Free tour of the Holy Land

Okay, sorry I haven't posted in a while.

Want to take a tour of the Holy land, or all the places mentioned in the Bible? Want to do it for free? Well, Openbible.info offers a KMZ file for Google Earth that lets you look at all the discernible locations in the Bible. They even have a KMZ file that sorts out the locations by chapter! To download this file, go to http://www.openbible.info/geo/ and start your free tour.

HT to the Google Earth Blog.

Real Life

I had the great privilage in participating in our group's 30 Hour Famine this past weekend. We spent 30 hours fasting with 45 students to raise money for the poorest of the poor in our world who don't know when their next meal will be.

As part of the weekend, we took the students to the Real. Life. exhibit presented by Medical Teams International (formerly Northwest Medical Teams). MTI responds to disaster areas within 72 hours to provide basic needs and medical attention.Throughout the Real. Life. exhibit, you experience what real life is for much of our world. From man-made disasters, natural disasters, famines, and extreme poverty, pictures drawn by kids and scripture, you get an overwhelming sense of God's heart for those in need. You stand underneath a 25ft. tsunami wall with a sign telling you that in some places the tsunami waves were 75-90ft. tall.

 

You also walk through a Mexico dump where whole generations live, scavenge for food scraps and plastic or metal to sell. You learn of child abduction in Africa where children are taken and forced to become soldiers. It goes on and on.

While there is much tragedy, the exhibit also presents the hope of what is being done, and what you can do to help. You get a sense of where God is moving, and you want to join in.

As a church, about 150 of us went through the exhibit that day, so on Sunday we had a debrief instead of a message. One of my favorite lines that I learned from a 6th grader is that we won the birth lotto. Did I choose to be born here in such great wealth? No. I sure am glad I was, but to whom much is given, much is required. If you want to hear our debrief and the rest of the service, Right Click here and select 'save as' to hear the mp3.

It's exciting being part of a church and group of students who are seeking out the heart of God, seeing needs asking how can we meet them.

If you live in the Portland area, please go to the exhibit. It's well worth your time.

Stranger Than Fiction and our story

Spoiler warning. Don't read this post if you plan to see Stranger Than Fiction.

Jessica, Justin, Ali and I saw Stranger Than Fiction a couple of weeks back. (Actually now a month ago, but I started this post and got distracted. Yeah, I know, distracted for a couple more weeks? Hey, it's my blog) What a movie. For those who read this blog and are not quite yet out of their parent's homes, please note the PG-13 rating and my unofficial recommendation.

We meet Harold Crick, a employee of the IRS, who goes about living a mundane life, not doing anything out on a limb and not really living as viewed by the writer of the movie. He begins hearing a woman narrate his life exactly as it happens and finds out that his eventual death is around the corner. As Harold begins to "truly live," he seeks out why he hears this voice, and if he is truly going to die soon.

After much work, Harold tracks down the famous author who is a drama novelist, currently working on the script of Harold's story. She has written the end but it has not been typed up yet, meaning that Harold hasn't lived it yet.

While the interaction between the author and the character is quite interesting, Harold struggles with wanting to read his own ending. After a time, Harold decides to read the ending. He returns the story to the author and says that it's a good ending, and that she has to type it up.

Harold faces his heroic ending well. I'll let you watch that part yourself. But the part that kept on shouting to me was that we can—as people who know the Creator—know the ending. Whether it be our end, just a turn in the road, or the end of the whole story itself, we know the one writing the story. And because we can trust the writer, we can trust the future of the story.

So, mind the rating, see the movie, and feel the sense of trust in the writer of our story that Harold has in his. Continue to bring about His story now.

Great animation

I got quite a kick out of this movie entitled Animator vs. Animation - II, animated by Alan Becker.

Here Kitty Kitty

I thought I'd give you a fun photo journey in a typical day of our cat, "Misty."

No, she's not been partying all night long, but the toilet is her new favorite water dish. Yuck!

Misty enjoys watching the squirrels approach the window.

We have a plastic bin on our back deck which holds various BBQ supplies as well as our extra bird seed and peanuts for the birds and squirrels. One day, we noticed that they had chewed a hole through the top!

Here you can see a squirrel diving in the hole, eating seeds with its tail sticking out.

Sometimes when they reemerge, they have a peanut in their cheek. We just can't believe that with their extra winter weight, that they can fit through the small hole!

As much as I enjoy watching the squirrels, our cat freaks out!

Snow!

What a day! Last week, the weather forecasters spent 3 long days predicting doom & gloom snow storms...and nothing. Last night, they began to say that we may see some snow today. Well, 3 1/2 inches later, I think we saw some snow!

Here are a few shots of the day. After relaxing in the morning, Ali, Annie and I walked about a three-quarter-mile to Starbucks and sat outside while drinking our coffee. It was beautiful. We saw cross-country skiers and even a snowboarder pulled by an ATV, all down Capitol Highway!

Afterward, we walked down to the bottom of 30th and watched various cars get stuck driving up the Highway. I just can't believe the timing of this snow. We took the youth group up yesterday for snowboarding and tubing on Mt. Hood. The roads were great, and the skies were clear. Thank God! You can check out Brian's blog for some pictures.

I'd just like to point out that I love snow!

Happy New Year!

Before I share my final thoughts on Winter Youth, I'd like to wish you a Happy New Year. I hope your celebrations were fun. Ali and I had a wonderful night with the Justin & Jessica eating fondue, playing games and watching the ball drop.

I also want to give a shout out to my Beavers who won their bowl game (unlike Dennis' Ducks).

And finally, Here's a link to the pictures of this year's Winter Youth trip. Make sure you visit Brian's blog for his reflections as well.

