-14T20:50:00.000-05:00

So I'm sitting here watching some American Idol with my roommate, a fairly regular occurrence. Well I mean, sitting and watching TV, not necessarily American Idol. However, I love it and it's hilarious. Sure it's a great time watching the really heart warming stories and also to be able to hear from the very beginning of the people who will eventually make it to the finals and to follow their story. Really though, let's just call a spade a spade here my friends...we all watch to see the people that just suck something awful. You know what I'm talking about..."We're brothers forevvveerrrrr..."

Seriously though, then they also showed the not so positive reactions of people after they were told in such eloquent language as Simon could put it (sarcasm font on there) that they were just not cut out for the musical performing side of life. What really got to me once again, and what gets to me every season...is that there is a pretty large and significant amount of people who try out that think they are truly the next American Idol. I feel bad for these people on one hand, because they don't have anyone in their lives that are willing to break the news to them that they really aren't that great. I'm mean sure, everyone dreams of breaking it big and having thousands upon thousands of people singing your songs and basically worshipping you. The money, the fame, the roadies; sounds good to me right? Also though, it hurts people that most have no idea what types of songs are good for their voices and sounds. They always try songs that aren't good in their range or are written for vocal freaks, of which they are not. At least not in the positive sense. Also, let's go ahead and say that if you feel the need to result to some gimmick to get Simon, Paula, Randy, and Kara's attention you probably know already that you aren't getting their attention with your voice; in you know, a singing competition.

Really though, it makes me even more grateful and thankful for the presence of Christ in my life. Through Him I know who I am, my identity is found and secured in Him and His life through me. I don't have to go grasping at straws like an American Idol audition to seek significance in my life. As followers of the living God we serve and live for an audience of One. How amazing it is and refreshing that we don't have to worry about those crazy things that never fulfill and always leave us lacking? There's so many things that this carries over into and so many other avenues of life that performing and living just for an audience of One will do for you. Freedom in Christ...I love it.

I will not be disqualified.

2009-01-13T14:36:00.000-05:00

So I must apologize, as lately I have been lacking and slacking on the posting front. It has been a crazy week or so, with moving into a new house that my roommate bought and trying to get that quite unsuccessfully organized. It's great to have all sorts of space now though, but Bailey freaks out all the time so we'll hope for a quick adjustment period for her.

In other news though, we have our first coaches meeting for Central Crossing Track & Field tomorrow, and then on Thursday our first informational meeting with kids after school. If you didn't know, this is my love affair of a sport for the past four years. I can't even believe that I am starting my fifth year of coaching T&F, but here I am. Also, I'm really excited at the prospect of being the head sprint coach this year and potentially the Assistant Head Coach of the program! This may not sound like anything crazy to any of you, but for me it is a step towards a hopeful goal of mine, which is to eventually be a head coach of a high school track program. I just can't imagine the amount of influence you could have on kids in a very long term way as the head coach of a sport like track. No other sport do you really train with the athletes, no other sport is both team and individually oriented, and no other sport is the perfect parallel to a life with Christ.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 - "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified to for the prize."

I mean seriously...how perfect of a verse is that? The parallels are incredible, as also if you continue it on to ministry you have the importance of finishing strong and ensuring a good and successful handoff of the baton to the next leg. That can work for the leadership of the team as well, from seniors down to juniors. There are just so many similarities and useful connections that go from coaching to making a disciple in the Lord.

So for these reasons and more I cannot wait for this meeting tomorrow. You wanna see me come alive? Ask me about track...

Another new love...

2009-01-08T01:03:00.000-05:00

So I must confess, I have a new love in my life... And it is playing board games. Hah. But seriously folks, I thoroughly enjoy playing board games, of any type really. I've always been a big competitor and my drive to win at anything I do is kind of...intense. As in, if left unchecked like it was when I was younger, it is a really bad thing. Board games though, allow for a quite healthy outlet for that. Who doesn't love a little bit of luck combined with an even less amount of skill that equates to somehow winning a competition that has absolutely zero real life consequences?

The great thing about board games though, is that for the most part they allow you to have a great conversation if you like, with a small group of people, but with a slight distraction so that things don't get too heavy or dry. Again, I love having life conversations with people and so this just increases my love of board games because of that factor.

So really, let's play a board game together sometime soon and talk about what Jesus is doing in our lives...oh yeah, and I'll beat you too. Hah.

"She never mentions the word addiction..."

2009-01-07T10:40:00.000-05:00

There may need to be some sort of organization like AA for people like me. Honestly. I am man enough to admit it though, heck I admitted it to a guy I just met last night!

I'm addicted to my blog. I love it. I love writing. I love hearing thoughts on my thoughts. I love having thoughts. I love having conversations with people that I know will lead to blog entries. I love having conversations.

So now that we have established that...

