zen micro

So yesterday I ordered my very own Zen Micro 5GB. I am pretty excited about this purchase. I'm looking for an adapter so I can play it with radio in my car. That way wherever I go I can listen to what I want to. It's been a long time I've been wanting something like this, and I'm happy I shopped around a bit for the Micro. It has some nifty little features that the ipod lacks, like a voice recorder, and an FM tuner/recorder. I will probably use those things rarely, but the very fact that I CAN is really cool to me. I'm switching to using Windows Media Player on my computer instead of iTunes, because I don't want to deal with the headache of AAC files and all that. As it turns out, WMP isn't half bad and I'm enjoying it so far. The Micro should show up at my doorstep tomorrow, and I am really stoked about it.

I had no idea that Reese Roper, of Five Iron Frenzy fame, is part of a new band named Roper. I'm listening to them right now for the first time - and I think I like it. It's rocky-punky, but thankfully doesn't sound like every other rock/pop/punk band out there right now. Reese can write catchy hooks and whatnot, and I can usually identify with his lyrics. Anyway I'm enjoying the album, "Brace Yourself for the Mediocre." Cool cover of "Still the One" on the CD too.

Picked up two books at Half-Price Books last week, for a combined total of ten bucks. They were having a sale, something I didn't know places that were already really cheap did. I got The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton's autobiography, and No Man Is an Island, which is a collection of his essays on various things. I've heard a fair bit about Merton and how his books are great, so I'm looking forward to reading them. A quote from him...

"Without a life of the spirit, our whole existence becomes unsubstantial and illusory. The life of the spirit, by integrating us in the real order established by God, puts us in the fullest possible contact with reality - not as we imagine it, but as it really is."

I've got a little backlog of books now...no more purchases till I read these.

the holy observer

Funny satirical Christian newspaper, a la the Onion. Man, it needs to be updated!

pearl drink

Yesterday I had a pearl drink (or bubble drink to some) for the first time. I went the easy route and got "chocolate milk tea" with tapioca bubbles in it. It was actually pretty tasty, and the chocolate had a hint of cinnamon to it. I also wasn't grossed out by these tapioca pearls flying up through the straw into my mouth when I tried to drink. Janelle got Honeydew Melon flavor. I think I will be partaking of these drinks more in the future.

eugene peterson on spirituality

I'm reading this article as I prepare for this weekend...thought you might find it interesting...

Link

peet's coffee tastes good

Right now I'm working on my sermon for this weekend - I'm preaching at the Crossroads weekend services on "The Spiritual Side of Marriage." I just wanted to share something real quick - I'm drinking a cup of Peet's coffee, and it's hella good. I wish the cup would never end. I'm almost afraid to drink more of it because then it'll run out.

follow the rabbi

If you're interested in understanding a bit more about Jesus and the Jewish roots/history/context of the Christian faith, check out the site linked above. I've been poking around it a bit and it's pretty interesting stuff.

harvey carey

I'm not sure if you've heard of Harvey Carey - I never had before this weekend - but he spoke at the morning session and I enjoyed him. He was more inspirational than meaty I'd say - but he talked a lot about what it would really mean for us to believe what the Bible said, and live that out. Nothing I hadn't heard before, but a good reminder.

He's a black pastor in Detroit - and he told some really funny stories about experiences he had. He told one about going into a church that had recently voted that black people were actually children of God and his experience with an old lady there. I briefly considered whether or not I would be able to share this story in one of my future pulpit ventures - but I pretty quickly decided the story wouldn't be funny coming from somebody as whitebread as me. It would actually be sorta weird and inappropriate. Oh well.

In other news, I'm very excited to eat a beef sandwich today. I haven't yet been able to partake of one since I showed up here, so I'm practically drooling right now as I think of Portillo's. Oh yeah, and I stopped by a Dunkin Donuts on the way here today, and they actually do have good coffee. I would probably go there for coffee if they had one in Fremont. Of course the place also has the intoxicatingly wonderful aroma of donuts...but I'd probably be able to make it out with just a coffee.

ray vanderlaan

This guy spoke yesterday at the conference, but I was unable to post up anything with relation to what he said. I wanted to mention a few of the things he mentioned. This guy was like a total expert on Jewish culture and history and all that stuff. That's something I'm really interested in learning more about, considering the fact that the Bible comes out of a Jewish tradition.