Winter Youth - Day 2

Wow, I'm tired. I stayed up way too late.

Yesterday was a challenging day. I haven't processed it all yet. If I could try to summarize day one, it would be live your life for an audience of one. Day two is harder, but I think it would be don't trade the gospel for pleasure or performance.

Eric talked again about those people who after knowing Christ for a while (or grow up in the church) base their "How am God and I doing?" question by pointing to how they compare against other's live...and how much time they spend reading their Bible, going to church, etc.

He drew a picture with the heart of the gospel in the middle and two kinds of people, one on each side. The right side were those who have Jesus + pleasure and the other was Jesus + performance. On the pleasure side their sin is overt, obvious, their goal is happiness and they abuse grace, using it as a license to sin. The performance side's sin is covert, not usually seen as sin, their goal is worthiness, and they abuse grace by not using grace.

The point is that the gospel is offered to both. In fact, many (most?) of Jesus' teachings were such that those who were the obvious sinners always got the point, and were found forgiven. Yet those who 'had it all together' missed His message.

Eric's final point was great. If you don't realize, don't know that Jesus already won, already satisfied it all, then you will just be performing a cycle in your life. You will try to do a bunch of stuff to gain God's favor. When you sense that there is no hope in that, you will turn away, seeking pleasure. When you find that pleasure is empty, you come back to trying to read your Bible better and slip right back into performance mode.

I hope I've spoken well of what Eric shared. It was challenging and a great new way of sharing very old ideas. He's set us up for tonight's talk with this.

The start of the gospel is accepting His acceptance of you.

Hope you have a great day.

Winter Youth - Day 1

If days two, three, and four bring the same fight and strength of message that came from day one, I'm in for not only a real treat, but a lot to consider as I head back to real life.

For starters, we had a great time with our group, much of the day hanging in our room, Safeway and conversing about subjects from God to how bad the boy's room smelled. Leading us in worship this year is Future of Forestry (formerly Something like Silas...and don't ask me about their name!). So far, they are doing a great job energizing us, helping us spend time listening, and singing some of the greatest hymns to a bit more modern sound. (Think U2, Chris Tomlin) Dave the horn guy is the MC. He's pretty cool. I hope that he can continue to mix up his routine.

Our first session speaker was Craig Gross of the not so often together Craig & Jake, and of XXX Church—an organization that calls itself the "#1 Christian Porn site" with its goals being to be an aid to people struggling with pornography.

Anyway, Craig told a few stories about different people down the road of sin. His main point was that sin is fun, but that it is fun for a season, and when we don't end it now, we don't know how that season will end. His stories emphasized that well!

(Real quick here, the theme of the week is The Gospel with light and dark being painted at the different sessions—Craig painting darkness and the way out, Eric Knox painting for us the light.

Eric is great! He shared the story of a guy on Venice Beach who could keep 15 plates spinning on 15 sticks. He talked about how for many of us, the Christian life becomes plate spinning. We become a Christian (or grow up one) and begin to add things to our life to, well, be a good Christian; things such as Bible reading, praying, going to church and the like. Not that these things are bad, they're great, but many do theses things "not to experience God's grace, but to gain God's grace." And worse yet, we do these things so that others will know that we are good Christians.

He shared the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector from Luke 18. He told how the Pharisee's was a plate spinner, comparing his deeds to all the other people he was not like. However, the tax collector laid low and said "I am the sinner." He didn't even say that he was one of many sinners, just the sinner. He acknowledged his need for God.

Eric asked us what would reading your Bible look like if you didn't have to read it? What would going to church look like if you didn't have to go to church? What would praying look like if you didn't have to pray. Because the truth is that we don't have to do these things as Christians. And any feeling that we have to do these things comes from a sense of basing your Christian life on others and their view of you.

Wow, this them echo's our pastor's saying of "Live your life for an audience of one."

I'd share more, but I've got to go wake my guys up and get to the first session for the day!

Merry Christmas

Wow! I've had a hankerin' to blog for some time, but just haven't found the time. From the amazing wind storms of last week, our church staff Christmas Party, to all that went along with Christmas, it has been exciting.

Saturday, Ali and I spent much time making onion and clam dip, my dad's famous chocolate-chip cookies and strawberry cheesecake squares. Sunday morning reminded me of my Costco days, getting up to be to church by 6:45 am. We played a special number written by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. That was fun. Jon Knapp rocked out!

After church, Ali and I went to my parents for my dad's side of the family get together eating a wonderful dinner, singing Christmas carols and exchanging gifts. It seemed that after a short nights rest we awoke, and went to Ali's parents for the morning. What a wonderful relaxing time!

We drove to my parents in the afternoon for time with my family and Matt & Annie, (Also wonderful) :) and capped off the night with my family and Ali's family all over at her cousins' house for quite a feast. I am so lucky that my families love each other so much!

Today I counted up Christmas gifts, money I had from my birthday 6 months ago (and yes, nobody wished me a happy half-birthday), and some gift cards and I got an 8GB Nano! Woohoo! Thank you all who gave me this present! I've had lots of fun already and even figured out how to put my Google Calendar on the iPod.

Ali and I are cleaning and packing for Winter Youth, a 4-day high school retreat at the Jantzen Beach Red Lion (I know...I'm really roughing it!) with around 1,500 students and leaders! It features great speakers, bands, worship times, a choice of seminars, and of course, the annual trip to Old Navy for the amazing clearance sales. Last year, two of the guys and I bought the same jacket!

I'm brining my laptop, so hopefully I'll find some time to blog.

I hope you had a great, restful Christmas.

Aaron