unMediocre | be best. never in-between.

How Crazy Is Your Love?

October 21, 2008 in theology with 3991 CommentHow+Crazy+Is+Your+Love%3F2008-10-22+03%3A53%3A26stephen

Our Journey Group is reading Francis Chan’s book Crazy Love together. The last couple of weeks have been a campout in chapter four, “Profile of the Lukewarm.” My friend Matt Willmington summed up the chapter on his blog a few weeks back.

To get the folks in our group thinking more critically about their own ‘temperature,’ I put together this list of questions. Maybe they’ll get you thinking, too. There are no right answers…the questions are purely intended to make you think about yourself in a way you may not have before.

How do you rate the “quality “ of your worship…both on Sunday and throughout the week?
a: How much should you give? b: How much DO you give? (answer with something other than a quantity)
Is the way you handle stress or conflict familiar to non-believers, or would they find it peculiar?
How do you respond to your own sin?
a: What is the most radical thing you’ve done for Christ? b: What is the most radical thing you can THINK of doing?
How familiar are your neighbors/family/coworkers with your faith in Christ?
On a scale of 1-10, how consumed are you with Christ?
How selfish are you when it comes to loving others?
a: How painful is it for you to give the time, money, energy you give for the cause of Christ? b: What leaves you more drained: Your job, or your serving?
a: Have you ever said, “Jesus never said MONEY is the root of all evil, only the LOVE of money is”? b: What is your “calling”?
When you confess your sin, do you also explain it?
True or False? When it comes to obeying God, I should be cautious and strategic.
How secure do you feel?
How structured is your life routine?
How ‘wholesome’ or ‘moral’ are you?

Bragging on My Wife

October 21, 2008 in family with 39782 CommentsBragging+on+My+Wife2008-10-21+15%3A12%3A06stephen

OK, guys, don’t get jealous. But I just have to brag about my wife for a minute.

She is working herself to the bone taking care of our two girls (3-1/2 year old and 15 month old) while taking care of our house and keeping us fed. She’s co-writing a sit-com (you won’t see it on TV, but it’s literally the equivalent of a sit-com… 22-25 minutes of script, big laughs, crazy characters.). She’s starring in said sit-com. And she’s 6-1/2 months pregnant. Aches, pains, sciatica, muscle strain. Add grocery shopping, too many doc appointments, weddings, funerals, baths, snacktimes, naptimes, bedtimes, screaming-fit times.

She’s Superwoman.

And she’s mine.

I wish I were rich so I could send her to a spa, on a cruise, hire a maid and a nanny, just so she could live the life of the royalty that she is.

Visit to The Weather Channel Studios

October 8, 2008 in interesting with Comments Off

Had a cool experience tonight… Christian Anderson, a friend in our church, has a cousin who works at The Weather Channel here in Atlanta. He was very gracious to give us a tour of the new HD studio. I took a few photos of the new set, and some photos of the ‘ruins’ of the original set. Pretty cool stuff.

The HD set is very cool… It is constructed to rotate allowing for dozens of configurations. All of the cameras are robotic… There are no ‘camera men’ standing on the set. It’s just the anchor(s), a producer, and the maps operator (who’s sitting right behind one of the walls within earshot of the anchor). Everything else appeared to be run from one of three control rooms.

I wish I could have spent more time examining every single nook and cranny, but the “Evening Edition” was about to go live. The two anchors were very laid back and made sure they told me they look better on camera than in person.

Friday morning, I’ll be visiting the CNN Studios sets here in Atlanta while the morning show is live in New York with my friend David who works for Turner Broadcasting. That should be cool. Hopefully I’ll get to share some photos from that visit as well.

Here are some of the photos I took…

Barack Obama says “Uh” a lot. But who’s counting?

October 6, 2008 in interesting with 3861 Comment2008-10-06+17%3A31%3A15stephen

Now this is funny. Maybe not as funny as me getting hit by a car. But funny.

I Got Hit By A Car Today

October 3, 2008 in wow with 381120 CommentsI+Got+Hit+By+A+Car+Today2008-10-04+04%3A19%3A56stephen

No joke. I was literally hit by a car today. And I don’t mean a car hit my car. I mean a car hit ME. My person. Hombre a coche.

