Rick Nier...Woo!

I've said that I'm ok with being unknown, or insignificant, in the eyes of the world around me. The truth is probably closer to me dealing with the fact that I am relatively unknown and then using that reality to spiritualize it. Ah, what a twisted web we weave, rarely comprehending that the one we deceive is ourselves.  Nevertheless, reading the stories of the Bible and attempting to learn from the mistakes of others is helpful. Recently I was reading from Luke 19. Luke says the people referred to Zack as a notorious sinner. 1 Notorious. Zack wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill sinner. He was famous for sinning. Yeah, you and I might sin, but Zack sinned with flair. It was almost like an anti-spiritual gift, he was so famous for it. The people grumbled that Jesus would choose to go and dine with Zack. After all, who we choose to spend our time with says something about us, right? My mom used to tell me that I was most like the people I like the most. I’m not t...

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...