unMediocre

Yeah… I just made up a word.

Ridiculosity.

What’s ridiculosity? It’s the state of being ridiculous.

And what’s so ridiculous?

What’s ridiculous is the insane degree to which I have been blessed in the last year.

A little over a year ago, Annette and I decided together to pack up our family and move to Charleston, SC to be part of the staff of River Church.

Since then, we have experienced more turmoil, despair, drama, chaos, adventure, community, growth, blessing, and overwhelming joy than we ever have in our lives.

The past year has been an awesome reminder that He is much more interested in me trusting Him than He is in me paying my bills on time. He is much more interested in me being interdependent than independent. He is much more interested in me being willing to listen than able to speak. And He is much more interested in me living a reckless life that is as daring as His than a responsible life that impresses responsible people.

His belief in me is ridiculous. No one in his or her right mind would trust me to be a mouthpiece for such a critical cause.

As this Good Friday comes to a close, I’m overwhelmed by the ridiculosity of what God has done to care for and grow my family and me. As a result, I am determined that the sacrifice he made when he placed my sin on his Son WILL NOT be in vain.

Genesis 9:16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember e​the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Wednesday morning, while working in the auditorium, this rainbow caught my attention from through the window. Absolutely gorgeous. Both ends were clearly right on the West Ridge property. I have to admit, after I hustled out to my truck to grab my camera and took some time to stare, I had a bit of a moment with God.

Annette and I have a bit of a rainbow story tied in with the night I proposed. So naturally I sent her some of these photos to tell her I was thinking about her. How romantic, I know.

It’s always good to see a reminder that God has promised He’ll never flood the entire Earth again. But I also thought of other promises He’s made to me…and some I’ve made to Him. It was a good reminder that He’s still listening. Still concerned. Still involved.

Several folks have asked for my Fried Pickle Recipe, and I’ve been promising I’d blog it for the world to enjoy.

I recommend frying these babies up while you watch Ga Tech trample UGA this Saturday.

Don’t knock it ’til you try it. They sounded disgusting to me…until I tried them.

THE STUFF YOU’LL NEED:

Zatarain’s Seasoned Fish-Fri 
I’ve tried some other brands… Zat’s has a little bit of zing, and a great texture.

Dill Pickles
Must be Hamburger Dills. We prefer Vlasic “Ovals” because they have a little more surface area than regular round pickle chips. Your Zat’s will go a long way, so go ahead and grab a large jar, or a couple of smaller ones.

An Egg or Two 
For coating the pickles before breading.

WHAT YOU’LL DO WITH THE STUFF YOU NEED

Step 1: Preheat deep fryer to 350º.

Step 2: Dry pickles on a towel or paper towels. (makes it easier to coat the pickles with the egg)

Step 3: While pickles are drying, beat egg(s) in bowl.

Step 4: Coat pickles with egg, then dredge in Fish-Fri. (to make frying easier, wait to put pickles in fryer until entire batch is coated)

Step 5: If fryer is HOT (water flicked into the oil should dance and pop violently), lower a single layer of pickles into the oil. Watch the breading carefully… As it just begins to turn golden, you’re very close. It doesn’t take long… Usually just a couple or three minutes, but the color of the crust is more important than the cook time.

Step 6: As soon as pickles look golden crispy good, lift out of oil and dump onto paper towels or newspaper spread several layers thick on a plate. Drain pickles for a minute or two.

Step 7: Dip in ranch dressing (or not), and enjoy!

This idea isn’t necessarily new… I believe Willow Creek was the first to do this, but we first saw it when our good friend Tommy Politz over at Hillside in Amarillo, TX did it a few months back. It’s powerful when you see theirs on YouTube. They’ve had nearly 2,000,000 views already.

As powerful as it is to see another church do it, when you see faces you know…shoulders you hug…people you serve with…and broken hearts you’ve cried with step onto the stage to make statements like this, the breadth of God’s mercy takes on a whole new persona.

God is gracious.

Take a look…

Almost like being back in college. I’m enjoying it while it lasts.

Last night, Annette and I went with some friends to the Georgia Tech / University of Miami game in downtown Atlanta. I graduated from Georgia Tech almost ten years ago [gulp]. It was a great night, and my Yellow Jackets absolutely crushed the “Hurricanes.” I guess we’ll just have to say hurricane season ended in October. They played more like a tropical depression.

Some memories from the night…

• Dang it was cold. Our seats were WAY up high in the north stands, and the wind was a-blowing (Justin said the wind was caused by Miami’s sucking…harsh)
• On the way in, @tracekase and @rkischuk tweeted that the space station was visible for a few minutes. The sky was crystal clear all night, so we got a good look before grabbing dinner. Pretty cool. During halftime, they showed live video in the stadium from the station. There are currently THREE (3) Georgia Tech grads on board. You may think Tech is a nerdy school…but there ain’t nothin’ nerdy about being a stinkin’ astronaut living in a space station. That’s just dang cool.
• Angelo Taylor, who won 2 gold medals at the Beijing Olympics was honored on the field. He won one for the men’s 400 meter hurdles and the second for being a member of the first-place 1,600 relay team. Nothing nerdy about that, either.
• Our new coach is the man. Paul Johnson runs plays the “old-fashioned way,” and it’s been throwing off opponents all through the fall. He also likes to pick a play and run it repeatedly for a few downs in a row. Seems like every time we start thinking, “Paul! It didn’t work the last 3 times,” the offense finally breaks through and proves why HE is the coach and we’re not.
• The team has been getting more solid and consistent every week. I reckon that’s the goal. But it’s been very obvious this season. UGA will have to show up in a big way to win next weekend…there are no assumptions this time around! Can’t wait for that game to air.

