It's been great being in town all week. I'm out of town next week - again - back down in Kansas City for a couple of days. I leave Tuesday night and come back Thursday night - in time for the big Survivor bash.

We had performance training day at the gym today. This is where Kirk Vickers, Brad Jeffrey, Dan Reynolds myself and occasionally Joe Muzzi get together and go through workouts that will make you vomit - from the effort involved. We had one exercise that involved laying down with a 25lb medicine ball, sitting up and throwing it in front of a guy sitting about 20 feet away. The ball rolls to you, you pull it up over your head, lay back, sit up with the ball over your head and throw it back. Sounds fun? Not if you have ADD. I lost focus for a second, and had my testicles crushed when Brad threw it and I didn't catch it before it rolled straight between my legs. Painful.

One of the guys working out with us was a pro football player, a quarterback who was out while trying to rehab his shoulder and play again. The guy clearly loves football, everything about it. He talked about how his world is having to find a new center now that football is not at the center of his orbit. What makes it hard is that no matter how hard he works, no matter how much he wants it, he may never get his shoulder back into playing shape, and it's rocking his world. Whether it's a woman, a job, money, your body - whatever - they're all too small of stories to live in. Reminds me of the Switchfoot lyrics from Meant to Live - "We were meant to live for so much more - have we lost ourselves? Somewhere we live inside".

Some wonderfully deep thoughts:

• Somebody told me it was frightening how much topsoil we are losing each year, but I told that story around the campfire and nobody got scared.


• Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff


• Whenever someone asks me to define love, I usually think for a minute, then I spin around and pin the guy's arm behind his back. NOW who's asking the questions?


• Why do the caterpillar and the ant have to be enemies? One eats leaves, and the other eats caterpillars. Oh, I see now.


• It's too bad that whole families have to be torn apart by something as simple as wild dogs.


• I wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, yahoo!, I'd have all my money back.


• If I had a mine shaft, I don't think I would just abandon it. There's got to be a better way.


• I saw on this nature show how the male elk douses himself with urine to smell sweeter to the opposite sex. What a coincidence!

Gosh I haven't wanted to read the bible lately.... Haven't really wanted to spend any time with God. Not sure why - nothing major that I'm running from, I'm not sure if it's because it seems dull, because I'm in a rut, or what. Haven't really had much to say here as of late. No deep and dull thoughts.

I saw the Matrix Revolutions yesterday and I'll be one of the few people you'll hear say that they enjoyed it. It was anti climatic, especially after the original movie. It didn't do a good job capitalizing on some of the theories that the architect put forth in the second movie, and there was some major cheese in this in terms of lines and endings. This movie was much less cerebral than the first and second, much more action oriented that thought provoking. What I loved was the climactic battle throughout the movie. There's a battle going on that looks uninvolved - a small group of humans against overwhelming odds, continually getting the crap kicked out of them by the machines. It looks like it's just a matter of time until they're destroyed. While all this is going on, there's a small group that has hope, faith that Neo, the messiah, the One will come through in the end. It's this hope that keeps many of them fighting, and without this hope some trudge through the battle - and despair. Pretty good metaphor for the world we live in, battling evil against an unbeatable enemies - death and sin. Without a messiah, it's hopeless.

Jason turned me on to the latest David Crowder CD - Illuminate. Christianity Today gave it an interesting review that's worth reading, but the album is excellent musically, with very deep, soulful lyrics.

I worked out today with a guy named Adam who's a professional Tennis player. Interesting guy. We were talking about loving what you do for a living, and how much he loves to play Tennis. He was telling me about his traveling around for tournaments, and that pretty much when he's not playing, he's practicing. He said that by the time a lot of guys get to the highest levels, it's no longer their passion, it's a job. Right now, I really love my job. I don't think there's anything else I'd rather be doing. My job's not perfect, but I still love it. A while back, I wrestled with the idea of quitting my job and doing full time youth ministry, but came to the conclusion that it wasn't where God was pulling me. How many people have a job they love, that pays them well, with people they enjoy working with, that gives them some degree of flexability in their lives? I'm thankful.

