Taking the family down south for the Sublett Family Thanksgiving/Christmas, so posts will likely be sporadic at best.

We have so much to be thankful for, and it' s good to get a little vacation to boot.

We spent the night in Durham, NC with my brother and his fam, now we're loading the vans for the trip over to see my folks.

Enjoy some turkey and cousins, especially if the cousins are turkeys...

Christ Follower, or Christian?

I found this video on several blogs, and thought I'd post it here. If you want to see the others (there are 4), follow this link.

Weekend Wrap Up

From the superficial to the spiritual realm, this was a good one.

The superficial first—Penn State wins, the Steelers make a comeback to beat the Brownies. Hines Ward (go, Georgia Bulldogs!) might be the toughest guy in football. I beat a 5th grader in my first chess match in 15 years. My wife spoke at a Mary Kay retreat, which meant that I got to hang out with the kids for a few days as Mr. Mom. It was a good weekend!

Sarah (a girl in my wife’s Bible study) emailed my wife to let us know that her brother has made a decision to become a Christ-follower. I have been teaching through the big reasons that the Church exists, and this past week was the night we talked about sharing the story of Christ. In the process of teaching students to share the story with their friends, I encouraged students to ask Christ for the new life that he offers, and 4 students (including Sarah’s brother) responded and talked to their small group leaders. That’s a good night!

This weekend, our pastor’s sermon was titled Life’s Too Short to Die Rich. Talk about hitting me where I live! This is the very stuff that I have been dealing with for the last few months. How do I become less of a consumer and more generous. How do I help my family process through this? How do I avoid Me First and the Gimme Gimmes? (We actually find them to be pretty amusing, but that’s us.) Here’s a helping hand: Christmas is not your birthday.

Last night we baptized six 11^th graders! What a blessing to hear their stories, to see God moving in their lives (and their school). It is absolutely thrilling to see young people who are genuinely letting their relationship with God shape their lives. Randy took a lot of pictures, and my beautiful wife got to baptize her first student! All of these girls are in her Bible study, which says something, don’t ya think?

OK, Levi’s out of school and headed to the doctor (swollen glands), and I’ve got to give the dog a bath today. He broke his cable/chain thing yesterday afternoon, and took off for the pig farm. My wife has said it about a hundred times since we got home last night (my nose doesn’t smell)—the dog stinks like pig poop.

Lotsa Rain Means A Morning To Play!

We got a lot of rain today, and the gauge is off the chart! My buddy Andy and I are headed out tomorrow morning to paddle and pray together. It should be a great day!

My wife is out of town, so I'll get the kids off to school, then head to the Black Moshannon. The water temp is not warm, but we'll be wearing wetsuits!

Woohoo indeed!

Photos Abound

Just added a link to some photos of our student ministry in the box to the right. Thanks to Randy for putting these together.

Woohoo! I Shouldn't Be Surprised

I know that I shouldn't be surprised. I've taught about it, and would tell you that I am a believer. It's one of the core values of our church, and of our family. But when it happens, sometimes it catches me unawares, almost like I am not really expecting it to happen.

News Flash: God answers prayer.

We've been asking God to help us find some new leaders to join us in our work with students. In the past few weeks we've run into more than 4 adults who have student ministry experience, have recently started attending Calvary, and are interested in getting involved. One guy introduced himself to me after a worship service. One college guy emailed me, and brought a friend-who's-a-girl into the mix as well. Then I got an email invite for Chai and conversation from a former youth worker/missionary who wants to give something back to the church.

Pretty cool, indeed. I'm not sure about the chai, though.

We've seen God do some pretty amazing things. Family stuff. Healings. Our pending adoption. Church stuff. Reconciliation. City-wide stuff...

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I should probably be thankful, expectant, and asking God to keep doing what he does.

Another Archery Season Over

The Deer won.

Well, not really. I don’t look at the season as a complete loss. True, there is no deer meat in the freezer. But I had a blast. There were lots of great days in the woods. I had some great God-time, just me and the Lord hanging out in a tree, watching nature be all natural. There were a few close calls, including a 5 point buck that hung around for about 15 minutes one day last week. I didn’t get a shot, though, and he lives on.

I always appreciate time to be in the woods, to spend without a computer or phone calling for some attention. I usually feel refreshed, even if I see no deer.

Good times…

trying to add sitemeter stuff to the ol' blog...

Feeling a Little Sheepish, I hope My pastor is out of town this week, so I'm getting my notes ready to preach this weekend. Dan assigned me the next sermon in the Life's Too Short... series--Matthew 25:31-46, where Jesus talks about the Sheep and the Goats. That's right up my alley, and I'm excited to get to teach this weekend. But I'm having a hard time being concise. And my notes were due to go to the printer 2.5 hours ago... To keep this short, check out these facts and figures about world hunger from the United Nations World Food Program.

