Paul Tripp teaches at a conference in Hollywood, CA (Reality LA Church).
I had the privilege of sitting under the teaching Paul Tripp this past weekend at a conference called “Back to Heart of Parenting”. It was a great reminder about the power of the Gospel in parenting and Paul Tripp is a fountain of wisdom and I praise God for his ministry.
He’s been blogging a bit more lately, which I love, and a blog he published yesterday is just a great reminder about the “10,000 moments” in our lives that mold and shape us. He writes,
…biblical Christianity, which has the Gospel of Jesus Christ at its heart, simply doesn’t rest its hope in big, dramatic moments of change. The fact of the matter is that the transforming work of grace is more of a mundane process than it is a series of a few dramatic events. Personal heart and life change is always a process. And where does that process take place? It takes place where you and I live everyday.
Later he adds,
What leads to significant personal change? 10,000 moments of personal insight and conviction, 10,000 moments of humble submission, 10,000 moments of foolishness exposed and wisdom gained, 10,000 moments of sin confessed and sin forsaken, 10,000 moments of courageous faith, 10,000 choice points of obedience, 10,000 times of forsaking the kingdom of self and running toward the kingdom of God, 10,000 moments when we abandon worship of the creation and give ourselves to worship of the Creator. And what makes all of this possible? Relentless, transforming, little-moment grace.
One of my favorites sites right now is Goodreads. Their “About Us” page describes the service this way:
Goodreads is the largest social network for readers in the world. We have more than 5,200,000 members who have added more than 160,000,000 books to their shelves. A place for casual readers and bona-fide bookworms alike, Goodreads members recommend books, compare what they are reading, keep track of what they’ve read and would like to read, form book clubs and much more. Goodreads was launched in December 2006.
I’ve been using it for about a year now and I’m really starting to understand why I like it so much. The above image is data that Goodreads provides me about the books I’ve read over the past few years, with specifics to the amount of pages. In 2010 I read 1047 pages. So far this year I’ve read 861 pages. I can set goals on the number of books I want to read in a year (I’m hoping for 12 this year), and I can update my “current page” any time I want to see progress percentages and other info. You might be thinking this is pretty nerdy, and yes, it is. But the fun part about Goodreads is you can keep track of the books you own, get recommendations on books from friends, and kind of keep yourself accountable to a good reading schedule. I normally use their iPhone app to update my pages when I finish reading for the day and it’s quick and easy. Also, if you’ve never seen my “Bookshelf”, it’s a complete list of my books embedded in to my website that is automatically generated from Goodreads. Go see for yourself. So if you’re a reader (and I hope you are), then definitely check out Goodreads.
Death Cab For Cutie – Codes and Keys Brand new Death Cab For Cutie album that just came out yesterday. Haven’t had a chance to listen, but I’ve never been let down by these guys.
Two Door Cinema Club – Tourist History It's like dance rock. I don't really have a good way of describing it, but I find myself coming back to this album.
Anberlin – New Surrender Another rock album. Probably not their best album, but these guys bring the goods.
*UPDATE: Joshua Harris was kind enough to read and link to my post today on his own blog. He’s a very humble man and he’s written some clarifying words on why he’s the “P. Diddy of Christian writers”. Here’s a link to his post.
I own two Joshua Harris books: Not Even a Hint and Stop Dating the Church. One of them is out on loan to someone, and the other I have two hard cover copies of just so I can give one away sometime. Both books are excellent in their subject matter and I regularly recommend them to people. And for that matter, both have great titles and great covers…or at least they used to.