I've worked with a guy out of Cleveland over the past 4 years or so. We work pretty closely together, and have been on a few projects together. He's doesn't seem like a guy that's overly intersted in spiritual stuff, but we've had some great conversations about the the importance of developing ourselves spiritually as well as professionally, enough so that he went out and read the book Wild At Heart. He and I were talking about our the fact that we both have a tough time cutting people grace either personally or professionally. I talked to him about the book I'd read a while ago called What's so Amazing about Grace, but that I still haven't got this one figured out. We decided that we're going to read the book - a chapter a week, and set up a time each week to talk about it. I'm really excited about this.

We had a big 'ol house full of people this weekend for Holloween. We carved pumpkins and Emliy got to wear her costume for her dance class (I'm not sure whether Miss Tara was dressing up for the dads or the kids).

Susan, Kevin, Gabe and Ali came up on Friday along with Ken and Cathy Buck and Cathie's parents. The guys took the kids trick-or-treating while the girls hung back and passed out candy. Cathy and Jess dressed up as Black Eyed Peas and could easily have passed for 8th graders. The cousins had a blast hanging out, and Saturday morning, Kevin and I took the kids to the Park to play. The guys in my small group got together over at Brad's on Saturday to watch a disappointing loss by State. The highlight was the giant clifford battle that went on. Brad got a set of about 40 small clifford beanie-baby dolls as a vetretnarian promotion. One or two started getting chucked around, trying to hit each other in the crotch. Before you know it a full blown battle was going on with these things being thrown around with no quarter being given.

I POKE BADGERS WITH SPOONS

I'm not sure what this means, but I want a t-shirt with this on it. My brother Jon called me lat night and told me he'd just ordered one. He'd seen it on a bumper sticker, entered it into google, and next thing he knew, he had a t-shirt. Gotta love capitalism when mixed in with a little google.

I've started listening to Worship music in my workouts again, and it's been great. Periodically, a song will strike me and I'll just sit there for a few minutes in between sets and think about the words, pray and worship in the moment. I love the lyrics to Come, Thou Fount. The lyrics are old english (I have no idea what a fetter is), but they really hit me:

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bing my wand’ring heart to thee:
Prone to wander , Lord I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it;
Seal it for thy courts above.

Early yesterday morning, Thursday, October 30, we lost a friend, a father, an inspiration. Co-founder and owner of Youth Specialties (YS), Mike Yaconelli, was in a fatal car accident in northern California late Wednesday evening. Read more here.

Mike was a huge inspiration to me through the Youth Specialties conferences and his books (Dangerous Wonder, Messy Spirituality). He was the champion of Youth Pastors, encouraging them and standing up for them - still a rebel who hadn't bought into the institution even after 50. He touted a relationship with God that was real, messy and imperfect. My heart is still really sad about this loss, even though he wasn't a close personal friend.

We had our annual Halloween party at the Niemi's last Sunday, where even the adults get dressed up. Cathie was a biker babe (complete with multiple tattoos) and I grew my hair into a nice long mullett. Madeline was a green haired witch, Nate a power ranger and emily a very cute Care Bare. More Pictures Here

I flew in from Lousivlle, KY last night to Kansas City, MO by way of Houston, TX. Since I had about 4 ½ hours on the plane last night, I watched the movie The Outlaw Jose Wales on my laptop. What a movie and what a character! This movie really connected with me – not because of some amazing story of redemption intertwined in the plot, but because of Jose Wales character. Jose Wales was an historical figure, a guerilla fighter against the Union army during the Civil War. It didn’t matter what the situation was or how outnumbered he was – he always came through in a pinch. He never abandoned his friends or the hurting people he came along in his travels, he always did the right thing. I think every guy hopes when he’s in similar situations, he’d respond the same way Jose Wales did - that they have what it takes, and I think that’s why this movie really grabbed me. There’s a part of me that thinks that if I were in similar situation I would blow it, take the easy way out, not come through in a pinch. I know that’s not who I am at the core – but I have my doubts at times.

