Rick Nier...Woo!

Everybody, I think I’ve made a discovery. I think I’ve discovered the greatest thing before  sliced bread. Everyone always talks about this invention or that creation being the greatest thing since  sliced bread.  To be honest, I’m not sure how sliced bread became the standard by how we’re amazed. What should be more amazing is that it took humanity so long to figure it out. It was 1928 when Otto Rohwedder invented the first single loaf bread-slicing machine. 1 But it’s not like he cured cancer. He sliced bread.  I digress. You’re here for the discovery of the greatest thing before sliced bread. I actually found it in the Bible, in the book of 1 Kings to be precise. The splendor of the King Solomon is being described in great detail. It includes the building of the Temple of the Lord. It details the building of his own palace, plus several other buildings he designed.  We’re told of the riches that are brought into Israel every month and every ...

Very few of us, when asked, would confess to believing we are the most important person in the world. The person, who above all others, deserves the time and attention of everyone else. Literally everyone else. Rare also would be the person who would say they are even the most important person in their chosen field of focus. There can, mathematically, only be one #1 doctor, teacher, firefighter, etc. But let’s narrow the field down a bit more. Would you say you are the most important person where you work? I don’t mean that the company couldn’t do what they do without you. I’ll grant you that every part of every machine serves a purpose, but you should admit there are other people who could do your job. Every person in every company has a role to play, but to believe you cannot be replaced means you may want to re-read the first few paragraphs. Also, I would suggest that if we think every part is equally important, understand the appendix has been removed from thousands of peop...

I have told a few people about my family’s word of the year. You know about this trend, no doubt. Equal parts resolution and trendy reminder to oneself of something you want to achieve. For my family, it came almost as a whim. We had chosen the word adventure the year before. It fit within the context of what we were going through.  Honestly, the adventure hasn’t ended, but I felt a need for us to grow in the place where this adventure had taken us.  Extra.   It was fun to me because of how my teenagers were using the word. Extra. If someone is doing anything they view as unnecessary or over the top, they are considered extra. You'll have no problem imagining that my kids see me as extra several times every day. If you want to see extra, come and watch a teenager react when you tell them something they don’t want to hear.  But we chose the word  extra . We said we wanted to engage in life more than we had before. We wanted to represent C...

Suffice it to say that in this technological age of streaming and DVRs, my kids have likely watched fewer commercials than when we were kids. They have seen ads. We all deal with ads, but when we're focused on trying to get past the ad, how much do we really pay attention? But we recently switched from Dish to YouTube TV, something I don't regret. While watching a show as it was being aired, my kids saw a political ad. Their shock at the shade being thrown made me wonder if they've never seen a political ad before. They laughed out loud as the smear campaign was played. Not in an amused way. No, it was the sort of nervous laughter that happens when you wonder if you really just heard what you think you heard. It's the recognition that these are things we hear in TV shows, but didn't realize that, in this case, Hollywood imitates real life. Are my children sheltered? Is that what happened? They go to public school. They remind me every day that I force them t...

My youngest daughter is in sixth grade, which around here means it is her last year of elementary school. I'm not sure how I can be so young and have children so old, but I guess crazy things still happen. When the papers started coming home, asking for parental involvement, I said yes. This is why I found myself in an elementary school one day, playing games with sixth graders. And it was fun. Exhibit A The challenge was simply explained. The students had to get in pairs and sit back to back against each other. One student was given a simple drawing, like Exhibit A here. The other student was given a pencil and a piece of paper. The student who could see the drawing had to explain to the other student what to draw. There was to be no peeking and no stating what the drawing was. So, in this instance, the student could not tell their partner to draw a dinosaur. While the challenge was simply explained, it was not easily performed. As you can imagine, there was some frust...

There are many benefits of the job I have working for a Christian college. One of them is to pull out the trump card and say, I thought you loved Jesus , whenever they say something I don’t like. Ok, I’m kidding. I don’t actually say it out loud.  The real benefit is working among like-minded believers who know we are all in this mission together to serve the King. Oh, we surely forget from time to time, and we all have our levels of maturity in the faith. But when we stumble, we’re surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who can pull us aside and say, I thought you loved Jesus . (Kidding. Again, no one says it out loud.) But here’s something that, seriously, does keep us all grounded. The faculty and staff are encouraged to attend the chapel services alongside the students. Yes, we all have much to keep us busy and it would often be easier to keep plugging away on a project or two.  Yet there is no greater equalizer when people of different levels of authority g...

Have you ever paused to think about what we know to be true? If you are the type of person who is quick to judge, as I am prone, then you know that sometimes we only think we know what’s true. Oftentimes we have only to wait a little bit to be given more information. Something like this is happening in Luke 8. Jesus appears to be going non-stop from town to town healing people. In fact, for the people who lived this story out, that may have been the only detail they actually knew for sure.  In fact, He is on His way to the home of a dying girl, at the father’s request, when a woman intentionally touches Him and is healed. I say intentionally because it causes a scene.  If you can imagine the kind of roving mosh pit that was the crowd clamoring to be close to Jesus, then you realize many people would have been touching him. Because, you know, some people are close walkers.  They trip over your feet and accidentally bump you because of their proximity. Some...

All I wanted was a deep-fried candy bar. I took my 12-year old to the county fair last night. The teenagers were with friends, and so I was able to give 100% focus to one child. But let me be clear. I hate  the fair. If other people did not exist in my life, I would have absolutely no reason to ever go to the fair. But by going to the fair, you realize just how many people do exist. Seriously, where do some of these people, and their corresponding senses of style,come from?  Because it’s like someone said people of Walmart couldn’t get any stranger and the county fair said, “Hold my beer.” I digress. I am at the fair with my daughter. She wants to ride some rides. I am avoiding eye contact with the barkers wanting me to prove myself by squirting water into a tiny hole or toss a quarter on to a cooking-sprayed dish. All I want is a deep-fried candy bar. We buy some tickets for my daughter to ride the rides. Let me pause again and tell you I have been quite clear with fr...