Apparently, basketball is back.

I am not a fan of basketball in general. I stink at the game, personally. A few years ago the NBA endured a strike. I had hoped that the world would realize how much better things were without professional hoops, and the league would go the way of the Edsel and the DoDo. I was wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a high school game, especially if I know some of the guys playing. I like college hoops, even though PSU hasn't been very good lately. I usually fill out a NCAA Tourney bracket. My brother and his family live in Durham, but I have been a Tarheel fan most of my life.

But I don't have much time in my life for the professional brand of the game. It's probably hypocritical (I love MLB), but there's too much $$ being spent on a sport/game, and I don't like the overall atmosphere of the NBA.

But that's just me, and what do I know?

I Love My Dog

I always thought I’d be a dog-guy. I never really had a dog before. There were a couple of instances in my life where we flirted with dog-dom, but it never really happened. I knew that I’d like having a dog, but I thought it would be unfair to the dog to have us! We’ve had to make some adjustments to our family life, but it’s working.

Dasher is a Plott Hound, and we got him for the kids as a Christmas present last year from some friends who breed champion Plott Hounds. Lilly named him. His mom is a Grand Champion Coon Hound, both in show and in the field. He’s got a great heritage, and I need to get him out into the woods with some other good coon hounds so he can learn what he was born to be.

There’s a lesson in there, somewhere…

But what got me thinking about loving my dog this morning was the simple fact that he came over to hang out with me as I sat drinking my coffee and checking my 2 favorite blog sites. He can’t talk, but he lets me know where he wants to be scratched. When he puts his cold, wet nose on my hand, I know that he’s needing some lovin’. When I start scratching his ears, and I don’t hit the spot, he moves his head. It’s a pretty cool partnership, him patiently working to get his itch scratched.

One of my goals this year is to learn to slow down, to simplify. I want to be able to enjoy my family and spend more time in the woods with them, and my dog. I’m re-thinking my priorities, looking at the calendar/schedule to see if I’m doing the things that are most important, and trying to honor God with the ways I spend my days. I don’t want to simply be busy; I want to make my life count.

I’ve been hearing lots of messages lately about leading from a place of rest, wholeness, and focus. That sounds good, but it’s a lot of work to get to that place.

A House Full, and Then Some
Had a chance to hang out with some of our 11th and 12th grade guys tonight. We were supposed to be hiking, but not many of the guys could get away--the last regular season HS football game is tomorrow, and it's a big one. So we watched Nacho Libre on the big screen in our church fellowship hall. The movie was OK.

I came home to a house full of 11th grade girls, with more arriving after me. My wife is hosting a sleepover. The forecast for sleep is pretty slim. But it's fun to hear the buzz from the living room and kitchen (and upstairs bathroom???) as the girls share their lives. What a difference a couple of years makes.

2 years ago my wife was the small group leader for the then 9th grade girls. There were only a couple of them, and they met for breakfast once a week. Kim challenged them to pray for their friends, and to show them love. A random encounter on a ski lift prompted them to start praying for the other girl. She came to know Christ last year, and has started sharing her new found life with other girls. There are lots of new girls coming to be part of this group now! And the girls are sharing their hope in Jesus with their guy friends.

A couple of weeks ago, 4 non-churched guys dropped in to join Kim's small group for their discussion of Captivating! Kim then informed me that I had a ready-made group of young men to meet with each Sunday night.

When God works, it's a fun thing to watch!

A Theology of Play?

Our pastor preached a sermon entitled Life’s Too Short To Miss Recess this weekend, and it furthered one of the messages that the Lord has been sending my way over past few weeks. It has to do with me re-learning to have fun, and redefining what fun is.

Among other things, the Lord has been speaking to me about valuing my family. There are many nights of the week that I’m out, not at home when my kids get off the bus, not around to tuck them into bed at night. That’s not good. And there are lots of days when I am at home, but too busy with work stuff, or too preoccupied with my own stuff to be a dad. I find that I am selfish, and that’s not good.

That leads to me reacting wrongly when they do childish things. I get angry, or short-tempered with them. I lose my patience and don’t treat them lovingly.

As you can imagine, this spills over into my relationship with my beautiful, loving wife, too.

I think the answer is pretty simple. I don’t want to over-think this, or make it more complicated than it needs to be.

I need to unplug, to shut the laptop, turn off the TV and the cell phone.

I need to be a husband and father, defined by action—loving my wife and children more than I love myself. I have a fun family, and I want to be part of it!