Last night I had a great conversations with friends about our generation verses the generation of our parents, and why we so openly admit life in the "real world". We agreed around the table that none of us liked the real world, and that there seems to be more and more people in our generation that want to be more mobile in their jobs, want to have more diversity in how they spend their time, and basically have the want and need almost to not be tied down or locked in to just one job. Basically it brings a whole new meaning to 'diversity' in the workplace. We talked about how culture has changed from when our parents were graduating college, or at least were our age, and how culture is now. It's definitely an interesting contrast.

Back then there were so many less options available to people, and not many people got to truly be what they wanted to be when they grew up. Heck, people didn't even know what options were available to them, whereas now we are told from when we are little that we can be whatever we want to be and we have so many options available to us and they all look so appealing. The thing about it all is that when it really comes down to it, we are so focused on the immediate and the now and the instant. We're all about instant gratification now, from our phones to our cars to our attitudes, to even our relationships with people.

It's a sad and crappy way to be, to be honest. I love challenging myself to be able to slow down and enjoy life, enjoy people, enjoy experiences. Try and do the same for yourself, you'll find it's worth it.

There's so many more thoughts to be discussed than can be talked about on here. Let's have a great conversation sometime about it, I would love it.

A kinda-sorta emptiness.

2009-01-06T11:23:00.000-05:00

Well, most of you if you read the title to this entry first (which you should), and if know even a little bit about me (which shouldn't be difficult), then you will have a pretty good idea what this post is about already. Go ahead, connect those dots...I'll give you a few seconds...

Ok. So last night was the final send-off for Malcolm Jenkins, James Laurinaitis, Brian Robiskie, Marcus Freeman, and a bunch of other Buckeye seniors as they closed out their careers in the same friggin' bowl we always go to, the Fiesta Bowl, against the "mighty" Texas Longhorns. We lost. 24-21. Texas scored their last touchdown with 16 seconds left on the clock and I sunk to the floor from where I was standing at my friend's apartment. Hands behind my head, jaw dropped to the ground, stomach in the apartment below us, and hopes pretty much dashed. That's when this kinda-sorta feeling started creeping in. The funny thing about this pose that I was in: you know, wide eyed, mouth gaping, sitting on the floor, speechless; was that was exactly the way I was sitting after we scored the go-ahead touchdown ourselves with a Boom Herron jaunt into the endzone that had followed a Todd Boeckman pass to Terrelle Pryor (gorgeous play) and my friends jumping around the room only minutes earlier.

Growing up, any loss for the Buckeyes meant that I was completely inconsolable for a good five days after the game, and the day immediately following the game I was ready to kill anyone that said a wrong word. However, I have fortunately moved past that as I've gotten older, matured, and let God mold me away from having my identity in sports and specifically Ohio State. Sure, I love the Buckeyes with everything in me, would cheer for them over any other team that I even like, and will always find time to watch OSU football games wherever I am in life and will force my family to do the same. However, it's only a game folks and how exactly would my life be any different today if we had won last night? I would still have to wait on the cable guy, still need to clean up the room I'm moving into and then make that move, still need to eat food and pay some bills. Sure maybe I would have had a slightly better demeanor today, but really I'm not in that bad of a mood at all, actually as I write this I'm just hungry.

When you take this senior class overall most people are going to remember the big game failures, fairly or unfairly. They went 43-8 overall, one of the highest winning percentages ever at OSU, their losses were all to teams who won a national championship that year, or played in a BCS bowl game by the end of the year. They won a ton of individual awards, too many to name here, went to 4 straight BCS bowls, won 4 straight Big Ten crowns, and most importantly in my book: beat M*ch*g*n four straight times and now 5 straight for those redshirt seniors. Nothing ever tops beating the Wolverines in my book, and nothing ever will. If we never win another national title but beat them every year then I will be the happiest man to ever walk God's green Earth.

So that is why it is a kinda-sorta emptiness. Sure would I have liked to win one of our last three BCS games? Of course! (the one I went to would've been nice) However I am more than grateful towards these seniors and what they were able to accomplish at OSU. They leave a great legacy for others to follow and improve on. Terrelle Pryor, Boom Herron, Mike Adams, Mike Brewster, DeVier Posey, JB Shugarts, Nathan Williams, Etienne Sabino, Thad Gibson, and friends will take this team to new heights. Let's see, better book my plane ticket to Pasadena now, since that's where the National Championship is gonna be next year...you would be wise to come with me.

In Tressel We Trust.

My future is Secure.

2009-01-02T23:31:00.000-05:00

So I am on the tail end of the longest text message conversation I've ever had, and even as I write this sentence it continues. The other end of the conversation is none other than JJ Einsfeld, who is wise beyond his years and really just an incredible man. If you don't know him, get to know him; I demand it.

Anyways, we got on this topic of how people in this world, even Christians, focus so much on setting up their lives in a safe and secure way so that they can retire comfortably, have a comfortable house, comfortable vacations, comfortable possessions, pretty much make our comfort the premier controlling force in our lives. Basically it's worrying too much about tomorrow and not living in today. Christ even warns us about this in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:34: "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Another of God's promises from Jeremiah, which is a favorite verse of many says: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." So there we even have God going a step further to say, not only are you not to worry about tomorrow and your future, but I will personally take the care to make sure that you have a future and that I will not harm you and will even bless you!