I was reading Romans 8:30-32 this morning:

After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.
So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us?

It’s so easy for me to gloss over what this says. I remember the day it connected with me – I was listening to a youth camp speaker, Brett Ray speak on this verse. It was a very defining moment in my relationship with God, the day I understood that God loves his son as much as I love mine, and that it was just as hard to allow Jesus to be put to death in my place as it would be for me to allow my son Nate to be sacrificed. Maybe I’m the only one who never got that point, but I figured that God being who he is and all didn’t have that tough a time with allow Jesus to die, because he was perfect after all and knew how the sacrifice would redeem us all. God being a trinity, I thought that it wasn’t the same relationship as the one Nate and I have. When all of this clicked, it was like a light bulb going on in my head and I wept.

I'm staying at a beautiful hotel in Louisville, KY called the Seelbach Hilton. It's a beautiful, majestic place that's been around forever. I'm on the concigere level, which all sorts of perks - h'oderves last night included Lox and beef tips with various desserts - who needs dinner. To top it off, my door has a nice little box I can leave my shoes in and have them shined and ready to go first thing in the morning.

Zach Bashista and I lead a small group of 10 junior high guys and we call ourselves the Pyros (Mostly because all boys love to burn stuff) I got a cool note from the Mom of one of them regarding our meeting on Sunday night that really touched me:

Thank you for last night’s small group. It was a perfect topic for XXXX. He has been struggling big time, moving into an environment where it is not “O.K.” to be who he is, i.e. thoughtful, kind, smart, an independent thinker. I have been encouraging him to be defined by Jesus, not by peers. It was great to have him hear that from someone he actually respects. The way he has been defining his feelings for me lately is, “I’ve felt bad about my environment before but I’ve never felt bad about myself.”
Thank you once again for taking a Sunday night away from your family, for pouring your heart into middle school kids. You make a difference.

Our group has been going through pieces of the book Wild At Heart, looking at who Jesus was (not the flannelgraph Jesus, but the dangerous, radical, revolutionary Savior of the world) and looking at who we are to him. We started our group off talking about all of the names we've been called in our lives and how we've responded to them. Jr. High guys have been called everything in the book - and every name hurts - short, fat, stupid, faggit, wimp and worse - each name leaves a wound. We talked about who we are to God, and the stone that Revelations talks about with our name on it, and the importance of knowing that name - knowing who we really are to Him. We watched the clip from Gladitator where Maximus states his entire name to the Emperor, and the clip from the Matrix where Neo begins to believe that he is not just "Mr. Anderson" as the Agent tries to convince him. Here's the miraculous part - eight junior high guys spent 3 minutes quietly listening to God, asking him to tell them who they are to him, and writing down what they heard. 3 Minutes for 9 guys with ADD (I include myself in that) is miraculous! What an amazing group of guys - watching them grow from being these tiny immature 6th graders to where they're at now is a blast!

Wow. This article on the Way of the Cross really struck me.

Had a bunch of people over for Survivor last night, and Jason, Cath, Megan, Tim, Jess and I had an interesting discussion on where to draw the lines with what kind of movies we see. The discussion was prompted by J, Tim and I seeing Kill Bill Tuesday night. We were talking about how to balance Philippians 4:8 with Galatians 5:13-15 and Proverbs 4:23. We really didn't come to any conclusions - find any specific line in the sand. There are easy lines to draw around things such as X rated movies - but what about the gray areas? How do you balance finding redemption and the larger story of movies like Braveheart and Gladiator with the violence that the movies have in them? Is violence okay, but not gore? At what point am I not guarding my heart? I'm not sure.

For $30 you can have the celebrity of your choice call your friend for 30 seconds at Hollywoodiscalling.com. I think I'll have Beetlejuice call my brother Jon for his birthday.... Or else the Barbi Twins.