GO SPURS GO!

The Spurs sure have created a frenzy in the sports universe during their series with the Phoenix Suns. Several things have been said about the Spurs that simply boggle the mind. First, the idea that the Spurs are "dirty" is just ludicrous. The Spurs simply play fundamental basketball - not flashy basketball (i.e. lots of offense and no defense). They play good, hard, aggressive defense. Bruce Bowen plays aggressive man defense and offensive "stars" don't like that. The idea that Bowen would deliberately knee Steve Nash in the groin out in the open outside the three-point line is just crazy. Ironically, Nash got hurt because he was playing aggressive defense at the time. Robert Horry's foul at the end of game four was a hard foul, but he clearly was not trying to hurt Nash. If he had been, Nash wouldn't be playing in this series any longer. Nash (and Raja Bell for that matter) is as good a "flopper" as people claim Manu Ginobili is. The idea that Horry, a "scrub", went after Nash to try to provoke the Suns' stars into getting suspended is also crazy. Last I checked, Horry had six championship rings and Nash, Amare Stoudemire, and Boris Diaw had zero between the three of them. Horry is the Spurs' most important bench player after Ginobili, much like Diaw is after Leandro Barbosa. The Spurs missed Horry in game five and will miss him in game six - make no mistake about that. All the literal blood drawn in this series has been drawn by the Suns - Nash's head-butting of Tony Parker and Shawn Marion raking Ginobili's eye. Yes, the Spurs are dirty!

Second, the idea that the NBA is trying to rig things in favor of the Spurs is just plain stupid. The Spurs are a great basketball team and organization, but they are boring for television. They don't draw ratings. If the NBA wanted one of these teams to advance to the finals, it would be Phoenix. The Suns just aren't ready yet. They may have better athletes, but the Spurs have the better team. It's a shame that the respect for each other these teams started the series with has disappeared. The fault there lies with Stoudemire opening his mouth and calling the Spurs dirty and then the media for jumping on that band wagon. If Stoudemire had kept his mouth shut, who knows how the rest of the series would have played out.

Finally, in the midst of all the controversy, the one thing Spurs fans and Suns fans could agree on was that the Dallas Mavericks just aren't ready to win a championship. In fact, they have a new logo that illustrates their strength as a basketball team:

Ordination Service

My Ordination Service was last Sunday. It was a nice service with a reception that followed. A fair number of people came out to the service, including some of the youth. And many others who couldn't come made sure I knew they were thinking of me. It was nice to have my parents and Randa's parents in town for the service and for Ainsley's dedication (in the morning worship service). My parents read scripture and prayed for me during the Laying on of Hands. In fact, my dad was the first to pray during that time. In addition to that, the most emotional time was when Randa's parents came through and prayed for me and for Randa. It was nice to have church staff members involved in the service, as well as ministry colleagues and friends. The support and love that Westwood and the community of faith in this area has shown us has been amazing. The service was very meaningful, affirming, and encouraging! Thanks to all who made the service so special!

Here's some pictures from the service:

Tragedy at Virginia Tech

There are no better words to express about what happened at Virginia Tech than these seen all over the Facebook world: Today, we are all Hokies. As people from all over the country and the world share in the grief of this tragedy, may we always be quick to turn toward God. As Lilly Lewin said so well on her April 17 blog post, "we need you to help us understand things that cannot be understood." Amen.

Ordination

Well, it's official: my ordination is set for Sunday, April 22, at 3 PM. My ordination council was this afternoon and those gathered voted to recommend me to the church for ordination. The council was very affirming - just another reason why I appreciate Westwood. My parents and Randa's parents will be coming into town to celebrate this part of my spiritual journey. I'm looking forward to spending time with my family and to celebrating this moment with the church, with family, and with friends.

Lenten Promise Update #6 - Maundy Thursday

I am happy to report that I have been able to keep my Lenten promise of not eating fast food during Lent. It has been strange not stepping inside a McDonald's or Wendy's since Ash Wednesday. I wonder if the manager at my favorite McDonald's has noticed my absence. If so, the next time I am there will give me a great opportunity to share my experiences with others. I have grown spiritually as a result of this experience. I feel like I have slowed down and tried consciously to take in the meaning of Lent. Holy Week has been a great finish to this expereince for me. From Palm Sunday to today, Good Friday, I have felt more aware of the journey Christ took to the cross those many years ago.

Last night, our church had our Maundy Thursday service. It was a beautiful service in the respect that it provided a great opportunity for reflection on Christ and his sacrifice and sufferings. The service was full of scripture, hymns, reflection times, and beautiful imagery and symbolism. We ended the service by taking communion in the light of a single candle representing Christ. After taking the bread and dipping it in the cup and eating it, we took a candle and lit it from the single candle, thus transforming the dark room into one full of light, just as Christ is the Light of the world. After singing a final hymn, we departed in silence. It was a moving and powerful experience.

