Still learning

Man, God has been teaching me a whole lot lately. Things about youth ministry and things about myself and the world. Here are some things I've learned

1.) Payements plans are always better, except with money

Hehe, little trick lesson there. Payment plans in money usually put people into debt, but payment plans in life are a requirement for responsible living. Example: If you want to be fit and healthy, you need to invest in that a little bit every day, not all at once. To form good habits, you have to invest in them a little each day, or they won't stick. I'm working desperately to form some better habits. These include eating healthy, exercising more, keeping my house clean, reading my Bible more, and so on. All of those require daily investments. Right now, I'm not good at any of those things, but I am getting better. I guess that's a good thing

2.) The importance of the body model

Lol, once again, this lesson sounds strange. I'm not talking about people who show off their bodies, but rather the model of the church as a body. I've come to realize that my youth ministry looks an awful lot like I do. It has the same strengths and weaknesses that I have. But it will never be a good ministry if I'm the only one working on it, cause it will end up looking like me. I'm quickly finding that I need to move towards team based ministry for the youth group. I need people shaping and directing the youth ministry with me, rather than me making decisions and just asking for help making that happen. I've begun forming a ministry team that will decide on the direction that the youth group should go and then help get it there. I'm calling them my A-Team. The same logic applies to marriages. Each spouse has strengths and weaknesses, but together, they form a super human tag team capable of raising a good family.

3.) Emotions aren't as useless as I thought

I'm an intelectual. I like to think things through and emotions don't fit well into that model. But as I pursued a few girls on eharmony, I realized how important my emotions are to me. There was one girl in particular that seemed like a good match for me on paper. But after chatting with her for a month and a half and going on two dates with her, my emotions didn't back me up. I didn't feel that baseline attraction I needed to feel to continue pursuing, so I broke it off. In retrospect, my emotions fit very nicely into my thinking personality. I thought, "If I don't feel an excitement and attraction to this girl by 2 dates in, it's not right for me." There is at least one girl in my life that I do feel that attraction and excitement towards, but I'm still a big chicken about asking her out. I worry about rejection and the loss of a friend, which is already in short supply in my life at the moment.

4.) Apple computers are amazing

I'm officially an apple guy, probably even a fanboy. I never thought I would become a full fledged apple user, but the change has been made. It was spurred on by my desire to quit video games completely. I wrote a little bit about this in my last post, but it has been over two months since I played World of Warcraft. That was my drug of choice, I mean game of choice. I did play portal 2, but I beat it and then promptly uninstalled it. I think I found a happy medium for video games. I will play the single player games I long for until I beat them, and then retire them. So, when starcraft 2 comes out with their expansion, I'll play that, beat it, and then uninstall it. I'll never play a game that I cannot pause. So far, it's made me quite happy to be game free. I have a lot more time on my hands and can better work on my habits. Anyway, I bought a macbook pro and I love it. It's beautiful and capable. Lol, that's what I want in a woman! I sold my windows 7 laptop and I'm trying to figure out a good way to sell my gaming desktop. I just don't want to ship it and risk breaking it. It's my baby! I might try to sell it locally, like in the paper or on craigs list.

4.) Goal based living

Living with goals is so much better than meandering, especially when you get good at making goals. I'm getting better all the time at making good, attainable goals and laying out plans of action to get there. Currently, I have two goals for my personal life with plans of action in place for them: getting in shape and Bible study. I'm getting better at them every day and am excited to cross them off when they're done. Goal based living gets stuff done and I wonder what the Bible has to say about it. I honestly haven't thought about it, but I'm sure there has to be some examples in scripture of goal centered lifestyle.

Anyway, it's time for me to go work out! Sorry for the long delay in posting. I make no promises ;-)

Life lessons

So, it's been a little over a week since I played video games. While I have felt quite bored most of the time, I've actually done a LOT of productive things in that time. I...

1.) Got the timing belt on my car fixed. Been putting this off for like a year and half! Saved my car from breaking randomly and unexpectedly

2.) Started my retirement fund. I opened a roth ira and am doing quite well financially

3.) Read a 450 page book! In about 5 days! That's pretty fast I think

4.) Read my bible and prayer everyday. This is important, because I've always had bad habits in this area. I hope to make this a habit. I'm on a reading plan that will get me to read the bible twice a year, assuming I follow it. Also, praying had become something of a rare thing for me. I'm praying a lot more than I used to, and about more than just things I need.

So at the moment, I'm beginning to fill my time with other things. I'm going to start teaching guitar lessons to two jr highers. It should be interesting, but I'm looking forward to it. I also realized that I should set some bigger life goals. I have all the tools I need to do that from my tentmakers training. They showed me how to dream big, set goals, and achieve them. I think some of my life goals will be

1.) Lose some weight. I'll have to think about how much I want to lose. I want to be healthy and fit.