Not Even a Hint is a book on sexual lust. It’s probably one of the best books on the topic both for the Biblical view it presents, and for it’s balance in handling a sensitive subject matter. I will often recommend it to young people, especially the college students I work with because it was in my own college life that I read it for the first time. Unfortunately a few years back I called the local Christian bookstore to find a copy for someone and they had no idea what I was talking about. I said, “I know it’s by Joshua Harris, and I know it’s called Not Even a Hint. I’m looking at my own copy right now”. The nice clerk responded, “Yeah, I don’t see it. Are you sure it’s still in print?” “It’s gotta be there!”, I said. She could probably tell I was annoyed. “The only thing on that subject I see is a book called Sex Is Not the Problem (Lust Is)“, she explained. My jaw dropped. Are you serious? I mean, I get the point, but that’s part of the problem. What college student is going to get comfy at their local Starbucks with that title staring everyone else in the face and basically exposing their own struggle to the entire room? Not a single one I know, that’s for sure.
Bethany informed me tonight that Josh Harris was re-releasing my other favorite book of his Stop Dating the Church under the new title Why Church Matters. Boring. Sounds like a theology book title, and is pretty generic to boot. But it’s not just the title he’s changing, look at that cover (below)! Did we just go back to the early 90’s? Is this some kind of joke? This is hands down (no pun intended) the best book on local church purpose and involvement and now they’re going to lose their audience (which I believe is a younger audience) to the hands of wonder. The font is old, the yellow line is out of place, and the hands…oh, the hands.
Now you might be thinking, “oh come on Shay, don’t judge a book by it’s cover–it’s an age old adage.” I know, I know, and for the most part I agree. It’s just I don’t have time to double check that the book I’m recommending my lust filled, church hating friend has the same title it did when I read it last week. I think Joshua Harris and his marketing team need to stop having second thoughts about each one of their covers and titles. Stop dating your book covers and commit already!
I shot a short video of the Astronomical Clock in Prague when we visited a few weeks ago. This thing turned 600 years old (yes, I just said 600 years old) last year. Here’s a little bit about it:
The [Astronomical Clock] is mounted on the southern wall of Old Town City Hall in the Old Town Square. The clock mechanism itself is composed of three main components: the astronomical dial, representing the position of the Sun and Moon in the sky and displaying various astronomical details; “The Walk of the Apostles”, a clockwork hourly show of figures of the Apostles and other moving sculptures—notably a figure of Death (represented by a skeleton) striking the time; and a calendar dial with medallions representing the months. [via Wikipedia]
I had the privilege of traveling with my wife last week to Eastern Europe, specifically Czech Republic. It was my first time “overseas”, and Bethany had traveled some in Europe when she got out of high school. Our son stayed home as we thought the travel and time difference would be a bit too much. We missed him greatly, but it was the right move.
The majority of our trip was spent in a town called Malevonice in Czech. Apparently it doesn’t have any meaning in English, so don’t bother trying to figure it out–it’s just a name. It’s a beautiful place and it reminded me a lot Kentucky, mainly because of all the green. The weather was absolutely beautiful. Mostly sunny and in the mid seventies (Fahrenheit), you couldn’t have asked for a more perfect time to visit. Even when the clouds rolled in on Friday morning (shown below), it cleared out by noon and we spent the late afternoon playing football, aka soccer.
You might be wondering what were doing over 6,000 miles from home. We were visiting a missions organization called Josiah Venture. They serve over 11 countries in Eastern Europe and focus on doing youth ministry. Many of our friends have served alongside JV doing summer camps and music tours, so we really wanted to see what they were all about. Our church helped us financially to make the trip over and it was a blessing for Bethany and I to get a better understanding of the work JV is doing. We met some incredible people, ate really good food, and enjoyed attending the JV “Spring Conference” which is for all the missionaries that work with JV across Eastern Europe. All in all there were a total of 207 people attending the conference and it was fun to hear the stories of what God is doing in all of their countries.
