Rick Nier...Woo!

I have had a love-hate relationship with the idiom 'perception is reality.' On the one hand, I get it. If people perceive something to be true, then their actions will be based on that perceived truth. We see this in every area of life. For instance, a young child who sees a slide as tall and scary will have to find courage to go on the slide. An adult will see the slide and think it not scary at all. On the other hand, our perceptions can not always be trusted. I'd rather say that 'reality is reality'. As with the previous example, a child and an adult may perceive the slide in different ways, but that won't change the fact that the slide is a particular height. The slide does not change heights. Reality is reality. This idea of perception and reality is why rumors can be so devastating. Truth is to be valued above all perception. We see this in the Bible as well. Back in the book of Deuteronomy God is preparing His people to enter the Promised Land. We read th...

Have you ever tried to one-up someone else on how busy you are? Perhaps your competition was over who lost more sleep or was more tired? Yeah, I've been there. But I think I just inadvertently trumped myself in this incessant game of proving how busy we are, and thus, proving how important we are. I ran out of gas in my vehicle last week. Nope, not the gas-guzzling Durango that refuses to be sold. Not even the grocery-getter that gets OK gas mileage. I am not even referring to my spiritual state of being (yet). Nope, I ran out of gas in my moped. Apparently E stands for empty. Even on a moped. In case this doesn't sound stupid enough to you, let me break it down by the numbers. I get 145 miles to the gallon. My moped only holds 1 gallon of gas. So I only had 145 miles to take 2 minutes out of my day to stop and put 1 gallon of gas in my moped. But did I? Nope, I was way too busy. No. So I found out that there is something worse than being mocked for driving a moped around town....

If anyone tells you that the book of Numbers is just about counting the Israelites, don't you believe them. Not now. Not ever. Oh, and if you catch my kids, pastor's kids, doing some crazy things, please know they have not yet trumped this story from Numbers 25. Phinehas (not the brother of Ferb) runs into a tent where two people are committing adultery and...well, maybe I better let you read this description straight from the Bible. It's worth the read, unless you're faint of heart. 1-3 While Israel was camped at Shittim (Acacia Grove), the men began to have sex with the Moabite women. It started when the women invited the men to their sex-and-religion worship. They ate together and then worshiped their gods. Israel ended up joining in the worship of the Baal of Peor. God was furious, his anger blazing out against Israel. 4 God said to Moses, "Take all the leaders of Israel and kill them by hanging, leaving them publicly exposed in order to turn God ...

I should have known what I was getting myself into when I agreed to blog on Bruce Wilkinson's new book You Were Born For This . After all, I had read The Prayer of Jabez . Yeah, I'll admit it. I read it. I loved it. I prayed the prayer for about 3 months before I felt stupid about it. Whether right or wrong, I decided it was a little too prosperity-gospel-esque for my tastes. So what was I doing reading another book by Bruce? Good question. Even though judging a book by its cover is considered taboo, I fell for the title. The idea of destiny seemed laced right into this book. By the end of chapter one I knew I was already entrenched in a philosophical debate that hasn't ended in my mind just yet. Perhaps that's ok. Bruce doesn't start out slowly to allow you to get our feet wet. He begins by welcoming the reader to Everyday Miracle Territory, a place he believes God intends for all of us. He wows us with a few stories of miracles and then offers us his definition of...

I waited for 2 hours in the hot Florida sun in a line that saw no shadows from trees. I waited there because it was the line to see Rapunzel and Flynn Rider, from the new Disney movie Tangled . No it wasn't for me. And I wasn't alone. Sweaty dads filled a line that went nowhere really fast. I waited for my daughters, whose trip was made complete by meeting Rapunzel and Flynn. While I waited, my wife took the kids on a couple of rides. They joined me in time to smile for photos and talk with this newest Disney princess and her prince. Jerica, my 4-year old, ask Flynn to put the smolder on (pictured here). It's supposed to make the ladies swoon. He obliged and was surprised when she laughed. Our interactions with the stars were over in a matter of 5 minutes and it was done. My children have signatures in their autograph books and we have pictures to commemorate. This begs the question, was it worth it? Was my patient suffering in affliction worth the prize at the end? Perhaps...

It may seem odd to you to mention Disney and suffering in the same post, but that is exactly what I am going to do. See, Walt Disney and his hierarchy have done some magical things at their park. I could gush about cast members always answering my questions with a smile on their face. Or I could talk about how they take care of every single detail you might possibly think of to have an organized day. But my absolute most favorite part of Disney World is the Fast Pass . They are not the only ones to use this idea, but it's absolute genius. Imagine you come to one of your favorite rides. The line is 4 hours long, because everyone in the state of Florida decided to come on the same day. No problem. You slide your ticket into a kiosk and out comes a Fast Pass for you to use later in the day. When you come back at your scheduled time, the long line is there, but you get to skip ahead. Every time my family used this I had two thoughts. One was as I looked into the eyes of the people wi...

Greg Stier, president of Dare 2 Share Ministries, has written a great book called Ministry Mutiny . It is a book filled with practical wisdom on how a youth ministry should be run. Does that sound boring? Well, fear not because Greg wrote it all out in story form, or parable for those of you that love Jesus. Greg writes of a young youth pastor, lost in his idealism, who is about to quit the ministry. That's when he runs into a veteran youth pastor who becomes his Yoda. The veteran shows the idealist that his ideas are not bad, simply misplaced. Then he shows him how to take those ideas and place them in a properly running student ministry. The book is great because it takes a common frustration for anyone in ministry (not just youth ministry), and then weaves you to practical, timeless solutions in a way that doesn't sound like a mega-church pastor bragging about all of his victories. I would share the mutiny principles here, but that would be less interesting than the story Gr...