Things I'm thankful for

There are many things that I am thankful in my life.  My family, my God, my health, and many others.  But this post is going to be dedicated to the most recent thing I have become thankful for:  Kelly Marie Kuker.  In order for you to understand just how thankful I am for her to be my girlfriend, allow me to give you some back story.

I've been single for most of my life.  I had a brief relationship in high school and a one month-long relationship when I was 26.  that was it!  Like many guys, I thought that I was just unlovable.  The truth was, God was saving me for the right person!  My previous relationship was ended for the reason of "God doesn't want us together."  How true that statement was.  God wanted me to be with Kelly Kuker!  Let me tell you how wonderful she is!  

Kelly and I met on eharmony.  This was my 2nd attempt at eharmony.  The first attempt was fruitless and I didn't have much hope for the 2nd attempt.  But then out of no where, a girl messaged me and complimented my smile.  I like to tell people that she "popped" when I first saw her.  All the other girls I was talking with on eharmony did not excite me, but this one did.  There are 4 steps to eharmony communication and we flew through all them in one day.  

We went on our first date and I knew by the end of it that she was right for me.  So why do I like love Kelly Kuker?  She said it in her post:  She's my perfect compliment.  It's not that she's perfect, she's just perfect for me.  She is everything that I want in a woman, and then some.  Not only is she absolutely beautiful, she is smart.  I love that I don't have to talk down to her.  Many times, she has to remind me that she already knows what I'm attempting to tell her.  This doesn't upset me, it reminds that she is a smart, capable woman who is every inch my equal.  

One of my favorite things about her is how she understands me.  She always knows when I'm upset and can tell when I have something on my mind.  She gets me.  When I'm around her, I feel completely at ease.  I know I could talk to her about anything and that she would understand me.  It's a great feeling and I love it!  I love her!  

I may not be as eloquent as she is in expressing my affection, but she is the person that God has picked out for me.   I have no hesitation when I say that.  God hand picked her for me, and me for her.  So today, on this almost-last-day of November, I am thankful for her.  She has made the long years of being alone worth it.  

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!

Thanksgiving break

Hey everyone, sorry I missed last week. I was in Nashville TN for the national youth workers conference. I was pretty busy during the conference, plus the hotel had junky internet access so I didn't update. I'll talk about NYWC then thanksgiving.

national youth workers convention was an excellent experience. I learned a ton, met up an old friend I hadn't seen in about 5 years, and honed my discernment skills. I also got to hear David Crowder live and I have to say that it was phenomenal! He is such a great performer, yet his music has strong theology behind it. I even heard that he was a calvinist. I have no evidence to prove this, so I'll just leave it with "I heard". There are many seminars that I could have gone to during this conference, but I focused on the intro to youth ministry stuff. I went to seminars like "how to minister to jr high girls" (cause we have a lot of them), "recruiting and empowering your volunteers" and other similar intro classes. I also was able to run into an old friend from my home town: Adam Coleman. He and I were good friends from 5th grade till 8th. We went to the same small christian school until high school. Adam decided to goto a public school, but I stayed in private school. After that, we only saw each other in youth group and didn't hang out much through high school. When we both went off to college, we were pretty distant. So at NYWC, I was talking with my old youth pastor, Pete Eicher, and Adam came up out of no where and completely surprised me. The thought hadn't even occurred to me that he might be at NYWC too. So, we went out to dinner with some other c-bus people. I found out that he too is in in youth ministry and is running the high school youth group for my old church, CCC. It was great to see him as I wanted to contact him once I got back to columbus anyway.

As for the content of NYWC, I had to wade through the sea of postmodernism to find the good teaching techniques. I am very much NOT postmodern, so I had to be discerning. My philosophy is to chew up the meat and spit out the bones. This manifest especially in a lunch conversation I had with the people I was staying with. Somehow, the topic of Joel Osteen came up and someone asked me what I thought. Well, I figured they wanted to know since they asked me, so I said "I think he's a false teacher preaching a false gospel." To which they immediately replies with "harsh". So then I tried to explain myself.

"There are certain beliefs that you MUST hold in order to be a christian. If you don't believe in salvation by grace through Jesus death on the cross, you are not a Christian and will goto hell."
To which they replied
"Well, that's according to your interpretation of the gospel"

I immediately realized I was in for a big argument, but they had already pulled me in. I explained that I was referring to the beliefs concerning Jesus death on the cross and his substituionary atonement, but they kept repeating that that was just my personal interpretation of the gospel. We went back and forth, but I distinctly remember telling them that they were on the slippery slope of relativism and blasphemy. They disagreed, obviously.

