A Long Obedience In The Same Direction

Parenting. By far the hardest thing I've ever done. The lil' buggers just keep on changing, so as soon as we think we've got something working, it doesn't work anymore! Before we even adopted our kids, we were required to read "Parenting With Love and Logic" by Cline and Fay. It had a lot of really great parenting philosophies, but at the time we didn't even have kids! 12 years later we're reading "Parenting TEENS With Love & Logic" and have been discussing it with each other. Initial applications for me - children will become what you call them. (If you call him or her a liar, guess what kind of behavior you'll get??) children love to push your buttons - at some level it gives them joy to see you frustrated. My job is to deny them this joy! children need to face the natural consequences of their actions. Good parents don't save their kids. Bad parents do. Lots more to learn, that's for sure!!

So I'm heading out on what is to be a 26 mile bike training ride this morning. A couple miles into it I start thinking about how I've never had a flat tire on a ride, and what a bummer it would be to have one happen to me in the Lake Stevens 70.3 and have to "learn" how to fix it while in the race. Not 5 minutes later, while cruising down one of my favorite hills at about 30 miles an hour, I heard a "pop" and thought to myself "hmmm...that sounded weird...a bit sharper sound than a rock". Then about 30 seconds later I heard my back tire going thump thump and had to carefully apply my brakes to come to a stop. Pulled my bike over into a safe spot and removed the back tire. Found a nice bent nail lodged in my tire, and then spent the next 15 minutes learning how to use all the handy-dandy tools I carry in my pack under my seat for just such an occasion. Got the new tube inserted, put the tire back on the rim, put the tire back on the bike, and then a

In the epilogue of the 20th anniversary edition of A Long Obedience In The Same Direction , author Eugene Peterson summarizes the guiding principles of his work as a pastor: The first conviction was that everything in the gospel is livable and that my pastoral task was to get it lived.... The second conviction was that my primary pastoral work had to do with Scripture and prayer. I was neither capable nor competent to form Christ in another person, to shape a life of discipleship in man, woman or child. That is supernatural work, and I am not supernatural. Mine was the more modest work of Scripture and prayer--helping people listen to God speak to them from the Scriptures and then joining them in answering God as personally and honestly as we could in lives of prayer. This turned out to be slow work. From time to time, impatient with the slowness, I would try out ways of going about my work that promised quicker results. But after a while it always seemed to be more like meddling in t

All of the pastors for CTK are now in small groups going through a workbook called "Preventing Ministry Failure" by Michael Todd Wilson and Brad Hoffman. Though not currently a pastor, as a member of our church council I am going through the book with the 3 other pastors on our council. We just started the first section this week and already I feel like I've got my money's worth. The book starts with these startling statistics. Of ministers in the United States: 25% have been forced out of or fired from their ministry at least once. 90% feel inadequately trained to cope with ministry demands. 80% believe that pastoral ministry affects their families negatively. 45% say they've experienced depression or burnout to the extent that they needed to take a leave of absence. 40% have serious conflict with a church member at least once a month. 20% admit to having an affair while in the ministry. 37% admit the Internet pornography is a current struggle. 70% do not have s

Tonight Ann and I directed the spring concert for OHCS Middle School choir. We've been directing the choir for...6 years now?? Wow. One cool part of the concert this year was that we asked Jordan, a high school junior, who was in our choir for 3 years at OHCS, to come and be a student director for a couple of songs. I had talked with his father earlier in the year (he happens to be our accountant), and he told me of Jordan's love for choir, and how he had an incredible experience at All-Northwest Choir, and won a solo/ensemble competition. ( I see a lot of myself in Jordan by the way...) But then he said to me that it was Jordan's experience in our little middle school choir that really ignited in him his passion for music which is being fanned into flame at the High School level. Ann and I have always said that whether it was leading youth choir at a church or leading the middle school choir at OHCS, our biggest goal was to develop in our students a life-long love for musi

On Saturday I finished my 4th triathlon, returning to Issaquah where I did my very first race last May. It was definitely a different feeling returning for the 2nd time. I didn't have any of the "will I be able to do it" thoughts and feeling (I'll save those for my half-ironman in July!), but it sure was a blast and something that kept me awake a lot of the night before in anticipation! I was disappointed in my swim (haven't spent enough of my training time in the pool - and it's been too dang cold to practice in the open water this spring), but was quite happy with my improvement on my running time (biking was a bit SLOWER than last year - how'd that happen?) This morning I was reminded of 1 Tim 4:8 as I did my morning devotions. "Physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise both for the present life and the life to come." Training for and racing in triathlons has been a great motivator and helped m