Story after story from places like Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Latvia, Albania, etc. shared of great faith and sometimes great hardship for the sake of the Gospel. It really opened my eyes to the global work or God of which I had never really experienced before first hand. These evangelists are doing pioneer missionary work in most of these countries, and some of the work is slow and difficult. I tried to think of the hardest ministry challenge I’ve had in the past year and it probably has something to do with who’s getting the donuts and setting up coffee this week…something meaningless. I wish you could hear the story of God’s work in Slovenia the way I heard it this week, from a teary-eyed missionary as he talked of thousands of people getting to hear the Gospel for the first time at an evangelistic outreach event, and the 10+ years of tireless work they have put in to that country with very little fruit. Or the story of the youth rock choir that was started in a small church in Czech, of which 120 unsaved young people came to be a part of it on the first week it met. There were so many students, and the church was so small (about 20 people in the whole church), that they were asking some to leave because the church couldn’t handle the growth.
Bethany and I both felt that just being with these missionaries convicted our hearts of areas in our lives that Christ needs to sanctify, specifically what am I doing with the Truth entrusted to me? It’s one thing to be around good theology (which we are here at home), it’s another thing altogether to apply that theology in practical ways (which I am convicted about) and have the faith to see God work. God is doing a work in my heart right now of which I don’t fully know the ramifications. I can say that no matter what it is, it’s purpose will be to bring God the glory only He deserves. My eyes were opened a little more last week to a world that not only needs to Gospel, but is ready to hear it.
One final story happened after we left to come home. The director of JV, Dave Patty, sent an email to all the conference attendees about something that happened on the train while they were traveling that weekend. Just so you know who he’s talking about, Dr. Erwin Lutzer was the main speaker at the conference and Scott Willis was a special guest. Here’s the account from that email:
On Sunday afternoon Connie and I boarded a train for a quick visit to Prague with Luzters and Willises. Finding their seats, Dr Lutzer and Scott Willis sat down across from two young women who were listening to music on their I-pods. Dr Luzter introduced himself to the gal across from him, found her name was Jana, and asked where she was from. When she said “Moravia”, he replied, “Oh, I’ve just been learning about a group of Moravians who took the Gospel of Jesus Christ all over the world.”
“What is the Gospel of Jesus Christ?” she asked.
You can imagine how Luzter enjoyed a question like that! For the next hour and a half he shared that gospel with her. At one point she told how she had fallen off a dock last year onto some rocks, injuring her head, and almost dying. She was in a coma for 12 hours, and experienced leaving her body and looking at herself from across the room.
“I don’t know why I am still alive,” she said.
“Because you are not ready to die”, Lutzer answered. When he asked her if she wanted to pray to receive Christ, she said that she had never prayed before, and asked him to lead her. They did that, right in the train. You could see the change immediately – afterwards she was beaming!
When we all said goodbye to our new sister Jana at the Prague train station she said to Luzter. “Just keep going the same direction. And on behalf of all the people in the world I thank you.”
I have her E-mail contact now and will be working to get her plugged into a fellowship in Prague.
I think I’ve been a little inspired lately by Jeff Bridges panoramic photos, because for no reason at all I took a bunch of panoramics while we were in Hawaii two weeks ago. And by “a bunch”, I really mean four. Most of these are straight out of the camera, and just stitched together in Photoshop. I’ve added descriptions below each image, and if you want to see the image larger you can just click the photo which will redirect you to my Flickr.
This is in Hananuma Baby. I love the couple in the bottom left getting the classic tourist shot. Everyone in our car was cracking up because the woman kept changing her poses. And we all know it’s the pose that counts.
This was just beyond Hanauma Bay. Absolutely stunning to see how blue the water was and to feel the warm wind coming off the water. The power of the waves crashing against the rocks was amazing.
This is Pearl Harbor. I shot this from the USS Arizona Memorial center that is across the water from the actual sunken ship. I love American history and this is a must see for any one interested in the subject. Somber place, but the beginning of a long and necessary war. If you look closely, the USS Arizona Memorial is just left of the middle of the image, on the water line (it’s the little white building on the water).
Last but not least, Waikīkī. The famous beach is just as beautiful as people had described it and Bethany and I enjoyed some Starbucks and walked along the water. This particular shot has about 15 photos from left to right.
1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.
5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.