I'm gonna get theological on you now. I think (i'm not entirely sure) that these beliefs they held stemmed from their broad definition of the gospel. To them (and many speakers at NYWC), it seemed that their gospel definition included every aspect and belief within Christianity. So, in their mind, Jesus saying "go and preach the gospel" would take a VERY long amount of time, since they would lump all of the christian life in with the gospel. Let me explain. I believe the gospel AFFECTS all of the christian life, but the gospel is not complicated. It is Jesus died on the cross to bear your sins. If you believe that Jesus bore your sins on the cross, you are a Christian (the elect, for my fellow calvinists). Then, that fact changes every area of your life. But to my postmodern friends, the gospel is almost undefinable since they through in basically every belief and good work possible into the gospel. Thus, since no one could possibly agree on all the issues of things like baptism, the charismata, eschatology, and creationism, preaching the gospel is a vague, time consuming process. I felt outnumbered at that lunch conversation, but I said at once point "I will defend to the death the gospel of salvation by grace through Jesus death on the cross." It was intense and I was amazed that this sort of argument was coming from people who's job is to tell others about Jesus. When I said there was only one to the Father, their first response was "well, that's your interpretation". Yikes!


As for Thanksgiving break, it was a good time. Family and friends came over, which is nice. I bought some new clothes, since I've gained a lot of weight lately. I went off roading with some friends on my parents property, and got to shoot a pump action shotgun. I'll tell ya, you feel like a man when you shoot a pump action shotgun. I also found out that I am a pretty good shot.

I'm running out of things to talk about, so I'll sign off here. Hope I wasn't too theological for ya

Some controversial thoughts

So, I was recently thinking about being a pastor. I don't really want to be one right now, but I can see myself becoming one. One of the sermons I think I would want to preach is how to treat homosexuals. Now, I'm not going to try to set out and prove that homosexuality is wrong in this post. I think if you are able to read the Bible and find any other oppinion than "it's wrong" in there, you're reading with a bias. That being said, I have a homosexual friend. there is even a chance he will read this post and become angry. I hope not.

Anyway, I think what needs to be spoken to is how to treat homosexuals. Really, the most important thing to do is put things in perspective. First, a story, then a controversial statement. Let's make up a fictitious character named Bob. Bob is a convicted rapist. Did bob choose to do this thing? Technically, yes, he did. He decided to go out and rape someone. But, did Bob choose to feel this way? Cause something in Bob's head told him "something is not right/missing from your life. The only way to get that ellusive "thing you want" is to forcibly rape someone." Did Bob choose to become a rapist? With the exception of his very last choice to rape someone, he didn't choose it. The events in his life led to the point where he felt rape was the thing he needed/wanted. Is it wrong to rape? Yes. Did he choose to become a rapist? no.

Please note the distinction. No one chooses to fall into sin. I think it's due to the fact that our bodies are tainted by sin, so we naturally want to do what our body tells us. We don't have to choose cause it's the natural thing to do! A murder doesn't one day decide he's going to murder someone, the events in his life lead up to that point where he feels murder is needed/wanted. Does that make it ok to murder someone? NO! But we don't choose to do wrong, we're prewired to do wrong! No choice needs to be made, it just happens. And I assure you, I'm not arguing fatalism.

So, lets look at homosexuality. Lets make another fictitious person named Ted. Ted is gay and he affirms that he never chose to be gay. I agree, he didn't choose. The events in his life all added up to him feeling like being gay was needed/irresistible. Ted didn't choose to be gay any more than I set out to become a video game addict. The events of my life combined together with my sin nature to make the potential addiction a reality. Same with homosexuality. That being said, the fact that Ted did not choose to be gay does not make it ok. It just makes it difficult to fix. Thus, when dealing with a homosexual, I propose that we cast off our unchristian like stigma towards them and really look at the situation. We must treat them the same way we would if someone we knew was convicted of theft. How would you help someone work through their sin in the case of theft? Would you make signs that says "God hates thieves"? Whether or not God does hate thieves, I don't think that would accomplish the ministry of reconciliation. Or would you work with that person and try to help them understand why they feel the need to steal things and how God can help them overcome that problem? Obviously, the latter

So, we should treat homosexuals like we would someone stuck in sexual sin. Granted, the church is terrible at that too, but you catch my drift? I don't have a specific plan laid out as to how you'd go about working through the sin with a homosexual, but I know that we need to quit treating this like the unpardonable sin and actually label it a sin and move from there. Is not it better to help your friend leave their life of sin than condemn them all together? Drop the stigma! People in sexual sin need extra help, cause Paul says that's the only kind of sin that lives inside the body. Can't remember the reference, sorry.

Anyways, that is my stand on homosexuality. Yes, it's wrong, but we should reach out and try to help them, rather than shunning the non-believer. (Reference to candy mountain anyone?) What that looks like? I'm not sure, but it looks an awful lot like dealing with adultery, or dealing with lying, or dealing with murder, or dealing with dishonoring your parents, or....you get the idea. It is a sin, but we're treating like it's the black plague! Food for thought