2.) Form a base zero budget. That's where every dollar I earn is accounted for on paper.

3.) Pay off my mortgage

4.) Find a wife?

I'm also looking for some new hobbies. I was thinking that I might dive back into card tricks and such. They are so fun to learn and even more fun to perform. My jr highers freak out when I do my card tricks!

So, things are trending up. We'll see what God has in store for me

Media purge

Wow, so a lot has happened in the last day. At the last pastor meeting, I asked them how you "give something over to God". In my mind, all I've ever heard in relation to how that is actually done involves you working harder and trying to fix your problem. Well, we scrapped the whole meetings agenda and talked about my video game addiction. It ended with them referring me to a christian counselor.

So on wednesday, I drove up to ohio christian university and met for an hour with Jim. He asked me questions about myself and my problems. The one thing he asked me to do was to count the cost. He pointed out the story of the rich young ruler who asked Jesus , "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" That man wasn't willing to give up everything for Jesus. Then Jim asked me "How much are you willing to give up to beat this thing?" I responded, "Everything, but I hope I don't have to." He didn't say this, but I automatically knew that I was that rich young ruler. I had a great many possions and would rather hold on to them than give them up to be a better christian.

So I went home and counted the cost. Verses kept flying at me like, "Whoever wants to follow me must deny himself, pick up his cross and come follow me." And "redeem the time, for the days are evil" and "if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better to enter into eternal life halt than for the whole body to perish in hell."

That was wednesday. On friday, I moved my gaming computer to my office and removed all games from it. I donated my TV to the wheelersburg church. I canceled my tv and internet subscription and also donated my ps3 to the youth group. In short, I have no technology in my house anymore. There is no internet in my house, nor a tv. I have "cut off my hand".

That's how far I'm willing to go. It's been a day since I've played video games. I will literally force myself to do something else.

So what's holding you back? Are you willing to give that over to God?

Back to regular postings

Ok, now that life has calmed down a bit, I'm ready to get back into the habit of regular postings. Lots of really cool things have been happening in my life!

God is really working on my life skills right now. I finally finished the tentmaker's training program called the nehemiah institute. It focuses on ministry managment and such. Part of that training involved making plans of action. Setting a goal, and making it happen. Well, I'm going to be integrating that into my own life. I'm going to make plans of action for the following things

Keeping my house clean

Getting/staying healthy

Practicing the spiritual disciplines (bible reading, prayer, etc)

many POA's (plans of action) for my ministry as well

I've stopped rotating where I spend my office hours and will now only have one office. This is something I've wanted for a while, and a recent confrontation from my pastors helped make it happen. I wasn't being reprimanded, but they basically said I need to spend my time more efficiently. One reason this came up is because I've had a book on my to do list for a while. I could've read this book a long time ago, but haven't. So, we're making changes in the way I spend my time and I think it's for the best.

The youth group also has a new website! thesceneministry.com This is thanks in no small part to my new cousin in law (that's a real thing, right?) Jenifer Slaughbaugh. She's married to my cousin, Nick. She helped set up the framework, then trained me on how to upload my own content. I must say, that I really appreciated her help and the website looks great! It fullfills all the needs I had for a website and then some. Check it out!

I've also started a new diet. It's called ediets. Long story short is that they send me all the food I get to eat. If I eat only what they send me, I lose weight. I've already lost 10 pounds on it and I haven't even been holding to it as well as I could. Case in point, I went to this training seminar last week and couldn't follow it at there. I've also not been excercising due to my lingering cold. But I'm healed up now and primed to go for a long time eating healthy and working out. I hope to be much thinner by the summer

Hmm, what else has been going on? I've been pursing some females through eharmony. There is at least one that I will probably be meeting here pretty soon, once I get the nerve up. It's been nice to try eharmony, just cause I don't make the effort to go places where I can meet girls. I don't know though, I'm at the point where I'm enjoying learning how to take care of myself better. How can I take care of someone else if I can't take care of myself? It seems to me that God is grooming me to be a better groom. Ahh? you see what I did there? I made a pun!

I'm still loving my tempurpedic bed, but for some reason, I've been remembering all my dreams lately! It's a weird thing when you remember your dreams. The subconscience is a strange beast. My working threory is that my lingering sickness keeps me from breathing well at night, so I constantly wake up in the middle of the night and thus remember my dreams.

Also, I am totally buying the new ipad when it comes out this friday! Thank you God for sending people into my life to teach me how to manage money! Well, that's all for now. Stay tuned!