You’re dying for me to explain.

So I’m sitting for WAY too long in the Wendy’s drive through (Barrett and 120, for those who care). After I FINALLY get my food, I pull into a parking spot to scarf it down way faster than I should have. But when I pull out my sandwich, I realize they gave me the wrong order. No huge deal…just inconvenient.

So I hop out of my truck and start walking back into the restaurant. A car passes as I begin to cross the lane. As I start to walk, I see a little silver Honda Civic whipping down the lane past the drive-thru. There’s a 20-something girl driving. She’s not texting or talking on the phone. She’s not even trying to wolf down a burger. She has both hands on the wheel and is looking right at me.

She’s still far enough away to stop, so I exploit my inalienable right as a pedestrian to cross.

But she doesn’t stop.

She doesn’t even slow down!

I yell like a frightened toddler and jump up in the air. Honda Civics ride low to the ground, so I figure I have a good chance of avoiding broken tibias if I step onto the hood.

Next thing I know, I’m laying on this woman’s car hood… A single with cheese in my left hand, and car keys in my right. My keys scraped across her hood. But I’m not feeling so bad about that, to be honest.

I look her in the eye…probably with a look on my face that I’d be very embarrassed to see myself. She yells out the window, “Oh my God! I’m so sorry! Are you alright!?”

I step off of the car and back onto blessed asphalt. The only words I could get out were, “I’m fine.” At that point, I didn’t know for sure that I really was fine. But it’s all that came to mind. All I notice is that my left side is sore, and I am already trembling like a claustrophobic in a matchbox.

I walk inside the Wendy’s, wait my turn, and exchange my sandwich.

God only knows what the people who saw this thing happen were thinking while I was standing in line.

My wife has shed tears multiple times over this today… But not one tear has fallen out of sorrow or concern. I think she’s probably set a world record for laughing so hard.

Please pray for my safety. Apparently someone wants me dead.

Have a nice weekend.

In Memory…

September 27, 2008 in interesting with 3783 CommentsIn+Memory...2008-09-27+16%3A43%3A02stephen

Full Service Gratitude…for real this time

September 26, 2008 in interesting with Comments Off

For some reason, my post by email didn’t work last night… Weird. So here is what it should have said instead of the nothing it said originally. Read it from the perspective of it being late Thursday night.

—

So I’m pretty sure God filled up my gas tank tonight.

We’re coming home from the fair, right? My gas gauge is showing “DTE 28 miles.” [DTE is 'distance til empty]

It’s about 29 to my house.

Car full of women… One 33, one 3, one 1. The youngest two are getting cranky. It’s way past their bedtime.

And I have about 120 miles worth of driving to do tomorrow for a handful of consulting visits. First one at 8am…27 miles from my house.

We drive. We drive past 8 gas stations. All out of gas.

The 1 yo started screaming.

4 more stations.

We called Annette’s mom to see if they had any gas stored up in cans. [we were then about 2 miles from their pad.] They didn’t. In fact, they’d already siphoned a spare car’s tank to avert their own disaster.

The girls finally both fell asleep.

We drove into Hiram. No gas.

No gas, no gas, no gas.

We drove on home. But at the last second [the DTE now reads "--". That's not good.] I decided to drive right past our neighborhood to the new Shell station that’s kinda in the middle of stinkin’ nowhere to see if they had anything.

I pulled in at 11:04. The lights were still on, and none of the pump handles were wrapped in grocery sacks.

Maybe?

I pulled closer. Still looked hopeful. Only the low and mid-grade buttons were covered. The super premium [which I NEVER buy] was still uncovered. I wasn’t picky at that point. Gas was gas was gas.

So I put in my card. Still good. Selected my grade. Still okay. Started pumping.

Praise Jesus. We have liftoff!

While it pumped my $87.93 gas purchase, I thanked God. Over and over I thanked Him.

So I printed my receipt, hopped back in the truck, and put it in drive.

And my truck was not even out from under the station roof before the attendant inside turned off the lights.

It was 11:08.

Thank you God.

Now to get to bed and set my alarm for 6:30am. That’s gonna come quick.

But at least I can go earn the cash to pay for the gas I just bought.