As we look toward Resurrection Sunday with anticipation, I am always moved by how feeble it is to try to explain and express our understanding of the love of God found in Christ. Mere words are too inadequate to be able to express what we feel. But I am compelled to express my thanks and though I cannot find the words, God hears them anyway.

Lenten Promise Update #5

My Lenten study with the children ended last night as we do not have Church Family Night during Holy Week. We will be making a trip to ECHO on the Wednesday after Easter to present the donations we have collected during Lent as the service project part of our study, but the teaching/reflection station time ended last night. We discussed Jesus' last supper with his disciples. The focus word was 'remember'. We tried to focus on remembering Jesus' sacrifice and specifically the last week of his journey. I think the children have enjoyed this time together (even though they long for recreation time!) and have benefited from doing things that we normally don't do in our program. We have really stretched ourselves in doing this focused study on Lent, especially through the creative activities that have been involved in the learning process. I was hesitant at first about whether this would work, but I have come to realize that children will amaze you if you give them the chance to try different things! I feel blessed to have been able to share this Lenten experience with the children of our church. On a personal note, I have continued to keep my Lenten promise of not eating fast food and I believe I have grown spiritually during this process. (I'm still working on the shrinking physically part!) I look forward to this year's Holy Week with an anticipation I have not had before - an anticipation of remembrance that will be deeper because of the Lenten study and my experiences with the children. Here's a picture of the painting we used last night to help us remember:

Leonardo da Vinci - The Last Supper (1495-1498)

March Madness Mourning

Well, the dream is over! Texas A&M's basketball season is finished as the Aggies lose in the Sweet Sixteen by 1 point to Memphis. In not taking care of the fundamentals (missing a lay-up and giving up 4 offensive rebounds in the last minute), the Aggies find their season coming to a premature end. But it has been a great basketball year for a "football school." Hopefully this is a harbinger of where the basketball program is headed!

I will now turn to rooting for the remaining underdogs of March! Go UNLV, Butler, and Memphis (since no one gives them any respect, I'll call them an underdog)!

Lenten Promise Update #4

I am still on track with keeping my Lenten promise. The children, however, have had some problems. But this is a great learning time for them and for me. We use the times when we share about our promises to encourage one another. It also is a good time to remember God's forgiveness and our ability to start over. It is refreshing to hear children talk about breaking their promises, but then trying again. Openness and honesty is so refreshing! As is the lack of being judgmental! I had what I will refer to as my 'Josh moment' last night. After discussing their promises and how they were doing at keeping them, we moved on to our discussion about prayer. But, one child stopped me and asked how I was doing with my Lenten promise. It was nice to feel like a part of their lives during this journey! I was happy to share what was going on with me! We had a good discussion about prayer, especially about prayer not just involving talking, but also requiring listening. We focused on the discipline of silence. We did an exercise where we focused our bodies and minds on achieving silence. After the exercise, we spent the remaining time at the reflection stations in silence, listening for God's voice speaking to us. It was very interesting and very hard! Silence is a spiritual discipline I want to and need to spend more time exploring.

Reminder Prayer
When I pray I speak to God,
When I listen God speaks to me.
I am now in God’s presence.
God is very near to me.
From The Lion Book of Children’s Prayers, Lion Publishing.

Lenten Promise Update #3

Yesterday marked another week of successfully keeping my Lenten promise. I am finding that my big challenge now is not in being tempted by fast food. It is being hungry all the time. My poor diet kept me full with the terrible combination of high calories and fat. Now, I struggle with feeling hungry all the time. As a result, I have tweaked my response of focusing on Christ's sacrifice when I feel like having fast food to include focusing when I am feeling hungry and unsatisfied with my meals. What better way to fight hunger than to meditate on Jesus. I have newfound appreciation for Jesus' fasting in the wilderness. I also have more of an awareness about how hard it is to focus on sacrifice during Lent. This is definitely proving to be an experience I will cherish and grow from.

Last night in Faith Builders we focused on forgiveness. Forgiveness is so powerful, yet we treat it so flippantly. This becomes more apparent when you are with children. They really do have a way of grasping these deep concepts in simple ways. After discussing forgiveness for awhile, the children overwhelmingly came to the conclusion that forgiveness is not only powerful, but it is powerful because of the way we experience it. They described how they felt when they forgave others and more so, how they felt when they had received forgiveness. That feeling was one of peace - a peace that only can be explained as coming from God. Forgiveness is powerful because it turns things upside down. Punishment turns to freedom, the messiness of sin to a clean slate. Only forgiveness (through God's sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for us - talk about turning things upside down!) bridges that separation from God that sin creates.

