Values

In certain circles there's always a lot of talk about values; morals or characteristics people hold as important to them. Some organizations have lists of value statements. Ben Franklin even had a list of virtues he hoped to exude in his life.

Here's what I'm thinking: simply naming your values doesn't necessarily mean they're your values. An organization can put words on a piece of paper, but that doesn't automatically cause those attributes to be fleshed out in the everyday operations. A person can stake claims about what their values are, but that doesn't mean it's so. They could be misrepresenting themselves, or just flat out lying to themselves.

That's not to say someone couldn't identify their values. But those kinds of lists are maybe more about identifying the target; the values a person or group are hoping become important to them, to the kind of person or group they want to be (or become).

What got me to thinking about this is that I've lately come across a few things I would like to characterize my life. I'm sure this will change, as different phases of life naturally lead to (and even require) different values.

Passion. Focus. Consistency.

There are people I know who are fired-up kinds of people. They seem to stir up enthusiasm in whatever they do. It's a contagious energy that just kind of floats around like a cloud. Not just rah-rah, fun excitement, but the kind of person that makes you care about the things they care about. And not because they say you should care, but because you see how much they care. I want to be a person characterized as passionate.

Focus seems to be a rare animal these days. In a world of busyness and multi-tasking, people and media are constantly vying for our attention. People grow up learning how to do a mental juggling act. And there's probably something to be said for being able to confidently and competently juggling several things at a time because life comes at you fast. But there's also something to be said for focus, for directing energy and effort in one direction for a greater impact. It's the difference in hunting with a shotgun and hunting with a rifle (and yes, I suppose the risk is that with a rifle you could miss altogether, whereas with a shotgun, if you're a little off some of the pellets would still hit your target - but is that really the best way to go through life, hedging your bets hoping you get it a little right?)

I'm naturally laid-back most of the time. And I say that, but I'm also a bit of a perfectionist sometimes. So I live with this odd tension of personalities. And sometimes it frustrates even me. Sometimes I've the drive and determination of the best 'type A' personality you can think of. Other times, I question the importance of getting all worked up and could be content just laying back and rolling with the punches, 'type B'. But I'm seeing more and more the value of consistency in my habits and actions. I'm growing to have a greater appreciation for consistency. There's a certain dependability that comes from consistency, and I want to be dependable. There's a certain clean-ness and crisp-ness in a life lived with consistency. There's credibility and integrity in a life lived with consistency. I'm hoping that I can more and more structure areas of my life that lead to consistency in the important stuff. That's going to mean creating new habits and breaking old habits and hanging on tight to some things and turning loose of other things. I would like to be a disciplined person, and it takes discipline to be consistent. (and yes, I feel there's something to be said about typing this 'I-want-to-be-more-consistent' after taking a few weeks off of posting blogs... but I'm not going to say it.)

So, those are the values I think I'm taking aim at. Passion. Focus. Consistency. I can picture how those three values would shape a life that's effective. I can see how those would add value to the lives I interact with. I can see how I possess each of these to a degree, and where I can grow into each of these more fully.

I'm sure there are thousands of values people could place on their lives or on the life of an organization. What would you stake a claim to as your values, things you hold dear or would like to grow into?

Technorati tags: values, passion, focus, consistency

The Blind Side

I've been busy lately. Funny what a baby and youth ministry will do to a person's free time. So my reading has been real scarce lately. But a few weeks ago, as the football season was getting cranked up, I had a conversation with a friend of mine; avid sports fan (and crazy smart, get on his team for Trivial Pursuit!).

"I'd like to read something to get in the mood for football this year." So we walked back to the office in his home and he looked over his book shelf.

Now get this. Two shelves. One: books from college days. Two: all sports books. Bill Simmons' and Money Ball and some book about a fantasy baseball guy who flew around the country actually talking to the actual players on his fantasy team (that's getting into a hobby!). And the stack of sports books looked like my stack of religious books. Were my library not so narrowly focused, I'd tell him to get some variety, but that'd be the pot calling the kettle something or other...

Anyway, he recommended "The Blind Side" by Michael Lewis. Basically, it talks about the evolution of the left tackle position in football through the story of a physically-gifted, under-privileged, black kid surrounded by an affluent, white world. Lewis weaves the narrative of Michael Oher's life with background info about Bill Walsh and the development of the 'West Coast offense' and NFL free-agency and Lawrence Taylor's vicious pass-rush.