Here though are the verbatim text messages from JJ, because I want to share with the world his wisdom...

- Yeah it's pretty exciting to know God is going to send me somewhere He wants me to be

- My mindset is so different. (because of not worrying about tomorrow) I am not scared of the future or what will happen to me because I know God is in control

- Yeah I feel like people live their lives planning for the future so they can retire happily. Man, we are robbing ourselves if we do that. Live now!

- Yeah! I have been wasting my life. My life and relationship with Christ is about right now, today.

- It will change your life. (speaking on shifting your focus) Your struggles are easier to battle, you love more, and you ultimately submit your life to Jesus and experience God more

- When Jesus woke up and it was Tuesday, he didn't think to himself, "Ya know what, I don't many fun things planned today...but I'm excited for Saturday!"

- Today is the best and most important day of your life. We waste our lives looking ahead or behind

- I firmly believe its a tactic used by the evil one and its pretty effective

- I just want to tell everyone. We are all being deceived

So check out that wisdom, make some of your own. It's a fantastic observation though, and worth much self searching in terms of how we live our own lives according to the faith and comfort that we take in the two passages above. Check out the blog of my friends the Spruills. Kevin speaks a lot about trusting in God to provide and this is the same concept; you won't be disappointed in reading his thoughts.

The great thing about it though, is that it holds true to any of us! God loves His children and yearns to care for them and to have them experience His love...let yourself experience His love in this hu-massive area of life!

My future is secure; and so is yours.

2009?

2009-01-02T00:59:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year to all my readers out there, whoever you may be!

Right off the bat I'm gonna apologize for the short and somewhat not great nature of this post. That's probably some unwritten no-no somewhere in the laws of internet blogging about shooting yourself in the foot before you start, but who cares? Anyways, you all know that I have a pretty decent amount to say about stuff, but today/tonight is just not one of those times. I feel somewhat obligated to post something about a new year, new hope, and resolutions though.

A New Hope - not Star Wars episode IV, but the rolling of the calendar always seems to bring hope to peoples' lives, that they will miraculously lose a ton of weight, stop smoking, stop drinking, stop doing something, start doing something, and generally change their existence in a radical and better way. What happens along the way? We all fall short of those lofty goals placed at the beginning of the year. I'm not sure I know one person that has ever succeeded in carrying through those goals for the year, ever. So I think the key to this, and I say this somewhat lightly given the previous sentence, is to not put too much pressure on yourself concerning these resolutions at the beginning of January. If you fail one day, you fail one day; but each day is independent and you can make the right choice the next day. Ok enough of this, because even as I'm writing it I know that you can read this all over Yahoo or some other site that evenly dispenses news, advice, email, and fantasy football.

As for me, I actually am excited for this next year. 2007 sucked for the most part, 2008 was amazing for the most part. God moved in incredible ways in my life this past year and I'm excited to see in what ways He is going to move me next. What hopes do you have for 2009? I'd love to hear them if you don't mind sharing them...

Dave Reed Bowls Harder Than You.

2008-12-30T01:23:00.000-05:00

So tonight was just an overall great night. Cancel that, great day. I spent the early part of the day up in the quaint village of Granville with one of my good friends, visited with her great aunt and uncle (who are loaded), drinking coffee, and perusing a small book store.

Back to tonight though, and the main event: Guys night. Ish. For dinner Jacob, Slemmer, Pierce, Brad, Tyler and myself headed to Fabian's which is an awesome pizza joint serving up some deep dish delights. We had some coach pops and a whole lot of laughs, during which it was easily decided that Jacob has absolutely no future as a hostage negotiator. Whichever way you slice it though, I love these guys and their friendship and brotherhood has meant more than all the gold in Fort Knox to me and my walk with Christ. Fellowship like this cannot be taken for granted.

After this wonderful dinner and hilarity, we all headed over to the local bowling establish for more merriment and coach pops. Other friends met us there, and unfortunately this is where the guys night ended, however very fortunately the fellowship of the guys didn't end there. While ladies showed up, the guys kept things rolling and really I don't think I've laughed that hard in one night consistently for a very long time.

It made me really think the whole night about one thing though: why am I so eager to move? Obviously I am anxious to work full time for Young Life, as this has been a dream and calling for some time in my life. Most all of you know that I have always then cherished the state of Virginia, even before I wanted to work for YL. However, all of you also know how much I absolutely love and am loyal to my close friends. A recent friend of mine from Florida wants to go on YL staff and was convinced that she needed to leave the state. She also has a group of girls that she is ridiculously close with, and because of that decided to stay in the state to go on staff. An interesting thought.

So I'm just tossing some stuff back and forth in my head, praying a lot now, and will be spending a lot of time seeking God's presence.

