Rick Nier...Woo!

The world is a village. That’s what my local church has been talking about. We shared these statistics of what the population would look like if we were a village of just 100 people. Out of 100 people • 60 would be Asian • 14 would be African • 12 would be European • 8 would be Latin American • 5 would be American or Canadian • 1 would be from the South Pacific • 51 would be male; 49 would be female • 82 would be non-white; 18 white • 67 would be non-Christian; 33 would be Christian I've seen these statistics with a few variations, but this particular set I got from The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns, pg121. I don’t find these stats alarming, but I do find them surprising. I think, if we’re honest, we all do. The fact is we can all get so narrow-focused in our own little part of the world that we forget the rest of the world may not look like us. Guess what? They also don’t always think or respon...

The Lion, The Mouse and The Dawn Treader is a book by Carl McColman. The subtitle says it all; Spiritual Lessons from C.S. Lewis's Narnia . This is an e-book, so there was no jacket description, but the title leaves little to guess at. Honestly, I am really not sure what to think of this book. On the one hand, having read C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader , it was fun to have this quasi-conversation about what is really going on in the book. After all, I'm not sure I ever knew The Chronicles of Narnia to be just a story. On the other hand, I think I may just prefer to read the chronicle rather than the lesson book. The stories of Narnia have some very clear spiritual implications and lessons to teach. However... I don't know anything else about Carl save for what he has written in these pages. I sometimes wondered if Carl was stretching things a bit. I had just recently read the chronicle that was being addressed here, but I wondered how deeply between the l...

Jennifer and I have not yet gotten to the point of pushing our children for a decision on their careers. We are waiting for them to at least hit double digits before we ask them how they plan to take care of us in our golden years. But the subject of what they want to be does come up. So far Jacie, our oldest, has discussed being an astronaut and a teacher, but her real dream is to be a dolphin trainer. She should probably learn to swim first, but she has time. My son has also batted the idea of education around, right after his career in pro sports is done. I'm ok with that plan. It makes retirement sound much more possible. It's our youngest that has me concerned. At the tender age of 4, she has decided that she does not want to go to college because that could mean that she wouldn't be living with mom and dad. It warms the heart now, but it won't pay the bills later. If my children seem oblivious now as to what to do with their futures, wait until some pastor (likely...

Flexibility is a good thing. If you watch Winter Wipeout on ABC, you'll find out why. This is my family's newest weekly dose of shared fun. Winter Wipeout is the winter edition of a the original, where contestants attempt to run a course in the best time. But this isn't your run-of-the-mill course. Here's how they describe their show. Twenty-four thrill-seekers will compete in the world's largest extreme obstacle course designed to provide the most spills, face plants and wipeouts ever seen on television. Basically the show is for the viewers who enjoy laughing at people who fall in very awkward ways. More than once my kids have laughed, and my wife has winced, as a contestant face plants and finds their feet by their ears. Like I said, flexibility is a good thing. The group who tried to attend a concert this past weekend also learned about flexibility. We expected to be able to buy tickets at the door. Alas, they sold out before we got there. I assumed the concer...

Oh the whim of a 4-year old! They are less reasonable than a teenage girl, make less sense than a government document, are more stubborn than a pack of mules, and yet they often don't miss a thing. What should have been simple was not. After eating lunch together, my wife and the aforementioned 4-year old, Jerica, were going to go shopping. Except Jerica did want to go. She made her feelings well known by using the universal sign for obstinate 4-year olds; she fell down on the floor and refused to move. My wife was trying to get her boots on while I helpfully tuned my guitar. (It had to be done. Out of tune guitars do not sound very good.) Wife: Put your boots on Jerica. We need to go. Jerica: I don't want to. Me: Does that E-string sound right? Seeing that my wife was struggling, yet not wanting to put the guitar down, I started telling my daughter a story. (I'm sure my wife appreciated this help.) Here's what I told my daughter: 'Once, when I was in prison, I made...

If you've ever wanted a pastor to weigh in on the uber-important topic on whether or not King Saul went #1 or #2 in the cave where David hid, then I have the book for you. You've never wanted that? Well, I still have the book for you. Mark Batterson, pastor of the National Community Church in DC has written quite a powerful little book in Soul Print. It is full of great Twitter-sized quotes. It took me until I was halfway through the book to realize where I had read some of these quotes before. (I follow Mark on Twitter.) Don't let the idea that an idea can fit in 140 characters or less lead you to believe that this book has nothing to offer. From start to finish, this book has great insight as we ask the important question, who am I? Here are just a couple of nuggets; 'Perceived disadvatages often prove to be disguised advantages because they force us to develop attitudes and abilities that would have otherwise gone undiscovered.' 'It's not our experiences ...

The other day I read about how Adam and those first few generations lived until they were in their 900's. Besides the fact that it sounds like there would have been multiple generations of grumpy old men telling us how much better it was in their day, I think the idea kind of intrigues me. I mean, there was so much time. How would having all that time change the dynamics of life and aging? This is how I think life would be different if old people were those in their 800's, and not those in their 80's. 1. 20-somethings living with their parents would not be looked down upon. Heck, you could probably live in your parent's basement until you were 300 before people really started to question it. 2. No girl would look down on any guy for not wanting children until his mid-200's. So we'll only have 700 years to build a good father-son relationship. I think we'll find the time. 3. Settling down and having a family may not happen al...

Last night I called my children up from the basement to supper. Jerica, our precocious 4-year old, said, 'I don't want anything yucky.' Ahhh, expectations. You should know that she would define 'yucky' as anything not on her pre-approved list of meals. That list would include peanut butter, grilled cheese and McDonald's chicken nuggets. So yes, by comparison, supper was 'yucky'. But she ate it. Expectations are funny things. An experience can be shared by many people, but interpreted differently depending on what each person expected. If you show up to a U2 concert only to find out that Bono is sick and The Wiggles are filling in, you will likely be disappointed. On the other hand, if your wife dragged you to a Wiggles concert and U2 came out instead, your experience would rise above your expectation for the day. I think something similar is happening in Genesis in the story of Abram and Sarai. Abram has received some pretty big promises from God. You...

Is anyone else out there tired of hearing about resolutions yet? I've already discussed my feeling on resolutions here , here and on New Year's here . Oh my, perhaps I should be tired of writing about this stuff. Nevertheless, with the start of a new year comes the starting over of everything else as well. One of the things I've started over is the Bible. And I'm just Type-A enough to always start at the beginning. So there I was reading the Table of Nations in Genesis 5. This is where we read about guys living into their 900's. (If you thought your grandparents were old at 80, imagine being a teenager and having to travel to see your 700 year old ancestors.) Maybe it's because I just got done listening to teens tell me how bored they were over a 2-week Christmas break, but I started wondering how you spend 900 years on Earth. At first it sounds like a fun idea. After all, you'd be able to finish things like a game of Risk or finish reading War & Peace...

New Year's resolutions are an interesting creature. I can recall a time when I felt guilty if I didn't have a grand list to match how holy I thought I should be. Most often I felt guilty because it didn't dawn on me to resolve anything until around January 5 or 6. Then I would resolve to come up with resolutions sooner the following year. I even recall feeling like a failure if I didn't start my new resolutions on January 1. I mean, after that, what's the point? There can't be any real self-improvement if you start after the New Year has already been in full swing for a week, right? This year it occurs to me that many resolutions stem from discontent. I'm not saying I shouldn't eat right and exercise regularly, but some of my past resolutions came from a place of envy. You can see how I am fixing that problem this year . There are many things about which we look at ourselves and decide we can do better. Some of them may be fine things to work on, but I b...