We used two prayer exercises to help us with understanding forgiveness. The first was The Prayer of Saint Francis. We meditated on the prayer to discover and experience God's peace. The second was an imaginative prayer exercise. We imagined being on a walk to meet Jesus. Along the way, we are reminded of what we have done wrong and our need for forgiveness. When we finally are face to face with Jesus we pour out our wrongs to him and ask for forgiveness. Jesus forgives us with loving words and then reaches out for us and pick us up and gives us a big, soft hug. Can you imagine a better picture of forgiveness!?!

The Prayer of Saint Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
-Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)

March Madness Is Here!

The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament is finally here!

Here's my final four picks: Florida, UCLA, Georgetown, and Texas A&M. The Aggies win it all and avenge an early season defeat to UCLA for the title!

Before you call me a shameless homer, this is the first time I have ever picked my team to win it all! (Of course, this is the first time I ever realistically could!) Several basketball experts have picked A&M as a dark horse team to win or picked them outright to win. A&M plays great defense, shoots well from the field, free-throw line, and three-point line, and has the best point guard in the nation. They have good, if not great, post play and they have a good coach. They also have tournament experience. All that should add up to a good showing!

A couple of picks for my friends: Michigan State goes down to Marquette in the first round. North Carolina goes down to Texas in the Sweet Sixteen.

Would the tournament be better with these teams: Drexel, Syracuse, Appalachian State, Akron, Missouri State, Marist, Hofstra, and Air Force instead of these teams: Purdue, Illinois, Michigan State, Stanford, Arkansas, Villanova, Duke, and Georgia Tech? I think so, but we'll never know because the Selection Committee loves to put middle-of-the-pack teams from big conferences in over good teams from lesser conferences. I like Duke, but they are not that good of a team this year. I'd much rather see Drexel get a shot than a middling ACC team that probably wouldn't be in the tournament if their coach wasn't named Mike Krzyzewski (the only plus is that it drives Maryland fans crazy that Duke gets in with an 8-8 conference record and opening round loss in the conference tournament this year, but Maryland didn't last year with an 8-8 conference record and an opening round win in the conference tournament) . Bottom line: I say give deserving teams more chances.

How to fix this mess: First, look at who teams play and where they play. Second, add three more at-large berths and have four play-in games between the bottom eight at-large teams. Third, all conference champions (automatic berths) get seeded instead of fearing having to play in a play-in game. Don't make a team that earned it's way into the tournament by winning a championship play another game to get into the field of 64.


My pick as this year's Champions! Gig 'Em Aggies!

Lenten Promise Update #2

Another week of Lent has passed since Ash Wednesday and I am still keeping my promise to not eat "fast food." Keeping this promise has been interesting lately. My daughter Annie celebrated her 5th birthday at the end of February and my parents were in town for a week to celebrate. Normally we would have gone out to eat at Wendy's or McDonald's for the kids. But this time we celebrated and ate at nicer restaurants. The keeping of the promise has been beneficial in the way it has affected my relationships with my family members. Randa and the girls are proud of what I am doing and have been very supportive. Randa even notes that she is eating less "fast food" because she thinks of me and my promise when she thinks about eating at McDonald's, etc. It has been an interesting time so far. I feel good - almost at peace as I progress with every new day.

I love it when Wednesday nights come and I get to hear how the church children are doing at keeping their promises. Those times together are encouraging. It is especially nice to see the innocence in the eyes of the 1st graders. And we have had great discussions about God and forgiveness. Last night our small group (due to the weather) focused on the story of Jesus going into the wilderness to fast and pray and how he was tempted by the devil during that time. We had a great discussion about temptation and we learned how to deal with it from Jesus' example. So far on Wednesdays, we have learned about making and keeping promises, baptism, and temptation. It has been a special Lenten season thus far.

Lenten Promise Update

I have been able to keep my promise of not eating fast food during Lent. One thing I have noticed during this experience is that this promise limits the number of places at which you can eat quickly and/or inexpensively. But the time waiting, either at a sit-down restaurant or while preparing a meal, gives me opportunity to focus on Christ. This has been a rewarding experience, notably because I am sharing this experience of keeping a Lenten promise with the Faith Builders children at our church.

I Wish I Were A Birder

Here's a couple of pics in homage to my friend Josh, the self-proclaimed "dork birder." I couldn't find any birds, but I found this lovely nest.