I don't typically get into fiction books (turns out this actually isn't fiction, but still, I don't typically get into narratives like this), but this was a fun little read. The characters became so like-able and tracing this thin detail of the game of football was interesting.

So, this is just a thanks to Luke and a recommendation to any football fans looking for a good story.

Technorati tags: blind side, michael lewis

GSU Baby

GSU kicked of the Chris Hatcher era with a home win against West Georgia. Shannon and I got the opportunity to go to the game.

And so did Noah.





It was Noah's first football game; a come from behind win for GSU. We tailgated before the game and watched from 'the grass seats' on a little blanket. He had a great time. He even did well with the crowd noise, and only got startled one time.

Jayson Foster hit his receiver on a long post play for an 81yrd TD. Shannon was holding Noah and, along with a stadium full of people, cheered. Noah got this pitiful little look like he was about to bawl when Shannon realized it. We both smiled at him and nodded our heads. Suddenly he broke into a smile, and his world was right again.



It was a neat sort of 'family' experience for me. I think I'm gonna really like this 'family' idea. Already do.

Technorati tags: gsu, football, first timer

A little song we wrote...

So, as of right now the ATL Braves are 5GB of the NYMets (I hate the Mets.) and 5GB in the wild card race and seemingly losing ground with every pitch. They've gone 4-6 on their current road trip and have lost some heart-breakers lately. All this comes with Luke's Cubs *barely* staying afloat of the surging Cards and the sinking Brewers!

But do they have a catchy little ditty for their mid-season pickups? (What, no love for Craig Monroe?) If you're a Braves fan or a baseball fan in general, this is definitely worth three minutes of your life.




I'll admit, the division race is looking like a long shot. There're two more series with the Mets and Phillies that'll determine where the Braves will stand. And the WC race is almost as bleak with the way San Diego's playing lately. But hey, we got Tex, right? (now if we could just find some pitchers to fill out the rotation...)

(ht David)

Technorati tags: atl braves, teixeira

Pretty much the Babe Ruth of guitars

So this is a bit overdue (in my opinion - and in Dan's opinion, too.), but I just have to share some exciting news. Our family has a new baby!

No, not Noah (who, by the way, is beginning to creep closer and closer to sleeping through the night!). I'd like to introduce you to my new Taylor 714ce.



It's pretty much the Babe Ruth of guitars. (ht Luke).

I've been saving for quite a while; honestly, since our house fire two years ago. Three weeks ago, I went to Atlanta to help my brother move and decided that was my opportunity - right here at the end of the summer, just as I head back into the new school year. (I'm 27 and my life still revolves around the school-year calendar.)

I went to Maple Street Guitars, where I had visited before and received tremendous customer service, which is why I went back. Now, I didn't set out for this particular guitar. I had looked around and played around some and had decided it was going to be a Taylor. I liked the way the 400's looked but actually liked the way the 300's sounded better. I also wanted to look at a 500, just so I could say I had considered it. But thought I was settled on a 310ce. One of the salespeople mentioned this 700 they'd had in the store for two weeks or so... "Sure, I'll look at it," thinking to myself, "I'm wasting my time and his time with this thing. It's out of my league. But at least it'll be fun to play for a few minutes." We carried on a bit of conversation about it, and it turns out it was a total Bob Barker moment - the price was right!

Short story is I got a great deal on this guitar. I was able to get much more guitar for little more money. And I couldn't be happier with it right now. The guitar sounds so good. Great balance; it's got a nice bright sound, the mid-ranges sing out on picking up and down the neck, and the bottom end really comes through with overpowering the whole sound. The Taylor ES doesn't dominate the look, but does tremendous things for preserving the acoustic tone when the guitar is plugged in. Notice the wood inlay around the sound hole (which I think gives a certain elegance and calm to the instrument), as opposed to the abalone inlay in the model shown on the Taylor website. It plays so easy and ... well, at this point I'm just gushing, so I'll stop this and just go play it for a while. Bye...

Technorati tags: Taylor, 714ce, Babe Ruth, Maple Street Guitars

Pathways Wrap-Up

Earlier in the summer, I shared that I would be helping to lead a youth leadership workshop at the SouGaConf's Pathways to a Healthy Church event in WarnerRobins this past weekend. Jim and I began some initial brainstorming online and then collaborated via email and cellphones to put the finishing touches on things. I didn't want to leave you all wondering what ever became of that (because I know you were all on the edge of your seats with anticipation and anxiety...)