Oh yeah, and Dave "Mother Effin", "Shifty Eyes", "Silent Coyote" "It's his world, we're all just living in it" Reed does bowl harder than you. The man-beast bowled at 26.2 miles per hour. Therefore he is the faster marathoner in the world as well. Amazing.

Rubbish.

2008-12-29T15:21:00.000-05:00

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."

So I was reading again in that Piper guy's book (When I Don't Desire God) just now about how we should desire to know Christ in such a way, that everything else including prestige, power, money, all of that should be things that we allow to fall to the wayside because we desire so badly to follow Christ. It's some pretty powerful stuff. Again, another post convicting me of a spiritual attitude and approach to life. I love it, honestly.

In light of the thoughts I had concerning Christmas and the birth of renewed Hope, how does this make me feel? It's an interesting question given Christmas and the tradition of giving gifts. Sure I want cool stuff and this is the time of the year that most of us are guaranteed to get some cool "stuff", but isn't it just that? Stuff? Do any of us really need more stuff in our lives? Do any of us actually and truly desire more stuff? Or is the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ and sharing in the persecution and therefore the resurrection what we truly desire? I know the right answer to this question, but I can't say I always live it...

Oswald Chambers will blow your mind.

2008-12-27T11:23:00.000-05:00

I occasionally dip into the musings of Mr. Chambers in "My Utmost for His Highest" and I am nearly almost blown away by what he says. I'm sure most of you that read him are as well. This one in particular though I just loved and had to share with you all. It's from today...

"Where the Battle is Won or Lost"

Our battles are first won or lost in the secret places of our will in God's presence, never in full view of the world. The Spirit of God seizes me and I am compelled to get alone with God and fight the battle before Him. Until I do this, I will lose every time. The battle may take one minute or one year, but that will depend on me, not God. However long it takes, I must wrestle with it alone before God, and I must resolve to go through the hell of renunciation or rejection before Him. Nothing has any power over someone who has fought the battle before God and won there.

I should never say, "I will wait until I get into difficult circumstances and then I'll put God to the test." Trying to do that will not work. I must first get the issue settled between God and myself in the secret places of my soul, where no one else can interfere. Then I can go ahead, knowing with certainty that the battle is won. Lose it there, and calamity, disaster, and defeat before the world are as sure as the laws of God. The reason the battle is lost is that I fight it first in the external world. Get alone with God, do battle before Him, and settle the matter once and for all.

In dealing with other people, our stance should always be to drive them toward making a decision of their will. That is how surrendering to God begins. Not often, but every once in a while, God brings us to a major turning point - a great crossroads in our life. From that point we either go toward a more and more slow, lazy, useless Christian life, or we become more and more on fire, giving our utmost for His highest - our best for His glory.

I don't know about y'all, but I know that I want to be more and more on fire for God, not more and more lazy in my walk. Like I alluded to in a previous post, the end of the year often brings reminiscing from people, and then the hope of something new. Maybe some of you are facing a crossroads like it talked about here. Perhaps you've already started to get more and more lazy in your walk. Either way, I know I will, but get yourself in front of God, fight whatever battle you may have, then take love into the world. Certainly I don't want to experience calamity, disaster, and defeat...that sounds horrible. I'm gonna go be alone before God.

Love Come Down.

2008-12-26T01:29:00.000-05:00

So today (yesterday) was Christmas Day, a day of great food, decent to great company and family, and full of hope.

Here's a brief rundown of my Christmas-time activities this year:

24 - I traveled to meet my parents at my brother and family's house in Rossburg, Ohio after getting off work. It was a long drive, but more than worth seeing my little niece and nephews. Although they are all getting older, so little isn't quite the right term when the sophomore (Teage) is taller than me. After I got to experience a brief time of joy with them, my parents and I had to head home for church. It was great, as it always is, and the pastor, Bob Wade delivered his usual top-notch message. (hopefully this weekend I'll spend some time writing about this...) Then later that night I headed out to Southbrook for the late night service with one of my best friends and his little brother and we met up with old friends as we always do. It was quite joyous.

25 - Chill. Slept in. Opened stockings. Ate breakfast. Opened presents. Chilled out. Went to see Marley and Me with my parents, and it was surprisingly good. Ate dinner. Played cards, which my Dad proceeded to cheat at to win. This sets a disturbing trend, because he was apparently accused of trickery at my brother's house when they were all playing some trivia game before I arrived. Watched Transformers. Had a wonderful phone conversation with "Mambo #5", who never fails to bring joy into my life; I truly am blessed to have her in my life, as are many others.

