Here’s a song that brought me closer to the Lord. I could just fall down in worship to this song right here in front of my computer. Hopefully we’ll be doing this one soon at Twelve Oaks…
“From the Inside Out”
Words & Music: Joel Houston
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UYjyO6LNZQ]
I just started reading Ultra Marathon Man by Dean Karnazes. I am one-third through the book, and already I am so pumped about running tomorrow morning! For those that aren’t familiar with the specific peculiarities of the Twelve Oaks subculture—there are a few of us (between 2 and 5) that gather most Saturday mornings at Grand View Drive in the Heights to run for a few miles, talk about life and just relax. Call it a tradition or even male-bonding, it’s just plain therapeutic.
Tonight, Rachel and I were at Border’s drinking a caramel latte & chai and I started into his book. I haven’t even bought it yet; I just sat there reading for about two hours. The funny thing is that the stories he tells are completely familiar to me, although I had never read anything of his life before tonight. Each story, from running track in jr. high school, wondering what was wrong with the hippie-cross-country guys compared to the seemingly normal track guys, wanting to do more for myself to be more in control of my destiny…and how it all came down to my desire to run today…it was the story of my life. Maybe that’s why I am getting so inspired and excited to run tomorrow. I want to push my body to the limit of exhaustion, and see how far I can go…just because I can.
His life is inspirational to say the least. If you have time, check out the blog he’s been writing about his upcoming Endurance 50. He’s running 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 consecutive days. That is an unbelievable feat. Most runners will tell you that you should take at least a week off from running after one marathon… let alone fifty. I’m really anxious to see how well he does. The sponsors (primarily the North Face) are pinning it as the “Tour de France” of running events.
But back to the book: go buy it today. And if you have a spare $12 on you, grab a copy for me, too, because I’d really like to finish reading it.
PS: just in case you were wondering:
a marathon is 26.2 miles.
Multiply that by 50 and you get 1,310 miles in just 50 days.
As I was rummaging through our church office looking for the Portuguese audio CD’s, I came across a few books that I had never even heard of by authors I have grown to have a great amount of respect for. The first book that I saw (and conveniently borrowed), is the Habits of Highly Effective Churches, by George Barna. Mr. Barna is a number-crunching-pollster who has devoted his energies to researching why some churches explode while (most) others fizzle.
In his book, he discusses exactly what the “other guys” are doing to experience the growth. I’m only 40 pages into it, and there are so many good quotes. I keep interrupting my wife from whatever she’s doing to say, “Oh, wow…Listen to this! …” or “Preach it , brotha! …AMEN!”
Some favorite Barna Quotes so far:
“I’m willing to bet that when the Lord examines a church His criteria will have little to do with attendance statistics, budgeting complexities or program breadth. If His critique of the Pharisee’s is any indication,His analysis will hinge on the depth of people’s commitment to making their faith real and pure.” (p. 17)
“There are more than a quarter of a million churches in America that are not highly effective in ministry–roughly nine out of every ten churches! If you believe, as I do, that the church is the single most important organization in America, then this is a situation of crisis proportions.” (pp. 18, 19)
“If God has called your church into existence, then He intends to bless it.” (p. 25)
We’re going back to school. Today was my first lesson in Brazilian Portuguese. Our church has enough people that have gone on mission trips in recent months that they invested in some language courses by Pimsleur. Which is very nice because it saves us a nice amount of moolah.
There are 2 courses each containing about thirty half-hour lessons. So, I should be about done by the time we are ready to leave next year. That’s a whole lot of foreign language to sit through…
I’m not gonna lie. Now that I’ve written it out, I am feeling a little intimidated. Not to mention that I was warned that the narrator’s voice drives a person mad by lesson 14 (that is, 14 of 60). It’ll be a fun year of simon says.
Some perceptive individuals may have already noticed the new link on the sidebar.
If not, here is the brief synopsis:
[drumroll please]
We are praying about going to Brazil next summer to work with Project AmaZon!
It is going to involve some major planning on our part to get our house (financial and literal house) in order and ready for an extended absence. Comments are welcomed as well as advice from anyone that has experience with missions. This will be my third and Rachel’s second mission trip abroad, and the first to South America for both of us. Please pray for us as we wait to hear from the Lord about this trip. It’s unbelievably exciting, and also incredibly stressful.
Click on the link in the left hand column to learn more.