We could read every verse there is in the Bible and always end up with the same question. Do you know what this means?!? But it wouldn’t be us asking as if we were confused. Sure, there are scriptures that confuse us. But that’s not what I am talking about.  Consider John 3:16. Half of you just stopped reading because you assume I’m trying to reach a third grade Sunday School class. The half that stick with me will, I hope, be thankful they did.  Truths That Should Leave Us In Awe John 3:16 tells us that God loved the world so much He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for our sins. Any fragment of that verse is amazing to think about, but for the sake of time, I’ll assume you’re not glossing over the idea that the supreme, all-powerful, all-knowing God who created everything perfectly and that watched as His creation messed everything entirely up, still chooses to love us and substitute His perfect Son in exchange for our sinful. Selves.  You didn’t gloss over th...

Have you ever gone through a big change in your life and wondered how it would work out? Despite my history of working with teenagers, I’m not actually talking about puberty.  I think my biggest struggle with my current career transition is how I assume people will perceive my identity. ( Should my current colleagues read this, they should understand completely that this has nothing to do with them. They are an amazing team of people who are nothing but encouraging. ) This struggle is about moving from a church job to a non-church job. I imagine the struggle was going to come no matter what I found myself doing. After all, what surprised me most was not what I found myself doing, but I found myself not doing. I assumed I would be continuing as a youth pastor...somewhere.  When God opened up unexpected doors, it left me with gratitude...and questions.  Did I burn out? Did I become uncalled? Did I not have what it takes to be a lifer in ministry? Did I sell...

Disclaimer: I am writing this before I see the latest Marvel move: Avengers: Infinity War. I am doing so with a purpose. You can read this and know there won’t be any spoilers.  Having said that, let me tell you what’s on my mind. My family have been fans of superhero movies for a long time now. We watch them. We talk about them. We buy them. We watch and talk some more.  Because of this, we’re pretty attached to the characters, some of whom we have been watching for the past decade. So we actively avoid spoilers when a new movie is coming out. Yet we still see people’s opinions and thoughts posted on social media. My wife saw that several women were so shook up after the movie they needed cookies as a coping mechanism.  This is a little odd to me, but only because I do not need to be upset in order to need a cookie. However, I do understand being upset. In fact, if an entertaining movie can help us to feel emotion and consider truth, that’s a goo...

Contrarians. Who needs them? After all, they’re usually a disagreeable sort. The rest of us are just out here living our lives when we happen upon one. They get all up in our business with their thinking and their justified applications based on those thoughts. They think they’re better than the rest of us. Or, at least, that’s how it feels. Case in point. Imagine a group of people having a conversation, when two of them say the same thing, almost simultaneously. You already know what he of them is going to say, don’t you? Great minds think alike! Then some tool comes along and says something like, ‘No, great minds think for themselves!’ Now, are they being contrarian? Yes. But are they necessarily being obnoxious? No. I say this for a couple of reasons. First, I am the aforementioned tool who says great minds think for themselves. I’m not trying to be contrary. But I think it’s good to give people another perspective. And that is exactly what I’m getting from Larry Osborn...

Imagine a world, perhaps centuries farther into history than we are now, where there is no concept of satire or sarcasm. First of all, it’s a world I would be incapable of living in. But more importantly it is a world in which this book I’m about to describe could never be appreciated. I present to you  How To Be a Perfect Christian; Your Comprehensive Guide to Flawless Spiritual Living. This literary gem is written by the good humored people at The Babylon Bee. If you haven’t been introduced to their satirical, fake-news style coming across your social media news feeds, you’re missing out. Or you might be the people of which they are making fun. What they’ve brought us here is a fantastic look at the wonderful subculture we call American Christianity, poking fun at some of our more...er...endearing qualities. Giving us insights like how to pick a church that will focus on us to the finer points of how to look spiritual online, they really have thought of everything. Worshippi...

She said to pray for a student who was standing near us. To be clear, she asked all the students in the building to nod so that people near them would know they were a middle school or high school student.  Since I’ve reached the age where everyone under 30 looks like they could still be in high school, this was a smart thing to do. It would be awkward to start praying for someone’s high school career and find out they graduated in 2012. But, for me, it was also unnecessary, because I was standing next to my middle school aged son, with his two sisters just beyond him.  She directed us to pray for these students in light of what recently happened in Parkland, Florida. No problem!  I pray for my three, and several others, every single day. It’s not just guns I fear. It’s temptations of every variety, the peer pressure that comes from every side, the stress of trying to perform well academically and socially, and on and on and on. It’s also that they would stay saf...

If you will indulge me, I will be honest with you. To say last year brought about a little bit of change would be like saying the Titanic’s first voyage was a bit of disappointment. Or that Tom Brady has found a level of success throwing around a football. Or that millenials communicate better through memes than words. Yeah, the changes were big. If you weren’t sitting around, just watching me live my life, let me give you the Sparknotes version; My wife and I each got new jobs, after having worked in the same building, together, for 15 years. After a couple of months of unemployment, my wife got a new job at a new church. After a few more months than that, where I dabbled in construction and pretended to enjoy substitute teaching, I got a job in marketing. All of these changes have left me thinking plenty of thoughts about who I am, what I do, and just how I have come to find myself where I find myself. Be assured, this isn’t about gratitude. I love the story I get to share about ...