The issue at hand though, that is so amazing about this time when people are constantly battling "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Holidays" or "Seasons Greetings", (Merry Christmas would be the correct phrase...) is that the Reason for the Season truly is one of hope. It is of the only hope that we as humans have for true life. I know that if you are a follower of Christ this is such a simple and elementary topic, but how beautiful is it in its simplicity? Our faith is centered on a God who became vulnerable. Our God is one of overflowing love and abundant sacrifice. Raise your hand if you think this life as a human being on the Earth is easy... I bet none of you did. The God that I love, worship, and give my life to, He came down because He loved me and you enough to jump into this life of crap. Love Came Down. He is merely extending His hand out to us through this act...He boldly stepped into a place where no other "god" would think of going or could bring himself to go. Because Jesus loved us that much He came down in love to allow us to be in a relationship with Him, and to free us from the crap of this life.

"Have you ever dreamed of being free..." That's how the song "Love Come Down" by The War starts. I couldn't think of a better song or cry on this night. This time of year is when we celebrate the love coming down from Heaven to Earth and dwelling among us. Ask yourself if you have ever dreamed of being free...and then answer it honestly. If you have, now is a perfect time to grab the extended hand of God as we mark when He came down in love and to express His love to us. I did, almost ten years ago now, and everyday feel more and more free.

This time of year may not always be the best of times for everyone; maybe there are painful memories of loss, current grief, current horrible situations that just should not be, or perhaps just intense loneliness. But if any of us, in whatever great or horrible situation we are in, can focus on Love Coming Down, we will find this time immeasurably richer and we will find ourselves not just dreaming of being free...but being free indeed.

Thank you, tiny infant Jesus with your golden fleece diapers; 8 pounds 6 ounces, reading your Baby Einstein book; still omnipotent.

Thank you God, for Love Come Down on that Holy night, that silent night.

Happenings.

2008-12-24T00:52:00.001-05:00

So lately, life has got me thinking. I alluded to this in a previous post which had some specifics in it, but I also think that it's natural and innate (but obviously also pushed by the media) to look back at the previous year and even our lives as any year comes to a close. I suppose it's as good a time as any other to reflect back and work to change the future in our lives.

Well in the past couple days I have been feeling that pull even more as a couple of things have started to come together, including the whole end of the year mentality, that make me really evaluate things. For one I'm in a very exciting stage of life still where I have these two temporary jobs, but also am anticipating the future and a highly potential move out of state. Working for Young Life is a long awaited dream, goal, and calling of my mine and with all that has happened in the past couple years, the place where I am facing is really exciting.

The other major happenstance in my life is more happenings in the lives of others. Within the last month, four couples now that I have been close with in my life have gotten engaged. Now don't get me wrong, I am obviously ridiculously happy and thrilled for these dear friends of mine. However, all but one of the 8 people are younger than I am; 3 haven't even graduated college yet! Now I'm not going to make this a post about poor unfortunate single me; not at all would I dream of doing that. I just want to point out that situations like this make one think... One of the couples involves a guy who had been my very best friend for most all of high school as well as college, until the last year and a half or so when our schedules just drifted apart to my disappointment. To my disappointment, I didn't know about his impending engagement but it would be in his nature to not tell anyone except his brother so I'm not going to get too bent out of shape, as I spoke with another of our best friends from high school a mere hours before this happened and he mentioned nothing of it. Again though, I couldn't be happier for him.

All of this makes me both simultaneously think of myself as old and yet not ready for life. I still feel like I'm in a holding pattern because I have two part time jobs while I "wait" for Young Life to come around. I feel like I'm in a holding pattern because I haven't been able to branch out from the YL group of friends here in Columbus nearly as much as I would have liked to. I feel like I'm in a holding pattern because I'm single. I feel like I'm in a holding pattern while everyone has all these fantastic happenings around me.

Maybe someone that actually reads this could shoot me some scripture for encouragement...yeah, that would be nice.

Collections of thoughts

2008-12-20T17:42:00.000-05:00

So lately I've had a bunch of different and really cool conversations and moments of revelation with friends...and each time I've said to myself: "Man, I should really blog about this..." The really great thing about all of these occurrences is that they all are focused around Christ and following God and how we should act and love as His followers.

One of the first ones was with my good friend BRose, and it was both profound and poignant, but overall really good. We were talking about how even as followers of Christ we do such a horrible job at taming our tongues, even though the Bible talks at great length about both the positives and negatives of such action. It's really convicting if you take a day and consciously pay attention to what both you and others around you say towards one another, especially towards other believers! We agreed that as believers we are supposed to be encouraging and uplifting towards one another, and looking for ways in our conversation to edify Christ. However that obviously doesn't always happen...although it's funny because we all know how great it feels to be uplifted by words from friends. Why wouldn't we just do this constantly then? It would be like a crazy flow of endorphins and we'd all always be happy! Haha but I kid, sorta.

Think about it though...what if we all really tried to watch what we said and made sure that the old childhood axiom of: "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" became how we actually did live?!

Momentum...

2008-12-16T20:17:00.000-05:00

So I noticed that these blog things definitely go as swings of a pendulum of a grandfather clock. The people who don't experience this are the ones that seem to be the sports or political blogs that feel the need to post everyday. I'm not gonna touch on that subject, but they are interesting aren't they?