So, last Saturday Jim and I did, in fact, lead the youth leadership workshop and it went well. Our basic outline for the three 1hr15min blocks was this:

I. Principles of Servant Leadership
Learning activities (which involved throwing balls and spinning in triangles and such) which were followed with reflection and instruction, pulling out lessons of communication, teamwork, sharing of authority, etc... (There was a good flow of 'loopiness'!)Then a scripture study on John13 (when Jesus washed his disciples' feet).

II. Discovering your S.H.A.P.E.
We worked through the acronym S.H.A.P.E. (Spiritual Gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, Experiences) as a way to consider how God has uniquely shaped us to serve in ministry (yes, from Doug Fields). This included a Spiritual Gifts inventory (which I always have mixed emotions about) and a personality evaluation (we chose to use a True Colors eval rather than Myers-Briggs - for time and 'fun' level for the teens). It was quite the beast to tackle in the given time, but worked out to be something the guys and girls were really into. We actually carried this over to the first half of the last block.

III. Discipleship
We based this whole workshop on the principle that any call into ministry begins, and is grounded in, our call to discipleship. This third block focused primarily on that call, as a disciple. Jim taught on the spiritual discipline of prayer, and I on reading/studying scripture. The day closed with Q-&-A / open discussion on leadership within their particular youth ministries and local churches.

All in all, I thought the day went well. I enjoyed the collaboration with Jim and thought we 'bounced' well with one another. I still have the feeling that we filled the time with SOO much information and could maybe have accomplished a little more by doing a little less, but felt the workshop was definitely something worthwhile for the youth and adults involved. They all seemed very 'into it' and several stuck around afterward to talk about further questions and concerns. So, I thought it was good.

Technorati tags: pathways, s.h.a.p.e., experiential yth min, doug fields, myers briggs, true colors

Little something for my friends up north....

And I don't even know how they figure "heat index", but that's even hotter!

Technorati tags: hot

Simpsonized?

I'm not so sure this turned out to be all that good for me. I mean, is that me? Really?!?

If that's suppose to be me, it looks like I would either be some creepy neighbor that lives there in Springfield who Homer would roll his eyes about when I came strolling into Moe's or I'd be a goofy substitute teacher who'd be a push-over with Bart and his disrespectful antics and end up in some sordid story line with Ms. Krabappel, culminating in being fired by Seymour Skinner. [...sigh...]

Technorati tags: simpsonize me

Four words for you...

Let me start with a few qualifiers:
-I do own an Apple iBookG4 and an iPod Nano and am very happy with both. Prefer them, even.
-I never seriously looked at the Zune. (and honestly don't think I've ever taken it seriously, either.)
-At my work I use a Dell Inspiron, so I'm not a total Mac snob.
-I don't think Steve Jobs is the end-all-be-all guru of the universe.
-Steve Ballmer is the CEO of Microsoft. (Has been since 2000 when Gates stepped down from that position.)

All that said, this is really pretty funny:


Especially if you've ever seen this from a Microsoft employee convention:


(Is it just me or does he look like he's about to have a heart attack there near the end of this clip? Oh yeah, and notice the pit stains. Nice.)

Ballmer's obviously pretty passionate. There's quite a bit to be said for passion. I hope to be known as a person who is passionate about stuff. But there's also something to be said for.. um.. normal.

Technorati tags: apple, mac, windows, ballmer

Son, have I got a little story for you...

Alright, so somebody's been pretty sorry about this bloggy-blog thing lately. Kirk's posted three times since my last update. KIRK! THREE TIMES! Really, I just checked. So here's the straight-to-it update just to let everybody know I'm still alive...

Noah:
He and mommy are doing great. It's all true, what they say about not getting much sleep with a newborn, it's true. Granted Shannon gets up with him more than I do, many (maybe most, but definitely many) times I'm up with him. We've agreed that if it's time to feed him, Shannon handles it (because I don't have all the necessary equipment to do that right now), but if he's fussy during the night between feedings, then I get him. That way, Shannon knows she's going to have to get up, but she knows when. I may or may not have to get up, but if I do, it's get-up-and-go time. He's holding his head up in little bits at a time and he's starting to smile at us (which is really cool in an "awww" sort of way).