Ray talked a lot about how being the disciple of a rabbi was (and is) a huge deal. That if you are someone's disciple (aka talmudin) that you have an intense passion to be just like the rabbi - to be what the rabbi is. You have to be consumed with a fire in your heart to walk as the rabbi walked. And as (at least a wannabe) disciple of Christ, my focus must be to become more like Jesus, my rabbi. I should be able to say, as the apostle Paul did, "follow Christ as I follow Christ," not in an arrogant way, but just because I am so consumed with the desire to follow Christ that I take it really seriously and work hard at it. I also didn't know that to hear the Great COmmission, the disciples had to walk 110 miles north from Jerusalem to Galilee...and then all the way back 110 miles to Jerusalem to witness Jesus' ascension into heaven. This belies a huge amount of dedication and commitment - and that's something I want to be a hallmark of my walk with Christ. I want to be fully dedicated to Him, to living in the way of Jesus. And so badly I want people who spend time around me to see that and have a desire to follow Jesus more closely (or at all) because of the fire they see in my heart. So good for Ray, I enjoyed what he said.

The sessions since then haven't been quite as inspiring or as interesting, so I'll spare you any notes from those. In about a half-hour we're going to start up with the breakout session, so I'll be sure to let you know how those go.

erwin mcmanus - one calling

I'm on a break right now - after Erwin McManus spoke. I'd prefer to have my notes from his message to share with you a couple phrases of his, but I was kicked out of the auditorium so people could rehearse, and all this while I was standing in the back with nary but my computer.

I enjoyed listening to Erwin, not quite so much as I did when I heard him last year, but he was inspiring nonetheless. A few things he said that I can remember...

"Our churches are filled with people who have no serious response to the person of Jesus Christ - and we don't know what to do with them, so we call them Christians. There are some with a serious response, and we call them missionaries, and send them off to other countries."

"I didn't know you could opt out of these callings."

"Our one calling is to become the unique person God has called us to be."

"To live is Christ, to die is gain. God is more concerned with giving us real life than he us with giving us long life."

"First generation Christians have a crazy look in their eyes - they do crazy things like read the Bible and believe it!"

"If you live a life of mediocrity, you will never be persecuted, challenged, made fun of, etc. If you choose to trust and pursue God with all you are, you will start to come up against all the momentum of human history."

Okay that's all I can remember right now - I suppose you can figure out the main thrust of what he said, or at least what parts of it stuck with me and spoke to me the most. More later!

at willow creek

I am really disappointed that I forgot my camera - Chicagoland is actually rather pretty this time of year. There's snow on the ground, but not so much snow that it gets in your way. It's sort of like a thin sheet that makes everything look nicer. To me, at least, living in California. I'm sure that it would eventually make the landscape look bleak and depressing - but for now I am enjoying my wintry surroundings. For the most part, that is.

Last night when I stepped outside of O'Hare, I was greeted by the Chicago cold for the first time. I've been here a few times before, but only in the summertime, never in winter, of the back end of winter as it is now. It is really stinkin cold. Last week I was up in Tahoe and it snowed a lot, and I'm still not sure it was as cold there as it is here, now. The weather reports are all saying with wind it feels about 1 or 2 here. This is new for me. It's kinda neat...but I do plan on staying inside.

I left the Packs' house rather early to make sure I got up here to Willow Creek on time, to allow for my bad sense of direction, traffic, and all that. As it turns out the traffic wasn't too bad and I didn't make a single wrong turn - so I'm here about an hour and a half early. That's cool - because they have freakin' wireless in the building. And what a big building it is. From what I can tell right now, their auditorium has seating sections, much like the San Jose Arena - they even have UPPER sections, like a balcony or something. I just got a coffee and some sort of donut thing from their in-house "Dr. B's Coffee" which is basically a Starbucks. I am as of yet unimpressed with my latte though - in fact, I burned my tongue on it. Perhaps the burnt tongue is a blessing in disguise, and will keep me from fully partaking in the goodness of greasy, fatty, wonderful Chicago cuisine. We'll see.