Anyways, if you read me "regularly" then you'll know that I don't post everyday, and that my subjects are all over the map. Many other friends that I know post in similar fashion and it got me to thinking about why. I know for two friends in particular, my little blog of nothing apparently spawned blogs of their own. Both I was ridiculously excited about because they far surpass me in html ability and the appearance of their blogs was right up there with very well designed websites. However they have also fallen by the wayside after promising starts. Momentum. Even the friend I was inspired by to start this, Mambo #5, goes through times of momentum; multiple posts followed up by spurts of nothing.

I wonder why all of us have consistency issues...is it back and forth boredom and excitement? Is it pure busyness of life? I'm not entirely certain. Although any of you that know me, know that I'm a rather particular guy, and there have been more than a couple times that I didn't post because I couldn't think of a sufficient title for the post. Yup, that's me.

Jigga what?

2008-12-13T16:36:00.001-05:00

Ok so this isn't the most profound post that you'll ever see...but it is crucial to you getting a glimpse into my life.

Here's a rough picture of me before last night. Yup, super crazy out of control hair.

Now here's a picture of me after last night. Wowzas. I have NO HAIR!

You may ask yourself, "Gee Chad, what's the big deal? Don't you have short hair sometimes?" The answer to that of course is yes, sometimes my hair is short. The thing is, this is ridiculously shorter than I have ever cut my hair. Usually I use a 3 guard, and my buddy was all set with that and almost done. He decided to work a little bit more and the razor, ummm, slipped; taking a chunk of hair with it. Faced with the only possibility, I had to cut it down to almost nothing. Really, this picture does my lack of hair little justice as well. It's nuts, and also, it's wicked cold outside and so is my head now. Brrrr.

John Piper is a smart man.

2008-12-09T16:25:00.000-05:00

Yo party people.

John Piper is indeed a very wise man, and one who knows the heart of God intimately; yet probably not nearly the level of Moses or David or any of the other saints. But gosh dang, this guy just melts your face off every time you hear or read something from him.

Case in point: I just started reading "When I Don't Desire God" by Piper not three days ago, and am only on the second actual page of the book (the forward doesn't really count, like a middle school girlfriend or boyfriend: not an actual relationship) and Piper has already melted my face. For your reading pleasure, since I haven't heard of this book being read much at all (in fact no one that I know has read it...) this snippet.

"Now there was only one hope, the sovereign grace of God. God would have to transform my heart to do what a heart cannot make itself do, namely, want what it ought to want. Only God can make the depraved heart desire God. Once when Jesus' disciples wondered about the salvation of a man who desired money more than God, he said to them, "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God" (Mark 10:27). Pursuing what we want is possible. It is easy. It is a pleasant kind of freedom. But the only freedom that lasts is pursuing what we want when we want what we ought."

Check out that last sentence, chew it up, mull it over, let is wash over you, other overused 'thinking' sentences...let me know some thoughts. Talk it over with friends.

Fight the team...

2008-12-08T16:17:00.000-05:00

...across the field, show Arizona that Ohio State's back!

Haha, well for those of you that read this you know that sports are a ridiculously large part of my life, and specifically Ohio State sports. I would be completely remiss if I had this blog about me and my life and didn't include my thoughts on sports of all sorts.

We'll start off this wonderful post with just a bit of musings on Ohio State football, my unhealthy obsession. The Bucks started the season with a lot of promise, a bunch of returning seniors who could have gone to the NFL, and a favorable schedule. Remind anyone of anything, say 2007 University of Michigan football? Yeah, the similarities stop right there as we didn't lose to our 1-AA opponent, and beat down our archrivals. We obviously finished a fantastic 10-2 by almost anyone's standards, except that here in Columbus our football team we are anything but just anyone and so most folks would view this as largely a disappointing season with the exception of blasting the crap out of TSUN. 42-7, and I wanted more. Oh well, it's not like they're gonna get any better for next year.

We drew a pretty darn good matchup in the Fiesta Bowl, where Columbus goes to 'winter' every year. Should be good, with their top tier offense going against a defense better than an all star team of their schedule's defenses. Then we have our still constantly evolving offense going up against the one team that actually even attempted to play defense in the Big 12.

We open as 8.5 point underdogs, and as it's been widely speculated probably all the Big Televen teams will be underdogs in their matchups. Knee jerk prediction? Bucks win a close game, prob 31-27; the conference goes 5-2 overall.

More thoughts on all this sometime later...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

2008-12-07T21:22:00.000-05:00

So I must admit, I obviously have been a bit lackadaisical in posting this weekend and I do apologize for that. A few of you have called me out on that, and I thank you for doing so actually...I hope that you all and others continue to enjoy perusing my thoughts on my life and other things.

