Rick Nier...Woo!

I like my lists. They help keep me organized. Aaaaand, I probably get a bit too much pleasure out of checking things off my lists. But, like I said, they help keep me organized. There's really only one weakness to a list. You do have to look at this list in order for it to remind you. Last week I was preparing to take my youth group on a ski retreat weekend. It was a perfect time to make a list, which I did. But the thing about making a list is that it sometimes helps me to remember more clearly what  I need to accomplish. In this case, I had a packing list. As I was packing, I was visualizing what I had written down. I packed and packed and...never looked at my list. It wasn't until hours later, while driving a noisy bus with even noisier teens that I was feeling I had forgotten something. And that's when it hit me. Snow boots?!? Really...snow boots? I didn't forget extra socks...or a magazine...or a charger for my phone. I didn't neglect to bring sno...

You had one rule! One. Rule!!!! That's what I would say to Adam and Eve. I imagine that's what a lot of people would say to Adam and Eve.  We have lots of rules. In fact, you can even find books of ridiculous rules that have been made. For every dumb thing that has been done, a dumber rule has been made to keep it from happening again.  For example... In the state of Florida, if an elephant is left tied to a parking meter, the parking fee has to be paid just as it would for a vehicle. Well....yeah! In the state of Indiana, it is illegal to catch a fish with your bare hands. So much for the days of letting men be men. We have so many rules, in fact, that we have arguments over interpretations of these rules. Adam and Eve broke their one rule. We break every rule. Perhaps rules are not the problem. My belief is that they are not the solution either.  For the solution, we turn to Ephesians 2:8-10. Recently I shared this with the youth of our church, telli...

I saw the cover and knew I would have to read it.  Food: A Love Story  by Jim Gaffigan. If you've never heard the comedy of Gaffigan, he's most widely known as the 'Hot Pocket' comic. But I would call myself a fan of a lot of his stuff.  Jim is not loud or yelling at you. His humor is almost ninja-like, sneaking up on you in his delivery. I listened to the audiobook version of his other book,  Dad is Fat . Awesomely read by him, I've never had a more entertaining drive. And I despise long drives.  In  Food: A Love Story , Jim ponders the ins and outs of practically all foods across America, even going so far as to give us a map of how each region should be named, after the foods most popular there. One can read about his quest to make all food comfort food, except seafood, which he clearly has a distaste for.  At times, I cannot tell if Jim is attempting to communicate an important message about the amount of food we have here in Americ...

I'm a youth pastor. Oh I can gloss it up. I could tell you I'm an Associate Pastor. I could go on about how I have other responsibilities that make me more than what my calling would have you believe. But I'm a youth pastor. And most days I'm perfectly fine with that. After all, it is a calling and it's something I love. But one thing I no longer even try to deceive myself about is that people are listening to me. I give announcements at youth group about items which teens will ask about later, as if I've never spoken. I'll share ideas with big people (you call them adults) and their eyes will glaze over while they wonder what the senior pastor thinks. I preach and often wonder what, if anything, people hear. With all this ignoring going on, you might ask why I blog. Oh, another day, people, another day. Despite this, I continue to convey truth, even if nobody hears me. I'm a youth pastor. I'm a dad. For anyone that has been even a little...

If the world ever had any interest in me, I am quite sure it is gone by now. And I have good news for the world. The feeling is mutual. If this introduction is starting to sound a bit drastic or over-emotional, don't fret. This is just my New Year's self reaffirming what I value, what I care for and which hills I will decide to make a stand on. You might be familiar with the hill I will focus on. It's that hill far away where there stood an old rugged cross. As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world’s interest in me has also died. ~Galatians 6:14 If reading that verse doesn't make you pause for an argument with yourself, perhaps you need to read it again. That, or wake up to the hypocrisy within yourself. I have to believe that somewhere before putting those words to papyrus, Paul had to have had an inner dialogue. Upon reading that ver...

I'm reminded of the Depeche Mode  lyrics... Try walking in my shoes. You'd stumble in my footsteps. I had my rant ready. The scathing wheels in my mind were turning almost from page 1. Actually, it was page 3. Let me explain. I received a book titled We Will Be Landing Shortly, Now What?  by Mike Hamel. After a brief introduction, he begins his memoirs of sorts. Here's what he wrote: I am starting this journal to find out about myself and through myself to find God. There it is. What my apologetics-tuned mind only saw as a bad premise. See, he stated his goal as finding himself first and finding God second. And I instantly thought that was a bad way to go about life. Foundations are key to building a house. I believe that it is only when we find an accurate picture of God that we will truly discover an accurate picture of ourselves. I still believe that....but.... To be fair, I'm only halfway through the spiritual musings of Mike Hamel. So I really don...

I shared this with my teens lately. Make no mistake about it. Teaching on the hard sayings of Jesus means grappling with those hard sayings myself.  As they were walking along, someone said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” But Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.” He said to another person, “Come, follow me.” The man agreed, but he said, “Lord, first let me return home and bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead! Your duty is to go and preach about the Kingdom of God.” Another said, “Yes, Lord, I will follow you, but first let me say good-bye to my family.” But Jesus told him, “Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.”  ~Luke 9:57-62 It is interesting to me how we respond to the words of Jesus. I think Christians like to say Jesus was a wild man who said audacious things to p...

It was an interesting read this past December. My daily reading in the Bible had me in 2 Chronicles. In case you're unfamiliar, 2 Chronicles, much like 1 Chronicles, or 1 & 2 Kings, gives us glimpses into the lives of Israel's and Judah's kings. Good, bad, short rule or long, we're given relatively brief stories when one considers these guys lived for 40 years or more. What we have is their legacy. It's an elongated obituary. Having read their stories, I didn't think much of it until I came across an article in USA Today, where they were recounting the many people we lost in 2014. The actors and actresses, the athletes, the politicians and others who had contributed something considered worthy to our society. The list was interesting enough. It included names I recognized and names I did not recognize. What struck me was how short the whole article was. I imagine it was the standard length for a newspaper article, but considering the many names t...