Anyway since I will have access to the internet during breaks, don't know anyone here, and have a tendency to be more quiet when I don't know anyone in a big new environment like this, I will maybe blog a lot more than usual while I'm here. Maybe I'll share a couple thoughts from each session as I go. That would be neato.

Oh crap. I just realized I left my laptop charger in my room at the Packs.' So for today, I only have a little bit of battery. So, catch ya later.

off for the week

I'm leaving tomorrow for a conference for "next generation" church leaders. I'm looking forward to it. I'll be staying with some great friends, and I'll be able to see a lot of people I don't usually get to see. I'm really glad that I get to mix the conference with visiting friends. I will probably have internet access while I'm at the conference - from what I understand Willow Creek has wifi on their campus - so I may be posting some random things up here as the week goes by. Either way, have a great week and all that.

indian kid has his lies revealed

Check out this link (click on the title of my post). Apparently a kid in India made up a NASA test, claimed he roxxored it, and then got everyone in India to recognize him. He was given all sorts of money from the government and the people in the government, hailed as a hero, and people only figured out he was lying while he was waiting for his meeting with the President of India. Reading the details, it's obvious the kid is full of it. Kids lie like this all the time - just this week I was talking to a student who told me he was flying down to LA to talk to his plastic surgeon, because he had to make sure he looked good for his nights of clubbing, driving around in his '05 Porsche. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that people make stuff up. Anyway, it's pretty amusing.

As an aside - I'm a little put out because my WoW server is down, so I can't play. Today I was planning on getting some time in before I go out of town next week. Oh well.

snow camp and more

I got back from Snow Camp yesterday, and it was a lot of fun. The weekend wasn't without its stresses or imperfections of course, but overall I'm glad I went. It snowed a lot. I'm not sure exactly how much snow fell while we were up there, but I'd say it was at least three feet of snow. I'm not just talking out of my butt with that either, check out some of the pictures I took and see for yourself.

Perhaps my least favorite thing about the camp was the fact that I hurt my shoulder pretty bad. On Sunday some of the kids were sliding down a hill on those little round plastic things that pass as toboggans these days. I decided I wanted to do that too, and not only that but I decided against my better judgment to race a student, Aaron, down the hill. Once we started down the hill, he unintentionally got directly in front of me as we careened down. I didn't want to land on him and have to explain to his parents that yes, I smashed their kid while racing him down a snowy hill, so I tried to spin or turn or do whatever I thought would help me avoid landing on him when we reached the bottom. I forgot this wasn't the deluxe plastic circle of a sled and so I just spun around, while letting out a very girly "oh crap!". As I hit a bump at the bottom, I was thrown into the air a little bit, off of my sled, and I landed on my shoulderblade. I heard some weird noise come from the shoulder as I hit the ground, and I just laid there for a few seconds.

I didn't go to the hospital or anything but my right shoulder hurts and if I move it certain ways it really hurts. I'm currently without health insurance so I hope it's nothing serious, and it'll just get better. Since I can move it, I hear the injury probably isn't anything real serious, it's just real sore. Kinda sucks, but oh well.

In other news, Stand to Reason has started a blog. I am a fan of Greg Koukl's and the ministry they do there in general, though I don't agree with every little thing I find it to be a pretty good resource. They do a good job of discussing Christianity in an intelligent way. I was a little surprised to read Greg's assessment of Brian McLaren and the Emerging Church movement, however:

Be forewarned. The Emergent Church is the most theologically corrosive view/movement/trend in a long time. The Seeker movement and the “Laughing Revival” of the last decade pale in comparison. And it’s consuming millions, especially young people. We’ll keep you posted.

While I don't agree with everything said by every person within the Emergent movement, I do find Koukl's assessment to be a bit off the mark. It also sounds like he doesn't like the concept of the Seeker-sensitive church, which I am a part of and generally approve of. Of course within every group or movement there are going to be some people who take certain points or ideas too far - but to condemn an entire movement because of that is foolish.

out of town

For those who care, this weekend I'll be out of town from Friday to Monday at Sierra Pines snow camp with the youth group. I will be on a snowboard for the first time in a while...and I'm sure I'll come back nice and sore and frustrated at the slopes.