Lately, I've been down a bit in terms of connecting with Christ on a day to day, and moment to moment basis. Of course then in struggling through that, trying everyday to take my thoughts captive for the Lord, attempting to spend more time in prayer throughout my day, only with struggles like this would me having to lead a Campaigners come up! It would be very easy to have skated by, lead on the next chapter of John, and just slide by. However, in praying through and thinking through what I thought God wanted our kids to hear, and what I thought was something that perhaps they needed to hear I kept coming back to one thought: what did I need to hear from the Lord?

As it turned out, both matched up because I was feeling at a point where I just had to get back to the basics and the foundations of my own faith. The conversation all night was definitely lead by the Lord, even from how kids responded to how their past week was. The basic premise tonight was to start with John 10:10 and talk about life, where we all look for it, what others look for, what happens when they don't find fulfilling and lasting life where they look, and then what comprises 'life to the full'. Then we spend a bit of time talking about what 'joy' is, how there's a difference between joy and happiness, and then what joy does for you. After that we delved into the beginning of John 15, and brought that around to how we are able to sustain joy and how we continue to live life to the full: remain. We must remain in Jesus Christ in order to experience life to the full and to have our joy made complete because of the love of Christ.

Think about all that for a second...and how much easier could it be to understand? If we don't stay connected to the Source of true life, then we will be cut off and thrown in the fire. That doesn't sound pleasant; but the rest of the passage is awesome if you really dig deep! I love the fact as well that it uses the word 'remain' so many times and really forces you to grasp the concept of abiding in Christ's presence and His love.

In the end, dang it was amazing of me to be able to study that myself in preparation for talking young believers through it. It's truly great and wondrous the ways that God will answer prayers sometimes. On the same hand, one must be able to appreciate the valleys and the perseverance that is developed in times like these.

"Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him" ~ James 1:12

Horrible at titles...

2008-12-03T17:28:00.000-05:00

Hey hey hey...so I am finally getting into a groove in my two news jobs, and then the past two weeks Macy's has called and said they didn't need me some days. Which is semi fine and semi horrible. It's fine because when I get there I have to get there at 6am, and that's just wicked early. It's horrible because gosh darn it, I need to pay rent and such!

Really though, this is just another fun little example of me needing to trust in the Lord with all that I have, that He will take care of me. Am I not more valuable than the sparrow that falls to the ground under His will? Also, there is the fantastic scripture from Jeremiah 29, where God tells Jeremiah that he shouldn't worry because God knows His own plans for Jeremiah and that those plans are for a future and a hope and not for ruin.

It's interesting, when I graduated and had a steady job at Zuppa, I thought that life was going to be much easier and less hectic. That in turn probably lead to an attitude of progressively less reliance on God to supply my needs in my life. So I suppose the backwardsly fun thing about not quite getting the hours I need at either job yet is leading me back to a place of utter reliance upon God to meet all my needs in Christ Jesus. That my friends is the place that we should live our lives, and the place that finds us truly connecting with God; it's not in the places or times that we find ourselves able to take any credit or glory, but the places where the only thing we can do is lift our hearts and voices in worship to God the Father.

"You keep in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock." ~ Isaiah 26:3-4

La musica...

2008-12-02T12:28:00.001-05:00

I have no idea how many people read this blog right now, but if you do I'm about to put up a little music player. For the most part it will obviously have songs that I like, and that perhaps say a little something about me...(figure that out when you see the list)

However, I have much love for my readers and so I would like to reflect a bit of their style. So if you read this smorgasbord of schtuff and would like a track played on your behalf, leave a comment with a suggestion...

Pierce is in love with another man's wife.

2008-11-30T22:38:00.000-05:00

So I actually got chastised for not posting yet today earlier while I was eating dinner...crazy. Mambo...you better watch yourself.

Let me just talk about last night; last night was incredible. Last night freaking ruled. Last night was how things should be. Last night I got the opportunity to hang out with almost all of my group of close friends from college. We were only missing a couple, but were fortunate to have a couple added to the group as well. It's just so good to reconnect with the people that you went into battle with for many years of your life, and the people that you really connected with on so many levels. These are the people who's weddings we have all been in, will be in, and have gone to and will go to. Heck, we even marry each other. Anyways, it was like we had never been separated and we all just picked up where we left off, and the new people transitioned in quite smoothly, which is even more encouraging because it shows that our group love is founded on Christ alone and therefore it is inviting and attractive to others.

I had a great little side conversation with one of my very best friends among the group, Ashley, and she brought up a conversation that she had had with one of the Julia's (of which I don't remember...dang it) that centered on how great our ingroup fellowship was. The topic discussed then in both convos was both serious and joking, but centered around how much we all love being around each other and how great our effect on others is when we are together. Ashley and I openly wondered if we should all just live in the same town, city, or big house together. Let me take a second and explain "big house" to you all...it was this "genius" idea I had a couple years ago for us all to marry each other, and live in this ridiculously large house that would be more of a compound. Each family would have their own "wing" or "unit" that would be privately theirs, but then there would also be a large common area that could be used by all. In this fantastic scenario, all our kids would be able to hang out and group up together, and then they could get married too and it would just be sweet. Well suffice to say, that really hasn't happened.