• Speaking of UGA, I’ve been a Tech Alum for 14 years now…and I’ve STILL never been to a Tech/UGA game. Breaks my heart every Thanksgiving weekend. Maybe one day.
• There is nothing like view from stadium Bobby Dodd Stadium…especially from the north stands. You have a panoramic view of the Atlanta skyline. Absolutely gorgeous. From our seats we could see the skyline, Tech tower, my freshman and sophomore year dorms, and the Varsity. That’s more than 3 decades of memories for me.
• This game had been declared a “white out.” I didn’t know that until we got there. They were giving away free white T-shirts to everyone, but all they had left was smalls. it was a little too nippy for me to be putting on a tight white shirt last night… I’ll have to make use of it in the spring.
• Josh Nesbitt rocks as a quarterback when he’s healthy. Fortunately we were smashing Miami so bad by halftime that he got a good rest to begin to prep for next weekend.
• There were a couple of guys sitting behind us who were having some fun conversation. One was pulling for Tech, the other for Miami. The Tech fan was telling the other about how reading through Jeremiah got him through being laid off, losing his cars, his wife, and then rebuilding his life around Christ. It was kind of cool to eavesdrop on his testimony.
• The iPhone’s touch screen doesn’t work through gloves… Gotta use your nose.
• Here’s the proof that Tech smashed Miami… 472 rushing yards…395 of which were gained before the last 3 minutes of the 3rd quarter. Dang. Here’s the recap.

The very first message I ever listened to by Rob Bell was about his wife’s salsa. I had loaded it up on my iPod and headed out to the yard to mow the lawn at Annette’s and my little white rental house. Oh, how we loved that house. It was a 1920′s Sears kit house. We’d still live there if the owners would have let us bought the place. Character out the yinyang. But that’s a rabbit trail.

Anywho, the message was phenomenal. I was hooked on Rob’s ability to analogize something so random as salsa. Brilliant. Well, now he’s turned that message into the latest Nooma video. And for the next 24 hours, apparently, you can watch it over at neue.

Update: Times up. Sorry.

Some of my favorite guys in the world are headed off to Burkina Faso, Africa tomorrow, and my prayers are with them. It’s an exhausting travel schedule… Fly from Atlanta to Paris, then from Paris to Ouagadougou, BF. Almost 24 hours straight of sitting in airports, on planes, on layover…

Please pray for their safety, their vision (as in their big ideas…not their eyeballs), and ESPECIALLY their families (it seems like weird, crazy things always happen to the families back at home when we go on these kinds of trips).

I had the high honor of being on the first team from West Ridge that traveled to BF 13 months ago. I would suspect that any short-term missions trip has an impact on you. I’ve been on quite a few myself. But there was something different about my trip to Burkina Faso. Over a year later, I can still account for almost everything we did, every place we visited. It was a profound experience for me.

This will be our Lead Pastor Brian’s first trip over… He sent us last year to survey the opportunities and open doors in the country. Now he’ll be in the field seeing it all firsthand, strategizing how our church and some of the churches in our church-planting family can create a movement of bringing hope, medicine, food, and the truth of Jesus Christ to this, one of the poorest nations in the world.

So please pray for Brian, Paul, Tim, John, Steve, and Tadd. They’ll be home in ten days or so.

Coming soon!

Just saw this on my Facebook homepage… Ooooooo, now I’m getting excited.

They may not be on the cover of SI, and they may not be all the hype. But they’re mine, dangit. And I love ‘em just the way they are.

Here’s some interesting Stephen trivia… I’ve been a Ga Tech Alum for almost 15 years, and I STILL have not been to a Tech/UGA game. So far, it’s my one regret in life. And I think I’ve already missed the boat for getting tickets this year. Sadness.

My Bou

…and then my baby girl turned 1.

Today is Caia Christianne’s 1st birthday. She’s my little “turkey leg.” (I call her that because she was so tiny when she was born that she looked like one of those ‘flavor enhanced’ Fred Flintsstone turkey legs at Disney World.)

Our girls are blessed/cursed with multiple nicknames. We also call her Caiabou (and in turn Bou [pronounced 'boo,' but spelled Bou because it came from Caiabou which came from caribou], Bou Bou), Peanut, Little Squirt, Bou Hinkle, The Small One…

She is a precious creature. It still hurts me that the first few months of her life were so tough for her. But on the other end of it all, she came out the joyful princess we always knew she was.

God, bless this child with courage, grace, confidence, patience, passion, and a heart that is unsatisfied with a mediocre pursuit of You.

Happy birthday, Bou.