The Gathering Place:
Sunday nights have been trips to St.Simons Island for the Gathering Place (the WHAT?!?). The Main Event at Gathering Place -for those who don't know- is a large youth worship service that meets every SunPM during June and July at Epworth by the Sea on SSI. Highlights for me this year have been: fun drive time conversations with the kids, speakers Jerod Herd, David Nasser, and Stuart Hall, Mac Powell leading worship one night, and the chocolate Oreo Sundae milk shakes at BK for no other reason that the huge blue straws they give you (if you haven't had one before, get one soon, just for the straw. the Oreo's good, but the straw makes it great!).

Youth Mission Trip:
We participated in the River of Life Mission project hosted by PittmanParkUMC in S'boro. We stayed in on of the dorms at GSU (for those of you keeping score at home, it was Brannen - old one in the corner behind the baseball field). The group I helped lead built two wheelchair ramps, and they weren't too shabby, if I do say so myself. It was a great experience for our teens to be able to help people with legitimate needs as near to home as S'boro; I think it helps to open their eyes to the immediate world around them. And we were in areas of Bulloch County the kids aren't usually in, so they felt like they were far away from home. Since it was this youth ministry's first real mission trip, I thought it was helpful to stay nearer to home. It was also nice not to have to drive all the way from Kentucky or somewhere far off.

Youth Camping/Ski trip:
We took a trip up to Clark Hill -big honkin' lake up near Augusta- and stayed at Petersburg campground, camped one night, water skied, went tubing, and rode the jet ski. It was a fun trip, for sure, but I really felt the devotional times we had were something special. That night we talked about Peter stepping out of the boat to Jesus when He was walking on the water, and they really seemed to understand their challenge of stepping out in faith to follow Jesus as it related to them prepping to go back to school. The next morning, we all met and sat down on the beach and talked about how, after Peter had denied Jesus, Jesus met the disciples on the beach and asked Peter "do you love me?" three times as if to forgive him for the three denials. It was experiential for them, being on the beach, looking out over the water, being able to clearly imagine the boat, there was a little fire ring of rocks right next to us (Jesus had been cooking fish for breakfast)... it was just a couple of really good devotional times. The only real downside of the whole trip was getting sunburned. REAL sunburned. Since my hair has gotten so thin on top, it burned and peeled and looked like the worse case of dandruff ever. So, yeah, that's the downside.

Youth Week:
We're just wrapping up our youth week. Sun we went to the GP. Mon thru Wed we had four members of the Epworth leadership team -summer camp counselors from Epworth by the Sea- come to be with us. We did big games and worship time Mon and Tues pm. Some of the LT guys shared their faith stories, and we watched a couple of the Nooma videos. Wed we had Messy Games day: bobbing for gummy worms in chocolate pudding, shaving cream statues (and ensuing shvgcrm war), egg toss, and super-duper slip-n-slide (which finished up with chocolate syrup on the slip-n-slide). Tonight we had a family cookout and softball game. Officially, it ends with the last GP trip Sun, but I feel like we're on the downhill side of things. There's some enthusiasm heading back into the school year.

Fantasy:
No, no pictures of CZJ (I'll leave that to Luke), but I've held a firm grasp on fourth in our fantasy baseball league this summer. I haven't stayed on top of things like I have in past seasons, but babies and families change certain priorities. Besides, I think I'd kind of like to head into the post season in fourth just so I can put Dan out of the playoffs in the first round. Oh yeah, and it's time to start lining up the fantasy football leagues for this fall (note to self: don't take Vick). Looks like I may be going three: old college buddies, young adult Sunday school class, and one with some of the youth guys (but that one's iffy). FFB isn't as demanding b/c it's a shorter season and you just have to check the line up like once (maybe twice) a week.

Shannon:
I love her more and more all the time.

On the Horizon:
Tomorrow Shannon goes to the spa to redeem the gift certificate she got for mother's day. I think she's planning on a footmassage, pedicure, and full-body Swedish massage. Yeah, I think she's excited about it. Sat we're going Augusta for a family lunch with lots of extended family. Mon I'm helping my brother move out of ATL. He's going to Scotland!

I'll say something about all this and more later on, but for now, this was just an update on me and my world. Basically, as the title indicated to all the Eddie Vedder fans, this was just to let you'll know i'm still alive. Oh, yes, I... I'm still alive... yeah... I.. .. ...

Technorati tags: gp, ebts, bk, rol, clark hill, czj, fantasy sports, day spa