What has happened though, has been incredible in its own right. God is just good. We have multiple friends up in the Connecticut and New York area on staff with Young Life, some teaching and also working for YL in the Annapolis area, a large contingent in the Charlotte area on staff with YL and also working, and then obviously still a very large chunk left here in Columbus which ironically includes no one on staff. That's just the really cool breakdown, but the larger thing that the Julia pointed out, was that it is awesome how God is using our group of friends to have a great impact on His kingdom by us being spread out all over the United States. It's exciting to talk to people more, of the ones who are still in Columbus especially, because there are ones amongst us that are not planning on staying here for the long run and continuing the spreading of the kingdom and His word and love.

Granted, this will only continue to absolutely destroy the "Big House" plan. Dang it.

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." ~ Matthew 28:19-20

I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus x12

2008-11-28T23:28:00.000-05:00

So I just got done working my first "Black Friday" ever...and it was crazy. Ridiculous crazy. Masses of people, all of them just interested in getting the best deal for something for someone...hopefully that something for that someone ends up being useful and liked. However if it's the thought that counts, what does that say when you are skimping money to get that something for that someone? I kid of course, but it makes you think a little bit doesn't it...

The other observation from this ridiculous day, is that I have now heard the song "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" about 12 times. I never want to hear that song again in my life. Now I had a friend tell me that her personal mission is to make sure that I don't lose my Christmas spirit or something like that...whatever that means. So to be honest I sure hope that she succeeds, and beyond that I sure hope that she doesn't even have to succeed. But this rampant materialism/consumerism and incessant pounding of horrible Christmas music into my ears isn't going to help.

I wish I had some more entertaining and thorough thoughts today, but I'm just wiped out right now and am even incredulous that I'm still awake right now... So I'll say goodnight, and please come back...I think I have some good thoughts and musings brewing...

Turkey lurkey dee...

2008-11-27T13:34:00.001-05:00

Oh snap I love Thanksgiving! Hopefully you do too, because when else is it socially acceptable to completely gorge yourself to the point of digestion induced sleep while horrible football is played?! Ok, so I know, we live in America and the previous statement could just be the motto of our beloved country during the fall... Then this gets me thinking even more recently, as I have thankfully just started two jobs and am no longer a societal mooch, but one of those jobs is doing stock at Macy's. It hit me like a ton of bricks the first day I was working, as it was one of their famed One Day Sales, just the rampant consumerism and over spending of money that infects our society. As I sat there continually refilling socks for hours, it really made me begin to reevaluate how I act as a consumer these days. What better ways could I serve Christ with my money than buying myself stuff...?

Really though, I have so much to be thankful for today, and lately I've also been reflecting a larger amount of things in my life and finding myself being very thankful all the time for things. Now of course in my way am I as appreciative I would like to be about things and people in my life, but I'm getting there.

First and foremost, I am thankful for the great I Am, and the fact that I can have a living and vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ, and that He is constantly pursuing me and seeking to be the Lord of my life. I am thankful for my family, and wish that we were able to share life more together. I am quite thankful for Young Life, and all that is going on at Central Crossing HS amongst those kids and parents. I am thankful for so many little things that I cannot even begin to list on here, but I challenge anyone who reads this to really take a critical look at the amazing amount of blessings in our lives and truly ask God for a spirit of humbleness and thankfulness about this life we live...

This morning was incredible. Got to see some of my brothers and sisters from Summer Staff this past July at Lake Champion, and anytime I see anyone from that month it's the same...it's like we've never left each other, and it's like we are truly meant to be together. The fellowship was incredible, the fellowship was real. Seek that for your own life...

Happy Thanksgiving.

"He who did not spare His own Son, but gave him up for us all - how we he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" ~ Romans 8:32

Thankful.

2008-11-26T14:38:00.000-05:00

Hey hey there...everybody?

So right now I have no idea who is going to end up reading this, other than one friend who reintroduced a love of blogging to me...so much thanks Mambo #5, you know who you are. Haha. Thanks.

I used to have a little livejournal that I did a few years back that got some good feedback, but then I was in it for the feedback, and now I really don't feel like I need that. For that maturation process in my life, I am thankful. Really though, I think through this I would love to get thoughts out there on things in this life; and that could encompass so many different things right now in my own journey. Hopefully this will primarily be both a place to read about what's going on in my own life as a form of catching friends and family up, as well as sharing the incredible things that God is doing in my own life and the lives of others that I am around. Of course then, it wouldn't be me if this also didn't include some commentaries and thoughts on the world of sports...

It will be quite interesting to see how this whole thing develops and matures if I can hopefully keep this up for some time...

There will be more to come today even I'm sure, as I head home for what will be right around 24 hours for Thanksgiving with my family. So I'm sure that even on the drive to Kettering and the little bit of time that I'll be there I'll have some interesting thoughts and reflections.

Until next time...