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday. I will be leading our Children's Program on Wednesday nights during Lent. Tonight we will be discussing the Lenten season. In addition to learning about Ash Wednesday and participating in our church's service tonight, we, the leaders and children, will make a Lenten promise to do something loving, or to give up something we really like, in order to help us remember Jesus. I am going to give up eating fast food for Lent. During those times when I hunger for a Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Biscuit from McDonald's or a Cheesburger from Wendy's, I am going to focus on Jesus and the sacrifice he made for us. I am hoping that through this experience I will not only eat better and lose weight, but I might be drawn closer to the Lord. I'll keep posting about my Lenten promise as the season progresses.

Here's a picture of me with my beard. I decided to grow a beard this winter just to see how it would look. I kind of like it - I just wish there were fewer gray hairs! Below is a picture of the motivation behind my Lenten promise. That scale says 248! That would be a great weight if I was playing fullback for the Cowboys, but it's not so great for a 37-year-old Youth Pastor. I hope to use this Lenten season to kick start a new focus on healthier eating and exercise, as well as a renewed spiritual growth focus. My goal is to grow spiritually as I shrink physically!

The Democratic Resolution Opposing a Troop Increase in Iraq

The Democratic resolution expressing disapproval of President Bush's troop increase in Iraq that the House will debate this week:

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), that —
(1) Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the U.S. Armed Forces who are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq; and
(2) Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional U.S. combat troops to Iraq.
Source: The Associated Press

The problem with this resolution (other than it not having any teeth because it is non-binding) is that, once again, no alternate solution is advanced. It's one thing to criticize President Bush's decisions, but in not offering a viable alternative to his plan, all the Democratic Resolution is doing is piling on. And we all just love to be piled on, don't we?

Dixie Chicks Redeemed?

In the Tuesday edition of the USA Today Opinion Page, the editorial board shared a brief blurb about the Dixie Chicks winning five Grammy awards. Here's the quote that stood out to me:

"Whether the music industry professionals who awarded the Grammys were making a statement beyond artistic merit is hard to ascertain. What is clear, however, is how the trajectory of the Chicks' comeback mirrors the rise in anti-war sentiment. That sentiment has gone mainstream and is reflected even in once unquestioningly pro-war country music."

Did the Dixie Chicks win because their music was the best? I'm afraid not, and that is a shame for all parties concerned.

Super Bowl Ads

Our world has become too politically correct. Masterfoods USA has to pull what was one of the funniest Super Bowl advertisements because some gay organizations found it offensive. As a lover of Snickers bars, what I found most offensive was that the second mechanic felt it was okay to eat the candy. My wife can't even get away with that one. Don't eat my Snickers!

Other ads from the Super Bowl have come under attack as well, including the Nationwide ad featuring Kevin Federline. The National Restaurant Association criticized it for a "demeaning" portrayal of restaurant workers. Give me a break! USA Today featured an article that addressed the subject of interest groups complaining about ads. The last three paragraphs are telling:

Yet, when marketers back down, it creates a "very dangerous" environment for the ad industry, says Drew Neisser, CEO of the Renegade Marketing Group.

"The recent withdrawals will embolden every interest group to push their agenda and complain about any ad that doesn't jibe with their mission," he says.

"To create ads that offend no one is a fruitless endeavor," Neisser says. "To cut through, there must be an element of surprise … that someone, somewhere, might not like."

Spiritual Beltway?

I read an article in the Washington Post recently about McLean Bible Church, but the article was really more about the new growth strategy of megachurches - satellite sites. These churches use the strategy of opening multiple locations under the same name and considering themselves one church. Gone are the days of planting new churches that are independent entities, creative and unique in their approach to ministry in a specific community. There are advantages to this new strategy, chief among them being the ability to provide better and more affordable programs than a struggling small new church plant. But here's the quote from a pastor that embraces this strategy that got me thinking differently: "It's kind of like going to Starbucks. You know the product you're going to get." Skeptics and critics wonder if this new trend is more about bolstering egos than spreading the message. That, I feel, is a valid concern. My first reaction upon reading the article was, Are we really more concerned with creating a "brand" than we are about being the presence of Christ in a local community? And, is there such a thing as a church being too big? These questions have been around for awhile, but the need to address them is only going to get more urgent as more and more megachurches adopt this strategy of opening satellite sites, and in our case here in the DC area, spiritual beltways.

Valentine's Day

I've been away for awhile working on my youth group's blog and group page and calendar (isn't technology great). For my first post back I would like to declare my undying love for my wife Randa. We have been married for a little over 7 1/2 years. We have three children. And we are tired! We don't look as young as we used to, as thin as we used to, or as energetic as we used to, but we still love each other! And I would dare to say that we love each other more now than we used to. Our relationship isn't perfect, but who's is? We keep trying and that's what I like about us. We declared our commitment for each other years ago and that commitment is what keeps us going through the great times, the terrible times, and all the times in between. So here's to my wife -- the love of my life now and always! Happy Valentine's Day Randa! I LOVE YOU!